Did he trick the young marshal into becoming sworn brothers and then go south to Huangpu Military Ac

"My brother hopes to have another chance to have a proper contest with you."

The words fell.

The entire operations room was deathly silent; you could hear a pin drop.

The veterans, unaware of the situation, exchanged bewildered glances, not understanding what Zhang Hanqing meant by those words.

Provocation or what?

However, while others might not understand, how could Yang Yuting not know what it meant?!

After hearing this, the match in his hand, which was already half-burnt, froze in mid-air.

The flames licked his fingers, emitting a burnt smell, but he seemed completely oblivious to the pain.

The face, which had regained some color, lost all color almost instantly, turning ashen white as a dead person's face.

In extreme shock, Yang Yuting's pupils shrank to two tiny pinpoints.

This is not about heroes respecting heroes at all; it's about Lin Tuozhi challenging him from thousands of miles away.

The meaning is clear: Yang Yuting, this matter is not over today. You did the first day, I will do the fifteenth. We'll see each other on the battlefield in the future.

Of course, Yang Yuting didn't know that Lin Qi was incapable of doing such a thing.

Lin Qi's personality is such that even if he sells you out, you'll still help him count the money; it's like the saying goes, "A dog that bites doesn't bark."

What he just said was just the young marshal's wicked humor, a way to vent his anger.

However, Yang Yuting, who considered himself a wise man, seemed to see that young man in a gray Zhongshan suit standing in a southern arsenal, coldly pushing reloaded shells into the chamber, aiming the cannon at Fengtian.

"Clatter".

The match slipped from Yang Yuting's trembling fingertips, fell to the ground, and went out.

An unprecedented, bone-chilling coldness completely enveloped this top strategist of the Fengtian Army.

……

The British cruise ship Elizabeth is cutting through the calm, deep blue waves of the Bohai Bay, slowly heading south with a long, high-pitched whistle.

This steel behemoth, with a displacement of tens of thousands of tons, was at that time a moving, unsinkable, luxurious island on the Far East sea.

Inside the first-class cabin, the dark red solid wood paneling gleamed with a thick, oily sheen under the orange wall lamps.

The Persian carpet was so thick it could swallow all footsteps, and the air was filled with a faint scent of cedar incense and expensive tobacco.

Lin Qi stood by the round porthole, looking at the lonely moon outside the window, its surface shattered by the waves, while swirling a half-full glass of Scotch whisky with ice in his hand.

The ice cubes struck the crystal glass, producing a crisp, tinkling sound that seemed particularly jarring in the deathly quiet room.

"Old man, Yang Yuting..."

Lin Qi took a sip of whiskey, the coolness and heat mingling in his throat, causing his eyes, which were slightly tired from the long journey, to regain a chilling glint.

This trip to Fengtian was the closest he had come to death in the past six months.

He originally thought that with his industrial logic, financial models, and accurate predictions of historical trends, which were a hundred years ahead of the times, he would be able to be a detached player in this power game of the Republic of China.

But reality gave him a resounding slap in the face.

The old coach silently and tacitly approved of the deed being done through a proxy, while Yang Yuting's apology was worthy of an Oscar.

None of these powerful figures who left their mark on history were NPCs following a script.

They possess the keenness of a wolf, the ruthlessness of a viper, and the most sophisticated and cold-blooded political maneuvering.

"Still too weak."

Lin Qi looked at the young man's reflection in the porthole and murmured to himself.

In Fengtian, he seemed to have perfect strategies, but in reality, he was walking a tightrope.

If Zhang Hanqing hadn't retained some sense of chivalry, and if he hadn't decisively fled, he would probably be a pile of rotten flesh in the old forests of Changbai Mountain by now.

Ultimately, it's because he had no guns and no soldiers.

His so-called influence was nothing more than a parasitic vine clinging to the cracks in the power struggles among warlord factions. Once the host found him an eyesore, a single pinch would send him to his demise.

"To protect ourselves, we must become stronger. To become stronger, we must have our own industrial base and war machine that are not controlled by anyone."

Lin Qi turned around, walked to the large mahogany desk, and opened the recent issues of The Wall Street Journal and The Financial Times.

September.

Following the trajectory of history, Wall Street across the Atlantic is brewing an epic bull market that could drive the world into a frenzy.

That was Coolidge's golden age of prosperity, and also the most greedy revelry of the capitalist devil.

"The expansion of the Ishii Arsenal's production capacity requires money, the formation of a mechanized army requires money, buying airplanes, manufacturing gunpowder, and advancing technological advancements—each of these is a bottomless money-devouring beast."

Lin Qi picked up a pen and quickly wrote down a series of mathematical formulas and financial models on a piece of white paper.

He planned to use this transit trip to Shanghai to remotely control the Kong-Soong family's two million dollars on Wall Street. He intended to use the money from those Americans to forge an iron armor for himself amidst this great prosperity.

That night, Lin Qi stayed indoors and didn't go out.

He declined the first-class butler's enthusiastic invitation to dinner, and simply had the waiter bring the food to his room.

Like a highly precise computer, he frantically reviewed his gains and losses in Fengtian under the dim light, and deduced the upcoming battle between Jiangsu and Zhejiang.