Britain's Counterattack

The following day, Franz received news that was half welcome, half troubling. Prime Minister Felix had awakened the previous evening, but the cause of his coma had yet to be found.

There was no helping it; nineteenth-century medicine was only at this level. Without instruments for testing, doctors could only make judgments based on past experience.

If it were an ordinary person, attended by only one doctor, there naturally would not be so many worries. They could only rely on God's blessing.

Guess right, and prescribe the proper medicine; guess wrong, and pray for your own good fortune.

Prime Minister Felix was different. After the old gentleman fell ill, Austria's finest physicians had all arrived.

And then they reached different conclusions. When even professionals could not agree, everyone else was left even more bewildered.

Faced with such a situation, Franz was helpless as well. As a complete novice in medicine, all he could do was wait.

Before Prime Minister Felix's condition could even be diagnosed, something else happened internationally.

Affected by the fall of the Ottoman Empire, the British Government began accelerating its invasion of Persia.

On February 16, 1885, under British military threats, it obtained telegraph rights from British India through Kerman and Tehran to Bushehr.

Forcing Persia to lay telegraph lines was one thing, but the crucial point was that the Persian Government also had to foot the construction bill.

Having become a semi-colony, the Persian Empire was naturally impoverished. To pay the exorbitant telegraph construction costs, it could only borrow money from the British.

Foreign Minister Wessenberg handed Franz a document and said, "Your Majesty, the British are eating in a truly ugly manner.

"The Foreign Ministry has just received word that three days ago, the British secretly signed a loan-for-lease agreement with the Persian Government.

"This