Chapter 1326: Side Story: Having the Whole World in View (3)

Afraid that Little Leopard would exhaust his savings, Little Fu personally helped to calculate the cost of recruiting soldiers and buying horses.

He didn’t have much money either!

Little Fu had spent a lot of money in the past three years. To have been only at a slight disadvantage when it’s just him alone against the few young princes, he’d depended on his intelligence and money.

Though the princes had power in the palace, Little Fu was rich. Whenever they used their power to bully him, he would use money to attack back.

The palace servants in the Royal School and the imperial kitchen had all received bribes from him.

Fortunately, with a monthly allowance of 20 taels of silver, he was truly rich. In addition to the profits from his investments in sea trade, pearl aqua farms, and so on, and his mother’s help from time to time, what Little Fu did not lack the most was money.

But no matter how much he had, it wasn’t enough for him to splurge like this.

Moreover, it had become a tradition for the children of the three families to do charity. Every year, he had to fork out a portion of his money to the person-in-charge of the Treasure-Bear Academy to sponsor the poor students’ studies.

Therefore, Little Fu realized that he seemed to have become poor.

In order not to let Little Leopard waste his money, he found an abacus to help him calculate the cost of recruiting soldiers and buying horses.

Then, the two children realized that they were actually quite poor. With the amount of money that they had, they could only recruit a team of less than 500 people.

They asked the head of the guards about the cost of hiring soldiers and buying horses. Since these people were all from the military, they knew about such things.

Little Fu stared at the cost of the 100 horses and said, “I don’t think you should buy so many horses. There are also weapons, armor, rations, and so on.”

Little Leopard cracked his fingers and said with tears in his eyes, “If I include those, then I can’t even hire 200 people…”

Actually, hiring people was not expensive. What was expensive was equipment, such as horses, weapons, armor, military uniforms, and rations.

Looking at the number on the paper that was enough for a family to prosper for ten generations, Little Leopard realized that he could not even afford a team of 500 people.

With a sigh, he said, “No wonder Father King and Mother Consort often say that war hurts the commoners. Even though we have so much money, it’s already like this, let alone ordinary people.”

Little Fu tilted his head and asked, “Then are you still going to seize territory?”

Little Leopard slapped the table and said, “Yes!”

“Since we can’t afford to hire 500 people, we can hire 40 to 50 people. That way, we’ll have more funds.”

The corners of Little Fu’s mouth twitched as he asked, “You think it’s a group fight?”

Every year, when it came time to fight for water in the village, hundreds of people would get involved. So, with just 40 to 50 men, are you going to fight for territory or fight in groups?

Qi Haoran, who had walked to the door and was about to persuade his son, also curled his lips when he heard this. He turned around and left. With only the ambition to hire 40 to 50 people, would they need to fear that Little Leopard would plunge the people into misery and suffering?

And so, he decided to just let them be.

Little Leopard said confidently, “Even if there are only 40 to 50 people, I can still crush the Westerners. If you don’t believe me, just watch.”

Of course, Little Fu didn’t believe him.

Little Leopard, on the other hand, had an ambitious plan. “Only by knowing yourself and the enemy can you win a hundred battles. I’m still young, and I plan to spend eight or nine years lurking. When I figure out the Westerners, it will be easy to conquer them.”

Little Leopard also wrote to his brothers regarding this idea to seek their support. Of course, in addition to moral support, the most important thing was financial support.

When Little Treasure received his cousin’s letter, he couldn’t help but laugh out loud. He said to Little Bear, “Little Leopard is really ambitious. I wonder if he will still remember what he said today eight or nine years later.”

Children tend to have many dreams, but they might not be able to fulfill all of them when they grow up. Still, the encouraging and good-tempered Little Treasure wrote a reply to Little Leopard, saying that if he really went to conquer the west in the future, he would support him with some wealth in the name of his elder brother.

On the other hand, Little Bear indicated that if Little Leopard wanted to understand the Westerners, he had to persevere. The first thing he had to do was learn their language, words, understand their culture, and know the relationship between the various countries…

When Little Treasure saw that he was so specific, he couldn’t help but be stunned. He asked, “Are you really planning to use troops against the west?”

Little Bear said solemnly, “If people don’t offend me, I naturally won’t offend them. However, we still have to be on guard. Pedro has dominated the territorial waters in Guangzhou for more than ten years. According to what I know, the coasts in India are gradually falling under the control of the Westerners. It can be seen how ambitious they are.”

“More and more Westerners are coming to Great Qi, and Great Qi is huge and abundant in resources. From the way the seven-year-old Little Leopard look down on Westerners, it can be seen how different their lives are from the people of Great Qi. Do you think they will be willing to watch Great Qi people live an abundant and comfortable life while they suffer miserably?”

Little Treasure gradually became serious.

Little Bear continued, “Even though the west can’t compare to Great Qi in many aspects, they have their strengths in artillery, firearms, and other weapons. Moreover, their ships are far more sturdy than Great Qi’s. If the other party transports their soldiers via ships to exchange fire with us on Great Qi’s territory, Great Qi will definitely suffer huge losses.”

“So …”

“Since Little Leopard has the intention, we might as well let him prepare early. Although he’s young now, he’ll grow up one day.” Little Bear said lightly, “If the Western countries have a conflict with Great Qi one day, we should shift the battlefield to the West. Although the journey is long and provision of supplies is a little difficult, it’d create the least impact on the people of Great Qi and minimize our losses.”

After a moment of silence, Little Treasure asked, “Will the Western countries really become enemies with Great Qi?”

The corners of Little Bear’s mouth twitched. “England, France, and other countries have always strongly requested us to gift them a plot of land for their fleet to dock. Not only are they asking for independent jurisdiction, but they also wish to manage the taxes on said land themselves. It’s equivalent to carving out a piece of land in my Great Qi to establish another country. And some officials in the imperial court actually think that it’s just a small plot of land, and so it doesn’t matter if it’s a gift or a rental so long as we can make the Western countries submit…”

Little Bear pursed his lips and said, “Do you think they are ambitious? Will they one day be unable to resist the temptation and attack Great Qi?”

It wasn’t that Little Bear didn’t care about his reputation. From a young age, the “money oppression” made him realize that benefits surpassed all. To them, the land requested by England, France, and other countries wasn’t even the size of a small village, small enough an area to be negligible. However, to some countries in Europe, even such a small territory was sufficient to constitute a country.

Most importantly, Little Bear had been taught by Qi Haoran and Mu Yangling since he was young, and now the concept of “national sovereignty cannot be violated” had long been deeply engraved in his bones. Not to mention the size of a small village, he wouldn’t even give up the smallest unit of land.

Back then, in order to snatch back the lost territory from Great Jin, his father had expanded the border inch by inch. What right had descendants like them to give away or rent out their land?

If the foreigners wanted to dock a ship, they could do so by queuing up to enter the port like all other passing ships. However, if they wanted to obtain special privileges, no way.

Wary of the countries in the west, Little Bear encouraged his younger brother to study and understand the west in preparation for future battles.

Meanwhile, Little Lion and Tiger Head excitedly expressed to their younger brother that they were willing to fight alongside him. They immediately sent him a box of banknotes.

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