Chapter 1071: 993 they like me

Suddenly, a girl in a white dress burst through the crowd, rushing towards a platoon leader of the Great Tang Empire, who was walking alongside the troops, waving to the crowd.

Amidst the laughter and cheers of everyone, the girl bravely hugged the platoon leader of the Great Tang Empire and planted a kiss directly on his cheek.

“Wow!” Many people in the crowd let out cheers, followed by laughter. The brave girl blushed and fled back into the crowd, while the platoon leader of the Great Tang Empire awkwardly wiped the saliva off his cheek among the laughter.

“Why isn’t anyone kissing me?” In the ranks, the young soldiers started to tease their platoon leader. Such opportunities were rare when they could make fun of their leader without him getting angry.

The culture of the Dahua Empire and its associated vassal states has always leaned toward conservatism. The girls here are nowhere near as open as those on the Eastern Continent, so public displays of affection like street kissing are rare.

But once someone takes the lead, shyness is cast aside and disappears. Many people from Chu Country know that in the Great Tang Empire, being a soldier is a symbol of honor!

In the Great Tang Empire, those respected officials are almost exclusively from a military background; in the Great Tang Empire, the nobility with high social standing are all people of distinguished military merit; even those handsome and dashing superstars on the big screen were once soldiers!

To marry a soldier is seen as supremely noble in the eyes of the women of Tang Country. Military wives in the Great Tang Empire receive treatment that women from other countries can scarcely imagine, so forming a family with a soldier is the dream of many women from Tang Country.

“They like me!” A soldier from the Great Tang Empire looked up proudly as he saw a young girl at a building window waving at his unit and boasted to his comrades.

“Is it you they like, or is it the clothes you’re wearing?” his comrade threw a wet blanket on him, “Wait until you marry her, and then if you get a First-Class Blade Medal, she’ll love you even more.”

The First-Class Blade Medal of the Great Tang Empire is basically only awarded to soldiers who have made significant contributions and sacrifices, receiving the First-Class Blade Medal is one of the best “blessings” there is.

“Screw you!” The young soldier exclaimed as he waved back to the girl waving at him from the high-rise window while cursing under his breath.

Some things are just missed opportunities, as most of the soldiers who come here already have families back in their home country: after all, soldiers in the Great Tang Empire are very popular, and it’s rare to find a single one.

Even if they were single before enlisting, soldiers are immediately greeted with match-making visitors when they return home on leave: no way around it, women eager to acquire citizenship of the Great Tang Empire are as plentiful as fish crossing the river, and it’s all about competing for the position.

Elegant elves, cute and sweet cat-eared girls… without a dance or other talent, without some kind of family heritage, it’s rather difficult to marry into citizenship through a Great Tang soldier.

So the civilians of Nanshan Port are so frenzied, so excited. Because without any effort, they have become legitimate citizens of the Great Tang Empire!

Do you know what citizenship of the Great Tang Empire means? It means that they no longer have to suffer the oppression of the nobility, no longer have to live humbly and meekly; they can be dignified people, even working at the docks moving boxes they can be real people!

The landlords who exploited them have been eradicated in the Great Tang Empire, and those old nobles who bullied the locals are also going to be purged and expelled. For an ordinary person, the Great Tang Empire is heaven, the “Utopia” they yearn for.

From today on, as the crew of the Great Tang Empire said, they can live in peace by paying just one type of tax according to their income. They don’t have to pay a “female tax” for having daughters, or a “head tax” for having sons…

Farmers who don’t need to pay taxes receive subsidies, those opening factories get technical guidance and enjoy tax rebate policies.

When doing business, they no longer need to act obsequiously because the other party is a noble, nor do they need to bow and scrape when having disputes with merchants from other countries…

What’s better than these things? What’s more exciting than a future full of hope?

So they cheered, they frantically waved their arms. They shouted, calling out ever louder ‘Long live the Great Tang Empire!’, calling out ever louder ‘Long live His Majesty The Emperor.’

At that moment, in their hearts, there was only one His Majesty The Emperor, and there should only be one Emperor in the whole world! That is the Emperor of the Great Tang Empire, the only Emperor they acknowledge!

As the soldiers of the Great Tang Empire walked down street after street, nearing the outskirts of Nanshan Port, they suddenly realized that they had indeed been subjected to the most intense “assault” along the way.

Their military uniforms were already in a disheveled state, with some soldiers holding eggs, some holding bananas, and others pineapples.

Many people had bits of food stuck to their clothes, with some smudged with sauces and others with soup broth; many had grease stains at the corners of their mouths.

What was most contemptible was that some soldiers even had lipstick smudges on their cheeks, while some were left holding empty beer mugs, unsure where to return them.

After reluctantly ceding Nanshan Port, Xiong Biao kept a low profile, readying small tricks to trip up the Great Tang Empire’s receiving troops–only to see his plans easily shattered.

He had intended for the utterly confused civilians to “warmly” welcome the arriving troops from Tang Country. In doing so, he hoped that the people, in their rage, would throw stones and tiles, prompting the soldiers of the Great Tang Empire to fire back in self-defense.

The streets would be a scene of chaos, and the entirety of Nanshan Port would turn into a muddled mess due to the handover! That arrogant Emperor of the Great Tang Empire would also feel the hostility from within Chu Country through this incident.

At that time, the Great Tang Empire would have to rely on Chu Country to pacify Nanshan Port, which in turn, would make the policymakers of the Great Tang Empire somewhat wary of the public sentiment within Chu Country.

Alas, everything he had hoped for didn’t happen; the local troops stationed there didn’t even leave Nanshan Port.

After handing over their defensive positions, they simply took off their military uniforms and went straight home to celebrate. Some were even more outrageous–they didn’t bother taking off their uniforms and went to welcome the new forces–caught by cameramen, who recorded it as rare historical footage: a group of soldiers wearing M35 Steel Helmets and gray-green military uniforms waving their hands to welcome the “Liberation Army” of the new millennium…

What infuriated Xiong Biao the most was that several high-ranking military officials and key court officials quietly used their information advantage to move their entire family into Nanshan City beforehand.

Yes, they were now “foreigners.” And to Chu Country, they were damned people of the esteemed heavenly nation.

Right, indeed, many of Chu Country’s high officials had used this method to obtain citizenship in the Great Tang Empire. They had transformed overnight from old bureaucratic families of Chu Country into legitimate citizens of the Great Tang Empire.

They even abandoned the Chu Country official positions they once valued immensely, with many fleeing overnight, leaving their official seals and robes in the offices.

Initially planning to catch the Great Tang Empire off guard, now it was Chu Country that was caught unprepared. Now, Xiong Biao had to seriously consider where to find so many officials to take over the vast swathes of land in the north of Shu Country.

Under the joint pressure of the Great Tang Empire, Chu Country, and Qin Country, the Shu Country had already pulled most of its troops out of the Northern Region.

According to the secret agreement between Qin Country and the Great Tang Empire, this area was originally supposed to be handed over to Chu Country in exchange for giving Nanshan Port to the Great Tang Empire. But now, looking at the nearly defenseless northern territories of Shu Country, Qin Country couldn’t help but make a move.

They occupied part of the region that was supposed to be given to Chu Country and, using the excuse of helping suppress local insurgencies and stabilize trade routes, they seized these areas.

Chu Country had been reluctant to exchange Nanshan Port to begin with; now they were absolutely livid. King of Chu, Xiong Biao, sent envoys to Qin Country to demand an explanation, while also telegraphing envoys in Chang’an to seek help from the Great Tang Empire.

The Great Tang Empire, busy calming the public in Nanshan Port, was content to encourage Qin Country’s arrogance, ignoring Chu Country’s requests. Of course, it’s unclear whether there was any intentional chastisement from the Great Tang Empire towards Chu Country.

Chu Country’s petty actions during the handover in Nanshan Port could have annoyed the Great Tang Empire. Therefore, Xiong Biao could only play dumb and accept the Great Tang Empire’s indifference to Qin Country’s crossing of borders.

Ying Duo waited for a response from the Great Tang Empire, believing they would not want to be dragged into the diplomatic incidents of their vassal state, Chu Country, and so became even more unbridled.

The promise to only take the Northern Region of Shu Country, which had been agreed upon with the Great Tang Empire, was cast aside by Ying Duo and his generals; Qin Country’s forces began to attack the Shu Mountain defenses with no signs of stopping.

Chu Country, upset by Qin Country’s occupation of one-third of “Chu’s territories” in the north of Shu Country, began to support Shu Country secretly. Suddenly, the entire Southern Region of the Western Continent transformed from a two-country struggle into a “Romance of the Three Kingdoms,” the battles raging with fervor.

With the civil war in the Dahua Empire, peace seemed to have vanished from the Western Continent, with only the most powerful Great Tang showing disinterest in the war. After acquiring Nanshan Port, they began to isolate themselves, indifferent to the fighting amongst neighboring countries.

While the Western Continent was in chaos, the Great Tang Empire’s transport ships, loaded with all kinds of advanced munitions, delivered radar and Scud Missiles along with other weapons purchased by countries of the Eastern Continent directly into their military’s hands.

The countries that acquired these advanced weapons were overjoyed. Following the blueprints sold to them by the Great Tang Empire, they began constructing countless radar stations on their own territories…