Empire Conquest

Chapter 678 - 15 Everything is Ready

Imperial Capital, Prime Minister Mansion, 12:00 noon.

After lunch, Zhou Yongtao returned to his study.

Earlier that morning, he had received a message from Shi Shouliang at the Joint Headquarters, stating that the military deployment against Iraq was all in place.

In other words, it was just waiting for an order from the Grand Secretary.

In Zhou Yongtao’s view, there was still one necessary condition missing.

Despite not participating in the military exercises organized by the General Staff Department or even inquiring about military matters, as a former Navy Marshal of the Empire, Zhou Yongtao clearly understood the current situation and knew what the Imperial Army should be most concerned about in the upcoming battles.

Correct, it was fighting on two fronts.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have arranged for Bai Huamin, acting as a special envoy, to take a flight organized by the Military Intelligence Bureau overnight to Doha for a secret meeting with the envoy from Boi Country.

While it was reasonable to believe that, compared to the Liangxia Empire, Boi Country harbored greater animosity toward the Baghdad regime, or felt a greater threat from Baghdad, because the actions of the Liangxia Authorities could still be logically inferred, whereas a military dictator’s actions were completely unpredictable. However, everyone overlooked a very crucial issue, which was the influence of the Newland Republic over the Boi Country authorities.

Fundamentally, the eight-year Iran-Iraq War was a farce orchestrated jointly by the Tiaoman Empire and the Newland Republic to gain regional discourse power.

The key details were unknown to the outside world, but the Imperial Chief Minister couldn’t possibly be unaware.

Despite losing the Boi War previously, the Liangxia Empire maintained its dominance in the Bossa Bay area through the subsequently enacted "Moat Strategy."

The most convincing fact was that global oil trade was still settled in Gold Yuan with the support of states on the southern shore of Bossa Bay.

The Gold Yuan of the Liangxia Empire, linked to oil, accounted for sixty percent of global trade settlements, far exceeding the Gold Marks of the Tiaoman Empire and the New Newland Dollars of the Newland Republic. With Gold Yuan, the Liangxia Empire firmly grasped international financial hegemony.

According to estimates by international institutions, the Liangxia Empire gained over a trillion Gold Yuan in invisible benefits annually in the financial sector, thanks to its coinage rights.

It was with this "coinage" income that the Liangxia Empire was able to solidly hold its position as the world’s top hegemon.

Boi Country, having struggled for over a decade to attain independence, lacked the strength to challenge the Liangxia Empire.

In this war lasting over a decade, to expel the Ter and Liangxia armies, Boi Country paid a heavy price with six million casualties. In just the last six years of the war, intense strategic bombings by the Liangxia Army resulted in over three million military and civilian casualties.

As for property damage, it was completely incalculable.

These costs were not ordinary by any means!

Moreover, the Liangxia Empire’s ultimately pulling out its troops was fundamentally aimed at preserving its hegemony or, in other words, to cut losses.

In summary, by the time the Liangxia Empire had recovered, which was just before Zhou Yongtao took office, Bossa Bay was still firmly in the hands of the Empire.

In light of this situation, the Tiaoman Empire and the Newland Republic almost had no choice.

To put it bluntly, as long as the Liangxia Empire was given a few years, or at most a dozen years, to regain its momentum, it could use the strong winds of the second military revolution to reassert its control over the New Moon Region, situated between the East and West, known as the "Crossroads of Civilizations," and consolidate its position as the world’s top hegemon.

It was against this backdrop that the Tiaoman Empire and the Newland Republic jointly plotted the Iran-Iraq War.

In this eight-year-long war, Iraq, directly supported by the Tiaoman Empire, and Boi Country, assisted by the Newland Republic, were engaged in fierce, indistinguishable combat.

In the end, however, neither of the warring states was the beneficiary.

When both sides signed the ceasefire agreement, Iraq’s national economy was in ruins, and the dissatisfaction among grassroots citizens with the Baghdad regime peaked.

The situation in Boi Country wasn’t much better.

That’s right, the beneficiaries were the Tiaoman Empire and the Newland Republic.

Over those eight years, the Tiaoman Empire and West Continent Corporation sold 77 billion Gold Marks’ worth of arms to Iraq, accounting for seventy percent of the total arms exports during that period. Boi Country was the top buyer from Newland arms companies, with total imports exceeding 300 billion Newland Dollars, almost sixty percent of Newland’s arms export.

With the excess profits earned from arms exports, the Tiaoman Empire barely kept pace with the second military revolution, while the Newland Republic gained the capital to compete with the Liangxia Empire.

In contrast, the scale of arms exports from the Liangxia Empire not only did not expand in those years but actually contracted somewhat.

However, arms trade wasn’t the key.

After the war, Iraq became more dependent on the Tiaoman Empire, and Boi Country fully leaned towards the Newland Republic.

Through this eight-year war, which resulted in millions of military and civilian casualties and displaced tens of millions of innocent civilians, the two superpowers finally realized their long-cherished wish to return to Bossa Bay.

With the two proxy nations, the Tiaoman Empire and the Newland Republic could at least influence the situation in Bossa Bay.

This was also the root of Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait.

To get to the bottom of it, it was actually the fault of the Liangxia Empire.

After the end of the Iran-Iraq War, the Iraq authorities did not thank the Liangxia Empire for its indirect support during the war, had a falling out with the Liangxia Empire over critical oil field development projects, and then, citing violations of its domestic laws, confiscated the exploration rights of Liangxia corporations in the Iraqi oil fields.