188: Chapter 98 Victory Celebration (Late Winter, 1907)

The eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, in the second year of Yongan.

Jinling City was decorated with lanterns and colored banners. Along the ten-mile-long street from the South Gate to the Imperial Palace, a ceremonial archway was erected every fifty paces. The archways, made of red silk and pine branches, hung with golden plaques reading "Meritorious Service to the State" and "Blessings to the People." The characters on the plaques were personally written by Minister of Rites Shen Zhibai, the brushstrokes powerful and vigorous, swaying slightly in the cold wind. Reporters from the Capital Press jostled with their heavy cameras, all trying to grab a spot in the front row. Someone accidentally stepped on a companion's shoe, drawing a wave of good-natured laughter and cursing. Commoners flooded in from all directions, packing the streets to the point where water could not trickle through. Children rode on their fathers' shoulders, waving newly made paper flags in their hands. The flags were printed with the character "Tang" and a five-clawed golden dragon, their corners snapping in the biting wind. Candied hawthorn vendors were pushed this way and that, the bright red fruits swaying on bamboo skewers like strings of frozen smiling faces.

This day was the grandest occasion since the founding of the Tang Country—the Mid-Term Review and Commendation Ceremony of the First Five-Year Plan.

On the plaza in front of Taihe Hall, a massive reviewing stand had been erected. The platform was covered with a brand-new red carpet, surrounded by pots of neatly trimmed holly, adding a touch of vitality to the bleak winter day. Hundreds of seats were set up on the platform, filled with meritorious individuals who had traveled from all over the country. Sitting in the front row was a white-haired veteran technician. He wore a newly made deep-blue work uniform with a large red flower pinned to his chest, his hands constantly rubbing the fabric on his knees as if to confirm this was not a dream. Beside him sat a railway engineer whose blueprints were dog-eared at the corners, densely marked with data in red ink. His hands were rough and steady, with rust-colored stains under his fingernails that could not be washed away.

Li Ling sat on the dragon throne in the very center of the reviewing stand, wearing a newly tailored bright yellow dragon robe. The robe was a modified version of the Tang Dynasty imperial style—slightly shorter in length with a narrowed hem, maintaining majesty while allowing ease of movement. It was rare for him not to wear a military uniform, but this dragon robe gave him an air of refinement and composure, the golden dragon embroidery shimmering subtly in the sunlight. To his left sat Empress Su Wanqing, and to his right were Princess Zaiyi and Emily, with the German Princess's seat further down. Empress Su Wanqing wore a crimson phoenix robe today, with a kingfisher feather phoenix crown on her head. Her posture was elegant, yet she occasionally turned her head to look at Li Ling, a gentle smile gracing the corners of her eyes.

Below the platform, the civil and military officials were lined up on both sides, the generals in bright armor and the civil officials in neat court robes. Standing in the very front row were thirty meritorious individuals about to receive medals—among them were veteran steelworkers, the chief engineer of a railway construction site, an agriculturalist who had improved crop seeds, and military officers who had repeatedly distinguished themselves in border clearing campaigns. They stood straight, their backs as erect as javelins, some of their lips moving slightly as if reciting something silently.

Minister of Rites Shen Zhibai walked to the front of the reviewing stand, unfurled an imperial decree, and read aloud in a resonant voice: "Having received the mandate of Fengtian, the Emperor hereby decrees: On this eighth day of the twelfth lunar month in the second year of Yongan, the Mid-Term Review and Commendation Ceremony of the Tang Country's First Five-Year Plan officially begins!"

Drums and music played in unison as the ceremonial cannons roared. Eighteen salvos fired in succession, shaking the snow off the eaves so that it drifted down, glittering like shattered silver in the sunlight. The crowd in the plaza erupted in waves of cheers, each wave higher than the last, like the rising tide washing against the ancient city walls, causing even the glazed tiles of Taihe Hall to vibrate slightly.

Li Ling stood up, walked to the front of the reviewing stand, and pressed his hands down to signal for silence. He looked around at the excited and expectant faces below—some lined with the wrinkles of time, some glowing with youth, some weathered by hardship, and others filled with the sharp vigor of newborn calves. Clearing his throat, his voice projected across the entire plaza through the newly installed loudspeakers, carrying a steady and powerful rhythm:

"Five years. I know that many of you here walked into our military camps and factories carrying nothing but a rolled-up bedpack and two rock-hard steamed buns. Back then, you didn't believe. You didn't believe we could win this war, you didn't believe these factory chimneys could billow smoke, and you didn't believe this railway could be built beyond the pass. But what about now?"

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the rough palms of the veteran worker—hands marked by over a dozen burn scars, where fingernails had fallen off and regrown time and again; sweeping over the bloodshot eyes of the engineer—eyes filled with strain, but also with light; sweeping over the white hair of the agriculturalist—hair that had turned white strand by strand out in the fields.

"Our steel production has quadrupled from three hundred thousand tons to one point two million tons! Our grain yields mean the common people finally do not have to starve in the winter! We have built eight thousand kilometers of railways, and our locomotives can transport soybeans from Liaodong to Lingnan, and lychees from Lingnan to Guanwai! Tell me—was it worth it?!"

"Yes—!!" The response from below was like a mountain torrent and a tsunami, shaking the snow off the eaves and causing the flags on the distant city walls to snap taut in the wind.

"You're damn right it was!" Li Ling's voice rose even higher, carrying an almost overbearing confidence. "But this is not the end! This is merely a comma! Next, our goal is not just 'to be well-fed and well-clothed'—it is 'to make the Great Powers tremble'!"

He took a gold medal from the attendant beside him. The medal, about five centimeters in diameter, featured an embossed design of a blast furnace crossed with a hammer on the front, and the four seal-script characters for "Yongan Hero" engraved on the back. He walked up to the veteran worker, personally pinned the medal to his chest, and patted his rough shoulder. "Brother, thank you for your hard work. That furnace of molten steel you poured cast the very backbone of our Tang Country."

The old worker's eyes welled with tears. His lips trembled, and in the end, he only choked out, "Your Majesty... I... I can work for another ten years!" His voice carried through the loudspeakers, prompting quiet sobs and a burst of applause from the crowd below.

Then came the second, the third... As each hero stepped forward, Li Ling personally pinned their medal, shook their hand, and offered a brief but sincere word of appreciation. The second was a young female teacher who had established ten literacy night schools on the frontier. The third was a military doctor who had saved over a hundred wounded soldiers during border conflicts. When Li Ling shook the teacher's hand, he said, "The students you teach will be the backbone of this nation in the future." Shaking the military doctor's hand, he said, "You didn't just save lives; you saved dozens of families."

Finally, he stood at the highest point of the reviewing stand, spreading his arms wide to face the dense crowd below and Jinling City in the distance. "Everyone, it has been five years. In these five years, we have defeated the United Fleet, wiped out the remaining domestic warlords, and reclaimed the lands and ports ceded to the Great Powers! But it is not enough—far from enough! Some stubborn elements in the south are still putting up a desperate resistance, scattered bandits still roam the northern deserts, and across the ocean, those robbers who once used gunboats to blast open our nation's gates are still watching us like hawks!"

His voice suddenly turned cold and resolute, like a hammer striking an anvil. "Therefore, I have decided—for the second half of the Five-Year Plan, we are going to 'go outward'! We will let those robbers know that the ships of the Tang Country do not just sail around our own doorstep!"

These words were like a stone cast into a lake, stirring up a thousand ripples in the hearts of the attendees. The eyes of the military officers lit up as they rubbed their hands in anticipation, the swords at their waists clinking softly with their movements. The civil officials looked thoughtful, whispering among themselves, some shaking their heads gently, others nodding slowly. In the very front row, the newly decorated engineer whispered to his companion, "His Majesty is really playing for keeps now..."

Standing on the side of the platform, the German Princess heard these words, a complex smile flashing in her eyes. She quietly touched a secret letter hidden in her sleeve—it was written to her by her father, Kaiser Wilhelm II. The gist of it was: if the Tang Country intended to use military force against Japan, the German Empire could provide support in intelligence and technology, but hoped the Tang Country would "appropriately" consider the German Empire's interests in Southeast Asia. The edges of the letter had already been worn fuzzy from her fingers rubbing them.

The banquet for the victory celebration lasted from the afternoon until late into the night. Inside Taihe Hall, the lights blazed, and cups were raised in toasts. Li Ling, accompanied by Empress Su Wanqing, went from table to table to offer toasts, speaking warm words and sharing a drink at each stop. After dozens of tables, his cheeks were flushed and his steps were slightly unsteady, but his eyes remained sharp and clear, like two blades concealed within his intoxication.

"Your Majesty," an old general said, holding up his wine cup with a flushed face, "this Old Zhang toasts you! That battle was truly satisfying! Those foreign devils won't dare loiter around our doorstep ever again!"

"We have to fight them again!" another young general chimed in, slapping the table. "We must take the fight right to their front door!"

Li Ling clinked cups with them and drained his drink. As he set down his cup, his gaze happened to sweep across the banquet hall, landing on a desk piled high with documents in a far corner. There, a new military map was slowly being unfurled—marked on it were the ports, shipyards, industrial zones, and vital shipping lanes of Japan's mainland. The map was densely covered with red arrows, each one precisely calculated.

He set down his wine cup. His voice was not loud, yet it clearly penetrated the noisy banquet hall, reaching the ears of every general: "What is the rush? One bite of food at a time, one battle at a time. Once this banquet is over, in three days, I will convene a meeting of high-ranking military commanders. At that time, I will announce a grand plan."

The clamor in the banquet hall instantly fell silent for a brief moment. The clinking of wine cups, the tapping of chopsticks against porcelain bowls, and the footsteps of the moving attendants all froze at that instant. Everyone knew that for Li Ling to speak of a "grand plan" in such a tone, it was bound to be no minor affair.

In the night sky outside the window, scattered fireworks were still bursting, their multicolored glow reflecting off the glazed tiles of Taihe Hall, casting a festive splendor. Yet beneath this festive scene, an invisible sword had already quietly slipped from its scabbard, pointing toward those islands beneath the horizon that were currently rearming. The edge of that blade gleamed with a cold, bloody light in the glow of the fireworks.

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