Chapter 663: Christmas Eve Is Not Peaceful

December 24, 1845, Christmas Eve.

In the first year of taking over Vienna's business affairs, Perrine Schaffer gave Franz a difficult problem. Of the 17 executives in Vienna, the former asked to replace 11.

These people were charged with corruption, bribery, embezzlement of royal property, abuse of power to seek positions and benefits for relatives and friends, speculation, dereliction of duty, lynching, abuse of power, and disclosure of state secrets.

Most of them committed all of these. In fact, corruption, bribery, and bribery were very common phenomena in the 19th century.

However, Franz still underestimated the greed and courage of these people. Some industries had just been established for two or three years, but the amount of corruption accounted for 15% to 30% of the total profit.

Some industries have even been monopolized by one or several families. In fact, before this corruption incident broke out, Franz thought it might not have much impact.

After all, many industries have just started, and there are not so many available talents for a while. Finding some family members who are familiar and trustworthy is not a good idea.

The family monopoly can be solved slowly after the industry is on the right track. Now many industries in Austria are still in the stage of land grabbing.

However, the millions of embezzlement made Franz a little restless. You know, in the 19th century, 100 florins were enough for ordinary people to live for a year.

And this was only in Vienna, and there was no nationwide investigation. In fact, Franz was not completely ignorant of corruption, and he dealt with a group of people in the middle.

But now it seems that the so-called killing the chicken to scare the monkey does not seem to have much effect.

It’s just that dealing with nearly 10,000 people at a time may cause a lot of confusion. Dealing with some people and winning over the majority of people, this is the normal way to deal with it, right?

But Franz didn’t want to do that. His industry was not the Austrian Empire, which was terminally ill and could collapse at the touch of a button.

Franz will verify the crimes of these people and give corresponding penalties, including fines, demotions, dismissals, debt repayment (here it does not refer to wages, but assets.), imprisonment, imprisonment, exile, and death penalty.

Franz called all the responsible persons in the entire Vienna area together on Christmas Eve, and had an Austrian version of "rebuking the ministers".

"Scumbag!"

(This line will be posted separately someday, so I won't write it here to avoid saying that it's too wordy.)

Of course, Franz still had to comfort them after killing so many people.

Franz prepared a Christmas gift for all employees in Vienna, and someone will distribute it tomorrow.

This made those people's tense nerves relax a little, after all, the dark clouds seemed to have passed.

In fact, compared with the thirteenth month salary, opening a blind box is more attractive to Westerners.

And Franz is a member of the royal family. These gifts are not just gifts to Austrians, but also an honor, especially for those civilians, it is not too much to take them home as heirlooms.

However, after this incident, Franz felt that the supervision model should be strengthened, and he could not always expect such people who are not afraid of power and can directly send intelligence to him.

The usual high salary to maintain integrity does not work in Vienna at this time, because the money Franz gave these people was considered the highest salary in the whole of Europe.

However, the economy of the Austrian Empire at this time was developing too fast, and the temptation was far beyond the bottom line of ordinary people, so corruption and embezzlement were so common.

Institutional problems can only be solved slowly, but regulatory agencies can be established immediately. First of all, it is definitely unreliable to rely on self-inspection and mutual inspection.

Franz doesn't want to say much about Vienna's acquaintance society. Generally, nobles who can get on the stage can have some relatives.

Doing so will only make this group of people more closely united, and then brainstorm together to deal with Franz.

Therefore, an independent review agency must be established. Perleni Schaffer can set up her own review agency, but there must also be an independent review agency directly loyal to Franz.

In addition, supervision and reporting at the lower level are also very important, but due to the limited technology and administrative capabilities at this time, only real-name reports can be accepted.

In ancient times in the East, when people sued officials, they had to roll nail boards and hit boards. (Fifty strokes of the cane, in fact, twenty strokes can cripple a person, and forty strokes are basically fatal.

So now in some historical dramas, the heroines dressed as men are beaten with 200-500 military sticks, which is basically nonsense. If they were really beaten, they would have been beaten into mud.)

So whether it is a rolling nail board or a beating, it is usually a matter of life and death. But this is better than the West. Before the French Revolution, a civilian could not even sue an official.

Even if you spent a lot of money to hire a lawyer, it would usually be offset by the other party's immunity. Yes, officials at that time had judicial immunity from lawsuits filed by civilians.

Unless civilians can ask their nobles, but those nobles are usually the same as officials, after all, they are of the same class.

In fact, nobles are usually judges on their own land, after all, there was something called territorial jurisdiction at that time.

The so-called territorial jurisdiction is a million times more evil than the notorious consular jurisdiction in history. The latter at least has to have a legal basis, but the former is the law itself.

It means something like "This is my territory, I am the boss." "The referees, judges, and audience are all my people, what can you use to fight me!"

So compared to the rolling nail board and beating board in the East, the judicial system in the West is more despairing.

(Here we are only talking about the major powers on the European continent, and some free states and republics are not included.)

By the way, the territorial jurisdiction lasted until the end of World War I in some parts of Hungary, and it was not until the end of World War II that it completely disappeared.

Of course, if the commoner is really lucky enough to squeeze into the royal court, that is another matter. After all, this is a special establishment of the royal families of various countries to deal with local nobles.

However, this thing is usually set up in the capital, or paraded everywhere, and there are not many opportunities for real commoners to enter.

And even if it comes to the royal court, "everything must be based on evidence", and officials are usually familiar with the law and can hire those excellent lawyers to defend themselves at a high price, and can bribe judges openly.

However, even if the royal court makes a judgment, the case will eventually be transferred to the House of Lords (Honorary Court, anyway, there are many sayings) for trial.

Commoners are still like this, not to mention the widespread serfs.

Even during the French Revolution, during the constitutional monarchy and the Girondists, officials could not be sued casually.

It was not until Robespierre came to power that a "new era" of European justice was created. After that, it took nearly a hundred years of intermittent practice before the judicial democracy promoted in the West was achieved.

Accepting real-name reports was already a pioneering effort in the 19th century. Although this would cause dissatisfaction among some people, Franz was not only the largest capitalist in Austria at that time, but also the largest aristocrat.

Moreover, this was an internal affair of Franz's company, so even if someone was dissatisfied, they could only keep it to themselves.