As the struggle over the national budget grew fiercer, Franz cut his vacation short and returned to the Imperial Palace in Vienna by the end of October. Vacations could wait. As Emperor, he had to place state affairs above personal leisure. Training the crown prince did not mean he could completely wash his hands of responsibility. Politics, after all, was a minefield. It was fine to step on a few small traps and learn from the pain, but there were some pitfalls that one must never fall into, because once you did, there was no getting out. Take the ongoing annual budget allocation, for example. One wrong move here could lead to a fatal blunder. If the crown prince failed to balance the competing demands of different ministries and instead made decisions based purely on ideals or projected efficiency, channeling too much funding into one or two favored sectors, disaster would follow. And if someone decided to fan the flames, even Frederick’s status as crown prince would not save him. At the very least, he would be branded as incompetent, and that label would cling to him like a curse. A crown prince known as incompetent, even if he one day inherited the throne, would struggle to earn anyone’s respect. This sort of thing had happened before. Franz himself had stumbled into similar trouble early in his reign. The only reason he managed to escape unscathed was that a war with the Kingdom of Sardinia had conveniently broken out, allowing him to shift the blame onto wartime circumstances. But now, with peace across the realm, there was no war to take the fall. Every decision in the annual budget was a direct test of Frederick’s political judgment. Of course, if he wanted to avoid taking responsibility, he could always push the task onto the chancellor. But that would only lead to another kind of danger, the slow rise of ministerial power. Once the chancellor’s authority grew too large, the emperor would become little more than a rubber stamp. That would mean placing one’s fate in another man’s hands. And if that man happened to be ambitious or ruthless, the royal family could easily be reduced to nothing more than ceremonial figureheads. The ministers would enjoy the profits, while the emperor took the blame. History was full of such cases where disobedient monarchs met sudden deaths and the real power remained in the hands of the bureaucrats. In truth, the same logic applied to both nations and businesses. Many founders worked tirelessly to build something from nothing, only to hand control to so-called professional managers instead of grooming their own successors. It sounded rational, even modern, but the outcome was often tragic. Just look at the performance of publicly listed companies. In the past thirty-seven years, over seventy percent of firms on the U.S. stock market have been delisted, and in nearly every case, the blame lay squarely on professional managers. As society’s moral standards declined and the pace of life quickened, that rate continued to climb. The companies were ruined, but the managers in charge always managed to walk away rich. The only real losers were the shareholders. Even in the few cases where a company succeeded, its ownership often changed hands. The founders’ names vanished from the story, and the empire they built no longer belonged to them. Companies that truly run smoothly under the management of hired professionals only do so because the major shareholders keep a tight leash on them, preventing the executives from getting carried away. The same applies to nations. Once an emperor stops caring about governance, the bureaucrats quickly start indulging themselves, and the state begins to rot at a speed visible to the naked eye until one day it collapses from within… No flower stays in bloom forever. Prosperity followed by decline is the law of nature. Watering and fertilizing only make the flower last a little longer. A country is no different. No one knows what the future holds, and everything is full of uncertainty. So, it is better to leave one’s empire in the hands of one’s own kin, even if they might ruin it later. If the nation must fall, better to have it fall at the hands of one’s descendants than to hand it over to outsiders to destroy. On this point, Franz was very clear. Even the planned creation of the vassal kingdoms was not only a response to practical needs but also a form of risk diversification. By putting the eggs into different baskets, he was increasing the empire’s ability to withstand uncertainty. He had already done everything that could be done. What came after no longer concerned him. As long as he was alive, there would be no problems. Hofburg Palace in Vienna After listening to Frederick’s work report, Franz nodded in satisfaction. There had been no major mistakes, and that was good enough. The fact that the empire could run smoothly in peacetime proved that Frederick had the ability to rule. As for wartime? Most likely, Frederick would never experience it. Once the struggle for naval supremacy ended, the Holy Roman Empire would stand as the world’s only superpower. With its overwhelming strength, there would be no equal opponents for a very long time. Unless aliens invaded, the Holy Roman Empire would always be the one doing the beating. By the time Frederick ruled, wars would likely be limited to small regional conflicts not real challenges. Later, in the so-called “nuclear age,” the chances of a major war would become even smaller. When the report was over, Franz asked with a smile, “Frederick, what do you think about the Navy Ministry’s plan for an all-big-gun battleship?” Frederick looked a little surprised by the question. After a brief pause, he replied, “It looks impressive, but it’s too expensive. If we can build an all-big-gun battleship, the British can do it too. That would just lead to another naval arms race. Even though our industrial capacity is greater than Britain’s, the government’s military budget for the navy won’t be much higher than theirs. In the end, it could turn into a situation where both sides lose. Honestly, the chances of victory might even be lower than with the Air Force’s ‘Final Judgment’ project. At least, if the Air Force gets desperate, they can still ram planes into enemy ships. Still, from a long-term perspective, mutual loss isn’t the worst outcome. The problem is that it would only end up benefiting the Americans and the Russians. Lately, the Union and the Russian governments have been very close. It’s possible that at some point, these two peripheral nations will form an alliance. Although their national power is far inferior to the British for the time being, their development potential is both superior to Britain’s. After taking down the British, only to bring forth two even more promising rivals, would be a completely unprofitable endeavor—a trade with more loss than gain. Considering the interests of the Empire, while we pull the British down, we must also inherit the British legacy, otherwise, all our efforts will be in vain. To achieve this, we must ensure that after defeating the British, the Imperial Navy still possesses the strength to suppress all other nations in the world.” There was no hope for it. The Imperial Navy might enjoy high revenue, but its expenses were equally staggering. The government could not funnel all its income into shipbuilding. If the contest were only about money, the Empire did not hold a short-term advantage. Only by pushing the timeline forward by a decade or two and letting the economy grow further could the Austrian government one day command the financial might to overwhelm Britain. Compared to that, the Air Force’s so-called Final Judgement Project drew more optimism. As aviation technology advanced, aircraft payload capacity steadily rose. So far, the Empire’s largest strategic bomber could carry two tons of ordnance. With specially made giant bombs, that was already enough to threaten a battleship. The only remaining problem was accuracy. Hitting a moving armored target at sea with precision was difficult. Still, the Air Ministry had begun working on fixes. If precision proved impossible, they could always make up the difference with numbers. If necessary, a thousand bombers might take to the skies at once. Luck would carry a few of them through. If the treasury was willing to spend, money alone could doom the Royal Navy. If luck failed, pilots could always ram their planes into enemy ships. It sounded like a joke, but suicide attacks could be devastatingly effective. During the anti-French war, a reconnaissance plane once suffered a malfunction and could not return. At the last moment the pilot carried out a heroic act and crashed straight into a French warship, producing a spectacular explosion. There were other episodes like that, though most attempts did not hit their mark. When one did, the result was extraordinary. That was not to say Imperial pilots lacked fear of death. At sea, a mishap for an ordinary aircraft was almost certain death. A water landing for a non-amphibious plane meant a swift plunge to the bottom. Parachuting into the waves was the same as feeding the fish. Even if a distress signal were sent, rescue would rarely arrive in time. Choosing to smash into an enemy ship was, in the end, a way to die while taking someone with you. It also earned one posthumous honors for the family since military glory translated into rewards, even for the dead. According to the Air Ministry’s plan, if the moment came, they could find volunteers. Suicide squads could be organized if one looked hard enough. If volunteers were short, accidents could be manufactured. Those willing to take someone down with them would not be scarce. Politics could be abominably dark. Where large interests existed, politicians could be driven to any depths. Franz scoffed, “The Air Force’s Final Judgement Project is the real foolish idea. A thousand bombers, and they actually dare to imagine it. As aviation advances, aircraft cost more to build, and pilot quality must also rise. When the technology finally matures, the cost of a thousand bombers would probably buy a hundred battleships. If anything will be expensive in the future, it will be the Air Force. Wait and see, in less than thirty years air budgets will rival those of the army and navy.” If Franz had not lived a previous life, he might have been swayed by the Air Ministry’s bright promises. After all, the vision they painted was alluring. The problem was that it was not cheap. Today’s planes were still inexpensive. A thousand bombers might amount to only a few tens of millions of guilders, and including pilots and logistical support, the total was not yet astronomical. The future would be different. Soon an aircraft worth ten thousand guilders would become obsolete. It would be replaced by machines worth tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, or even millions. Whether the Holy Roman Empire could afford a thousand such bombers was unknown. Gathering that many at once was even less certain. Besides, the enemy was not naive. Britain was developing its own air force. Launching raids on enemy territory would invite counterattack. How many fighters would be needed to escort a thousand bombers safely? The question alone was terrifying. If it were as simple as that, then during the Second World War, the German air forces would have sent the Royal Navy to the bottom of the sea. The problem was not a lack of will, but a lack of capability. Instead of betting on the Air Force’s unreliable plan, Franz found himself favoring the Navy’s idea. The all-big-gun battleship was, in the original timeline, the dreadnought invented by the British. It nearly buried the Royal Navy when it first appeared. Whether or not it would finally surpass the Royal Navy, it would at least put both sides on equal footing. It would erase the Royal Navy’s accumulated advantages.
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