War Palace and Knee Pillow, Austria’s Destiny

In the gap between two rows of luxurious buildings, in a corner where the sun could not shine in, Hugo lit the second match.

The aroma of fried carp entered his nostrils. French people rarely eat carp, and they prefer to eat oysters at Christmas.

The French eat oysters really raw, with at most a few drops of lemon juice or ginger juice. At this time, Hugo recalled the days when he had red wine and oysters in Paris.

At that time, French oysters were very cheap and were once called poor people's food. However, after some people began to associate oysters, truffles with certain abilities, wild oysters in France were almost extinct.

There is a poem that praises: "There is spring all year round in the Louvre, and the frogs in Europe are new. I eat three hundred oysters a day, and I will live a long life as a Gaul."

(The French are also called European frogs because they eat everything, such as snails, rabbits, and frogs, foods that Europeans usually don’t eat...)

In fact, Franz's carp breeding plan was ultimately successful, but he did not use the famous Asian carp, but the European native mirror carp, which is often referred to as the "three scales" in the East in later generations.

Compared with the slow Asian carp, the mirror carp is more alert and faster, and its breeding speed is much higher than that of its Asian counterpart (20% higher), so it can live in European rivers where there are a lot of predatory fish. .

There is really no technical content in carp farming. This kind of fish has no dreams. As long as it has food and drink, it will reproduce like crazy, with large output and strong disease resistance.

How could such excellent ingredients not attract the attention of Europeans? In fact, during the Middle Ages, Europeans raised a large number of carps. At its peak, France alone had nearly 80,000 hectares of fish ponds.

However, with the advent of the Age of Discovery, it became very easy to obtain marine fish, especially the Dutch herring fishing industry that directly overtook the European carp farming industry.

Marine fish have greater advantages than freshwater fish. Not only do they have less earthy smell and fewer spines, but they are also very cheap. At that time, fishing was more stable than farming.

This was mainly because the population in Europe was too small at that time, and the cost of carp farming was too high at that time. Coupled with the impact of a series of wars such as the Thirty Years' War, this jointly led to the depression of the carp breeding industry.

So when Franz proposed the carp farming plan, the church that was most opposed to it was the church that usually supported him the most.

Because the carp breeding industry used to be dominated by the church, but because of this, they know better than anyone else how low the profits in this industry are and how high the risks are. After all, there are a lot of floods in Austria, and several large rivers often overflow.

At this time, the carp breeding industry is still facing a very embarrassing situation, that is, those who can afford it do not eat it, and those who eat it cannot afford it.

In the past, the price of one kilogram of carp was equivalent to more than 8 kilograms of beef or 20 loaves of bread. However, due to the advent of the Age of Discovery and the introduction of large quantities of marine fish to European dining tables, the price of carp has been reduced to a very low level.

After the 16th century, nobles and businessmen found sea fish that tasted better and were easier to cook. As for the poor who could not even eat meat, they were even less likely to waste their hard-earned savings on carp.

But something is different now, that is, with the development of the times, the citizen class has stepped onto the stage of history. These people do not have the spending power of the aristocracy, and at the same time they are not willing to associate with the peasants.

Coupled with Austria's cultural and historical traditions, Franz feels that carp farming is completely interesting. As for the water quality issues plaguing the church, Franz thinks it is not difficult to solve.

Carp is actually a bottom fish. As long as grass carp and silver carp are added, the water quality can be self-purified, and some shellfish can be raised to complete the self-cycle.

It's just that three-dimensional breeding and the like were considered crazy by people at the time. A group of zoologists even stood up and refuted Franz's nonsense.

"Archduke Franz! How is it possible for three families to live in a small house?"

"They can live in the attic, ground floor and basement respectively."

"How is that possible? They are just a group of animals. Even if it is true as I told you, there is no way to avoid friction between the three families."

"Sir, but they are not people. Animals are sometimes more disciplined than people."

Franz's words left a group of zoologists speechless, but they were all aggrieved and waiting for a good show.

However, the reality is that the fish really coexist peacefully, which directly triples the output of the unit fish pond.

As for the reproduction of grass carp and silver carp, it is said to be one of the ten impossible problems in the history of human agriculture, but in Franz’s eyes it really doesn’t matter.

After all, the problems that have troubled mankind for thousands of years can be easily solved by even a rural aunt in future generations. "Pituitary suspension" is the key. Although it sounds very noble, it is actually the brain of a fish entering the mating period.

Since the Austrians were not obsessed with eating fish heads anyway, Franz simply kept the fish heads and removed the brains to stimulate the reproduction of grass carp and silver carp.

After several years of experimentation, these technologies have basically matured. Therefore, the output of farmed freshwater fish in the Austrian Empire in 1845 directly reached 1,000 tons, equivalent to the entire Austria, and each person could be allocated 20 grams.

However, this is only in the experimental stage, and there is definitely hope to expand this number a hundred times in the future. The food and grass were not yet moved, but the soldiers and horses went first. Although Franz's fish pond had not been dug yet, he decided to put out the advertisement first.

1,000 tons of freshwater fish may be a joke to the Austrian Empire, but it is definitely a saturation blow to the citizens of Vienna.

At this time, almost every household in Vienna was cooking carp, but Austrians only had two ways to cook fish, either fried or grilled.

In short, the smell of carp is everywhere in Vienna at Christmas, and Franz also used this "carp disaster" to change people's inherent perception of carp prices.

By the way, the Austrian Empire's marine fishery catch at this time was only slightly stronger than that of the Kingdom of Sardinia, with a total volume of about 18,000 tons, but 90% of these fish were eaten by the Italians.

The Kingdom of Sardinia is slightly weaker than the Austrian Empire, with an annual catch of about 16,000 tons, France's catch of about 40,000 tons, and the British Empire's catch of about 100,000 tons.

In later generations, the freshwater fish production of a certain Eastern country was 32 million tons, so Franz's freshwater fish breeding plan is still very promising.

Back to business, the hungry Hugo lit the third match, and a figure that seemed familiar yet unfamiliar appeared in front of him.

"Adele?" Hugo felt like he was hallucinating. After patting his forehead, he realized that the person in front of him was Miss Tina.

(Adele Hugo, the youngest daughter of Victor Hugo.)

"Mr. Hugo, I can't find you in the hotel. The hotel owner said you checked out. What are you doing here?"

Tina asked with concern. In fact, she had known Hugo's movements for a long time. After all, Franz couldn't really let a generation of writers freeze to death in Vienna.

"I made you laugh, Miss Tina. I didn't have money to pay the rent, and I didn't want to be kicked out, so I left by myself." Hugo said slightly apologetically.

"Mr. Hugo, I told you to do what you can."

"I just think you should succeed." Hugo said very sincerely.

"But you are not the sun after all. You can't just give without taking anything!"

"That's what you said." Hugo smiled miserably, but he felt much better and turned to leave.

At this time, Tina pulled Hugo's sleeve.

"Why are you going?"

"I have no idea."

"Why don't you come and sit at my house?"

Hugo spent an unforgettable Christmas Eve, but when he woke up again he was already sitting in a first-class carriage heading to Venice.

The pocket watch and ring that had been pawned off were all recovered. The suitcase left at the hotel was at my feet. Even my beard was clean shaven.

A lot of things seem to have happened in the past few months, but nothing seems to have happened.