Rebuilding the Austrian Navy
After finishing his conversation with the Hunyadi brothers, Laszlo did not idle, immediately summoning Governor of Croatia Mihajlo Frankopan.
After the decline of the famous Subic family, who had controlled Croatia for over two hundred years, the Frankopan Family took over the top position in Croatia, monopolizing the position of Governor of Croatia.
As a local power in Croatia that had existed for hundreds of years, the Frankopan Family could also exert a considerable influence on the politics of the Kingdom of Hungary.
Similar to the Hunyadi Family's position in Transylvania, the Frankopan Family also had extremely high control over Croatia.
If there was any difference between the two, it was that the Governor of Croatia had extremely high loyalty to Laszlo, and the reasons for this were quite complex.
Ever since Sigismund defeated Ladislaus, the Anjou Family's competitor for the Hungarian throne, the Governor of Croatia had always been loyal to the King of Hungary.
Especially after the Italian War, Laszlo reclaimed large swathes of Croatian territory that Ladislaus had sold off cheaply to the Venetians for tens of thousands of florins decades earlier.
He reallocated these coastal territories back to the Kingdom of Croatia, restoring them to the kingdom's peak territorial extent, an act that earned him the respect and admiration of the Croatian nobility.
Moreover, the situation in Croatia was very complex; it could roughly be divided into four factions.
The local Croatian forces in the southern coastal region, led by the Frankopan Family;
The Hungarian border noble forces in the north, led by Károlyi Mata;
The Bosnian migrant noble forces in the east, led by the Oršić family;
And the Austrian affiliated noble forces in the west, led by Count Ulrich of Cilli.
These forces intertwined, making the political environment of Croatia much more complex than other regions of the dynasty.
And this, in turn, made the Croatian region's loyalty to the Habsburg Imperial Family somewhat higher than other regions.
Most importantly, Croatia bordered Austria and was actually very close, which allowed Laszlo to control Croatia more effectively.
Croatia's geographical location was extremely important.
On land, Croatia was Austria's southern barrier, capable of blocking invasions from eastern enemies.
At sea, the Kingdom of Croatia now possessed the longest coastline among all the countries under Laszlo's rule and the only navy.
Laszlo theoretically had a navy, but Austria did not.
And Croatia's navy was all privately owned by nobles, and its combat effectiveness was far weaker than that of the Ottomans and the Venetians, so it did not perform remarkably.
Even so, during the Italian War, Croatia's navy still posed a considerable threat to Venice's maritime trade routes in the Adriatic Sea.
After the Italian War ended, Croatia reclaimed a portion of Dalmatia, and the remaining part was assigned to the Royal Family. Laszlo then entrusted Mihajlo with the task of eradicating the pirates in Dalmatia.
The Frankopan Family, led by Mihajlo, was a noble family from the islands, and the navy of the Kingdom of Croatia was primarily composed of the Frankopan Family's fleet.
The Frankopan Family, which rose from the sea, did not disappoint Laszlo's expectations; they successfully completed the work of suppressing and incorporating the pirates.
And now, Mihajlo was coming to strike a deal with the Emperor, which was also a secret mission given to him by the Emperor.
A few years ago, Laszlo was not very keen on naval construction.
The main reason was that Austria had neither a naval tradition nor the money to compete with Venice and the Ottoman, who were frantically engaged in a naval arms race.
However, after the Italian War, Laszlo began to develop an interest in building a fleet belonging to the Royal Family.
The extension of Austria's coastline, the influx of advanced Venetian shipbuilding technology, and the improvement of Austria's financial situation—all these favorable factors made Laszlo determined to push forward with the reconstruction of the navy.
Moreover, with Janos's experience in creating the Hungarian Danube River Flotilla, Laszlo still had some confidence in establishing a navy.
Although that Hungarian Flotilla was mostly composed of temporarily assembled ships, the battle results would not lie.
It had not been many years since that flotilla annihilated the Ottomans Danube River fleet in one battle, making Mehmed II furiously curse his naval admiral.
From this incident, Laszlo learned a very practical lesson: it doesn't matter where the fleet comes from, as long as it works.
The same principle applied to rebuilding the navy; the best way for the Austrian Navy to start from scratch was to simply buy it.
Buy ships, hire sailors, instructors, and admirals.
Building a navy from scratch was certainly possible too.
For example, Trieste had Austria's largest shipyard, possessing the technology to build large oar-and-sail warships.
There were also many established shipyards in the territories ceded by the Venetians to Austria.
These shipyards would naturally play their role in the future, but before that, Laszlo needed to lay a foundation for his navy.
Therefore, he decided to directly purchase warships and sailors.
To buy warships, one naturally had to choose a good seller. What Laszlo most wanted to buy, of course, were the Venetian warships.
Although the Venetian army was weak, their navy was genuinely powerful.
The Battle of Chioggia annihilated the Genoese Navy in one go, and subsequent naval engagements with the Ottomans were mostly victories.
They were indeed strong, but unfortunately, the Venetians all wished they could devour Laszlo's flesh, viewing him as the Republic's greatest enemy, and absolutely refused to sell ships.
Laszlo could only settle for the next best thing and decided to approach the Genoese.
However, the Genoese were truly dishonest in their business dealings; not only were their ships expensive, but the quality was also inconsistent.
As for more distant Portugal and Aragon, Laszlo did not even consider them.
In fact, Portuguese warships were very powerful.
The escort fleet jointly formed by the King of Portugal and the King of Aragon had defeated the Catalan pirates plundering outside Marseille harbor.
Laszlo had heard about that naval battle from Leonor, who was an eyewitness.
Although the process seemed very dangerous, the Portuguese ultimately annihilated the pirate fleet with extremely low casualties, which could even be described as a dimension-reducing strike.
However, Portuguese sailing ships were more suitable for Atlantic voyages, and they were also unwilling to sell them.
With no other choice, Laszlo had to turn his attention domestically.
After much thought, buying warships from the Governor of Croatia seemed the best option.
Soon, the Governor of Croatia, who had been summoned, arrived at the Royal Palace and reported to the Emperor his gains from eradicating the pirates.
While it was called eradication, a significant portion of the pirates in the Dalmatia region actually had intricate ties to the Frankopan Family.
The Venetians had dominated the Mediterranean Sea for centuries, yet still had to spend vast resources annually to clear out the pirates entrenched in Dalmatia, which showed the considerable strength of these pirates.
Mihajlo very flexibly adopted a two-pronged strategy of pacification and eradication, focusing on sweeping the pirates' island strongholds, which dealt a significant blow to the pirate forces.
In this process, Mihajlo captured dozens of warships, among which only one was a large oar-and-sail warship; the rest were light vessels.
He made a reasonable assessment of the value of these warships, and because it was a transaction with the Emperor, he offered a considerable discount.
The only large warship was forcibly taken by a group of pirates from the Venetians, with an estimated cost of around thirty thousand florins.
However, considering the hull damage and mediocre equipment, it was sold to the Emperor, along with dozens of sailors, at a discounted price of five thousand florins to serve as the flagship of the new Austrian Navy.
As for the smaller oar-and-sail warships, Laszlo decided to buy ten of the better-preserved ones, spending another five thousand florins.
This transaction, totaling ten thousand florins, was finally finalized within the Hungarian Royal Palace.
As a reward for Mihajlo's Credit in eradicating the pirates, Laszlo decided to grant Croatia a two-year tax exemption.
In addition, regarding the choice of the naval admiral, Mihajlo recommended his kinsman Dujam to be the admiral of Austria's navy.
Considering that Austria indeed lacked talent reserves in naval matters, Laszlo agreed to his proposal.
Once the ten thousand florins promised by the Emperor were paid, the transaction would be officially completed.
Dujam Frankopan, the newly appointed Austrian naval admiral, would lead the fleet, which would be refitted in Croatian ports, to be stationed in Trieste.