War Palace and Knee Pillow, Austria’s Destiny

Starting in October 1840, a large amount of cotton from West Africa flooded into the Austrian domestic market. An adequate supply of raw materials allowed Franz's factory to be fully operational and produce finished products.

Subsequently, the ready-made clothes that left the factory were not only spread throughout the empire through railway transportation, but also flowed into the markets of Germany and the Apennines through the convenience of the customs union.

Most of the target users of these ready-to-wear products belong to workers and lower-middle-class groups, and they happen to live in cities distributed around transportation hubs.

A large number of cheap clothes quickly overwhelmed those self-righteous tailor shops.

Except for a few stores that sell high-end goods, they have directly suffered a Waterloo-style blow to dimensionality reduction in the mid- to low-end clothing market.

Relying on the advantages from later generations and the aesthetics that are nearly two hundred years ahead of this era, coupled with the help of a group of royal tailors, Franz's factories have successfully designed a large number of trend-setting ready-to-wear styles.

However, he clearly realized that in order to maintain his position as a leader in the clothing industry, relying on his own strength alone was far from enough. So he sent someone to contact the Vienna Academy of Arts and asked them to send a professional team to help him train fashion designers.

The Vienna Academy of Arts is a public college founded in 1692. It is one of the oldest art academies in Europe, but at this time it has long lost its original glory.

Historically, with the decline of the Austrian Empire and the decline in government funding and the scarcity of social donations, in order to maintain daily expenses and livelihoods, its senior officials had no choice but to reduce the admission rate of publicly funded students, making it the most difficult exam in Europe. One of the art colleges.

To make matters worse, instead of attending art colleges, aristocrats and wealthy businessmen preferred to go to a "real top university" such as the University of Vienna.

However, thanks to the butterfly effect, the Austrian economy was booming at this time, and the empire's fiscal revenue soared, which allowed many public schools to benefit from the support of public funds again.

Thanks to the success of the German Zollverein, Austria became a gathering place for a large number of highly educated and highly qualified North German talents. Among them, Vienna, the heart of the empire, had an even greater concentration of elites.

For nobles and businessmen, how to use "wisdom" or "academic qualifications" to show their differences is a problem that has always troubled them, so art appreciation has become their unique weapon.

In order to integrate into local life, high-quality talents flowing in from other regions have also joined this vast army of art appreciation.

And those wandering artists who should have stayed in parks and cemeteries and slept in soup kitchens were all pulled out to perform for everyone in public places.

In the past, only large-scale events or infrastructure projects led by the royal family could benefit them and obtain a job with a relatively stable income, such as celebrations for the emperor's birthday, public works completion ceremonies, and Franz and a number of well-known celebrities. "A Thousand Years Against the Waves" created publicly by masters in the music industry and so on. . .

Due to the increasing prosperity of the art appreciation market and the accompanying fierce competition, the prices of almost all handicrafts have been pulled to a very low level. Of course, the income of the scroll kings who can still win under this situation is not as good as before. Same thing.

In theory, in this era of booming art and economic development, there should be no reason for a long-established institution like the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts to decline.

However, the competition in the art world in Vienna has reached a life-and-death level, resulting in the job income obtained by many students after graduation being less than that of wandering painters on the street.

This has raised serious doubts about the quality and level of teaching at this ancient college.

At the same time, potential female students, who were supposed to be an important source of funding for the Vienna Academy of Arts, all chose the Royal Academy for Women in Vienna.

In the past, some great nobles who doted on their daughters would send them to the art academy in the capital of the empire, so that the girls could be released without violating the morals of the nobles.

However, with the emergence of the Royal Academy for Women in Vienna, many nobles changed their original intentions.

Although Vienna can be said to be relatively relaxed in terms of women's education, the mainstream of society still believes that this is a waste of money and the cultivation of "witches."

This time, the royal family took the initiative. If the monarch at this time was a normal person without mental or physical illness, some people might still raise objections.

But after the debate in Vienna's Central Park, no one felt that way anymore.

After all, Ferdinand I and his younger brother Archduke Franz Karl did not fall into the category of normal people, so no one would care about their victory or defeat, but if it were their turn, the consequences would be completely different. If you lose, your reputation will be ruined at best, and your body will be shattered into pieces at worst.

Originally, the Habsburg royal family was known for its kindness, but with the revival of church power, their instinctive vigilance made their willingness to act as the royal black glove stronger than before.

The reason is very simple. No one in the empire except the royal family can rule the church. "Since you can't beat them, then join them" has always been the way for nobles to survive.

But in this way, the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts lost an important source of income.

At this time, they can only choose to be strict in and out to improve their reputation again.

And Franz's proposal, like the rain, brought it back to life.

In addition to the fashion design major, at Franz's suggestion, the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts also opened advertising, journalism, architecture and other majors.

However, at this time, Austria's cotton production in the African colonies was still too small. After a brief period of madness, the problem of insufficient raw materials once again plagued the entire Austrian clothing industry.

Just when the Central European countries thought they had finally got a chance to breathe, the newly elected president of the United States announced the first presidential order.

"Give the Austrian Empire most-favored-nation status and dump large amounts of cotton into it."

It stands to reason that this order is quite satisfactory. It is understandable that the Americans would do this in order to seize the cotton market.

But at this critical time point, it dealt a heavy blow to Germany and the countries on the Apennine Peninsula.

This order was equivalent to cutting off the possibility of the other Central European countries' comeback at the source.

Massive amounts of American cotton flowed into Austria, were processed into cotton cloth and clothes through factories in the empire, and then poured into the Central European market.

Their streets and alleys are almost filled with finished clothing products from Austria, making it impossible for other countries to compete with them. Whether in terms of quality, price or style, Austrian products have an absolute advantage that is unmatched.

Many economists are worried that after monopolizing the clothing market, the Austrians will take the initiative to raise prices in order to seek higher profits.

Prussia, in particular, has thrown out a lot of conspiracy theories to slander Austria and the Habsburg royal family.

However, what is surprising is that Austria not only did not make a fuss about price increases, but also actively informed the public through announcements that its clothing products would be sold at reduced prices, saying that this would allow more middle- and lower-class people to enjoy Get the convenience you deserve.

Of course, different places have different propaganda models. For example, the public slogan in the German Confederation is "Let every German have clothes to wear."

In Austria, the slogan is of course "Let every Austrian have clothes to wear." In the Apennines, the rhetoric is different.

In short, this time, Franz not only made a lot of money, but also took the opportunity to gain a good reputation.

In fact, selling at reduced prices is a more long-term strategy, because it raises the threshold of the industry and makes it difficult for competitors from other countries to compete with it.

As for those who are unemployed, this is an excellent opportunity to encourage them to choose to work in Austria.

After all, the railway transportation in Neletania is now so convenient, and even if you can't work as a worker, you can still choose to work in agriculture in Transletania.

If none of the above methods work, there is still a good way out to overseas colonies.