Volume 1: Birth! Seven time travelers Chapter 83: Habsburg Family (I)
"Hey, Philip, long time no see."
"Hey, Rudolph, I'm so glad to see you. You have no idea how much I've missed you these past two years."
While the Crown Prince of the Ming Empire in the East was busy preparing for the move, in the West, in the Kingdom of Spain, Philip and Rudolf, as time travelers, met again in the new capital of this country: Madrid, two years later.
As a glutton who only takes in but never gives out, the Habsburg family strongly advocates intra-family marriages to prevent the outflow of their territory. The most popular one is uncle marrying niece. The consequence of this is that genetic diseases are very common in this family. The appearance characteristics of the members of this family are becoming more and more similar. Of course, the most typical one is that almost all members of this family have extremely long and protruding mandibles.
Although these two travelers have excellent physical qualities, they all have typical Habsburg looks. And the way they talk with two long mandibles together is, uh, very funny.
"Rudolf, how has your study tour in Germany been going these past two years?"
"Very good, Philip. Can you believe it? It took me only a short time to master German. Oh, I guess it must be a blessing from God."
Hehe, you were the Spanish military attaché in Germany before you traveled through time. Unlike me, who is just a simple Spaniard... But don't be complacent, at least among the two of us, I am the only one who knows all the rules of this game.
Although the time traveler called Philip had his own plans in mind, he had a warm smile on his face: "Of course, Rudolf is a genius."
The two six-year-old children held hands and walked forward quickly while talking intimately. Their guards and maids all consciously slowed down their pace: Spain, a country with a strong religious atmosphere is different from Eastern countries. These two twins with miracles have been able to enjoy all kinds of privileges since they were born. When they talk together, it is often called the communication of "sons of God", and ordinary people dare not approach to eavesdrop.
After everyone around them had kept a certain distance from the two, Philip glanced around the empty room. After making sure that no one could eavesdrop, he looked at Rudolf with sparkling eyes: "What's the situation in Austria? Oh, this is a big question. I mean, the economic situation."
"It's very bad, even poorer than Spain. Most of the wealth of the royal family and the nobility has been converted into land, gold and silver utensils, expenses for various large-scale balls, donations to the Pope, and even rewards for musicians. Jesus, even I, the Grand Duke of the Basque Country, am jealous of the wealth of those musicians' families... The funds have all gone to these useless places, and the development of handicrafts and agriculture has naturally been suppressed. Even the military expenses... Alas..."
"Hey, isn't it the same in Spain? Speaking of which, our Lord God must hate our great-grandfather in this life very much at this time, right? If it weren't for his bastard decision, our career in this plane would be much smoother."
Why did Philip's time traveler say this? This has to start with the origin of the Habsburg family that ruled Spain and Austria at that time.
In the middle of the 13th century (during the confrontation between the Song and Yuan dynasties in China), the Holy Roman Empire had been without a monarch for a long time. As a result, the order in Central Europe was in chaos, which seriously affected the authority and interests of the Pope. Therefore, Pope Gregory X at that time sent a letter to the German princes: You should quickly choose a new German king or emperor of the Holy Roman Empire to restore order in this region! If you ca , I will directly appoint one for you!
At that time, the most prestigious and powerful of the German states was Ottokar II, the King of Bohemia: Bohemia, Bavaria and even Hungary belonged to him... For the German princes, the influence of the Pope was extremely great, and it was already very uncomfortable for the princes of the states to be forced to submit to the Pope. What would happen if such a powerful prince ascended the throne?
No! You can't take the throne. We have to find a weakling to be the king.
So, this pie-in-the-sky opportunity fell on the then Habsburg Count Rudolf I.
It is said that Rudolf I was two meters one meter tall and had a skinny build (you can refer to a famous NBA star, only the build, not the appearance and skin color).
Before he came to power, he had no special features except for his large nose. Moreover, the Habsburg territory at that time was also pitifully small.
Well, I have no ability and my direct jurisdiction is small. Well, it's you, everyone unanimously elected you as the King of Germany!
However, the political and military talents displayed by this skinny guy after he came to power made the German princes who thought they had a good plan regret it: This guy is a genius! He is too damn powerful, we can't handle him at all.
With a righteous cause and the diligent efforts of successive rulers, this family, which originated in France and had long lived in the Swiss mountains, quickly expanded and gradually took control of Austria.
In the mid-to-late fifteenth century, the family welcomed a new leader: Maximilian I, who claimed to have conquered half of Europe with his lower body.
This Maximilian occupies an important position in European history: through his own marriages and carefully arranged marriages for his children, he quickly brought a large amount of land under the rule of his family.
In 1477, Maximilian married the only daughter of the Duke of Burgundy. After the Duke of Burgundy died, large tracts of land in southern and eastern France, as well as the Netherlands and Belgium, came under the rule of the Habsburg family.
In 1496, Maximilian asked his son Philip to marry the Spanish king's crown princess Juana (Philip was a famous handsome man in Europe at the time, nicknamed "handsome man". Juana was nicknamed "crazy woman". As the saying goes, there are only wrong names, not wrong nicknames. So from this perspective, Maximilian's investment was not small). In 1516, after the death of the Spanish king, the huge industries of the entire Spanish kingdom were all taken over by the Habsburg family.
In 1521, Maximilian's grandson Ferdinand married a Bohemian princess. In 1522, Maximilian married a granddaughter to King Lajos II of Hungary and Bohemia... In 1526, after Lajos II died in the battle against the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, Hungary and Bohemia also belonged to the Habsburgs.
The results of all these marriage alliances were finally concentrated on his grandson, Charles V.
Since this great emperor concentrated all the results of the Habsburgs' efforts for hundreds of years, his specific titles were: Holy Roman Emperor (Charles V), King of Germany, Monarch of the Netherlands (now the Netherlands and Belgium), and King of Spain (known as Carlos I in Spain).
If we look at the territories under his rule on a 21st century map, they include Austria, Hungary, Czech Republic, part of southern Germany, part of northeastern France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Spain, southern Italy, Milan, Sicily, Sardinia, Tunisia in North Africa, Oran, etc. All of the above are actually under his control. At the same time, he is nominally the common ruler of all German states.
He funded Magellan's circumnavigation of the world, sent Dutchman Cortes to conquer the Aztec Empire, and sent Francisco Pizarro to conquer the Inca Empire. He established the Spanish Viceroyalty (including Mexico, Central America, and the West Indies), the Viceroyalty of New Grenada (Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, and Ecuador), the Viceroyalty of Peru (Peru and northern Chile), and the Viceroyalty of La Plata (northern Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay, and Uruguay) in the Americas...
The Habsburg family reached its peak under the rule of this great emperor (Charles V).
However, after reaching its peak, it was time to go downhill. During the reign of Charles V, although the four Spanish viceroyalties in the Americas brought back 5,000 kilograms of gold and 246,000 kilograms of silver from the Americas to the mainland every year, the huge wealth, in addition to satisfying the luxurious life of the nobility and the royal family, was mostly used for war.
As the protector of Catholicism, he fought all-out wars with the Ottoman Empire in North Africa, Italy, Hungary, and the Balkans. He repeatedly fought with France for control of northern Italy. He repeatedly fought in Germany to suppress the Protestant movement in Germany... Although he won most of the battles, the entire country was slowly overdrawn.
In 1555, Charles V, who had suffered from gout for a long time and had exhausted all his strength but still failed to completely quell the Protestant movement, was exhausted and disheartened. So he announced his abdication. Before abdicating, he handed over the ruling rights of the Kingdom of Spain (including the southern part of the Italian peninsula, Tunisia, etc.) and its colonies, as well as the Netherlands to his son: Philip II (called Philip II in France, and Philip in this book). He handed over the title of Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire and the ruling rights of Austria, Hungary, Bohemia, etc. to his younger brother: Ferdinand I.
The Habsburg family's territory was so vast and scattered that it was a good strategy to imitate the Roman Empire and divide it into two. But what made the two time travelers crazy was that when Charles V divided his property, he clearly stipulated that from then on the Habsburg family would be divided into two. The Spanish Habsburg family had no right of succession to the Austrian Habsburg family's territory! Conversely, the Austrian Habsburg family also had no right of succession to the Spanish Habsburg family's territory.
This was a very depressing decision for the two time travelers who urgently needed to integrate the power of the entire Habsburg family in order to deal with the upcoming pan-European war (the Thirty Years' War in this historical dimension).
