This time, as well, was no exception—at least it didn’t start as one.
The current Governor of Heijian Star was King Nes Luman of the Luman Kingdom, the third-largest country on the planet. The location chosen for the meeting was also in the capital of this country, Pincer City.
Pincer City was decked out in festive lights, treating the event as a grand festival.
In the past few days, as the leading figures from the fourteen major caravans of Gu’s Commerce Association arrived one after another, a series of public and private banquets began.
Wang Qi had been preparing for many years to vie for the position of Family Head and was now just a step away. Despite feeling the struggle from her late husband’s cousin, who had been up to all kinds of maneuvers, even attempting to disrupt the pace by calling for an early family meeting,
none of these had much significance.
Before the official start of the family meeting, Wang Qi further consolidated her alliances through banquets and private conversations, reinforcing relationships with her allies.
Out of the fourteen major caravans, she still had a firm grip on four, and another four were her staunch allies. By the time the assembly started and the voting commenced, she, holding eight votes, could almost certainly elevate her son to the position of Family Head.
Then, two days before the grand assembly, as a banquet was drawing to a close, the sound of thunderous gunfire and battle cries reached their ears.
Wang Qi almost immediately realized that Gu Ming had been driven to a corner.
Having been forewarned by her son, she had already been on guard against this issue. The standard security presence around her had tripled; all were highly vigilant; she reminded all caravan leaders to be aware of this issue and requested that they double their security force under the highest standards of safety.
Additionally, the Chamber of Commerce Fleet in the skies was always battle-ready to prevent sneak and surprise attacks; the Expeditionary Force provided by Gu Hang, through swaps of commercial goods, had moved to a small town on the outskirts of Pincer.
Wang Qi did her best to hide their movements, but she also knew that a force of nearly thirty thousand would struggle to go unnoticed.
Exposure also had its advantages, creating a deterrent: “I have an army outside, be cautious.”
So long as they did not come to blows, it was favorable. After all, if things continued normally, she was most likely the victor.
But Gu Ming still made his move.
Actually, Wang Qi couldn’t comprehend it.
Indeed, without making a move, he couldn’t win. But what if he lost?
The Gu Family had suffered internal competition since its establishment, but in nearly three hundred years, spanning five generations, it had never devolved into malignant, bloody conflict. While such incidents were not uncommon in other families, the Gu Clan’s internal struggles had never escalated to such a degree.
Being more united than other merchant alliances was one of the reasons that the Gu Clan had grown large.
If Gu Ming lost, without any other deep-seated hatred between them and still being relatives, as the victor, Wang Qi had no need, and it was not likely, to thoroughly execute him.
Upon meeting, they might even have to stage an act of familial unity as aunt and nephew.
With such an outcome, Gu Ming could well live as a wealthy, idle gentleman; it was even unrealistic for Wang Qi to strip him of the Chamber of Commerce Fleet under his control.
Gu Ming could keep his influence, retreating to become a power within Gu’s Commerce Association or, later on, continue to contend for the position of Family Head in the next cycle.
But if he resorted to this, it would have been a bad precedent, a complete break from the rules. After such an incident, there would be no chance for amends.
Gu Ming wouldn’t be unaware of this.
So, even up to the last moment, Wang Qi actually thought that while Gu Ming might stir trouble, the likelihood was genuinely small.
But now that everything had happened, there was nothing else to say.
The preparations made for defense were ready to be put into use. Continue your journey on empire
“`
The news of the battle’s eruption was sent to the troops of Rage Owl Star stationed in the suburbs; within the city, security measures from various families were urgently deployed and mobilized; efforts were made to contact King Luman, who was serving his term as the Governor of Heijian Star, to have him take control of the capital’s situation…
At this stage, Wang Qi remained calm. While sitting in the banquet hall with her allies, she even had the leisure to perform a few lamentations, claiming that Gu Ming couldn’t possibly do such a thing and must be under someone’s deceitful influence, sighed that Gu Ming had lost his mind, and even discussed how to deal with the issue afterward.
The situation outside was indeed starting to improve. The security measures were powerful and appropriate, and the surrounding area was tightly controlled; reports from the front indicated that the Luman Army had also entered the city, taking control of the entire situation, and the sounds of gunfire and shouting had died down.
Latter on, they discussed how to capture Gu Ming once the situation calmed down, to prevent him from escaping.
But at this moment, the situation took a drastic turn for the worse in a very short period of time.
The key factor was that the Luman Army, which was supposed to enter the city to pacify the chaos, lined up their formations towards the location of Wang Qi and her company, hoping to enter the area and take over the defense.
They put it very nicely, saying that with the city’s unstable condition, it was necessary to bring in stronger military forces for protection.
But by this time, Lacroix, who had brought a special squad into Wang Qi’s security team, expressed strong opposition.
Wang Qi also kept vigilant and did not let them get close.
Then, the Luman Army that came in full force launched an all-out attack on them.
The productive forces of the Luman Kingdom remained at a feudal level, with poor industrialization and a main economic foundation relying on agriculture. But their army’s weapons and equipment were not too shabby at all.
They couldn’t produce much, or rather, their production capacity was very weak and insufficient to independently support an army’s weapons needs, but this did not prevent them from buying weapons.
They had everything including the G5, G6 series of individual weapons, cannons, and so on.
Of course, even with such equipment, the gap between them and the wealthy tycoons of Gu Family’s security teams was still significant.
But the cannon, firing from a distance, was unreasonable.
If it were only the threat of the artillery, that would still be manageable. Forming an elite force and breaking out to eliminate the artillery units was an option. Gu’s Security, almost entirely outfitted in alloy steel armor with laser guns, electromagnetic rifles, equipped with thermite bombs, plasma guns, and such, would have a hard time being stopped if a hundred-strong team broke out.
However, what was most unexpected was the deployment of Luman Kingdom’s true weapon of destruction.
Knights.
In a feudal nation, there was, of course, a feudal system. The King granted lands to the lords, the lords granted lands to knights, forming the ruling class: the nobility. And one of the core conditions for those nobles to be granted land was that they must have their own ‘mounts’: mecha.
On Heijian Star, there was a rather absurd scene: serfs were using medieval farming techniques, cultivating diligently, working hard on their lands, and handing over ninety percent of their harvest to their lords, keeping only the bare minimum of food to survive; while the knight masters patrolled their fields in their mecha, ensuring the serfs were not slacking.
When necessary, knights would heed the call of their lords, transforming serfs into militiamen and assembling under the lord’s banner for battle; the lords would then answer the King’s call, gathering their armies to fight under the King’s flag.
This was the system of the Luman Kingdom, and also the entire Heijian Star.
Those poor, low-ranking knights might have a family heirloom of the most common sentinel mecha passed down for generations. That thing didn’t even count as a real knight’s mecha in the empire’s military hierarchy.
But regardless, it was a mecha, with a height of about three and a half meters, fully covered in metal, and its side-mounted twin-machine guns had decent firepower and were impervious to gunfire.
At least two hundred such sentinel mecha appeared among King Luman’s army;
And then there were two real knight mecha, or what could also be called Knight Titans.
[Ranger-class Knight Titan] standing at six meters and twenty centimeters tall, with a quad-barreled heavy machine gun in the left hand, a Gravity Fist and grenade launcher in the right, and sixteen enhanced range rockets on its back…
This thing was truly frightening.
The ‘Knight Order’ of Luman Kingdom posed the most serious threat. And it was exactly this Knight Order that nearly breached the defenses of Gu’s Security.
“`