No matter how hard life was, life still had to go on. After the shabby coronation ceremony, Carlos's first decree was a big cleanup.
There were not many good people in Paris now, and those who survived were not easy to deal with. If there was no internal cleanup, Carlos would not be able to sleep.
The main targets of the cleanup were the remnants of the revolutionary government, including the middle and lower level officials who defected, as well as the gangsters and vicious criminals who took advantage of the chaos in Paris.
"A flowing government, an iron official."
It was no longer applicable. There was a large group of nobles who supported the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty. Just the vacated positions at the top were obviously not enough.
The big nobles did not care about these small official positions, but it did not mean that the small nobles in the countryside were not interested. Besides, even if they were not interested, they had brothers and sisters, and collateral children that needed to be settled.
After all, the core of the coalition of nobles who participated in the restoration was this group of people. Now it was time to reward them. Carlos did not have enough money, but it was not too much to arrange a job, right?
Then, these century-old bureaucrats were unlucky. After hiding for so many years, they were finally targeted.
They would not know if they did not investigate, but when they did, they were shocked. The rumors that "Napoleon Iv emptied France" and "the Republican government emptied France" proved that these were indeed rumors.
They were all people who ran away. Even if they could take the money and leave, how much could they take? The ones who really had the power to short France were the bureaucrats who didn't show their strength.
Maybe they did not take much, but they had a lot of people. If everyone got a share, even the richest family would be emptied by the bureaucrats.
Not to mention anything else, one-third of the real estate in Paris was occupied by these bureaucrats. This group of people also had shares in many factories and enterprises.
There were even more seized cash and money. For example, the house of a director named Fernando was searched for 200 kilograms of gold, some gold and silver jewelry, and hundreds of billions of francs.
Well, let's not talk about the francs. The largest denomination of the francs issued by the republican government had ten zeros after the number. Everyone was a billionaire, and the purchasing power of hundreds of billions of francs was less than a thousand francs before.
The only difference was that there was a large amount of small currency among the seized francs, which was obviously the product of the Bonaparte dynasty, adding up to hundreds of millions of francs.
There was no doubt that this was not the right time to seize it. What used to be a huge sum of money had now become waste paper. A loaf of bread cost tens of millions of francs, and the mountains of small francs were not even enough to feed the average person for a week.
Just thinking about it made one drunk. Even the greedy could not outrun inflation. How did ordinary people survive?
If one didn't catch up to the peak of one's wealth, it would seem like one would gain a huge amount of wealth, but in reality, the value would be greatly reduced.
Carlos was not disappointed, which was to be expected. Francs were worthless, but foreign exchange, gold, and jewels were good. Adding all of them together, he would have at least tens of millions of Divine Shields. It would be enough to solve his urgent problems.
As for the rest of the real estate, corporate shares, and the like, it would be difficult to calculate the specific value in a short period of time.
With money, there would be food, and with food, the situation could be stabilized. With the "excellent performance" of the previous two governments, the Bourbon dynasty, which could barely fill everyone's stomachs, had become the savior in the eyes of the people.
No one knew how long this gratitude would last, but in the short term, the situation in France was stabilized. Resuming production had been put on the agenda, and social order was gradually normalizing.
…
Looking at the Bourbon dynasty struggling, Franz breathed a sigh of relief. As long as Carlos could stabilize the situation in France, he would be satisfied.
As for the issue of reparations, it would be good if there was, but it was fine if there was none. It could be dragged on until the end of time. Anyway, Franz would not chase the French for debts when they had no money.
However, good times were always short-lived. Affected by the end of the civil war in France, the Vienna stock market hit a new high on January 6, 1894, and the market plunged by 9 points in the afternoon. The military sector led the fall by 21 points.
This was just the beginning. After the market opened the next day, the military sector led the fall again, and by the afternoon, the sector had fallen by 19 points.
In just two days, the military sector lost 40% of its market value, and the market plunged by 15 points. Billions of Divine Dun disappeared just like that.
Things were not over yet. After the torturous weekend, the stock market opened the next day, and the market fell by 3 points again. The military sector led the fall by 7 points, and some stocks even lost 90% of their market value.
Both were the financial centers of the Holy Roman Empire. With the crash of the Vienna stock market, Frankfurt naturally could not escape. At this moment, both were rotten brothers, and no one was luckier than the other.
In January, the stock markets of these two major financial centers as a whole plummeted. Even if there was an occasional rebound, it would fall back the next day.
By the end of January, the Vienna stock market had fallen by 34.7% from its peak. Frankfurt was not much better, and the market as a whole had fallen by a third.
The military sector that triggered this crisis was even more unsightly. The companies that lost two-thirds of their value were companies with core technology. It would be considered good if the average company could retain one-fifth of its market value.
There was no other way. The military sector was a cyclical stock that reaped dividends from the war. It was already good enough if they could make a profit in peacetime. The more glamorous the financial statements during the war, the more garbage the financial statements after the war were.
The current decline was only due to the market panic caused by the end of the France civil war. Franz was sure that if these military sector companies released their financial statements for 1893, their stock prices would fall even further.
The reason was simple. Last year, Shinra's military orders plummeted, and the anti-French alliance, which was a large importer of weapons, also stopped purchasing.
The civil war in France and the war between Japan and Western Japan, which everyone had high hopes for, mainly consumed the stocks after the victory in the war against France. It did not bring many orders to the domestic military sector companies.
Without orders, naturally, there would be no sales. Almost all the military sector companies had a large layoff last year, which was the biggest negative.
In fact, the military sector stocks had started to fall as early as the end of the European war. But in the middle of the year, the situation was tense, and the Anglo-Austrian conflict was on the verge of breaking out. The war between Japan and Western Japan, and the civil war in France broke out one after another.
Unfortunately, the last wave of the stock market was the buyer. The main reason why the stock price plummeted was because the civil war in France ended too quickly, and the market makers did not complete the shipment. In order to prevent losses, they could only sell like crazy.
The stock market crashed, and the real economy did not fare well. The number of companies that could complete the transformation in time was small. Most of the companies still wanted to be lucky and wanted to survive.
Along with the stock crash, a series of problems such as financing difficulties, bankruptcy, and unemployment also came one after another, directly interrupting Franz's good mood.
Originally, he thought that the economic crisis was triggered by the financial bankruptcy of the Italian Federation. He did not expect the civil war in France to end early and burst the bubble first.
The bubble exceeded the plan and burst early, which was obviously not a good thing. This meant that the Government of Vienna had not completed the preparation work.
There was no other way, the market's confidence was too fragile, and it could not withstand the torment. The end of the civil war in France caused the military sector bubble to burst, and it was impossible for Franz to go in and take over the stock in order to prolong the time.
Frankly speaking, he admired the warriors who dared to take over the stock on the first day of the stock crash. Especially those who played with leverage, they were the warriors of the warriors, or in short, the warriors of death.
Admiration was admiration, but there was no need to imitate them. Once the prelude of the stock crash began, no matter who went in, they would be swallowed.
Affected by the stock crash, the police in all the major cities of the Holy Roman Empire had to work overtime. High-rise buildings, bridges, and rivers became the focus of surveillance. Recently, the frequency of dumplings falling was too high.
According to the statistics of the Government of Vienna, the number of suicides in the Holy Roman Empire in January 1894 increased by 114.6% compared to the same period last year, and there were even more people who attempted suicide.
There was no other way, the world was cruel. Since they chose to gamble, they had to bear the consequences.
The only thing that comforted Franz was that he was not the only one who was unlucky, there were a lot of bad brothers accompanying him.
As the world's largest economy, the Holy Roman Empire's economy had problems, and no industrial country in the world could escape.
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