Imperial Elite

Chapter 118 Kingsman: The Greek Conspiracy

As 1921 approached, Joe felt that his life was not as enjoyable as before.

Because her parents expect her to take care of the family to some extent, Joe can no longer do what she used to do: have dinner together every day after coming home, then randomly go into one of their bedrooms, and have breakfast together the next day to fulfill her obligation to take care of the family.

Joe also has to help take care of the children.

As is well known, human infants who are only a few months old are not easy creatures to deal with.

As the most notorious villain in Britannia and the most dangerous man in the Old World, Joe certainly had a certain amount of influence when he went out.

Even if you talk, there will be people who listen; even if you curse, there will be people who are afraid.

But the young humans in the house didn't care about that. Although they didn't have the chance to poop on Joe's neck, they still managed to piss on Joe's face quite often.

Even after Joe was spit in the face and his expression began to change, these cubs who had just done something bad started wailing.

Then the nanny and the baby's mother will appear at lightning speed, leaving Joe speechless.

Fortunately, not all the cubs were so difficult to handle. Theoretically, the last one Joe met among these children was Andrei, the eldest son born in Citibank, just like Catherine.

Joe really likes this kid, unlike the other kids who cry and fuss all the time.

This little guy usually does nothing but eat and sleep. After he learned to roll over and crawl, he just crawls around looking at things. He only makes a few noises when his stomach is full or his diaper is full. Otherwise, he is very quiet.

I've never done anything like washing Qiao's face as soon as Qiao takes off her diaper.

Although Joe liked the kid a lot, he couldn't show it.

There's no way around it; Kate and Diane are both quite old and young, so having children is a bit of a gamble, and yet she still shows favoritism at a time like this.

It seems like Joe is getting too comfortable at home.

Of course, well-informed people could guess what it was about, but as the last two born in this batch of children, they announced that Kate had given birth to twins.

In short, Joe's family life wasn't very happy because of the human cubs.

Fortunately, the adopted children and Joe's younger siblings have lived up to expectations. After Joe took over their care, they have made progress in their studies, are physically healthy, have upright thoughts, and are morally upright. This year, Joe's younger brother James is even preparing to challenge Bridge University, one of the highest institutions of learning in Britannia.

Of course, with his younger brother having such lofty ambitions, Joe naturally wanted to lend a hand.

Although Joe himself did not graduate from Cambridge, many of his friends did, so Joe made a phone call to ask his friends if they could help write a letter of recommendation for his brother.

Then Joe's friend said, "Hey, recommendation letters? No problem. I know the principal of Cambridge too. Want to have dinner together?"
Since my friend said so, I naturally have to have dinner.

What Joe didn't expect was that this dinner would lead to him earning a doctoral degree.

During dinner, the Cambridge Chancellor asked Joe, now that he had made so many inventions, if he would be interested in receiving an honorary doctorate from the Academy of Engineering.
This way, they can be considered alumni, and they can come to the school in the future to give guidance to the freshmen.

From an ordinary worker to the current governor of the empire, Bonitania hasn't seen such a remarkable figure in many years.

Joe certainly wouldn't refuse the possibility of receiving an honorary doctorate, given that his combined education across two lifetimes only amounted to a bachelor's degree, and in this life he had only completed elementary school.

Now you can be called a Doctor, isn't that great?
Although getting a doctorate for free made Qiao happy for a while, the development of the air transport unit eventually dampened his good mood again.

Joe was mentally prepared for the speed of helicopter development.

Machine guns like the Black Hawk or the Mi-28 can throw an entire squad behind enemy lines while simultaneously providing ground support with machine guns and rockets.

Joe only thinks about it in his dreams.

If Joe can now develop something that can carry a four-man combat team, or mount a small-caliber anti-tank gun or rapid-fire cannon on an aircraft, he'll award the research and development team a medal weighing a ton.

Then, swallowing my pride, I applied for an officer's medal for the leader of the R&D team so that he could be called "Sir" in the future.

However, helicopter development is still at a very basic stage.

How do you make this thing fly?

Of course, helicopters need to fire rockets, which led Joe to have Diane's arsenal begin research on unguided man-portable rockets.

In layman's terms, Joe was going to do some more research on rocket launchers and recoilless rifles.

After all, it's an air force, and equipping them with heavy weapons in the foreseeable future is a very difficult thing.

However, they would inevitably encounter enemy heavy equipment, so instead of having airlifters use entrenching tools to face enemy tanks, Joe thought it would be better to equip the squad with one or two rocket launchers.

Then it would be better to install a recoilless gun on the Unyielding off-road vehicle.

Meanwhile, as a promising project for its own company, Diane's arsenal produced a batch of new prototype guns at the end of 1920.

After all, it is a professional firearms manufacturer, and the quality of this batch of firearms is very good.

Wagner was very satisfied with the batch of firearms.

Although most of them learned how to fire "fully automatic" with bolt-action rifles, after the advent of semi-automatic rifles, these veterans felt that the old bolt-action rifles were no longer as appealing.

Of course, this semi-automatic rifle is not without its flaws. As a semi-automatic weapon, its maintenance and gas regulation are much more complicated than those of the bolt-action rifles of the past.

While submachine guns are much more refined in terms of craftsmanship, the problem lies in some inherent flaws: their safety mechanisms are somewhat unreliable.

Although the veterans were able to overcome these problems, the soldiers still expressed that these issues could be further optimized.

Of course, the gun factory did not complete all the tasks. For example, the progress of the general-purpose machine gun project that Joe envisioned would be able to meet the needs of the army, navy and air force was very slow.

Since Joe's requirements were to consider production efficiency, the firearms parts should be made of stamped parts as much as possible to increase production and reduce the weight of the firearms.

Stamping technology is still a relatively new technology, especially since stamping requires molds. Anyone who has dealt with molds knows how troublesome it is to manufacture them.

If there's a problem with the mold, you need to adjust it, but even then, the problem might not be solved.

Furthermore, as two huge, machined metal blocks, repeated repairs to the mold can not only affect its lifespan but may even damage it.

At the same time, these two huge metal blocks are not cheap in themselves. Depending on the size of the mold, the cost of some large molds is enough to buy a car.

Therefore, the progress of the general-purpose machine gun has always been less than ideal.

The progress of the general-purpose machine gun was not as ideal as that of the airlift troops.

After returning from the Far East.

Although almost the entire world was astonished by Wagner's speed of action, Joe still felt it was too slow.

After all, with the end of the war, the world situation began to gradually ease, and the chances of large deals like those before will only become less and less frequent.

As a defense conglomerate, Wagner will inevitably start taking on smaller jobs, such as personal and institutional security.

For this kind of small business, timeliness is the most important factor.

You can't have a customer place an order and the prepayment is ready, but Wagner's people won't arrive for three days. By the time they arrive, the customer will be in a bad mood.

Therefore, it is necessary to establish an airlift force capable of rapid response and deployment.

Now that helicopter research has hit a bottleneck, let's take a more traditional approach and not rush things. We can't afford to have problems with paratroopers, can we?
Towards the end of the war, the Teutonic air force had already begun equipping pilots with parachutes, so surely there wouldn't be any problems with the paratroopers.

Then Joe discovered that the parachute was indeed not a problem.

By this time, the Teutons, already burdened with enormous debt, had no orders for parachutes and were basically in a state of selling anything for money.

So Joe easily bought a batch of parachutes and began establishing new training bases in NATO territory to train paratroopers.

Then, Joe discovered a problem.

Those are paratroopers. Paratroopers must take off first before they can land, right?

However, there are currently no practical transport aircraft available for airdrops.

Joe's overly advanced ideas once again led to his downfall.

Although there has been investment in air transport competitions, as a new project, it will take time for the airlines to produce samples to participate in the competitions.

So Joe gritted his teeth and decided that he would rather have people wait for equipment than have equipment wait for people, and ordered some airships for training.

At least figure out the airborne tactics of the paratroopers, and at least figure out what paratroopers should carry when they fall from the sky.

However, this time Joe doesn't need to order airships from Teutonic, as they are also produced in Bonitania.

Some of it was even part of the reparations from the Teutonic Wars.

Joe quickly acquired a working airship and began formal training for the airborne troops.

Then, that's when things went wrong.

The ground training went well, but once we were actually in the air, although the airship's flight speed wasn't fast, the parachute was still usable.

However, the superposition state was not necessarily usable. It was fine at the beginning of training, but accidents started to occur during skydiving training. Some people's parachutes failed to open in the air, resulting in free fall.

Some people broke their legs or had their jaws crushed by the butts of their rifles during landing.

This loss of training also earned these paratroopers the nickname "madmen" within Wagner.

Because of the danger, many veterans chose to leave the paratrooper force.

However, even though some people chose to leave, others continued to join.

By this time, Wagner was already famous. Basically, anyone who wasn't in a very isolated place would know that Wagner was one of the most formidable fighters on Earth. This group of people specialized in doing dangerous work and were the most ruthless of the ruthless and the most vicious of the vicious.

Because of this reputation, naturally a group of idle people who pursue wealth, excitement, and honor choose to join Wagner.

Especially those who missed the war due to their age, after seeing Wagner's achievements in movies and newspapers, all felt that a true man should be like him!
Those who chose to join Wagner, like all passionate young people, wanted to join Wagner's most elite forces.

That unit in the movie, whose faces were always covered and whose unit number was never revealed.

However, Wagner, like all other teams, expressed his sympathy to these enthusiastic young men, saying, "Sorry, we don't have that kind of secret unit. Even if we did, it wouldn't be a place for new recruits like you to join."

You must go through boot camp first before you can think about anything else.

Then, after these passionate young men endured what was described as hellish basic training, they discovered that the mysterious unit that awaited them was still not the one they had been looking for.

The only options are armored forces, mountain infantry forces, and airborne forces.

Because the recruitment notice for the airborne troops stated that there was a possibility of death during training, the most stubborn among these passionate young people felt that none of the previous grueling training had mentioned the possibility of death during training.

This must be Wagner's most elite unit; a real man should be a paratrooper!

And so, these hot-blooded young men who considered themselves the most important people in the world joined Wagner's paratrooper unit.

As many veterans left and a large number of enthusiastic young men joined, Wagner's paratroopers quickly began to exhibit a distinctive character.

Courageous, or perhaps reckless.

No matter the strong winds or harsh conditions, as long as the airship can take off, they dare to descend from the sky with parachutes and weapons.

Furthermore, among these passionate young people, there are quite a few clever ones.

During training, these clever individuals, after repeated skydiving attempts, actually came up with a way to modify the parachute.

Then, these paratroopers, who were brave to the point of recklessness, actually dared to modify their own parachutes and jump out of the airship during training.

Then, he manipulated his modified parachute and prepared for a directional landing.

This crazy behavior led Joe to apply for patents for the paratroopers and also allowed them to set up an airborne laboratory, enabling these crazy guys to research the equipment they needed on their own.

Of course, with input comes output.

Therefore, Joe's requirements for them were very simple: as a rapid reaction force that is always in a state of combat readiness, Wagner would conduct a large-scale exercise every six months.

If the paratroopers perform poorly during the exercise, you'll have to bear the consequences yourself.

While Wagner was working on the paratroopers, Joe had two very thorny problems to solve.

First of all, the last "Wagner's Golden Age" not only satisfied His Majesty's enjoyment, but also thoroughly made Wagner famous.

It not only became Wagner's recruitment propaganda video, but also Wagner's best advertisement. Now, if someone needs security services, the first company they think of is the Wagner Group.

Although personal security was a completely new field for Wagner.

However, it's not a big problem, because as long as the investors can afford it, Wagner can even drive the armored vehicles out.

Of course, most normal countries would not allow Wagner to conduct armed activities on their territory.

Therefore, most of these orders come from the Dark Continent.

Then these wealthy people who could afford to hire Wagner quickly unlocked new techniques.

Compared to hunting large animals with shotguns in the past, this machine gun is much more comfortable and powerful.

Moreover, Wagner's Unyielding off-road vehicle and six-wheeled truck, you know what, you really can make a way even where there is no road. Where did you buy these things?
So after the war ended, Rolls-Royce, which had been considering reducing production lines due to a decrease in air force orders, suddenly discovered that its aircraft engine business had not only not decreased, but was now in short supply!
This influence is a good thing for Wagner, but not so good for Joe.

A few months after the release of "Wagner's Gold", people started urging Joe to make a new movie.

Among those urging Joe to hurry up were loyal fans like His Majesty George, and old friends like Sir Cumming.

Because Joe had promised Sir Cumming that the next movie would be about their agents.

But what was auctioned off was Wagner's gold.

So now, every time Joe meets Sir Cumming, Sir Cumming repeats like a phonograph, "You promised me the movie, you promised me the movie."

This offline pressure to update his film became so irritating that Joe started to seriously consider whether he should just make one movie and call it a day.

However, compared to the other problem, making a movie is a minor matter.

Originally, in its cooperation with Wagner, Greece not only seized the Anatolian plain, but also continuously broke through the Sudanese defenses along the coastline. It seemed that Wagner was about to complete the contract with Greece.

Then Greece had a problem. As a kingdom, Greece naturally had a king.

Although Venizelos is practically the de facto leader of the country, just like in Bnitania, the presence of a king is also very important.

After the expulsion of the former king, the new king had a fairly good relationship with Venizelos, and their cooperation made Greece almost the most powerful country in the Near East.

If they could conquer the coastal areas of the eastern Mediterranean, they would be only one Constantinople away from becoming the Byzantine Empire at its historical zenith.

Considering that the civil war in Lucia was not yet over, it was not entirely impossible for her to retake Constantinople.

Then, just when he was one step away from fulfilling his great ideal, His Majesty the King was bitten by a monkey, and the young king subsequently contracted septicemia and died.

With the king's death, and the absence of a legitimate national leader, the Greek government quickly faced a constitutional crisis.

To prevent another civil war, Venizelos did not hesitate to call a general election.

According to Venizelos's vision, we are now only one step away from achieving our great ideal, and we are moving from one victory to another on the battlefield.

The people will definitely vote for me, right?

This election should be like past elections, a victory I can easily win, and then I can continue to fulfill the great ideal that is already nearing completion.

But Venizelos was wrong this time. Due to years of war, the Greeks were completely weary of war, and even if they kept winning, such victories could no longer win the support of the Greeks.

As a result, Venizelos suffered a crushing defeat in this election, winning only a handful of seats in parliament.

The royalists, who hoped for the return of the late king and claimed to be ending the war, won the election.

This immediately changed the entire situation in the Eastern Mediterranean.

This wouldn't have been a big problem for Joe, since if the new sponsor changed and didn't want to fight anymore, Joe could simply withdraw his troops.

In any case, this operation was just a coincidence, merely a cover for the operation in the Far East.

Making a profit is great, but not losing money is already a huge win.

But what Joe didn't expect was that these royalists were unscrupulous!
Wagner has already established a presence on Paradise Island, starting to build hotels, estates, shopping malls, and even planning some wealth transfer locations.

Wagner's primary training camp was also being held while the land was being leveled.

The Greek royalists declared that the deal between Venizelos and Wagner was illegal, and that giving Greek land to Wagner was an act of treason. They threatened to take the case to the League of Nations if Wagner refused to hand over the land.

This act of killing the donkey without even removing the millstone infuriated Joe.

Are you Greeks out of your minds? You voted Venizelos out at this time, and now you dare to turn against me? Are your nine clans wholesale?

Of course, as a civilized person, Joe protested against the Greek royalists' claims at the press conference, stating that his occupation of Paradise Island was legitimate and legal.

Joe also secretly sent someone to find Venizelos and asked him if he wanted to set things right. If he was interested, Joe would give him a 50% discount this time.

The first landing force is ready to board the ships, and Wagner's tanks will be able to reach the streets of Athens within seven days, provided Venizelos gives the nod.

However, Venizelos rejected Joe's proposal. Venizelos, who seemed to have aged ten years in just a few days, said that as a Greek, he accepted the people's choice, and at the same time, in order to prevent things from developing in the worst possible way, he also had to uphold the constitution.

In his final moments before stepping down, Venizelos held peace talks with the Sudanese.

Although the Greeks still occupied the Anatolian plain, they subsequently relinquished much of the land they had taken.

Meanwhile, Venizelos once again withstood internal pressure and completed the handover process between Paradise Island and Wagner.

After doing all this, Venizelos left Greece and went into exile in Gaul.

Although Venizelos had tried his best to clean up the mess, the first thing the royalists did after coming to power was to welcome back the pro-Teutonic emperor and then declare Wagner's occupation of Paradise Island illegal.

They demanded that Wagner leave Paradise Island immediately, or they would use all means to reclaim the illegally occupied land.

At the same time as delivering the ultimatum, the Greek navy also blocked the shipping lanes to Paradise Island.

Although the royalists gained power through elections, the Greek army was still controlled by the same old brothers who had come through the revolutionary years with Venizelos.

To these old generals, the royalist party's orders were nothing but bullshit!
You have no shame, but we do!

This is a chaotic order; the army does not obey the decree.

The royalists' response to the army's resistance was simple: disobeying the government's orders, huh? Well, that's rebellion. But we're civilized people, so we won't shoot you. Get out of here!
Seeing the opportune moment for the royalists to purge the army, Joe immediately seized the opportunity.

Wagner's main force was originally on the island of Cyprus, preparing to go to Paradise Island to meet with the royalists.

The royalists are now purging the Greek army, causing huge chaos. If Joe doesn't seize this opportunity, he wouldn't be Joe.

So Joe did not hesitate to order Wagner's troops to repeat their old trick and land directly in Athens, giving these insects a little Wagner shock.

Wagner's operation went very smoothly, as no one had expected that Wagner would dare to launch an offensive, while the army, which was undergoing a major purge, was in great turmoil.

Wagner's troops stormed into Athens with great success and arrested some of the royalist members of parliament. If the restored king had not been at sea, he would probably have been arrested by Wagner as well.

This has really caused a huge mess.

The Mediterranean is not the Far East, and Wagner's actions against a sovereign state caused a huge uproar.

Although the operation was a great military success, it was a political disaster.

On the very day Wagner stormed into Athens, London threatened to bombard Joe with phone calls, forcing Joe to order Wagner to immediately release all royalist MPs and then retreat.

Joe was then taken to London by a special agent sent from London.

Although the gentlemen of London knew that the royalists were no good, and that Joe was hardly a politically astute man, he was simply a soldier with a basic understanding of economics and engineering.

But this time Joe went too far.

After lengthy negotiations, Wagner ultimately secured Paradise Island but had to pay a large sum of money in compensation for the damage caused to Athens.

The era when Joe could command Wagner at will is over. Although Joe is still Wagner's controller, all of Wagner's actions must now be reported to the War Office in London before they can be carried out.

This greatly diminished Wagner's autonomy.

This also led some people to believe that Joe was probably a belligerent maniac, and that they had to be wary of him.

However, due to Joe's immense prestige, he did not pay too high a price for this reckless act.

This operation even made Paradise Island famous.

After Paradise Island began its trial operation at the end of 1921, heroes from all walks of life flocked there, eager to see what this island, which Joe almost overthrew a country for, was really like.

Then these heroes discovered that this island was no ordinary island.

Because of the tax exemption, luxury goods that are extremely expensive elsewhere are sold very cheaply here. In addition, this place is also first-class in terms of openness and inclusiveness.

If you want to let loose and connect with nature, there are dedicated beaches here where people can be completely open and honest with each other.

Whether you want a thrilling and exciting game depends on how exciting you want it to be.

You can experience the thrill of spending tens of thousands of dollars in a room, or feel the excitement of shooting targets with machine guns on a speeding vehicle or driving a tank with Wagner's professional instructors.

And when you're tired, there are chefs from Italy and Gaul who can fill your empty stomach.

And as long as you're willing to spend a little money, those love stories that are paid by the hour can also warm the long nights.

In short, aside from being somewhat unsuitable for children, this island is indeed like paradise for the wealthy, just as its name suggests.

However, Joe is now looking forward to something else more than the success of Paradise Island.

That was after a minor conflict and friction broke out with the Greek royalists.

Having never suffered such a great loss or been treated with such magnanimity, Joe had already decided on the subject matter for his new movie.

Didn't you want to take back Paradise Island to annoy me?

Okay, then I'll make a movie to disgust you guys.

At this very moment, who is the most unpopular person in the world?
Of course, it was the Teutons who were the losers in the world war. So, did the former Greek king, who is now king, want to support the Teutons and thus cause a civil war?

Since the answer was so certain, Joe naturally began to fabricate stories based on the facts.

Since the goal is to make a spy movie, the villain must be the Teutonic intelligence agency Abbeville.

This organization, unwilling to accept defeat, wanted to improve their post-war geopolitical situation, so its first act was to overthrow the pro-Bunitanian Greek government.

They would restore the pro-Teutonic king to the throne, and then secretly train the navy and mountain troops in Greece, preparing to launch a surprise attack on the Suez Canal from here during the next great war.

This would cut off air routes, forcing all the people of Bunitania to live on potatoes.

Then, Kingsman discovered the conspiracy and prepared to rescue the late king, but the late king was still assassinated by the Teutonic female spy. Subsequently, the royalists manipulated the general election and drove Venizelos out.

So Kingsman had no choice but to resort to a last resort: calling on Wagner to overthrow the government that was about to lead Greece to hell.

Thanks to Kingsman's efforts, Wagner successfully landed in Greece. At the same time, Kingsman also cornered the Teutonic spy. While the Teutonic female spy was taking off her clothes and trying to seduce Kingsman, she secretly reached under her skirt for a gun.

Kingsman shot and killed the vicious female spy, demonstrating that a true gentleman would never be seduced by women.

The movie ends here, maintaining Joe's signature filming style. To further annoy viewers, Joe even brought in Wagner for a live-action landing scene.

Almost everything about the film was incredibly realistic, except that the actual landing location was Helsinki, and a little editing and special effects were used to avoid any fatalities.

Unsurprisingly, the film "Kingsman: The Greek Conspiracy" swept through theaters once again, leaving other films released at the same time completely overwhelmed.

Let those directors and film companies declare that if they ever clash with Wagner's films again, they're dogs!

However, compared to these film companies that are suffering huge losses, the Greek royalist government has truly broken through all defenses.

No, we just annoyed you a little before, you don't have to hold a grudge like that to make a movie to smear us, do you?
Even if they wanted to disgust us, they didn't have to choose such disgusting actors to play us, did they?
If it's just a breach of defense, it's a minor issue. However, given the precedent of "Wagner's Gold," even though Joe didn't say this film was based on a true story, it's still a problem.

However, after reading it, some Greeks still felt that the current government might actually be a Teutonic spy trying to drag them into the next world war.

Then, protests and demonstrations naturally reappeared on the streets of Athens.

However, compared to the Greeks, this movie had another minor impact: the Teutons, who were unjustly dragged into the situation and cast as villains, thought, "Holy crap! We actually have such a cool organization as Abbeville! I knew we wouldn't accept defeat and would take action! Real men should be spies!"

(End of this chapter)