For political reasons, King Charles Albert had announced that General Franzini would receive the rank of Field Marshal. During this era, defeating Austria was a truly immense achievement for an Italian. If General, or rather, Marshal Franzini continued his victorious streak, it was certain that all the other Italian states would also award him the rank of Field Marshal.

However, not all was well in paradise. Due to his recent victory, Marshal Franzini had become a hero of the Italians, but his newfound fame came with increased scrutiny which no longer allowed him to act as he pleased. He now had to act humble and chivalrous publicly if he wished to maintain his fame. After all, fame was juxtaposed against infamy.  

As a result, after the hungry people of Milan rushed to find him, he had to provide them food since he had “promised them.” To maintain his reputation and the support of the people, he had to begrudgingly fulfill this promise which he had never made.

Due to the vastness of Lombardy, Marshal Franzini felt that it was impossible for the Austrian army to collect all the food in the short amount of time they had. Even though the grain stores of the grain merchants and the nobles in Milan had been ransacked, there must be something left in their manors located outside Milan.

Therefore, he coerced the local nobles in Milan into donating most of their grain from their manors located outside Milan. At the same time, he repeatedly sent requests back to Turin to speed up the transportation of grain from Piedmont-Sardinia.

Unfortunately for him, due to Milan being the industrial hub of the Italian Peninsula, the light industry here was quite developed, so it was standard practice among the nobles and farmers to sell most of their harvest to the grain processing factories which would fetch a higher price than unprocessed grain. As a result, no one had much grain on their hands.

After frantically looking everywhere, what Marshal Franzini had managed to scrounge up amounted to only a drop in the bucket.

“Lord Marshal, the food sent by Turin has not arrived yet. The food we managed to collect from the whole region is not nearly enough. Even after adding together all the food we collected and our military supply, it will last only three days,” Brigadier-General Farelli anxiously reported.

Trans_Later

He has been promoted from Colonel to Brigadier-General.

The grain sent by the Kingdom of Sardinia was already on its way to Milan, but the transportation network within Italy, at the time, was not very well-developed which led to the convoy’s slow speed. It was also not easy to quickly gather enough food for 100,000 residents of Milan. Furthermore, it wouldn’t be long before there was a food shortage in the countryside, as well.

It could be said that, in the short term, the occupation of Lombardy by the Kingdom of Sardinia would not enhance its strength, but, instead, serve as a heavy economic burden on its already fragile economy. This would directly affect the Sardinian army’s effectiveness.

In addition, Marshal Franzini was also being troubled by the liberals in Milan who had already demanded independence. He had managed to quell them for the time being since Milan still had to rely on the Kingdom of Sardinia. However, once the Austrians were repelled and the crisis was over, he would have to deal with them.

Marshal Franzini thought for a few minutes before he replied to Brigadier-General Farelli, “I will explain the situation to the people. At present, many of them still have a little food in their homes, so from tomorrow, everyone will only receive 70% of the food they require.

If we can manage that, the grain we’ve collected from the surrounding areas should be able to support Milan for five or six days, by which time the grain from Turin should arrive.”

Reducing the rations would undoubtedly arouse the people’s dissatisfaction against the Sardinians, but he could not produce food from nothing. The Kingdom of Sardinia didn’t have much influence here. In order to maintain the stability of Milan, they had to rely on the local nobles and capitalists.

Unbeknownst to Marshal Franzini, an underground black market had already begun secretly operating. If someone checked, they would find that the food sold there was the relief food gathered by the Sardinian army from the surrounding regions to feed the residents of Milan.

Corruption was a tradition left over from the era of Austrian rule. The local nobles had been used by the Austrians to indirectly rule Lombardy for many decades, so naturally, these local nobles had inherited this “fine” tradition.

The same was true for the capitalists who similarly lacked any sense of moral integrity. This tradition had also spread to many officers in the Sardinian army like a virus which was how the relief food ended up in the black market. After all, they could deduct a little food from each person during each distribution and multiply its value on the black market. How could they resist such an opportunity?

Marshal Franzini might've truly been ignorant of this black market, or he might've just pretended to be ignorant of this black market. It didn’t change the fact that, ultimately, the 70% rations the residents should have received became less than 50% by the time they got it. And within that 50%, bread was mixed with a mess of other things.

For the lucky ones, it was just bran and some wheat straw powder; for the unlucky ones, the pitch-black rye bread came with wood chips, leaves, and even tiny rocks. Such a thing may seem absurd to a modern man, but the impoverished people of that time had long been used to such treatment. It was just a little darker than the rye bread they usually ate.

The people with means, however, couldn’t eat such food, so they soon became customers of the black market one after another. In fact, it couldn’t even be called a real black market; they did their business openly and in broad daylight like a normal market.

The price, however, was anything but normal, especially the price of grain, which quickly soared to more than ten times what it had been prior to the war. Even some capitalists found it hard to afford too much of it. Of course, the poor only had the option to live off their meager rations. Anyway, Marshal Franzini had assured them that they only needed to wait a few days.

***

Paris, France.

The provisional government formed by the local capitalists was currently undergoing an internal struggle.

On March 17, 150,000 demonstrators took to the streets of Paris. They were led by the Central Republican Society a.k.a Club Blanqui, a communist society formed by Louis Auguste Blanqui who had a similar ideology as Karl Marx. Club Blanqui also happened to be an organization dreaded by the provisional government, so the demonstration soon turned violent as a riot broke out between the Blanquists and the authorities.

When the Kingdom of Sardinia had dispatched its army to attack Austria, the provisional government had voiced its support for them. Of course, this support was limited to only words. Still, this loud support had caused Franz to underestimate the turmoil in France.

It was now apparent that the provisional government, which represented the interests of the capitalists, had issued a series of policies that favored the capitalists, which naturally damaged the interests of the ordinary citizens.

For example, on March 17, the provisional government issued a decree stipulating that cash withdrawals from savings banks should be reduced. Anyone who withdrew more than 100 francs would be paid in devalued national securities. Most of the banks in France were privately-owned.

Another example, on March 23, the provisional government issued a decree stipulating that farmers will be required to pay separate taxes for purchase of movable property, immovable property, and for conducting business. In addition, a 45% surtax would be added to the tax on these purchases which meant that they now needed to pay 45 centimes as surtax for each franc of tax.

(1 franc = 100 centimes, about 0.29 grams of gold, though the value of the franc was revised following the Revolution of 1848.)