The Dragon's summons rippled across the globe, but it landed with different force in the great capitals of continental Europe. In Berlin, it was received as an audacious challenge. In St. Petersburg, it was felt as an existential threat.
In his study at the Stadtschloss in Berlin, Kaiser Wilhelm II paced back and forth across a plush Persian rug, slapping a supple leather riding crop against his thigh. He was a man of immense ego and martial pride, and the news from China had filled him not with fear, but with a strange, almost joyful excitement.
"Magnificent!" he declared to his assembled generals, a wide, manic grin on his face. "The sheer impudence of this Chinese upstart! He summons me? The German Emperor? As if I were the Bey of Tunis! It is glorious! The man has more backbone than all the powdered, simpering diplomats in Vienna and Paris combined!"
His Chief of the General Staff, a stern, monocled Prussian general named von Schlieffen, did not share his sovereign's enthusiasm. "Your Majesty," he said, his voice a dry rasp of disapproval. "This is not a matter for admiration. It is a direct and calculated threat to the interests of the German Reich. Our colonial concession at Jiaozhou Bay, our burgeoning trade, the very concept of our Weltpolitik—it is all threatened by this lunatic's agenda." He tapped a copy of the summons that lay on the table. "And his naval proposal… to limit fleets by the length of a nation's coastline? It is designed specifically to dismantle the High Seas Fleet we are working so hard to build, while leaving his own armada supreme in Asia. We cannot allow it."
"Of course we cannot allow it!" the Kaiser shot back, his good mood undimmed. "We will show him what German steel is made of! This is a chance for us to assert ourselves! To show the British that we, not they, are the true counterbalance to this new power in the East!"
The German response was immediate, predictable, and entirely military in its thinking. They saw a strategic problem that required a strategic, steel-edged solution.
"We must respond with strength," von Schlieffen stated, laying out his plan. "We should immediately dispatch two of our newest cruisers to reinforce our East Asia Squadron. Their presence will be a clear signal of our intent. Furthermore, we must accelerate our support for the Japanese. I will authorize Krupp to sell them our most modern artillery pieces, the new 105-millimeter field howitzers. We will send military advisors to help them rebuild their army. We will bleed this Chinese Dragon by proxy. Let him waste his resources conquering Japan while we grow stronger here in Europe."
The Kaiser nodded enthusiastically. It was a plan that appealed to his martial sensibilities. "Excellent, Schlieffen! A perfect response! We will show the world the power of German industry and German arms!"
In the vast, cold opulence of the Winter Palace in St. Petersburg, the mood was entirely different. There was no excitement, only a deep, gnawing dread. Tsar Nicholas II, a man of gentle disposition and profound indecision, sat in a gilded chair, his face pale, looking much like a man who had just been told his house was built over a slumbering volcano that was beginning to stir. The threat for Russia was not an ocean away; it was just across a very long, very porous, and very poorly defended land border.
With him were his Foreign Minister, Count Lamsdorff, and the grizzled, bearded governor of Eastern Siberia, a man who understood the harsh realities of the Far East better than any courtier in the capital.
"He demands we recognize his authority over Southeast Asia," the Tsar said, his voice barely a whisper. He traced a line on the great map before them. "But his ambition will not stop at the jungles of Indochina. He is a northern Chinese Emperor. He will look north." His finger moved across the map, tracing the line of the Amur River. "Vladivostok… the Manchurian railway… all of Siberia is rich in timber, in minerals, in land… and it is empty of people. It is the natural target for a conqueror who commands a population of four hundred million."
The governor of Siberia nodded grimly. "Your Majesty, to be blunt, we cannot defend the border. It is too long, and our forces are stretched too thin. The Trans-Siberian Railway is not yet complete. It is a single, vulnerable line through thousands of miles of wilderness. If his new, modernized armies march north, there is nothing of substance to stop them from reaching Lake Baikal within a single campaign season. We would lose all of Asia to the Pacific."
Count Lamsdorff, a man accustomed to the intricate diplomatic dances of Europe, saw that traditional methods were useless here. "We cannot win a conventional war with this new China in the Far East at this time," he stated flatly. "To try would be to invite a catastrophic defeat, one that could destabilize your rule here at home, Your Majesty." He paused. "Therefore, we must fight a different kind of war. A Russian kind of war."
"What do you propose, Count?" the Tsar asked, looking desperate for a solution.
"We must also accept the invitation to his conference," Lamsdorff said. "We must delay. We must talk. We must appear to be reasonable. But our main effort should not be military. It should be subversive."
He walked to the map and pointed to the vast, restive territories on China's western flank. "We will use our agents in Outer Mongolia and in Xinjiang. We will foment rebellion among the Mongol tribes and the Muslim peoples who have despised Han Chinese rule for centuries. We have been cultivating these relationships for decades. It is time to use them."
His plan was a mirror of the one QSH was using in Japan. "We will smuggle them modern rifles. We will send them gold. We will send them military advisors to teach them guerilla warfare. We will promise them their own independent kingdoms under the protection of the Russian crown once the Dragon Emperor is overthrown. We will light fires all along his western border. We will force him to turn his armies inland, away from us, to deal with the crumbling of his own empire. We will give him the same poisoned medicine he is currently forcing down the throat of the Japanese."
The Tsar listened, his expression shifting from fear to a new, colder resolve. It was a cruel, cynical plan, but it was a plan for survival.
As night fell, a new set of coded messages began to fly across the telegraph wires of Europe. They were no longer just between legations in Beijing, but between the foreign ministries of the great powers themselves. Despite being geopolitical rivals, locked in a complex web of alliances and mistrust in Europe, they recognized a common, greater threat emerging in the East.
A telegraph from the Foreign Ministry in Berlin arrived at the Winter Palace.
"REGARDING THE BEIJING SUMMONS. AN INSULT TO ALL CROWNED HEADS OF EUROPE. WE BELIEVE A FIRM, UNITED EUROPEAN FRONT IS NECESSARY. SUGGEST OUR DELEGATIONS COOPERATE AND PRESENT A UNIFIED RESPONSE. KAISER'S REGARDS TO THE TSAR."
Count Lamsdorff brought the message to the Tsar. After a moment of consideration, Nicholas II dictated his reply.
"WE AGREE. THE DRAGON THREATENS US ALL. HIS AMBITION KNOWS NO BORDERS. COORDINATED ACTION IS ESSENTIAL TO PRESERVING GLOBAL ORDER. THE TSAR SENDS HIS GREETINGS TO THE KAISER."
The foundation of a secret European alliance against Qin Shi Huang was laid, born not of friendship, but of a shared, existential fear. The lines were being drawn for a new Great Game, one that would be played for the fate of the entire world.