Graz

Eyczing, finally catching his breath, immediately said, "Your Majesty, rebellion! Graz has rebelled!"

Laszlo was startled. How could someone rebel after only a few days of implementing the reforms?

Graz? Austria's second-largest city, the capital of Styria, and formerly the capital of Inner Austria, which governed Styria and Carniola.

Moreover, Graz is very close to Vienna; a normal march takes four days, and a forced march is even faster.

Realizing the seriousness of the matter, Laszlo quickly asked, "Explain clearly, why did Graz rebel? Who instigated it? Is it because your reform measures were too radical, leading to their rebellion?"

"Your Majesty, the one leading the rebellion is your uncle, Baron Albrecht. He claims that your agreement with Lord Frederick to exchange territories is illegal and that Inner Austria should be inherited and ruled by him. The rebels, working from inside and out, captured Graz and are currently entrenched there. All the officials we sent were executed, and according to scout reports, the rebel force numbers about three thousand men."

Hearing the last sentence, Laszlo nearly laughed in anger. Where did this clown come from? Did he not know how to write the word 'death'?

Who exactly was this Baron Albrecht? Laszlo fell into thought; he didn't seem to recall such a person.

No, he remembered that at the Habsburg Family banquet, he had indeed seen a gloomy-looking fellow. That was Frederick's younger brother, Albrecht. During Frederick's regency in Austria, Albrecht had been helping him manage Inner Austria. It seemed that fellow had already developed his own influence in Graz.

But… three thousand men dare to rebel? Who gave him the courage? Liang Jingru?

It seemed he wanted to taste cannon fire.

"Eyczing, draft an imperial edict in my name, ordering Adolf to personally lead the Austro-Hungarian Army to suppress the rebellion. The Saxon Army will defend Vienna. The action must be swift!"

"Yes, Your Majesty!"

The Saxon Army was the former Saxon Black Guard that had been recruited. They fought bravely with Janos in the Battle of Varna and suffered heavy losses. After the war, Laszlo reorganized them, absorbed veteran Crusaders to fill their two legions of six thousand men, accepted their allegiance, granted them the Imperial banner, and renamed them the Saxon Army.

This unit was not equipped with Wagenburg or artillery; instead, it was a field unit composed of ten infantry companies and two cavalry companies.

Considering that Wagenburg operations would be severely limited in certain terrains, Laszlo ultimately decided to form such a unit, while also preparing for the next step in military reform.

Werner, the leader of the Black Guard mercenary group, was appointed General, and the three Imperial Army units were placed under the unified command of the Imperial Conference.

Upon receiving the order, the Imperial War Committee immediately began coordinating operations. Since the marching distance was not far, logistical preparations were quickly completed, and the Austro-Hungarian Army marched south to eliminate the rebels.

Laszlo had strong control over Austria's other three states, and the local noble forces were very weak, making rebellion almost impossible.

In Outer Austria, people were still counting on the Emperor to protect them from Swiss incursions and attacks, so how could they rebel?

Government reforms in Tyrol were widely welcomed, allowing for easier communication with the central government.

Lower Austria? The capital of Lower Austria is Vienna, directly governed by the Viennese court government, and the main Imperial Army is stationed outside Vienna. Whether inside or outside the city, petty criminals would not dare to cause trouble.

This meant that the biggest obstacle to implementing reforms was the two Inner Austria states formerly ruled by Frederick—Styria and Carniola. Now, the treacherous minister had exposed himself. By suppressing the rebels, killing some, intimidating some, and winning over others, the resistance to state government reform would vanish.

This was actually a good thing!

Internal reforms in Austria would accelerate after this rebellion was quelled. It was time to turn attention to the Holy Roman Empire and Bohemia.

Under Eyczing's manipulation, calls for Imperial reform first appeared within the Elector Palatine, then slowly spread throughout the Holy Roman Empire.

However, this idea was quickly suppressed by the Electors.

The Emperor's prestige and strength had now reached a point where they were powerless to resist. Once Imperial reform began, it was highly possible that the Emperor would restore the Holy Roman Empire and unify it.

To ensure their highly independent status and Elector Palatine privileges, the three Electors—the Archbishop of Mainz, the Archbishop of Trier, and the Elector Palatine—formed a secret alliance, determined to jointly oppose the Emperor's Imperial reform.

The Archbishop of Cologne maintained absolute neutrality.

The Brandenburg Elector wavered between the Emperor and the Elector Palatine alliance.

Frederick II, the Elector of Saxony, was engaged in a family civil war with his brother, William III, Count of Thuringia, over the Saxon throne and the Elector seat.

However, both brothers leaned towards cooperating with the Elector alliance against the Emperor, but they could do nothing until the civil war had a clear victor.

The immense resistance caused the reform agenda to progress slowly in the Imperial Conference, forcing Laszlo to temporarily set aside Imperial reform matters and turn his attention to Bohemia.

In Prague, the Cup faction had firmly controlled this most prosperous city of the Holy Roman Empire and were continuously exporting their ideas, attempting to convert the faith of more regions to the Hussites.

Fortunately, Rosenberg returned as a hero after participating in the Crusade, further increasing his influence in Bohemia. Moreover, with the return of a group of fanatical Crusader soldiers, Bohemia unexpectedly experienced a wave of Catholic fervor. The Hussite influence not only did not expand but actually contracted significantly.

Currently, Laszlo had no intention of starting a civil war. If there was a possibility of peaceful evolution in Bohemia, he was willing to wait. If it ultimately proved that peaceful methods were not feasible, he would not mind an Austrian version of the "Prague Spring."

Seeking religious reform? And daring to throw out the window? Watch my staunch Catholics strike with heavy punches!

Soon after, Gunter finally led the Imperial Independent Army back to Vienna.

He brought back the Imperial transfer agreement from Thomas, Despot of Morea, the Eastern Roman Empire crown, and Thomas's three children: Zoe, Andreas, and Manuel.

Thomas also had a daughter who married Lazar, Despot of Serbia, but later died with Lazar amidst the chaos of war.

Of the three children, the eldest, Zoe, was only seven, and the youngest, Manuel, was still an infant.

Laszlo settled them in the palace and arranged for special attendants to care for them.

These were the last royal bloodline of the Eastern Roman Empire. The Palaiologos family seemed to have a branch in the Holy Roman Empire's Northern Italy territory, a tiny state. Laszlo had some impression of it, but not a deep one.

He could be said to have abducted these children to the Viennese court, primarily because he did not want anyone to casually peddle the so-called "legitimacy" of the Eastern Roman Empire in the future. Now, there was only one Roman Emperor—that was he, Laszlo. He would widely publicize this until such recognition was deeply ingrained in people's minds.

After the attrition of the Crusade, the Habsburg Dynasty began to recuperate, its strength steadily recovering and entering a period of rapid development.

After resolving the border crisis brought by the Ottomans, Austria's path to development seemed to be free of obstacles.

Various decrees were promulgated and well-executed throughout Austria, and the road from Vienna to Tyrol began to be repaired.

Favorable policies attracted a large number of German immigrants to Austria. As freemen, they purchased lifetime usage rights to royal lands and cultivated them, paying taxes directly to the Imperial Tax Bureau, and the Emperor would protect their right to cultivate the land.

Serfdom prevented the Emperor from collecting agricultural taxes from most farmers; this portion of taxes flowed into the pockets of the nobles.

Jakob presented two methods to Laszlo: either hold a knife to the nobles' throats and force them to free serfs or increase tax payments, or introduce more freemen who could pay agricultural taxes to the Emperor. With more freemen, tax revenue would naturally increase.

Considering the risks of the former, coupled with the many vacant royal lands in Austria, Laszlo chose the latter.

The vast wealth brought back by the Crusade also greatly promoted the prosperity of Austria and even the Holy Roman Empire.

Under Jakob's operation, the construction of royal estates also progressed steadily. Various workshops belonging to the Emperor, especially textile workshops and breweries, began to be extensively established; the scale of silver mining in Tyrol also gradually expanded, generating more wealth for the Emperor.

Leveraging the Emperor's favor, Jakob Fugger seized the opportunity to greatly expand his family's businesses, achieving good development in cotton flannel weaving, spice trade, and slave trade, becoming the wealthiest merchant in South German.

He also suggested that Laszlo emulate Florence's Medici family by establishing a bank to accumulate more florin and ducat, and to extensively mint high-quality Austrian silver coins, namely the Vienna groschen, for circulation within the Holy Roman Empire, ideally elevating them to the Imperial common currency through the Emperor's authority.

The latter was not yet feasible, but Laszlo was very interested in establishing a bank.

florin (Florence) and ducat (Venice) were generally used for large-scale international trade, while groschen was the common currency within the Holy Roman Empire.

However, the princes who controlled minting rights always produced some low-silver content groschen counterfeit coins and mixed them into the market, leading to huge fluctuations in the value of the Imperial currency, differing greatly in each region. Coupled with the chaotic values of some large gold and silver coins like gulden, thaler, and gold groschen, the Holy Roman Empire's monetary economy was a mess.

A bank would be very beneficial for the royal family to accumulate wealth, conduct international trade, and regulate the Imperial currency, offering many advantages.

After receiving over six hundred thousand florin in reparations, the wealthy Laszlo generously invested twenty thousand florin, Jakob Fugger's family invested five thousand gold coins, and some interested Austrian nobles also participated in the investment. The newly established bank had a huge initial capital of thirty thousand florin.

Laszlo entrusted the bank's operations to Jakob. These merchants knew best how to make money from money.

Jakob was involved in businesses like lending, currency exchange, and even commercial bills, as the successful cases of Venice Bank and Medici Bank were already evident.

And in the German region, since Albrecht II's decree to expel Jews in 1438 to stabilize the Austrian economic order, such a novel thing as a large bank had not yet appeared.

Thus, under the name of the "Imperial Bank," Jakob began to build a banking empire for Laszlo that would cover the entire German region.