Chapter 1588 - 1494: The Austrian Great Revolution
Chapter 1588: Chapter 1494: The Austrian Great Revolution
In front of Mei Quan Palace Square, Adorno’s chest pressed against a stranger’s back, while his own back leaned on the slender shoulder of a young boy.
Nearly twenty thousand people had gathered around—the number was mentioned by several officers conversing at the palace gates.
This made Adorno feel empowered, a strength that dared him to challenge fate.
The people around seemed exhausted from shouting and fell into silence, but in the crowded square, this quiet was more unsettling than any roar.
Adorno glanced at the lead-gray clouds in the sky, then looked towards the balcony on the second floor of the Schonbrunn Palace.
Four court guards stood there, but the figure he wanted to see was absent.
In fact, the twenty thousand people in the square were all staring at that balcony.
They were twenty thousand waiting for a verdict, and twenty thousand participating in it.
However, Adorno didn’t know how long he had waited, maybe two hours, maybe four hours, as the sky transformed from gray-white to deep gray, the Emperor still hadn’t appeared.
Finally, the door behind the balcony opened, but the one who emerged was the corpulent Count Salazar.
"His Majesty has received your petition," the palace manager’s sharp voice echoed through the square, "He will consider it seriously! Go back, everyone go back!"
He gestured to the downstairs.
The palace door was pushed ajar, and dozens of servants emerged, carrying large baskets of bread.
Another dozen or so maids grabbed the bread and frantically distributed it to the protesting crowd.
The bread was white with a golden-brown crust, Adorno had never eaten such bread.
But he didn’t reach out to take it, most others were like him, just coldly watching.
Some accepted the bread, then forcefully threw it on the ground, shouting towards the palace balcony, "Don’t think you can brush us off, the culprits must be severely punished!"
"Abolish the war tax, or we still can’t afford bread in the future!"
"Yes! Also lower the poll tax!"
"Forming a Congress is the only solution to all problems..."
Count Salazar mumbled something, dejectedly retreating.
As twilight approached, women used their aprons to carry bread, distributing it to people in the square who hadn’t left yet.
Adorno lay on the cold stone slabs of the square and slept through the night, the next morning when dawn broke, more than 26,000 people had surrounded the Schonbrunn Palace.
New people who just heard the news were still arriving continuously.
Just as Adorno listened to a few people nearby discussing how long it would take for the Emperor to decide, there was commotion among the outermost protesters.
Adorno jumped up and looked out, seeing squads of police appear simultaneously at several street intersections.
His pupils suddenly shrank.
The gray uniforms, swords at their waists, identical to those seen at the cafe that night!
What he didn’t know was that Count Pergen, the director of Vienna Secret Police, realizing he had caused trouble, then started frantically remedying the situation.
Police and secret police from all over Vienna and surrounding towns were gathered, ideally to disperse the protestors, but even if they couldn’t, at least they could show the Emperor that the police were trying to maintain order.
Adorno suddenly pointed at the nearest police officer, yelling with all his might, "It’s them! They’re the ones who fired at the cafe on Mud Street!"
The people next to him immediately shouted angrily, "They’re here to kill us!"
"These damned murderers!"
"Everyone don’t be afraid, fight them!"
"Yes, let these devils know our power!"
The shouts spread rapidly among the protesters like rising flames.
Adorno felt the icy touch from Karen the previous night on his hand, making him shiver and then fiercely push through the crowd, desperately squeezing towards the police dozens of steps away.
He didn’t know what he wanted to do, just kept moving forward, seemingly this was the meaning of his existence now.
When he was less than 20 meters from the front row of police, the police began to raise their guns.
Just like outside the cafe.
Adorno didn’t dodge at all but raised the wooden stick in his hand high before letting out a scream unlike anything he’d ever heard, not sounding human.
Echoes appeared from behind him, starting with a dozen and quickly turning into thousands, deafening and mighty like when the Danube River floods.
The police didn’t dare to fire.
They had less than two thousand people, yet faced two to three thousand angry citizens.
The secret police began to frantically turn and flee, some were knocked down by stones and then mercilessly trampled.
Adorno chased three streets, his legs trembled with excessive excitement, only then did he stop gasping for breath.
"We won!" Someone shouted.
Cheering immediately erupted around him.
Adorno looked at the secret police fleeing in disarray, then turned to gaze at the still oppressive palace, understanding for a moment what Mr. Stephens meant by that kind of power.
At that moment, several people dressed like clerks pointed northeast, shouting, "I heard Mr. Stephens is imprisoned, let’s go save him!"
"Yes, and the more than twenty people at the cafe that day, they were captured by the secret police. Let’s go to Hofburg!"
"We can’t let those who advocate freedom lose their freedom! To Hofburg!"
In an instant, the crowd surged like a giant wave towards the city center. Adorno led the charge at the front of the "wave".
In reality, they didn’t know, Stephens and the others were not at Hofburg, their "status" wasn’t high enough to be held there.
But the Hofburg dungeon, the scariest place for Vienna’s people, had instinctively become the target in their minds.
Meanwhile, in the northern outskirts of Vienna, Jaggen shouted encouragingly to his classmates in front of the bushes, "We will create a brand new Austria; for this, we are willing to sacrifice everything!"
Over a thousand Vienna University students holding flintlock guns immediately shouted along, "For freedom and equality!"
"Burn all old order with the flames of revolution!"
"We will defeat the henchmen of any Tyrant!"
Indeed, these Vienna students had organized nearly two thousand members in just a few months and underwent considerable training.
After the cafe incident, the Stilz Society and other Liberal organizations immediately decided to leverage this large-scale Vienna uprising to launch an insurrection.
As for the arms obtained by Lucas through "connections in France", they had been dispersed and stored in several universities over a month ago, ready to be issued to the student army.
However, just this noon, a student from a major noble background revealed that the Emperor had already summoned the Moravian Legion for suppression.
The student army leader Jaggen immediately decided to ambush the Emperor’s troops in the suburbs.
Jaggen checked his watch, then turned to ask the student leader beside him, "Why hasn’t Mr. Scheller arrived yet?"
Just as he finished speaking, a student on horseback galloped towards him, shouting, "It’s bad, Mr. Scheller went to the enemy army alone!"