Chapter 268 Some Troubles of the Austrian-Mexican Joint Development Company

Vienna, Schönbrunn Palace.

Franz was concentrating on reading several letters sent from California.

It was clearly written on it: "After untold hardships, Baron Bruno finally found several huge gold veins. According to conservative estimates, the total amount is more than 1 million ounces, equivalent to 38,834,500 florins."

Putting down the letter in his hand, Franz leaned back in his chair and yawned.

"It seems that the geology of this era is unreliable. Even the most conservative estimates of later generations show that the total amount of gold mines in California is more than 12 million ounces, and most experts estimate that it is between 20 million and 30 million ounces."

In fact, this kind of open-pit gold mine is easy to find, but Franz is not sure whether it is easy to estimate. However, in this era of precious metal scarcity, it is human nature to be inadequate, of course, that is just his most malicious guess.

If the gold mines here are emptied, it should be just enough to pay off the debts of the Austrian Empire. But Franz didn't really want to do this. After all, why should he pay back a debt that he owed with his own ability?

Of course, the main reason is that there are a lot of usury in these debts, and the total principal and interest of some of them have even increased dozens or even hundreds of times.

Over the years, after Baron Bruno's unremitting efforts, he has reached an agreement with the creditors, otherwise Franz plans to kill all those guys who are too full.

Coincidentally, in the previous internal strife in Hungary, the empire had another batch of creditors' bodies, so its overall debt directly dropped by more than 200 million florins.

Franz had someone do a rough calculation before and found that as long as the creditors with serious anti-Austrian tendencies disappeared from the world, the empire's debt level would drop by 60%.

Although it would be great to do this, what he did was just repeating the same choice made by countless predecessors in parallel worlds.

To truly break the cycle, Franz must take a path that no one has ever taken before. Of course, this path will be difficult, and it may be more difficult than realizing the ambitions of the Habsburg royal family, but he does not intend to back down.

On the other hand, Baron Bruno also brought bad news, that is, the Mexicans did not keep their promise. With them turning a blind eye, a large number of American pioneers poured into California.

Although it has not yet formed a scale, it will definitely become a big trouble here in the long run. It is not difficult to imagine the next scene. Once they have established a foothold, they will compete with local Austrian immigrants for land and resources.

Once they discover the secret of the gold mine, the consequences will be disastrous. This land will definitely become the object of fierce competition among major powers such as Britain and France.

By that time, not only will the promise to Mexico not be fulfilled, but even the cost of the empire's investment for many years will not be recovered.

The New Mexico Line of Defense built by Tasan Anna is like a colander. The two neighboring countries in the north can always go in and out easily, allowing them to understand the true strength of their southern neighbors clearly.

It's just that France and the United States are intimidated by each other's strength and dare not easily invade Mexico, unless God tells them the important information that there is a gold mine in California in a dream tomorrow.

In this regard, Franz can only sigh that "it's really a mess."

There were also Spanish laborers who immigrated to California. Most of them were refugees who had come here from across the ocean during the civil war.

These people had just arrived and were not familiar with their identities. They not only looked down on the local Mexicans and indigenous people, but also planned riots in some settlements to overthrow the rule of the Austrian-Mexican Union Company.

However, they were quickly suppressed by the Austrian soldiers organized in time by Archduke Karl Ferdinand.

In addition to the 500 retired soldiers recruited by Franz from various places, there were also 200 elite guards of Archduke Karl who followed the Grand Duke to rebel. It was precisely because of these people that the laborers who participated in the riot paid a painful price.

Those who came to California to start a new job to avoid the war did not know how to be grateful. On the contrary, they thought that they should be the legal owners of this former Spanish colony. Under the deliberate instigation of local Hispanics, they either disobeyed orders and fled or participated in the rebellion.

In one of the largest riots, the number of rioters killed alone reached 3,700. Due to the language barrier and the deep wilderness, the local Austrian soldiers did not show mercy.

Archduke Karl Ferdinand was different from his elder brother who was full of honor and his younger brother who advocated force. He only wanted to complete his mission and was a truly ruthless killing machine.

Whether participants or assistants, regardless of gender, age or young, as long as they participated in the rebellion, they all ended up dead. Even those instigators who hid in the village and thought everything was fine were not spared.

Although this approach was cruel, it was effective in the western region where "survival of the fittest" was the rule.

Moreover, the number of local Austrians was at an absolute disadvantage. If they stood by and watched the other side's forces become one, then they would be the ones who were cruelly treated.

After reducing the local population of 4,000 households to 1,000 households, the situation gradually stabilized. However, after nearly two years of development, the local Mexican population has not increased, but has decreased a lot.

The population of Austria, however, rose from 700 to 4,000. The number of natives dropped from 20,000 to 8,000, and only 3,000 of the 20,000 Spanish laborers were left.

At this time, there were only about 15,000 white settlers in the entire 563,970 square kilometers of California, which means that on average one person could be found in 39.59 square kilometers.

This gave great opportunities to pioneers from the United States and France, because the number of Austrian immigrants was limited, and they also needed to train and mobilize enough militia to guard their homes, and the available manpower was really stretched.

At the same time, finding and identifying invaders on the vast plains was not something that could be done overnight.

What was even more fatal was Mexico, an unreliable partner. They did not intend to contribute, and relying solely on the Austrian immigrants who were at a disadvantage in numbers could not solve the difficulties they faced.

So Baron Bruno wrote several letters to Archduke Franz Karl, hoping that he could find a way to help them out of their predicament.

To be honest, it was quite tricky to deal with this matter. Franz had hoped that the Mexicans could be the black gloves, but he didn't expect that Austria would actually take the blame.

But there was nothing that could be done. The wilderness had its own laws. If you wanted to forcibly violate them, you would inevitably be retaliated. If the 700 Austrians at the beginning had not risen up to resist, they would have become a pile of bones at this time.

In fact, it is not difficult to find a few hundred people who know Spanish in the empire, but if the number expands to thousands or tens of thousands, even Austria, a language power, cannot do this.

The reason why Spanish workers resisted so fiercely has a lot to do with the national characteristics, inherent concepts, and prejudices that have been formed over a long period of time.

During this period, Europeans looked down on Americans, and Mexico was once a Spanish colony, so these Spanish immigrants still believed that they were superior people from the mother country.

Another point is national characteristics. After all, all empires that tried to conquer Spain have declined without exception. Whether it is the Berbers in their heyday or the arrogant Napoleon Empire, they cannot conquer the Spaniards.

Moreover, with the end of the Carlist War, fewer and fewer people are willing to come to the New World, so Franz's Plan A should be declared a failure.

Fortunately, he is not a person who likes to go all in, so it is always right to have more backup plans.

At this time, Franz set his sights on another place on the map, the Central American Federation.

The civil war in Central America has become more intense as the French have become more involved. The people living in this land are also Spanish-speaking.

And most of them are mixed-race. These people's self-esteem is not as strong as that of the Spaniards, and they are more hardworking. At the same time, they are easier to rule with fewer people.

Regarding the title, many people feel that the title cannot express the full content, so the title is lengthened.

Thanks to the recent book friends Ciyuan Nanbazhiya, Xiaoshen Dada, the strongest kindergarten class, syundongbafang, and book friend 20221014001131291 for their rewards