Chapter 425 The Scenery Here Is Good
On April 25, 1843, the yacht "Victoria and Albert" was launched, but this ship full of love suffered the most profound malice.
Many people and many forces did not want Victoria to visit France for their own reasons, and even hoped that she would die.
Britain and France were troubled by the workers' movement at this time. In fact, it was not just these two countries, but most countries in Europe were in this contradiction.
Of course, Austria and Russia were exceptions. The former was enjoying the dividends brought by technological progress, while the latter did not have its own industry at all.
Austrian factories are also divided into royal and private.
The royal factories have high technological content, high wages, short working hours, and are relatively decent, but the requirements are also extremely strict, with so many rules and regulations that people's scalps are numb, and many obligations and responsibilities are also clarified.
In fact, the production efficiency is much higher than that of private factories, but Franz did not kill all private factories.
Because some things are very realistic, absolute equality is impossible.
There is no essential difference between private factories in Austria and other private factories in the world at that time. They are equally inhumane and dark, but the wages are slightly higher than those in other German states.
This is certainly not because the factory owners have a change of heart, but because Austria has a national industrial subsidy. It's just that this subsidy was not given to the factory, but to the workers.
Franz actually has his own purpose, and the state-controlled trade union is more conducive to maintaining social stability.
After all, Franz was destined to have some villain attributes since birth, which will not change because of what he wants to do or what he does.
But Franz can decide what he wants and what he does.
Due to state subsidies and royal factories, the workers in the Austrian Empire live a decent life, and even many workers from other countries come here to work.
This is mainly due to traditional ideas. Austria is a traditional agricultural country, and farmers like to guard their own small acres of land.
And small and medium-sized citizens in the city prefer "decent jobs", such as clerks, small civil servants and small shop owners.
The Austrian Empire has been relatively stable over the years, so not many people want to work in factories. In history, the Austrian national factory had to temporarily stop production because it could not recruit workers.
The Austrian national factory was founded during the reign of Queen Theresa, with the purpose of increasing fiscal revenue, solving financial difficulties, and gaining the support of the citizen class.
However, after a hundred years of development, the national factory has been completely corrupted and completely deviated from its original intention. Officials have been corrupt at all levels, resulting in the factory not only failing to increase government revenue, but also requiring state funding for subsidies.
On the one hand, the management agency is bloated and overstaffed, while on the other hand, the factory can hardly recruit workers. There are many cases where there are more than a hundred officials in a factory with more than a dozen people, but no one dares to do anything because this piece of cake involves the interests of many parties.
Cutting off someone's wealth is like killing their parents. It is the most dangerous to touch the cake of the vested interests, which often requires a huge price, or even life.
This is also one of the reasons why most reformers in history have not had a good end.
Back to the point, in short, Austrians are not interested in working in factories, but it is a very good place for foreign German immigrants.
At this time, the Greater German thought that just emerged was very popular among foreign German immigrants, and the most critical and core part of it was to rely on Austria to unify the German Confederation.
Disrupting the order of the Austrian Empire and affecting its development was extended to a crime.
This was of course deliberately guided by Franz. After all, he didn't want to deal with both domestic nationalism and foreign nationalism.
As for Russia, after establishing trade relations with Austria, the nobles' pattern was opened up, and they felt that developing industry was completely nonsense.
Because at this time Russia had almost no industrial foundation, and the gap with Austrian industry was so large that it was exaggerated. Now the development of industry not only requires a lot of manpower and material resources, but also requires enough time to keep up with Austria.
In fact, the Russians misjudged the industrial level of the whole world because they saw the industrial level of Austria.
At the same time, the industry of the Austrian Empire was strong and could fully meet the needs of Russia. The alliance between the two sides is relatively stable, and Austria has a large demand for raw materials from Russia.
This makes the Russians think that they do not need industries other than military for the time being. After all, it is easy to monopolize the import market, but it is not so easy to unify the domestic market.
So Franz only needs to send people to explain the reason to some important figures in Russia, and they will take the initiative to contact the Austrian side to become compradors.
Moreover, investing the money earned in agriculture is also more effective than investing in industry. In addition, these compradors are originally big landlords. As long as Russia has no industry, they can harvest twice.
At the same time, they can also consolidate their own strength, so why not do it?
Not only the nobles in Russia are very satisfied, but the government is also very satisfied, because the increase in imports and exports makes it easier for the country to collect taxes.
Every time the Russian finance minister sees the financial statements, he can't close his mouth. The account numbers are too good.
Nicholas I is a monarch who worships the military very much, and his subordinates are a group of generals who manage the country. They only care about whether the country is strong and peaceful, but not the future of Russia.
Now Russia's treasury is gradually becoming more abundant, and the army is more powerful, which makes His Majesty the Tsar very satisfied.
At this time, Nicholas I was most worried about the Strait issue, because Britain has never given up asking Russia to hand over its privileges in the Bosporus and Dardanelles.
Once the Ottoman Empire is deceived by Britain and cuts off the Strait, trade between Russia and Austria will be interrupted, and Russia will suffer huge losses.
There are two ways to solve this problem. One is to build a railway directly to Austria on the European continent, which will not only waste people's money and labor, but also pose a hidden danger to national security. The most important thing is that the Austrian side may not agree.
Another way is to make the Ottomans surrender completely and let Russia control the Black Sea Strait.
In fact, Nicholas I has been thinking about this for a long time, and the great nobles in the country also support this matter.
This is not that the nobles suddenly remembered the millennium dream of the Third Roman Empire, but that there are large tracts of land around the Black Sea suitable for growing cotton and tea.
Both cotton and tea are very popular commodities in Europe at this time, and can almost be regarded as hard currency.
Yes, at that time, Russia was still a major tea-producing country in Europe, and it had a long history. It had been planted since the 17th century, but due to its poor quality, it had not been accepted by the mainstream of Europe.
It was not until after 1817 that the modern Russian "black tea" was produced, first by purchasing fine varieties from the Qing Dynasty and then planting them near the Black Sea at a lower latitude.
So, the Russians began to study the Ottoman Black Sea region intensively.