Chapter 383: Selling Teammates in Progress

  Chapter 373: Selling Teammates in Progress

Venice, the top brass of the Hungarian Independence Organization gathered to make final preparations for the uprising. No, rather, final preparations for the run.

The word “fame” and “fortune” can never be avoided in this world.

“Profit” Stephen and the others have already made almost enough for them to live comfortably for the rest of their lives, and now the most important thing is to preserve their reputation.

Other people can be a traitor, they are these independent organization senior can’t do, or can’t let people know that they have become a traitor.

Otherwise how could the Americans, who had contributed money and effort, let them go? Now their family businesses are in the United States, and they can’t run away from the missionaries but can’t run away from the church.

Stephen spoke, “The ship has been arranged and booked. Once the uprising fails we will immediately head to Albania, then enter Greece by land, then borrow the Ottoman Empire to travel from the Persian Gulf to Asia, and transfer to Japan to take a ship to San Francisco.”

Puzzled, Somra asked, “Mr. Stephen, why go around in such a big circle? The Austrians have promised that they will only symbolically pursue us, and we could just as easily take a ship directly to the United States.”

Stephen explained, “That’s right, the Austrians are promising to let us go, but what if something happens?

The release of our departure is under a high state of secrecy, and the Mediterranean region is full of Austrian naval activity, so what if we are unlucky enough to be caught?

To minimize the risk, we had to take a detour. Taking an unnoticed fishing boat from Venice into the Balkans and leaving from an area not covered by Austrian forces would be the best option.”

In order to act a little more realistic, Stephen put up a fight. Can’t have all the little brothers in bad luck, these bosses have nothing at all, only less to act like they are fleeing in a hurry.

Paul concurred, “Mr. Stephen is right, this time must be cautious. Returning to the United States as soon as possible is not necessarily a good thing, now that the Civil War is about to enter its end.

It would be fine if the federal government won, but if they lost the war, it would require the intervention of various countries in order to retain power.

In that case, in order to seek help from various countries, the Lincoln government would most likely hand over all of us revolutionary organizations.

To be on the safe side, it’s best to wait until things are over before returning to the United States.”

The faces of the people changed greatly, if the Americans really gave in to the European countries and handed over all the members of the revolutionary organizations in the country, their family business in the United States would all be lost.

Seeing everyone’s worry, Stephen comforted, “Don’t worry, as long as we are still staying on the wanted list, no one will dare to touch everyone’s properties.”

No one dared to rob the money of the outlaws. It meant having the life to take it while not having the life to spend it.

……

Otko, a rising star of the Hungarian Independence Organization. A graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, he fought in the Civil War and held the position of battalion commander.

On the battlefield, he gained a reputation for daring to fight and kill. The bigwigs of the Hungarian Independence Organization were moral and noble people who did not care about glory and profit, and the heavy responsibility of directing this Venice Uprising fell on him.

Looking at the thousands of soldiers under his command, Otko was in high spirits. The only pity was the lack of arms, which according to Mr. Stephen was for safety.

After all, it was in the territory of the Austrians, if a few thousand armed men appeared, the local garrison would have killed them.

Otko felt it made perfect sense, the Austrian system was already very strict. Although there wasn’t a total ban on guns, and a large number of guns existed in the civilian population, they were mostly shotguns.

Serious rifles still needed to be filed with the police department and apply for a gun permit.

It wasn’t just anyone who could get a license, at least none of their gang qualified.

It is very easy to buy a gun in Austria, there are no less than ten gun stores in Venice, and guns are available for sale. Colonial empire, no weapons and equipment overseas colonial team how to mix?

But weapons are easy to buy, but ammunition is not easy to do.

If the overseas colonial use, then it does not matter how many have as much as possible; if the local use, you can only take the gun license, in the local police station to apply for bullets.

The government cracks down on the existence of all privately manufactured weapons and ammunition and arms smuggling, and the police have the right to shoot down all participants in the underground black market for trading arms.

After a long time, everyone is used to it, want to play with weapons, directly to the hunting ground, or clubs, as long as the money cannon have to play.

There is no need to go to the black market with your head, in case you are killed as an arms dealer, there is no place to talk about it.

There is no market, there is no sale.

It is impossible to buy weapons and ammunition for thousands of people. So Otko, the commander-in-chief of the insurgent army, had only ten guns in his hands, including eight shotguns and two old-fashioned revolvers.

These were sponsored by local Italians who were inclined to the revolution, and there was no way to get more, except to wait for the outbreak of the uprising and take them from the enemy.

On February 1, 1865, in the general headquarters of the insurgent army, several spirited teenagers were working on a battle plan.

Don’t take their youth lightly; these were among the few military talents of the Hungarian independence organizations, most of whom had fought in the Civil War.

If the situation wasn’t critical, the Union Army wouldn’t even release them, and everyone knows how short of officers the Americans are right now.

Otko opened a sketch and said: ”This is the information provided by Mr. Amko, although Austria allows the possession of guns, but the control of ammunition is very strict.

All the weaponry stores, they don’t have ammunition. Only hunting grounds, gun clubs, police stations, and local garrisons have enough ammunition in their hands.

The garrison doesn’t need to be considered, with these few guns in our hands, it is estimated that we will be suppressed before we can even touch their gates.

The hunting grounds are far from the city, so we can’t possibly run dozens of miles to seize weapons and then rush back to start an uprising.

There shouldn’t be much stockpile of ammunition in the gun club, they also get their ammo from the police station and basically replenish it once every two or three days, which won’t be able to satisfy our needs.

If we want the uprising to succeed, we must first take down the police station and seize enough ammunition.”

Having said this, Otko was extremely depressed. Venice’s ammunition depot was actually next door to the naval base, and there was no possibility of taking it down.

Or even if it was captured, it wouldn’t be of much use, within the coverage of the naval artillery, it would be over before they could move the ammunition.

“Venice is not suitable for launching an uprising, to go out we need to take a boat, these small boats have no way to utilize our manpower advantage.

With these few guns in our hands, it will be almost impossible to take the police station. Even the north branch of the city, which has the least number of people, is not something we can take down.

Furthermore, these Italian mercenaries are not reliable, and they will likely scatter and flee in all directions once something goes wrong.”

The young man who raised the objection was named Taft, who had also fought in the Civil War and had a certain amount of military common sense.

Only being too straightforward, he had been marginalized in the revolutionary organization. If this uprising wasn’t too important and he possessed military abilities, there would be no place for him in the command.

Otko patiently explained, “Militarily speaking, Venice is really not suitable for launching an uprising. Even if it is occupied, this city on water is still under the threat of the Austrian navy.

But politically we have to do it, the military has to serve politics. To achieve a shocking effect, the organization only decided to launch an uprising in Milan and Venice at the same time.

Once the revolution succeeds in these two cities, then Lombardy and Venetia will shake, and the whole of Austrian Italy will respond to us.

Using the independence of the Italian regions to attract the attention of the government in Vienna, we will provide cover for the organization of the uprising in the Hungarian region.

The Austrians are unlikely to shell Venice at the first sign of an uprising, and this is our opportunity. As long as we use this time gap to integrate a revolutionary army out, we can take the war to the interior.

The more noise we create in the Italian region, the more successful our uprising in the Hungarian region will be. That’s why from the beginning, this uprising had no strategic goal.

We only needed to create more noise, stir up the Venetia region, and hold more people hostage to the uprising; victory or defeat was rather unimportant. Even if the uprising fails, the dead will all be Italians.”

This explanation was still satisfactory to the crowd, having grown up in the United States, everyone was naturally influenced to believe that politics was above the military.

Unbeknownst to them, this order was exactly reversed before the seizure of power. Only after a military victory is achieved first, is there room for political play.

That last line about the uprising failing and all the dead being Italians directly left Taft speechless.

Stephen hadn’t ordered them to fight to the end in blood, and had told them from the beginning: that messing around in the Italian areas was just a sound bite to provide cover for the Hungarian uprising.

As long as the momentum was created and the enemy’s attention was attracted, the final outcome of the uprising was not within the organization’s consideration.

It was almost as if they were being told that if the uprising failed, they would run away, and that the Italian mercenaries could be used as castaways.

Otherwise, Otko couldn’t have been so relaxed. Expecting a bunch of rabble to overthrow Austrian rule in the area would be a head case, wouldn’t it?

(End of chapter)