That day, the assembly convened. Representatives from thirty-eight nations or powers—each either genuinely influential or at least marginally so—attended the conference hall in person.
Among them were Long City and the Four Great Dynasties of the Central Plains.
All the other thirty-seven were sovereign nations; only Long City was a power in the looser sense.
Zhao Mingcheng, Mayor of Xinguang City, was appointed to preside over the assembly.
By rights, given the importance of the occasion, it should have been Zhao Jinyi, as Prime Minister and host, who chaired the proceedings.
But even in Long City as it stood now—where women had begun to take on a portion of public roles—their status remained far below that of men. In other parts of the world, the matter didn't even bear mentioning.
To have a woman preside over a conference of such gravity risked causing difficulties; the chief concern was that she would fail to command the room.
In this day and age, that was no exaggeration. The moment a man heard that a woman intended to stand above him and lord it over him, nine times out of ten he simply could not stomach it.
Of course, if it were Manager Wu from the Taoyuan Hotel standing over her husband, he probably wouldn't put up a fight.
And so, after some discussion, everyone agreed that Zhao Mingcheng should chair the assembly after all.
The hall was in an uproar—until Mingcheng walked in, and the clamor abruptly stilled.
Mingcheng took his seat at the head of the table and spoke, unhurried. "Good day to you all. I am Zhao Mingcheng, the presiding representative of Long City, your host for this assembly."
Beside each national delegate sat a Long City interpreter, providing real-time translation throughout.
"Before we formally open proceedings, I have one matter to raise with everyone. I ask that you please refrain from brawling in the streets. In the past few days alone, there have been three separate street-fighting incidents."
"You are all ambassadors of your respective nations—men of standing and reputation. Word of such conduct getting out does none of you any credit."
A number of people quietly lowered their heads.
Then, catching themselves, they quickly looked back up—as though, so long as they didn't give themselves away, no one would know they had been involved.
A large-scale street brawl that caused no serious consequences carried a sentence of fifteen days' detention. It had only been a few days; they had been released on bail by the city government and would be required to serve the remainder of their sentences once the assembly concluded.
Those were Long City's rules.
Special circumstances could be accommodated, but when all was said and done, what you owed, you still had to pay.
"Very well. Let us proceed."
"The first item on the agenda is the establishment of a United Nations. We believe there is a compelling case for its creation."
"Consider the present situation. The majority of nations represented here are engaged in a war of unprecedented scale."
"Has it occurred to any of you that every war produces winners and losers—and what becomes of those who lose? The destruction of a state, the extinction of a people? The annihilation of a nation? The massacre of one's kin? Who will safeguard their human rights?"
"Can anyone here guarantee with certainty that their own country will not be the one left on the losing side?"
The moment Mingcheng finished speaking, the interpreters—impressively skilled—completed their simultaneous translations.
A great rustling followed, and more than half the room rose to their feet, chins thrust upward, their bearing declaring plainly: *Whoever loses, it won't be us.*
Mingcheng very nearly said: *Would the French delegate please sit down—your government has already been beaten out of existence.*
Alas, the occasion did not permit it.
As for those who remained seated, they were the ones not yet drawn into the conflict, and were content for now to watch the show from the sidelines.
"Please, everyone, be seated." Faced with this roomful of stiff-necked fools, Mingcheng felt a certain helplessness.
He could only resort to a fictional country as his example—supposing it had been defeated, its state dissolved, its people perhaps erased from the earth. What then should be done? He painted a picture of the devastation that follows defeat, and closed with the declaration that civilized people could not permit such things to come to pass.
Of course, the United Nations would concern itself only with protecting civilians; soldiers were another matter entirely, so nations were free to fight as hard as they liked and hold nothing back.
That, the delegations could more or less accept.
The discussion moved on to the other functions of the United Nations—the provision of aid, assistance to weaker nations, rescue operations for those caught in war or disaster.
The assembled delegates looked, for the most part, thoroughly uninterested.
What era did they think they were living in? Was this not all rather premature?
Very well. Mingcheng had no choice but to cut that section short and move to the next item: the distribution of power.
When the Long City government put forward its desire to control the United Nations, no one was inclined to agree.
Finding the front door barred, Long City tried the window instead.
Their proposal: one vote per nation. The many small and weak nations immediately declared this the only fair arrangement.
The great powers, naturally, objected. If one of them could thrash a dozen of the others single-handedly, why should they share equal votes?
So the proposal was revised: votes would be weighted in tiers, divided into three grades.
The first tier, with three seats: Long City, the British Empire, and Germany.
The French delegation objected. The Russians objected. *On what grounds? Why should we rank below Germany?*
The question of how much weight each nation's voice should carry consumed the better part of a fortnight in furious debate before a grudging consensus was reached.
Ordinary nations received one vote each.
The Four Great Dynasties of the Central Plains fell into this category—as did several others who ran alongside them. The dynasties' representatives were quite satisfied with this arrangement. At least now there were others at their level. When they had first come to the table, they had been slotted into a fourth tier all by themselves, treated like stray dogs. Could they now claim to be at least guard dogs?
Nations of somewhat greater weight received two or three votes.
Germany received four.
The British Empire, and Long City, each received five.
Long City's wealth and strength had been plain for all to see; as the host besides, five votes seemed only natural.
The British Empire commanded the support of numerous allies and the nations of the Commonwealth, and its position as the world's foremost power at this moment was impossible to deny.
It, too, received five votes.
Germany's demonstrated military strength, combined with its role as the senior partner on the other side of the war, made four votes something the others could reluctantly live with.
Privately, the Germans themselves acknowledged they were not yet Britain's equal. The Royal Navy's glory had not yet dimmed; it was still running the German Navy ragged across the seas.
France, naturally, wanted four votes as well. Was the glory of la Grande Nation worth nothing?
But with its government having been chased out by Germany, what glory remained to speak of? Three votes it would have to be, and it accepted that, however grudgingly.
After all, there were plenty of nations in the tier below, receiving two votes—and another tier below that, with only one. Set against that company, three was bearable.
The New United States, having received two votes, made known its hope that the allocation of votes might be revisited in future.
Its ambitions could hardly have been more transparent.
Fair enough, it was decided: the question of vote weighting would be reopened for discussion each year.
In the end, everyone accepted the arrangement—primarily because not a single nation believed it deserved only as many votes as it had been given.
A room full of people with no sense of their own limitations!