Chapter 837 The Wrong Person

In fact, Kossuth was in a dilemma at this time. In fact, he was no longer the little lawyer with only reputation in history.

In fact, Count Szechenyi, who was supported by Franz, had a series of debates with him, and Count Szechenyi lost everything.

His cautious reform theory was treated as toilet paper, and he was on the wrong side. According to Szechenyi's theory, abolishing serfdom and giving peasants their original land would offend the nobles.

Because this would divide those large farms into countless pieces of scattered land, which might be a good thing for the peasants, and prevent the nobles from playing tricks in land distribution.

But the cost of the nobles' farms would rise sharply, and who would pay for the land of the liberated serfs? Szechenyi hoped that the state, serfs, and landlords would bear it together, which was unacceptable to the land nobles.

Such an operation was equivalent to the nobles giving up feudal power and destroying the original farms, and finally having to pay a sum of money.

Szechenyi also hoped to abolish guilds and price restrictions, because France had abolished the guild system in the last century, and Britain had thrown 99% of the guilds into the dust of history in the 16th century.

Only the booksellers' guild barely survived because of the British government's need to control speech, but it also declined at the end of the 18th century.

However, this is Hungary, not France or Britain. Those guilds are the main force for him to develop a capitalist economy, and these people will not easily give up their power.

On the other hand, if there is no price restriction, then Hungarian goods will be directly overwhelmed by Austrian goods, and the productivity levels of both sides are not on the same line at all.

Whether to abolish guilds or to abolish price restrictions is unacceptable to the Hungarian bourgeoisie at that time.

Szechenyi has a very beautiful idea. He hopes to allow farmers to share land so that those people can have the enthusiasm to work.

At the same time, abolish guilds and price restrictions, and every household will participate in it, so that handicrafts will prosper again.

At this time, Hungary's textile industry is still in the era of family handicrafts, similar to the declining Prussian Silesia region.

But in the industrial age, this idyllic life of men farming and women weaving is obviously too naive.

Moreover, in Hungary, there are no comrades among the people in the parliament who can read newspapers.

Szechenyi's actions and ideals directly offended the great nobles and merchants, and at the same time regarded serfs and other inferior races living in the territory of St. Stephen's Crown as Hungarians.

This approach angered radical nationalists, and as a result, he ended up without even a friend.

On the other hand, Kossuth continued to improve his theory in the debate with Count Szechenyi, and his amazing speaking ability and leadership charm made him the leader of the Hungarian nation.

In addition to the merchants and single-clothed nobles who originally supported him, his prestige in the empire has been declining again and again due to a series of operations by the Hungarian government in recent years.

At the same time, Austria joined the German Customs Union and a series of reforms by Franz, and the gap in strength between the two sides widened further.

The great nobles who felt a sense of crisis hoped to at least keep their privileges and Hungary's special status.

Then someone needs to take the lead in making trouble, but they don't think they can beat Austria, so they need a scapegoat.

As a result, the power of the three parties finally gathered together, and Kossuth already had all the fame, wealth, and status.

In particular, the property obtained by killing the leader of the Polish Restoration Army was now deposited in Kossuth's personal name. As long as he wanted, he could fly away and live a worry-free life in the second half of his life.

But human desires are endless, and after hearing the praises of those who admired him for a long time, Kossuth really thought he was different.

Kossuth believed that he was the savior of the Hungarian nation, and there was only one way to go before him, that is, victory.

However, as far as Kossuth's personal experience was concerned, he still hoped to solve the problem by negotiation as much as possible, because the previous battles made him feel that the Austrian army was terrible.

And he never lost a quarrel.

Bajany Lajos was also an enlightened Hungarian noble who had traveled in Western Europe. He was also a moderate. The Austrian Imperial Government had high hopes for him. After all, he had joined the Austrian army and lived in Vienna for a long time.

Prime Minister Metternich was not completely ignorant of Hungarian affairs. On the contrary, he knew everything too well. However, he felt that war between the two sides was impossible.

Although the Hungarians shouted fiercely, they did not take any substantial actions, such as expanding the army, hoarding food, or raising funds to buy weapons.

Metternich actually thought of bribing Kossuth, giving him a large sum of money and a less important official position, but he did not succeed.

This was not the first time that Metternich tried to use bribery to deal with Kossuth. Previously, the former pardoned the latter from prison and appointed him as the editor-in-chief of the official newspaper "Pest Newspaper".

As a result, Kossuth did not feel grateful, but passionately praised Hungarian nationalism in the newspaper. The most terrible thing was that due to poor information, the news did not reach Vienna for more than a month.

Metternich hurriedly dismissed him, but he could not put him in prison again, because the Hungarians elected him as a state representative, and the Prime Minister of the Austrian Empire had no right to deal with Hungarian representatives.

After two failed bribes, Metternich took a more direct approach and hired assassins to get rid of this person directly.

But unfortunately, it was not only Prince Metternich who wanted Kossuth dead at that time. There were also many conservative nobles who did not want to give up their power. As a result, several assassination teams fought each other.

And Kossuth had experienced many assassinations and had long mastered the skills of escaping.

Later, as his reputation rose, some military nobles were willing to serve as his guards and began to counter the assassination, making it even less likely that the assassination would succeed.

So Metternich decided to change his tactics. He also wanted to use moderates to check the radicals, and Bajany Lajos was the one he chose.

But what Metternich didn't know was that the moderate he chose was the first prime minister of Hungary in the future, and he fought with Austria until his death (execution).

In fact, the Hungarians were not unprepared. They built a number of steel factories and gunpowder factories, but they lacked raw materials.

In fact, only the Ters region in the whole of Hungary has both coal and iron resources, but none of the steel mills that Hungarians have invested heavily in are built in this town.

These steel mills actually belong to different families and are in different spheres of influence. Moreover, not only are their business philosophy and site selection backward, but their technical level is also a mess.

To put it bluntly, these so-called steel mills are just a bunch of larger blacksmith shops, but this is not an exception at this time, including the well-known Krupp Steel, which is actually of this nature.