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Gisela snapped his fingers.
It seems that if we can't get the young Neumann from history, we can get his father, Professor Neumann Sr. But that's not so bad, as long as we provide enough funding and some guidance from time travelers, genius scientists like them can create many miracles.
For example, Gisela's research on Leonardo da Vinci's manuscripts, combined with his own concepts and ideas, led to the discovery that Austria had actually manufactured a large number of biplane propeller aircraft and completed mass production last year, but they were not directly put into actual combat.
Because Gisela had not yet found the right opportunity, and in fact, the Russo-Turkish War was the best opportunity.
Back to the present—
“Write a letter immediately, saying that I am very interested in his research and hope that he can come to Vienna to continue this research. I will provide him with comprehensive assistance, including funding, equipment, and so on.”
After Gisela finished speaking, she noticed the scientist present looked very confused: "Do you know what kind of research he's conducting?"
Gisela didn't actually know what von Neumann was doing in this timeline, but she did know how her family would make their mark on technological history.
To avoid giving herself away, Gisela simply nodded vaguely, then said to Hertz, "Alright, is there anything else you want to show me?"
“No, Your Majesty, for now.” Hertz shook his head, but then suddenly remembered something. “By the way, Your Majesty, although we can now replicate this Qiyi Sanlin Jiuni San and Smo Energy Armor, the raw materials needed to produce its components are extremely expensive, especially those mithril and amalgam produced using so-called alchemy. However, some of us believe that these materials are not actually unanalyzable, so we hope you can have the Chemistry Institute begin analyzing the composition of these mithril and amalgam.”
“I’ll have them do it. Since there’s nothing else, I’ll be going now. You may have heard that I’ve been a bit busy lately.”
"So they're really going to send troops to the Ottomans after all?" someone asked with concern.
Gisela didn't immediately recognize whose voice it was. He glanced in the direction the voice came from and nodded, saying, "Yes, we will, in the name of the international community, send a volunteer force to the former Ottoman Empire to stop the harm inflicted on civilians by all sides. We will protect all the ethnic groups living there, mediate ethnic disputes, and prevent further bloodshed."
"What if we encounter Russians?" someone else asked.
Gisela replied seriously, "The Tsarist Russian army has a long tradition of plundering occupied territories, and Tsarist Russia was under the rule of a backward and barbaric authoritarian regime. They were only interested in land and plunder, and were inherently hostile to civilization." To be honest, Gisela, who was Chinese before, could not understand the West's fear of the Russian Empire. But now, as a member of it, and even a major power with extensive territorial borders with Russia, her vigilance towards Russia was almost an undeniable fact. Of course, from the perspective of governance, national cohesion requires a strong enemy to achieve.
Gisela, pleased to see most of the scientists nodding in agreement, raised his voice slightly to amplify the force of his impromptu speech: "We Austria abhor these atrocities, so if the Russians wish to seize Ottoman Turkey, we will never stand idly by and watch the Turkish people, who have just been liberated from Ottoman tyranny, fall into the hands of another tyrannical state. We will fight for the well-being of the Turkish people! The justice that Austria upholds will be proven once again in this war!"
Gisela himself knew that the latter half was somewhat nonsensical. What did he mean by "the justice that Austria upholds will be proven once again in this war"? Only controversial and uncertain things need to be proven. Here, "uphold" should have been used instead!
Gisela felt the speech was absolutely terrible, probably the worst impromptu speech she had ever given, and it completely tarnished her years of impromptu speaking experience.
Fortunately, no one cared about these details at this time. All the listeners applauded Gisela's less-than-stellar speech, after all, given her status, whatever she said could be considered correct.
Gisela left the Institute for Theoretical Physics amidst applause.
Back in the car, Gisela said to Jeanne, "When you get back, immediately have Dr. Neumann prepare to set up a new research institute. Let's call it... well, let's call it the Artificial Intelligence Institute. Once Dr. von Neumann agrees to join us, the institute's establishment plan will officially begin. Personnel, equipment, and funding will all be provided with top priority. The goal is to develop large-scale computing power support equipment."
"Yes."
As Jeanne answered, the car started.
The British replied to Gisela that evening, agreeing to grant Gisela the right to extend the Berlin-Prague-Vienna-Budapest railway line to Basra. In other words, a united front between Britain and Germany—well, Britain and Austria—was formed, and the British Expeditionary Force would also enter Turkey to fight as a volunteer force.
Late that night, Vienna sent a telegram to the world condemning the humanitarian disaster unfolding in Turkey and declaring that as a guardian of human rights and the universal values of Western civilization, Austria would send volunteers into Turkey to carry out humanitarian relief missions and strive to bring peace and freedom to the region.
The tone was exactly the same as the grand diplomacy of the "Beacon of Human Hope" in another timeline. It can only be said that everyone in the world is driven by self-interest, and this applies to relations between nations as well. As for the thoughts of the Ottoman people themselves, no one cared anymore...
Soon, the advance team of German aircraft flew over Macedonia and other countries and landed at a temporary airport southeast of Istanbul.
This advance team was equipped with 15 prototype biplane fighters—the world's first aircraft to be deployed in war, codenamed Fokker I.V. The reason for the name Fokker was, of course, to commemorate Gisela's original timeline, the first fighter aircraft that Germany deployed in war.
Shortly after landing, the advance team took off for aerial patrols and destroyed several Russian reconnaissance balloons. The wreckage of the balloons landed on the Turkish army's positions, which greatly boosted the morale of the Turks.
Gisela's original mission for the advance team was primarily reconnaissance, assisting the Ottoman artillery in detecting enemy movements, calibrating artillery positions, and adjusting deployments. However, these hot-blooded air knights, upon arriving at the temporary airfield built for them by the Ottomans, began installing weapons and attaching homemade bombs to their aircraft.
PS1: The speed at which the fox advanced technology after taking power had already accelerated significantly, and several years had passed in between. 0v0
Chapter 569 The Turkish Symphony of the Vienna Rose: The Role of the Capter 66 Aircraft (Seeking Votes)
So, on the third day after arriving in Istanbul, the advance team of young men took off again, armed with weapons.
On that very day, in order to seize better attack positions, the Russian army launched a series of small-scale offensives on the western front of Istanbul.
The Russian magic users who participated in the attack never expected to be attacked from the air—their mindset was still that the air was the stage for magic users, a forbidden zone inaccessible to mortals.
As a result, these slow but deadly aerial steel giants dropped a series of terrifying explosives on them.
The reason for choosing to fly close to the ground was that the advance team commander felt that climbing immediately would make them easy targets for the magic warriors' energy weapons. It would be better to escape at low altitude and high speed, making it less likely for them to be hit by the magic warriors. A slight sway from side to side would seriously interfere with the magic warriors' aim.
His idea was clearly correct. By the time the Russian magic warrior launched his attack, the German Iron Wings had already become smaller than a sesame seed, and even with the magic warrior's eyesight, he could not shoot accurately.
However, these were Russian girls after all, and they fought back fiercely, but they didn't hit anything.
Unfortunately, the Fokker was not a bomber, and its bombing accuracy was not high. Some of the bombs simply landed between two skirmish lines of the Russian army, hitting nothing.
However, the aerial strafing was very effective. Caught completely off guard, the Russian army suffered hundreds of casualties, and the morale of the first wave of troops that launched the attack was thus shattered, causing the Russian skirmish lines to begin to collapse.
At this moment, the Turkish magic armored soldiers rushed out of their hiding places and led the Turkish infantry in a counterattack.
The war songs passed down from the time of Suleiman the Magnificent resounded throughout the battlefield.
The advance bombing helped Turkish forces on one front repel the Russian offensive, but Russian forces elsewhere had largely achieved their objectives. Everyone knew that after securing favorable starting positions for the attack, the next Russian offensive was imminent.
That night, under cover of darkness and taking advantage of their familiarity with the terrain from fighting on home soil, the Turks recaptured some of their positions. The intense gunfire did not gradually subside until the next morning.
On that very day, a formation of Gisela's twin-engine super-heavy bombers arrived at an airport southeast of Istanbul. After landing, the thirty trial-production "Thunder" level bombers immediately loaded their bombs and flew toward the Russian targets that the advance team had spotted in the sky a few days earlier.
Since the level bombers only had a limited number of bombs transported from the mainland, the ground crew had to attach all sorts of odds and ends owned by the Turkish army to the Lightning's racks, from garbage from the temporary base to feces bombs that could be opened with a pull. The German lads then flew their planes and dropped all of this on the Russians.
Another day later, a large group of transport planes landed at the newly completed airport nearby—the outstanding performance of the advance team had finally convinced the Turkish interim government to convert the Royal Horse Ranch into a new airport.
In an instant, this former Ottoman royal racecourse was crammed with airplanes, large quantities of bombs and spare parts, and fuel storage equipment.
At the same time, the Russian army also launched a large-scale ground offensive.
For General Kemal, an unprecedentedly long day had arrived.
Northwest of Kabakcha, the Russians have established a magical armor repair and maintenance center for magical warriors. The soldiers there are on high alert, awaiting the return of magical warriors from the front lines. The distant sounds of artillery fire can be heard, and at night, the flashes of exploding shells might even be visible.
However, before the first batch of magical female warriors returned, there was nothing to do at the base. Although the Russians were all on duty and waiting, they were all in a state of leisure. Many of them were sipping vodka, and the officers turned a blind eye to it.
Anna, the mage on guard duty at the repair center, was sitting inside her mage armor. Because of the extreme heat, she had opened the armor upwards to expose her body to the air, using the open armor as a sunshade. Even so, Anna's clothes were still soaked with sweat, and her skin color was clearly visible through the clothes clinging to her body.
Russian mage warriors dislike wearing anything under their coats during combat, as it hinders their movement. Anna, therefore, is currently enjoying immense prestige, with Russian soldiers whistling loudly as they pass her armor. Anna doesn't mind at all. Before being identified as a mage warrior, she was just an ordinary rural girl living an ordinary life in a village in Kuban—meaning that in a few years, she would be pursued by a young man at the Epiphany bonfire and lose her virginity in some nearby haystack.
Unlike some Eastern countries, Russia is not reserved. If a girl in rural Russia is still virgin at the age of eighteen, it means she is really ugly.
Before that, Anna was found to have the blood of a mage, so she left the small village where she had lived since childhood and came to Kiev for training, where she lost her virginity. By now, Anna had been with countless men. On the train from Kiev to Sevastopol, she had a brief but passionate romance with a handsome train conductor, which made her fellow trainees extremely envious.
A girl like that wouldn't care about her exposed skin.
In reality, women of the lower and middle classes throughout Russia didn't care; they were just that bold and promiscuous, it was part of their national culture. Therefore, in another timeline, Sholokhov's *And Quiet Flows the Don* had such a profound impact on a certain time traveler, especially seeing the protagonist's brother Petro's wife having an affair on the train to visit him at the front, and then transforming into a deeply loving and longing wife upon seeing her husband again—this severely tested the time traveler's worldview.
Of course, upper-middle-class Russian women are more influenced by Europe and probably still have some integrity.
However, Anna and her sisters never considered themselves as noble ladies of high society.
Anna's wingman is currently flirting with the newly acquainted craftsman next to the open-faced magic armor, their lewd laughter echoing the distant cannon fire.
Suddenly, a whooshing sound from the sky shattered everything.
That wasn't the sound of artillery shells tearing through the air. Curious, Anna leaned out of her armor, craning her neck to peer up at the sky through the edge of the opening. The sun shone brightly, almost blinding Anna, and against the light, she could vaguely see several dark dots swooping down towards the ground.
At that moment, someone shouted, "German planes!"
PS1: Ra!
Chapter 570 The Turkish Symphony of the Vienna Rose: Capter 67 This is War (Seeking Votes)
Anna then snapped out of her daze. She quickly shut off the armor, called out to her wingman through the loudspeaker, and activated the magic armor, drawing out her usual large-caliber cannon from the back.
Anna only realized after pulling out the cannon that it wasn't suitable for shooting down planes, but before she could change weapons, the German bombs started falling.
This time there were no excrement bombs or leaflets, only heavy bombs weighing hundreds of kilograms each, and the deafening explosions were no less devastating than the bombardment of a heavy mortar.
Anna finally drew her energy weapon and began searching for a target, only to find that the smoke and dust from the explosion on the ground, as well as the thick smoke billowing from the flames, completely blocked her field of fire, making it impossible for her to see the German fighter jet.
Meanwhile, the roar of German fighter planes could still be heard from the sky.
Anna activated the propulsion system and sprinted along the ground. She left the small hill she was guarding and ran to the open area next to the maintenance center. She could finally see the Germanic planes, large flying objects that Anna had never seen before, with strange and unattractive shapes.
Anna raised her weapon, took a quick aim, and pulled the trigger, but the enemy pilot made a swaying motion at that moment, thus dodging Anna's beam.
The attacked aircraft began to maneuver to avoid the attack. Although the maneuvers were small, they severely interfered with Anna's aim because they had already run a considerable distance.
"Let me show you this!" Anna pulled the lever on the energy weapon, adjusting the diffusion to the maximum, and then pulled the trigger all the way down.
Maximum output power! Maximum diffusion range!
Anna's brain felt like it had been punched by a burly man who had downed three bottles of vodka; she was completely disoriented.
The thick energy beam finally caught up with a German fighter jet, turning it into a fireball.
Anna released the trigger with satisfaction, panting heavily. She had intended to aim at other fighter jets, but the severe instantaneous mental exhaustion blurred her vision. The small black dots in the sky now appeared as double images. Anna could only watch helplessly as the German fighter jets flew away and disappeared into the azure sky.
Anna stood there for a while, trying to calm herself down, before turning the magic armor around to face the repair center.
The German attack was very effective; the makeshift repair center was engulfed in flames, and the ammunition intended to replenish the magic users was exploding continuously, sounding as if someone had lit a string of oriental fireworks—Anna didn't know that those things were called firecrackers.
Anna saw the survivors carrying the wounded out of the inferno. Suddenly, she noticed her wingman hadn't followed. So she turned on the loudspeaker, calling out his name, and strode towards the small hill where she had been standing guard.
Upon reaching the high ground, Anna saw that her wingman's magical armor was still kneeling on the ground, its plates still open. Shrapnel from the bomb had left a series of scratches inside and outside the armor, but had not caused any serious damage.
But the magic users who hadn't even had a chance to put on their armor weren't so lucky.
The mage girl, whom Anna regarded as her younger sister, lay sprawled on the ground, her legs spread apart, one leg dangling from the footrest of her armor. Her military uniform skirt was pulled up above her waist, completely exposing her underwear. Blood had stained her uniform top, and her underwear was soaked from incontinence.
Anna maneuvered her magical armor to her wingman, looking down at her sister. The bewildered expression on the dead sister's face gave Anna, who was experiencing war for the first time, a severe psychological shock.
It was only then that the Russian girl truly realized she was in the midst of a brutal war, and how naive and ignorant her previous mindset—which resembled a picnic or outing, and how relieved she no longer had to train so hard every day—had been.
She had the magic armor kneel down beside the dead, then sat inside the armor and wept silently.
Gisela put down the battle report sent from the front and looked up at Jeanne.
"It seems our bomber force is doing a good job."
“Yes, judging from the photos sent by the reconnaissance planes, the level bomber force has been remarkably effective in striking the Russian logistics system, significantly weakening the intensity and sustainability of the Russian attack. It’s just a pity that we have too few aircraft at the front lines to completely stop the Russian offensive through air strikes.” Jeanne answered seriously, then smiled at Gisela and continued in a more gentle tone, “Fox, I must admit that I underestimated the role of the bomber force before. Your assessment this time, like your previous judgments, is very correct.”
Gisela smiled at Jeanne after hearing this, intending to tease her a little. But seeing Mia engrossed in a professional book on mechanical maintenance, he felt a sense of pride, like an elder looking at a younger person. When he turned his gaze back to Jeanne, he couldn't remember what he had just been planning to do...
Jeanne looked at Mia with gentle eyes and reached out to pat Mia's head.
Recently, Mia and Jeanne have gotten along well. Even though Jeanne has a stubborn and arrogant personality when it comes to Gisela, this doesn't happen when she's with the little girl. In fact, Jeanne is quite enthusiastic about providing Mia with knowledge that interests her.
In this respect, there will probably never be another queen like Gisela in the world.
Her country is embroiled in a war, with countless soldiers rushing to the battlefield, ready to shed their blood, while she herself, dressed in loose-fitting pajamas, is teaching her children with her best friend.
If Gisela were to inspect the multinational volunteer forces in such a relaxed manner, the generals present would probably be quite surprised by his appearance.
Regarding Mia's true identity, although rumors have circulated that she is not the Empress's daughter, her current education has led to a consensus among prominent Austrian families: given the opportunity, they would definitely pursue Gisela's daughter; the allure of a Habsburg prince is too great, and even if they could only marry into the family and face a precarious situation, it would be worth the risk.
These gossips were relayed to Gisela by Marta as jokes, and Gisela promptly replied, "If they dare, they can try. Is the Habsburg family now under the protection of Venus or Mars?"
In response, Chloris joked that Gisela should have a son so he could go and mess with other people's daughters.
Of course, the above palace secrets are irrelevant to the outside world...
PS1: ra!
Chapter 571 The Turkish Symphony of the Vienna Rose: Capter 68, Loading onto the Ship (Seeking Tickets)
While Gisela was still cracking jokes in Vienna—
The formation and transport of volunteer troops did not lag behind at all. The Austrian Royal Army, the Prussian Army, and the German States Army, having completed their uniform changes, boarded transport ships provided by the British Navy in batches from Trieste, the fleet port of the Austrian Empire near the Adriatic Sea.
Meanwhile, progressives from all over the world who responded to the call to come to Trieste to join the volunteer forces were organized into new divisions and received systematic training and armament.
Gisela's war machine, built over the years, is now operating at full capacity, and the world is waiting to witness its capabilities firsthand.
Trieste, the cargo ship Apennine, flying the British naval flag, is undergoing loading operations.
Before the loading operation was completed, the captain and first mate had nothing to do, so they went to the ship's side and leisurely watched the workers stuff the cargo into the hold.
“Captain,” the first mate said, “what do you think that thing with those ugly tracks is?”
"Didn't the shipment list give us say 'battlefield multi-purpose engineering machinery'?" The captain pulled a flat flask from his pocket, opened the lid, took a big gulp, and looked quite intoxicated. "The wine the Germans sent is good, but homemade rum still tastes the best."
The first mate glanced at the captain.
British senior seamen are generally quintessential gentlemen, impeccably dressed and polite. They elegantly sip coffee while on watch at night, and only drink a little wine at dinner. Captains, who drink wherever they go, are extremely rare. Moreover, they generally do not use flat wine jugs, which seem utterly devoid of elegance.
It is said that the captain, like the first mate, was once an elegant sailor, until his ship encountered the French in a naval battle.
The first mate suppressed his inner thoughts and continued to say to the captain, "Sir, those long tubes mounted on that thing look like cannons..."
"Of course, at least three inches in caliber. Oh! The Germans use the metric system, so that should be a 75mm cannon. I think that's pretty accurate; I fought the French back in the day."
"You fought the French?" The first mate raised an eyebrow, looking at the captain with some surprise.
The Battle of Hampton Road, a classic battle of the Civil War, you wouldn't think that only Yankees ended up in this battle, would you...?
The Battle of Hampton Anchorage, often referred to as the Merrimac, was a naval battle in the American Civil War. From a naval development perspective, this battle is the most famous and important naval battle of the American Civil War, marking the first time both sides used steel-hulled warships and ironclads in combat. The Confederate CSS Virginia and the Union SS Monitor fought at Hampton Anchorage near Virginia from March 8th to 9th, 1862. The Union blockade had cut off international trade to Norfolk and Richmond, Virginia's largest cities. This naval battle was part of the Confederate efforts to break the blockade.
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