Shen Jing, Imperial Study Room.

Emperor Li Junhua and King Yu Li Junwei were having midnight snacks, staring at the wall in front of him, where a map was hanging, which was exactly the situation in South America. The military officer Xi Jingtang was standing in front of the map at this time, introducing the local situation.

Xi Jingtang was 31 years old, with white skin and white eyebrows and eyes. This seemed to be characterized by whiteness, which was mainly related to his bloodline. Xi Jingtang's great-grandfather was Simmons, the founding father of the Empire. Although he was the founding duke, because his father had not made any contributions, he was surrendered to the title. When he arrived in Xi Jingtang, he had become a marquis.

The Xi family had already had a naval family. Xi Jingtang was in a state of affairs with his family relationship. He worked part-time as the commander of the squadron. Later, with Li Junwei's reform of the Nanyang strategy and the appeasement zone was abolished, Xi Jingtang's fate changed. Those who served overseas military and political positions as active-duty officers would usually return to the navy to continue their posts. However, the emperor took a fancy to Xi Jingtang as a humble and skilled in military affairs, so he allowed him to enter the Ministry of Overseas Affairs and the attendant room, and served as an attendant who contacted the Ministry of Overseas Affairs.

"The second young master set up twelve frontier strongholds and garrisons based on the Paraguay River as the central axis. The frontiers were defended by infantry and indigenous soldiers from the local area. The stations organized mobile troops, including cavalry, mobile infantry and artillery as teams, to rescue everywhere, and took the initiative to go forward. Mixed troops based on indigenous and elite cavalry went deep into the inland occupied by the Japanese to carry out a clearance..." Xi Jingtang introduced seriously.

Li Junwei shook his head slightly, looked at Li Junhua, and found that the emperor was also confused. The two looked at each other, a little embarrassed.

Although both of these brothers were geniuses, they had never been to military academy. When Li Junhua led his army to the northern expedition to hunt down the remnants of Manchuria, he relied on his bloody courage. Li Junwei's overseas expansion was based on his meritorious people, but he could not even understand the military map. Therefore, what Xi Jingtang said was undoubtedly a heavenly book for the two.

If it were other wars, the two of them would have to pass it alone. The key is that this is what their children do overseas. The two brothers have some meaning of checking homework, but they forgot that they can't do it either.

Li Junwei scratched his head as if nothing had happened and said to Xi Jingtang: "Stop it, wait, stop it. What you said is too complicated. The emperor has a lot of trouble and doesn't have so much time to listen. You just say, are these actions reasonable?"

Xi Jingtang said: "It is reasonable from a military perspective."

"But!" Li Junwei raised his voice: "There will be a but, right? Jing Tang, why would the emperor ask you to explain, instead of calling someone else, just want to hear the truth, you don't have to hide it."

Xi Jingtang nodded. The reason why he chose him was because he was both professional and reliable, and had experience. He was once the commander of the first frigate of the Empire's South Ocean Fleet, but in Nanyang, not to mention the enemy's navy, there were not even a few pirates. Therefore, during his tenure, Xi Jingtang devoted more energy to the work of appeasement of the general. He had been dealing with local indigenous people on Java Island for many years and had considerable experience.

"Emperor, Your Highness. I believe that the arrangements of the second prince are already at the limit of the military and will achieve good results in the short term. But the problem cannot be fundamentally solved. According to IMG, in the future, the Japanese will retreat into the inland and retreat to places that are difficult to reach in the imperial military power, rather than being wiped out near the border.

In the short term, these actions will be criticized for their expenses, and in the long term, they will face the Japanese's comeback." Xi Jingtang gave his own judgment.

It can be said that the Emperor and King Yu believed in his judgment because this was almost his own resume.

"So, in the end, it's going to be political solution, right?" Li Junhua asked, putting down his empty bowl.

Xi Jingtang nodded: "Yes, as the Supreme Emperor taught us, military is for politics."

"What do you think about letting Gao Qiao people establish the country?" Li Junhua asked.

Xi Jingtang said: "There are fewer information about Gao Qiao people......" This is a standard bureaucratic answer, but Xi Jingtang stopped halfway through his speech. He knew that the two people in front of him were not saying these high-sounding words. So he said to the truth: "In fact, in the long run, letting Gao Qiao people establish their own country is the best choice to promote long-term stability in South America."

"After all, some people will think that we ceded the land to build a country for Gao Qiao people," said Li Junwei.

Xi Jingtang reminded: "The division between us and the Portuguese in South America is not actually clear, especially in inland areas, so... maybe we can promote that it was the country that the Goucho people seized the Portuguese land and established."

"After the founding of the country, the Gao Qiao people would covet the empire's land in South America." Li Junwei said again.

"Then find an enemy for the Goggio people, such as the Portuguese." Xi Jingtang said concisely.

"Okay, we understand what you mean. After we go back, we will conduct a formal investigation into this matter with the people from the Overseas Affairs Department." Li Junhua said.

Xi Jingtang nodded and retreated, while Li Junhua looked at Li Junwei: "You don't seem to support Zhao Cheng's plan to establish the country. I think this is a bit incredible. The first person in the empire to support the establishment of others' country was you, and it was you who helped to establish the Cossack Republic and the Ukrainian Federation."

"That's to deal with stronger enemies." Li Junwei said.

The Cossack Republic is located south of the Greater Caucasus Mountains, a country with aristocratic republic. Most of its domestic nobles were foreign nobles of the empire. After helping the empire to clear the various ethnic groups north of the Greater Caucasus Mountains, it officially established its own country in the north and south of the Little Caucasus Mountains, accepted many Cossacks from the Southern Russian grasslands and ruled Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.

But the most important significance of the Cossack Republic is to form a buffer zone between the Empire and the Ottoman Empire and Sassanthemum Persia, isolating the Empire and these two countries.

Although the Ukrainian Federation did not isolate the empire from Russia, it was an enemy tailored for Russia. With the Ukrainian Federation, Tsarist Russia lost the opportunity to enslave the Ukrainians and would not rule the southern Russian grasslands, which means Tsarist Russia could not lose the foundation for becoming a world power.

But obviously, the empire had no enemies in South America, and supported the founding of the Goggio people more to consider internal affairs than the empire's geostrategy.

Li Junhua asked: "You are worried that if Gao Qiao people founded the country, they would make a bad start within the sphere of influence of the empire, right?"

Li Junwei nodded, but he said with a wry smile: "I am so worried, but we must also know clearly that this will eventually become a trend. Even if we do not support the founding of the Gao Qiao people, similar things will happen in the future.

In fact, Li Zhaocheng thought very clearly that the Gao Qiao people will establish a country sooner or later, and if we do not actively support it, the Gao Qiao people living within our sphere of influence will naturally regard the empire as an enemy. If we can take advantage of the situation and turn the Portuguese into the enemy of the Gao Qiao people, the empire's rule in South America will become more stable in the future."

"So we should let Li Zhaocheng try it." Li Junhua persuaded.

"I have no objection, although Zhao Cheng's behavior is not that mature." Li Junwei obviously still has hidden worries.

Li Junhua smiled and understood his brother's indignation. In fact, no one understood it better than him. For more than 30 years as emperor, the empire's overseas strategy has been managed by the King Yu. King Yu is not only an unparalleled national soldier in the world, but also in a good era when the West is lagging behind in all aspects. Therefore, the empire's expansion overseas can be said to be invincible.

But now, when the power of the empire began to be transferred to the third generation, everything was completely different. In the third generation, no one showed the same level of wisdom as King Yu, and the Western hard pursuit also shortened the gap with the empire. This made the senior leaders of the empire who were used to having a good life at a loss.

Li Junhua said: "I don't think Zhao Cheng's big mistakes in what he did in South America, and his willingness to take on this burden is even more satisfying. No matter what, he has an empire in his heart, which is very good. Of course, Zhao Cheng seems to be a little wise and safe..."

As the emperor said, he took out a document from the drawer and handed it to Li Junwei, asking, "Did you teach him this? If so, I will tell you clearly that you don't need to do this in the future. Zhaocheng is indeed a royal family member competing for the throne, but he is first of all, a descendant of the Li family, and overseas, representing the royal family."

Li Junwei took the document and read it after reading it, and then he understood what the emperor would say to him so seriously.

The document is called "Memorandum of Cooperation between China and Thailand", which involves many departments of the empire, including not only the Ministry of State Assets, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other administrative departments under the cabinet, but also departments such as the Ministry of Foreign Affairs that belong to the administrative system in name but are actually controlled by the royal family. Therefore, this cooperation project was led by Zhongting.

This cooperation is actually a model project for the Empire to carry out national cooperation within the Oriental Alliance system. If it is done well, it will be an example of cooperation between the Empire and the countries within the Oriental Alliance system.

Tobacco is a warm-loving crop that can be widely grown in South China. After the establishment of the Eastern Alliance system, countries in South China generally strengthened their cooperation with the empire, and countries can also learn the modern economic system of ** countries, especially taxation.

This is a gradual process, but some things are something that countries want to achieve overnight, such as the empire's tobacco monopoly system.

The empire's tobacco monopoly system contributed a lot of taxes to the empire. More than 5% of the empire's fiscal revenue was contributed by the tobacco industry. This system that can increase taxes by 5% is strongly attractive to all countries.

However, in feudal countries, it is difficult to implement similar systems, because the countries in the South China Sea are real feudal countries, and there are a large number of remnants of the feudal system in their country. However, there are many local tyrants, and it is difficult to control the tobacco industry by taxing tobacco cultivation. With the support of the empire, the feudal kingdom's violent rule over the country is actually strengthening, and all countries have successively begun to "cut the vassal states", and tobacco monopoly is a good method.

The King of Thailand directly announced that the cultivation of tobacco in Thailand would be completely stopped within three years, and used this as an excuse to reduce the vassal states. If the local princes agree, they could establish the tobacco monopoly.

Because one-size-fits-all approach will lead to three years of no tobacco production in Thailand, but tobacco is a necessity, so Thailand and the Empire signed a memorandum to provide Thailand's necessary tobacco. Of course, this is a short-term. According to the memorandum, the Empire will gradually increase the tobacco supply to Thailand's state-owned tobacco companies within three years, and always reach the required quantity, which will last for another five to seven years.

In other words, after establishing a tobacco monopoly system, Thailand will replant tobacco to ensure its own national interests.

However, seven to ten years of tobacco supply still has huge profits, and Thailand is worried that it will lose too much, so it wants to gain the same status as the Imperial Tobacco Corporation and purchase tobacco at a low price. The Imperial Center completely handed over this project to overseas territories, promoting immigration to overseas by expanding the tobacco planting area overseas.

South America also wants to get more share in this project. In fact, this is also the most important area recognized by the empire's center. Zhongting, who is in charge of the project, is preparing to hand over half of the share to South America, but South America wants 70%, so taking advantage of Li Zhaocheng's connections in South America, he wants to get more share with the help of this royal family's connections.

But Li Zhaocheng refused to help.

The reason is that this is a favor that comes to the door. Li Zhaocheng does not want to give private graces to the local area. After all, he is competing for the throne. This behavior of seeking unjust profits for the local area is hindered from the struggle for the throne. But in the emperor's opinion, Li Zhaocheng was too concerned about his feathers and forgot the duty of the royal family's children.

The empire's policies on overseas territories are very subtle. It can be said that when the empire's central government formulates any policy, it must review whether these policies are not good for overseas territories more than once. This is to prevent overseas citizens from feeling that they are living in a colony. Therefore, the empire's central policies are always tilted towards overseas territories.

From overseas territories, especially those that are not overseas provinces, their sense of belonging and cohesion to the empire are often linked to the royal family. The more they are valued by the royal family, the more they have a sense of belonging to the empire. Therefore, it has been a long-term policy for the royal family to show kindness overseas.
Chapter completed!