Holy Roman Empire

"Has the investigation been completed and is there any possibility of pinning the blame on the Anti-Turkish Alliance?" Prime Minister Gladstone asked anxiously.

Faced with the enemies' slander, the British Government naturally wouldn't sit back and await its doom, and the only reason they hadn't launched an immediate counterattack was the suddenness of the incident, leaving them completely unprepared.

Foreign Minister George shook his head, "Our experts have already visited the site to conduct an on-the-spot investigation. Based on the timeline, the Ottoman Empire indeed appears to have the suspicion of creating the plague.

In the face of such facts, we are unable to defend the Ottomans. Russia and Austria are pressing the International Joint Investigation Team to come to a conclusion, and I estimate that by tomorrow, the newspapers in London will be delivering the verdict."

The British Government doesn't have the ability to influence the outcome of the international investigation, and to whitewash the guilt in front of the Anti-Turkish Alliance is simply impossible.

The infamy of the 'Black Death' is too great; even mere 'suspicions' are enough to cause terror.

Now, the European nations are still counting on Russia and Austria to effectively control the epidemic, hoping to halt the virus at the Near East to prevent it from reaching them.

Where public opinion will stand is an obvious matter; no one cares whether the Ottoman Government is being forced or not. The European world categorically rejects such actions that violate human morality.

The cruel reality shattered Gladstone's last illusion. The Ottoman Government had truly put them in a terrible position this time; it was inevitable that the European public would turn their anger towards the London Government over its support with supplies to the Ottomans.

In just a few days, the newspapers might very well publish: The London Government provided money and effort to buy the Ottoman Empire time to create the 'Black Death.'

Whether the created virus is the 'Black Death' or not is irrelevant. Nevertheless, the London Government's support for the Ottoman Empire has indeed given the Sultan Government more time to resist, undeniably creating the conditions for artificial plague.

Everyone will say that without the materials provided by the British, the Near East war would have ended months earlier. If Ankara had been breached earlier, the Russian Army would have been able to stop the pernicious acts of the Ottoman Government.

Gladstone understood that he had to do something immediately; otherwise, the situation might soon spiral out of control.

"Organize a medical volunteer team at once to rush to the Near East to control the outbreak, and also procure a batch of supplies in the name of the government to send over.

Contact the Austrians in the Foreign Office, and the Royal Navy is willing to dispatch a fleet to cooperate in blockading the Near East, demonstrating our determination to combat the epidemic to the outside world."

After hesitating for a moment, Gladstone added, "Arrest the Ottomans who have fled to our country on the charge of being suspected of creating the Black Death, regardless of their status or rank."

Now that the facts had been established, Gladstone naturally wouldn't be courteous towards the Ottomans who had brought them to such a pass.

This is not a matter of underling and boss; it's about humanity and anti-humanity. Once the 'Black Death' is involved, no one dares to take it lightly.

Foreign Minister George reminded him, "Prime Minister, the medical community has not yet confirmed it as the Black Death; it's still under suspicion."

Gladstone waved his hand, "That doesn't matter, the fact remains that the Ottoman Government deliberately created the plague.

What we need now is a stance. I estimate it won't be long before the European world rises to a wave of anti-Turkish sentiment; let's not let it spill over onto us.

Have the Treasury settle the accounts as soon as possible, claiming that the supplies for the Ottoman Empire came from wicked capitalists, and that has nothing to do with the government, we've never had any contact with the Ottomans."

From this moment on, the British Government will lead the charge in combating the epidemic. There has been no collusion with the Ottoman Empire; that is out of the question.

```

Providing the Ottoman Empire with supplies is nonsense; the supplies are clearly exported to Persia. Since the blockade of the Near East coastline by the Anti-Turkish Alliance started, British-Ottoman trade has ceased.

The reason supplies end up in the Ottoman Empire is that illegal merchants, lured by exorbitant profits, sell to the Ottoman Empire.

Who specifically?

You'd have to ask the Persian Government about that, since the supplies flow in from Persia and have no ties whatsoever to the London Government.

…

Watching the British put on a splendid performance, Franz really wanted to say, "This is much ado about nothing. Everyone is busy controlling the plague; who has time for squabbling?"

Based on this groundless matter, apart from causing a bit of trouble for the British Government and tarnishing their international image, there's nothing more that can be done.

If one truly wishes to bring Britain to its knees, spreading rumors and causing trouble is far from sufficient.

The world is never short of intelligent people, and with a bit of calm, anyone can see that "Britain's Conspiracy" doesn't hold up.

There's no other reason, mainly because "plague" is uncontrollable. When it comes to killing, it does not discriminate between friend and foe, or high and low status.

If the European world suffers misfortune, Britain cannot possibly remain unscathed.

As for the current international situation, though for the British it does contain some discord, these are only minor issues that are far from the point of mutual destruction.

If there were to be a rampant spread, it's likely that the Russians would suffer the lightest losses. The only advantage of the land of ice and snow is that the virus spreads and breeds more slowly.

For reference, consider the little mice that freeze to death halfway across the road.

During the Black Death that ravaged the European Continent, the Russian Empire also lost over 200,000 people, but compared to the 25 million in the European world, where one in three Europeans met God due to the disease, that number is negligible.

If one were to frame the British, unless Austria could reconcile the differences among European nations and offer enough incentives to convince everyone that the British were to blame,

That would be much harder to achieve than getting everyone to tell lies with open eyes. Whether it's resolving inter-nation conflicts or offering sufficient benefits, neither is within Franz's power.

Since they can't be beaten to death, might as well not take any action at all. Just give the London Government some work to do and have them cooperate with the epidemic control.

Indeed, the plague, known as the deadliest of epidemics, didn't get that reputation for no reason.

Even with the Vienna Government implementing the strictest prevention, the plague still came knocking, and the first affected were the Austrian Soldiers stationed in the Near East.

From the discovery of the first infected person, within just one week, three hundred soldiers were infected, and the number swelled to two thousand the following week.

This was the outcome even with timely isolation upon detection of the outbreak and the presence of rat poison around the military camps; otherwise, the number of infected would have been much higher.

Army Minister Feslav: "This epidemic is highly transmissible, and our number of infections is still not considered large.

The Russian Army, which first detected the outbreak, is different; the number of infections has already reached 35,000, and that's just those diagnosed. The actual number is likely even higher."

```

The plague's outbreak and lethality were also astonishingly high, with onset to death commonly not exceeding one week, and those who survived initially could still face recurrence later.

The symptoms it exhibited were not much different from those of common plagues, with nausea, vomiting, and fever.

"Our side has just encountered the epidemic, and we can't determine the mortality rate yet, but the Russian Army has reported a mortality rate for the infected at an alarming 13.2%!"

At present, there are no particularly good treatments, even our best antibiotics can only reduce the mortality rate and cannot guarantee therapeutic effects.

The Army Department has ordered all units to disperse by company to reduce infection chances as much as possible."

This 13.2% ratio weighed heavily on Franz's heart all at once.
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Although this was without effective treatment, the death ratio was still far too high.

It should be known that Russian soldiers are young and strong, naturally having the strongest resistance. If the elderly, weak, and sick were to become infected, the mortality rate would likely be even more brutal.

After a brief consideration, Franz slowly said, "Report this mortality rate, but feel free to embellish it a bit, exaggerating the plague's lethality on other age groups as necessary.

Notify the countries of Europe, tell them we have identified rats as the source of the Black Death's spread.

To contain the spread of the Black Death, we plan to distribute rat poison extensively in the Near East, needing at least 400,000 tons of it."

Without a doubt, with such a high mortality rate, whether it's 'Black Death' or not, we have to insist it is 'Black Death'.

Only if everyone is frightened will all the countries of Europe mobilize to produce rat poison, contributing money and efforts to the epidemic prevention.

...

In St. Petersburg, as the biggest victim of this plague, Alexander III was now beside himself with grief.

If only he knew earlier that a plague would break out in the Near East, he would have ordered... oh, it can't be helped, the Divine Shield still needs to make a profit.

Without question, to evade responsibility, the higher-ups of the Russian Army tacitly concealed the early infection numbers, with official documents initially reporting only 28 infected soldiers at the discovery of the plague.

Concealing the infection numbers was just a temporary solution. So later on, they increased the numbers. Aren't the Austrians shouting 'Black Death'? To mitigate blame, the Russian military leadership naturally followed suit.

If it's Black Death, then fast transmission and high mortality rates are normal, and definitely not a result of neglecting duties.

With the embellished data reaching Alexander III, the severity of the issue had greatly intensified.

The discovered timing of the epidemic was artificially cut by half.

In just over twenty days, the plague caused over three thousand Russian soldiers to die and infected more than fifty thousand.

Such numbers would alarm anyone who saw them. Worse yet, due to relocating the population, the epidemic could likely have spread to the interior of the country.

Now, Alexander III could only hope Siberia was cold enough to freeze the virus to death; otherwise, if it spread to the western part of the Empire, that would be a disaster.

"What are the Austrians saying? We are resettling migrants for them, the Vienna Government has to have a statement, right?"

Foreign Minister Oscar Ximenes replied, "The Vienna Government has informed us of the virus research progress, and they have thought of ways to reduce the mortality rate of the infected.

The antibiotics developed by the Austrian Royal Academy of Sciences can suppress the virus to a certain extent.

Production has now started, and the Vienna Government has promised to provide us with twenty thousand doses within the next month."

Alexander III frowned and said dissatisfied, "Is that all? How would that be enough?

Can't the Austrians provide a bit more? If it really won't do, we can buy it ourselves!"

Oscar Ximenes explained, "Your Majesty, this kind of medication isn't yet capable of industrial production and must be made manually in the laboratory.

The quantity is highly limited, it has always been in high demand, and the price is higher than the same amount of gold. Twenty thousand doses is already quite a lot.

In fact, we also have laboratories in our own country that have obtained patent licenses, but the difficulty in manufacturing is so great that they only can produce a little over a thousand doses a month."

The technical difficulty in producing penicillin in the laboratory isn't significant, but once a product appears on the market, its manufacturing techniques would quickly be decrypted by others.

To maximize profits, Franz had instituted patent licensing several years before, forming a monopoly alliance.

Those who granted licenses were prominent figures from various nations, and after obtaining the technology, they also joined the ranks protecting the patents.

In line with the principle that scarcity drives value, everyone tacitly exaggerated the technical difficulties, deliberately restricting production capacity.

Of course, it's not necessarily that the Russian Empire is limiting production capacity. After all, while it may sound simple, creating a qualified product in a laboratory is not something just anyone can do.

Generally, this task is undertaken by technically skilled engineering students. Such talent is in severely short supply within the Russian Empire.

The Vienna Government's promise of twenty thousand doses naturally isn't all manually made. Otherwise, all the produced goods would go to the Russians, leaving none for their own use.

Being unable to industrially produce was an issue of the past, and over the years, science and technology had advanced significantly.

Austria was already capable of mechanized production, although the products had flaws, with a high rate of defects and reduced effectiveness.

To assure the price of the drugs, information on industrial production was kept strictly confidential.

Even if someone discovered the drugs were of inadequate effect, it would be assumed that the lab technicians were simply careless, and an error occurred in the operation.

News unknown even to insiders in the industry was even less known to outsiders. Having heard this explanation, Alexander III was deeply moved.

...