CHAPTER 1529: CHAPTER 1446: THE OFFENSIVE THAT NEVER CAME

For many officials of the Great Tang Empire, recent events have indeed been numerous. But for those high-positioned people on the Eastern Continent, the days of anxiety are even more unbearable.

Almost everyone knows the Great Tang Empire’s ambition, and they do not doubt the fact that the Great Tang Empire is planning to invade the Eastern Continent.

However, they hope the invasion will happen within the next year or two, because they really aren’t too sure how powerful the Great Tang Empire will become in two years.

If hundreds of thousands of Tang Army troops attack across the sea, these empires still believe they have some confidence in blocking the Tang Army on the beach, making the Great Tang Empire suffer a defeat and obediently roll back to the Western Continent, abandoning the idea of unifying the world.

But if the Great Tang Empire develops for a few more years on the Western Continent, no one knows what bizarre new weapons the Tang Country will come up with...

After all, the Great Tang Empire needed only a year to produce a bolt-action rifle surpassing the flintlock gun, and in less than two years developed explosive shells and howitzers, simultaneously developing the steam engine.

Within ten years, they produced trains and airships, and even tanks, and within fifteen years, airplanes were flying all over the sky. And in less than five years, the Great Tang Empire came up with ballistic missiles, this heaven-defying stuff.

Who knows what Tang Mo will come up with after getting two more years, this emperor of the Great Tang Empire is full of whimsical ideas—in fact, they don’t know that the Great Tang Empire has launched countless reconnaissance satellites and has already started a global satellite navigation system.

They can’t know everything, they only know that the Great Tang Empire has a new reconnaissance method, but don’t know this thing is a few hundred kilometers above their heads...

So, from the Ice Cold Empire in the far north of the Eastern Continent, to the far south Dorne Empire, everyone is waiting for the Great Tang Empire to come over and hoping the Great Tang Empire will attack soon.

And the Tang Army’s predestined attack direction is the southernmost part of the Eastern Continent, Dorne. Here, the Dorne Empire has prepared over 2 million troops for the Tang Army, and more than 10,000 cannons, 2,000 tanks, and a full 3,500 aircraft of various models.

The ability to gather such a massive force is due to the secret support of other countries. They provided Dorne with many jet engines, enabling Dorne to quickly form a large-scale jet fighter aircraft force.

Although the pilots flying these planes lack training, Dorne the First believes that solely relying on quantity, his troops have confidence in driving the Tang Army fighting across the sea back into the sea!

Unfortunately, after self-assuming that they were fully prepared, the Great Tang Empire’s landing troops are still nowhere to be seen.

The Great Tang Empire seems to have forgotten that it is still at war status, besides using fleets to harass Dorne’s coast; there’s not the slightest bit of preparation for landing combat across the sea.

Those damned officials of the Great Tang Empire are busy managing the lands they newly occupied, and the Great Tang Empire’s military stays put at the locations without moving.

Everything is developing toward the result that everyone least wants to see, the Great Tang Empire is not eager to rush into armed aggression, instead, Tang Mo maintains restraint, calmly handling all current affairs.

When May ended and June began, the Great Tang Empire still had no action to make peace or start full-scale warfare, they’re just quietly engaging in their entertainment, strengthening themselves day by day.

This is very annoying, for when an empire is climbing its way up, each day its enemies wait is a kind of torment.

The current situation of the Great Tang Empire is similar to Huaxia after entering the second decade of the twenty-first century; as long as they endure the provocation from opponents, each day the gap closes, gaining more chances of victory.

The difference is, the Great Tang Empire itself is the powerful party, and it doesn’t even face the crisis of being suppressed by opponents, it just needs to develop slowly and that’s enough.

In July, the Great Tang Empire’s fleet once again raided Dorne’s Winterless Port, bombarded Winterless City, causing great economic loss to Dorne.

In August of that year, northern regions of the Great Tang Empire where agriculture was resumed began to harvest some crops. The entire Great Tang Empire entered a bountiful harvest state, and no one seemed willing to inquire about the so-called expansion war on the Eastern Continent anymore.

By September, more and more regions started fall harvesting; it was finally time to test the Great Tang Empire. Many regions in Shu Territory and Qin Territory had harvests, because the Great Tang Empire provided new seed varieties, the crop yield in these areas was about thirty percent higher than in the past.

This outcome achieved under the unfavorable condition of short planting time and farmers not being too familiar with the new seeds finally allowed local farmers to breathe a sigh of relief.

A few months ago they were reluctant to use the seeds provided by the Great Tang Empire, now they are eager to continue planting, continuing to plant the crop seeds offered by the Great Tang Empire.

And when the agricultural subsidies from the Great Tang Empire were handed to these farmers, the local officials began to feel the somewhat rugged folk customs of the locals.

Countless farmers gathered, merging along the roads into a sea of people so frightening that the local garrison almost thought a rebellion was brewing within their jurisdiction.

Later it was discovered, these people came to the government office to thank the officials of the Great Tang Empire. At first, it was just a few people from one village, but who knew more people joined, even bringing various foods and money.

The situation in Shu Territory is similar, when agricultural subsidies officially started being distributed, public sentiment completely stabilized. Combined with factory recruitment salaries being paid normally for three, four months consecutively, local residents have already started voluntarily cherishing their happy lives.

For a time, the enthusiasm of common folk soared, the protracted security war Tang Mo worried about did not appear, instead, local people led the way, enabling the Tang Army to easily annihilate the bandits and outlaws entrenched in the mountains.

With the support of local residents, and the sweat and toil of the Orc workers, the Great Tang Empire’s infrastructure is improving at speed visible to the naked eye.

Because no costs are spared, these massive projects are designed in terms of centuries, someone once semi-joked and semi-boasted that the Great Tang Empire spends more money on building sewers than some countries on total infrastructure funding.

Under the boost of infrastructure, as the Great Tang Empire occupies the entire Western Continent its new wave of industrial development kicked off, and the economic prosperity brought by trade even shows a trend of money in Tang Mo’s hands being spent more widely...