The victory of the war brought endless joy to the Greek soldiers.
At least the one-month wait has now been proven to be worth it. Of course, many people have also realized that their ally, especially Li Ning's personal military talent, may be indispensable in future battles.
The only good thing is that Li Ning is proficient in Greek and can get along with many Greek generals, which makes Alexander and others feel that he is hardly an outsider.
However, the people of the Song Dynasty, except Li Ning, were incompatible with them.
Therefore, some Greek generals began to secretly believe that in the war, they only needed the support of Li Ning's troops, and did not necessarily need the participation of all the people of the Song Dynasty.
However, when this idea was still immature, he encountered a huge stimulus, and he had to be thrown in front of everyone by some impulsive generals as one of his coping methods.
This is what stimulates them.
One day, Alexander, who was curious about the way of life of the people of the Song Dynasty, found a fellow speaker and visited the Song Dynasty military camp together.
However, when talking to the soldiers, he was asked how much of the city he would give to the Song Dynasty people. After all, they had captured all five cities.
Although this statement is not rigorous, after all, the Greek soldiers fought desperately, but almost everyone agreed that the bulk of the spoils should belong to them.
Alexander flew into a rage. He had never considered this issue before, and he had never imagined that someone would snatch the spoils from him.
Paralyzed by his thoughts and angry with shame, he even almost started fighting with the soldiers of the Song Dynasty. However, the Song Dynasty army only feared civilian officials and never looked down upon enemies in armor.
Therefore, several low-level officers directly pulled out their swords, which almost caused a bloody accident.
Fortunately, Mr. Boya appeared in time and stopped this meaningless fight.
But Alexander was still angry, so he immediately felt the military camp inside and asked sternly: "Don't you have the strength to come up with the stone tablet carved on the bank of the Granicus River?"
This was a bit of a twist, and he immediately realized the seriousness of the problem, because the stone tablet mentioned by the other party was inscribed with the covenant between the two countries.
"What happened? Your Majesty the King."
Li Ning stood up solemnly and asked in a respectful tone.
But this did not lessen Alexander's anger.
"What else could happen? Your soldiers are so greedy. They actually asked me for these five cities as their reward."
Li Ning felt what Alexander felt.
Although he was also unprepared for this, he suddenly relaxed his expression and explained to Alexander in a joking tone.
"It's no big deal for soldiers to ask me for rewards from their king. You shouldn't be angry even if you are a soldier of heaven."
"Why shouldn't you be angry? That's not my business. Why should I tolerate their greed."
"Because their despicable greed will turn into courage to fight on the battlefield. Isn't this the meaning of the reward for you?"
For a politician, this is indeed not difficult to understand.
But Alexander was still a little unhappy.
Li Ning Zhenhao patted his shoulder and explained to him from another angle.
"Besides, it is not the group of soldiers who decide where the five cities belong, but the Song Dynasty court behind you and me. As you mentioned, our alliance monument is still standing there, so we will not Breach of contract.”
After hearing this statement, Alexander finally calmed down.
"So, you really just want some of the benefits of doing business."
"Yes, but if you don't mind, we also hope to get some land to use as our goods distribution center."
Alexander had never heard of this term. He looked at Li Ning blankly and asked, "What is a distribution center?"
"It is a place where goods are temporarily stored from distant places to local areas, from cities to villages."
"I see, isn't that a city?"
Tomorrow, he thought of the city again, worried that he would contact the five cities just now, so he immediately started to cover up.
"It doesn't have to be a city, and it can't just include cities. Because we need agricultural land to provide food supplies for such areas. At the same time, the distribution center can directly deliver goods to surrounding cities without the need to establish a distribution center in each city. center."
"Okay! Then the Caria region will be given to the Kingdom of Heaven as a gift for them to send troops to support my eastern expedition."
Li Ning didn't expect him to be so generous. After all, the entire Karia region did not only include those five cities.
So he asked with some confusion: "Why has Your Majesty become so generous?"
"I'm not a stingy person to begin with."
Alexander actually laughed as he said this: "If China has any big territorial demands in the future, you can raise them directly to me, but one thing is that your territories cannot be connected together, otherwise all Macedonians will feel uneasy."
After saying this, Li Ning immediately smelled the little calculation in it.
If the territories cannot be connected together, all the forces cannot be twisted into one rope. Instead, troops need to be divided and garrisoned, so you have to be careful when entering the territory.
However, such caution would only lead to a few minutes of self-centeredness. It would be unwise to quarrel with allies, so Li Ning immediately said magnanimously: "The Kingdom of Heaven is very grateful to His Majesty the King for this generosity, but the territory we need does not exist." Not much, still like what I described to you before, just some places by the sea.”
"It seems you are very interested in maritime trade."
"No, we are more interested in agriculture. If possible, can the northern coast of the Black Sea, which you are not interested in, be set aside for us to attack?"
"Yes!" Alexander agreed without thinking. He knew that many of his men were also very interested in that area. After all, it was not far from Greece in the Balkans, and it was directly connected to Macedonia on land. As a result, there were many Greek city-states early on and became colonies with modern characteristics. However, it was not a wealthy place after all, so it was not within the scope of his crusade.
But since Li Ning was interested in it, he simply left it to him.
I heard that the vast plain that had been controlled by the Scythians did have fertile soil.
But as a disseminator and advocate of Greek civilization, although he is self-proclaimed, he still needs to put forward a proviso to Li Ning, which is: "But the castle there must retain its democratic system."
"Of course! Our country also has many democratic systems. Seriously, I'm not going to lie to you!"
Alexander immediately showed his yearning for the so-called kingdom of heaven, but Li Ning did not agree to his invitation to travel first, but hoped that he would continue the route of the previous Eastern Expedition.
However, Alexander said that since winter and the New Year were coming, he was going to arrange for some of his men to go home to visit their relatives. After all, it was not long before they set off for the Eastern Expedition, and they were not too far from their hometown. And among their troops, many people got married just before the Eastern Expedition. These people especially need to go back and reunite with their new wives.
Li Ning expressed his understanding of this arrangement. In fact, this arrangement also appeared in the original history.
At the same time, he also stated that the Hellespont and Phrygia regions, which were already under the control of the Song Dynasty, would provide sufficient travel convenience for these soldiers.
This pleased the generous Alexander.
But he also realized: "My men may be dissatisfied with the conversation between you and me. I hope that the army of heaven can perform better in future wars."
"It will be exactly what you hope it will be, I promise!"
Alexander left with this satisfactory guarantee, and Li Ning also took a long breath and felt some uneasy atmosphere.
But in any case, since the Battle of Granikas, Li Ning finally won another territory for the Song Dynasty, and it was also the Caria region including the pearl on the east coast of the Mediterranean like Ephesus.
Moreover, their interest in agriculture slightly reduced Alexander's uneasiness. The neglected land on the northern shore of the Black Sea can effectively alleviate the contradiction between man and land on Fujian Road.
