The height of summer in Vienna, yet still cool.
Belvedere Palace
Mr. Metternich said, "Your Majesty, the Russians have made a request to purchase our weapons production line, from handguns to artillery, it's practically all-encompassing."
Franz was aware that Austria had snatched the interests of the Russian Munitions Group, and he knew they would certainly take action, but he did not expect that their approach would be to purchase a weapons production line.
When he thought about it, it made sense, for the British possessed the strongest technology in machinery equipment of the time, followed closely by Austria and France, with Belgium and Prussia's industrial systems imperfect and coming after.
The mechanical equipment produced by the Russians themselves, not to mention the high maintenance cost, had inferior performance and could barely suffice, unable to match the efficiency of peers, thus buying foreign production lines was a forced move.