The War Court and Lap Pillow, Austria's Mandate of Heaven

Chapter 699 Layout
Just as the French north of the Pyrenees were tortured to death by the flood, Spain suffered a drought that was rare in a century.

A series of extraordinary droughts dried up rivers and lakes, and the Spaniards, who had finally ended the war, took up arms again.

Water shortages, crops withered, and heat death of people and livestock continued to occur.In this country that is still dominated by agriculture, such natural disasters are like the end of the world.

At this time, the Spanish Regency Council was composed of a group of merchants and a group of merchant-like priests. In the face of natural disasters, they only cared about whether the autumn tax could be collected.

As for what to do, the Kingdom of Spain has been doing this for hundreds of years. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a cup of hot coffee in the ice cellar?
The queen regent only cares about hanging out with her lovers, while the underage Isabel II has been completely brainwashed by the gods and has become a fanatical religious element.

She firmly believes in the "sacred" concept of monarchy. Whenever someone puts forward an opinion to her, Isabel II's first reaction is to execute the other party.

The sanctity of the monarchy is more reactionary from a certain point of view than the divine right of the monarchy, but such a monarch naturally has the full support of the church, but they choose to turn a blind eye to the suffering of the secular people.

In desperation, people began to go to churches to pray that God would help them, and officials also held various religious ceremonies to take the opportunity to get closer to the church. After all, the most sensitive creatures in the world are officials.

Maybe God was really moved. Suddenly, there were large clouds in the sky, but it didn’t rain, and the sky became more and more cloudy. Later, people found that it was the volcanic ash produced by the volcanic eruption.
If we only look at the proportion of disasters, the Netherlands is the country most severely affected by potato late blight in the world. Because it inherited the Flemish region of Belgium, the whole country was troubled by the disease.

Among them, more than 95% of the potatoes in the Netherlands have become foul-smelling soap.

(Potato late blight causes fruit to rot and liquefy.)
As the "merchant king", King William II of the Netherlands did not want to pay for it himself, so the unlucky task of disaster relief fell on the governor of Batavia as far away as Nanyang.

The newly appointed Enzo Matekfar was elected by Caroline and naturally wanted to serve His Majesty the King. His appointment greatly strengthened the Dutch's control over the Indonesian colony.

The reason why Enzo Matekfar was not directly thrown to feed the crocodiles by those landowners was largely due to the protection of Umbrella Corporation.

Of course, this is also indispensable for the support of Chenla and Nanming, the two foreign aids. The Indonesian colony of the Netherlands is not bad, but their achievements over the past few hundred years are really lacklustre.

Even if they are both backward agricultural countries at this time, the agriculture of Chenla and Nanming is far stronger than that of the Dutch East Indies.

The local Dutch are used to playing badly, not to mention the natives ruled by them.Many local crops will become very important strategic resources in the future, especially quinine. If the planting area is not expanded, the process of the Austrian Empire going deep into the interior of Africa will be hindered.

However, Franz didn't want to make others cheaper, so he planned to lease Kalimantan Island, perhaps it is more appropriate to say that it is a joint development.

Anyway, the gold mine on Kalimantan Island was also lost at this time, and the Dutch didn't have much to commemorate. Those natives had as many as they had in the Dutch East Indies.

However, based on the principle of not being wasted, the Dutch in the Dutch East Indies negotiated with Franz on the condition that the Austrian Royal Development Company should pay the Dutch East Indies government labor fees, and they would send local aborigines to cooperate with the work.

But Franz didn't want those natives at all, he was going to replace them all with Chenla and Japanese immigrants.

In short, he is a local who doesn't want it, but fortunately, the Dutch East India government doesn't want to give it either.You must know that the price of labor at this time is not cheap. A Chinese laborer costs at least 100 pesos, and sometimes even sells for [-] pesos.

At that time, Chinese laborers wanted Eagle Ocean, that is, Mexican pesos. That is to say, a Chinese laborer cost at least 227 florins, and it might even cost 1135 florins if the times were not good.

Therefore, the hundreds of thousands of aborigines on Kalimantan Island are treasures in the eyes of the Dutch East Indies government, but in the eyes of Franz, it is a good thing that the aborigines are gone. After all, it can save a lot of unnecessary trouble.

Compared with the Dalits who are almost free, the price of Japanese immigrants is not much higher.

During the shogunate period, there were refugees everywhere, and it was worth picking some young and strong people from them to exchange for Austrian goods in the eyes of daimyos everywhere.

If it weren't for the lack of strength in the Austrian merchant fleet, the shogunate would like to send millions of immigrants here now.

Because the shogunate and daimyo from all over the world can use cheap foreign goods to hit the Japanese local market, so that they can regain economic dominance.

Facing the invasion of the two colonies of California and Hawaii, Japanese businessmen could not win even if they tried their best.

Some merchants once tried to eat all the goods on the market and forced the shogunate to make concessions, but the power of the international market made them sink directly into Osaka Bay.

During this period, the Austrian side actually earned more than the shogunate side, but in the eyes of the feudal dynasty, domestic stability is real.

Then, with the entry of foreign goods, a large number of handicraft factories were forced back, and handicraft workers lost their jobs. They also expanded the ranks of refugees and marginalized people.

But life for the daimyo and the samurai class got better. Not only could everyone eat white rice, but they also had cheap clothes to wear, and cheap sugar to make all kinds of cakes.

All kinds of weird foreign gadgets also entered the Japanese market, and the church didn't even have to continue to do things secretly.

The shogunate directly abolished the long-standing prohibition order, which is naturally due to the flexible moral bottom line of the missionaries.

As soon as Matsudaira Haruyue opened the shogunate special version of the "Bible", he was shocked. At the beginning of the book, there were eight big characters [Loyalty to the King and Love to the Fan, and God's Right to the King].

"Loyalty is detrimental to the country!"

Zhongli refers to Sakai Zhongli, the main promoter of the ban on religion in the Tokugawa Hidetada era.

Matsudaira Haruyake was about to hang these eight characters in his room immediately. The shogunate special version of the "Bible" was specially designed for the Japanese region. It was a precise and targeted missionary effect, which naturally could not be compared with those of primitive religions.

Songping Chunyue was actually quite reserved, and many feudal lords joined together with their important officials.

Franz also tailor-made plans for the lords to enrich the country and strengthen the army. Although Japan is an island country, it is surrounded by seas with rich fishery resources.

As a result, Americans who love fishing in the Sea of ​​Japan have become public enemies of the shogunate. Those fishing boats in the United States can't even deal with pirates, let alone warships.

In addition to fishery resources, Japan's mineral resources are also good, at least more profitable than farming, but the most valuable of them are human resources.

In fact, the feudal lords of these places are not stupid. They think that after Japan becomes stronger, it can stop trade with the Austrian Empire and continue its policy of closing the country.

However, it is still possible to occasionally sell some excess population.

(End of this chapter)