Chapter 3

*Contains explicit content.*

There was no such thing as a romantic comedy. Immediately after the Russo-Japanese War began, Werner, with the cooperation of Schacht, brought all the banks in Germany into a cooperative system and bought all the issued Japanese government bonds.

Werner had initially expected that it would be the Dresdner Bank alone, but he was surprised to find that Schacht had somehow convinced the other banks to join in.

The foreign currency needed by the Japanese government was about 100 million yen — equivalent to about 500 billion yen in modern Japanese currency — and 100 million yen worth of government bonds were issued. Initially, the major powers all predicted that Japan would lose the war. However, among them, the famous Werner, in collaboration with various German banks starting with the Dresdner Bank, bought all the Japanese government bonds.

The Japanese government had not expected that there would be buyers — especially in Germany, where the emperors were related by blood — and the then Prime Minister Katsura even questioned whether it was true.

In response, Emperor Wilhelm II of Germany expressed regret but did not impose any penalties on Werner or the banks. Wilhelm II, of course, knew Werner's name. He felt favorably towards Werner, who was a nobleman in every sense. Naturally, he also highly appreciated the fact that the first airplane in human history was invented in the empire due to Werner's foresight.

Werner did not do this as a small gift to his "former" homeland, Japan. Instead, he sought, through Schacht, to obtain land in northern Manchuria — more specifically, the Heilongjiang region — as compensation from the Japanese government. Needless to say, this land was Russian territory.

The Japanese government, while frowning at Werner's forward-thinking even before the war, ordered an investigation into the Heilongjiang region, but only found that it was good for grain production. Despite their curiosity, the Japanese government responded that they would like to purchase the land after the war.

Werner's strategy was simple. He had already discovered the Daqing oil field, which would be found about half a century later, and planned to bring in American capital. Then, he intended to establish a joint rule over Manchuria by Germany, the United States, Japan, and the United Kingdom, to serve as a check against the Soviet Union, which would be born in the future. Of course, he would pay close attention to prevent China from turning red and to halt Japan's annexation of Korea. He even thought that the Korean Peninsula could also be under the joint rule of the four countries.

Werner's conclusion for the future was extremely simple: to absolutely and surely secure the United States as an ally. With that, he believed that even a war against the entire world could be won. In the United States, where the Monroe Doctrine was prevalent and the public opinion was against involvement in the Old World, it was necessary to provide a suitable incentive to get them involved.

In short, the only way to pull the United States out of the New World and make the public pro-American was to create a win-win relationship where both sides would benefit.

Werner, while listening to the progress of the Russo-Japanese War, reorganized the chaotic structure of the RFR company by establishing several new departments in March 1904. These were the Comprehensive Scientific Research Department, the Design and Development Department, and the Production Department.

The Comprehensive Scientific Research Department, as the name suggests, handled all aspects of natural and applied sciences, focusing on how to apply discoveries made at the laboratory level to practical use. The Design and Development Department, as the name implies, was responsible for designing aircraft and automobiles based on the results from the research department. Ford, the Wright brothers, and Yato were assigned to this department. The Production Department, as the name suggests, was responsible for manufacturing products from design drawings, from prototypes to mass production, and was the largest department in terms of personnel.

On October 1, 1904, the RFR company unveiled a streamlined, sophisticated automobile, the Ford Model A, and began selling it immediately. On the same day, it also unveiled a monoplane with fixed landing gear, the RFR-01A, and began selling it immediately.

The Ford Model A was priced at 3,780 marks (approximately 900 dollars), which was a bargain compared to other automobiles, the cheapest of which cost at least 4,200 marks (approximately 1,000 dollars). Additionally, it offered a variety of color options.

Because it was affordable for both the upper and middle classes, inquiries flooded in. The RFR-01A aircraft also received numerous inquiries from the German army and navy, as well as from the upper class. The RFR-01A was rather ordinary in performance, being a single-seater with a 30-horsepower water-cooled four-cylinder engine, capable of a maximum speed of about 40 km/h. Its range was about 20 minutes, and its maximum altitude was about 10 meters. It resembled the Fokker E1 fighter plane in appearance, but all aspects of its construction, including materials, engine power, and design, were immature.

However, compared to the Wright Flyer, it was remarkably sophisticated in appearance, and its impact on other countries was immeasurable. In any case, both the automobile and the aircraft received a flood of orders, and as soon as Werner received additional loans from the banks, he immediately began constructing large-scale factories on several acres of land across Germany and instructed Ford, the Wright brothers, and Yato to ensure that the same parts could be used for both aircraft and automobiles. This was to standardize and ensure compatibility of parts, and Ford and the others, upon receiving the instructions, began experimenting to improve production efficiency.

Werner, smiling at the steady increase in sales, initiated a new plan in November. This was the establishment of a science and technology promotion fund. The best option would be to hire researchers, but some researchers disliked such arrangements. Werner decided to lend funds to such researchers. The fund did not consider nationality, but was limited to 50,000 marks per year, with annual reports of research results required. If there was no progress after five years, the funding would be cut off, and particularly meritorious researchers would receive a special grant of 300,000 marks.

Since the patent application incident, Werner had interacted with many domestic and foreign journalists and had become friendly with them, so the news of the fund quickly spread worldwide. As expected, applications poured in from all over the world, including big names like Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and Albert Einstein. Werner immediately wrote letters to these big names to deepen his relationship with them. In particular, upon learning from the application that Einstein was working as a third-class technical specialist at the Swiss Patent Office, Werner, along with the aforementioned Haber, invited him to join the company.

Among the applicants, there was one woman.

Her name was Clara Immerwahr, a 34-year-old unmarried woman. She sent a letter to Werner along with her application, stating that she had refused marriage to Fritz Haber to pursue a higher position as a scientist.

Werner, thinking that the scientist Haber was a person with the same name, promised to support her.

However, at this time, Werner was overworked. He had entered the General Staff College like his brother Karl and was managing the company on the side. The General Staff College was not a half-hearted course; more than half of the students failed, and it was the most difficult course at the Prussian Army University. Most of his day was spent on classes and studying, and he only had a little time for sleep. Even on weekends, he studied and managed the company.

The Russo-Japanese War was proceeding in favor of Japan, contrary to most expectations. However, a significant difference from history was that dozens of young officer candidates, including Manstein and Guderian, were accompanying the observation military attaché group led by Captain Max Hoffmann. This was because the General Staff had given them the task of considering how to use the Vernard Doctrine.

Ideally, Werner should have gone, but the upper echelons of the General Staff, including Schlieffen, decided that it would be too much to send the superhumanly productive Werner, who had entered the General Staff College at a young age and was also running a company, to the other side of the world.

Manstein, in this sense, was born to be great, but this time it was based on his past achievements.

In December 1904, Werner finally reached his limit and consulted his father, Gert, by letter. He was mentally and physically exhausted and wanted to entrust the company to someone else, but he also wanted to venture into the shipbuilding industry. Gert advised that it would be best to temporarily entrust the company to someone else until he completed the General Staff College.

Taking this advice, Werner wrote a letter to Ford, entrusting the company to him temporarily.

Ford reluctantly accepted the responsibility. At the same time, Werner instructed that even if the military aircraft and military vehicles were high-performance, they should not be mass-produced if their production and maintenance were poor. Ford, who understood this, was focused on improving production efficiency. Several large factories were scheduled to start operations by April of the following year, and until then, he was experimenting day and night in a corner of the current factory and experimental facility.

By January of the following year, Werner had a surprising amount of free time. He could rest on weekends, his mind was clear, and he felt physically and mentally refreshed. Taking this opportunity, he began flight training using a glider. He thought that becoming a pilot would bring him more fame and that he could become one of the founders of the German Air Force.

However, during this time, he received a letter from his father.

It was a letter telling him to find a wife soon and to go to Paris to have a mistress because he would be embarrassed if he couldn't lead on the wedding night.

Paris, at that time, was a city of pleasure, with many high-class courtesans catering to the upper-class gentlemen. These courtesans were not just prostitutes; they used their beauty and intelligence to seduce gentlemen, extract vast sums of money from them, and spend it lavishly and destructively. They took pride in how many men they had bankrupted. These high-class courtesans, in their origins, were commoners.

For a common woman to become wealthy, she had to serve as a prostitute or maid and eventually become a mistress or concubine. Werner, of course, knew this, but he believed that women's social advancement was inevitable in the future. Therefore, he prioritized his male desires and decided to accelerate this movement.

In this era, it was a point of pride for gentlemen to have expensive mistresses, and the number of mistresses they kept, regardless of the cost, was also a point of pride. It was a matter of male virility.

Werner, a healthy — or rather, a perverted — young man by 21st-century Japanese standards, had not felt such attachment to Japan since becoming a German.

His past and present were completely different, he believed.

In any case, he had had some sexual experiences in his past life, but not in his current life. With his father's approval, he decided to go to Paris during his long vacation from late February to mid-April and checked his bank balance with Schacht of the Dresdner Bank, which he favored.