Chapter 664 Christmas

December 25, 1845, Christmas.

On this day, a strange scene appeared in the streets and alleys of Vienna from the morning. Santa Claus in green clothes and green hats and driving a carriage was everywhere.

The Santa Claus in the 19th century was not the red clothes, red hats, sleighs and reindeer that we know in later generations.

In fact, the image and identity of Santa Claus in Europe were different in different time periods and countries. Sometimes he was a bishop with a halo on his head and a whip in his hand; sometimes he was a farmer with a sad face but a strong body.

Sometimes he was a hairy and pot-bellied savage; in some parts of Germany, he was once a terrible witch with iron teeth.

The image of modern Santa Claus originated in the United States. In 1821, the American writer William Gillie first proposed the image of red clothes, red hats, sleighs and reindeer in "Friends of Children".

However, in Austria, this image had to be changed. First of all, sleighs and reindeer are hard to see in Austria, so they were directly replaced with the most common carriages.

Secondly, red clothes and red hats belong to Spain in the eyes of Austrians. The former prefer green, which they think represents luck and beauty.

Then there is the bag on the back. In the German region, this image of carrying a cloth bag on the shoulder is usually considered to be a farmer or a thief.

So the cloth bag was changed to a box wrapped in colored paper. In fact, this is also to consume inventory. In fact, the sales of colored paper in Austria are far less than expected, and these colored papers actually have a shelf life.

This is the first time Franz knows that paper also has a shelf life. Due to technical limitations in this era, colored paper will naturally fade after more than six to eight months.

Rather than rotting in the warehouse, it is better to take it out and show it off.

In history, the Austrian Empire often did this, even borrowing money from bankers to show its national strength, commonly known as "swelling up the face and filling the body with fat".

The Santa Clauses all over the streets are actually employees of Franz's company, or priests who actively apply to help.

Roman Catholicism actually does not recognize this alienated image of Santa Claus. They believe that only Bishop St. Nicholas is the real Santa Claus.

However, what does the Roman Catholic Church have to do with Austria? Under Franz's reform, the Austrian church had long parted ways with orthodox Catholicism.

So when Franz did this, not only did no priests jump out to oppose it, but many people chose to join it.

In fact, through the changes over the years, the priests of the church have long known how to adapt to the new era.

What's more, the church is one of the biggest beneficiaries of the reform. The current situation of the Austrian church is largely due to Franz's reform.

In particular, the emergence of the Zhenla Theocracy has allowed the Austrian church to have its own "Vatican". Although Zhenla nominally belongs to the Zhenla royal family and is actually a vassal colony of the Austrian Empire, this does not prevent the priests from being proud of what they have done.

In order to save manpower to the maximum extent and ensure fairness and safety, Franz did not choose to have people deliver gifts door to door.

Instead, he asked people to park the carriage in a designated area and wait for employees to pick it up. At the same time, special people maintained order and registered it.

In this era, it was very dangerous for a carriage loaded with valuable goods to travel repeatedly in the streets and alleys, even in big cities like Vienna, Paris, and London. Pickpockets, gangsters, and desperate gamblers might take risks.

At the same time, there was also the possibility of embezzlement, even if each box was wrapped and no one knew what was inside.

But this did not prevent those guys from joining together to embezzle these goods, after all, there was no surveillance at the time. However, in public, they would still restrain themselves.

In addition, Franz also took other preventive measures, such as multi-party supervision. But in fact, no one wanted to make themselves unhappy at Christmas.

Especially when Franz dealt with 10,000 people at a time, even the greediest people would restrain themselves for the time being.

Because they saw Franz's determination and uniqueness, in fact, there were still many people waiting to see the show, but no one dared to stand up and confront Franz.

After all, nobles usually don't make trouble with the future emperor for no reason, and those capitalists still have to make money from the goods in Franz's factory, let alone seek death.

As for civilians and scholars, their voices were not as big as imagined, and Franz did not harm their interests.

The gifts Franz distributed were mainly food, unsalable goods and consumer vouchers. Of course, the value of food and unsalable goods would be slightly higher than that of consumer vouchers.

This behavior actually reduced the threat of inflation, because Franz had too much gold and silver in his hands, and these things would explode if they were put into the market at once.

After all, the gold diggers in the United States at that time were disorganized, undisciplined, unskilled, and uncommanded, while Franz directly used methods far superior to the technology at that time to dig gold, coupled with an efficient organizational structure.

The output of gold was much higher than that of California in the same period of history. In addition, Franz also plundered gold and silver from all over the world to Vienna.

The domestic gold price in Japan in the Far East was much higher than the international market, so Franz carried out large-scale arbitrage. This operation alone could take Austria's gold reserves to a higher level.

Although it is absolutely impossible to have no money, too much money is not necessarily a good thing.

For example, if Franz throws the gold in his hand into the market at this time, it will immediately cause the gold to depreciate, followed by terrible inflation.

Although it can shock various countries in a short period of time and gain certain advantages in international competition, there are no sufficiently valuable commodities at this time, so Franz will suffer in the end.

This behavior is equivalent to lowering the price of his own goods, spending money to buy himself trouble. Therefore, the currency Franz puts into the market is just in line with the economic development of the Austrian Empire.

As for how much this number is, it is not decided by Franz himself, but it is calculated by dozens or even hundreds of economists.

Fortunately, with the development of the Austrian Empire's economy, the amount of currency required by the market is getting larger and larger, which means that Franz can slowly put these precious metals into the market.

But even so, it will cause inflation to a certain extent, but due to the existence of the German Customs Union and the Apennine Customs Union, the outflow of precious metals from the Austrian Empire has been greatly prevented.

At the same time, because there are enough precious metals in hand, Franz is more confident in foreign trade, especially in the monopoly of some commodities and the impact on regional situations.

For example, the war quagmire that Britain was stuck in in southern Brazil at that time was actually closely related to Franz.

How could a poor and weak agricultural country possibly resist the coalition army led by the world's top power, the British Empire?

(The coalition army refers to Britain, Argentina, and Uruguay.)