If you don't go to Sunset to do things, will you return to the Guia Ocean and fight the Nuland Navy again?

After this thought, Ding Zhennan himself was taken aback, because he immediately thought of a place where Austria had not officially participated in the war so far.

In the Eastern Bloc, Austria is a very special, even extreme, existence.

If nothing else, Austria enjoyed more privileges than the Liangxia Empire.

Although the main cause of all this is the problem left over from history, and to put it bluntly, the contradiction between new immigrants and old immigrants, no one can deny that the particularity of Austria has always been the number one contradiction within the Eastern Bloc, or the main source of internal contradictions.

As mentioned earlier, after the end of the Second Global War, or more precisely in the later stages of the war, in order to strengthen its control over the Southwest and Guia Seas, the Liangxia Empire used various means, including policy measures, to encourage the people of its own country and its dependent countries to emigrate to Austria. Within a few years, tens of millions of immigrants from the Liangxia Empire, the Sayi Empire, and the Gaoju Kingdom settled in Austria and other places.

This round of large-scale migration directly changed the ethnic structure of the inhabitants of Austria.

After decades of development, by the outbreak of the Third Global War, with post-war arrivals, new immigrants from Eastern countries had surpassed old immigrants. However, according to the convention, new immigrants are divided according to their ancestral country, so the largest ethnic group in Austria is still old immigrants. Among the new immigrants, the most populous Narrow-minded people are only 40% of the old immigrants, and it still seems that there is still a very large gap.

There is no doubt that the arrival of a large number of new immigrants will inevitably lead to serious social contradictions.

After the war, the main task of the hundreds of thousands of occupation troops deployed by the Reich in Austria was to maintain social order and to contain and prevent conflicts between old and new immigrants.

Among other things, for a long time after the war, the policy of ethnic segregation was implemented in large cities such as Sini through the establishment of "protected areas" to reduce the cost of maintaining social order. It was not until the year 122 of the new calendar that the last "protected area" was revoked.

However, such a high-pressure policy will certainly not last long.

It is precisely for this reason that Austria needs to be given special status in order to appease the old immigrants whose interests have been violated and to maintain the stability of the social order.

The most representative is to allow Austria to join the Eastern Bloc without assuming the basic obligations of member states.

According to the EU accession agreement, Austria is a special member of the Eastern Bloc, enjoying the security guarantees provided by the Liangxia Empire and other allies, providing necessary guarantees such as infrastructure, living materials and policy facilitation for foreign troops, but does not undertake war-related obligations such as collective declaration of war, military mobilization and gratuitous requisition, which have mandatory effect. To put it simply, the right to declare war is retained.

This privilege is not simple.

For the Eastern Bloc to become a military bloc, or rather a military-political bloc based on common security, the right to declare war collectively is crucial.

To put it simply, attacking any one member state is tantamount to attacking the entire Eastern Bloc.

To that end, in the event of a military invasion by any member State, the other Member States are obliged to provide assistance, including by sending troops to the war.

It can be seen that the right to declare war collectively is the basis for ensuring the unity of action of the Eastern Bloc, and it is also a prerequisite for the existence of the bloc.

With the exception of Austria, as well as the Sealand state also in Austria, all member states of the Eastern Bloc, including the Liangxia Empire, were subject to the right to declare war collectively.

Austria is not bound by the right to declare war collectively, which is tantamount to staying out of the matter.

It's just that, at the time, it was the only way to quell the internal turmoil in Austria.

After all, Austria has tens of millions of old immigrants, and the ancestors of these immigrants are from Western countries, and it is obviously unrealistic to force them to declare war on Western countries.

It is this point that has the current strange situation.

In the entire Eastern Bloc, Austria and Sealand were the only countries that stayed out of the situation, and instead of declaring war on the enemy countries, they did not mobilize for war.

Crucially, the two countries refused to supply their allies with supplies according to wartime standards, citing the lack of military mobilization.

Not to mention other countries, even the Liangxia Empire, had to purchase iron ore and other goods from Austria at normal trade prices in peacetime.

In terms of feelings alone, this is simply a war windfall.

In this regard, there are many complaints within the group.

In any case, the Liangxia Empire is the leader of the alliance, and it may not be certain whether it can pay back the IOUs between Austria and Zealand in the end. But for the other member states, all the money they took out was real money, and they even had to borrow money from banks in Austria and Zealand.

Fortunately, at the end of last year, the Austrian legislature passed a temporary bill that would allow the Austrian authorities to provide subsidies to importers and exporters who meet the standards, allowing them to export war materials with a defined purpose to the allies at the wartime prices of the Eastern Bloc.

With the official implementation of the bill on January 1 this year, the contradictions within the group have eased.

The point is that within the Eastern Bloc, Austria has irreplaceable value, and mainly because of its rich mineral resources.

Austria has long been the largest exporter of iron ore in the Eastern Bloc and the second largest in the world.

Although in terms of iron ore exports, the third-ranked Gaoju Kingdom and the fourth-ranked Dongluosha are both members of the Eastern Bloc, but the combined iron ore exports of the two countries are not as large as those of Austria. Iron ore exports from Austria account for 60% of the total intra-Eastern bloc trade.

Not to mention other countries, even the Liangxia Empire has been importing iron ore from Austria.

In addition, several major industrial countries in the group are importing iron ore from Austria, and countries such as the Imperial Kingdom of Sakuyi, which is severely scarce in resources, rely mainly on imports.

Outside of iron ore, Austria is the world's largest exporter of bauxite, and 70% of it is sold to members of the Eastern Bloc.

In addition to minerals, Austria and Sealand are also the main exporters of livestock products within the Eastern Bloc.

To put it more bluntly, that is, an exporter of all kinds of meat.

Before the outbreak of the war, Austria had been the world's largest exporter of meat, and its main exports were to members of the Eastern Bloc, such as the Liangxia Empire. According to unofficial statistics, in the year before the outbreak of the war, Austria exported 25 million tons of livestock products, of which about 15 million tons were exported to the Liangxia Empire. Although Sealand's exports are smaller, they are also more than 5 million tonnes.

Among other things, meat exported by Austria and Sealand has always been the main source of protein for the rest of the Eastern Bloc countries.

During the war, the Eastern Bloc's dependence on Austria and Sealand meat products continued unabated.

The reason is also very simple: in times of war, industrial production must be ensured first, and the size of the army must be expanded, so the labor force engaged in agricultural production will inevitably decrease, which will lead to a decrease in agricultural productivity. Even if wartime controls can reduce the consumption of agricultural products, in general, imports will still need to make up for the reduced production to ensure that the daily lives of the country's military and civilians are adequately guaranteed.

Protein-based nutrient intake is itself one of the basic elements in ensuring war strength.

In layman's terms, only when you are well fed and well-fed can you have combat effectiveness!

In fact, after the outbreak of the Great War, the Liangxia Empire imported the most from Austria and Zealand, that is, beef-based livestock products. In just four months after the 150th year of the new calendar, the Liangxia Empire imported 6.5 million tons of beef from Austria, more than 10 million live cattle alone, in addition to 2.5 million tons of beef from Sealand, a one-third year-on-year increase in imports, a record high.

More than half of this imported beef was requisitioned by the army, and many of it was made into canned beef in Austria.

Unsurprisingly, imports will increase by a third in 151 of the new calendar.

It is not difficult to see why many member states are deeply dissatisfied with Austria's refusal to enter the war.

As long as Austria did not officially enter the war for a day, the member states of the Eastern Bloc had to spend money on importing resources from Austria. After Austria entered the war, it was distributed according to the wartime mechanism within the group, and the industrialized member states such as the Narrow Imperial Kingdom and the High Giant Kingdom were basically able to obtain Austria's mineral resources impermanently. If anything, it is at most to exchange the industrial products of the country.

The key is also to exchange within the group wartime distribution system.

In other words, it is not directly traded, but placed in a general plate within the group, and settled by a special committee.

In this way, there is a huge room for maneuvering.

Take the Liangxia Empire's import of beef from Austria as an example, if it is settled according to wartime standards, the empire does not need to pay a penny for it during the war, and can wait until the end of the war to calculate the general account, and use the garrison expenses, combat expenses, etc. to deduct, the actual payment must be very small.

As for other countries, even if they don't have such privileges as the Liang Xia Empire, they will definitely be able to take advantage of a lot.

Of course, the most dissatisfied with Austria and Sealand are actually the Narrow Imperial Kingdom and East Luosha.

Everyone is a defeated country, why can Austria and Sealand enjoy special treatment, but not the Narrow Imperial State and East Luosha?

Don't forget, the status of a defeated country makes the Narrow Empire and Dong Luosha always a third-class country within the Eastern Bloc, even if the degree of industrialization of the Narrow Empire is second only to the Liang Xia Empire, even if the military strength of the East Luo Sha is second only to the Liang Xia Empire, there is no way to be on an equal footing with a victorious country like the Gaoju Kingdom.

It is for this reason that, after the outbreak of the Great War, the imperial authorities have been actively pushing Austria and Sealand to enter the war.

It's just that herein lies the problem.

In order to ensure that the core interests of the old immigrants were not violated, Austria and Zealand still practiced a separation of powers in the post-war political system.

Specifically, administrative jurisdiction was held by directly elected prime ministers, and more than a dozen post-war prime ministers were all newcomers. Legislative power was held by an indirectly elected parliament, and under the post-war electoral laws, old immigrants were able to obtain at least a majority of seats in the Senate, the equivalent of the Senate, and thus have the power to veto bills. As for the Grand Court, which holds the highest judicial power, to be precise, the nine justices of the Grand Court are nominally appointed by the Emperor, that is, the nominal supreme head of Austria, and in fact entrusted to the Imperial Cabinet. Because the Lord Chancellor was for life and had to be held by an Austrian citizen, the Empire's power to appoint was only symbolic.

From this system, it can be seen that it is almost impossible to overturn the current law.

If you can't get past the House of Representatives, you can't repeal existing laws.

There is no doubt that on the issue of entering the war, the old immigrants will certainly not easily agree.

Of course, this is not to say that the imperial authorities are helpless about this.

After the outbreak of the war, Zhou Yongtao signed a decree against Austria, which restored the size of the military force in Austria to a normal level.

Subsequently, at the end of last year, Zhou Yongtao again demanded that the strength of the troops stationed in Austria be expanded to wartime standards within six months in the form of a first auxiliary order.

As a result, the Empire's military strength in Austria increased dramatically from 150,000 before the outbreak of the Great War to 450,000, and eventually to 750,000. Strictly speaking, there is room for further troop increases. As long as Austria is militarily threatened, it will be able to continue to increase troops to Austria according to the standard of common defense.

Clearly, the intensification of military deployments is putting pressure on old migrants.

The key point is that the cost of garrisoning is borne by Austria, and while maintaining a non-war state, Austria's financial expenditure simply cannot support such a large number of garrisons.

In addition, it is also preventing the situation from spiraling out of control.

This, if anything, is also the main concern of the imperial authorities.

In any case, there are almost 20 million old immigrants in Austria, to be precise, immigrants of Western ethnicity, and there are more than 20 million people in total of Eastern ethnicity.

It can be seen that there is not much difference in the number of people.

Crucially, there has always been an anti-imperial political force among the old immigrants, and they have the support of a large number of stubborn old immigrants.

Behind these political forces is actually the Republic of Nuland.

To put it bluntly, as long as there is an opportunity, the Nuland authorities will definitely instigate the old immigrants from Austria to make trouble and create trouble for the Liangxia Empire.

As for how many people will die as a result, it is clearly not a concern for the Nuland authorities.

It can be seen that the empire's increase in troops to Austria is also to prevent turmoil.

As for the Austrian Wehrmacht, even if most of the key officers and soldiers are new immigrants, they may not be able to rely on it, and the key is that the combat effectiveness is too poor.

In a real fight, the Austrian Wehrmacht can at most maintain domestic order.

To fight abroad, you still have to rely on the imperial army.

The point is, in fact, the Imperial Navy.

Among other things, of the 450,000 Imperial officers and soldiers deployed in Austria, 250,000 belonged to the Navy and Marine Corps, and about 150,000 belonged to the Air Force.

In addition, not all of these officers and soldiers are deployed in Austria.

In the navy, for example, only about 100,000 officers and men are stationed in Austria, and about 50,000 officers and men are scattered on more than 100 islands in the southwest and eastern seas.

To put it another way, if you want to take action in the Guia Southwest, you can only use the Imperial Navy.

Crucially, if the Nuland authorities are not dead set on doing something to get more out of the secret negotiations, then the only thing they can do is to take action in the Guia Ocean. The number of islands that can be captured is a trivial matter, and the key is to encourage the old immigrants from Austria and Zealand to make trouble, create trouble for the Eastern Bloc, and then use this to raise the asking price and force the Liangxia Empire to make concessions in other aspects.

If this is the case, the Imperial Navy will inevitably adjust accordingly.

The most likely thing is to send a few fleets over to strengthen the military deployment in the southwestern and eastern seas, so as not to give the Nuland navy a chance to stir up trouble.

If you don't do it well, it is really possible to fight the Nuland Navy in the Guia Ocean.

While Ding Zhennan was thinking about these things, Bai Huawei also finished calling.