Chapter 1321 – Gold War

Emperor palace, 1st meeting room.

After reviewing the targets of last year, Zhang Liang once again released another state of the union address.

With the experience gained from the previous year, this year’s address was more detailed and targeted. Some of the strategic predictions caused the eyes of many of the officials to light up.

For the 9th year of Gaia, Great Xia’s strategic focus would shift from overseas to Asia.

Their main focus would naturally be the three dynasties in the India Region. Only by taking down India would Great Xia truly control the Indian Ocean, which would allow them to connect trade between the three oceans.

Apart from India, their treatment of the Persian Empire and the Romanov Empire would depend on the situation.

The global situation was forever changing. No matter how skilled the Administrative Mentor Court was, they would not be able predict everything accurately.

Apart from Asia itself, they would naturally prioritize interfering with the Mayan and European battlefields indirectly, but it would be best if they did not get wrapped up in it.

Their goal was to prolong these two wars.

First, it would let the enemies drain one another; secondly, it would create a good external environment for Great Xia’s military activities in Asia and reduce outside interference.

“The battle between Silver Hand and Azure Badge is a perfect chance.” Zhang Liang changed his tone and reminded everyone, “However, this strategic period will not continue indefinitely.”

“The Administrative Mentor Court estimates that if the two sides cannot decide a winner by the 9th year, they would try to make peace.”

“Hence, the Empire does not have much time left.” Zhang Liang emphasized once more.

Ouyang Shuo completely agreed with Zhang Liang’s assessment.

In truth, since the war situation had developed to such a stage, advancing and retreating were both problematic for Silver Hand. Based on their original plan, the Alliance Army should have unified Europe in the 8th year of Gaia.

With that, they would have two years to consolidate, digest, and even go up against Great Xia.

If Great Xia did not interfere, Silver Hand’s strategy could have succeeded. Moreover, their success would not have been limited to the European battlefield, as the Dawson Dynasty might have already conquered the Mayan Dynasty in America.

If that really happened, Silver Hand’s reach would cover east and west, surrounding Great Xia.

The biggest miscalculation of Silver Hand would probably be their underestimation of Great Xia’s influence and determination. They also thought too much of Azure Badge’s pride, believing that they would not stoop so low to the point of asking Great Xia for help.

This winter was a rare strategic adjustment period for Silver Hand. After this round of adjustment, Ouyang Shuo had reason to believe that the world battlefield would welcome new changes once spring arrived.

As a result, the Administrative Mentor Court recommended turning their focus back to Asia. They should expand their strategic depth and obtain the Overlord position before caring about others.

This was basically all Great Xia would be able to do in the 9th year of Gaia.

Apart from military operations, in terms of internal politics, their goal would naturally be to strengthen their foundations and construct facilities, especially power grids to push all the cities near the shores toward full scale industrialization.

Along with the imperial city getting energy, the construction of the power grid and relevant power plants would enter a swift development period, and the ocean cities would be the first to light up the night skies.

Thanks to the help of power, the efficiency of industrialization would experience a great growth.

With history to look back on, the Empire’s path to industrialization was the highly condensed version of the global road to industrialization. The Empire absorbed all of its essence and walked the most efficient and swiftest path.

Throughout the entire process, they did not veer off track even once.

After all, they could not go off track, as a short break would cause them to be surpassed by the other dynasties.

The game world was not reality, and the dynasties did not have any technology bottlenecks. They only had resource and talent bottlenecks. Hence, the differences would only lie in the amount of energy and strength that the dynasties could amass.

On all fronts, Great Xia had a natural advantage.

As a result, they had to treat the matter seriously, putting in a lot of focus to gather up all sorts of minute advantages drip by drip.

If they managed to do that, Great Xia would create another miracle. Hence, while they stood on the same starting line as the other dynasties in the world, they would be able to stand out and breakaway.

That was an amazing feat.

Apart from the mainland, the other three Governor-General Houses would become focuses for construction.

Ouyang Shuo had already given the Traffic Department the mission to work with the three Governor-General Houses to set up the basic plans for them with regard to building railroads and improving their road systems.

For this matter, the Imperial Court prepared a massive sum of gold to support the basic facilities construction of the three Governor-general Houses.

This could be considered a sort of welfare that the Imperial Court would deliver to the people, which would help to strengthen their recognition of Great Xia while assisting the economic development of the regions.

Apart from basic facilities construction, Ouyang Shuo also instructed the Cabinet to conduct a deep study of the Empire’s industry chain to let the industries in the mainland as well as the three Governor-General Houses achieve comparative advantages.

After all, everyone randomly developing would become inefficient.

Simply put, the three Governor-General Houses could not be making the mainland bleed by being pure raw material bases. They must consider their own developments and not be biased against their region.

This was something that Ouyang Shuo did not want to see happen.

After they heard Ouyang Shuo’s statement, the stone in the hearts of Mulan Yue, Bai Hua, and Wufu was finally placed down, and they felt more pumped.

Apart from the Empire’s industries pushing one another forward and complementing one another, the trade strategy would be to strengthen trade with the Bantu and Indian empires in the 9th year.

These two dynasties were countries with massive gold storages, but their internal industry development was unbalanced.

This gave Great Xia a chance.

In Ouyang Shuo’s words, Great Xia would use a great number of items to earn all their gold, which would allow the Empire’s gold storage reach another level.

These series of trade policies were termed ‘the gold war’ by Ouyang Shuo.

In the future, if the Empire wanted their currency to be globally used, they would need to have far more gold storage than the other dynasties to strengthen their authority.

If not, no dynasty would easily yield.

The above were basically the strategic plans of Great Xia for the 9th year. They would be turned into specific targets that the various organizations would work toward.

Ouyang Shuo had been repeating the phrase ‘action power’ recently. He did not want Great Xia to be an Empire that was only internally rock solid. Instead, he wanted it to be a new generation Empire that tried new things.

The current Great Xia was far from that level.

The meeting lasted for two hours before coming to an end. The 26 officials witnessed the Empire’s strategy for the upcoming year being decided.

After the meeting, Ouyang Shuo held a feast for them to celebrate the Chinese New Year in advance.

…

2nd month 4th year, Imperial Capital.

Amongst all the hustle and bustle, the Chinese New Year drew close once more, and the entire Empire welcomed a celebratory mood.