Recognizing Yourself and Your Enemies

The newly appointed mayor has shown sufficient goodwill towards these overseas investors, which has inspired their enthusiasm for investment and their confidence in gaining economic benefits here.

This is a good thing for both sides, and that's absolutely true. A lot of investment can bring prosperity to a region, just like the previous Federal. With a large influx of capital, the Federal's economic development was like a rocket that no one here had ever seen before, growing rapidly.

As for the social problems caused by the investment, and the problems that arise after the investment returns period ends, Lin Qi felt that these were not really that important.

When people are starving, who cares about whether the food is dirty or not? The only thing to do is to eat and keep themselves alive, and then consider how to eat clean food and how to get others to provide clean food.

Soon the people here noticed some changes compared to the past, a positive change.

On the ruins, hired people began to work, clearing away the debris, which was quite different from the past.

In the past, they were not paid to clean up these ruins because the Privileged Class would tell them that serving the Privileged Class was a favor to them, not an injury, and they should not ask for payment; that would be shameful.

Those Privileged Class would thoughtfully arrange for some ruthless people to keep an eye on their work; if anyone didn't work diligently, they would be whipped or beaten with sticks.

But now, these things don't really exist anymore. Foreigners would hire them to do these jobs and would be willing to pay them a salary.

This is the first time in their lives that many Nagaril People have ever touched cash. It sounds incredible, but this is exactly the reality here. Some people even shed tears when they received their own money.

This has also created some new problems—what Nagaril Youth Party says doesn't seem to match reality!

Nagaril Youth Party has been identified as an illegal organization, but it's not really accurate to call it an eradication effort.

Foreigners, like Lin Qi, cannot devote all their energy to helping the Nagaril government capture these "anti-government" organizations. These are just preliminary classifications, which can be cracked down on when necessary, and allowed to grow freely when not.

The existence of Nagaril Youth Party is not entirely bad. They act like a magnet, "collecting" those who are prejudiced against foreigners or even extremists hidden in society and surrounding them.

Who the enemy is is obvious.

Playing a cat-and-mouse game with these people is clearly not as effective as focusing on public outreach and addressing the root causes of the potential for the Youth Party to continue growing stronger.

The Youth Party members believed that foreigners came to persecute the Nagaril People, to exploit and plunder their wealth. But the problem is that these foreigners not only didn't take anything from them, but also paid them for their labor.

This completely opposite reality has confused the public, because the facts are completely contrary, and sometimes they even feel that Nagaril Youth Party is really a group of bad people with ulterior motives, just as the government has portrayed them.

Isn't that exactly what the posters on the street say? Anger won't solve the problem of feeding a family, but work can!

The simple poster and simple words caused a lot of trouble for the Youth Party.

"There haven't been many people attending the rally these past two days, and..." The speaker glanced at the This Province Leader sitting at the head of the table, unsure how to continue. "I shouldn't be saying this, but I suspect we might be betrayed."

"These foreigners in the Federal are more cunning and treacherous than those before. They have bribed many people with just a few small favors. Those people will follow the foreigners for money, and they will also betray our information for money!"

The short young man didn't say anything and remained silent. On the coffee table in front of them were many posters of various colors. These posters were poorly printed, just ordinary oil paper with mud-printed characters.

If you accidentally get that grime on your skin, it will stain your clothes and leave a mess that's hard to clean.

The content of these posters is so simple that even an illiterate person can understand its meaning after hearing it read aloud once.

Phrases like "Work changes destiny, employment creates the future," "One person works, the whole family is fed; one family works, the whole family becomes rich," and "If you want to get rich, sleep less and work more" are common.

The slogans are easy to understand; anyone with normal intelligence, even those without education, can grasp their meaning. This has made the situation that the Youth Party has just begun to establish somewhat awkward.

Not long ago, they gained considerable support by violently destroying the wealthy class, because they were the only ones in recent years who dared to truly resist and actually did it—not just with slogans, but with real action, even though there was some element of opportunism involved.

But in the blink of an eye, those people who had surrounded them went to work, and even worked for foreigners, which made everyone feel like a ridiculous clown.

The short leader kept his eyes fixed on the posters on the coffee table. He had one thing he couldn't figure out: what exactly were these foreigners trying to do?

They are quite different from the foreigners of the past.

In the past, those foreigners were very stingy and tried not to spend money whenever possible. But Lin Qi and other businessmen from the Federal spent money lavishly, and they paid for many things that people thought were unnecessary.

For example, buying land was something that didn't cost money in the past. Wealthy men could easily find a reason to drive away the poor and seize their land.

Just like Asier's father, who wanted to expand his yard, he would find any excuse to tell his neighbors, and they would immediately move to another place, leaving the land where they had lived for more than ten or even decades to Asier's father and brother.

This is actually related to Nagaril's abundant land resources. The poor people don't have much property, so they can simply move to another place, build a simple house, and continue to live. There is no need for them to fight with the rich people over land that is worthless to them.

But Federal merchants pay them a sum of money for this, which may not be much, just the market price or slightly below the market price, but this is still a huge and incredible change.

They were nothing like the foreigners of the past, so much so that as soon as Youth Party made a name for itself, their slogans became useless.

Several minutes later, he came to his senses and shook his head. "I don't understand these people."

He looked at the other staunch Youth Party members gathered around him, his expression somewhat solemn. "I don't understand these people. I can't comprehend what their purpose is in doing this."

"They will pay for anything we buy, they will not steal our property, they will not insult women, and they will abide by our laws."

"Apart from the unpleasant look in their eyes, they are better than any of the men I've ever met."

"I don't understand why they do this, why they come here. We don't understand these foreigners. They are different from the foreigners we've seen before."

He said this in a very serious tone, which kept everyone else's attention on him.

He sighed softly, "We know nothing about the group that could become our greatest enemy. We cannot defeat them because we cannot discover their true intentions."

"Given the current situation, we are no match for them!"

Admitting defeat in a certain area directly is not an easy thing, as it could damage his prestige, but he still said it, and people did not feel that he was diminishing his own prestige by saying it.

"I have an idea..." He looked at the people around him, "We don't know what they're up to, and the current situation is very unfavorable for us, so I suggest we break up and join them!"

This statement was different from the previous ones, and the people around him showed incredulous expressions and eyes, as if... they had heard a huge joke.

But this was no joke; it was a decision made after much deliberation by the short leader.

"Just like you said, there will definitely be people who will betray us in order to gain favor with foreigners, as long as we are still together."

"So we split up. One or two people won't be of much use to foreigners, and it will expose these people. Besides, not many people know us, and foreigners aren't sensitive to our appearance."

"We apply for jobs there, become their employees, and see for ourselves, feel for ourselves, to figure out what these people really want!"

"This is more effective than us sitting here discussing how to deal with a strange enemy. This is not surrender, nor is it a disgrace. This is something that must be experienced on the road to victory."

"If someone is unwilling, I will not force them. I will recommend that they go to work or live in other places where the Youth Party is located. Perhaps they have different environments and will have some different approaches."

"But my idea is that we should first integrate ourselves into their group, find out the problems, find out their goals, and then consider how to defeat them!"

The people around fell silent, pondering the meaning and thoughts behind the Leader's words. Then someone raised their hand, and more and more people followed suit.

In fact, they themselves were also confused, and they wanted to figure out what they should do to save the country.