September 27, 1996, at the Hong Kong Island Convention and Exhibition Centre.
The Motherland and the foreigners engaged in heated negotiations over the various details of the Hong Kong Island handover ceremony.
In contests between great powers, magnanimity was only fitting.
That said, when their respective nations' reputations and interests were at stake, which side would willingly give ground?
Decorum was one thing, but national interests came before everything!
Every inch had to be fought for! Not a fraction could be surrendered!
The atmosphere inside the negotiating venue was fiercely charged, while the contest outside was even more fraught.
As early as three days before, the Motherland's South Sea Fleet had entered a standoff with a task force from the foreigners.
The foreigners' sinister intentions went without saying. They were clearly trying to put pressure on that day's negotiations.
After all, the foreigners had consistently come off worse in their contests with the Motherland over the past few years.
Unable to gain much advantage at the negotiating table, these barbarians wanted to resort to underhanded moves outside it. But how could the Motherland let them have their way?
The Motherland had fought its way to prosperity through the fires of war.
Armoured and armed in wartime, farming and recuperating in peacetime, the Motherland loved peace, but had never feared war.
If the foreigners wanted to use military force to pressure the Motherland during the negotiations over the Hong Kong Island handover ceremony, they would first have to ask whether anyone in the Motherland would agree.
The final outcome naturally went without saying. Although the foreigners' task force kept cruising in international waters, it never dared cross the line.
After all, the lesson the Motherland had taught seventeen factions single-handedly decades earlier still left the foreigners with lingering fear.
As long