Compared to household automobiles, trucks and tractors are actually more favored by consumers in the market. The former is a luxury item that can only consume wealth; the latter is a means of production that can create more wealth. Rich people aren’t fools, they know the difference between the two. When it comes to making choices, they naturally base their decisions on their actual needs. Generally speaking, urban capitalists are more inclined toward cars, because cars can showcase their noble status and supposedly bring them convenience in the business world. Well, that’s more of a psychological illusion. Unless someone is out trying to scam others by flaunting wealth, the effect is minimal. In real business negotiations, everything still depends on the deal itself. When interests are at stake, no one gives in easily. The real function of a car is probably to impress one’s subordinates, to subtly flaunt wealth and signal: “The boss is rich, there’s no need to worry.” As for trucks and tractors, besides transportation companies, most buyers are rural farm owners and some members of the nobility. Farmers have a real need for them. Unlike the high-priced automobiles, tractors were defined as low-cost vehicles from the moment they were invented. This wasn’t Franz’s doing. In an agricultural powerhouse like Austria, once a miraculous tool like the tractor was discovered, it would’ve been strange if the Austrian government hadn’t gotten involved. Since 1883, the Austrian government has issued decrees granting tax exemptions to tractor manufacturing companies and encouraging them to sell tractors to farmers at low prices. Up to now, several state-owned enterprises have entered the tractor manufacturing industry, directly driving down the selling prices. Compared to the high profit margins of cars, tractors are truly sold at bargain prices. Dual-purpose tractors used for both hauling and plowing are priced at just 200–300 guilders on the market, while single-purpose ones can be bought for as low as 150 guilders. Of course, you get what you pay for. While they offer decent utility, don’t expect any comfort. To reduce production costs, some manufacturers don’t even bother including seats, consumers have to buy the tractor and install the seat themselves. Thick, choking exhaust and loud “putt-putt-putt” engine noises… If user experience were a factor, most people would probably give it a zero. In comparison, trucks can be seen as modified versions of cars. Essentially, they add a cargo section in the back and a few extra cylinders for power. They’re more comfortable than tractors, but still not on par with cars. Price-wise, they fall somewhere in between. After all, trucks are bulkier but technically simpler to produce, which means slightly lower production costs. If it weren’t for transportation limitations, trucks would likely have spread faster than cars, which mostly operate within cities or nearby areas. As soon as they hit the market, trucks were favored by the nobility. Whether it was transporting grain and vegetables from home to the city for sale, or hauling gear for a hunting trip, trucks were far more convenient than horse-drawn carriages. Showing off status and wealth was something only the nouveau riche cared about. Ever since the Revolutions of 1848, Austria’s nobility had grown more low-key. The emerging capitalists had taken over the role of society’s scapegoats, a fact that was evident in the daily newspapers. Most news stories exposing social issues featured nouveau riche capitalists or second-generation elites as the villains. By contrast, there were fewer spoiled brats among the nobility though that might be because society didn’t give them much room to act out. Noble children had more responsibilities, and once they came of age, nearly all of them served in the military for a few years. By the time they returned home, they were older and no longer naive teens. They’d learned to think before acting. In reality, the nobility had their fair share of scandals with bizarre affairs and illegitimate pregnancies happening often. But these people were mindful of their family reputations. Aside from a few fools, most of them knew how to keep things quiet and stay out of the spotlight. Compared to the old aristocracy, the newly risen military nobility often lacked experience in handling such matters. Many of them, once in power, became obsessed with authority and caused even more trouble. To Franz, these were all minor issues. If things didn’t come to light, then everyone could get along just fine, and as Emperor, he would never know about them anyway. If something did get exposed, then each case would be dealt with according to Austrian law. Watching one chicken after another get slaughtered eventually had an effect. Whether or not it scared the monkeys was unclear, but the remaining chickens were definitely frightened. TN: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kill_the_chicken_to_scare_the_monkey With the booming development of the automobile industry, many related sectors also benefited from this new industrial chain. Steel, machinery manufacturing, petrochemicals, and several other industries clearly saw a faster pace of growth in recent years. Take the steel industry as an example. While it might seem that the current automobile production capacity is not very high and doesn’t consume much steel annually, the type of steel required for automobiles is high-grade. It is either refined steel or specialized military-grade steel, not a pile of scrap metal that needs to be remelted. The customer is king. If there is market demand, there will be supply. As long as the money is in place, everything can be negotiated. There is no law in Austria that prohibits military-grade steel from being used for civilian purposes. In the past, no one used it simply because it was too expensive. Now, things are different. Low-end vehicles cannot afford such advanced materials, but luxury models must be equipped with them. Thanks to this favorable development, in just the first half of 1885, Austria’s output of special steel exceeded 50,000 tons. In contrast, the entire annual production capacity in 1880 was only a modest 30,000 tons. … Economic development is not always smooth sailing. As time flew by, trouble arose by the end of 1885. Franz asked in surprise, “There is a problem with transportation? What kind of problem?” This is no exaggeration. In this era, if Austria’s domestic transportation was said to be the second best in the world, no one would dare claim to be first. An extensive railway network connected cities large and small across Austria. On a map, it looked like a dense spiderweb. Austria’s rapid economic growth owed much to this “railway spiderweb.” It can be said that without convenient transportation, there would be no Austrian Empire as it stands today. Minister of Transport Steirens explained, “From the perspective of the empire as a whole, our transportation system is still at a world-leading level. However, serious congestion has begun to appear in some areas. The problem mainly affects several of the empire’s major industrial cities. Over the past few years, as populations have surged, transportation pressure has increased day by day. Especially after the invention of the automobile, the original city planning can no longer keep up with the pace of development. Currently, the problems are mainly concentrated in: Prague, Pilsen, Brno, Ostrava, Munich, Stuttgart, Chemnitz, Linz, Milan, and other established industrial cities. Due to the high population, traffic jams are common during peak commuting hours. Many people waste over half an hour just trying to squeeze onto public transportation. By comparison, the situation is much better in newer industrial cities in the southern part of the empire such as Belgrade, Sarajevo, Zagreb, and Bucharest. Besides the cities themselves, another issue is that the roads we built earlier are too narrow. On many sections, two large trucks can barely pass each other.” These problems were all inevitable. Even though the old industrial cities underwent upgrades and renovations, these were carried out on the existing foundations, without any major overhauls to the city structures. Thirty years ago, those modifications seemed more than sufficient to meet the demand. The planners at the time did not possess the ability to foresee the future, and it never occurred to them that Austria’s development would progress so rapidly. Franz was not an expert in urban planning either, so even if he wanted to intervene, there was no clear way to do so. Besides, at the time, the Austrian government was heavily in debt. The empty state coffers quickly put an end to any of Franz’s ambitions for massive reconstruction projects. Three decades later, the problems have surfaced and now require government intervention. The industrial cities in the south were all developed at a later stage. By the time these regions were being built up, the financial situation of the Austrian government had already started to improve. Moreover, these areas had fewer historical burdens and less pre-existing infrastructure, so there was nothing to lose by tearing things down and starting fresh. As a result, the southern cities were much more modern and had far greater traffic capacity. “Congestion” is also a relative concept. Compared to the traffic jams seen in cities of the future, waiting thirty minutes for a bus is nothing. At least it is better than waiting at a bus stop for more than half an hour, only to move forward a few hundred meters, slower than walking on foot. Urban traffic needs improvement, but the transportation outside the cities is an even bigger problem. Before the invention of the automobile, Austria’s roads were considered top-tier in Europe. However, carriage roads and modern highways are two completely different concepts. The former were meant for horses and, at most, considered the passage of horse-drawn carriages. Thirty years ago, automobiles were all bulky steam-powered machines. They were fine for hauling minerals in mines but never designed with road traffic in mind. Dirt roads have an incredibly long service life. After years of patching and maintenance, many of the old roads are still functioning today. There was no concept of building highways in advance, because roads also have a limited lifespan. If they had been constructed ahead of time, they likely would have worn out before cars even became widely available. Solving these problems now would inevitably require a new round of major infrastructure projects. Chancellor Karl objected, saying, “In the short term, we are not in a position to launch another wave of large-scale construction. At least not until the first phase of the Near East Development Plan is completed. The government should not get distracted. The issue of urban traffic congestion can be handled by the Ministry of Transportation through improved management or by increasing the number of public buses to expand capacity as much as possible. Although this will not solve the problem fundamentally, it should buy us some time. As for roads outside the cities, they were never intended for automobiles, so it is natural that they cannot meet current demands. In theory, we would need to upgrade all roads across the country to satisfy such requirements. But we all know that is not a realistic solution. Building a national highway network would cost only slightly less than our entire railway system. This exceeds the government’s financial capabilities, and we cannot keep issuing bonds indefinitely to raise funds. These issues are not yet urgent. We can start planning now and delay actual implementation without much risk.” Only when problems began to surface did Franz realize that Austria was still poor. Replanning and upgrading the old industrial cities cost nearly as much as building new ones from scratch. A dozen cities had already been initiated as part of the Near East Development Plan. The Austrian government simply did not have the financial strength to launch another wave at the same time. There was no existing blueprint for building a road network, but a glance at Austria’s railway system was enough to illustrate the scale of the problem. If it hadn’t been for coaxing a large number of international investors into generously supporting the effort, it is questionable whether any trains would even be running today based on Austria’s own resources alone. “Every failure makes you wiser.” Having been burned once, international capital had also learned its lesson. It was no longer easy to lure in so many “generous friends” with nothing but grand visions. Roads were different from railways. Railways had a clear, promising future. If one could survive the long payback period, the revenue would eventually pour in. As for roads, there was no clear model for how they would generate profit. The entire concept was a blur with no precedent to follow. There were barely any vehicles on the road in this era. Even in the most economically developed regions, the tolls collected at a station might not be enough to cover the wages of the toll workers. Trying to sell such an unprofitable venture and convince someone else to foot the bill was incredibly difficult. Never mind investors, even Franz himself, a time traveler, had no faith in the profitability of road projects. There was no other way. The spread of automobiles needed time. Only when the market reached a certain size could toll revenue possibly recoup construction costs and generate returns. However, capitalists were not known for their patience. Not even so-called “value investors” were interested, because by the time a road project started to break even, the road itself might already be falling apart. *** https://postimg.cc/gallery/PwXsBkC (Maps of the current territories of the countries in this novel made by ScH)
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