Xiao Baoyue felt a tingling run through her entire body.
It was just like the exhilaration and excitement she had felt that day when she heard Wang Yang explain his Pacification of the Barbarians Treatise!
She had thought this position was a death trap, with no room to maneuver on either side. Yet Wang Yang had taken an unconventional line of attack and broken the encirclement with a surprise force. Not only had he brought the great dragon back to life, he had swallowed up a whole stretch of territory in return!
Wuning was already no match for the Wenyang and Yongning Tribes alone. With Great Qi backing them and rich profits to drive and entice them, the tide would settle everything without a single clash of arms. This plan would swallow Wuning, cow Yongning and Wenyang, and put another part of his Pacification of the Barbarians Treatise into practice-
"Bribe their chieftains. Let their important figures own businesses on our side, so that we have a stake in them and they have a stake in us. Bind our interests tightly together. Then any barbarian who wants to start a war will become everyone's enemy. We won't even need to act. Their leaders with businesses in the Han Lands will never agree..."
She had repeatedly considered how to give the barbarians businesses in the Han Lands. Giving them away would look like fawning and currying favor, and could easily encourage barbarian greed and arrogance; investing money first for returns later was not something the barbarians would accept, either. After some thought, she had devised several methods. First, offer the barbarians loans and use the borrowed money to acquire businesses for them. Second, find opportunities to grant businesses as rewards. Third, trade businesses for the barbarian tribes' gold and silver mines