Empire of the Ring

Although Youngho tried his best to keep the current situation quiet, Fatima and Zeynep, who had sensed something, kept asking him about the current change.

“Why in the world has the palace security been tightened?”

“It’s a routine check. I’m just trying to make sure there’s no one slacking.”

“Honey, I know your lying face, so be honest or I’m going to get mad.”

“Fatima, I’m telling you. It’s nothing.”

“Oppa!”

It was Zeynep who was listening to their conversation.

“Why are you yelling at me?”

“You should come clean because we know all about it.”

It was Zeynep’s typical bluffing to make Youngho talk.

“Tell me what you know. I’m rather curious.”

“You told us not to go out for a few days, didn’t you? Do you know how serious your face was when you said that?”

“It’s because of the wind and the sandstorm, and the only thing I was serious about that day was an issue regarding the deployment of our royal bodyguards to Afghanistan.”

“Come on! What is it really?”

Despite Youngho’s excuses, Fatima asked again.

Judging by her serious face, it did not seem that she would let it go easily. He had no other choice but to be straightforward. He did not want to tell his family since he did not want to make them worry, but they needed to know.

“In fact, a Romanian human trafficking ring showed up at the royal territory, so we arrested them. They target girls, so I wanted to be cautious just in case.”

“But why is the palace security tightened, and there are so many security guards around Jelyan and me? Are we the ones they’re after?”

It did not take long for the quick-witted Zeynep to figure out the truth.

“I’m just preparing for a rainy day. You are my precious girls. We’re trying to be careful about everything, so don’t go out alone without bodyguards.”

Any further conversation would reveal the truth, so he cut the conversation short in the middle and quickly got off the table.

If Zeynep found out that the human trafficking organization was mobilized to shake the royal family, she would make a fuss and try to use her personal connections to find out who was behind it. She had made connections with influential people in Europe while running a social welfare foundation. Youngho did not want to make it big and ruin the operation.

“Are they really not targeting our children?”

Fatima chased Youngho to the bathroom where he was brushing his teeth and urged him.

“I said that’s not it. What kind of organization will start a war against the Kazakh royal family?”

“But it is still unacceptable that it has targeted our people.”

“I’m going to root them out, so don’t worry. We’re going to send agents to Romania soon.”

“How can they underestimate Kazakhstan like this?”

“They must have done it for other purposes.”

“You don’t think there’s someone behind all this, do you?”

Youngho flinched at Fatima’s word, and Fatima did not miss it.

“You have a lead.”

“Please keep it to yourself and don’t tell the children.”

Youngho told everything to Fatima as he could not hide it anymore.

“I can’t believe that they targeted our poor Jelyan.”

“They may have mentioned Jelyan with the intention to confuse us, so it’s too early to make a conclusion.”

“It is not acceptable to mention Jelyan with any intention. Be sure to find the main culprit and punish him, so this won’t ever happen again.”

“We will do that for sure, so don’t worry. For now, we’re going to make it seem that nothing has happened. If we get shaken, we would be giving in to the enemy’s plot.”

***

There were dozens of human trafficking rings in Bucharest, Romania’s capital, according to the statements of the criminals directly involved in the case. The arrested criminals were members of the largest ring.

So far, it was revealed that there was a client who ordered them.

The raid on the Romanian human trafficking ring was carried out covertly.

Based on the information provided by the U.S. CIA’s European headquarters and the criminals’ statements, the human trafficking ring’s location was identified.

Although the ring had moved to a second location as their members did not return from Kazakhstan, it was not difficult to find out the second location due to the help of the local agents of the U.S. CIA.

“I told Hong Sung-ki’s team to wait until they can capture the high rankers of the ring there.”

“Good job. Tell them not to miss a single member. And since we can’t let the local police find out about their deployment, they’ll have to limit their gun use as much as possible.”

Youngho told Hong Sung-ki to find out about the people behind the scenes and demolish the whole group no matter what. That was why he sent well-trained agents who could assassinate human trafficking ring members even without guns.

“Don’t worry. He said that the local CIA agent gave them pistols with a silencer attached.”

“Whoa, I guess Michael’s determined to help us with this job. But I can’t believe they really thought about kidnapping Jelyan. It’s ridiculous. Fortunately, the royal territory’s security was perfect. It would’ve been a disaster if it wasn’t.”

“Right. If they had rather sent an assassin to kill you, I would’ve understood, but I still don’t get why they tried to kidnap the princess.”

“Well, I guess they wanted to cut off the ties between the Kurds and the royal family than to assassinate me.”

If the gang members tried to assassinate Youngho, it would have been obvious that China was behind it. It was because China was the only country that would benefit the most from Youngho’s disappearance. However, if that was the case, the Kazakh government would not have been silent. A war would definitely happen no matter what. Knowing that, China would not have dared to do so.

If Jelyan disappeared, the ties between Kurds, the main support base of the royal family, and the Kazakh royal family would be cut off, and the royal power would weaken. It was the most affordable method to remove its opponent for China.

“I’m certain that China is behind all this. Think about how we’re going to serve these guys.”

“Well, I also think so, but we don’t have any hard evidence yet. Isn’t that a hasty decision?”

“Hey, China is the only country that will benefit by damaging the royal family. Let’s think about how to get even with China once we find the evidence.”

“Hmmm… Then why don’t we use Xinjiang Uyghur?”

Most of the Uyghurs, who intended to move to Kazakhstan, had crossed the border already. Park Jong-il was proposing to support the Uyghur rebels in the region to shake up China.

“Will the Uyghur rebels be able to get back on their feet when they are almost destroyed?”

“We’re going to support them so that they can reorganize themselves. Uyghurs’ independence is a long way off, but we have to give them hope.”

“They’re an untrained group. Do you think they’re going to be a match for the Chinese army? It’s like we’re just going to waste precious lives.”

“The rest of the people in Xinjiang Uyghur are prepared to die and fight against China. We’ve been careful because of the Uyghur migrants, but now that the migration is over, why don’t we support the rebels again and try to get them back on their feet?”

Using Uyghurs seemed to be the most desirable way to get back at China at the moment.

Now was the best time to counterattack, as the rebels had been quiet for some time and the Chinese army was also at ease.

Youngho readily agreed, as he was already determined to punish China in his heart. Even if he wanted, neither him or Jong-il could cross the border by themselves for this job now.

“It won’t be easy to reform the rebels because all the Serbian mercenaries had been pulled out already…”

“There is a Uyghur government in exile in northern Afghanistan called Turkistan Islamic Party. If we support them, we can get connected to Xinjiang Uyghur.”

“Can an asylum organization use its power to the mainland?”

“I’ve been in contact with our agents. They said there’s still a militia group left in Xinjiang Uyghur.”

“Good. Then we can send Russian conventional weapons to our troops in Afghanistan.”

“Why don’t we have the Uyghurs trained in Afghanistan?”

It was possible because Afghanistan bordered Xinjiang Uyghur of China.

Although there was heavy inspection, people could sneak in and out if they traveled through the Pamir Plateau.

“I’m going to talk to Michael and get some of the Uighurs’ training expenses covered.”

“Yes, I think that’s a good idea. The U.S. intelligence agents said that the CIA is funding Uyghur militias, but they had not seen any achievement so far. They’d rather like it if we take charge in training them.”

“All right. Let the US CIA know that our troops deployed there are going to train the Uyghurs and also supply them weapons.”

“From now on, the Chinese leadership won’t be able to sleep well.”

“Yep. They’ll start having nightmares in no time.”

“…”

“We’re going to give you a taste of Kazakhstan’s drones.”

“You’ve developed a new product, haven’t you?”

“Yes, look forward to it because it has a satellite navigation system that can be operated from a few kilometers away.”

“Can you carry a bomb and drop it too?”

As he said this, Jong-il’s eyes were glistening.