Chapter 550: Rashness

Vienna, Schönbrunn Palace.

A piece of news made Franz laugh and cry. Austria had rejected the agreement to annex Montenegro twice at the negotiation table, and even rejected the Montenegrin Archbishop's initiative application not long ago.

But now something even more outrageous has happened. The Montenegrins have revolted in order to join the Austrian Empire and overthrown the regime that has ruled the local area since 1389.

Montenegro is a country with a combination of politics and religion. Although it has been surrounded by the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years, it has never surrendered.

However, this country is not a real theocracy. The church is only a nominal leader, and is actually controlled by several local big families.

Franz hates such regions with too strong local power, and there are already too many such powerful "warlords" in the Austrian Empire.

In fact, the reason why the Montenegrins want to join the Austrian Empire is mainly because they have seen the changes in Western Bosnia over the years.

The former "Laiya" became the owner of the land, and they got a lot of food, farm tools, clothing, and even weapons.

("Laiya" means livestock in Ottoman, which is the so-called third class of people. In the past, the first class was obviously Bosniaks, the second class was the Serbs with a larger number, and the third class was Croatians.)

Those "Laiya" were once the "free-range" livestock of the Montenegrins. The land of Montenegro is mountainous and too barren to grow crops on a large scale or feed too many livestock.

So the local population has been unable to exceed 100,000 for a long time, and in fact the local land resources can only provide food for two-thirds of the population at most.

Plunder is necessary. Almost everyone in Montenegro is a robber, who makes a living by robbing all year round. Of course, if the price is right, they will also become mercenaries.

The Montenegrin Army was once famous in Europe for its cruelty and bloodthirstiness. They were excellent hunters and nightmares for the city defenders.

The Montenegrin Army climbed the city wall in red cloaks and steel knives in their mouths. Their appearance has almost become a stereotype of barbarian attackers for Europeans.

After the 19th century, the long-term stable life made the population of Montenegro surge, and it has exceeded 130,000.

However, with the annexation of Western Bosnia to Austria, those "animals" who would only hide in the corner and tremble, now took up arms and would never retreat in the face of invaders.

The wisdom of the robbers is to "pick the soft persimmon", so they had to plunder in the Ottoman Empire.

However, the barren land of the Ottoman Empire could not support the "huge" population of Montenegro at this time, and further penetration would make them lose the protection of the mountains, and they would be easily defeated by the cavalry.

This group of highland desperadoes once jumped back and forth between the Habsburg family and Tsarist Russia, so the Austrian Empire had a low evaluation of this rotten land.

In fact, in order to prevent Montenegro from falling to the Austrian side, Russia provided them with an allowance every year. (Starting from 1796)

However, this allowance was only 10,000 rubles per year, which was too little for Montenegro in 1844. Compared with the stingy Tsar, the Habsburg family was too generous.

The latter allowed the "Laiyas" in Western Bosnia to govern themselves, and then invested tens of millions of florins every year. Schools, hospitals, churches rose from the ground, and the Austrians even built railways here.

The Western Bosnia region is suitable for the growth of immortelle, which was a very precious spice in Europe in the 19th century.

At the same time, due to the development of traditional Chinese medicine in the Austrian Empire, the demand for Chinese herbal medicines has been surging, and it is obviously unrealistic to transport them from Asia.

Then the poor and remote land of Western Bosnia was found to be very suitable for the cultivation of some Chinese herbal medicines, especially Aristolochiaceae plants.

And the royal farms have special people to check, at least those farmers never have to worry about how to sell their products.

Of course, the money will eventually return to Franz's hands, after all, those farmers need to consume, and almost all local industries belong to the royal family.

But anyway, the Western Bosnians have indeed become rich and can live with dignity, which makes the Montenegrins very envious.

So there was a scene where the Archbishop of Montenegro came to Vienna to ask for shelter, but the Austrian side was very disgusted with him. It was hard to satisfy people from the perspective of history or his behavior.

Franz tried his best to stop it. Although Austria's evaluation of Croatians was warm and friendly, he knew very well that it was only for Germans.

In fact, Croatians are not generally xenophobic. Franz's partition was to prevent the Bosnian War from happening again.

Serbs and Croatians are still of the same origin. If it were Montenegrins, Franz really didn't know what these guys could do.

Now the Montenegrins have launched an uprising and directly hung up the double eagle flag, which made Franz speechless.

In fact, the members of the Regency Council were also speechless.

"I have never seen such a shameless person! They say they are Austrians, so they are Austrians?! Have we agreed?!" Count Korolav slammed the table.

Metternich: "Don't worry, I think the Russians and the Ottomans may have different views..."

"Prime Minister, the Russian ambassador congratulates our country."

"Prime Minister, the Ottoman ambassador congratulates our country"

"Bang" This time it was Metternich's turn to smash the cup.

"Damn bastards! Why don't you protest today?!"

Count Latour: "Why are you like this? I think the terrain of Montenegro is good, but don't forget the grand plan of Emperor Joseph the Great."

"Then civil strife broke out and the people were in dire straits? What's the use of that piece of rotten land?!" Count Korolaf said sarcastically.

Count Latour: "You said before that Western Bosnia was a bad land, but in just a few years it has become a model colony."

(For the Austrian nobility, Western Bosnia is actually regarded more as a colony than as a territory of the Austrian Empire, even if it bears the title of royal territory.)

Count Korolav snorted coldly and then said: "Do you know how much money the empire invests in West Bosnia every year? Do you know how much the royal family invests in West Bosnia?

you do not know! That money is enough for you to expand the Austrian Empire's army to 600,000! "

"So many?" Count Latour looked in disbelief.

"Then what should we do now? They want to join us. Do we need to send troops to stop them?"

Metternich: "This is a way. We can send an army to help Montenegro restore order."

"What do the royal family think?"

Grand Duke Louis: "I think it is a good thing for Montenegro to join. After all, it will increase local tax revenue."

Count Korolav: "That is the largest bandit den in Europe. If you don't want to suppress bandits every day in the future, it's best to give up this idea."

The final decision fell to Emperor Ferdinand I and his brother Archduke Franz Karl.