Seven Seas Beacon Fire

The Secretary of State's words left Warren Gallimard speechless, and he couldn't help but wonder what kind of opponents Colombia had fought in the past world wars.

Do you think the prophecy will come true?

Faced with the question posed by the President, the Secretary of State paused for a moment before replying, "As far as I know of Eastern history, there was indeed an emperor who, in a war that determined the fate of the nation, received the help of a meteorite falling from the sky and defeated his opponent..."

"A meteorite falling from the sky?" President Gallim looked puzzled. "That sounds like a king in Colombia suddenly pulling a sword from the stone when facing foreign invasion."

"A good analogy, but if King Arthur's sword were pulled out of the stone now, it's hard to say who it would actually cut." The Secretary of State also made a timely joke, which is just like the relationship between Columbia and Victoria.

"So what should we do? We still have a considerable number of officials and troops in Edo, and I believe they will soon learn about this prophecy. Do you think we need to withdraw our personnel?"

"Although I am a Christian, I do not believe that anyone in this world can accurately predict the exact day, several months from now, when a large-scale natural disaster will occur. God may be able to do it, the devil may be able to do it, but humans certainly cannot."

"So you think that the Crown Prince is lying?"

“If he were an ordinary person, he might be lying, but since he is the crown prince of the Tang Empire, I think it’s possible that the Embroidered Uniform Guard might want to do something, such as using explosives to disguise it as a natural accident.”

"You mean, the disaster that happens might be man-made?"

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Chapter 387 The Wanggongchang Explosion Replica?

A phone call was made to Isaiah Bowman, who was preparing to move. After hanging up, he stood there for a long time, puzzled, until his wife came downstairs and asked him curiously, "Honey, who called?"

“The White House,” Isaiah Bowman said.

"The White House?" His wife's eyes widened slightly in surprise. "But President Wilson has already..."

"I don't know why the Republican president wanted to talk to me, but it seems like they're in a real hurry."

"President Gamelier wouldn't be looking for you...."

"Don't overthink it. Not to mention that President Gamelier and President Wilson have no personal grudges, even if they did, it wouldn't involve me."

Isaiah Bowman was born in 878. Although he now appears to live in an ordinary residence in Washington, D.C., he is actually no ordinary person.

With an early focus on physical geography research, Bauman has an outstanding educational background. He graduated from Harvard University in 05 and received his Ph.D. in Philosophy from Yale University in 09, during which time he served as a lecturer in physical geography at Yale University.

He led three expeditions to the Andes Mountains of South America (July, November, and 2013), systematically studying the topography, vegetation distribution, and regional ecology. His masterpiece, "The Southern Andes of Peru," has become a classic in Andean geography.

Normally, this man's life trajectory would have been to become an extraordinary geographer, and in fact he did. Starting in 15, he served as the president of the Columbia Geographical Association. However, his life ambitions were not limited to this.

During the World War, his research shifted to human geography, with a particular focus on territorial division, colonial borders, and national self-determination. He later published "The New World: Some Problems in Political Geography" (translated into Chinese as "The New World After the War"), proposing the theory of "national self-determination" and analyzing the logic of postwar European territorial reorganization, which became a landmark work in political geography.

In the process, he successfully became an important member of President Wilson's staff and, as President Wilson's chief territorial advisor, led the demarcation of the borders in Central and Eastern Europe, introducing the principle of national self-determination into practical political operations. It can be said that he had a great influence on the formulation of the territorial clauses of the Treaty of Versailles.

(The postwar order in this book is composed of the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of Honolulu. The Treaty of Honolulu here is not the Honolulu Naval Treaty.)

Isaiah Bauman may not be the most authoritative scholar in geography in all of Colombia, but scholars who are more authoritative than him do not have his political acumen, and those with his political acumen are far inferior to him in terms of professional geographical competence.

“I think I have a general idea of ​​why His Excellency the President invited me to the White House.” Isaiah Bowman said as he rummaged through a packed suitcase and pulled out a few documents. Just as he finished looking at the documents, the sound of car brakes came from outside.

Isaiah Bowman's wife was clearly still a little uneasy, because in her eyes, there were already some men in suits gathered outside her house. However, Isaiah Bowman remained very calm. He glanced outside and said somewhat displeasedly, "The people who came to pick me up left before I even received the invitation call. I knew I wouldn't have a chance to refuse."

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In less than an hour, Isaiah Bowman arrived at the Oval Office of the White House, where President Gary Maier warmly welcomed the geography expert, who was aligned with the Democratic Party.

"Professor Isaiah Bauman, we invited you here hoping to get some professional advice from you. I don't know if you've seen the news...."

“Of course I saw the news. Is Your Excellency worried because of the prophecy made by the Crown Prince of the Tang Empire?” Isaiah Bauman said. “I have already seen it in the newspaper. I am surprised that the Crown Prince of a great power would make such an immature statement in a diplomatic setting.”

"Immature remarks?" President Gary Maimer immediately seized Isaiah Bauman's hand: "So you think that Crown Prince is talking nonsense?"

"While the Yingzhou Islands are indeed a country prone to earthquakes, there is currently no indication that an earthquake will occur in this country, especially not in Edo." Isaiah Bowman adjusted his glasses. "Your Excellency, do you know when the last earthquake in Edo was?"

President Galimehr naturally shook his head. How could he know that? In the pre-internet era, let alone him, many geologists probably wouldn't even know how many earthquakes had occurred in the history of the Jianghu.

Information retrieval has been a highly valuable skill for a long time. In fact, there are people in various industries who don't produce anything themselves, but they are well-known information brokers in their respective fields.

"The last major earthquake to hit Edo was more than 200 years ago, the Hararoku earthquake in 1703. The earthquake occurred in Sagami Bay, about 40 kilometers southeast of Edo. A tsunami struck Edo Bay and the coastal areas of Aichi Prefecture, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties. According to current estimates, the earthquake was at least magnitude 8."

"Ah, I understand. Just like how shells rarely land in the same crater on a battlefield, Edo has experienced earthquakes before, so the probability of another earthquake is..."

“The probability of an earthquake is different from the probability of a cannonball, Your Excellency,” Isaiah Bowman said. “If a place has experienced a major earthquake, then the probability of another earthquake occurring there in the future is higher than in other places that have never experienced an earthquake. This is because it indicates that there is an earthquake zone in that place. According to research papers from Jinling University, the earthquake that occurred in Jianghu more than 200 years ago was likely caused by the periodic fracturing of the surrounding sea trough. Since it is periodic, there is a possibility that an earthquake will occur again.”

Why does your tone sound like you're supporting the Crown Prince's statement? You just came in saying the Crown Prince's remarks were immature...

Was my answer not to His Excellency the President's expectations?

Isaiah Bauman's counter-question embarrassed President Galimere: "No, no, no, I had no expectations. You initially said that the Crown Prince's statement was immature..."

"There is indeed a possibility that an earthquake will occur in Edo again, and the magnitude of the earthquake will certainly not be low. However, no one can predict exactly when the earthquake will occur in Edo. It could be tomorrow, or it could be 100 or even 200 years from now."

That's why I said this Crown Prince's statement was somewhat immature. He probably obtained some geographical knowledge from other sources and used it to make a prophecy... Of course, this is just my personal guess. No matter how precise the date is, I simply can't understand it, because the odds of guessing correctly are just too low.

"So, Professor Isaiah Bauman, is it possible to trigger an earthquake by human intervention? For example, by digging a well and planting explosives underground..."

"Leaving aside how much explosives that would require, Mr. Secretary, do you know the typical depth of an earthquake's hypocenter? Do you know the depth of the deepest well we've ever dug in the world?"

Isaiah Bauman's tone practically screamed, "Stop your idiotic talk!" Using explosives to trigger an earthquake? Are you kidding me?

That is a power that only God possesses, which no one or any country can imitate. Why would there be such fools in the United States' leadership who believe that humans can cause an earthquake with a small amount of explosives?

Earthquakes are not such an inconvenient thing!

So Isaiah Bauman really put in a lot of effort to give the people in the Oval Office a science lesson. He wasn't an expert in earthquakes, but he was good at giving science lessons. In general, he made these people understand that an earthquake might happen in Edo, but it was unlikely to happen in Edo in the short term.

President Gallimard, still somewhat unwilling to give up, asked, "I've heard that Nanjing University is one of the top universities in the East. You've said its geology department is of a very high standard. Could it be that research by Eastern scholars can predict..."

"It is impossible for any person or organization to predict a major earthquake months in advance to a specific day," Isaiah Bauman stated categorically. "In my opinion, this whole thing is a farce from beginning to end. An immature prince just spouted a few random words, and with the media hype, it's as if the East has mastered a doomsday weapon."

President Gary Maier had just breathed a sigh of relief when the Secretary of State seemed to suddenly have a flash of inspiration: "Your Excellency, I think we may have fallen into a misconception. The Crown Prince's prediction did not explicitly state that it was caused by an earthquake."

"Besides an earthquake, what else could destroy Edo?" President Gallimard stared at the Secretary of State. "It can't be like Emperor Guangwu of Han in Eastern history, with a meteorite falling from the sky, can it?"

"Professor Isaiah Bauman has already made it very clear that natural disasters are very difficult to predict accurately, but the Crown Prince gave a very precise date. Therefore, I think this is still a deliberate scheme orchestrated by those Easterners..."

"The professor just said that an earthquake is impossible..."

"Your Excellency, in Eastern history, during the reign of the Tianqi Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, a terrible explosion also occurred in the capital of the Ming Dynasty."

President Galimehr is clearly not only bad at geography, but also at history. Fortunately, Isaiah Bauman, although a geography major, is quite knowledgeable about history, as he has now begun to shift his focus to human geography.

"The Wanggongchang explosion, like the Tunguska event more than a decade ago, is an unsolved mystery with a great deal of legendary color. According to the Tianbian Dichao, suddenly "a sound like a roar came from the northeast and gradually moved to the southwest corner of the capital. Gray smoke rose up and the houses shook." Then "a great tremor was heard, the sky collapsed and the earth collapsed, darkness fell as dark as night, and thousands of houses were flattened and sunk."

In the last part, Isaiah Bauman spoke directly in Chinese. For Isaiah Bauman, who speaks six foreign languages, Chinese is one of the most important languages ​​in his current research. After all, for many aspects of the history of Central Asia, he can only find answers in ancient Chinese historical books and records.

"Your Excellency, the reason why the Wanggongchang explosion remains a mystery is mainly due to the power of the explosion. It is estimated to be equivalent to more than 100 million kilograms of gunpowder, which was almost unimaginable for the Ming Empire at that time. If the Ming Empire had been able to stockpile more than 100 million kilograms of gunpowder, then the country would not have needed Emperor Longwu to save them decades later."

But things are different now, Your Excellency. Now, if we wanted to create an explosion comparable in power to the Wang Gongchang explosion, we only needed to prepare hundreds or thousands of tons of explosives. In our time, this is no longer something beyond human capability. Do you remember the Halifax bombing?

President Gary Maier's face stiffened; he now understood what the Secretary of State was worried about.

That imperial grandson might not be talking nonsense.

Because the kind of divine punishment he mentioned could potentially be achieved through human means, from the current perspective.

Although the Halifax bombing did not occur in Colombia, even under the news control measures in the midst of war, the bombing quickly became known throughout North America.

The incident occurred when the French arms ship "Monte Blanc," carrying 5000 tons of ammunition and explosives, collided with a Belgian rescue ship in the bay. When both ships caught fire, many citizens flocked to the dock to watch.

Unexpectedly, the Mont Blanc exploded after burning, sending a plume of smoke 3000 meters high. A 5-square-kilometer area was instantly razed to the ground, large swathes of Halifax were destroyed, and even windows of many buildings in Truro, a small town hundreds of kilometers away, were shattered by the blast. More than 2000 people died on the spot, and more than 9000 were injured.

5000 tons of explosives, in terms of sheer power, is roughly equivalent to five Wanggongchang explosions. Its destructive power even borders on tactical nuclear weapons. If, on that day, the Tang Empire were to send a ship carrying 10,000 tons of explosives…

President Galimais wiped his brow: "It seems we'll have to strengthen our security around Edo."

Chapter 388 Victorian Money-Saving Tips

"What nonsense is this unfilial son spouting?"

Holding the latest telegram from the Tang Dynasty's embassy in Victoria, our Crown Prince was utterly bewildered.

Li Che's "world-shaking words" in the Victorian Empire have now spread all over the world, and it is clear that Li Che did not consult with his father beforehand.

Li Zongdi was having lunch with his eldest son. The warm room was filled with the aroma of food, and several delicate dishes were laid out on the table. The most eye-catching dishes were a plate of glistening and fragrant braised pork and a plate of small and exquisite honey-preserved sweet cakes.

Even when he was still in the Prince of Jin's residence, Li Zongdi disliked extravagance in his daily life. From a prince to an emperor, as an emperor who would even have his servants wash his clothes and then wear them again (which was rather frugal by the standards of an emperor), his needs and preferences for food were actually quite homey.

After all, these days, even if you're a prince, you're lucky if the cooks can add a little extra caramel to your roast pork when you're on a military campaign. How can you expect so much?

However, the years of military campaigns had left the old prince with some chronic ailments, such as rheumatism, joint pain, and stomach problems. It was like a car that was due for major repairs, with all its parts making noises.

Li Zongdi thought, let the part make a noise, it won't affect the continued operation of his old car.

Li Zongdi, who had already eaten several pieces of meat, furtively glanced at the braised pork. Just as he reached for his chopsticks again, the attending physician Chen coughed softly but clearly: "Ahem—"

The chopsticks paused in mid-air. The old emperor glanced at Physician Chen, his eyes lacking much authority, more like the resentment of a child caught red-handed by an adult.

Then Li Renchi, who was sitting opposite, coughed and said, "Dad, that kid is causing trouble in Europe and has made such a big fuss. Please don't ignore our usual advice to you. Eat more medicinal food and less meat and sweets, okay?"

Li Zongdi smacked his lips, then turned his chopsticks and picked up a piece of stir-fried bok choy with a somewhat displeased expression.

Li Renchi shook his head, put down the memorial in his hand, and just as he picked up his rice bowl, Li Zongdi's voice came from across the table: "I think my grandson is a master at playing dumb."

“There are many ways to play dumb, and your grandson chose the dumbest one. I wonder if he's forgotten all his cleverness after getting married and is only concerned with his wife all day. Since the Victorian Empire wants to use Old Port to target us, this kid can totally… can…”

"We don't have that many cards to play. In the past, we could play the Bharat card, but now Bharat is independent. We can't play the Ireland card, can we? It's so far away, playing that card wouldn't do any good. Okay, let's get to the internal affairs."

Li Zongdi gave a thumbs-up.

"Doing diplomacy..."

He then held up one finger and shook it, the old emperor's meaning was clear—you still have a long way to go.

While his eldest son was deep in thought, Li Zongdi had only just begun to eat a few bites of vegetables when his gaze was involuntarily drawn to the plate of glistening sweet cakes. Confirming that his son's attention wasn't on him, he licked his lips and tentatively, slowly, reached for the cakes with his chopsticks. Just as he was about to touch the tempting frosting—

"Cough cough! Cough cough cough!" Doctor Chen coughed loudly and urgently this time, with a hint of helplessness in his voice.

Li Zongdi's hand trembled, and he missed picking up the sweet cake. Somewhat annoyed, he put down his chopsticks and began to complain to Physician Chen:

"Old Chen, Old Chen! Is there a whistle in your throat or something? I just want to have a tiny sip, just a tiny sip! Your cough is more punctual than the hourglass outside!"

Physician Chen said without changing his expression, "That dessert was prepared for the Crown Prince. Your Majesty, given your blood sugar levels, for the sake of your health, you can basically say goodbye to these foods from now on."

Seeing his eldest son's gaze sweep over again, the old man could only give up and shake his head: "Being an official is really meaningless. They talk about having the authority to rule the world, but now I can't even decide what I eat."

“If you wish to pass the throne to me immediately, you can eat as much of these sweets as you like starting tomorrow,” Li Renzhi said, his words utterly rebellious.

However, Li Zongdi looked at his boss with disdain: "With your level of diplomacy, I can't retire right now."

"I am not the Minister of the Court of State Ceremonial, Father!"

"Then you must know how to choose a good Minister of the Court of State Ceremonies, right?"

"You're clearly showing too much favoritism towards your grandson. I know grandparents often love their grandchildren more, but this time the kid's been talking nonsense. What if nothing happens on September 1st?"

"That's easy. Just send the navy's battleships over and fire a couple of shots, and the world will be thrown to the ground." Li Zongdi's words, delivered with such a roguish air, made Li Renzhi feel somewhat as if he were some kind of shrewd, unyielding person. "You're an official now, why are you still acting like a spineless coward?"

The phrase "the earth's axis is tilting" sounds somewhat sarcastic towards the navy. After all, back when it was still the Ming Dynasty's Royal Navy, the navy particularly liked to use this phrase in its reports about its warships and heavy anti-tank guns, saying things like "the earth's axis is tilting" and "the earth's axis is tilting."

Even this tough guy has his own thoughts. Li Renchi can't see through his father. He doesn't know if the old man is just talking nonsense or using it to express his true feelings.

Li Renzhi knew that his father had always been somewhat resentful about not being able to reclaim Yingzhou during the last World War. After the war, his father devoted most of his energy to reorganizing the army. In essence, Li Zongdi did not completely consider himself the emperor; he still hoped to be the military commander who could reclaim Yingzhou.

Sometimes people use a joking tone to express their truest feelings—for example, there are far more people who confess their true feelings on April Fool's Day than on Valentine's Day.

"This is no longer the time for a world war, Father. We cannot just start a war with other countries."

"I was just giving an example, a metaphor, you understand? A metaphor!" Li Zongdi's mustache twitched with anger. He picked up a sweet cake as if to vent his frustration, then threw it into his mouth, turning his dissatisfaction into appetite.

Such an action naturally shocked Physician Chen, who immediately stepped forward, picked up the plate containing the ointment, and then stood at a distance from Li Zongdi.

"I only ate one piece! Is it really that big of a deal?! Besides, it's not even sweet!"

"Not sweet?" Physician Chen raised an eyebrow, stepped forward, and pointed at the sweet cake. "Your Majesty, look at this glistening frosting, it's almost reflective! This honey-soaked juice is so thick it can be pulled into threads! Your Majesty, given your current physical condition, if you indulge in your cravings now, won't you be the one suffering later? I'll have to get up in the middle of the night to give you acupuncture!" He spoke with such conviction, as if he were a doctor scolding a disobedient patient.

The old emperor was speechless. He looked at the tempting sweet cake, then at Physician Chen with his "for your own good" expression, and then at the crown prince next to him who was shrugging his shoulders and trying hard to suppress his laughter. Finally, he waved his hand helplessly, looking like a sad Psyduck.

"Great job! Physician Chen, you're amazing!"

Seeing his father completely give up on the sweet cake under the physician's strict control, Li Renchi suppressed a smile with satisfaction and picked up a large mouthful of greens for Li Zongdi. The old man, looking at the tall pile of greens, simply slammed his bowl on the table: "Being emperor is... I can't even eat what I want! I have to listen to you, my 'housekeeper.' People who don't know you think I owe you money!"

Seeing that his purpose had been achieved, Physician Chen stepped aside without saying a word. Li Renchi smiled with satisfaction and added, "Your Majesty is wise. Vegetables are good for the stomach; it's good to eat more of them."

"Shut up! Someone, take this meat away and make him eat vegetarian food with me!"

"That's unnecessary, Father..."

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