Chapter 95: Returning In Glory, Recruiting Talents Widely
Lelouch wore a large trench coat that concealed his identity, accompanied by Company Commander of Guards Klose and two burly guards, as he wearily exited the Vienna Train Station.
He himself had empty hands, while his three attendants carried luggage packed with quite a few gold and silver coins.
These attendants had all boarded the train in Munich, since they went on leave earlier than Lelouch, and he picked them up midway.
Although working overtime with the officer meant losing a few days of vacation, Lelouch was always generous, ensuring the entourage ate and drank well, so everyone was happy to take the job, treating it like a trip.
A row of rental carts lined up at the train station entrance, all looking decently decorated, yet not a single car or internal combustion locomotive with a gas bag in sight.
The Ollie Empire was also short on oil, and after the war began, it too was blockaded, managing only to buy a little civilian gasoline from neutral Romania.
Lelouch’s group had no choice but to board a cart first.
“Mister, where to?” The cart driver cracked his whip and asked, turning back. Germanian people and Ollie people spoke the same language, so there was no communication barrier at all.
Lelouch didn’t want his itinerary restricted by others, so he casually asked, “Is there anywhere in Vienna now to buy a car and gasoline?”
The cart driver’s face fell a bit, but he still answered: “There is, but it’s expensive. Gasoline can only be gotten at black market prices. Driving a car for one day would cover half a month’s cart earnings for me.”
Lelouch knew it wasn’t right to ask about buying a car right in front of the cart driver, so with just a glance at Klose, he tossed over two gold marks: “Take us to where we can buy a car.”
The cart driver’s eyes lit up instantly. Two gold marks were enough for three days of cart income. In pure profit, it would take at least a week’s work, and pure profit still had to deduct the horse’s feed money.
He immediately raised his horsewhip: “Mister, rest assured, I’ll take you straight to the Daimler showroom on the Ringstrasse.”
Hearing the place name “Ringstrasse,” Lelouch felt a slight stir in his heart. But the cart driver’s words had too many details, so he had to ask bit by bit: “Daimler’s showroom? Do Viennese people all buy Daimler? Not Skoda?”
The cart driver was instead stunned: “Skoda? Skoda doesn’t make cars. Oh, after the war started, they did make cars for the empire under contract, but they made ‘Laurenz & Klement’ cars, which are way worse than Daimler, and hardly anyone buys them.”
Only then did Lelouch realize he had remembered wrong.
In later generations, Skoda often advertised itself as a 130-year car company that started making cars at the end of the 19th century. But actually, it was just a century-old car company, only acquiring “Laurenz & Klement” in 1925 after the end of World War I.
For the 30 years before that, “Laurenz & Klement” was just an independent personal brand, with quality and reputation not well-regarded by Viennese people.
After some unknown time, the cart followed the Ringstrasse, first passing a district of Gothic-style buildings familiar to Lelouch, then stopping in front of a building resembling a department store.
“Ringstrasse 1020…” Seeing this address, Lelouch realized why the place name had felt familiar earlier.
Because not far away at 1010 was the alma mater of this body, the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts.
Lelouch couldn’t help recalling the era before his transmigration, when he studied and worked in a provincial city in Jiangnan Province. That provincial city had a university called Huaxia Academy of Fine Arts. Back then, the province’s first Porsche 4S store opened to the left of the academy’s main gate, and later the province’s first Ferrari dealership opened to the right of the academy’s main gate.
Sure enough, in any era, luxury car showrooms cluster at the gates of art academies.
Even after transmigrating halfway across Earth and a century back, it was still the same.
But now Lelouch was here to buy a car, so he temporarily set aside revisiting his alma mater.
The group got off the cart, the guards carried the money for him, and they went straight into the Daimler showroom.
The showroom was very desolate, with hardly anyone around—war era, after all, almost no one bought cars.
Seeing a rare young customer enter, the showroom manager politely approached: “Mister, are you here to see a car or to order one?”
Lelouch pointed at the Daimler sample in front of him: “I need it urgently. I want this sample car, with a full tank of gasoline.”
The showroom manager: “This is the luxury model, thirty-three thousand marks, but this is a sample car and can’t be sold. Plus, gasoline is hard to get now—it’s all rationed…”
Before Lelouch could speak, Klose beside him bluffed on his behalf: “Our officer is a colonel from an ally country, here in Vienna on a secret mission for talks. Hurry up and apply for it.”
The showroom manager sized him up and down. With no customers today anyway, he picked up an internal line phone: “Mr. Porsche…”
A few muffled sounds came from the other end of the phone, clearly not intending to approve, so the showroom manager was about to hang up.
But when Lelouch heard the words “Mr. Porsche,” his ears naturally perked up, and he reached out to stop the manager’s handset, taking it over.
“Mr. Porsche, person in charge of Daimler Vienna Company? The Mr. Porsche who designed race cars a few years ago for the ‘Prince Henry Cup’ race?”
The voice on the other end went briefly silent, clearly caught off guard, then hummed: “Your Excellency is…”
Lelouch was straightforward: “You probably don’t know me. Allow me to introduce myself: Lelouch von Hunt, from the Baria Kingdom, Colonel Regimental Commander of the Germanian 6th Army Group. My family also has several military industry enterprises in Baria and Belgium.
I’ve heard Mr. Porsche has designed many race cars. Perhaps we could get acquainted sometime; there might be more opportunities for cooperation.”
Ferdinand Porsche on the other end fell silent again for a moment: “Colonel, you might not know either. I’m not only the person in charge of Daimler Vienna Company now, but I’ve also been given a new assignment by the Imperial Ordnance Department. I’m about to take on the role of technical director for the power project department at the Skoda Armaments Factory…”
The other side spoke tactfully, but the meaning was clear: poaching was impossible.
The Ollie Empire’s Ordnance Department had given Skoda a task to develop a dedicated heavy artillery tractor, one with strong hill-climbing ability.
Now on the Southern Front battlefield and the Carpathian Mountains battlefield, the empire’s heavy artillery troops suffered from poor mobility, especially in mountainous areas. Even with large numbers of draft horses, they couldn’t pull the guns, seriously affecting the army’s combat effectiveness.
Historically, the real case of “a thousand men dragging one heavy cannon up a mountain” occurred during an Austrian Army operation.
But unfortunately, in history, Porsche never succeeded with this project.
It dragged on until the second half of 1916, when it was said that on the Western Front Yser River battlefield, the Britannian Army had deployed this new weapon called tanks. Only then did Porsche, out of curiosity, look into this new thing called tanks.
Afterward, he was greatly inspired and thought of using tracks to improve the tractor’s hill-climbing power, finally rushing out a half-track heavy artillery tractor for the Austrian Army.
It was only after that project passed inspection that in 1917, Porsche was awarded an honorary doctorate by his alma mater, Vienna University of Technology—he hadn’t properly studied for a doctorate originally.
And from then on, he qualified to be called “Dr. Porsche” by later generations.
As a military enthusiast in his previous life, Lelouch naturally had a rough understanding of Porsche’s exploits. Upon hearing Porsche mention the “strong hill-climbing heavy artillery tractor” project requirement, he quickly thought of tanks and tracked vehicles.
Lelouch’s eyes lit up—this demand matched perfectly: although it was still over a year before the Britannians invented tanks, he already had the concept of tanks in mind. With just a bit of guidance and reminder, it could benefit both sides.
So he unhesitatingly said: “For high-power vehicles with strong hill-climbing ability, I actually have some insights. Perhaps we could exchange ideas sometime—I provide the concepts and ideas, you handle the research and development.
I’m not forcing you to jump ship, but if you’re willing to take on a little private work, mutual inspiration between ally military industry enterprises would benefit both sides, I think. Let me note down your phone number; I’ll call again when I have time.”
Porsche on the other end of the phone was full of suspicion, but since the other party had put it this way, maybe real technical cooperation was possible, so he went along with it.
Since they were cooperating, one sample car was no problem. After Lelouch handed the handset back to the showroom manager, Porsche gave a few more instructions.
Only then did the showroom manager hang up: “Thirty-five thousand marks, take the sample car directly, with a full tank. While Your Excellency is in Vienna this period, if you need more fuel, you can come here too; we have some reserves.”
With a wave of his hand, Lelouch had Klose take out a bag of 50 gold coins per bundle, 40 bundles in total, count out 5 bundles in change, and hand over the remaining 35 bundles.
Lelouch planned to drive this car just for a short while; later, when he left, he’d leave it for his brother-in-law’s relatives in Vienna. Next time he came to Vienna on business, they could pick him up by car.
In the future, when Lelouch went to fight on the Eastern Front, he’d definitely visit Vienna often, and having a car would be convenient.
……
With the Daimler, getting around elsewhere was easier, but unfortunately none of Lelouch’s close attendants knew how to drive, so he, the officer, had to drive himself.
In this era, driving was still a technical skill. If he hadn’t learned a bit from Immelmann, he wouldn’t know how either.
But since the two guards no longer needed to carry the gold coins, Lelouch didn’t bother bringing so many people. He just gave them one bundle of 50 gold coins to find lodging and settle in, arranging their accommodations.
Lelouch himself only brought Klose as his attendant, driving past the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts gate toward the City Tax Bureau.
“This is where I went to university.”
“Oh, Officer, your grades back then must have been excellent. Many times, I’ve thought your math skills were simply terrifyingly strong.” Klose teased with a hint of flattery.
“Tell you something not everyone knows.”
Lelouch grinned smugly and kept flooring the accelerator. The road was very empty, and they arrived soon.
Lelouch drove straight into the Vienna City Tax Bureau compound. The gate guard saw his Daimler and immediately stood at attention, without any questions.
Instead, Lelouch proactively rolled down the window and asked: “Is Mr. Guilford of the Tax Collection Section here?”
The gate guard replied respectfully: “He’s in the Tax Collection Section office on the third floor. By the way… Mister, could you state your identity? I’ll register it.”
The gate guard didn’t even dare make him write it, just had him report it verbally and wrote it down himself.
“Lelouch von Hunt. He’s my brother-in-law, here to visit family.”
Lelouch didn’t make things hard for him, answering while getting out of the car, then shaking his trench coat and heading straight upstairs, leaving Klose to watch the car and money.
The gate guard went back to the guardhouse to log the visitor info, but while writing, he suddenly noticed the visitor’s name seemed similar to a summons notice they’d received before.
“Lelouch Hunt… Isn’t that the name of Section Chief Guilford’s missing brother-in-law who dodged military service and was summoned? But why the extra ‘von’? Has he gotten rich? Probably did something shady, right?”
In this era, there was no such thing as international archive checks.
If someone did something big abroad, as long as it wasn’t famous enough to make all the newspapers, no one in another country would know.
The gate guard hesitated a bit, but in the end, he dialed the police phone.
