Chapter 66: Easy to board, hard to get off.

It is an embarrassing problem to have no money. The Kingdom of Sardinia is located in the northwest of Italy, and it is regarded as the best-developed country in Italy.

It is a pity that this cannot change the essence of the Sardinian Kingdom for being in poverty. The territory is only 70,000 square kilometers, the population is only five or six million, and there are no resources. Their industries have only just begun.

However, they are poor and ambitious, and they have been fighting for the unification of Italy. Because of their ambition, the Kingdom of Sardinia has become even poorer.

To unify Italy, it is natural to rely on fists. The military expenditure of the Kingdom of Sardinia is larger than their gain, so their finances have been in a deficit.

It was not until 1852, when the legendary Prime Minister Cavour made his debut, that he reformed the fiscal and taxation system, increased national income, increased the construction of railways, and ports, and developed the Sardinian commerce.

Prime Minister d'Azeglio frowned and echoed: "Your Majesty is right, we are indeed out of money, this war came too suddenly, and we were not fully prepared. Occupying the Lombardy region, we are consuming a large amount of financial and material resources constantly, which greatly exceeded our budget. Up to now, we have spent more than 28 million lire. (1 lire = 4.5 grams of silver) Because of the war, tax revenue in Lombardy will not be coming this year, and it will still be in a state of deficit expenditure in the second half of the year. The French abruptly terminated the promised weapons assistance, and now we have to squeeze some money out of the limited war budget to buy weapons and equipment, which will cost at least 17 million liras or more. Adding these two items together, we spend nearly 45% of our war coffin. We still have nearly 200,000 troops, and we have to spend at least 1 million lire every day. If we continue to delay, we will go bankrupt in at most two months. . ."

After listening to the Prime Minister's explanation, the first reaction of Minister of the Army Li Qi was disbelief. He immediately asked: "Your Excellency Prime Minister, how can you spend so much money? According to our plan, this 100 million lire is enough to support us in fighting for half a year!"

"Your Excellency Li Qi, are you suspecting me of corruption and embezzling military funds?" Prime Minister d'Azeglio exclaimed angrily.

Corruption? How many officials are not corrupt in this era? However, this well-known secret should never be said out loud otherwise everyone's faces will be dragged down with it.

Li Qi quickly explained: "No, Your Excellency Prime Minister, I didn't question your intention, I was just curious about these expenses!"

After listening to Li Qi's answer, d'Azeglio's expression softened, and he explained calmly, "I'll give you a rough calculation so that you can see where the money is spent:

In Lombardy, it cost 8.65 million lire to buy the Liberals, 10.5365 million lire to solve the food problem, 3.657 million lire to relieve the war refugees, and 3.8623 million lire to establish the administrative agency[1]...

Because of the endless emergence of revolutions in Europe, the price of weapons and equipment in the international market has risen by 37%. The Ministry of War has also sent people to look into this specific situation. You won't need me to explain this part, right?

...

According to our prior plan, we did not plan to recruit another 70,000 troops in the Lombardy region. With so many people added, the cost will naturally go up! "

After listening to the Prime Minister's explanation, Li Qi had nothing to say. There is no other way, who made their army have no confidence in fighting the Austrians? In order to increase the odds of winning, they adopted the simplest method - expanding the army.

Before the Industrial Revolution, the mobilization ability of the agricultural sector was not high, and everyone couldn't participate in the war.

More than 100,000 people were mobilized within the Kingdom of Sardinia, basically reaching the limit of mobilization. At this time, the enthusiasm of the Lombard people to join the army is high, and there is no reason to turn these people away.

At this time, Li Qi can't care so much. As the Minister of the Army, he must stand on the army's side and reduce the risk of failure as much as possible.

"Your Excellency, the British are behind this war, can't we just ask the British for a loan?"

Prime Minister d'Azeglio frowned and said with a wry smile: "British people's loans are not easy to obtain, and for just a mere 3 million pounds loan, we have to pay a large amount of money back in return.

Now that the war has broken out, if you ask them for a loan, I am afraid the conditions for the loan will completely against us! "

(£1 ≈ 25 lire)

This was essentially the way the British have done to every scheme they planned, first give a loan to lure people into the boat. However, "it's easy to board the ship but now it's hard to get off the ship", and when we reach the center of the river, they will be the ones in control.

"What about the French? Don't they want us to expel the Austrians from Italy? Are they no longer showing any support?" Li Qi asked reluctantly.

Charlie Albert said with a sneer: "Huh! The French are a bunch of untrustworthy bastards. Even the promised military and material aid are gone now. Do you think they can be counted on?"

Everyone did not want to bring up this topic. Originally, there was assistance from the French, but when they learned that the Kingdom of Sardinia have decided to annex Lombardy, the matter of assistance fell through.

According to the requirements of the French, the Lombardy region must be established independently, which is undoubtedly unacceptable to them.

Independence is easy, but reunification is difficult. If the current opportunity is missed, will Sardinia still have a chance to annex Lombardy?

Li Qi thought about it and said: "Your Majesty, from the current situation, the old fox guarding the Venice area is the famous Austrian General Radetzky, who has suffered a loss once, and he can't be fooled a second time. If the Austrian army were only defending the city and did not engage in a decisive battle with us, it would not have been possible for us to end the war in two months. If the Austrians are unwilling to end the war, the war will continue even if we conquer Venice, so the war funding will still have to find a way."

We are now at the major conjecture. If we want to end this war, it is not simply an easy decision of yes or no, unless the army of the Kingdom of Sardinia can fight all the way to Vienna and force the Austrian government to surrender.

This is obviously impossible. Everyone is a rational politician. Even if they have confidence in the army of the Kingdom of Sardinia, no one thinks they can do this.

In this case, if they want to win the war, the government must find a way to raise military funds for them. Otherwise, if they lose the war because they have no money then it would no longer be the fault of the War Department.

Prime Minister d'Azeglio said with a wry smile: "Okay, Mr. Li Qi's military spending problem, we will find a solution, but you must also ensure victory. We cannot afford to lose this war!"

"Your Excellency Prime Minister, please rest assured. Marshal Bardolio is in charge of this war. He has already defeated the Austrians once, and it will not be an issue to deal with a bunch of defeated generals!" Li Qi quickly assured.

King Charlie Albert, who didn't speak for a while, suddenly asked, "Prime Minister, what are you going to do about the funding issue?"

[1] chinese number system in my opinion feels like a "refined" version of ancient Greek numbers. example: 1 million = 100万(yi bai wan), 10.000 = 1万(yi wan), 1,000 = 1千(yi qian), 10 million = 1000万(yi qian wan) 100 million = 1亿(yī yi). This is why you will see a lot of decimals.