"Your Highness, we don't know how to thank you."

"It's a logistics pa.s.s through our country, and of course we should be responsible for it. It's a disgrace to let China pay for all the trains and road construction costs in our country."

"We understand that the economic situation of Kazakhstan in the past years had not allowed that before."

"No matter how difficult the national economy is, we cannot leave the country's infrastructure in the responsibility of other countries. The same goes for the free economic zone of Khorgas. We said we would manage the area as a common area, but we haven't been able to show our responsibilities."

"Our government will be happy to hear that you're offering to invest in royal funds. Can I ask how much you're planning to invest?"

"I can invest about 100 million dollars. I hope it's not too little."

"Oh, the amount of money doesn't matter. The fact that the royal family has a great interest in the free economic zones is a huge boost for us."

Youngho decided to ease the tension with China by supporting the free economic zone as he did not want any physical clash with China, but the Chinese envoy interpreted the situation in his own way. Youngho would invest several times more amount in a land in Kazakhstan, but the special economic zone of Khorgas belonged to China under international law, although it belongs to Xinjiang Uyghur. Even if he wanted to invest more, this might be misunderstood that the Kazakh royal family was doing something that was antinomic since the more the special district became active, the more Xinjiang Uyghur's independence would become farther away. From Kazakhstan's perspective, Khorgas was also a double-edged sword. When the Kazakh royal family said it would invest in a free economic zone, China accepted that as a promise that there would be no further tension between the two countries in the future.

"If we improve some of the absurdities of the agreements between China and our previous administration, we will actively involve in the business with China. I'd like to hear your thoughts."

"Our government has also decided to proactively review past agreements with the Kazakh government. Since Your Highness has a lot of interest in the One Belt One Road, of course, we should cooperate. However, it is difficult to adjust the Uzbekistan or Turkmenistan routes as we've already exchanged MOUs with the two governments. I hope you will take into consideration our government's difficulties."

"Then, will you let Kazakhstan solely be in charge of the Kyrgyzstan line that is connected to Almaty at least?"

"If only the Kyrgyz government agrees, it'll be something that our government will appreciate too."

The Kyrgyzstan route was only a 300-kilometer-long pa.s.s, and it did not have much economic additional effect, so China had no reason to be stubborn. In other words, Kyrgyzstan was a country that had little appeal.

"Can you decide it on your own as a special envoy?"

"I'm just sharing our government's perspective. The decision is up to the Kyrgyz government. I'm just concerned about whether the Kyrgyz government will give up the economic cooperation part that's previously arranged with our government."

It was not much of economic cooperation. There were no other things than laying a few railroads, bridges and creating a free trade zone.

"I'll solve that problem myself."

"If you do, then our country will be spared an awkward situation with the Kyrgyz government."

As of today, Youngho had reached a major compromise about the Kyrgyz issue with China.

"And the One Belt One Road business could be delayed due to border disputes between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. But since it's a problem in Central Asia, Kazakhstan will intervene and make a big adjustment."

Finally, Youngho brought up the most sensitive issue. It was to state that any problem in Central Asia was under Kazakhstan's influence. If the two countries engaged in border disputes, China, an economic stakeholder, would definitely intervene, so Youngho wanted to prevent that.

"China has no intention of engaging in the internal affairs of other countries. Especially if it's a border dispute, it's not a matter of further action."

"The reason I'm saying this is that the Central Asian countries are all members of the Commonwealth of Independent States. Russia has no choice but to step in if China decides to intervene. We don't want the situation to escalate from the standpoint of Kazakhstan."

"Everyone knows that Kazakhstan is the center country of Central Asia. It would be a good thing for our country if Kazakhstan actively mediated the dispute."

It would be foolish to believe this word at once, but it was necessary to make clear that Kazakhstan would actively intervene in Central Asian affairs. If China stepped in the border issues without Kazakhstan's consent, China would have to abandon its Eurasian route.

***

Jong-il had a short trip of four nights and five days to Korea, but he came back with a lot of promise.

During his visit to Korea, he was the talk of the town, and what made Youngho happy was that Jong-il recruited young Koreans who would become a cyber unit of Kazakhstan and that he would be able to import the latest weapons from Korea without conditions.

What Youngho had previously discussed with the head of South Korea's Defense Acquisition Program Administration when he visited Kazakhstan was finalized and materialized during Jong-il's visit to Korea.

Park Jong-il, who briefly reported the results of his visit to Seoul government officials, patted his stomach and smiled only after drinking a few gla.s.ses of wine in broad daylight.

"Didn't you get to drink a lot in Korea?"

"How can the earl of the Kazakh Kingdom be drunk in Korea where all people are watching you?"

"I thought I was going to die of it."

"I heard Korean officials drink quite a lot."

"They heard that Kazakhstan was an Islamic nation, so they didn't even give me pork, let alone any alcohol."

"You didn't even meet your friends?"

"Are you kidding me? I went there as a special envoy. I can't go anywhere I want to go. I had double and triple layers of guards who protected me. I couldn't find a way to get away from them. Man… I spent the whole time meeting with the ministers and vice-ministers there."

Even though Jong-il was complaining, he looked very bright since he brought good results from Korea.

"The Korean Army decided to send their main battle tanks and advanced trainer jets to us."

"What? Tell me the details."

"Here's the data, so read it."

"It's a big deal."

"Yep. They see as a second Korea, not a foreign country. They also offered to take responsibility for training cyber unit members."

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It seemed that Jong-il left the recruitment and preparation of the cyber unit members to the Korean government before leaving Korea.

"How many computer majors did you ask for?"

"I said I need about 500."

"What? That's a huge number."

"I thought we'd need more people since we lack computer experts in each military department."

The Kazakh military did not need many computer experts because most of them only used conventional weapons. However, now it had to be different. It was time to switch to a state-of-the-art weapons system, so the current number of computer professionals was far from sufficient.

About 300 people would be sent to the cyber unit, 200 additional computer experts would be sent to each part of the Kazakh military since there was a shortage of people who handled electronic equipment. It was because Kazakhstan had more people who had not even had the chance to touch the computer. While it may be hard to understand from the perspective of Korea or other advanced countries, the Caucasus and Central Asia were just like that.

Thinking about the situation, Youngho thought that computers should be supplied to each high school immediately.

"How many high school students are there in Kazakhstan?"

"You want to use the royal fund again? How can you afford to give out a computer to each student? It is more efficient to make computer cla.s.srooms in each school."

"Well, who's going to be the computer teacher, then?"

"We've got to bring them from Korea."

"Would young Koreans want to go to the remote places of Kazakhstan, let alone the language barrier?"

"What about it? There are a lot of idle young people in Korea anyway. They'd be glad to have a job. And, what about the language barrier? We've got Koryoins as interpreters."

There were about 100,000 Koryoin people in Kazakhstan. People who were still fluent in Korean. Mobilizing them would easily break down the language barrier even if countless young Koreans crowded in.

"Did you have any other orders from the Korean government?"

"Oh, it's too many that I can't even list it all now."

"What is it?"

"Is there anything else than underground resources in Kazakhstan?"

"Korea wants to take our resources only?"

"No, there are tons of businesses that have lined up to build factories in Kazakhstan, although they're declining industry. They're also thinking of making inroads into Uzbekistan or the Caucasus in the future, based on Kazakhstan."

"They can't build factories that cause pollution in here."

"Are we in a position to pick whatever we like? We should be thankful that they're willing to build factories here, and instead of worrying about the factories, we should worry about the shortage of people who can work there."

"Don't worry about that because I'm going to receive Uyghurs and Uzbeks as well."

"Would China let them go so easily?"

"They're only problems to the Chinese government's eyes, they will rather like it if we take them."

"Wow, everyone's being pushed by China."

"Who else is there?"

"The Korean companies are having a hard time because of the Chinese government."

"That's been like this all the time. Why are we still hanging on to China?"

"Think about the amount consumed by 1.3 billion people. Can you really ignore it?"

"Do we have anything to target the Chinese market, too?"

That was what Youngho said, but all he could think of right now was resources.

It was a shame that Kazakhstan did not have any special thing that could dominate the Chinese market.