Holy Roman Empire

Once again, the boss proved that the boss was not easy to be, and had to fight thunder for his little brother at a critical moment. The debt between the Prussians and the English, that was well known, and no one could deny it.

"It is right and proper that debts should be paid."

Even though the political situation had changed, the Kingdom of Prussia, the creditor, remained, and the debt naturally existed. The English were to collect the debt as agreed in the loan contract, and no one could say otherwise.

Originally this had little to do with Franz, the debts of the states were not the debts of the central government, and the empire was not obliged to take them on for them. Even if the British had pursued the debt, they couldn't have found it at the head of the Vienna government.

The problem was that the Berlin government was now playing dead, elevating the "debt problem" to the protection of national sovereignty, and the matter fell on the Vienna government.

It was impossible to honour the contract; if the treaty had been enforced, the people would have drowned Vienna in their spittle.

Paying money was impossible, and if the Prussian kingdom was helped to pay its debts today, there was no telling how many state governments would go bankrupt tomorrow. Politicians never have low moderation in the face of profit.

Defaulting on a contract was even more impossible, and as the newly rising hegemon, the Vienna government had to maintain its international image.

In particular, the Vienna government still has a debt to collect outside, if you take the lead in playing helpless, the future others can use "international practice" as an excuse to deny the debt.

It can be said that the Vienna government is now forced into a very embarrassing situation. William II personally came to Vienna to ask for help, probably not only to ask for help, I'm afraid that more or less to "ask forgiveness".

This has caused such a big mess, do not give an explanation obviously can not be said. Even though the state has a high degree of autonomy, the central government is still capable of giving them small shoes to wear.

Now they come here to sell their misery, and besides losing face, the actual loss is minimal. Even if the Vienna government had the intention to settle scores with them, after this, there was no way to do it.

That was the rule of the game, the Prussian Kingdom had done a truly immoral job this time, but people's kings had come to apologize in person, so the matter was considered to be at an end, and pursuing it further would seem aggressive.

Rubbing his forehead, Franz asked with concern, "Is the cabinet prepared to deal with Prussia's debt problem?"

Prime Minister Carr: "The most desirable result, naturally, would be for the British to make concessions. Allow the Prussian government to defer payments, or to restructure its debt, offsetting a portion of it by the Prussian share of the reparations from the war against France.

This was almost impossible to do; Britain had likewise continued its economic crisis, and the London government was now in need of funds, and there was no reason for them to accept a debt deferment without a greater benefit.

Debt restructuring is even more of a problem, the Kingdom of Prussia is in pretty good shape, and would not be financially bankrupt if the Berlin government hadn't previously engaged in a bunch of bad projects.

France is the real giant hole, and judging from the current situation, the Paris government would be lucky to stay afloat. As for war reparations, one can't expect much for the next two or three years.

We have screwed the British over the debt of the German Confederation before, and I am afraid that they will not accept the transfer of the claims even if we say anything now.

Without defaulting or sacrificing national sovereignty, I'm afraid that the only way to get the British to concede on the Prussian debt issue is to make a secret deal of interest."

While the gains from a successful gamble on national fortune are great, the costs of failure are equally heavy. In recent years, the Kingdom of Prussia has been paying the price for the failure of its previous bets on the national fortune.

Even though they became the victor of the war against France, their share of the reparations was still unable to fill the hole left by the previous one.

At this point, Franz suddenly began to understand Wilhelm II's decision. Without getting rid of the mountain of debt, the Kingdom of Prussia would always be at the bottom of the Holy Roman Empire.

That's right, bottom of the Roman Empire. Paying tens of millions of S.H.I.E.L.D. every year, the government of Berlin had no spare financial resources for nation building.

After the Holy Roman Empire was restored, there was also a major event that happened in the Berlin government, there was a proposal in the government to turn the two infantry divisions in the country into a central army.

For no other reason, it was just too much to raise. Throwing the army to the central government would not only save a fortune in expenses, guarding Prussia would still be these people.

As far as the government officials were concerned, even if they kept the army anyway, the command would be taken away from the central government, and even if the king still had the right to command it, it had nothing to do with the Berlin government.

Only this move was strongly opposed by Wilhelm II himself. The central government only took away the command of the army in times of war, and in times of peace the highest military commander of a state's army was the king.

It was a different story once the army was transferred to the central government, even though the constitution of the Holy Roman Empire stipulated that the sovereign was the supreme military commander of the army stationed in his region, but it was the army of the state that was really in command.

As for the central army, the military budget was allocated by the emperor, and the generals were appointed by the emperor. William II would not be naive enough to think that a mere nominal supreme command could control the army after losing these rights.

It may seem like nothing in normal times, but if something really happens and you need to use your army, and you suddenly find yourself unable to command it, it's going to be the end of the line.

In a sense, the loss of military power is the loss of the ability to overturn the table. The people below can override the king with impunity, and play purely by the rules of the game, and I'm afraid few kings can play the ministers below them.

Just look at the many states of the Holy Roman Empire, but all those who have a bit of family history, none of them have given up their armies. Including those great nobles who had actually gone overseas, one by one, they had formed their own private armies within the limits of the law.

According to the statistics of the Vienna government, the total strength of the armies of the states within the Holy Roman Empire + the private armies of the nobles occupied roughly one-third of the total number of troops in the empire.

If you add in the various colonial groups and civilian armies, this proportion is likely to be more than half. In other words, it was these miscellaneous armies that were equal in numbers to the central army.

This is the inevitable result, and the state is a historical legacy. If the Vienna government doesn't watch what it eats, why should they hang around with you?

Not to mention the aristocratic private armies and civilian colonial armies, without which where did the colonies of the Empire come from?

The rivers and mountains have been beaten down by others, and when it's time to share the cake, can you still kick them out?

Even if we were to cross the river, that would be something that would need to be considered only after the river was crossed. The Holy Roman Empire already had more territory than any other country in history, and if you really wanted to play with central government control, you'd be dragged to death by the endless uprisings, if not by administrative expenses.

Do you really think that Franz is willing to divide and conquer en masse? It's not all practical necessity yet. If you don't share the cake, why should the people down there work for you.

Just look at the actual results, all the major colonial empires were plagued by national uprisings, but the Vienna government was the only one that never had to worry.

In fact, the Holy Roman Empire didn't have the most private armies. It was the private armies under the British that were the most numerous, but were labeled as corporations, colonial governments, and self-governing collars.

Simply put, you opened up a colony, and the British government authorized you to form a colonial government, such as the East India Company.

Of course, whether you end up keeping it or not depends on your ability to move around, or your backstage background in the country.

If you do manage directly, with that number of lobster soldiers, you can rule a Canada at most. Can't take care of any more than that.

The rights that everyone was fighting hard for, the William II who had already gotten his hands on it was naturally unwilling to give it up. If one were to analyze it carefully, it would not be difficult to find that the bankruptcy of the Berlin government this time was the result of a compromise between all parties in Prussia.

After contemplating for a while, Franz shook his head: "Prussia owes a lot of money to the British, even if the London government is willing to compromise, the consortium behind it will not stop.

The exchange of benefits will only work if we have interests to exchange with them as well. We can't make major strategic concessions just for the sake of debt, can we?

Let's wait for the British to come to us and then talk to them slowly. Stall for as long as possible, and there's no chance that when the economic crisis passes, the Prussian Kingdom will have the money to fulfill its debts."

In front of interests, the saving grace was not worth mentioning. The current situation was very obvious, and to solve the problem, one had to be in a dilemma left and right. If one didn't want to solve the problem, then there would be no trouble at all.

It was the Prussian Kingdom that owed the debt anyway, not the Holy Roman Empire. The current debt fulfillment was in conflict with imperial law, and that wasn't the Vienna government's responsibility either.

The worst that can happen is to let the British go to the Imperial Court to sue, and let the court guys have a headache. Just use this opportunity to push the legislative committee to introduce a law "prohibiting local mortgage public right to raise debt".

Before this, Franz had already put out the wind, only to see the state governments resist a strong will, before delaying the proposal. The Prussian debt crisis was the perfect opportunity to do just that.

The definition of "public power" is very broad, national sovereignty, government revenue, state-owned property, including government buildings can be considered part of the public power.

Once the law is passed, the governments of the states can't put up any collateral to borrow money, so the only thing left to rely on is the government's creditworthiness.

A purely credit-based loan, then, would be a no-brainer for Franz to worry about. Not to mention whether or not anyone would dare to lend out huge debts, and even if they did and there was a debt default, that wouldn't involve national sovereignty.

If you can't pay it back, you can't pay it back, bankruptcy is bankruptcy, and there are plenty of local governments in continental Europe these days. No matter how much you kick the ball, you can't kick the central government in the head.

......

The Prussian debt crisis is just a small episode of the economic crisis ravaging the world, the European public is now very anxious, food is about to eat, there is no intention to eat melons.

Even if a newspaper is published, there is no money in the pocket to subscribe to it. In the overwhelming wave of unemployment, the public is now most concerned about the job postings.

In the case of the Holy Roman Empire, for example, the unemployment rate in the country had quintupled directly after the full-blown economic crisis, and there were signs that it was continuing to expand.

This was still considered a good situation, after all, the Holy Roman Empire had a piece of the African continent to vent its pressure. The unemployment rate in the country was already very low before the economic crisis broke out.

Like all previous economies, after this economic crisis broke out, the colonial government and the noble lords still came to the mainland to pull people out.

If you look at the newspaper, you will know that the overwhelming job advertisements are all about going to work in the colony.

That's right, "to work", after so many years of immigration, want to emigrate to leave long gone, the rest are do not want to leave home, or because of some reason can not leave the mainland.

In order to keep up with the times, now the pull ads do not directly require immigrants anymore. They only ask for a long-term labor contract and work for 5 or 10 years in the past.

After all, time is the best catalyst. After five or ten years in the colony, even if you want to leave, you have to think twice before doing so.

There's no way around it - the treatment. The noble lords these days are all "good people", not only giving high salaries and wages, but also very "loving", willing to help their subordinates out when they encounter problems.

The company's main goal is to provide free housing to its employees, and to ensure that they are able to get a job, and even their children's education is taken care of.

Most of the orphanages in the empire have been abandoned, and the few that are left are for the physically challenged children, and the able-bodied orphans are all adopted by these "loving" people.

Even the problem of orphans and refugees on the borders, which had been a problem for the Vienna government, was solved by these "loving" people.

After the outbreak of the economic crisis, the scope of activities of the "loving" people has expanded from the empire to the entire continent of Europe. Where they were, people no longer had to worry about having too many children to feed.

In a sense, this is one of the brightest points of the economic crisis, as fewer people are starving to death than before. If you are hungry, you can go to these "caring" people.

Of course, not everyone has to. The "caring" people are very tolerant of children, but they are very strict with adults.

Street thugs are not wanted, not those with criminal records, not those with bad intentions, not those with strong social grievances, and not those who hate .......

None of these requirements had anything to do with Ives, who, as a young man of five, had at least a choice of hundreds of employers to choose from if he would work in the colony.

That's right, a choice of employers. Almost all of the Holy Roman Empire's feudal nobles were in short supply, and everything had been done to increase the workforce.

If it wasn't for the fear of the language barrier, which was not conducive to the management of the territory, people would probably have to go abroad to steal people.

In fact, intermediaries specializing in providing immigration for feudal aristocrats had already been born. If you can't pull people from your native land, you'll have to go abroad to find a way.

The language barrier does not matter, they can provide training; eating habits are different, are hungry master, still picky about what?

Even labor skills and obedience can be trained. The immigrants trained by certain agencies can even do whatever they are told to do.

The only problem is that the cost of such trained immigrants is too high. The vast majority of nobles couldn't afford to enjoy such a high-standard service, and in order to save costs, people still preferred to pull their own people.

An honest local young man like Ives happened to be the most popular talent, so naturally he didn't worry about work.

The problem was that Ives didn't want to leave his hometown, he just wanted to find a local job where he could support his family. Unfortunately, there really isn't one.

If you were to find an ordinary job locally before the economic crisis broke out, naturally there would be no problem.

Unfortunately, this was a time of economic crisis, and it was too late for most companies to lay off employees in their factories, so who wouldn't think of hiring at this time?

After looking through today's newspaper, Ives finally found a local company's job listing in a small corner.

Before he could be happy, Ives's face fell. It couldn't be helped, the recruitment requirements on it were too high.

Not only did it require a high school education, but it also required professional work experience, which happened to be something he didn't have.