Chapter 155: The Rule-Following Tsar
Chapter 153 The rule-abiding tsar
Any reform comes with a price, as Franz soon learned. As victims of this military reform, Franz’s three younger brothers came over to protest.
Undoubtedly, the three brats were brutally suppressed by him, and were directly dumbfounded and left in disgrace.
In fact, Franz also wanted to create the Junior Noble Officers’ School, but in the end, because of poverty, he had to give up this intention for the time being.
There is no way, this is Austria’s national conditions decided. Now the cost of military education for the children of nobles is borne by the nobles themselves, and once the government establishes the Junior Noble Officers’ School, then this expense will have to be borne by the government.
The cultivation of these noble children can not be sloppy, must be elite teaching, tens of thousands of noble children’s education costs, the minimum annual cost of tens of millions of guilders, even if it is broken hundred million is not strange.
In addition to military classes, cultural classes, there must also be etiquette classes, art classes, equestrian classes, hunting, fencing, religion, social ball ……
All in all, how can one say the word expensive. What about this kind of elitist education that no ordinary noble family can afford to support?
The answer is very simple: parents educate the next generation themselves, or let their children study with relatives and friends.
Of course, this was the nobles with the background. Emerging aristocrats don’t have the ability to provide their children with this kind of high-grade education, and when the aristocratic temperament is not cultivated, they are made into a tycoon.
Anyway, in addition to cultural lessons, Austria’s ordinary schools also have simple military training, which is a tradition in the German region.
As the saying goes, what goes up comes down, and imitating the behavior of the ruling class is supposed to be a normal phenomenon in society. The Austrian compulsory schools were in such poor condition that there was also no lack of basic military training.
The abolition of the Milk Bottle Army was only a small episode in the military reform, and the substantive impact was not significant; this kind of honorary officer did not need to be paid by Franz.
The real big operation is still in the logistics management system, with the continuous renewal of military weapons, the requirements of logistics supply is also more and more large, the traditional logistics support system has been unable to meet the needs of modern warfare.
Simply put, the establishment of a specialized logistics support system, the army engaged in logistics team grew.
It is worth mentioning that the medical support system also appeared in the Austrian army, or an important member of the logistical system, each company has established a medical and health team, to the divisional level there are specialized field hospitals.
Unfortunately, the medical system is still an empty shell, these establishments only exist in theory, field hospitals in the doctors are still single-digit, can only guarantee the life of the officers.
According to the current situation, Franz estimated that it would take at least three to five years before these organs could be fully staffed, and it would take time to train medical personnel, that is, even if they only learned simple battlefield first aid.
Considering the level of medical technology in this era, one could only say that something was better than nothing. Franz didn’t expect them to be able to rescue the seriously wounded, as long as they could keep the minor wounded alive.
In this era, the high mortality rate on the battlefield, the most important reason is trauma infection, high-grade anti-inflammatory drugs are not available, alcohol Austria is still not lacking.
Not long ago Franz also sent people to produce the miracle drug penicillin, was also prepared to rely on the sale of drugs to make money.
Unfortunately, even if you can make penicillin with the clay method, but this penicillin is not equal to the penicillin that can be used to save lives, which also involves professionalism.
Participate in the production of scientists was shocked, but the experiment should be done, or to continue to do experiments. If you can’t grasp that degree in the middle, a miracle drug that saves lives can become a deadly poison.
Historically, penicillin was invented in 1928, and clinical trials were only completed in the late 1940’s, but of course there were interruptions in research in between.
When will the drug be stabilized and the most suitable penicillin for human use be made, it is still up to these scientists to work on it, Franz said he really can’t do anything about it.
Laboratory products are so difficult to get, from the laboratory product to industrialized production, the middle road is naturally inevitable.
Historically, because of the outbreak of World War II, from the laboratory to determine the efficacy of the drug in 1940, to the beginning of industrial production in 1942, the Americans set a new record in the history of drug research and development.
Franz did not think that Austria’s industrial technology now could match that of the Americans during World War II. Not to mention three years, it would be universal if this could be accomplished in ten years.
Franz could only lament that anti-Japanese dramas were all harmful.
The Americans realized the mass production of penicillin in 1943 before it was made available to the Allies. I really don’t know from which fake drug dealer the penicillin that the protagonists’ Japanese troops grabbed came from, but it actually predates even the lab product.
After this failure, Franz simply cut off the idea of selling drugs to make money.
In the era of biotechnology, medical technology, industrial technology, all do not meet the conditions, and he did not have a system in the evening, for what?
……
St. Petersburg
Since the signing of the Austro-Russian Secret Treaty, the Russians have been preparing for war.
The Tsarist government was not a fool, they knew that the European continent had just undergone a revolution, and the governments were busy consolidating their power and carrying out social reforms, this was the best time for them to expand.
“My Minister of Finance, when will we be able to come up with the funds for the war.” Nicholas I asked in dissatisfaction
Preparing for war naturally costs money, if there’s no money what’s the point of fighting a war? From last year to now, almost a year has passed, the finance ministry still hasn’t gotten together the funds for the war, Nicholas I is naturally going to be dissatisfied.
Later generations are considered backward agricultural country Russia is a poor country in the powers, this era of the Russian Empire is not poor at all, the financial income of up to 200 million silver rubles.
(1 gold ruble = 10.3 silver rubles, a silver ruble about half a tael of silver)
As a feudal dynasty, the Russian Empire’s industrial development is naturally not very good, agricultural technology is also not very good, but can not help but their family has a mine ah?
In the middle of the 19th century, the Tsarist government discovered a large number of gold and silver mines in its newly expanded territories, and in 1840 alone the Tsarist government minted 439.9 million silver coins and 134 million gold coins.
The fact that so many gold and silver coins were made, besides showing the wealth of the Tsarist government, there was another reason for the hopelessness of their home paper money.
Alexander I period Russians also followed the trend of issuing paper money, but European merchants think the tsarist government has no credibility, refused to use the paper ruble, and then the value of the paper ruble is naturally all the way to the wild leak.
In 1817, Alexander I changed the monetary policy, prohibited the issuance of paper money, the government adopted a policy of contraction of paper money, and successively recovered the paper money circulating in the market.
Without using paper money for trade, it was natural to rely on gold and silver coins. Facts have proved that this thing really works, gold and silver compound standard system came out, immediately by the European countries businessmen’s praise.
From these figures, the tsarist government of this era should be very rich, 100 million taels before the devaluation of silver, is not a small amount, too much higher than Austria before the reform.
As a feudal dynasty, the Russian Empire and there is no social welfare to be spent, the government’s financial income is mainly to feed the army and the administration, it should be enough.
Nicholas I and Franz faced a common social problem – corruption – and even richer countries should not expect to be financially rich as long as this problem could not be solved.
“Your Majesty, the cost is too massive, I’m afraid it will have to wait until the second half of next year.” Finance Minister Arystanley replied
Nicholas I frowned and asked, “Wasn’t a war tax already levied once?”
“Your Majesty, the nobles haven’t paid this war tax yet, they asked for this money after the war broke out, so now the war tax is lower than what we expected.” Arystanli explained
This is all part of normal operation, the Russian Empire’s nobles have always had a hard time collecting taxes. The credibility of the successive tsars was not very good, and the nobles were afraid of being cheated by the tsars, so unless the war had already broken out, it was very difficult to receive the tax in advance.
Of course, if Nicholas I tough a little bit can also be collected in advance, but this will affect the unity and stability of the country.
However, Nicholas I would not do that, the rights and obligations of Europe are very clearly divided.
In times of war, the Tsar has the right to collect war taxes, and the nobles have the obligation to pay war taxes, but now the war has not yet broken out?
“Can’t the taxes from all over the world be allowed to be paid in advance?” Nicholas I frowned and asked
“Your Majesty, we have a business contract, if we ask them to pay the taxes in advance, the price we need to pay is too great.” Arystanley patiently explained
That’s right, this is the legendary tax package system.
It has basically been abolished in all European countries now, except that Russia is just too big for the government to want to directly tax the administration costs are too high, and it is also difficult to secure tax revenue, so it has not been abolished.
Nicholas I frowned and said: “Then even so, anyway, we still need time to raise strategic supplies. But the matter of raising military funds, the Ministry of Finance must hurry, I don’t want to delay our military operations because of a lack of money.”
Unlike other tsars, Nicholas I was responsible, didn’t like to break the rules, and would persevere with a determined goal.
Note: The data on the value of the coins on the profile is very messy, and the accuracy can only be approximated. For example: the recorded one tael of flat treasury silver is 37.3 grams of silver, the recorded one tael of silver is 50 grams of silver, Hai Yue specifically checked the notes. For the sake of reading convenience, Hai Yue are used is 50 grams. Some readers have mentioned this problem before, so I will explain it here.
(End of chapter)