Conquering the world from the Kaiser's driver

"Of course, all costs of the research will be borne by the institute."

Lin Shangzhou replied with a smile.

"Then I'll wait for good news from the research institute."

After finishing the main business, the three of them also talked about some other things. However, a few minutes later, Lin Shangzhou's communicator rang. After answering the call, Bauman told him that the Austro-Hungarian Ambassador to Germany wanted to see him. Because the incident happened suddenly, the things Lin Shangzhou wanted to know could only wait until later.

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Chapter 257: Austria-Hungary's Small Proposal

After receiving the news from the Austro-Hungarian ambassador, Lin Shangzhou hurried to the Capitol. Volbeck was curious about what the Austro-Hungarian ambassador wanted to do, so he went to the Capitol with him.

The Austro-Hungarian ambassador was already waiting for him in the reception room of the Capitol. As soon as Lin Shangzhou entered the reception room, the Austro-Hungarian ambassador immediately stood up and warmly greeted him. He stretched out his hand and shook Lin Shangzhou's hand, and greeted: "Mr. Prime Minister, how are you these days?"

"Thanks to you, I've been doing well lately."

Lin Shangzhou replied that the last time he met the Austro-Hungarian ambassador was after he came to power. The ambassador came to visit him with congratulations from Emperor Karl, and it has been a while since they last met.

The ambassador noticed Volbeck behind Lin Shangzhou, and after greeting Lin Shangzhou, he greeted Volbeck as well.

After exchanging pleasantries, the three of them sat down on the sofa. After sitting down, the ambassador looked at Lin Shangzhou on his right and prepared to talk to him about business.

He didn't come here for any big event. He just hoped to get the elite of the Austro-Hungarian Knights to train in the Storm Commandos. While talking about this, the ambassador tried his best to praise the Storm Commandos, calling them "the best in the world." Facing the ambassador's praise, Lin Shangzhou just smiled. Now that Germany has won the First World War, the German army is indeed the best in the world in the eyes of others, but he himself does not think so. After all, titles such as "winner of the war" and "No. 1 in XX" are generally debuffs.

But Forbeck was not very impressed by such praise. Although the words of praise were pleasant to the ear, hearing them too much would only make people lazy.

His own attitude towards this matter completely followed Lin Shangzhou. Although he was the Minister of National Defense, his agreement or disagreement on this matter had little effect. The decision-making power lay in the hands of the prime minister, the emperor and the captain of the Storm Commando. As long as one of these three disagreed, the matter would not be reach an agreement.

Although the Storm Troopers also belong to the magic forces and, like regular magic forces, obey the command of the General Staff during wartime, they themselves do not belong to the regular magic forces. They are a special forces directly under the German Emperor and only obey the orders of the Emperor and his team commander (captain).

So if Cecilia or Alexandrine disagreed with the Austro-Hungarian Empire's ideas, the matter would not be resolved.

Volbeck could also guess what the Austro-Hungarian Empire was planning, but he didn't intend to express his opinion now. He left everything to Lin Shangzhou to decide for himself.

"So, Mr. Prime Minister, what do you think?"

After saying this, the ambassador closed his mouth and waited for Lin Shangzhou's response.

Lin Shangzhou thought about what the Austrian-Hungarian ambassador had just said. Allowing the elite Austrian-Hungarians to train in the Storm Commando would indeed help to bring the two countries closer together and improve the combat capabilities of the Storm Commando. On the surface, there seemed to be nothing wrong with it...

Just on the surface, Lin Shangzhou believed that the Austro-Hungarian Empire was most likely eyeing the communicator. From the beginning of its sale to now, the Ether Communicator has only been sold publicly in one city, Berlin, Germany, and was sold first to Germans and then to foreigners. He believed that other governments were very interested in this thing, so there must be foreigners who bought the communicator, but not many.

After they bought the communicator, they would definitely hand it over to a scientific research institution for disassembly and research after returning to their country. Thinking of this, Lin Shangzhou wanted to laugh for some reason. If they dared to disassemble it, then the communicator would be scrapped on the spot. Lin Shangzhou did not learn in detail what the insurance measures designed by Havot were, but the fact that the military relied on the research institute to provide the communicator fully demonstrated the effectiveness of Havot's insurance.

The possibility of successful dismantling cannot be ruled out, but the possibility is so low that it does not need to be considered.

As a neighbor of the German Empire and one of the countries in the world with the best relations with Germany except the German puppet states in the Reichspakt, the Austro-Hungarian Empire's desire for the communicator would naturally lead some people in this country to take action.

Such measures may have been decided by Emperor Karl, or they may have been requested by officials and officers below.

At the same time, Lin Shangzhou had another guess in his mind - the purpose of the Austro-Hungarian Empire was really just to deepen the relationship between the two countries.

The basis of this conjecture is that although the members of the Storm Commandos are equipped with the latest equipment, the elite of the Austro-Hungarian Empire can only come into contact with the new equipment after joining the Storm Commandos and have no way to take the new equipment away. No one can see the mystery just by taking a few glances. The people of the Austro-Hungarian Empire will not be like fools trying to steal the new equipment, otherwise the consequences will be unimaginable to Austria-Hungary.

In fact, Lin Shangzhou did not object to Austria-Hungary's possession of ether communicator technology. This was because Austria-Hungary could be said to be one of Germany's most steadfast allies, at least more steadfast than the group of betraying brothers in the Imperial Pact. On the European continent, whether it was the Commune in the west or Russia in the east, these two countries that had the ability to wage war against Germany also had conflicts with Austria-Hungary.

If the Commune had not been so radical, the conflict between the Third International and Austria-Hungary would not have been so great, but the conflict between Russia and Austria-Hungary would not have been resolved. The protectors of the Slavs have always hoped to bring the Western Slavs into their circle of protection. Russia, which is now in a state of decline, will not reveal its ambitions, but after Black Monday, Russia, which has undergone tremendous changes due to the economic crisis and escaped from German control, will gradually extend its hand to neighboring countries.

As long as there are Western Slavs in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Russia will have an excuse to make things difficult for Austria-Hungary or even send troops to it. If Germany perishes under the attack of the Third International and Moscow, the Austro-Hungarian Empire will face the threats of the Third International and Moscow alone... as well as the already communist Germany.

Therefore, Germany and Austria were largely bound together, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire was inevitably involved in World War II as an ally of Germany.

Thinking of things that might not happen in the future, a strange look flashed in Lin Shangzhou's eyes. Even if Austria-Hungary did not want to stand with Germany in the future, he would find a way to bind the two countries together.

"Of course, I think this is a very good suggestion!"

Lin Shangzhou nodded to the Austro-Hungarian ambassador with satisfaction, indicating that he very much welcomed such cooperation. The Austro-Hungarian ambassador smiled with satisfaction when he saw Lin Shangzhou's agreement.

"but…"

Hearing this, the Austro-Hungarian ambassador's good mood came to an abrupt end.

"I need to seek the opinions of His Majesty and Lady Cecilia on this matter."

(call……)

The Austro-Hungarian ambassador felt relieved. As long as he didn't directly refuse, everything would be fine. He looked at Lin Shangzhou and wanted to say goodbye and come back another day to ask him about the situation. As a result, he saw Lin Shangzhou take out a communicator from his pocket.

After seeing the communicator, his eyes were instantly attracted to the little gadget. After looking at it for a few seconds, the ambassador withdrew his gaze.

"Ah... I forgot you had a communicator in your hand. With a tool like this, it is really much more convenient to contact others."

The Austro-Hungarian ambassador expressed his sincere appreciation.

"This is where the benefits of technological progress lie," Lin Shangzhou said to the ambassador as he turned the dial.

Then Lin Shangzhou dialed Cecilia's number. The call was connected after a few seconds. After the call was connected, Lin Shangzhou told Cecilia about the Austro-Hungarian Empire's proposal, followed by several seconds of silence on the other end of the communicator.

On the other hand, Cecilia in the Worry-Free Palace thought about it for a few seconds after hearing this. After weighing the pros and cons, she asked who would join the Storm Commandos.

In order to facilitate the conversation, Lin Shangzhou simply handed the communicator to the ambassador. The ambassador took the communicator and put it to his ear, imitating Lin Shangzhou who had just met him, and explained their proposal in detail to Cecilia.

A few minutes later, the Austro-Hungarian ambassador's mouth curled up. When Lin Shangzhou saw the smile on his face, he knew that Cecilia agreed to this matter.

The ambassador then returned the communicator to Lin Shangzhou, and the result was the same as he expected. Cecilia agreed to allow the elite troops of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to enter the Storm Commandos for further training.

The Austro-Hungarian ambassador was very happy that his request was met. He had a very pleasant conversation with Lin Shangzhou. Before leaving, he extended an invitation to Lin Shangzhou and Alexandrine on behalf of Emperor Karl. Emperor Karl hoped that he and Alexandrine could visit Vienna in the future.

Lin Shangzhou naturally agreed to Karl's invitation, but he didn't know exactly when to go. He agreed first and would decide when to visit the Austro-Hungarian Empire in the future.

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Chapter 258 National Policy Completed

Lin Shangzhou handed the Austria-Hungary proposal over to Cecilia. If nothing unexpected happens, she will hand the matter over to her subordinates. Anyway, Lin Shangzhou is only responsible for agreeing to this matter, and what happens afterwards has nothing to do with him. The government has a lot of work for him to do every day.

Because the military had agreed to send experts who studied the ether element to the research institute, Lin Shangzhou called Harvotte after returning home to inform him in advance to avoid any problems.

The very next day, the Havok Research Institute welcomed a group of newcomers. Havot received them warmly. And since he and they were both experts in the research of ether elements, as soon as they met, they started chatting like old friends who had not seen each other for many years, and discussed the knowledge of ether elements with each other.

After learning that the military scientists had arrived at the institute, Lin Shangzhou felt an indescribable feeling in his heart. He was both happy and sad. He was happy because the technology of ether elements could develop more rapidly, which would be of great benefit to the future. He was sad because researching ether elements cost money. As for the communicator, there was a contract signed with the military, and the military provided titanium to the institute free of charge, so it didn't cost much.

But now, he has to spend money on research on ether element weapons.

Fortunately, he became a multi-millionaire by fleecing the rich in Germany for several months in a row. Judging from the several million marks he earned every month, he should be able to break even.

Two days later, the elite troops of the Austro-Hungarian Empire came to Berlin. After arriving in Berlin, they rushed to the Storm Commando's base without stopping. When Lin Shangzhou learned the news of their arrival in Berlin, they had already arrived at the Storm Commando's base. This made him temporarily give up the idea of ​​seeing who the elite troops of the Austro-Hungarian Empire were. It was almost a critical period for government reorganization, and the future was not suitable for distraction.

A few days later, on April 52, Lin Shangzhou, who was working in the office, received good news from Junkers. The test model of the JU- that he asked Junkers to improve its design last year had completed its test flight. All indicators were normal, and no accidents occurred during the consecutive days of test flights.

Although the representatives sent by Junkers did not mention any words such as "experiments completed" to indicate the completion of the aircraft's development, their report had already proved to Lin Shangzhou that the JU-52 had been completed and an order could be placed.

This made Lin Shangzhou very excited. To be on the safe side, he asked Junkers to continue testing for another half a month. After confirming that there were no problems in half a month, he would officially let Mercury Power sign a transport aircraft order with Junkers.

That evening, Lin Shangzhou called Louis and Wang Shunyu to his home to discuss the topic of Mercury Power's business expansion. After some discussion, a subsidiary department for air transportation under Mercury Power Technology Co., Ltd. was determined to be established and officially registered the next day. Its name was Lufthansa.

We have the airline, the planes, and the pilots. Now all we need is the airport.

After reconstruction, Berlin's former flying corps airport has the ability to take off large transport aircraft, but Berlin alone is not enough, other places also need airports.

For economic reasons, Lin Shangzhou planned to first renovate Hamburg's old airport. Building a new one would be a waste of time, so it would be most appropriate to renovate the old airport that had not been used for several years.

He did what he said. After he came up with the idea, he immediately sent people to Hamburg to contact the local government and construction team. He bought the old airport at a low price and hired a construction team of the highest standards to carry out the construction.

After the reconstruction of Hamburg Airport began, he immediately selected several other regions in Germany to build airports, all of which were large cities with developed economies.

Half a month later, on April 30th, the national policy of "Reorganizing the Imperial Government" was officially completed, and the German government's government reorganization work over the past month and a half came to an end.

The process of government reorganization made Lin Shangzhou very tired, but the result was gratifying. The German government abolished a large number of bloated and useless institutions, and the whole of Prussia was thoroughly cleansed. Some other smaller states were unable to refuse such a request and had to reorganize their governments. As for Bavaria, Lin Shangzhou did not force it at the beginning. Although Albert, as the hands-off chancellor, improved the deformed political system of the German Empire and made the imperial government a thorough imperial government, the greater autonomy of the Kingdom of Bavaria was retained.

That is to say, the imperial government's decree can be sent over, but whether to implement it still needs to be discussed within the Kingdom of Bavaria. If the Kingdom of Bavaria believes that the decree is too outrageous and can give reasonable reasons, then the Kingdom of Bavaria can choose not to implement the policy. On the contrary, it must be enforced even if it is unwilling.

Generally speaking, Bavaria would not seek trouble, and Albert never deliberately did anything that would touch Bavaria's nerves. The same was true this time. After internal discussions in Bavaria, the kingdom eventually passed the "Reorganization of the Imperial Government" and began to carry out reforms within the government.

On the evening of the 30th, Lin Shangzhou began to think about plans for May.

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Chapter 259 Sticker Speculation

The room was quiet at night. On the table in the middle of the living room was a map of Europe that took up nearly three quarters of the table's size. Next to the map was a box of colored chalks and some colored stickers. The person who placed them on the table was sitting on the sofa nearby, gazing thoughtfully at the countries on the map.

Looking at the map of Europe on the table in front of him, Lin Shangzhou felt as if he was playing Hearts of Iron 4, but all he had were a map, chalk, and colored stickers; it wasn't even a war game.

He picked up a few red stickers and placed them in Paris, France, London, Britain and Turin, northern Italy. The red stickers meant that these three countries had been communistized and were members of the Third International. Then he picked up a white sticker and placed it in the position of Moscow. After putting the sticker there, he realized that he had put it in the wrong place. Moscow was not the capital of Russia, but Petrograd was.

After discovering that he had put it in the wrong place, Lin Shangzhou didn't care about it. After all, both Moscow and Petrograd are important cities in Russia. The significance of his placing the stickers is the current state of the country, so it doesn't matter where he puts them.

He picked up several other white stickers and placed them on Vienna, Kiev and other European countries except Germany.

As for Berlin, Germany, he picked up a black sticker and put it on.

Red represents the communist state, white represents what their future will be like remains to be seen, and black represents Germany itself.

click-

The sound of the door opening interrupted Lin Shangzhou's thoughts, but after a moment he continued to think about what had just been interrupted.

Letitia walked out of the bathroom and slowly came to the living room. After seeing the map and stickers on the table, she curiously came over, sat on Lin Shangzhou's left, held her arm, and held Lin Shangzhou's left hand tightly with her right hand.

She looked at the map and asked, "Fritts, what are you doing?"

The sound that came to his ears again and the scent of shampoo made it difficult for Lin Shangzhou to maintain his attention temporarily. He took out his left hand, put it around Letitia's shoulders, and pulled her into his arms.

He rested his chin on the girl's wet golden hair in his arms and sniffed the scent of shampoo. Letitia twisted her body slightly and leaned on Lin Shangzhou, pressing her head against his chin. After a few seconds, she retracted her head.

"I'm thinking about the future."

Lin Shangzhou reached out and rubbed Letitia's hair, and said softly, then he stretched out his right hand, picked up a blue sticker on the table and put it on Letitia's little face.

"What are you doing…"

After a piece of paper was stuck on her face, Letitia grumbled in dissatisfaction. She quickly reached out and picked up a black sticker from the table and turned around to stick it on Lin Shangzhou's face. However, Lin Shangzhou easily grabbed her wrist, making it impossible for Letitia's right hand to move.

His force was very light, but despite this, Lin Shangzhou quickly released his right hand.

After her right hand was able to move again, Letitia gently placed the sticker on her hand on Lin Shangzhou's mouth, and then kissed the sticker when he wanted to peel it off.

Letitia's sudden action made Lin Shangzhou a little confused. What was she thinking?

He could still feel Letitia's lips through the sticker. After a few seconds, Letitia leaned back and said to him with a smile, "You are thinking about something important, right? I won't bother you. I'll make up for today's missed public rations later."

Lin Shangzhou laughed when he heard the word "public grain". He had said this word to Letitia and Noah in the past, but he didn't expect that she would use it today. He felt extremely happy because of Letitia's understanding.

Letitia stood up and wanted to leave Lin Shangzhou, but as soon as she turned around, she was pulled back into his arms. Back in her lover's arms, Letitia twisted her body a few times and then stopped. She was a little excited about what was going to happen next. If Lin Shangzhou wanted to do it, that was fine.

But what she heard next surprised her.

"You should stay and think about this with me. If I think about it alone, I won't be very efficient. I need to hold a pillow in my arms to speed up the process."

"Okay, okay, I'll be your pillow."

Then Lin Shangzhou held Letitia and continued what he had just interrupted. He looked at the map and fell into deep thought. Letitia also looked at the things on the map carefully. When she came here, she didn't understand why there were stickers on different countries. Now after looking at it carefully for a while, Letitia seemed to understand something.

Although she still didn't understand what the white stickers meant, she knew that the three countries with red stickers, the French Commune, the British Union, and Northern Italy, were syndicalist countries, and that this should be what the red stickers meant.

"Fritts, do the red stickers represent the Third International?"

Lin Shangzhou nodded, and then said: "Not exactly. The red stickers represent syndicalist countries, but now all syndicalist countries in the world are in the Third International, so it can be understood this way."

At present, there are only three syndicalist countries in the world: the French Commune, the British Union and Southern Italy. He believes that there will be more syndicalist countries that will be communistized in the future. However, it is not certain whether they will join the Third International or the Fourth International at that time. After all, it is a tradition to dismiss each other from the left, and the Third International and the Fourth International may even fight.

“I know the black stickers are Germany.”

Letitia rested her head on Lin Shangzhou's chin, pointed at the white sticker on Vienna and asked, "What does that white sticker represent?"

“A plastic nation.”

"plasticity?"

Letitia was stunned. She didn't understand what Lin Shangzhou meant. She twisted her body and looked at him puzzledly and asked, "What do you mean by that?"

“Literally, a malleable nation.”

Lin Shangzhou said to him. He knew that Letitia would definitely not be satisfied with this answer, so he reached out and turned Letitia's body so that she leaned her back against him and faced the map.

"Germany will encounter an extremely serious economic crisis in the future. The hegemony established by the German Empire after the First World War will almost collapse under that crisis. All countries in the Reichstag in Europe except Germany will be unstable. Their stability depends on the strength and stability of Germany. If Germany suffers a shock, then those countries will have a great chance of breaking away from Germany's control under the economic crisis. At that time, it is uncertain what path they will take. The pro-German faction may take power and continue to remain in the Reichstag as Germany's younger brother. Or other factions may win, and it is not completely impossible for them to join the Third International."