Deposed? I couldn't be happier! I wouldn't even be a dog to the crown prince.

"Vampire sucking? Technology theft?"

A few months ago, Inugami Oden's bold words might have resonated with a fervent enthusiasm among the Japanese missions to Tang China.

But now.

When this dilapidated wooden boat, battered and nearly destroyed by the storm, finally managed to dock at the pier of Dengzhou Port in the Tang Dynasty, it was a truly harrowing experience.

All the Japanese, including Inugami Oda-kuchi, tumbled and crawled off the deck.

Before they could even kiss this land rumored to be "paved with gold," their worldviews were completely shattered by the extremely terrifying and unreasonable industrialized scene before them.

There was no extremely rustic wooden pier as I had imagined.

What appeared before them was an extremely wide, massive dock, entirely constructed from an extremely hard gray "stone".

Dozens of giant gantry cranes, several meters high, were emitting extremely deep mechanical roars as they gently lifted boxes of extremely heavy cargo from the ships as if they were toys, and steadily placed them on the open ground on the shore.

"What...what kind of sorcery is that? Can the people of the Tang Dynasty really summon giants to carry goods?!"

A Japanese samurai was so frightened that he collapsed onto the flat cement ground, pointing at the huge crane with his eyes almost popping out of their sockets.

Inugami Oden swallowed a mouthful of saliva mixed with seawater, and barely managed to stand by holding onto a nearby iron pillar.

His originally extremely arrogant, even somewhat morbidly confident self-assurance was instantly shattered by this oncoming industrial democratization.

"No...this isn't sorcery..."

Inu no Mita Kuchi stared intently at the Tang Dynasty craftsmen operating the gantry crane, his voice trembling violently.

"This is...this is the mechanical art of the Tang Dynasty..."

"Baka! Are all the spies from Yamato Kingdom shit-eating? Who said the Tang Dynasty still relies on manpower to move things?!"

However, this is just the beginning.

When they, in a state of utter disarray, embarked on the official road to Chang'an under the guidance of officials from the Court of State Ceremonial.

Only then did they truly understand what it meant to experience utter despair that came from the very core of one's being.

There are no extremely bumpy dirt roads.

The official roads of the Tang Dynasty are currently being paved with rudimentary cement by the Ministry of Works' infrastructure-obsessed team led by Duan Lun.

What devastated them even more was...

As they rode in that extremely simple oxcart, slowly inching along the official road.

"Ugh—!"

It was accompanied by an extremely piercing and sharp long howl.

A colossal steel beast, spewing thick black smoke, dragged a long string of metal carriages along the parallel track beside it at an extremely violent and unreasonable speed.

They roared past them!

The terrifying roar of the machinery and the swirling coal dust in the wind terrified the oxen pulling the cart so much that they foamed at the mouth and collapsed to the ground.

The Japanese delegation was so frightened that they all covered their heads and lay on the ground, their crotches soaked with sweat.

"This...this is the divine beast of the Tang Dynasty?"

Inugami Odenkuchi lay on the ground, staring at the steam train that had been reduced to a black dot, his eyes filled with a profound fear and an extremely morbid, even twisted, greed.

"Such a divine artifact...if it could fall into the hands of the Yamato Kingdom..."

"Even if I have to act like a coward, even if I have to be a dog, I'll steal its blueprints back!"

With this extremely twisted mentality, Inugami Oden and his group finally arrived at the outskirts of Chang'an City with great difficulty.

however.

When they saw the scene outside Chang'an, they were completely dumbfounded.

There was none of the grand and enthusiastic welcoming ceremony they had imagined.

Because the area outside Chang'an City is now completely packed with delegations from hundreds of countries!

From the remaining small kingdoms in the Western Regions, to Persia and the Abbasid Caliphate in the Middle East, and then to Baekje and Silla in the east.

Those envoys dressed in all sorts of strange and extremely flamboyant costumes, with camel caravans and carriages stretching as far as the eye could see, completely blocked the official road outside Chang'an City. The procession even stretched for a full ten miles!

"Is the Great Tang Dynasty holding some extremely grand ceremony lately? Why are so many countries coming to pay homage?"

Inugami Mitako pulled aside a nearby Silla envoy, puzzled, and asked.

The Silla envoy gave the short, stocky man a look of utter contempt and sneered as if he were an idiot.

"Paying homage? What do you know, you bumpkin from the East China Sea?"

"Who has the mind for all this empty court greetings? We've come here to beg the Tang Dynasty for refuge!"

The Silla envoy pointed to the East Palace Arsenal, which was not far away and was constantly emitting thick black smoke.

"Haven't you heard? The Tang Dynasty has not only created those heavenly thunder weapons that can flatten city walls with a single shot, but they've even created those steel dragons that can travel a thousand miles a day without eating grass!"

"All thirty-six kingdoms of the Western Regions have been razed to the ground! Even the Tibetan Empire, a highland overlord, is now building railways and doing hard labor for the Tang Dynasty!"

The Silla envoy lowered his voice in extreme fear as he spoke, and even glanced warily in the direction of Chang'an.

"If we don't hurry up and send our gold and silver treasures over here, we can ask the Great Khan of the Tang Dynasty to designate a 'special protection zone' for us, or ask the Crown Prince of the Tang Dynasty to grant us a few 'Tang Dynasty green cards'."

"I'm afraid it won't be long before our country is destroyed without even knowing how it was wiped out!"

Upon hearing these words...

Inugami Oden felt a buzzing sound in his head, as if an extremely heavy hammer had slammed into the top of his head.

He was proud of the Yamato Kingdom, and he found the Tang Dynasty extremely mysterious and powerful.

It turns out that in other people's eyes, it was no longer a simple mortal empire.

Instead, it is a high-dimensional divine kingdom that possesses extremely terrifying divine punishment power and can reduce dimensions to strike everything at any time!

"What...what should we do? All the gifts we brought..."

Inugami Oden looked at the extremely shabby oxcarts behind him, which were only loaded with some scrap metal and a few cheap animal hides.

He originally thought he could fool the Tang emperor with these tattered items and exchange them for a large amount of silk and technology.

But now look at the several carts of extremely dazzling, top-quality gems belonging to the Persian envoys next to them.

He suddenly realized with profound clarity what despair truly meant.

Meanwhile, inside Chang'an City.

Tang Jian, the Minister of the Court of State Ceremonial, an extremely shrewd old fox who was in charge of the diplomacy of the Tang Dynasty, was now like a very disheveled stray dog.

He even managed to knock his official hat askew, and in utter despair, he rushed into the study of the Eastern Palace.

"Your Highness! Your Highness the Crown Prince, please save me!"

Tang Jian, in a completely unseemly manner, knelt down in front of Li Chengqian's desk with a "thump," tears streaming down his face.

"Those foreign envoys have all gone mad!"

"They even drew their swords and started fighting each other outside the city walls in their rush to queue up to enter and pay their respects!"

"They almost smashed the gates of my Court of State Ceremonial with gold bricks! Some of them even tried to stuff ten stunning Persian dancers into my lap just to cut in line!"

Li Chengqian leaned back lazily on the soft couch, toying with an exquisitely crafted Mo family music box in his hand.

He didn't even lift his eyelids as he listened to Tang Jian's extremely pitiful sobs.

"Oh? Ten Persian dancers? Lord Tang is quite the ladies' man."

Li Chengqian made a sarcastic remark with extreme cunning, then slowly sat up straight.

He casually tossed the music box onto the table, and a chilling glint flashed in his extremely deep and sharp eyes.

"Do these barbarians really think the Tang Dynasty is a charitable organization?"

"You think you can curry favor with the Tang Dynasty with just a few pieces of scrap metal?"

Li Chengqian looked at the mountain of visiting cards on the table, all of which were extremely humble requests for an audience, and gave a disdainful sneer.

"Tell them they want to see me? Sure."

"Then it must be done according to my rules, according to the rules of the Tang Dynasty!"