Descending On France 1780
Chapter 159 - 152 Commander’s gaze fell upon Italy

Chapter 159: 152 Commander’s gaze fell upon Italy

After Bertier assumed the role of Chief of Staff, the efficiency of paperwork within Anning’s troops improved by a notch.

Lazar Kano is also an exceptional office talent, handling a vast amount of documents swiftly, but he is still a step behind Bertier.

Bertier, perhaps having conserved energy during his house arrest, exhibited an impressive vigor upon becoming the Chief of Staff.

Seeing his frenzied approach to work every day, Anning suddenly understood why Napoleon seemed like a different commander without Bertier.

Such is the significant impact of a capable Chief of Staff.

With paperwork duties delegated to Bertier, Anning finally could focus his main energy on the progression of the global situation.

Entering October, good and bad news arrived from the north.

The good news was that Prussia, needing to concentrate forces against Catherine’s Russia for a more advantageous partition of Poland, temporarily abandoned plans to intervene in France.

The bad news was that Austria had already taken action; the Austro-Hungarian army led by Von Wumze had left Austrian territory, coming through Bavaria and other countries.

When Anning received this news, he was initially startled, wondering how Austrian troops had made it onto foreign soil, only then did he remember the existence of the Holy Roman Empire at that time – Bavaria and such nations were members, essentially Austria’s "home territory."

In other words, although France did not border Austria directly, it bordered the Holy Roman Empire, which effectively amounted to a border with Austria—it’s a bit of a tongue twister.

Holy Roman troops had already reached the French border, and it might not be long before they entered France. Leopold II, the Holy Roman Emperor, had just taken the throne from Maria Theresa a little over a year ago, and he intended to reclaim a rightful throne for his sister.

Like this, the northern French border hosted the Austrian Rhein army led by Von Wumze, while to the south lurked the Austro-Italian army from Milan, led by Boliue; the situation could hardly be described as optimistic.

Paris had already sent numerous letters urging Anning to lead his army back to Paris immediately and take charge of its defense.

After all, with no Maginot Line present and the northern border town of Bueye having betrayed Parliament, the Austrian forces could easily make a beeline for the Île-de-France.

Under such circumstances, Parliament declared that Anning was not a traitor but rather that Lafayette was the traitor. Parliament had been misled by a joint effort from Lafayette and the King but now recognized the mistake.

Not only was Anning not held accountable for his reforms in Conte, but he was also given the title of a General who saved the nation.

However, Anning had expected the Parliament to take advantage of the situation and pass the land distribution act, starting the Jacobin reforms early, but he was mistaken.

Not only was the land distribution act not passed, but the abolition of the monarchy was also stuck in fierce contention.

Indeed, even though the King had fled and committed treason, Parliament still refused to abolish the monarchy.

It seems nothing can be achieved overnight.

Historically, after the King’s flight, France maintained and provided for him for a year before finally deciding to execute him and his family in 1792.

Anning did not concern himself with this and stayed put in the south.

With the joint efforts of Bertier and Lazar Kano, Anning’s military strength had increased to 30,000, and his control area had more than doubled.

These newly expanded control areas, fearful of Anning’s arrival and a potential competition in lamplight decoration, voluntarily voted to slice off their own flesh, allocating land to the peasants.

The merchants made their choice, cutting flesh from the old nobles to please the fierce beast at their doorstep.

The peasants were well aware, and everyone praised General Frost.

The effect of large-scale land distribution was such that the disturbances in these areas swiftly subsided, and the economy unexpectedly improved. After cutting flesh, the merchants found that they were making more money than before.

Thus, they too began to praise General Frost.

Although the sans-culottes in the cities didn’t benefit from the process, they found a new destination: joining the National Guard.

With an overwhelming number of enlistees, proclamations were issued everywhere, stating that the local Self-Defense Armies were full.

Thus, many sans-culottes began to trek across mountains and rivers with their families, heading for Conte.

Anning wracked his brains on how to handle these people.

He couldn’t recruit all of them into his army, as he didn’t have the money—his troops were paid with real silver and gold, and such a drastic expansion was unbearable.

The military salary for these thirty thousand men was enough to give Anning a headache.

Although he had confiscated a large amount of Church property, it was not infinite.

But he couldn’t just leave the large labor force gathered in Conte to fend for themselves. If they couldn’t get enough to eat, they would surely make trouble, since they were all citizens baptized by the great revolution.

Anning had no choice but to start state-owned factories and let them earn their keep by working.

Then there was a problem.

A decade ago, at the end of the war, France had signed a treaty on tariffs with the UK, which allowed British industrial goods to enter France unabated.

At this time, the UK was Europe’s leading industrial country. Its industrial products were cheap and of good quality, and upon entering France, they utterly defeated French native handicrafts.

If the UK had been a fully industrialized country by now, it is feared that all domestic French craftsmen would be out of work.

By the way, the outbreak of the French Revolution was also credited to British industrial goods. The dumping of British industrial goods caused many French handicraft workshops to go bankrupt, leaving the people without work.

In order for his state-owned factories to have a market, Anning had to use the military to set up checkpoints and impose tariffs on imported British industrial products.

Anyway, it was quite strange. After having eradicated the feudal lords within the country, France finally had a unified market, and now Anning had carved out a piece of it again.

In short, as of October 1791, Anning had an extraordinary number of headaches.

Foreign and domestic situations, as well as economic problems on his own turf, were all giving Anning a hard time.

Anning began to miss the days when he could just slack off.

How nice it would be to not put oneself forward and simply slack off, how comfortable that would be.

Troubled by these issues, it was the first time after transmigrating that Anning started thinking about creating something befitting his transmigrator status.

Like sparking an industrial revolution in Southern France and promoting the steam engine.

But he soon encountered a problem—he only knew that a steam engine boiled water to push a piston in a cylinder to do work, but he had no idea what it actually looked like.

He couldn’t fabricate a steam engine with his own hands.

And there were the three standard items for transmigrators: glass blowing, soap making, and penicillin invention. He only had a superficial knowledge of these, and that knowledge even came from reading historical transmigration novels.

He couldn’t craft these things by hand either.

So all he could do was issue an announcement inviting engineers and scientists from all over the country with handsome incentives, to see if they could perform a miracle.

But these were long-term matters, and if there were ever any results, it would be years from now.

The only relief was that among the engineers who came to join Anning, there was someone who knew how to build a Jenny spinning machine, so the efficiency of Anning’s spinning mills was passable.

But these did not solve the immediate thirst.

Before the wealth plundered from the Church was exhausted, Anning had to figure out a way to replenish his funds since only with money could he expand the military.

Day and night, Anning racked his brains, and in the end, realized that he could only follow the old path—violence and plunder were the golden belt.

He set his sights on Napoleon’s land of rising: Italy.

Italy was very rich.

Despite its small size, the region of Northern Italy provided a quarter of the Holy Roman Emperor’s tax base.

A quarter!

Anning had it all figured out. Whatever happened in the north, as soon as Leopold II declared war, he would go to Italy.

Moreover, going to Italy could not only solve financial problems but also attract talents.

One of Napoleon’s fiercest generals, Massena, was in Italy at that time.

Thus, by October 1791, Anning already had a full plan in his mind, just waiting for Leopold II to declare war.