Chapter 97 Thank You so Much (Additional Chapter for the Second Deacon)

Vienna, Royal Garden.

Franz felt his forehead was wet, as if someone was licking him, there was warm breath all around, and the feeling of hair brushing across his cheeks.

Franz closed his eyes, thinking about what happened.

Just when Franz was thinking hard, he suddenly heard Mrs. Sophie's voice.

"Franz, stop licking, you will become stupid."

At this time, Franz opened his eyes and saw the Bernese Mountain Dog raised by Mrs. Sophie licking him.

Seeing that Franz was awake, "Franz" screamed excitedly twice and ran back to Mrs. Sophie.

"Mother, could you please give the dog and me a different name?"

"Okay, the next one is called Maximilian." Mrs. Sophie replied.

Franz was speechless for a while, seeing that it was already dark, and there was no trace of Thalia anywhere.

"Are you looking for Thalia?"

"Yes, I went out for a walk with her today."

"That poor girl"

Franz frowned. Did something bad happen in the palace?

"What's wrong with her? Mother."

"She was starving and had gone to eat."

"." Franz was even more speechless. "Can you finish speaking in one breath?"

Madam Sophie walked up to Franz, opened her fan and covered her mouth.

"Is this the way you talk to me?"

Then he pinched Franz's ears and walked towards his carriage.

In the carriage, Madame Sophie threw Franz a list.

"Franz, you are very filial. You know that the products of your mother's clothing factory are not selling well, and the flour you have hoarded is almost rotting in the warehouse. Tell me, what else do you know?"

"Mother, the military uniforms produced by clothing factories cannot be sold. No one would sell military uniforms in peacetime. You can't make money from things that can't be sold.

The entire European agriculture is having a bumper harvest, but you are hoarding flour. I think you must have heard the story that drought brings money to boats and water brings money to cars, and by analogy, you feel that hoarding food during the harvest is the right thing to do.

But you have to do what you can. You have mortgaged all your and my father's properties. If I don't help you sell them, I think you will go bankrupt.

Strictly speaking, I don't think you have any talent for business. "

Franz said seriously, cleverly avoiding the question of what else he knew.

Mrs. Sophie was a little angry, but what Franz said was true. If Franz hadn't helped her deal with this crisis, their family would have been discredited.

But Mrs. Sophie had already laid out a big game of chess. When she finished the game, she realized that she had no money, so she had to rack her brains to make money, but she did not have this talent.

But it was still humiliating to be ridiculed by his son. Anyway, there was no one else in the carriage, so he simply grabbed Franz's face and pulled him to both sides.

"Then, I should also thank you? Franz!"

"I don't think it's a ladylike thing to bully a kid with violence."

"So what should we do if our children don't obey the rules?"

"Then you should enlighten him with reason."

Mrs. Sophie and Franz had a good exchange of "physics".

"Franz, was it really your idea to sell those goods to the Mexicans?"

"Yes." Franz had no intention of lying, because Mrs. Sophie seemed to have known about it for a long time.

"You must feel that."

Before Franz finished speaking, he was interrupted by Mrs. Sophie.

"I'm very happy, Franz, you are my best son. Maybe your father's IQ has been transferred to you, but no matter what, you will definitely revitalize this family in the future."

Mrs. Sophie touched Franz's head and continued.

"Do you know what they call mother?"

"The only man in the Habsburg family," Franz replied.

"I don't like this title. This title should belong to you and your father. What I want to say is that if you have anything to discuss with me, I can help you."

Franz narrowed his eyes and noticed something unusual.

"Mom, what did you mess up again?"

"Well, I used all the grapes in your manor to make wine." Mrs. Sophie said.

"Just some grapes."

"Well, the grapes in your manor are not in good quality, and the wine you make is rancid." Mrs. Sophie added.

Franz frowned.

"Mother, did you steal the grapes from my manor to make wine and ask me to pay you for the unfinished wine?"

"No, I actually sent all that wine to your wine cellar."

"." Franz was speechless for a while.

"you"

"Then all the wine in your cellar went bad." Mrs. Sophie said apologetically.

"You are such a good mother. Do you know the value of those wines?"

Franz's wine cellar actually once belonged to Prince Elthazy. After his death, Franz II left a will and gave Franz the wines he had collected for many years, including many fine products. Together these are worth over 1.5 million florins.

"Franz, after reading so many books, do you think there is any way to save those spoiled wines?"

"No! It can't be saved, just wait and throw it away!"

February 1, 1837, Osaka.

Due to successive years of poor harvests in the Osaka area, food prices have skyrocketed, and starvation is everywhere.

Oshio Heihachiro, a Confucian scholar of Yangming School of Mind, out of sympathy for the lower classes and for the future of the Edo Shogunate, asked the town magistrate to open the warehouses to release grain and provide relief to the victims.

However, the town magistrate ignored this and even took advantage of the famine to collude with merchants to raise grain prices for huge profits and encroach on farmers' land.

As a Japanese fan of Yangming School of Mind, he practiced Yangming Gong's "unity of knowledge and action" very well.

After being rejected several times, Oshio Heihachiro gathered his fellow students and decided to overcome the superiors.

However, due to being reported by a traitor, the uprising had to be launched in advance.

Oshio Heihachiro's uprising was quickly suppressed, but then someone launched another uprising under his name, on an unprecedented scale, with countless hungry people and poor people pouring into rural cities, snatching food and killing officials.

The town magistrate who had repeatedly rejected Oshio Heihachiro's requests and several merchants who hoarded goods were hanged together in the square in the center of the city.

The uprising soon alarmed the shogunate, which sent a large army to suppress it.

The rebels, who only had simple farm tools, seemed vulnerable in front of the shogunate army supported by the iron cannon team.

Although the uprising was suppressed, it also sounded a wake-up call for the shogunate.

At that time, Osaka was the center of Japan's economy and was known as the "kitchen of the world". There was a riot of hungry people, which proved that the shogunate's exploitation of the people had reached an intolerable level.

Some people began to reform the tax system, wanting to cancel those unreasonable pre-taxes to reduce the burden on farmers and ease domestic conflicts.

Some people saw the power of Xinxue, and a craze for learning Xinxue began throughout Japan, and a large number of people who would leave a mark in Japanese history were born afterwards.

Among them was the later Japanese Navy Admiral Heihachiro Togo, who had only seven words on his waist badge: "Bow down to Yangming all my life."

Some of the rebels used the money they robbed to bribe Dutch merchants to send them to Europe.

At that time, Japan only allowed merchants from the Dutch, the Qing Dynasty, and Portugal to trade in Japan.