1830, Neuschwanstein Palace.
Late at night, the stars in the cold, desolate sky emitted a faint glow.
Standing on the balcony of his bedroom, Otto Friedrich Ludwig looked up at the sky, his heart turbulent, recalling various events from his previous life, feeling a sense of temporal displacement and unreality.
Otto Friedrich Ludwig, the second son of Ludwig I, King of Bavaria, and Therese of Saxe-Hildburghausen, was born in 1815 in Salzburg, Austrian Empire, a Prince of Bavaria.
However, the Otto at this time was not the Otto of original history; his body had been taken over by a soul from a future world at birth.
Honestly, Otto was quite satisfied to be reborn as a Prince, his birth noble enough. If nothing unexpected happened, after the London Conference in May 1832, he would become the King of Greece.
By this time, Napoleon had been completely defeated, but the ideas of the French Revolution and the tide of nationalism, spread throughout Europe by Napoleon's armies, were gradually flourishing.
The Russian Empire, in order to better intervene in the affairs of the Ottoman Empire, had successfully obtained the right to protect Eastern Orthodox Christians within the Ottoman Empire during the preceding Russo-Turkish Wars.
Leveraging this right, Russia continuously supported the spread of nationalist ideas within the Ottoman Empire, stirring up unrest, especially in the Balkans.
Rigas Feraios, an influential Greek writer and intellectual, was deeply influenced by the French Revolution. He called on all Balkan peoples to unite and create a "Balkan Republic."
Ultimately, in 1797, he was arrested by Austrian officials in Trieste, handed over to Ottoman officials along with his accomplices, and was hanged in June the following year, his body abandoned in the Danube River.
Rigas's death ultimately ignited the flames of Greek nationalism. His nationalist poem, "Thourios," was translated into several Western European and Balkan languages and became a battle cry for Greeks to resist Ottoman rule.
Another Greek writer who witnessed the French Revolution, Adamantios Korais, chose to promote the Enlightenment by enlightening the populace. He spent a great deal of time persuading many influential Greeks to establish schools and libraries, advancing the education of Greeks.
This wave of the Greek Enlightenment not only received support from wealthy merchants in Western Europe and Russia but also from philhellenes in Western Europe.
Three young Greek merchants: Nikolaos Skoufas, Emmanuil Xanthos, and Athanasios Tsakalov, secretly founded the Filiki Eteria (Society of Friends) in Odessa in 1814.
The nascent society received support from wealthy Greek communities exiled in Britain and America, as well as aid from sympathizers in Western Europe.
The initial goal of the Filiki Eteria was to restore the Roman Empire with New Rome as its capital, and they sought the help of Alexander Ypsilantis.
The Tsar's adjutant accepted the request, and with help from all sides, the society rapidly expanded.
In 1821, the Ottoman Empire was deeply embroiled in a war with its old enemy, Persia, and simultaneously faced a rebellion by Muhammad Ali Pasha of Egypt. This forced the Ottoman to divert a large number of troops, leading the Greeks to conclude that the time for resistance was ripe. They planned uprisings in the Peloponnese, the Danubian Principalities, and Constantinople.
Because ancient Greece was the birthplace of many European classical heritages, there was widespread public sympathy for the Greek independence movement.
Some wealthy Americans and Western European aristocrats, such as the famous poet Lord Byron and later the physician Samuel Howe, took up arms and joined the ranks of the Greek revolutionaries.
The insurgents formed their own provisional government and held their first national assembly the following year, declaring independence.
The Ottomans reacted strongly to the actions of the Greek insurgents.
Although the Ottoman Empire was already in a continuous decline, Mahmud II, the Sultan of the Ottoman, was by no means an incompetent ruler.
He clearly understood that if the Greek insurgents succeeded, it would be equivalent to opening Pandora's box of national independence within the Ottoman Empire.
For the Ottoman Empire, whose domestic ethnic complexity was no less than Austria's, if Greece truly gained independence, it would trigger a series of chain reactions within the Ottoman Empire.
However, at this time, corruption was rampant within the Ottoman Empire. The reforms of Selim III had touched the interests of many people. By the reign of Mahmud II, subsequent rebellions in Wallachia and other places further prevented him from focusing on the Greek independence movement, and the suppression efforts were extremely slow.
After news of the uprising spread, many people provided financial aid to the revolution. The London Philhellenic Committee successively provided two floating loans to rebellious Greece in 1824 and 1825, amounting to 800,000 pounds and 2 million pounds respectively.
Initially, the reactions of various governments varied, but as time went on, pro-Greek forces continuously lobbied and exerted influence. At the most critical moment for the Greek insurgents, they received support from Britain, France, and Russia.
In 1827, to prevent the Ottoman Empire from suppressing the Greek insurgents, the combined fleet of the three countries together destroyed the Ottoman fleet.
In 1828, Russia even directly declared war on the Ottoman Empire, leading to the renewed outbreak of the Russo-Turkish War.
In this war, Russia gradually advanced southward, ravaging Moldavia, Wallachia, and through Bulgaria, pressed directly on Constantinople, forcing the Ottoman Empire to sign a humiliating treaty, reluctantly ceding territory for peace.
At the same time, France also sent troops and controlled the Peloponnese. This series of actions by the great powers tied up a great deal of the Ottoman Empire's energy, preventing the Ottoman Empire from quickly quelling this 'rebellion' stirred up by the Greek insurgents.
In desperation, the current Ottoman Sultan, Mahmud II, could only seek the help of Muhammad Ali, who was then the Governor of Egypt, promising great benefits and convincing Ali to help brutally suppress the Greek insurgents.
But even so, it could not stop the Greeks' desire for independence. Finally, unable to resist the combined efforts of the three great powers, the completely outmatched Ottoman Empire had no choice but to accept the fact of Greek independence.
Ultimately, in 1830, in this year's Treaty of London, the nations together defined the territory of the independent Greek state, including the Peloponnese peninsula, Athens, the northern Gulf of Corinth, Euboea, and the Cyclades islands.
If history does not change from now on, by 1831, Ioannis Kapodistrias, the President of Greece, would be assassinated, and internal power struggles would begin in Greece, plunging Greek politics into chaos.
To stabilize the situation in Greece, Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary of Britain, then contacted diplomats from France and Russia to discuss how to stabilize Greece.
After some discussion, the three countries reached an agreement without any consultation with Greece: Greece should become a monarchy.
The three countries chose Prince Otto of Bavaria to be the King of Greece and agreed that Otto's descendants or his brother's offspring could inherit the throne, but under no circumstances could the crowns of Greece and Bavaria be merged.
After making this decision, the three countries each contacted their ambassadors in Constantinople, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, and together with the Ottoman Empire, signed the Treaty of Constantinople to ensure that the Ottoman Empire would not interfere, and at the same time, set the border of the Kingdom of Greece along the line from Arta to Volos.
That is to say, if the course of history does not change due to his own butterfly effect, two years later, Otto would become the newly minted King of Greece, historically known as Otto I.
As an unremarkable wage earner in his previous life, barely a military and history enthusiast, the history Otto remembered indicated that the situation in Greece had never been truly peaceful.
Especially when he thought of 1862, when the original Otto I was driven out of Greece and replaced by the second son of the Kingdom of Denmark as King of Greece, Otto felt a headache.
They say that reborn individuals are children of the planes, seemingly destined to defy fate and dominate the world.
But Otto didn't think that much right now. As a small country in the Mediterranean, Greece had no industry, no resources, and no population. It could be said to be a typical three-no country.
People's future impression of Greece would come from myths and legends, or the scenery of the Aegean Sea.
So, things like punching Britain and kicking America were just occasional fleeting fantasies. Otto's current small goal for himself was to secure his throne and then, with the help of the international situation, achieve Greece's expansion.
This goal didn't seem too difficult if he prepared well and didn't pick the wrong side.
Another point was to control the surging nationalism and avoid being dragged into the abyss due to irrational public sentiment.
In original history, Greece, due to the rise of nationalism and driven by so-called hellenism, joined the Balkan Wars.
The result was that its military performance was truly poor, getting a severe beating from the Ottoman army. Had it not been for choosing the right side during World War I, it would not have gained a large territory from the Ottoman with little effort.
In this regard, Greece's military performance was comparable to the Kingdom of Sardinia, which unified Italy; it lost more than it won in the wars of unification, and its ability to reclaim lost territories was more due to choosing the correct side.
In contrast, Bulgaria, another small but militarily strong country in the Balkans, similar to Greece.
Because of its fickle foreign policy, it successively offended multiple surrounding countries, ultimately leading to poor relations with all of them.
Coupled with choosing the wrong side in World War I, after the war, while its country was devastated, it also had to cede territory and pay indemnities, thus completely declining.
From this perspective, 'choosing sides' is an indispensable skill, especially for small countries. One wrong choice can lead to either a permanent decline or the complete disappearance of the entire nation.
Regardless of what the future holds or what choices he will have to make, Otto Is currently just an ordinary Prince of the Kingdom of Bavaria, with his elder brother, the future Maximilian II, above him.
Being chosen as the King of Greece was due to the individual plans of Britain, France, and Russia, plus, from a genealogical perspective, he possessed the bloodline of the Byzantine Empire's Komnenos and Laskaris dynasties, giving him a slight legal advantage.
His thoughts turned again. As the saying goes, when poor, cultivate oneself; when successful, benefit the world. Otto Is not yet the King of Greece, so he doesn't need to consider how to rule Greece for now.
Currently, the most important thing for him is to make money; otherwise, when he becomes King of Greece in the future, it's questionable whether he can even maintain his current affluent lifestyle with only the devastated land he will inherit.