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

Chapter 1368 Copper

The development of agriculture in the Austrian Empire was inseparable from the efforts of the two agricultural ministers, in addition to Franz's constant intervention and the contributions of the Royal Society of Sciences.

Tyndale was responsible for administrative management and Mendel was responsible for technical research and development.

Tindall started out as a farm manager and later became an agricultural tycoon with a deep understanding of agriculture and the market.

Tyndall himself was not short of money, or rather, he valued power more than money. The wealth that Tyndall had accumulated throughout his life was nothing compared to the power of the Austrian Minister of Agriculture.

Now, with just one piece of official document, he can make countless people like him go bankrupt or even commit suicide by jumping into the river.

In Tyndall's opinion, those corrupt officials who were willing to sacrifice their lives for money were crazy. Of course, he was also very grateful to those idiots, otherwise a small person like him would never be able to achieve such a status in his next life.

Tyndall was full of admiration and awe for Franz, and in his eyes, the former was even more majestic than the church and the government had portrayed him to be.

Mendel had a deep connection with Franz. From the earliest breeding of fine varieties to the later funding from the royal family when he went to college, the former had always been favored by the latter.

Under the guidance of Mendel and Franz, all crops and livestock in the Austrian Empire were crossbred. Although it sounds a bit outrageous, it was actually very effective.

Mendel himself was very knowledgeable about biology. In this life, he did not drop out of school because of poverty, nor did he study classical philosophy. Instead, he studied biology smoothly at the highest institution of learning in the Austrian Empire.

At this time, Mendel was definitely an expert among experts, but the so-called technical supervision did not require him to guide the development of agricultural technology one by one, but to ensure that these studies were not a waste of time and money.

For example, the Austrian Empire conducted dozens of studies on perpetual motion machines, but all of them failed because, according to the review of technical officials, these studies had no theoretical possibility of success.

As for whether academic cliques would emerge, Franz was not worried about this because, apart from some secret research, other research was carried out in parallel and decided by voting from multiple departments. No one except Franz had a veto.

Of course, if you are really desperate, you can also consider publishing articles in "Nature" or "Science" to prove yourself.

Franz regularly invites some well-known foreign scholars to participate in the compilation of these academic journals, so the possibility of cheating is almost zero.

In addition, Franz also introduced an academic supervision and accountability mechanism, and academic monopoly, academic misconduct, and academic fraud must be severely punished.

Rabbit farming and fish farming also improved, but they were still not as good as other livestock farming industries. Especially the freshwater fish farming in the Austrian Empire, which has not escaped the loss situation until now.

But overall it's not a big problem and everything will get better slowly.

During the Industrial Age, the Austrian Empire's demand for steel soared, but with the advent of generators and advances in oxygen production technology, the Austrian Empire's top-blown converter method was basically completed.

The top-blown converter process is an all-round improvement over the basic open-hearth process (Martin process) previously used by the Austrian Empire. It is not only more efficient, consumes less energy, but also has more stable quality.

The only problem was that the technology was not mature enough and unimaginable accidents often occurred. Even so, the steel production of the Austrian Empire at that time was unimaginable to other countries in the world.

Historically, in 1850 Britain's pig iron production was 225 million tons, four times that of France, ten times that of the Austrian Empire, and eleven times that of Prussia.

However, at that time, the Austrian Empire's pig iron production had far exceeded that of Britain, reaching an astonishing 410 million tons, so Franz dared to carry out such unscrupulous construction.

And with the continuous injection of funds, the gap will become more and more exaggerated until other countries also start technological innovation. In the aluminum industry, due to the emergence of Siemens generators, the price of aluminum, which was once as expensive as gold, fell by three quarters in less than a year.

Franz was well aware that the secret of electrolytic aluminum production could not be kept secret. In fact, if the royal factory had not kept the secret strict enough, this technology would have spread long ago.

Instead of continuing to carefully make a little money all day long, it is better to expand production, lower prices, and raise the entry threshold to build your own fortress.

This is what is called "conquering the enemy without fighting."

The resources of the Austrian Empire seem to be very complete in the eyes of later generations, but in 1850 the Austrian Empire was a country that was very short of copper mines, and the copper mines in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Transylvania had not yet been discovered.

Slovakia's copper mines have been exhausted, with only two small, deep and low-quality mines in Tyrol and Styria.

Historically, the copper production of the Austrian Empire was less than one-hundredth of that of Britain and less than one-fifth of that of Prussia. If Franz had not obtained a large amount of copper from Cambodia and Japan, it would have been difficult for the Austrian Empire to issue copper coins.

However, even if a large amount of copper was purchased from Zhenla and Japan, it could not meet the needs of the development of the Austrian Empire, let alone the subsequent electrical era.

Vienna, Hofburg Palace.

Franz did not like holding meetings, and the thriving Austrian Empire at that time did not require meetings.

In fact, middle and low-level officials all felt that the emperor had become slack. Since his wedding, he rarely convened ministers from various departments for meetings.

Only the ministers of various ministries knew that Franz did not neglect state affairs, but after the Spanish War and the Anti-French War, the Austrian Empire did not have any major issues concerning life and death.

After reading the reports from various departments, Franz would meet with the ministers of each department individually to inquire about the details or assign tasks.

However, this time it requires coordinated actions of multiple departments, so Franz convened a royal meeting.

In fact, the content is very simple. Franz disliked the inefficiency of the Japanese and Cambodians in mining copper, so he wanted to help them and set up a joint development company.

However, this time, the Austrian Empire will not only invest and distribute dividends, but will also build smelters directly in Zhenla and Japan to directly improve local production efficiency.

"Your Majesty, please forgive me for being frank. I think setting up factories abroad may lead to the leakage of our country's technology, which may be detrimental to our country."

The Minister of Science and Technology, Duke Warnick, was the first to stand up and express his strong dissatisfaction.

Franz never expected that it would be Duke Wernicke who would stand up against him first, and his opposition was from such a strange angle. How could this be related to a technology leak in the 19th century?
"Technology leak?"

When Franz said this, Prince Wernicke became furious.

It turned out that when Franz got married, the members of the Japanese delegation did not leave immediately after the celebration but wandered around.

It would have been fine if they were just wandering around, but they also stole a large number of technical and military books from the National Library, and some even sneaked into factories to replicate the mechanical models of the Austrian Empire.