Imperial Elite

Chapter 92: Joe's bed is a matter of principle and right!
As one of the last imperialist countries in the Old World to achieve unification, Italy's nationalism was so strong that it fought twelve battles against the Habsburgs in the Alps at the Battle of the Zoson.

Although progress on the front lines has not been significant, for a country with only 35 million people, the loss of 1.5 million people over five years without the outbreak of large-scale unrest is truly remarkable.

From the Italian perspective, we have already paid such a heavy price. Even if we have no merit, we have at least worked hard, and even if we have no hard work, we have at least been exhausted.

Having barely held out until the Habsburgs collapsed, as a victorious nation, it's not unreasonable to eat a piece of their corpse, is it?

After the United States refused, the Italians reflected on their actions. They thought that taking over the entire Adriatic coast in one fell swoop might have been a bit too much. They had been too loud. So, surely giving us the port of Pula shouldn't be a problem?

This small area wasn't even enough for the Italians to bury the bodies of their fallen soldiers.

However, even with such a significant step backward, Citibank still refused.

Yes, you made contributions to the war, but does that give you the right to demand land? This is not the peace we Americans want. We Americans couldn't handle the Gauls and Buntanians on the Teutonic question, and now we can't handle you Italians?
You should reflect on yourselves and see if this demand is appropriate and if it contradicts the fundamental principle of national self-determination!

Italians soon discovered that after losing many friends and family members and almost completely collapsing their already dire economy, they couldn't even have their small request met. This was utterly unfair!
As a result, the Italian government began to be heavily criticized. At the same time, a very spirited man and his spirited subordinates stood up and said, "Damn this government is incompetent. They can't even get what is rightfully ours."

Since that's the case, let's go get it ourselves for Italy! Let them kill us if they dare!
So this energetic fellow led two hundred men and marched towards Port Pula.

Logically speaking, it's a bit of a pipe dream to think that two hundred people could occupy a port.

However, since the collapse of the Habsburgs, the situation in the Balkans has become quite complicated. In addition to the original ethnic conflicts, nationalists and religious fanatics have been constantly criticizing and engaging in purely physical criticism of each other over whether or not they should submit to the Russian military government.

Many people feel that when the Habsburgs came, we resisted, but after that, the Russians took over. Wasn't our resistance in vain?
This caused chaos throughout the Balkans. Amidst this chaos, this energetic fellow led his men directly to the port of Pula, raised the Italian flag, and declared that from now on, this was Italian territory, and no one would interfere.

Because of its proximity to Italy, some locals felt that it was better to associate with Italians now than with Lucias in the future, since Italians were more familiar with them. So when the spirited man raised the Italian flag in the port of Pula, some locals cheered in their not-so-fluent Italian.

In this way, this spirited individual has personally achieved significant results for the country, while the government has done nothing, making the difference in their abilities immediately apparent.

For a time, this spirited man named Benito became incredibly popular in Italy, and those equally spirited individuals who had opinions about the government flocked to his side, and a new political force began to rise in Italy.

However, Joe was unaware of this, as he had been extremely busy throughout the first half of 1919.

After signing a comprehensive defense contract with both countries and stating that it would not monopolize the projects but would instead collaborate with influential figures in those countries, large sums of money began to flow into the two nations as those influential figures became heavily involved.

Although theoretically the two countries are still at war and their borders are not even clearly defined, the people of Buntania do not mind.

Old Joe said he could ensure safety, so how could there be a problem?

What? Does anyone think Old Joe's tanks were made of paper?
As a result of the influx of large sums of money, these two small countries, which were originally on the periphery of the world, began to change.

Due to their small size and population, the influx of funds into Bunitania quickly generated strong reactions in both countries.

If we want to mine, we need to build roads, and to build roads, we need cement, right? If we want to manufacture cement locally, we can't ship it from Buntania, so we need to build a factory locally, right? Once the factory is built, it can't operate without electricity, so we need some electricity, right? Since we need to get electricity, then we can also get some resources like hydropower that we can get for free, can't we?

With the commencement of numerous infrastructure and industrial projects, both countries were suddenly enveloped in a thriving and prosperous scene. The unemployment rate was instantly suppressed to an extremely low level in the face of the money-making power of the Bunitas, who were waving their banknotes and expressing their determination to work hard and quickly.

The Bunitarians who made these large investments had already recouped a significant portion of their costs even before these businesses started operating.

After these investors' funds were in place, Joe, believing that it was only a sound business to make money from both industry and commerce and finance, issued shares of the North Sea Development in London under the name of the Wagner Group.

Then, unsurprisingly, as the first batch of crude oil and phosphate rock produced from the crude oil platforms that had been simply developed in Lucia were transported back to the mainland of Bunitania, the stock of North Sea Development began to rise.

Along with the stock price surge, Wagner Group's reputation among the people of both countries also soared.

With so many projects underway, these people, who had just experienced war, saw it as a sign that Wagner's arrival brought national independence and prosperity! Wagner was their savior!

Look at Wagner, he only focuses on mining, production, and construction, and doesn't care about anything else. The government is still our own people's government. This country of Bonitania has truly produced a saint!
However, not everyone is satisfied with this change.

Despite all that he did, Joe wasn't really here to do charity work. After all that construction and money he invested, there had to be some kind of security.

So, in addition to recruiting veterans who had become war-like all over the world, Joe made a small request at the beginning of the establishment of these companies: these companies should theoretically belong to the Wagner Group, regardless of the shareholding and dividend situation of the upper management, all employees should be members of the Wagner Group.

You can only work for the Wagner Group if you join it first.

This practice seems perfectly normal. After all, in any company, you have to be hired before you can work, otherwise the labor relationship is unclear. However, as Wagner's influence continued to expand, some people began to realize that something seemed amiss.

Yes, thanks to the Wagner Group's comprehensive defense plan, they now have roads built, electricity, and telephones. The changes in the last few months have been greater than in the past hundred years. However, these industries are theoretically Wagner's, and to operate them, the people will soon become Wagner's too. If this continues, it's questionable whether the government or Wagner will ultimately have the final say in the country.

But even now that they've discovered this problem, they can't terminate the contract.

After all, anyone with a brain higher than their ankles knows that although the person who signed the contract with them is Joe, if you dare to break the contract, it's hard to say whether the person physically harassing you will be Wagner or the Bonitania army.

Furthermore, Wagner is now in charge of training the new army, and the Wagner Group enjoys high prestige among the people. If he were to openly oppose Wagner, it would be difficult to say who the army and the people would side with.

Everyone went through so much trouble to establish a nation-state, and now the Lucias have left and the Bunitans have come. This is clearly not the result they wanted.

So these people started to secretly plot to cause some minor accidents to kill Joe prematurely.

As the absolute core of the Wagner Group, it's obvious to everyone that the group relies on Joe's prestige to function. If Joe were to disappear, the group would immediately fall into chaos, and then they would be able to save their country from danger.

They had even figured out who to blame after they succeeded.

Since the Iron Army was still active in places including Prag and Letoi, which was flirting with Poland and Germany in the south, all they had to do was blame the Teutons. Everyone knew that Joe's relationship with the Teutons was not friendly. Even Wagner, who was recruiting members all over the world, recruited new members from Gaul and Italy, and they did not recruit from the Teutons and Lucia.

Therefore, it was feasible to shift the blame to the Teutons. In fact, as a backup plan, they even added another layer of framing when preparing to shift the blame, pointing another clue to the Lucian left-wing government.

These people had a good plan and were very careful. In order to prevent leaks, they did not even look for the new armed forces trained by Wagner when recruiting members in the early stages, but instead looked for the old brothers of the nationalist forces.

Theoretically speaking, these people are very well prepared, and if nothing unexpected happens, Old Joe will definitely run into a lot of trouble.

But just as Picasso always had constraints and Da Vinci was always at odds, these people also made a mistake that ruthless people often make, namely, poor quality control.

According to their plan, what they needed to do was, while collecting weapons and preparing to ambush Joe, see if they could use their charm to their advantage, build good relations with Joe's guards, and then plant a bomb in Joe's car to ensure that Joe could graduate smoothly.

After all, according to their thinking, Joe set up such a female guard. Although anyone could tell what he wanted to do, he couldn't possibly maintain relationships with everyone, right? Even if he could afford it, he couldn't handle it physically. There would definitely be some people who complained. All they had to do was find that person who complained.

However, what these people didn't know was that after being overwhelmed by the female soldiers in the last encounter, Catherine, as Joe's chief secretary, also began to think.

First of all, she is definitely not inferior in appearance. Secondly, in terms of her relationship with Joe, she, as his secretary who can help him handle documents, is much closer than those women who have been fighting each other with razor blades or standing guard all this time. So why is she at a disadvantage?
The answer is obviously only one: he is outnumbered and he is clearly no match for the other group by himself.

Now that we have the conclusion, the rest is quite simple.

Catherine quickly brought Joe's other new secretaries into the fray to share her workload, while also confronting the female soldiers' forces. Now we can do more, and we also have the advantage in numbers. What can you use to fight us?

Under these circumstances, the female soldiers quickly began to embody the Lucia tradition: they were usually loosely organized, but once threatened, they would quickly band together.

Especially now, with fierce competition intensifying with the Secretariat, Elena quickly learned from her female soldiers that someone was contacting them. Elena found out, and soon Joe found out as well. At first, Joe thought someone's family was involved in poaching and trying to steal her away.

But when Joe asked the overseas intelligence agency to help him find out which guy was so audacious, a web of conspiracies began to emerge before him.

Faced with this attempt to assassinate him and thus dismantle the Wagner Group, Joe immediately used the excuse of needing to deal with domestic affairs to return home, and for the next period of time began a pattern of constantly traveling between the Baltic Sea and London.

It wasn't that Joe was afraid these guys would attack him, nor that he dared to eliminate them first; rather, it was because the situation in the East had changed slightly.

In the battle between the left and right wings in Prag, the right wing of Prag suffered a defeat in Helsinki, which put the Prag right wing, which was already at a disadvantage in terms of manpower, at a disadvantage.

Based on their historically good relationship with Esti, and considering the changes that had occurred in Esti, which was just across the sea, Prag's right wing began to wonder if they could also sign a contract with Wagner.

But this means they have to turn against the Teutons, and even before the decisive battle with the left, they have to fight a civil war with the Teutonic Iron Army. This means that although the Prags have established contact with Joe, they have not yet made up their minds.

So at this critical juncture, although Joe had already planned to have those guys carry out a failed assassination, he could then use the excuse that these guys were Lucia spies to directly conduct a major purge in these two small countries, replacing the government with pro-Bunitania people, thereby gaining closer control over these two countries.

Joe had no choice but to endure until he could bring Prag into the inter-sea alliance, or even form a confederation.

By roaming around, they make things more difficult for these guys and delay their actions.

Of course, to give these guys the illusion that he hadn't discovered anything, Joe also expanded his own guard in Esti.

After all, rather than having his trusted guards risk contacting these guys, it's better to give them a chance to think they haven't discovered anything and then send a spy to their side.

Just as Joe had anticipated, after he prepared to expand his guard, a crowd quickly responded, and Joe added another squad to his guard with almost no effort.

Even if Joe did this to give those guys a legitimate reason to place a spy next to him, to reassure them, and to make them think that everything was under their control.

Unfortunately, the Baltic Sea is indeed famous for its beautiful women, and Joe has always been quite open about this, being the type to take more than his share. As a result, the Secretariat and the Guard had quite a few negative reactions during Joe's expansion of the Guard.

Unfortunately, Qiao couldn't say this outright, so she could only drink lemon tea like crazy during those few days with tears in her eyes.

Although the lemon made his throat sore and his head throbbed, it temporarily appeased those who wanted to cause trouble, making them believe that the advantage was in their hands. Therefore, they postponed their action plan, giving Joe more time to contact the Praggle right wing.

The reason why the Praggh right wing was so eager to jump off the Teutonic ships was that they didn't have much time left to continue the civil war.

Because after winning the Battle of Kiev, the Russian left wing was like a shot of adrenaline, launching a fierce offensive against the remnants of the Teutonic Eastern Front in the Cossack lands, such as the Iron Division, who wanted to rebuild the Teutonic forces in the East, as well as the Russian military government and local nationalist separatists.

They once again seized Minsk from the military government. If the main force of the military government had not already returned to their homeland from the Balkans and started advancing from Volgograd northward towards Moscow to launch the Saratov Offensive, Joe even suspected that they intended to rush all the way to Warsaw.

If Lucia's left wing wanted to attack Warsaw, even if Joe didn't want to, he had no choice but to lead his troops south in order to avoid being isolated.

Joe already felt threatened, and the right wing of Prag, which had been fighting the left wing, felt even more pressure.

Although it was unknown how the civil war in Lucia would ultimately end, the right wing of Prag knew that if they were still unable to end the civil war by the time the People's Revolutionary Union intervened, the People's Revolutionary Union would certainly not mind sending volunteers, just like the Teutonic Iron Division is doing now, to intervene in the civil war in Prag.

But jumping off the Teutonic ship was not an easy task.

So things are now at a standstill. The Prag right wing wants a peaceful break with the Teutons, but the Teutons are clearly reluctant to do so. With everyone running out of time, the negotiations have become a game of chicken. After both Joe and the Prag right wing have expressed some willingness to negotiate, whoever initiates the negotiations first will be at a disadvantage in the subsequent negotiations.

After all, whoever is more anxious will have to pay a greater price.

Moreover, even in London, Joe couldn't find peace for a moment, as the head of the Wagner Group and the rising star of the empire.

As soon as Joe returned to London, he was bombarded with invitations.

Besides business collaboration invitations and social gathering invitations, what Joe found most irresistible was the invitation from the palace.

If His Majesty were willing to see Qiao, it would be an honor that Qiao could not refuse, after all, a certain Minister of Military Supplies who had previously caused a major blunder could no longer see His Majesty except in public.

But it's unclear what His Majesty George's mindset was when he summoned Joe to the palace, and aside from discussing the next steps for the Wagner Group and the situation in the East.

The main purpose was to set Qiao up on a blind date.

The devastating war not only resulted in heavy casualties among the young nobles, but also created a large number of wealthy noble widows, noble families without male heirs, and wealthy young noble ladies living alone.

This social change has made newly rich people like Joe highly sought after.

If Joe only had the simple identity of an Imperial Hero, he wouldn't be so sought after. But Joe is not only an Imperial Hero, but also has some wealth. Some exaggerated newspapers are even starting to call Joe the King of Mercenaries or the King of the North.

Then more people started to become interested in Joe.

But Joe is quite different from traditional aristocrats.

The traditional aristocracy of the past believed that they could skip work, but they could never miss social gatherings. If they didn't show off in front of their relatives and friends, wouldn't all their work have been for nothing?
To get to know Joe, or even create a romantic encounter, all you have to do is wait for him at social gatherings like dances.

But Joe was clearly not a traditional aristocrat, unlike those aristocrats who delegated their work to others so they could have more time to play.

Joe felt that making money was already a lot of fun, and what's so interesting about drinking and dancing?

Instead of wasting time, Qiao might as well do something more exciting. She wasn't worried about not finding anyone or being rejected, since sometimes they did things that were even more exciting than what she wanted to do.

So, aside from the time he had just returned to the country and before he had figured out what these so-called aristocratic social gatherings were all about, Joe had attended two such gatherings.

After figuring out the situation, Joe handed over the invitations to these social gatherings to Catherine, asking her to find eight hundred suitable reasons to refuse.

Knowing what these gatherings were all about, Catherine naturally didn't want to create more competition, so she decisively declined these social invitations on Joe's behalf.

So when the nobles who wanted to develop a friendship with Joe found out that Joe didn't attend social gatherings, the more modern ones started to consider whether they could invite him to do some business cooperation. "I want to make money together, you can't refuse that, can you?"

Those who were more old-fashioned, or even those with connections that extended into the palace, began to ask His Majesty to see if he could arrange an introduction on their behalf.

After all, everyone thinks that Joe has already reached this position, and his orientation is obviously normal, so there is no reason not to get married and pass on his business.

His Majesty agreed with this.

After all, Joe is such a capable person, he must keep things under control.

After a great war, many crowns were knocked off the Old World. If any shameless exiled princess were to find an opportunity to climb into Joe's bed, it would seriously affect the situation on the Old World.

His Majesty George considered the Habsburgs and the princess of Lucia to be very dangerous.

Therefore, we must never allow those exiled princesses to have the opportunity to climb into Old Joe's bed. This is a matter of principle and right!

(End of this chapter)