With a shrill whistle, the "......" train slowly drove into Trieste's central station, its body shrouded in a white steam. With a loud bang, the carriage slammed and stopped.

Glancing at the bustling crowd outside the window, Mr. Yanak put his military hat on his head, carried a coffee-colored suitcase, and slowly walked down the aisle to the door.

"Hi Raun, welcome to Trieste."

On the platform, a middle-aged lieutenant commander beckoned to him. Kasić, his classmate at the Royal Navy Military School in Pola, had joined the Navy in the Far East in 1900.

"Ah, it's okay, I didn't expect you to pick me up here." Yannak stretched out his arms and hugged Kasic.

"Your face has become a lot more delicate, and it seems that your life in the Admiralty office in Vienna is really nurturing." Kasić said with a smile, motioning for the orderly next to him to take his suitcase and put it in an open car. "Come, Lawn, and sit here." He opened the side door of the back seat.

"Looks like you're doing well, this car costs more than 3,000 crowns." Yannak got into the car and shook himself in the back seat, and the Islaia car seemed to have a spring installed under the body, and it also shook twice.

"It's a Navy Command car, but every mid-level officer can have one, and you'll have one soon." Kasić said with a wink, closing the side door with his hand.

The car drove slowly, through the crowd, and out of Grand Central Station.

It was the end of September 1913, and Trieste was not feeling the slightest chill.

"Archduke Friedrich needed an adjutant who was familiar with equipment production and knew how to build machinery." Kasić said to Yanak in the car, "So I recommended you. ”

"I heard that the Grand Duke went to the Far East last spring and happened to witness the transfer of power in that country." "The emperor of that country is gone, and I wonder who lives in the largest palace in the world. ”

"I heard that the emperor still lives in it, but the old empress, who was in power in the Far East in 1901, is dead, and the current emperor is a child." "I went on a tour of the Far East with the Grand Duke early last year, and the Grand Duke Friedrich had a good relationship with their current president and Minister of War. It was basically a peaceful transfer of power, the war was fought for only a few months, and there were no too heavy battles. Later, the emperor abdicated, but he was not killed like the French. ”

As the car passed through the Istrian shipyard, it was possible to see at a glance the three behemoths being built on the slipway - the battleships of the "Grand Duke of Istria": the "Grand Duke of Istria", "Von Ander". Duchess Golden" and "Grand Duchess Irene".

Yannak had heard a joke that was widely circulated in the navy: Archduke Friedrich, who was in charge of naval affairs and was extremely wealthy, donated a newest battleship to the Imperial Navy this spring, and his **, Mrs. Golden, who had a fortune of more than 100 million pounds, then donated money to the Admiralty to build an identical battleship.

In this way, the names of the two of them can be juxtaposed and known to the world, after all, people always think of a certain battleship when they think of its sister ships of the same class.

Mrs. Golden's "righteous act" was appreciated by the old emperor, and he personally gave her the title of duchess.

But this incident made the Grand Duchess very dissatisfied, and she ran back to Berlin with her son in a fit of anger, which made the Habsburg family restless. In the end, poor Archduke Friedrich had to donate money to build another battleship of the same class in the name of Archduchess Irene, and personally went to Germany to apologize to Kaiser Wilhelm II, and the matter was settled.

Now this famous joke is circulating almost all of Europe, and the three newest capital ships of the Austro-Hungarian Navy are also privately jokingly called: the Grand Duke of Istria, his wife and his **.

Thinking of this, the corners of Yanak's mouth couldn't help but smile slightly. The Grand Duke, who was famous all over Europe, was indeed very interesting, and had been a frequent guest in the lace news of many national newspapers, but he was deeply loved by the people of the empire. He single-handedly promoted the Empire's Labor Act, established an eight-hour day and a minimum daily wage, and vigorously built roads, dams, and hydroelectric power stations in the country. In addition, he advocated compulsory education for all, allowing all ethnic groups to open schools in their own languages, and self-government, which made the high nobility of the empire extremely unhappy with him.

Perhaps, it is also interesting to work under such a big man.

As the car went up the hill, the Calamyr Castle came into view, and in front of the castle was a huge parking lot with a lot of cars, including some expensive Mercedes cars with compartments. Directly above the castle fluttered an Imperial flag with two crowns and a double eagle flag of the Imperial Navy.

In front of the castle is a green shrub wall, and the flower beds are full of all kinds of flowers, red, yellow, white, purple, and even some precious blue roses. Through the bush wall, the gate with the sign of the Imperial Navy Headquarters and some people entering and leaving can be faintly seen.

The Imperial Admiralty could only be regarded as a bureau under the War Department, but it had a great deal of freedom and was able to report directly to Emperor Franz.

The Adjutant Office of the Grand Duke of Istria was on the second floor, and there were thirty-six people in total, who were under the direct direction of Rear Admiral Bennell, Deputy Chief of the General Staff of the Navy.

The new position was busy, with a large number of statistics to be tabulated every day, so he was so busy that he had to work overtime almost every day.

He noted that since the beginning of the year, the Admiralty has suddenly surged a large number of material orders, including more than 100,000 tons of copper, aluminum, lead, zinc, antimony, nickel, chromium, tungsten, manganese, and other rare metals, and the purchase volume is far greater than the actual demand. This puzzled him, and he had asked Rear Admiral Bennell about it, but the Deputy Chief of the General Staff told him that it was an order from Archduke Friedrich and Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, and that he should only carry it out.

Yankel wondered if someone had done something wrong with the order for the materials, but he couldn't see anything. The purchase price of these materials was even lower than the list price in the market, but it was so large that he even suspected that the Empire was planning a protracted all-out war.

He was amused by the idea that the situation in the Balkans, while turbulent, was not worthy of the Empire, and that those countries that had just gained independence from the Ottomans together would not be a match for the Imperial Army, except because of the Russians.

Russia? Yankel thought to himself that although the relationship between the two countries was not close, and even hostile to each other, they were still far from meeting each other.

He couldn't figure it out at all.

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