The Hall of Supreme Harmony, the very heart of the Forbidden City, had not seen a gathering of such grim-faced men in a generation. The highest ministers and grand councillors of the Empire, the marshals of the newly forged army, and the wizened elders of the imperial clan were all assembled, their sumptuous silk robes a stark contrast to the funereal mood that filled the cavernous space. The air was thick with the unspoken. News of the disastrous first battle in Siberia had spread like a contagion through the upper echelons of power. The Emperor's new, seemingly invincible army had been dealt a bloody and humiliating blow on its very first outing.
They stood in tense, silent clusters, their whispers like the rustling of dry leaves. They were men accustomed to the absolute, almost divine, infallibility of their sovereign. This sudden, shocking failure had introduced a terrifying new variable into their world: doubt. They expected recriminations. They expected a hunt for scapegoats. Perhaps the ambitious General Duan Qirui would lose his command, or even his head. They expected the Emperor to announce a strategic pause, a reassessment of the war, a more cautious approach.
The great bronze doors at the far end of the hall swung open. A single eunuch's voice, high and clear, announced the arrival of the Son of Heaven.
Qin Shi Huang entered, and a wave of profound silence rolled through the hall. He moved with a slow, deliberate grace, his presence so immense and overpowering that it seemed to physically compress the air in the room. He wore not the elaborate ceremonial dragon robes, but a simple, severe tunic of black silk, the color of a starless midnight sky. He ascended the dais and settled onto the Dragon Throne, his face a mask of cold, unreadable tranquility.
He looked out over the sea of bowed heads, at the most powerful men in his empire, and let the silence stretch, letting their anxiety and uncertainty build to an almost unbearable pressure.
When he finally spoke, his voice was not loud, but it possessed a strange, resonant quality that filled every corner of the vast hall. It was the voice of a man speaking not to his subjects, but to history itself.
He did not speak of the defeat. He did not speak of the blunted spear, the ambushed cavalry, or the empty warehouses. He did not mention the failure at all, dismissing it with a contemptuous silence that was more damning than any tirade.
"The limited punitive action against the Russian Empire is over," he declared, each word landing like a hammer blow on an anvil. "It has failed. It was destined to fail. Not because our armies are weak, or our generals incompetent." He paused, his dark eyes sweeping across the assembly. "It failed because our ambition was too small."
A ripple of confusion and shock passed through the ministers. Too small? They had just launched the largest foreign invasion in the dynasty's history.
Qin Shi Huang rose from the throne and descended the dais, a shocking breach of imperial protocol. He walked to the center of the hall, where, on his orders, a massive, European-made map of the world had been mounted on a heavy teakwood frame. It was a statement in itself, a declaration that his focus was no longer confined to the Middle Kingdom.
He gestured to the vast, sprawling expanse of green that represented the Russian Empire. "The Romanov dynasty," he said, his voice dripping with an ancient, absolute contempt, "is a diseased relic. It is a house of rot and decay, built on a foundation of peasant suffering and gilded with gaudy, tasteless baubles. It is a dynasty that has forgotten how to rule, led by a weak-willed fool who plays with toys while his empire crumbles. It is unworthy to govern a paper village, let alone the largest contiguous nation on the face of the earth."
He turned back to face his stunned council. "Therefore, our strategic objective has changed. Our goal is no longer to punish Russia. Our goal," he let the words hang in the silent air, pregnant with impossible meaning, "is to dismantle it."
The assembled officials stared at him, their faces a mixture of awe and utter terror. This was not strategy. This was madness. A limited border war was one thing; a war of annihilation against the largest army in Europe was a suicidal fantasy.
But the Emperor was not finished. He was just beginning to unveil the true, breathtaking scale of his vision.
"A beast as large and cumbersome as the Russian Bear cannot be slain with a single spear thrust from one direction," he continued, his voice calm and dangerously reasonable. "It must be attacked from the front and the back simultaneously. It must be torn apart."
He pointed a single, imperious finger at the heart of Europe on the map, at the dark, aggressive shape of the German Empire.
"Therefore, I have already acted. A secret envoy, carrying my personal seal, departed from Shanghai two weeks ago. He is, as we speak, on a fast cruiser bound for Hamburg. He carries a proposal for the German Emperor, Kaiser Wilhelm II."
The ministers exchanged horrified, uncomprehending glances. A secret pact with a Western power? It was unthinkable.
Qin Shi Huang laid out the terms of his grand, world-altering gambit, his voice as cold and precise as a geometer plotting lines on a chart.
"The proposal is brutally simple, the kind of proposal a man like the German Kaiser, who is all ambition and ego, will understand. I am offering him a grand alliance. A two-front war against a common geopolitical rival. The German armies, the finest in the world, will invade from the west, driving through Poland and towards Moscow. My armies," his finger swept across Siberia, "will advance from the east. We will crush their armies between us like grain between two millstones."
He drew an imaginary line down the center of the map with his finger. "When our victorious forces meet at the Ural Mountains, the war will be over. The Romanov dynasty will be erased from the pages of history. The spoils will be divided according to the simple logic of geography. The German Empire will become the undisputed master of European Russia, its 'living space' secured for a century. And the Qing Empire," his voice dropped, taking on a tone of implacable destiny, "will become the master of all Asia, from the shores of the Pacific to the spine of the Urals. A new world order, born in the ashes of the old."
The council was stunned into absolute, horrified silence. They were not fools. They understood the implications. This was not a plan for a regional war. This was a lit match held to the powder keg of the entire world. A pact to dismember Russia would never be tolerated by the other Great Powers. It would be a direct threat to the British Empire's interests in Central Asia, a dagger pointed at the heart of their Indian Raj. It would be an existential threat to France, Russia's primary European ally. This was not a plan for conquest. It was a declaration of war on the existing global order. It was a gamble for total dominion or total, cataclysmic annihilation. There would be no middle ground.
Qin Shi Huang looked at the pale, stunned faces of his ministers, his expression one of unwavering, almost serene, resolve. He saw their fear, their doubt, and it filled him with a cold contempt. They were still thinking like mandarins, like courtiers. They could not see what he saw.
"The Great Game the Westerners are so proud of playing is a child's pastime," he declared, his voice rising, echoing in the silent hall like the judgment of a god. "They scheme for small colonies, for treaty ports, for spheres of influence. They are mice nibbling at the edges of the world. We will not nibble. We will devour."
He turned and strode back towards the throne, his black robes sweeping behind him.
"The war for Siberia is over. The war for the world has just begun."
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