After the speech, Alexander left the balcony and shook hands with the Imperial Council who attended as well as the elites who are prospecting to invest in his grand ambitious plan.

Sevastian was the last person he shook his hand with, who was beaming a smile.

“Your Majesty, the speech is magnificent. Your use of humanity’s invention over the course of a million years struck our hearts. And the last part where you declared we are going to the moon sends chills to my very being. Oh, Your Majesty, there are no perfect words to describe how jubilating your announcement would be to your people.” Alexander cringed at him for his over-the-top praise.

“Sevastian, please act properly. Your vehement praise has made me feel quite uncomfortable. Truly it is embarrassing.”

Sevastian chuckled. “Ahh…I apologize, Your Majesty. It wasn’t my intention to cause you such discomfort but truly I must admit that I’m rather pleased. Your speech not only resonated with the people but also around the world. Is this perhaps your intention to make the world go crazy?”

Alexander didn’t respond to his question as he continued walking down the red carpet while waving, giving a nod to the exalted people they were passing by.

Sevastian took notice of this as he realized that if the emperor replied to his query, there might be unwanted ears around that may have picked up his answers and thus caused a diplomatic blunder.

But he had inadvertently slipped it out of his tongue, he hoped that no one had heard his question to Alexander.

Five minutes later, the two entered a room. Sevastian closed the door behind him, securing the privacy of the conversation the two would about to have.

“Your Majesty, I have made another mistake. I apologize for asking you that question,” Sevastian said apologetically as he bowed his head.

“Well, it’s good that you have the initiative to realize your mistake. I would’ve reprimanded you if you didn’t,” Alexander turned around and faced him. “You may now raise your head, Sevastian.”

Sevastian did so and gave Alexander a small smile as he felt relief wash over him. He was glad that the emperor was willing to forgive him.

“So, about your question. Yes, you can say that this is a part of the plan. Our announcement of going to the moon after conquering space has probably made all the great powers tremble at their feet. Your reports about them being able to reverse engineer some of our automotive and aviation technology via observation alone are frightening. We have to remind them that we are ahead. Say, Sevastian, let’s assume that you are the head of state of the Britannia Empire and had learned that the Ruthenia Empire had created an even more powerful battleship, what would you do?”

Sevastian’s eyes furrowed at the sudden question. He quickly contemplated an answer. Seconds later, he had thought of one.

“If I were the head of state of the Britannia Empire, I would first conduct an assessment of whether the battleships would be a threat to my navy. If it does present a threat, then I will act accordingly by increasing the standards of the future battleships that will outmatch the Ruthenian battleships in terms of capabilities.”

“And increasing the standards of your warships involves a lot of money, am I right?”

“Yes, Your Majesty, one-fourth of the budget alone would fund the research and development. Where are you going with this, Your Majesty?”

Just as Sevastian asked that question, his eyes widened in realization.

“Oh, you understood it now?” Alexander mused, fascinated by his quickly catching his point. “We have said to the world that we have gone to space. No one had ever been there but us. You can start to imagine the reactions of the head of state of the great ten powers. They will freak out. They invested a lot of money into catching up with our military, and now we present another problem to them, which is space. If they want to keep up with us, they would have to build their own space program, which costs a lot of money. This is how you win a bloodless war. By making your enemy spend their national treasury to that point that if war occurred, their funds would be insufficient to maintain and supply their troops.”

Alexander was right. As the National Security Advisor who had given access to the reports of the Foreign Intelligence Services about the coffers of the ten great powers. There is an indication of them placing a high budget on research and development ministries, especially the ministry of defense. Taxes on their colonies as well as to their citizens were raised to cope with the ever-increasing demand of the military for developing prototypes.

The ten great powers have been pouring funds on the military to catch up with the advancement of the Ruthenian military. They are desperate to keep up as they deemed it to be a threat to their national security. If they failed to adapt and modernize, then they would be prey to the Ruthenia Empire.

However, there is one problem with Alexander’s plan.

“You couldn’t be more wrong, Your Majesty. But, where are we going to get the money to fund the moon project?” Sevastian raised a question.

The corners of Alexander’s lips curled up in amusement at his question.

He knew exactly where he could pull that kind of money from and had been working on it.

“It’s quite easy. We are going to make Ruthenia open for business,” Alexander declared. “From military hardware, commercial establishments, to goods. We are going to export them to the world.”

Sevastian gulped at his answer. Does he mean to sell military hardware that has been vital for the security of the Ruthenia Empire to the rest of the world?

“Your Majesty…isn’t that a bit dangerous?”

“Dangerous you say? No, there are not. The military hardware that we are exporting is only an export model, an inferior model of the original. The arms industry of the Ruthenia Empire alone would account for seven percent of our economy, that is a lot of rubles. The manufacturing sector would also boom as we would now have a foreign market. This increases the demand and as a result, generates more profit. Not only that, our economy will increase, resulting in a high employment rate where people would have more money to spend on. Also, people making more money means we will generate more revenue from taxes. Think of the benefits of opening our country to the world,” Alexander stated and continued. “Of course, there will be limitations, that’s where the Imperial Council will step in. They will create new laws to regulate this change. So what do you say?”

Sevastian sighed. “I agree with all you have said, Your Majesty. But there’s another problem. How are we going to convince the Imperial Council to pass a law about us loosening restrictions on arms trading?”

“I already talked to the Chairman and other Members of the Imperial Council. They agree to my proposal.”

“You already talked to them?” Sevastian couldn’t believe what he just heard.

“Why? Did you think that I’m not keeping in touch with our legislative branch here? Our government may be separated but I do keep them within my reach.”

“No, Your Majesty…” Sevastian shook his head in disagreement. “Well, since everything is already in place, when are we going to implement it?”

“Tomorrow Sevastian.”