The Power to Allocate Money Was Second Only to the Power to Appoint and Dismiss Officials!

Appointed directly as commander-in-chief!?

"Gulp-"

The sounds of swallowing came one after another in the conference hall.

Among them,

the Ministry of Finance officials were the most tempted.

Because they knew very well that the power to allocate money was second only to the power to appoint and dismiss officials!

One trillion North African francs was almost equivalent to ten years of government revenue. If they could become commander-in-chief of the "Five-Year Infrastructure Plan," they would immediately rank among the top twenty in power within the government!

Under Sankara's iron-fisted policies and bloody purges,

these remaining officials

might not have coveted money, but they certainly coveted power!

Because,

even idealists

needed power in their hands to put their ideals and beliefs into practice. Otherwise, everything was a castle in the air.

After a brief silence and shock,

the conference hall

welcomed an unending stream of speeches.

"Mr. President, I'm honored to be the first to stand and speak. I have some ideas of my own about the 'Five-Year Infrastructure Plan'..."

"Mr. President, colleagues, good morning. My thought is, when building urban power grids, sewers, and so on, could we have our Ministry of Construction draw up a new urban layout plan first..."

"Mr. President... we need to consider what we should do if building railways and roads involves taking over farmland or homes. Should we provide..."

"I disagree with the colleague who spoke earlier. My view is that we should build the railways first and put the roads on hold for now, because railways are a nation's main transport arteries and have greater strategic value!"

"...I've seen the concept of expressways emerge overseas, so I was wondering whether we could take a portion of the funding allocated to roads and railways to build..."

"..."

Everyone was raising their hands, hoping to stand and speak.

Even the ministers of the Ministry of Construction, Eric, and the Ministry of Transport, Fernand, wanted to compete for the commander-in-chief position.

More than two hours later,

when the clock on the wall showed 1:32 p.m.,

the lively conference hall finally began to quiet down.

Seeing that no one was raising a hand anymore, Sankara put down his fountain pen and closed the notebook before him.

Then he nodded in satisfaction and said,

"It's already past lunchtime. If no one wants to speak further, let's leave today's meeting here. Go and eat first. Don't go hungry and give yourselves stomach trouble.

"As for the commander-in-chief of the 'Five-Year Infrastructure Plan,' after hearing your remarks, I already have a few candidates in mind. Once the official document comes down in a few days, you'll know who it is.

"All right, that's it for today. Meeting adjourned!"

In fact,

Sankara had not decided at all whom to appoint as commander-in-chief of the "Five-Year Infrastructure Plan."

Even those supposed candidates did not exist.

Sankara had said this mainly to avoid dampening everyone's enthusiasm, while also leaving this big pie on the table to see whether someone more suitable would come along to eat it.

"Yes, Mr. President!"

The officials, still eager for more, rose and responded one after another.

Their expressions showed that, after the heated speeches, rebuttals, and counterarguments,

at this moment,

they still felt a little excited and had not fully calmed down.

"??"

Sankara had only just stepped out of the conference hall when he saw the Minister of the Ministry of National Defense, Katelai, standing outside the door. From the look of him, he seemed to have been standing there for a long time.

"Oh, my dear president, you've finally come out!"

The moment he saw Sankara, Katelai immediately came up to him and spoke, with even a touch of petulance in his voice.

"You're the minister of the Ministry of National Defense, for heaven's sake. Couldn't you have had your secretary wait here? Did you have to stand out here in the cold wind yourself?"

Sankara did not take issue with his tone.

Seeing Katelai shivering from the cold, he merely shook his head, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, then asked directly,

"Has something happened at the front again? There are too many people here. Let's talk in my office!"

Katelai either did not show up at all, or, when he did, it almost always had something to do with the front.

So it was not difficult for Sankara to guess why he had come looking for him.

The President's Office.

"Here, have some hot tea and warm yourself up."

Sankara handed Katelai a freshly brewed cup of tea as he spoke.

Then he watched Katelai pick up the cup, blow on it a few times without much care, and gulp it down as though he could not feel the heat at all.

"Gulp, gulp... ah, I feel like I've come back to life!"

Having finished it in one go, Katelai did not even put the cup down before leaning back against the sofa and speaking contentedly.

"..."

Sankara shook his head, utterly speechless, then asked,

"Well, tell me. What exactly happened at the front? It can't be anything urgent, can it? Otherwise, would you still have the leisure to clown around here with me?"

"Hehe..."

Katelai grinned foolishly.

Then he quickly put down his teacup, sat up straight, and placed his hands on his knees like a well-behaved student before reporting,

"More than three hours ago, the Ministry of National Defense received word from the Nijia front that the National Liberation Alliance had suddenly withdrawn along the entire front. Our army has now retaken all the territory they occupied."

"They withdrew along the entire front?"

Sankara froze for a moment, then asked,

"Do we know why they withdrew? France shouldn't have allowed them to retreat!"

"We can't be certain yet!"

Katelai shook his head and replied,

"But based on the intelligence from the front, our analysis at the Ministry of National Defense is that the National Liberation Alliance leadership may simply have been unable to bear the casualties any longer, which is why they chose to retreat.

"As for the French side, we don't know the specifics either. We'll need more intelligence before we can analyze and speculate."

"What about Bugani? How are things there now? Has the United Anti-Government Army attacking Bugani withdrawn too?"

Sankara continued asking.

Ten days after the National Liberation Alliance launched its attack on Nijia,

on December 15, six days earlier,

with the France North African Strategic Intelligence Bureau bringing them together and supporting them,

five or six anti-government armed groups, all considerably smaller than the National Liberation Alliance, had formed the United Anti-Government Armed Forces and launched an attack on Bugani.

Because Sankara had made preparations in advance,

government troops had successfully stopped their offensive a little over twenty kilometers east of Bugani.

For various reasons, the twenty-thousand-strong United Anti-Government Armed Forces had fought until now without so much as catching sight of Bugani's urban area.

Even their front line had advanced less than two hundred meters!