Chapter 1159: Sowing Discord

"What Your Majesty says is absolutely correct. I fear the Western Lands will be in chaos for a while, though I believe we can certainly make the Western Lands even more chaotic."

The sky gradually darkened, and the streetlights outside the Imperial Study lit up.

Dong An could not help but use his peripheral vision to size up the night scene within the Capital City while offering his suggestion.

During his days in Petersburg, he and the Supervision Four Courts provided mutual support and gathered quite a bit of intelligence on the Xitu Guo.

Based on this intelligence, he deduced the relationships between the Xitu Guo.

"Is that so? Tell me about it." Zhao Xu, upon hearing this, showed great interest.

In truth, he had vaguely guessed what it might be, but because he possessed very little intelligence, he did not want to make reckless deductions.

Dong An organized his thoughts and slowly said, "Your Majesty should be clearer than I am on one thing: that in every corner of this world, there exist nations and peoples with the mentality of a great power. Just like Persia, even though they submit to the Ottomans, the pride within their hearts will still drive them to cast off their rule. At present, there are also two places in the Western Lands with the mentality of a great power: one is the Gaul, and the other is the Germanic people."

Zhao Xu nodded; this coincided exactly with his own thoughts.

"However, because Britain is currently the number one great power in the Western Lands and has seized upon the conflict between the Western Lands and Ross, holding many Xitu Guo hostage, Frank and Prussia have also had to yield to pressure and follow Britain. Of course, the fear of our Great Song is also one of the reasons they are united," Dong An continued to explain to Zhao Xu.

"Do you mean for Me to improve relations with these two countries and establish exchanges?" Zhao Xu interjected.

"Yes." Dong An seemed very firm in his idea.

Several diplomatic missions, having endured layers of danger, had given the shrewd man a bit more self-confidence.

He continued, "Of course, Frank and Prussia will not agree to establish diplomatic relations with our Great Song. After all, Ross is different from them. To them, the Ross people are barbarians from the North, while they are the masters of the Western Lands, bearing more responsibility for the Western Lands, and their hostility toward our Great Song is also very deep."

"But regardless of whether they are willing to establish diplomatic relations with us, we must strike a pose of being willing to interact with them." At this moment, Zhao Xu and Dong An said almost the exact same thing.

Having said this, the two looked at each other and smiled.

Zhao Xu said, "I understand your meaning. Let your Foreign Affairs Department handle this matter.

If Frank and Prussia are willing to improve relations with our Great Song, that would be best. Even if it does not succeed, it will still drive a wedge between them and Britain."

Currently, what Britain fears most is the birth of a second disobedient Ross in the Western Lands.

And Frank and Prussia are the most likely to become the second Ross.

In fact, if not for Great Song and Ross, the relationship between these three countries in the Western Lands would be like the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.

In essence, the three countries never trusted each other to begin with; they were only temporarily bound together due to common interests.

Therefore, just as Dong An said, he does not need to force the establishment of diplomatic relations with these two countries; he only needs to strike a pose of actively wanting to establish diplomatic relations with them.

In this way, friction will inevitably arise between the three countries, making it impossible for them to cooperate deeply.

If these two countries show even a hint of hesitation when faced with Great Song's olive branch, rather than resolute opposition, that would be even better; the relationship between the three countries would be even more likely to rupture.

Because in the current atmosphere of the Western world, not being thoroughly anti-Great Song is the same as not being anti-Great Song at all!

"Yes, Your Majesty." Dong An bowed in acknowledgment.

The two chatted for a while longer about trivial matters, then Dong An took his leave of Zhao Xu and departed the study.

Walking outward along the corridor of Wuji Palace, which was brightly lit by streetlights, Dong An took a deep breath of air.

Having been away from Great Song for over a year, he missed everything about this place immensely.

Yet what excited him even more were the rapid, daily changes in Great Song.

In just one year, Yancheng had become somewhat unfamiliar to him.

There were many more high-rise buildings under construction in the city.

The changes in the countryside were also significant.

When he passed by a village, he even saw steam tractors, Steam Harvesters, and other farming machinery in the village.

After asking, he learned that these machines were purchased by the village through pooled funds and belonged to the Collective Farm.

This kind of large Collective Farm was part of the production plan for Great Song's large-scale farms.

Individual families in Great Song did not have the financial resources of large merchants to hire farm workers and purchase machinery to maintain a very large farm.

If no way was found for them, this portion of farmers would remain in the traditional agriculture of small-scale self-cultivators and would also be the poorest group in the future.

Thus, the Imperial Court launched the Collective Farm.

They allocated large tracts of farmland to them, and every villager held a share of the dividends. After all, Great Song currently had plenty of land; the only worry was having too few people, not having too much land.

Because of this, the dividends from just one year of the Collective Farm made the villagers quite wealthy, with incomes no lower than those of the people who entered factories.

And the people who had money also became generous; within the Imperial Court's planning, they built two-story villas in the countryside with gardens in the front, in the traditional architectural style of Great Song.

This made the villagers who had initially built red-tiled houses envious; some families simply tore down the red-tiled houses that hadn't even been up for a few years and learned from other villagers to build these new-style villas.

At the same time, due to proper planning, these country villas were arranged very neatly, and cement roads were paved in front of every house, making the countryside appear to have caught up with the pace of Great Song's progress.