owlsbooks Chapter 2213 Asking for Double Monthly Tickets!!!
Chapter 2213 Asking for Double Monthly Tickets!!!
Chapter 2213 Asking for Double Monthly Tickets!!!
"Mr. President... I think we should remain silent." In the end, Carter proposed a relatively conservative strategy. After all, Void Card Making is very useful in international relations.
This thing is particularly useful when there is a clear gap in national strength between two countries!
Zuo Zhuan records a bizarre case. It is said that in the third year of Duke Xi of Lu, Duke Huan of Qi and his wife Cai Ji were taking a boat trip in the garden. Cai Ji might be wild or ignorant, so she deliberately shook the boat to scare Duke Huan of Qi. The amazing thing is that Duke Huan of Qi was already the overlord of the world and had been on the battlefield for a long time, but he was actually very scared. His face changed drastically and he tried his best to stop Cai Ji, but Cai Ji was unwilling to stop. Duke Huan of Qi was furious afterwards and drove Cai Ji back to the State of Cai, but he did not say that he would sever ties with Cai Ji. As a result, the king of the State of Cai, that is, Cai Ji's brother, was also very tough and directly married Cai Ji to someone else. However, Zuo Zhuan and Historical Records and other official histories did not record who she married.
In order to make the story more reasonable, Feng Menglong's Records of the Warring States of the Eastern Zhou Dynasty wrote that Cai Ji was married to King Cheng of Chu, which led to the story that Duke Huan of Qi first attacked the State of Cai and then the State of Chu. I think this is too bizarre. I am afraid that Cai Ji just liked to joke when she was young, and she must have thought that Duke Huan of Qi would not be so timid and stingy, so she joked with Duke Huan of Qi. So there is a lot of story here. I think it should be that Duke Huan of Qi deliberately made an excuse afterwards and made up that he was very scared at the time, and this woman didn't know what was good for her and continued to scare people, so he quickly drove her back to the country to create an excuse to go to war with the State of Cai. And Cai Ji must have defended her brother Cai Hou and said that she was wronged for no reason, so Cai Hou remarried her in anger.
I think this is reasonable. Otherwise, how could Duke Huan of Qi have such a small courage, and how could a Cai Ji have such a big courage. But no matter what, in the second year, that is, the fourth year of Duke Xi of Lu, Duke Huan of Qi took this excuse to lead the coalition of eight princes to attack the State of Cai. The State of Cai collapsed at one blow, and then Duke Huan of Qi attacked the State of Chu. The State of Chu might also be a little puzzled, but it had to bite the bullet and fight. So the waiter sent by the State of Chu said the following famous sentence to the State of Qi: "You are in the North Sea, and I am in the South Sea. It's like wind and cow and horse, and we are as incomparable as wind and cow and horse. I didn't expect you to invade my land. Why?"
What I mean is, your Qi State is in the north, and our Chu State is in the south. Even if they are like rutting cattle and horses, they can't possibly get together from such a long distance. I can't believe that you Qi State actually came to our Chu State's territory to fight us. What's going on? (Of course, there are other explanations for this, but I won't go into them here. Anyway, the meaning is very nonsensical.)
At this time, Duke Huan of Qi's uncle Guan Zhong came out and said, "That's because our founding ancestor Jiang Taigong was authorized by Duke Kang of Zhao to allow Qi to conquer the five rank princes and the nine governors of the world, and we can conquer the east, south, west, north and west to assist the Zhou Dynasty. Now that you Chu State does not pay tribute to baomao, the Zhou royal family has nothing to filter the wine during the sacrifice. In addition, King Zhao of Zhou disappeared during his southern tour, and we are here to ask you why this time."
The Chu envoy replied: "It is our fault that we did not pay tribute to the bao mao, but the disappearance of King Zhao of Zhou has nothing to do with us. You should go ask the people living by the water."
So the Qi army continued to advance and temporarily stationed in Xing to threaten Chu. In the summer of that year, Chu sent Qu Wan to negotiate with the Qi army, and Qi temporarily asked the coalition to withdraw and station in Zhaoling. Duke Huan of Qi asked the coalition to deploy and asked Qu Wan to ride in the chariot to review the troops. Duke Huan of Qi said to Qu Wan: "These princes came here with me because of the friendship between their ancestors, not for me. How about we make friends?"
Qu Wan said politely: "Thank you for looking up to me and accepting my king with all your heart. It is also my king's wish for us to be on good terms with each other!"
It would have been good to have come here, but Duke Huan of Qi thought that the purpose of intimidating Chu had not been achieved, so he said: "Look, I have a strong army and horses, who can stop me?" As a result, Duke Huan of Qi humiliated himself. Qu Wan immediately said: "If you use benevolence to appease the princes, everyone will be convinced, but if you want to use force, I am afraid that we in Chu are not afraid. We have Fangcheng and Han River to rely on, and your strong army and horses are probably useless."
Finally, Duke Huan of Qi and the other princes had no choice but to form an alliance with the State of Chu.
It is called the Zhaoling League in history. Historians have different opinions on Duke Huan of Qi's empty card making. Most people say that this attack on the State of Cai and forcing the State of Chu to form an alliance was equivalent to winning Chu's recognition of Qi's position as the leader of the vassal states, and forcing Chu to admit its mistakes in front of the world to a certain extent, which increased Qi's prestige. But I don't think highly of Duke Huan of Qi's attack on Chu. In fact, Duke Huan of Qi lost more than he gained. The military expenses of the vassal states were probably not small, and most of them were probably borne by the richest State of Qi. It might even be that Qi had to bear all the expenses. What he got was actually just a false name, and he couldn't actually strike a blow against Chu. It also exposed the truth that Qi was unable to truly defeat Chu, which made Chu more ambitious. After the alliance, Chu continued to find ways to actively move north to expand its territory. At the same time, it offended the State of Cai. Now is the information age, with various media developed, it is very easy to make empty cards, and there is no need to waste manpower and material resources. You just need to say it casually on social media.
For example, the United States often does this, shouting loudly, saying I am going to sanction you! I am going to do this to you!
Then the other party will be afraid and naturally give in, allowing the other party to make concessions in certain aspects.
The most typical example is a big golden retriever who keeps shouting, "I want to occupy this place and this place," but he is actually just trying to scare people.
The key to the Void Card Creation is not the cards, but the intimidation. The reasons are acceptable, just like the Golden Hair and Duke Huan of Qi. First of all, they must have the hard power to intimidate people.
This thing is essentially a form of bullying, it just makes bullying look a little more legitimate and has a name.
But this thing is very easy to overturn, especially when the gap between the opponent and your strength is not that big. For example, the strength of Chu State at that time was indeed not as good as that of Qi State. There is no doubt about this, but if you say that Chu State had no ability to resist at all, that is nonsense.
If they really had no ability to resist at all, they would have become the State of Cai.
Chu was not as strong as Qi, but it was also a big country. If they really fought, the outcome would be hard to predict. So Qu Wan dared to fight back directly.
Carter could understand why Benjamin did this subconsciously...because he was used to it!
Path dependence has been formed!
Because it saves money!
It's just a bunch of nonsense, it doesn't actually cost you anything, so why not do it!
But the problem is, Kamar-Taj and the United States are not equal!
First of all, the issue of strength...the two are not on the same level at all...It's not that the strength levels are not on the same level, but that the two are not on the same track at all!
How can a basketball player compete with a racing driver?
Than driving and dribbling at the same time?
The two are not in the same project at all? How can we compare them?
Secondly, there is no communication between Kamar-Taj and you in the United States!
They don't trade with you, and they don't store their gold in your vault... How can you be the master of this?
The reason why the United States can control the whole world is because of the dollar hegemony!
The United States was founded only 248 years ago. There are two reasons for its success. The first is good luck, and the second is the ability to seize opportunities. In the 18th century, Britain and France fought fiercely for the world hegemony. The war of spending money like water left the two countries almost with only a shell. At this time, the United States seized a huge opportunity and bought 8000 million square kilometers of Louisiana for 214 million francs. Not only that, but also wanted to occupy the territory of Mexico, prompting a large number of Americans to flock to Texas, so that Texas would become independent and join the United States, becoming the 28th state of the United States. Mexico certainly could not allow this to happen, so it mustered up the courage to go to war with the United States, but because of its weak national strength, it was defeated and ended hastily. In 1848, Mexico surrendered, and the United States took another 140 million square kilometers of land. This is how the United States constantly picked up the territories "dropped" by various countries because of the war, and directly expanded from that small country of only 80 square kilometers to 937 million square kilometers, and also had a certain economic foundation. Since 1900, the GDP of the United States has surpassed that of Britain and become the world's number one, but this is far from the status of world hegemony. The 20th century was when the United States really flourished.
The impact of the two world wars launched for the purpose of plundering territory and "dividing the spoils" almost covered the entire world, but the United States remained immune because the United States has established its foothold in the world with arms.
The biggest beneficiary of the war was the United States. The U.S. economy was rising sharply at that time, but it also faced a problem. According to the United States, it would be very troublesome to trade with different national currencies of each country, so gold should be linked to the U.S. dollar, so that gold could be exchanged for U.S. dollars and then traded with U.S. dollars. Thus, the Bretton Woods system was born. However, it can be seen from the review that the United States had ill intentions at that time. The ultimate goal of the Americans was to let the U.S. dollar control the world's economy. However, a professor at Yale University discovered the paradox "Triffin Dilemma", which reduced the trust of various countries in the U.S. dollar and caused the collapse of the gold dollar. The Americans saw that their desire to make a fortune by printing money was shattered, so they shifted their target to oil, a global necessity, and prepared to anchor the U.S. dollar to oil. The largest exporter of oil is the Arab region, so the Americans have to solve the Arab region, but there is no crisis. Why do many Arab countries listen to the United States and let them implement the petrodollar? If there is no crisis, create one. It is well known that the military strength of the Middle Eastern countries is very weak. The well-prepared young army cannot beat the slipper army. When the United Nations decided to divide Palestine into two, the Middle East was in constant war. Seven countries joined forces but could not beat Israel, because Israel's supply station behind it is the United States. Under pressure from the United States, Arab countries had to agree to the US oil dollar proposal. As long as someone buys oil, they must use the US dollar. Since then, the dollar hegemony has been established.
After the establishment of the dollar hegemony, the United States began an unlimited money printing mode. They can waste money at will because their consumption is paid for by the whole world.
Take the subprime mortgage crisis in 2008 as an example. After the Japanese economic bubble burst, they spent 2022 years to ease the economic crisis, but the United States only printed money for two years to get through the crisis. The market was sluggish and companies were on the verge of bankruptcy. The Federal Reserve lent the money it printed overtime to companies that were about to go bankrupt. With the new funds, most companies could survive the difficulties, so they returned the borrowed money to the United States with interest, and the United States made a small profit. After the United States got its own money, it could go to other countries to buy high-quality resources. The role of a few pieces of waste paper was constantly magnified, and the United States achieved "freeloading". But this money is not enough, because the necessary factor for a country to develop is energy, and the largest oil exporter has become the younger brother of the United States. If you want to trade, you can only use the US dollar, forming a perfect closed loop. Most countries dare not speak out because they know the horror of human rights warnings and can only swallow their anger. Further deepening this method will form the dollar tide, a tried and true method to harvest the world. In , the Federal Reserve will raise interest rates crazily. Is it just to solve the inflation caused by their crazy printing of money during the epidemic? The fundamental purpose of the United States is to attract the return of US dollars from all over the world. The amount of US dollars circulating in the market has been greatly reduced, but the commodities on the market are fixed, and the prices of commodities can only plummet. When US capital begins to withdraw its investment, the impact on a country is cliff-like. In order to cope with the crisis, local assets can only be sold at a low price. At this time, the United States cuts interest rates, and the United States can bottom-fish national assets for a wave of harvesting. Samsung in South Korea was originally a large chaebol in South Korea, with an all-powerful existence, but due to a series of operations by the United States, it had to become a "worker". The Hong Kong Defense War and the Japanese economic bubble are the results of the US dollar harvesting the world.
But the problem is...the dollar hegemony has collapsed!
The foundation of the dollar hegemony is military hegemony, and the foundation of military hegemony is the navy!
It has been said on the Internet that even if all the naval forces in the world were added together, they would not necessarily be able to defeat the US Navy. This statement should still make sense. Putting aside the fact that war ultimately comes down to a contest of comprehensive national strength, if we only compare naval power, the US Navy is indeed the most outstanding in the world, without a doubt, it is number one, and this has to be acknowledged.
The Navy is the foundation of the dollar's hegemony. The Navy is the largest branch of the US military, with two fleets in the Atlantic and Pacific, and a force of about 60, including 8 Marines. The displacement of US Navy ships is as high as more than 350 million tons, including 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carriers with a displacement of more than 10 tons, 9 amphibious assault ships with a displacement of more than 4 tons, 27 cruisers, 67 destroyers, nearly 90 attack submarines and ballistic missile submarines, 11 carrier-based aircraft wings, nearly 3000 aircraft of various types, 1500 helicopters, etc. Equipping and maintaining the power of the Navy is the cornerstone of the establishment of the US Navy. In the two world wars, from the European battlefield to the Pacific battlefield, the Navy played an important role; in the subsequent Cold War, the Navy became an important force for the US nuclear deterrence and global confrontation against the Soviet Union, and it is a strong cornerstone of the US national defense.
But the problem is that all of these are gone!