Chapter 981

Qingzhou.

After the newspaper’s announcement of high-priced purchases of Siberian furs caused a stir, another piece of news from the newspaper on the second day caused a sensation among the people.

An article personally written by Xiao Ming, which stated the sins of the Golden Tent Khanate, announced that the Great Yu Empire was officially declaring war on the Golden Tent Khanate.

“This is great. We have been waiting for this day for a long time. How arrogant was the Golden Tent Khanate back then, and how did they bully us? Now it’s time for revenge.”

In a restaurant, a middle-aged man wearing a short jacket and trousers loudly cheered after reading the newspaper.

There were three other people at his table, all wearing the same gray clothes and of different ages.

Hearing the middle-aged man’s words, a young man among the other three quickly grabbed the newspaper. After reading the article written by the emperor, he immediately became excited.

“Oh, if only my eyesight wasn’t so bad, I would be able to join the army and fight the barbarians now.”

The young man adjusted his glasses. When he was sixteen, he suddenly found that he could not see distant objects clearly. For this, his family took him to doctors for several years, but there was no solution.

It was not until the great development of the Qingzhou glass industry that glasses came into being, and he understood what myopia was. It was only then that he was saved. Although wearing glasses was not very comfortable, he could at least see things clearly.

However, the only regret was that he could not join the army due to his eyesight.

“It is a pity that you cannot join the army, but joining the army is not the only way to be loyal to the emperor. We are doing the same by working hard in the machinery factory. The sleds and the steam locomotives all have our credit, don’t they?” the middle-aged man said loudly.

The other two laughed. One of them touched his clothes and said, “Exactly. Now, wearing the clothes issued by the machinery factory, many matchmakers want to introduce me to someone! This shows that our machinery factory is the best.”

With that, the four of them laughed together.

“Your machinery factory is great, but our rubber factory is not bad either. Without the tires we produce, could you have built bicycles and tricycles?”

“Exactly, don’t be so smug. Would you have used wood to assemble machinery without our steel factory?”

“Our chemical factory is not convinced either!”

“…”

In the restaurant, there were workers from other factories sitting in groups. Now, with the standardization of factories, the workers of each factory wore special work clothes, making it easy to distinguish which factory they were from.

The owner at the counter smiled at these workers. His restaurant was popular because the food was plentiful and cheap, and it was close to the workshop area, or what should now be called the industrial zone.

Every day during the lunch break, a large number of workers would come here to eat.

The monthly salary of these workers was not low, with a minimum of thirty silver dragons per month. They lived a very comfortable life, and it was normal for them to have some wine and side dishes.

It was precisely because of these wealthy workers that his small restaurant could bring him a monthly income of twenty gold dragons.

He had also become used to the rivalry between these workers. After all, there were many factories here, and the workers of each factory were very proud.

While everyone was making a racket, a series of neat hoofbeats suddenly came from the road outside the restaurant. Everyone looked outside and saw a large group of cavalry wearing silver breastplates passing by. The leading general had sharp eyebrows and eyes, wore a red cape, and exuded a fierce aura.

“Isn’t that Qi Guangyi, the commander of the cavalry corps?” a worker recognized the leading general.

“It seems that there is really going to be a war this time. To deal with the barbarians, we still have to rely on the cavalry. The infantry has short legs and can’t catch up with four-legged horses.”

Another worker said.

Outside the restaurant, Qi Guangyi was also looking at the industrial zone and the workers along the road. Since being stationed in Raozhou, he had not returned for a year, and now that he was back, Qingzhou had undergone some more changes.

He had basically been walking on wide concrete roads on his way back. In recent years, the court had not stopped building roads, and Qingzhou’s extensive road network had basically taken shape.

With the improvement of the roads, there were also more carriages traveling on them. These were merchants who transported goods to their destinations by carriage, and he could occasionally see some people riding bicycles.

In addition, the most obvious change was the clothing of the people. Although many people were still wearing patched clothes, more people were wearing clean and beautiful clothes.

While appreciating the prosperous scene, Qi Guangyi urged his warhorse to go towards Qingzhou city. This time, he was ordered to return to the court.

He took a steam locomotive from Raozhou to Cangzhou, but the steam locomotive broke down and needed to be repaired. In order to save time, he rode a horse directly along the former post station to Qingzhou.

After entering the city, Qi Guangyi’s eyes narrowed again. Compared to a year ago, there were more and more people riding bicycles in Qingzhou city now, almost everywhere.

After once again marveling at the prosperity of Qingzhou’s industry, he did not dare to delay any longer and went directly to the palace.

In the Imperial Study, Xiao Ming was already waiting for Qi Guangyi.

The time to march north to conquer the barbarians was imminent. Niu Ben and Luo Quan had already gathered 80,000 infantry, and with the 60,000 cavalry led by Qi Guangyi, they would attack the Golden Tent Khanate with a force of 140,000 people.

However, in this campaign, he believed that the cavalry would still play an important role. Although his Han-style rifles and Imperial Guard artillery were good enough, without the mobile advantage of the cavalry on the grassland, these two-legged infantry would not be able to catch up with the barbarian cavalry.

It was for this reason that he had specifically summoned Qi Guangyi this time.

In fact, this northern expedition was not just because of Niu Ben and Luo Quan’s wish to conquer the barbarians, but a war he had been planning for a long time. Otherwise, he would have been too reckless about war.

In order to weaken the threat from the north, he needed to take the initiative to attack. One Tsarist Russia was enough to give him a headache, and now with the addition of the Golden Tent Khanate, the north of the Great Yu Empire would not be peaceful. The most important point was that these threats were close at hand, unlike Britain and France, which were thousands of miles away.

“Long live Your Majesty, I, Qi Guangyi, greet Your Majesty.”

Seeing Xiao Ming, Qi Guangyi bowed and said.

Standing up from his chair, Xiao Ming walked in front of Qi Guangyi and held out his hands to stop Qi Guangyi from bowing. “I summoned you from a thousand miles away this time for the upcoming northern expedition. But before the northern expedition, I have a weapon for the cavalry that I need to give you. I believe you will like it very much.”

“A weapon!” Qi Guangyi’s pupils constricted when he heard this. The demand for Han-style rifles from his men was getting higher and higher now.

This time, he was planning to bring this up to the court.

“That’s right.” At this time, Xiao Ming picked up a rifle with a slightly shorter barrel from the table and said, “This is a carbine made by the military factory based on the Han-style rifle!”