The first shot of the New Year, I wish you good health and all your wishes come true!

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Starting from Fum, enter the snowy and ice-covered Pannonia Plain, and stay in Zagreb, which has a strong historical and cultural atmosphere; cross the railway bridge on the Danube River, and come to the warm and fertile Hungarian Plain, and come to the beautiful and quiet Budapest; tour the scenery along the Danube River, relive the memories of the youth of that year, arrive at the graceful rhythm, and the aroma of fine wine floating on the scent of the wine.

The music capital of Vienna... Xia Shu and his wife visited the Austro-Hungarian Empire this time. With the enthusiastic accompaniment of O'Honor Karl I and Queen Zita, they truly appreciate the vastness and magnificence of this country and saw its unique charm of multi-ethnic and multi-culturalism. The hospitality of the Habsburg royal family is impeccable, and all kinds of details do not need to be burdened. After more than half a month of travel, Xia Shu and his party returned to Fum and embarked on a voyage around the world again.

The next stop for the "Ku-Quillin" is Venice, which is more than 200 kilometers away from Fum.

Venice is a beautiful city, built in the place where the city is least likely to be built. This city with an area of ​​less than 8 square kilometers once held the most powerful manpower, material resources and power in Europe. However, with the beginning of the Age of Discovery, its economic and trade status gradually weakened. The Republic of Venice, which lasted for more than a thousand years, also perished under the iron hoof of Napoleon's army and was later occupied by Austria. It was not until the mid-19th century that the Venice region returned to its territory in Italy.

Since the 20th century, whether in the years before and after the war, Venice's economic and trade prosperity has been far above Fum on the other side of the Adriatic Sea. However, the former has developed slowly and is becoming saturated, while the latter has developed rapidly and is full of vitality. The two countries behind them also have similar contrasts in economic and trade situations. Italy is becoming increasingly prosperous due to the Second Industrial Revolution. Its emerging industries are typical representative in southern Europe and have developed relatively developed shipping, but it is not very competitive in Europe and even the world. The Austro-Hungarian Empire is a traditional industrial power, with arms, textiles, and machine manufacturing occupying a place in the international market.

Geographically, Italy is the country closest to the Austro-Hungarian Empire. In the nearly half century from 1815 to 1861, the former, except for the Sardinian region, was under the rule of the Habsburgs. Therefore, these two countries have had a deep grudge in modern times and almost regarded each other as mortal enemies. The three-country alliance of Germany, Austria and Italy, facilitated by Bismarck, was not just a monolithic, but also buried deep hidden dangers. If Germany had not quickly defeated Britain and defeated ****, Germany and Austria joined forces to curb the Russian attack on the eastern front, Italy would have turned against each other. Germany and Austria's strength made the Italians reluctantly stay in the camp of the allies.

All armistice treaties rarely benefit Italy. After the war, Germany's industrial economy broke free from its earlier constraints and left European countries. The newly independent Ireland repeatedly created economic miracles. Even the tumultuous Austro-Hungarian Empire and Ottoman Turkey also showed a clear recovery momentum. Only Italy's economic situation stopped moving forward. The country was burdened with heavy foreign debt, industrial production declined, the unemployed population increased, and the political situation was turbulent and unstable. Three governments were replaced in more than three years after the war. Neither the right-wing Paulo Boseli nor the left-wing Vittorio Orlando could change the adverse situation of Italy's economic downturn.

Since ascending the throne, Xia Shu has visited European countries, and Italy is one of the few places that have not left footprints. To this day, intelligence departments of Ireland and Germany and Austria still warned him with kindness: Italian extremist civil organizations may pose a threat to his life security. This situation occurs because the Italians did not forget the night battle of Eoria in the autumn of 1912. At that time, Ottoman Turkey used a German-aided high-speed torpedo boat team to severely damage the Italian navy, and severely attacked Italy's expansion ambitions, making it possible.

Italy was far from achieving the expected strategic goal in the war against Ottoman Turkey. During the Italian-Turkish war, hundreds of German personnel helped the Ottoman army. Natsuki only appeared in the Eoria naval night battle. The German navy kept this strictly confidential, but the news leaked from the Ottoman Empire. His special identity and great contribution attracted the attention of the outside world. Many Italians therefore counted the two ships that sank in that naval battle and the nearly 1,000 officers and soldiers who died on his head, and vowed to make this person pay his blood debt.

The negative impact of the night battle in Eoria is not only at the military level. The Italian naval general attributed the failure to aging ships and outdated equipment, and asked the Italian government to invest more funds in naval construction. The expansion of arms brought a short period of abnormal prosperity to Italy's heavy industry and military industry, but the economic development momentum that lasted from the second half of the 19th century to the early 20th century turned toward the debts borne by the government since then.

It continues until now. Watching Ireland's economic growth, the Three Kingdoms Economic Alliance, which was starring Ireland and Austro-Hungary, is booming. Italians are very envious of this. They want to join this economic cooperation, but they are willing to be humble and flatter, but the Irish government is indifferent. The Italians then resent the new and old hatreds together. It is not surprising that some impulsive and ignorant guys have extreme ideas.

It is precisely for security reasons that Natsuki visited Italy for a short stay in Venice in good economic conditions and did not go to the Italian capital or other important cities. Under domestic pressure, Italian King Vittorio Emanuele III gave up his plan to meet in Venice and only entrusted the head of government (Chairman of the Council of Ministers) Orlando and others to welcome him.

Although Xia Shu had no good feelings for Italy, she was still very interested in the unique scenery of Venice. In order to avoid the influence of the political and diplomatic atmosphere, he and Charlotte disguised themselves and took a pleasant day trip to Venice like ordinary tourists. They kissed under the Bridge of Sighs, took photos in Piazza San Marco, tasted Italian coffee in the open-air cafe on Elizabeta Street, and enjoyed the romance and tranquility under the sunset...

Meetings with Italian military and political officials are not just polite. Now Ireland is actively seeking external industrial orders, while Italy is eager to get rid of difficulties in economic and other fields through cooperation with other countries. Both sides have their own desires and never conceal this. In theory, as long as it does not hinder its strategic interests, any form of cooperation is worthy of discussion and consideration.

However, Italian officials have obviously misunderstood their understanding of modern international economic and trade. The economic and trade alliance agreement signed by Ireland, Austro-Hungary and Spain, has enabled the trade between the three countries to escape the original tariff barriers and be able to import various goods at prices equivalent to the domestic market. Steel is the most typical example. Ireland did not have the ordinary steel needed for metallurgical industry, shipbuilding, automobiles, and aviation manufacturing, and has been imported from Germany before. Although Germany's steel industry ranked second in the world, it still had to supply naval shipbuilding and colonial construction after the war, which could not completely guarantee the supply to Ireland. The Austro-Hungarian Empire

The steel production is only one-sixth of Germany, but in order to meet the needs of its own country, there is still a considerable share for export. Nowadays, Ireland imports more than 100,000 tons of steel from the Austro-Hungarian Empire every year. The reduction in raw material costs makes Irish industrial products more priced in the international market. The heavy industry of the Austro-Hungarian Empire also benefited from stable orders. The scale of the steel industry has expanded by 40% compared to before the war, surpassing France and Russia, and ranking fourth in the world. Now, Italian officials are trying to convince the Irish king with tax-free and low-price strategies that they chose the wrong time and the wrong target, and the result will inevitably be a disappointment.

The IQ of Italian officials is urgent, how good can the military generals perform? In front of Xia Shu, they spared no effort to praise the technical performance of their ships to show that the Italian shipbuilding industry has advanced standards, as if Ireland and Italy can make great gains in technology, but the fact is exactly the opposite. At the end of the war, the Italian Navy had six dreadnoughts and many newer cruisers, leading the Austro-Hungarian Navy, which had four dreadnoughts and a dozen old battleships as the backbone. Before the Austro-Hungarian Empire started construction of the Franz-Joseph I-class super dreadnoughts, the Italian Navy had long been

He proposed his own super-dreadnought plan, but the economic situation was recession and the financial situation was not good. The navy's vigorous ambition could only continue to stay on the drawing platform. In order to catch up with the number one competitor, the Italian Navy carried forward the spirit of the pot-making maker. They sent two Andrea-Doria-class battleships that had been built for only four years back to the dock for technical transformation. According to the tradition of Italian battleship transformation, the 13 305mm main guns of this class (three triple-mounted and two double-mounted) were bored to 320mm, thus surpassing the technical scope of the dreadnought. The Foreign Xuancheng was the earliest super-dreadnought ship installed by the Pan-Mediterranean country.

Putting aside the slightly superior personnel quality, training level and fighting will of the Austro-Hungarian Navy, the modified Andrea-Doria-class battleship only has the advantage of the number of artillery numbers, speed, protection, and loss of pipes, against the Franz-Joseph I class, all of which are at a disadvantage. Considering that the Austro-Hungarian Navy's light ships' renewal efficiency has surpassed Italy, following this trend, in a few years, the Italian Navy will completely lose its strategic advantage over the Austro-Hungarian Navy for more than half a century. Due to the attitude of the German senior management,
Chapter completed!