Franz was busy, and after the adoption of the indigenization of the African colonies, more than a dozen colonial cities have already applied for it.

There is no doubt that this is a roundabout route. Let the eligible areas be localized first, and the rest of the regions will wait until the conditions are met.

In any case, these cities are the core of the colony, and the surrounding areas will still be entrusted to them to manage, and they will be divided when they develop in the future.

This was the consensus reached between the Vienna government and the powerful factions in the colonies, and now that no one wants to be independent, it is natural that they will not care about the division of administrative districts.

As a sign of his attention, Franz personally received the representatives of the colony. These nobles were his supporters and the cornerstone of his future rule over the continent.

In terms of interests, everyone belongs to a large interest group. Franz is the majority shareholder of this group, and they are the minority shareholders in it. One loss and one loss, one glory.

Internationally, Britain is restless again, and it seems that it is Fao-Austria that has stimulated them.

On September 2, 1866, the British Foreign Secretary visited St. Petersburg and publicly stated that he wanted to improve relations between Britain and Russia. On 28 September, the London government sent a note to mediate the Russo-Prussian War.

If it had not been for the information that the Russian Revolutionary Party had been secretly sent back to China by the Prussians, Franz would have almost believed it.

The Franco-Austrian alliance VS the Anglo-Russian alliance is exciting to think about.

However, this can only be thought about. Except that the Anglo-Russian contradictions are too deep to truly form an alliance.

It's more that the Russian Empire is too strong, and as long as they complete the internal reforms, they will be the hegemon of the European continent. As long as the London government did not go crazy, it would not have propped up such a giant.

Then this is for the Russian-Austrian alliance, and in order to break up this alliance, the British have tried their best.

It was a conspiracy, and St. Petersburg's acceptance of the goodwill of the British was bound to arouse suspicion in Vienna.

It doesn't matter if this kind of suspicion is in normal times, but in the Russo-Prussian War, it is very tricky, and if the Vienna government hesitates a little, the Russians will suffer a great loss.

Once this kind of thing happens, it won't be long before the Russian-Austrian alliance will exist in name only.

Knowing what you know, will Franz stop this from happening?

The answer is: no!

The reason is very realistic, the strategic value of the Russian-Austrian alliance has been completed. For the next ten or twenty years, the Russians had to deal with internal contradictions, and the Eastern Front was already secure.

This security is more reliable than the security brought by the covenant all along. No matter what the tsarist government thought, they did not threaten Austria in a short time.

In that case, is it necessary to tie up with the Russians?

The world is such a reality, and what Franz can do is not to tear up the alliance and continue to maintain a good relationship between the two countries.

It is believed that Alexander II will make the same choice, the existence of the Russian-Austrian alliance is still valuable to them, and they can safely survive the period of weakness.

For the sake of strategic security, the tsarist government was also not going to tear up the Covenant. This time limit was established only at a time when the Russian Empire was weak.

In the future, as long as the tsarist government wants to expand on the European continent, the Russian-Austrian alliance will almost come to an end; Similarly, the unification of Austria in Germany coincided with the end of the Treaty between the two countries.

Is there a workaround? Of course, there is, for example, if the tsarist government is agitated to fight India to the death, then the alliance can last for many years.

To do this, it is difficult to say, easy to say, as long as you are willing to spend money, you can do it.

The Russians were going to invade British India, and the road was not easy, and the cost of war was definitely very high. As long as there are financiers willing to pay, the tsarist government has absolutely no opinion.

I don't know what the future holds, anyway, now Franz can't afford to pay this money. If he had this huge amount of money, he would rather throw it into the Industrial Revolution.

The Second Industrial Revolution has already begun, and Austria is one of the birthplaces, with 1866 being a symbol.

In May, Siemens, the engineer of the new Holy Roman Empire, invented the world's first high-power generator.

This marks the dawn of the electricity age, which before that was too small for industrial production because the generators were too small to be put into industrial production.

Now that the age of electricity had arrived, it was natural that the center of the empire should be given priority to enjoy the fruits, and Franz immediately decided to install street lamps in Vienna.

Electric light appeared in the last century, and in 1854 German watchmaker Henri Goebel invented the carbonized bamboo light bulb, which lasted for 400 hours.

As soon as it was reported in the newspapers, it caught the attention of Franz and he bought the patent directly, although he had not yet registered it.

Franz is still disciplined and can't do anything to grab people's patents. Then, naturally, the carbon filament was replaced with tungsten filament, and a vacuum environment was added.

Improvement is much faster than research and development, and it can be done in more than a year. Then Franz was the first to enter the age of electricity, and the lighting revolution was set off in the royal palace.

Because the power of generators is too low, the cost of power generation remains high, and electricity has become a luxury in this era, only for the wealthy.

Now that high-power generators have appeared, not only the cost of power generation has been reduced, but also the possibility of industrial use, Franz naturally wants to promote. What could be more useful than a Vienna lit up advertisement?

There is no need to pay for advertising, and the newspaper will spread the news to the world. Then, London and Paris will definitely follow, and if the tsarist government still has the money, it will probably follow suit.

It's all the little things that make money, and the most important thing is to make a name. Attract more people to invest in the power industry, otherwise Franz alone will be able to popularize electricity into industry in the Year of the Monkey.

In August, the transatlantic telegraph was completed, marking the first direct connection between Europe and the United States.

This is different from the previous telegraph, before which the telegraph line between Europe and the United States was not directly connected, but was transmitted on the islands in the Atlantic, and ships were required to deliver the message on the way.

This is a technical problem, limited by the times, the situation on the bottom of the sea is unknown, and the laying of cables depends on luck.

If you are unlucky, you will be destroyed by the sea creatures and need to be re-laid. In the case of special terrain, it is also possible to affect the paving work.

One of the submarine cables had problems all the time, and it was only now that the problem was completely solved. Previously, this distance could only be relayed by ships. Not to mention the lag in news, the operating costs are still high, and commercialization cannot be realized.

Now it's different, it can directly connect two continents, and the business value has increased dramatically.

Affected by this, the British have already announced the laying of submarine cables from London - Canada, London - South Africa - India.

The French are also ready to lay: Paris-French America, Paris-French Asia.

Franz also ordered the laying of two submarine cables: Africa-Central America and Africa-Novobavaria (New Guinea).

The telegraph between France and Austria to Africa has long been connected, so naturally there is no need to do it again. The problem of duplication of telegraph lines in various countries is that there is no way, and no one wants to be controlled by others.

Besides, this is not a loss-making business, and the telegraph lines in most areas can make money. The line that is losing money is not paved at all.

For example, Franz is not ready to lay an undersea cable to Alaska.

From the time the Russians took over the land to the present, there has been no development except for the establishment of a fur company.

If it weren't for the oath of sovereignty, the government of Vienna would not have bothered to send the tax officer. This is a land that cannot be used to cover expenses, and it will lose tens of thousands of Aegis funds every year.

Naturally, there was no need to build a telegraph line. Anyway, I am not afraid of being robbed, and no country will have a bloody war with Austria for a land of ice and snow.

This was just the beginning, and immediately after the major colonial empires were taking action, everyone knew the strategic role of the telegraph. This was an essential part of the process in order to strengthen control over the colonies.

In September, Alfred Nobel invented nitroglycerin explosives. Of course, this is still in a high degree of secrecy, and it will not be announced until after the Russo-Prussian War.

After all, it is also a weapon that can change the war. If it is announced in advance, it is also a headache for the Russians to buy, sell or not to sell.

If you don't sell it, it will affect the relationship, and if you sell it, it will probably affect the outcome of the war. Explosives were completely sharp weapons for pillboxes and fortresses in this era, and many of the original impregnable lines of defense were now insufficient.

On the surface, Austria did not sell arms to Prussia, and this proprietary new invention was destined to be impossible to sell to two companies.

The Russians won the war, and it was not what Franz wanted to see. The tsarist government lost the war and may need to recuperate for twenty years; After winning this war, maybe in ten or eight years, they will have to do things again.

There is no doubt about the resilience of the hairy bear, not to mention the ability to die. In order to avoid this annoyance, Franz decisively chose to postpone.

Alfred Nobel is also full of legends, and in 1860, began to work on nitroglycerin explosives.

In 1863, Nobel returned to Sweden to develop explosives with his father and younger brother, but the government forbade them to conduct further experiments when the factory was blown up and his brother was killed by an accidental explosion.

Due to the explosion of the nitroglycerin plant, his younger brother Yemir died tragically and was forced to close the factory in Sweden.

At this time, the Austrian arsenal threw an olive branch. The two sides hit it off and decided to jointly develop explosives.

In fact, most of the arsenals are government cooperation, otherwise who will sell the weapons produced?

The butterfly effect played a role, and at this time Nobel did not break the boat, but chose a more secure cooperation.

It is not surprising that Nobel was a scientist and also a businessman.

Risk aversion is an instinct, and he is not the only one who conducts research on explosives at the same time. Before the results came out, no one knew whether there was a market for the product.

……

These are only scientific and technological advances with relatively large influence, and there are even more small inventions. The Second Industrial Revolution had already begun, and 1866 was only the beginning of a new era.