The Imperial Age with the Resurgence of Han Style

Chapter 331: Interruption of Military Exchange

When Prince of Jin Sun Youyu appeared at the door of Cuiming Tower with a gloomy face, the noise stopped abruptly.

Upon seeing Prince Jin, several doormen and guards of Cuiming Tower immediately knelt on the ground and kowtowed several times.

Dozens of soldiers from the Luoyang local garrison, with their hands on the hilts of their swords, slowly approached from all directions and surrounded the seven or eight Qi officers in military uniforms.

A group of officials, gentry and merchants gathered behind the King of Jin, all of them staring at the Qi people outside with a fierce look to show their power. For a moment, they blocked the entrance hall tightly.

"...It's the King of Jin from Qin." Chen Jilin, chief engineer of the Luoshui Railway Bridge, smiled bitterly and whispered to a lieutenant colonel of the Qi Army beside him, "It seems that this is not a lie. There really is a distinguished guest in Cuiming Tower tonight."

"Damn it, is it possible that such a huge Cuiming Tower is completely booked by the King of Jin from Qin?" Yu Zhenyang glanced at the King of Jin who had a haughty look on his face, feeling very unhappy.

We had just been "driven out" of Xi'an by the Qin people, and were traveling to Luoyang dejectedly. We met our childhood friends and were planning to gather at Cuiming Tower to relax. However, we did not expect that the Qin dignitaries had occupied the place in advance and forcibly stopped all of us outside.

Could it be that I am just going to leave in such disgrace?

"Does your Qi army intend to forcibly invade private businesses in my Great Qin territory?" Sun Youyu asked coldly.

"Your Highness, Prince of Jin, please." Yu Zhenyang knew he was in the wrong, but he tried to save face, stepped forward, and saluted Sun Youyu. "I am Yu Zhenyang, the head of the Xi'an branch of the Daqin Military Observation Group and the captain of the Army Linghui. I was ordered by my superiors to return to Nanjing to report on my work. Today, I passed through Luoyang and met a good friend from China. I wanted to use your precious place to talk to him, but I didn't expect to meet Your Highness dining here. Please forgive me if I have disturbed you."

Hearing the words of the Qi officer, Sun Youyu's irritation faded a little. He nodded and said loudly, "Tonight, I am having a banquet with local officials, gentry and merchants in Luoyang. We are drinking and talking happily to discuss the future prosperity and development of Luoyang. It is inconvenient for outsiders to disturb us. So, please find another place to have your party."

Oh, this is a clear statement that you want to kick us out!

Why are you Qin people so inhospitable?

As a relative of the Qin royal family, His Royal Highness the Prince of Jin was holding a banquet in Cuiming Tower. When he encountered guests from afar, he should have taken the initiative to invite us in for the banquet, even if he had to say a few polite words, right?

But looking at the situation, it seems that he is quite disgusted with them and doesn't want to sit at the table and have a feast with them at all.

Yu Zhenyang looked at Chen Jilin, who also had a bitter smile on his face, and signaled with his eyes that he should not argue any further to avoid a conflict with His Royal Highness the Prince of Jin from the Qin State.

Although, in the minds of us Qi people, we may not even take the emperor of Qin seriously. A few months ago, he sent troops to severely beat their vassal state Annan, almost attacking them in the face.

However, if ordinary people from Qi really acted unreasonably and came into conflict with the Qin dignitaries or local officials in person, that would be really embarrassing.

After all, our Great Qi adheres to the Chinese civilization and is a country of etiquette and civilization. We cannot "bully others by taking advantage of our power."

"Since the Prince of Jin is having a banquet here and doesn't want to be disturbed by outsiders, we will say goodbye now." Although Yu Zhenyang was very depressed, he still had some reason. He knew that as a small lieutenant in the military observation group, he could not afford to offend the Prince of Daqin. So he saluted Sun Youyu and turned to leave.

Many accompanying officers and railway bridge engineers also turned around and left.

"Humph, so domineering!"

"Vulgar and rude! ..."

"A bunch of Qi bastards who don't know how to respect each other!"

"This arrogant person deserves a severe lesson!"

"Bah, a bunch of killers! We should have captured them all and released them only after the Qi people made a solemn apology!"

"..."

Sun Youyu turned around and glanced at the officials, gentry and businessmen who were filled with righteous indignation. He felt disgusted and returned to Cuiming Tower with an expressionless face.

Upon seeing this, everyone looked at each other in bewilderment. After a long pause, they turned around and walked towards the inner room with some trepidation and fear.

The interruption by the people of Qi seemed to make His Royal Highness the Prince of Jin unhappy!
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"Brother Yu, I just thought you were going to argue with the King of Jin from Qin because you couldn't swallow your anger!"

In a restaurant a few hundred meters away from Cuiming Tower, a group of Qi officers and Luoshui Railway Bridge engineers booked a large private room, with two tables filled with four hot and cold dishes. Although not as extravagant as Cuiming Tower, it also had chicken, duck, fish, meat, seafood and land delicacies. When the drinks came, the group of Qi people gathered in this foreign country immediately picked up their glasses and drank. For a while, the whole private room was noisy and lively.

As the wine got hot and hot, Chen Jilin put his hand on Yu Zhenyang's shoulder and said with a smile: "If there is a conflict, the King of Jin will be furious and might order people to tie us up and throw us into the prison in Luoyang. If that happens, we will really suffer a great loss, and the Qin people will find a sore spot and punish us severely."

"Look at what you said. It makes me seem like an impetuous and reckless man who is ignorant of the ways of the world." Yu Zhenyang drank the wine glass in his hand and then put it heavily on the table. "With our status, we can only control some local officials of Qin State. If we really meet the provincial governors or the powerful people of the royal family, we can't afford to provoke them! Can it be that if we cause trouble, we can hide in our homeland and settle the matter? Under the current background that Qin and Qi still have to maintain a basic friendly situation, any diplomatic envoys or military generals who destroy the relationship between the two sides will be severely punished. Haha, if we had a conflict with His Royal Highness the Prince of Jin just now, let alone putting us in jail, even if our lives were hurt, maybe the local superiors would pinch their noses and accept it. Unless..."

"Unless what?" Chen Jilin picked up the wine jug and filled Yu Zhenyang's glass again.

"Unless, we, the Great Qi, fight a fierce battle with the Qin State and defeat them completely, and turn them into a country like the Mughal Empire and Korea, where we can do whatever we want. Even their emperor, when he sees us, will have to greet us respectfully. ... By then, don't mention the King of Jin or the King of Wei. When they meet the people of Qi, we will turn them into little kings!"

"Tsk!" Chen Jilin sneered and patted his shoulder. "You soldiers are always thinking about conquering this and that. Qin is a country with a large population and a rare military power in the region. How much effort and effort will it take to turn it into a country like North Korea and Japan? Even if you put all your army in, I don't think you can conquer the entire Qin."

"To conquer Qin, why do we need to mobilize all our troops?" Yu Zhenyang said, "We only need to send out our elite troops to invade Qin and overthrow the Sun Dynasty. When the time comes, Qin will lose its power and the whole world will chase it. Many ambitious people will rush to join us. By then, we only need to support a few local forces to control the entire continent and achieve the goal of indirectly conquering Qin."

"You soldiers, you take things for granted!" Chen Jilin shook his head and said, "Throughout the thousands of years of Chinese history, although the time of unification and division is almost half each, since the Qin Emperor destroyed the six kingdoms, all dynasties, whether it is the separatist vassal states in remote corners or the opposing regimes in the north and south, have regarded the unification of China as the ultimate goal and have done their best to implement it. So, even if our Qi State can succeed for a while and collapse the entire continent, it will not take long for the Chinese civilization to return to unification with its inherent tenacity and perseverance. You must know that every new dynasty has an active desire for external expansion. If our Great Qi is determined to be an enemy, it will inevitably involve our endless energy, so that we will lose sight of other strategic directions in the world and be unable to take full care of them, and be taken advantage of by other countries."

"Hey, Xiao Linzi, it's definitely a big loss for our military that you didn't join the General Staff!" Yu Zhenyang said with a smile, "I think you should stop working on bridges and roads and just join the army. Then, we can be companions in the army together."

"Forget it. We have so many soldiers in the Chen family. We don't need one more." Chen Jilin curled his lips and said, "I still think that building bridges and roads and benefiting the people are more suitable for me. ... Hey, you were driven out of Xi'an by the Qin army. What are your plans next? Will you return to your homeland or be assigned to an overseas territory?"

"Who knows!" Yu Zhenyang heard this, picked up the wine glass and drank it in one gulp, a little depressed. "I guess, in addition to the military observation group of our Xi'an branch being expelled by the Qin military, maybe the staff members who were observing the war in the battlefields of Mobei and the Western Regions will also be ordered to leave. Hey, are the Qin people planning to completely decouple from our Qi in the field of military exchanges?"

Since the outbreak of the Annan crisis, the Qin military, in response to Qi's unauthorized attack on its vassal state, immediately issued an order to expel the Qi military observation team stationed in various places, and also cut off all military exchanges between the two sides.

Previously, Qin and Qi had a close relationship, with frequent political, military and economic exchanges. Qi stationed a considerable number of military observation groups in Qin. In addition to normal military exchanges and military guidance activities, the Qi military also sent a large number of staff officers to the Qin army's combat units in the Western Regions and Mobei to participate in and inspect the Qin army's large-scale cavalry operations, and absorb the most direct actual combat cases and experience for their own cavalry construction and tactical compilation.

After all, Qi's grand goal was to become a leader in global affairs and a maker of rules of conduct, so the enemies it faced were also diverse, including maritime powers like England, land military powers like France, challengers like Russia with vast territorial depth, and horse-breeding nations like those in grasslands and deserts.

Faced with potential enemies, Qi naturally had to have the ability to deal with complex and ever-changing military conflicts. It had to be able to defeat those maritime countries that attempted to challenge Qi at sea, have the deterrent power to contain the continental military powers, and have the ability to carry out precise strikes against certain erratic grassland forces.

No matter what kind of enemy we encounter, we can defeat it with the powerful military strength of Qi.

Therefore, the Qi military particularly liked to send so-called military observation groups or wartime staff to certain war conflict sites to experience the battlefield atmosphere firsthand and summarize and generalize relevant war experiences and lessons.

According to rough statistics, the military observation group sent by Qi to Qin had more than 300 people, covering almost all active military branches of Qi. They not only observed the combat situation of the Qin army on the spot, but also cooperated with the spies of the Black Guards to win over and infiltrate the officers and soldiers of the Qin army.

Previously, the Qin court had expressed dissatisfaction with the Qi military observation group's unscrupulous staff travel within the country and frequent communication with Qin generals, and imposed strict restrictions and constraints on them, prohibiting them from contacting sensitive departments and personnel of the Qin army. Qin even sent many spies from the Jing'an Division to closely monitor and track the Qi military observation group to prevent them from doing things that were "incompatible" with their own duties and identities.

Now, taking advantage of the Annan crisis, Qin simply expelled all members of the Qi military observation group. On the one hand, it expressed its anger towards Qi, and on the other hand, it eliminated Qi's continued influence and infiltration on the Qin army.

To avoid the situation where, when the war breaks out between the two sides, there is large-scale surrender of our own army, which would be a disaster.

"Could it be that your military has really bribed and won over many Qin army generals?" Chen Jilin asked curiously.

"This is a military secret and I can't tell you casually." Yu Zhenyang smiled and shook his head.

"I can guess it even if you don't tell me." Chen Jilin said nonchalantly, "A few months ago, our Qi army destroyed Annan in just ten days. In addition to our strong combat power, I heard that we bribed many Annan generals before the war. When facing the attack of our Qi army, they either passively avoided the battle or took the initiative to surrender, thus creating this hearty victory. But if we try this trick on Qin again, it probably won't work. Not to mention that the Qin army is larger in scale and number, and it is not easy to bribe a large area, even the Qin emperor's control over the army is not comparable to that of the small country of Annan."

"Xiao Linzi, don't overestimate the Qin army. Even if they are stronger than the Annan army, they are still limited in strength. If we fight in the future, we have every confidence that we can defeat them."

"Don't overestimate the Qin army, but don't underestimate them either. Your arrogance will only lead to big losses sooner or later."

"Haha..." Yu Zhenyang smiled and patted his old friend on the shoulder, "Which side are you on? Why do you keep speaking for the Qin people? Have you been on the mainland for so long that you feel a sense of closeness? I don't know whether we will suffer a big loss in the future. But when I left Xi'an, I heard a piece of news that the Qin people seemed to have suffered a big loss in Mobei."

"Why, Bohai Kingdom attacked Mobei?"

"No." Yu Zhenyang said gloatingly: "The Qin people forced a tribal prince of Khalkha Mongolia to rebel!"

(End of this chapter)