After Goethe finished speaking, the scholars present looked at William III.
German scholars are looking forward to an impactful answer from their Majesty the King.
Some people expected William III to make public remarks and express his intention to rebuild a new Roman Empire with Prussia or Germany as the center and starting point.
Establish a new Roman Empire dominated by Germans, just like the Qin State in China's history.
Schopenhauer's initial large number of questions and Goethe's comparison of Ming Dynasty and China actually led the topic of the scene to this side.
As for the short-lived issue of Qin, the scholars at the scene believed that they should be able to avoid the past if they had learned from past mistakes.
Even, in the opinion of many scholars, the Qin Dynasty disappeared and the Han Dynasty immediately took over.
Even if Prussia is gone and Hohenzollern is gone, there can be other countries and other royal families to inherit the unified Germany.
Of course, this idea cannot be expressed, especially not in front of the King of Hohenzollern.
In fact, the current domestic situation in Prussia is not good.
After the end of the world war, Prussia got Zhu Jingyuan and assigned Nigeria to it, and then entered a stage of rapid development that lasted for ten years.
This decade is called the golden decade.
Because it only lasted ten years.
In the past two or three years, Prussia's domestic market has also fallen into a continued downturn due to similar reasons as Lucia, England and other countries.
The situation within Prussia gradually became tense, and conflicts between various classes began to become acute.
Of course, Prussia is much better off now than Weimar Germany was historically before World War II.
Prussia now has a completely unified central court, no huge foreign debts and indemnities, and it has also developed oil fields and iron mines in Mexico.
It has its own basically complete industrial system.
Moreover, due to its geographical location, Prussia naturally has a stronger sense of crisis, and most of them are not as promiscuous as the British.
Most Prussians today can still hold on.
But we must find a way out of this situation, otherwise Prussia's development will stagnate.
Prussian or German scholars are worried about this problem.
William III had a fairly clear understanding of all this.
In the view of William III, Goethe's answer was to throw back the big pot of "Germany's future".
This is indeed something you should consider.
In fact, William III actually had an answer in his mind, at least a relatively reliable and feasible answer.
But just because it is feasible, we cannot say it publicly now.
Although most of the people on his ship are Germans, they are even basically people from the "Kingdom of Prussia".
But they may not all really support their own "Kingdom of Prussia."
Some people just think that the Austrian royal family is the orthodox German state. After all, the Austrian royal family once occupied the position of emperor of the Holy Roman Empire for a long time.
The orthodox "King of Germany" was elected by the electors and was the emperor of the HRE.
The Hohenzollern kingdom of Prussia belonged to outsiders.
Some extreme German scholars and nationalists are very concerned about the name and origin of the Kingdom of Prussia.
In their view, the House of Hohenzollern in Prussia unified Germany, and the final name of the country is likely to continue to be the Kingdom of Prussia.
This is equivalent to the British Hanoverian royal family unifying Germany, but the final country's name is England!
A further exaggerated metaphor is that the Hanoverians were crowned Emperors of Tianzhu, and then called Britain the Tianzhu Empire instead of the British Empire.
Hohenzollern had two identities, the Elector of Brandenburg within the Holy Roman Empire, and the "King of Prussia 'inside'" outside the Holy Roman Empire.
Brandenburg is equivalent to Hanover and is the elector of the HRE.
The King of Prussia and the King of England were both kings outside the HRE and the German system, and neither were kings within the German system.
Even the British title of King of Hanover is more "normal" than the title of King of Prussia.
The King of Prussia is rather strange, being a king limited to Prussia.
The general formal title of the king of France is "the king from a certain place", while the king of Prussia is "the king located in Prussia".
In German, in is used, not the common von (von), which is the difference between in and of in English.
The German nobles all have the surname "Feng", but the king does not have the "surname Feng"!
How can this be done?
In the Middle Ages, the average Thai king would be called His Majesty everywhere.
When the King of France arrives in the UK, he will be respected as a king, and at least there will be no blatant degradation in etiquette.
The chair he sits on must have armrests, just like the King of England.
But the king of Prussia, strictly speaking, can only receive the king's courtesy if he is in Prussia.
When within the scope of the HRE, he can only use the title of Elector of Brandenburg, and other HRE monarchs can also call him a Marquis instead of His Majesty the King.
To be very serious, when he meets the British King, the British can only give him the courtesy of a marquis, and the chair he sits on is one level lower than that of the king.
Hanover, England, happened to have a feud with the Hohenzollern, and George IV might actually be able to pull off such an arrangement.
Because according to the tradition of the Holy Roman Empire, there can only be one King of Bohemia within the territory of the Holy Roman Empire.
The Hohenzollern family is an elector, and if they want to use the title of king to improve their status, they can only look outside the Shinra.
The Hohenzollern family's territory outside the HRE was Prussia.
If Prussia was originally a kingdom, just use "King from Prussia".
The key is that the "Prussian Principality" was still a vassal of the King of Poland at that time, and the King of Poland was the Elector of Saxony in the HRE.
The King of Poland in Saxony and the King of England and Scotland in Hanover, these two guys who were both electors, actually had serious titles of kings.
It should also be an important reason why Hohenzollern wanted the entire title of king.
In this chaotic network of relationships, Hohenzollern discussed with Emperor Shinra and came up with the title "King of Prussia".
Being a king behind closed doors does not conflict with the king of Poland or the king of Germany.
Although the King of Poland is gone now, the Elector of Saxony is gone, and the German territory of Hanover has been lost to Prussia.
But according to China's side, the Kingdom of Prussia is not justified in its name and words.
Even the Kingdom of Brandenburg sounds better than the Kingdom of Prussia.
As for the German Kingdom, it is still unavailable for the time being.
Prussia has not yet unified all of Germany, and the key is that it has not yet eliminated Austria.
The Habsburg family, which has long occupied the titles of King of Germany and Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, still actually rules part of the German land and people.
In fact, Zhu Jingyuan didn't understand these chaotic relationships at all, so he thought it would be normal for Prussia to unify Germany and continue to be called the Kingdom of Prussia.
In fact, in the current actual reality, it is indeed normal.
William III himself knew very well that as long as Prussia unified Germany by force, no one would be able to question Prussia's national title.
This is the experience from China.
Even now, in terms of actual international diplomacy, the King of Prussia is just a normal king.
Because Ming Dynasty recognized it.
The current rules of the world were formulated by the Ming Dynasty.
According to the tradition in Chinese history, when the King of Han became the emperor, the country was called Han; when the Duke of Tang became the emperor, the country was called Tang.
The medieval routine of Europe has long been meaningless.
But there are some old scholars and extremists who feel that the King of Prussia does not sound good and they should be replaced by the King of Germany.
However, before actually defeating Austria and annexing Austria's German region, he directly changed his name to the King of Germany, which was even more unfair and inconsistent.
So the actual purpose of these people is to go to Austria as soon as possible.
Even giving a clear time will do!
Of course William III wanted to attack Austria, and he had even formulated a large number of very detailed battle plans.
Some of them even have high feasibility.
But precisely because we are indeed prepared, we cannot talk openly to these scholars now, nor can we publicly reveal the actual planning details.
Otherwise, if the enemy is prepared, all previous efforts may be in vain.
William III hesitated for a moment, and then gave a very vague, but equally correct answer:
"Prussia's goal has always been to unify all German regions.
“After this, we can consider how to restore the glory of the Holy Roman Empire and even re-establish Rome.
“It is moot to discuss definitions of the future that are too far into the future at this stage.”
Prussia is not worried about empty hostility with Austria, nor is it worried that Austria will be angry because of its speech.
If we say that in the traditional dynasty era, there is still the possibility of reconciliation between the two parties.
But in today's era, the relationship between the two parties is close to that of old enemies.
So William III could openly say that he wanted to destroy Austria.
This is a well-known thing.
In fact, William III deliberately talked about this matter often, but he did not give any specific plans or take actual actions.
As time went by, it became like saying nothing.
It can even lower Austria's vigilance and regard William III's remarks as pure rhetoric.
But, at the same time, nationalists within Prussia felt the same way.
Especially young people with some angry youth tendencies.
Now that they heard William III's words, they felt that this king was boasting again.
Immediately many people wanted to ask questions, question, and ask the king to give time for preparation and when to start going to Austria.
But William III obviously did not intend to dwell on this issue.
After finishing that paragraph, the scholars who seemed to be a bit excited took the initiative to repeat it loudly:
"Prussia's purpose at this stage is to unify Germany, and there is no point in discussing other issues now!"
This sentence gives people the impression that the focus is on what will happen after the unification of Germany, on the issues of the Holy Roman Empire and even Rome.
There was another feeling of taking things for granted.
Then William III turned around and left the scene regardless of how the people present felt.
Then the scene fell into chaos again.
Some people are more tactful and restrained, complaining to people they know well that the king's attitude is not strong enough, and they only know how to settle for wealth and have no ambition to buy a house for the world.
But there are also some people who are more impulsive and direct, shouting directly in the crowd:
"The Hohenzollern is running away from the problem!"
"We have been talking about unifying Germany for so many years, but the royal family and the court have never taken any actual action!"
"War to integrate the states is the only thing Prussia can do. If it cannot defeat Austria on the battlefield, what qualifications does Prussia have to lead Germany?"
"Prussia is not a German country in the first place!"
Then these people who shouted were recorded by the special guards left by William III.
William III did not want to do anything to these people directly, but wanted to record these situations as elements of political review of these people.
Continue to observe whether these people who want to be opinion leaders are really on the side of Prussia.
If the other party really has strong opinions on Prussia and Hohenzollern, then they will no longer want to gain any status in Prussia.
Compared with the more radical King of Prussia, the situation on the Austrian side, Prussia's old rival, was even more complicated.
Austria itself is a suture monster, a tangle of lands once ruled by the Habsburg family, with intricate ethnic relations within its borders.
The people on the ship now come from all over Austria, and they take care of people of all ethnic groups.
The emperor of Austria tried to "make a bowl of water even".
But other ethnic groups and elites in Austria don't seem to appreciate it.
It seems that the more the Austrian emperor takes care of other ethnic groups, the more the people of these ethnic groups quarrel.
However, in fact, the fundamental reason why the Austrian emperor tried to achieve equality was obviously that it was difficult for him to truly control the situation in Austria.
The reality that this suture monster itself has a lot of problems is the reason. Even though the Austrian Emperor tried hard to balance the various races, it was the result that he couldn't get a response.
The Austrian emperor actually did not really want to treat all ethnic groups equally.
For similar reasons to other countries, Austria quickly fell into a state of stagnation and decline after more than ten years of rapid development.
The existing conflicts in the Stitch Empire quickly became acute.
Each ethnic group believed that it was the other ethnic groups that made the situation in the empire difficult and made their own lives difficult.
Various conflicts and disputes ensued.
In this case, in order to maintain the existence of the empire, the Austrian emperor promoted the equality of all ethnic groups and states.
If possible, the Austrian emperor certainly hopes to be the supreme monarch, rather than lowering his posture to appease nationalists of various ethnic groups.
On this trip to the Ming Dynasty, the Austrian Emperor brought together opinion leaders from all ethnic groups and gave these people a platform to directly debate.
So there were people blaming each other everywhere on the ship every day. If they hadn't been concerned about their status, and if it hadn't been for the emperor's guards to maintain order, many fights among scholars might have broken out.
After the Austrian Emperor realized this, he simply stopped dealing with the new generation of scholars.
He spent most of his time in his cabin, with the nobles and bureaucrats of the empire, thinking and discussing the future of Austria.
The Austrian Emperor's main thoughts were on the Prussians and Lucians opposite.
The current situation in all countries in Europe and the West is not good, and war is an effective way to divert domestic troubles and problems.
Relatively speaking, Austria, which has the most complicated internal situation, and the Austrian emperor who is struggling to maintain his current rule, of course also wants to launch a foreign war.
But after discussion and analysis, they discovered that no matter which country Austria targeted, it felt inadequate.
What's more, the countries surrounding Austria are not obviously weak.
Not to mention Prussia and Lucia, even the Ottomans and Sardinian Italy were enemies that Austria could not defeat.
Because the various ethnic groups in Austria were severely divided, the number of people the emperor could directly mobilize was too small.
Even if soldiers are forcibly recruited, it is difficult to ensure the loyalty of young soldiers with nationalist tendencies.
Even the loyalty of the Germans in Austria was questionable, as many of them were loyal to Prussia.
Because they felt that Prussia was a country dominated by Germans, not a suture monster like Austria.
If your own life becomes difficult, it must be because of the rubbish from other ethnic groups.
As long as it can be annexed to Prussia, everything will be fine.
By then, a completely unified Germany will be able to explode with powerful power.
At that time, they will conquer other ethnic countries in Austria and turn those places into German colonies.
Therefore, although the Austrian emperor wanted war, he could only work hard to protect himself.
Pay very careful attention to the movements of Prussia and Lucia, fearing that Prussia and Lucia will suddenly jointly attack Austria.
This time I went to Daming in person, and I also wanted to obtain Daming's protection and commitment.
After all, Ming Dynasty is the leader of the League of Nations.
