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

Chapter 1878 Clearing the Clouds and Seeing the Sun
Marco's heart skipped a beat, but he was one of the first to recover from the shock. In fact, Marco knew some inside information about the Austrian Empire's weapons research.

However, due to his low level, he only knew some rumors about those weapons, which were terrifying weapons that could overturn the understanding of the battlefield, just like the airship before.

Markley was relieved that it wasn't an airship that arrived, otherwise he really wouldn't have any weapons capable of attacking the air.

"Fire! Whatever it is! Fire!"

With a roar, fear finally overcame reason, and Macrae's men opened fire. The bullets struck the heavy armor, scattering sparks and making only a clanging sound.

The voice seemed to mock the rebels' laughable resistance.

Various shells and rockets fell like raindrops, but they only splashed everywhere like water droplets hitting rocks, just like a dazzling display of fireworks in the night.

After the initial frenzy, people gradually calmed down and fell into a deathly silence as the smoke slowly dissipated.

The scene the rebels had hoped for did not happen. The steel behemoth remained unmoved, and the scattered bullet marks seemed merely decorative. By this time, some had already dropped their rifles, knowing it was futile.

However, what followed was a series of mechanical friction sounds, and one by one the firing ports of the steel fortress were opened, from which revolver weapons emerged.

MacLeh's heart sank when he saw this through his binoculars. Could it be the legendary revolver machine gun? But the caliber was far too large.
However, he didn't have much time to think. Dozens of rotating cannons spat out tongues of fire at the same time, and muffled thunderclaps rang out continuously.

The soldiers in the front row were instantly blown to pieces, and a rebel officer watched as his teammates disappeared one by one around him as if by magic.

He tried to escape, but it was too late; he soon joined the disappearances.

A warhorse was hit, but instead of disappearing on the spot, it burst open from the middle, scattering its internal organs and excrement all over the surrounding soldiers.

There is nowhere to escape on the battlefield. Even if you hide behind cover, you will soon be shattered by the continuous artillery fire and turn into a red rain.

Fortunately, Markley was far enough away that he and his confidants hid in a warehouse with thick walls, but witnessing the massacre still made him feel sticky.

In fact, due to being so nervous, not only his urine output was reduced, but even his constipation was cured.

However, the attack was not over yet; the massive train cannon opened fire as well, and the huge shockwave seemed to shake even the previously unmoving steel fortress.

The shell landed precisely in the warehouse where Mark Rey was hiding, and the immense impact leveled the entire warehouse.

The battle didn't last long; all that remained was the smell of overheated metal and the still-smoking cannon barrels.

The enemy is almost non-existent.

The salvo from dozens of rotary cannons brought the battle to a close, and many died before they could even fully savor their suffering.

All that remained was a scene of utter devastation and the crackling of burning embers. The few remaining surviving rebels seemed to have lost their souls, even forgetting to cry and groan.

Faced with such absolute defense and firepower, all courage, tactics, efforts, and even fear itself are meaningless.

The protruding machine guns were retracted, and the firing ports were closed. Then the hatch opened, and squads of fully armed elite assault troops emerged.

There was no suspense; the rebellion was suppressed, and the remaining rebels had lost even the courage to escape, becoming nothing more than walking corpses.

It wasn't just the rebels who were shocked by this lightning-fast massacre; Colonel Monta and his men were also at a loss for words, as everything before them was beyond their previous understanding of war.

This made them wonder if the guns they held were truly useful. Could they possibly fight against this steel monster?
But clearly, that's not possible; even gua sha (scraping therapy) might not be possible. That feeling of helplessness would only lead to despair.
In fact, the Austrian Empire had already completed the development of the rotary machine gun, but Franz had a very low opinion of the Gatling gun and hoped to have a more complete machine gun.

To put it bluntly, Franz looked down on this kind of firearm. The hand-cranked Gatling gun back then was not the super weapon that shot blue flames and could kill zombies in later generations.

The firepower, rate of fire, and even failure rate of multi-barrel hand-cranked machine guns are not very stable. After all, they are purely manual, and jamming and barrel explosions are common occurrences.

Since we're talking about manual control, we have to mention proficiency and operating techniques. Gatling gunners need a lot of training to master the rhythm.

In addition, due to the limitations of early mechanical systems, archers also needed exceptional stamina; otherwise, they simply couldn't move the gun.
Moreover, it could not achieve true continuous fire, and the barrel had an extremely high failure rate. Even with steel barrels, the Austrian Empire could not fire for extended periods and still faced the risk of melting.

However, the Gatling gun of that era was similar to the modern Gatling gun in one respect: it was incredibly heavy, weighing tens or even hundreds of kilograms, and required a special vehicle to tow it, just like an infantry gun.

In fact, the Austrian Empire already had rotary machine guns that could be used in actual combat as early as 1848, but Franz never used them until the rebellion was quelled.

Because it's simply impractical, deploying a rotary machine gun is less cost-effective than deploying an infantry gun directly.

After receiving feedback, experts at the Austrian Imperial Arms Development Bureau also felt that this multi-barrel rotary machine gun was somewhat incongruous.

So they made some improvements.
There was a very bad practice in the Austrian Empire: the strong would throw bricks.

Experts in the Austrian Empire believed that the multi-barreled rotary machine gun had insufficient firepower and heat dissipation problems, so they enlarged, thickened, and weighed it, increased the amount of propellant, and increased the number of barrels.

So they built machine guns, but unlike the Hotchkiss machine guns used by the French army in history, which weighed only about 30 kilograms, the rotary cannons of the Austrian Empire at this time generally weighed more than one ton and required four heavy draft horses to pull them. At this time, it would have been a problem to transport them to Prague if they were not mounted on armored trains.

Then these guys found inspiration in the cooling of car engines and added water-cooling devices to machine guns. In fact, the Austrian Empire could have reversed back to machine gun technology by this time.

However, experts at the Austrian Imperial Arms Development Bureau believed that the lethality of the rotary machine gun was incomparable to that of the rotary cannon, so they skipped it.

From a purely practical standpoint, an armored train equipped with dozens of rotary cannons could be utterly devastating. They could unleash saturation firepower in a very short time, causing devastating damage to targets without cover or trenches.

After completing its mission, the armored train started moving again, and as the steel behemoth disappeared into the night, those present felt a sense of unreality.

But looking at the corpses scattered all over the ground and the raging fire, everything felt incredibly real.
Julius Jacob von Hainau was already used to the burnt and bloody smells entering his nostrils, and the hellish scene before him could not move him in the slightest.

"That's good. Where's the enemy?"

The messenger next to him nudged him, and Colonel Monta finally realized what was happening.

"Greetings, Your Excellency Marshal. The enemy should be here."

Hai Nao was already used to the scene of his vanguard collapsing as soon as they arrived, and he nodded.

"Colonel, return to the ranks. We are about to begin a full-scale crackdown." Because Maclay and the other rebel leaders were near the train station, the suppression operation proceeded very smoothly.

Franz was not surprised by this, but the rebellion had caused quite a stir; not only Prague, but the whole of Bohemia probably knew about it.

Thousands clashed in the streets, tens of thousands besieged the train station, and the ashes and bloody remains on the ground were impossible for others not to know about.

In fact, many sanitation workers were unaware of what had happened before, and some were even cursing while cleaning up the residue on the ground.

"What is this? I can't get it off no matter what I do?"

"This is all sticky and gooey, such extravagance. Is this a barbecue party? What a waste."

To be honest, Franz overestimated his ability to control the situation this time. He didn't think things would escalate this much; he was just being cautious to ensure there wouldn't be any mishaps.

The armored trains and Heinau were merely a deterrent; he didn't want war. However, in the Austrian Empire, the dream of completing reforms without bloodshed was ultimately too extravagant.

More than 5,000 soldiers from Prague were involved in the rebellion, half of whom died in the process of suppressing it.

Franz intends to execute the masterminds, core members, and those who refuse to repent; he has no interest in keeping them imprisoned any longer.

To be honest, Franz felt that imprisoning these key rebels would serve no purpose other than giving them a chance to turn the tide.

Franz didn't pity those people, nor did he think they could change their ways, and he had even less interest in showing them the development of Austria.

The Austrian Empire had no need to follow the latest trends in criminal law, and the proponents of immunity from execution could not sway Franz.

There was a near-consensus among European intellectuals at the time: to avoid death and punishment, and to replace physical punishment with imprisonment.

This approach appears more humane and idealistic, and can lead to repentance in criminals.

Bentham's concept of the "panopticon" spread widely in the 19th century, emphasizing the use of continuous surveillance to achieve psychological deterrence and moral reformation.

At the same time, many economists supported it, believing that prisoners were also an important source of labor and could generate revenue for the country to offset the costs of repression.

However, historically, this approach has often backfired, not only failing to "repent" but also becoming a breeding ground for radical ideas and even leading to the innovation of theories.

Moreover, in the 19th century, so-called prisons often became places where the wind could enter, the rain could enter, rebels could enter, and speculators could enter, but only the king could not enter.

Prisons not only fail to confine those people, but they also fail to control them, often turning moderates into radicals and radicals into even more radicals.

Of course, Franz was not the kind of person who liked to kill indiscriminately; he always felt that a public trial was a good practice.

However, Franz wouldn't act like the US when fighting terrorists—shooting first and then drawing the target. If he could find someone who wasn't guilty of any major crimes, Franz wouldn't mind locking them up and letting the bullets fly for a while.

At that time, those rebels, if not utterly heinous, would certainly not have been unjustly executed a dozen or so times, from a legal perspective.

In reality, Franz didn't need to consider fabricating charges against them or the possibility of wrongful executions. The judges sent by Vienna also had to try their best to calm public sentiment and keep the charges within an acceptable range, so as not to let hatred cloud public judgment and cause the situation to worsen.

If one had to sum up the actions of these rebels in a single sentence, it would be that none of them were human and they did nothing human.

Using phrases like "too numerous to count" or "utterly wicked" to describe them would be too simplistic, and their crimes or evils would be far too understated.

In comparison, the villains arrested in Vienna earlier seem not so evil as to have committed some crimes that cannot even be made public, as full disclosure could have too severe an impact.

Franz's only worry was that two-thirds of the rebels on the list provided by Prince Esterházy had already disappeared.

A significant portion of these people managed to escape in the chaos, while the rest either died in the fighting or found places to hide.

The hardest thing to confirm is death. For example, some people say that Mark Rey was killed by a shell, but his body was so badly mutilated that it was impossible to identify him. A blood-stained necklace alone can't prove anything.

Fortunately, after continuous excavation and piecing together, they finally found a body with two penetrating wounds on its left leg in the ruins of the warehouse.

MacRae was a cavalryman in his youth until he was shot twice in the leg.
Identifying the bodies was extremely difficult because, apart from a few important figures, very little information about their identities was available at the time.

However, no one cared about the bodies of those minor figures; the primary task was to confirm the deaths of the mastermind and core members.

In fact, Franz's main purpose in holding a public trial was to involve the public, to expose the truth and uphold justice, while preventing the emergence of so-called martyrs and victors.

The reason Macri made a last-ditch effort, waving the banner of Czech nationalism, was because that banner was so effective.

It's as if all evil disappears once this banner is raised, all his mistakes can be erased, and he can be hailed as a saint or hero simply by saying "judging by deeds, not intentions".

Franz will not give them that chance; he will smash everything they have left in this world to pieces, whether it be power or reputation.

But it's unclear how many people Franz's approach will actually awaken; he can only do his best to reduce the number of extreme nationalists.

Franz never claimed that any one ethnic group was superior to others within the Austrian Empire; he never did, he doesn't now, and he's even less likely to do so in the future.

The nature of the Austrian Empire dictated that it could not grant excessive rights to any one ethnic group unless they were Austrians.

When the public is willing to fully cooperate, the government's efficiency can reach an unimaginable level.

Thanks to tips from the public, the people on the list hiding in Prague were quickly apprehended, and the Austrian Empire's border surveillance agencies also made every effort to bring most of those who tried to escape to justice.

In addition, the core members, whose whereabouts were even more elusive, were also arrested during the subsequent public trial.

However, a few big fish have yet to surface, namely Count Cherny and the Prague police chief, Hašek.

On the contrary, the supposedly extraordinary Chairman Ger was betrayed by his subordinates as soon as he left Prague, and ended up with his body abandoned in the wilderness.

Apart from these few fish, everyone else has been apprehended, and the entire local power has been destroyed. The dark cloud that has shrouded Bohemia for hundreds of years has finally been torn apart and dispelled.

(End of this chapter)