Time flies and it is September.
Mid-Autumn Festival, full moon night. The banks of the Long River in Longcheng are bustling with activity, and many small vendors set up stalls to sell festival products such as lanterns and moon cakes.
At around 7:30 in the evening, a small area in the middle section of the Long River was under martial law, with a large number of police officers and garrison soldiers appearing, and private vessels and the public were not allowed to approach.
On the river bank decorated with lights and lanterns, a medium-sized cruise ship started up and slowly moved forward through the water.
There were three people sitting on the central deck of the ship, namely Lao Li, Tan Hengqiang, and An Zecheng who had just returned from Washington.
There were many guards standing next to the stair railing, and Tan Mingchao, Su Tianyu, and Yu Mingyuan were also present, but they did not come forward and did not sit at the table.
Next to the guardrail.
Su Tianyu smoked a cigarette and stared at the water.
"Do you have any cigarettes?" Tan Mingchao walked over in military uniform and said in a casual tone.
Su Tianyu glanced at him and handed him the cigarette.
Tan Mingchao stood facing the river, lowered his head, lit a cigarette and said, "This political arena is really a magical place! I never dreamed that a group of us could stand on a boat."
"Haha." Su Tianyu smiled: "This is good, everyone is relaxed."
Tan Mingchao turned his head to look at him and asked softly, "They say that this triangle is the most stable. Hey, do you think that the three-way division of Dragon City will remain stable?"
"Yes." Su Tianyu replied insincerely: "We are interdependent!"
Tan Mingchao nodded, put the cigarette box on the guardrail and replied: "Yes, we depend on each other!"
…
On the dining table of the cruise ship.
Tan Hengqiang raised his glass and said softly, "Come on, Brother Li, Brother An, let's drink to the stability of Weilong City."
The two men raised their glasses, clinked their glasses lightly with Tan Hengqiang's, and took a sip of the wine.
"Eat your food, eat your food!" An Zecheng put down his cup and called out.
Li Mingsheng didn't say much since he sat down. He let An Zecheng and Tan Hengqiang set the pace, while he just kept eating seafood, which seemed to taste quite good.
Tan Hengqiang looked at Lao Li, chuckled and asked, "Brother Li! You are in administration, you have a unique vision and a lot of experience. In your opinion, what is the future direction of Longcheng?"
"Haha." Li Mingsheng crushed the crab legs with pliers and replied with a chuckle: "Commander Tan, I am in a very precarious position. To be honest, I can't even see my own future clearly, so how can I care about Dragon City? Well, being able to land safely is the most ideal result."
An Zecheng picked up some greens and said, "Lao Li, you are not being honest. The administration cannot do without you. No one can do it without you, just like the garrison cannot do without Commander Tan. This kind of dominance and balance is given by the times and opportunities. It will be difficult to replicate in the future."
"Haha." Lao Li smiled and asked softly, "Commander Tan, you are the military chief of Longcheng. Every blade of grass and every tree here depends on you and your troops for protection. So in your opinion, where does the future of Longcheng lie?"
Tan Hengqiang picked up the cigarette box and lit a cigarette. He thought for a while and said, "You, me, and Lao An, the three of us should maintain a balance and tacit understanding. This can keep Longcheng quiet for at least 20 years. I think that as an official, if I can protect a piece of land at the end of my political career and make it prosperous for 20 years, I can live up to my official title."
Li Mingsheng looked at him and said, "Your words don't count, so how can you talk about rising? Even if you and I can live for another twenty years and deal with it, in the end, the result is nothing more than a cup of yellow earth and grass growing on our graves. Twenty years later, we will be dismissed, the balance will be broken, and the tacit understanding will be gone. Then Longcheng will still be the same Longcheng as before. If things go wrong, once the upper class exaggerates, you and I may still be the sinners of history, the warlords who hold on to power, and the political speculators. Our graves will be smeared with manure."
"Haha, then tell me, where is the future?" asked Tan Hengqiang.
"Real autonomy." Li Mingsheng said bluntly: "The result of the War of Independence was the pain of death. Many people did pay for it, but the facts have proved that resistance will be effective, and many states have achieved independence. We are different. Our start is more difficult. There is no century-long integration process. Zhou Xingli deceived millions of people for his own selfish interests and came here by boat. This made the upper class guard against us and discriminate against us internally. Therefore, if we want to talk about rising, we must have our own sovereignty. How many times has our hometown been liberated? We still run here and bring more than 10 million people to work as laborers and as productivity within the wall? If we do this, don't even talk about being worthy of our official hats."
"Haha, what you said is too radical." Tan Hengqiang frowned and said, "50,000 or 60,000 guns are still maintained by others. How can you talk about rights? When the war starts, there will be corpses everywhere under the cannons. Is this fair to more than 10 million people?"
Lao Li looked at him, "We didn't fight during the War of Independence. If the higher-ups send you an order, you will be sent to the battlefield, and you will be killed by the cannons, right?!"
"That's different...!"
"Haha, Commander Tan, Lao Li has a radical leadership style." An Zecheng immediately interjected, "I think it would be nice to just drink, chat, and watch the moonlight by the river today. Let's not talk about anything too deep, it's meaningless."
Lao Li glanced at An Zecheng and said straightforwardly, "You are really good at smoothing things over, Lao An!"
"It can't be helped. One of you is the chief political official, and the other is the chief military official. The fact that I can sit in this position is already a gesture of respect from you two." An Zecheng chuckled and said, "Let's stop talking and drink!"
At this point, the three of them stopped talking and just drank and chatted for a while.
But during this period, Lao Li did not notice that An Zecheng frowned when Tan Hengqiang spoke just now.
The moon-viewing activity ended at around nine o'clock in the evening.
The three bosses dispersed with their men.
Day 3, morning.
The garrison command announced that they would conduct a three-month military exercise with the Anze City Army.
About six hours later, the Longcheng Terrorist Squad announced that they would also join the garrison corps' exercise, citing the frequent fighting on the Lao-Mexico border and the need for Longcheng to conduct military and police drills to improve the combat quality of the armed forces.
Another week passed.
The benefit of the meal between Lao Li and Tan Hengqiang came, as the higher-ups formally agreed to his expansion of the terrorist squad, adding four battalions with an additional 5,000 men, and also upgraded the department to a state-level unit.
Why would the upper echelons do this
Differentiation!
Tan Hengqiang, Li Mingsheng and Anzecheng have almost completely controlled everything in Longcheng, and the upper echelons are getting a little restless!
If the three companies really join forces to do something, the result will be irreversible.
Therefore, giving Lao Li a sweet treat and openly admitting that he was secretly engaging in armed activities might break the balance of the three-way split.
In October, Deputy Commander Xu officially resigned and Tan Hengqiang announced that he would run for the position of Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Chinese Legion.
In this way, the triangle of Longcheng was temporarily formed, and it was Anze City that took charge of the overall situation and took the initiative to promote this situation.
If he had stood with Lao Li when he first arrived, the situation today would definitely not have happened.
Tan Hengqiang will certainly cling to the upper echelons and do his best to stop the military and political threats from Lao Li and An Zecheng...
If that were the case, the war would have already happened.
(End of this volume)