"His attitude has begun to soften," Pei Lu said. "In the recent exams, his violent tendencies have been diminishing bit by bit. When I graded his papers, I could feel that he was starting to believe internally that some extreme and cruel methods were not the optimal solution, and that much violence would backfire. A more mature and advanced military ideology has begun to take shape in his mind."
Jiang Ye pondered silently, stroking his chin.
"We have an assignment called a learning journal, where each student records their reflections from the past week's studies. For example, which piece of knowledge once shocked them, which class changed their fixed views, or which class they felt they didn't pay attention to," Pei Lu explained. "Yu Xiangyang wrote his journals diligently, and there was one entry where his transformation was evident. I'll find it for you."
"Alright, thank you for the trouble."
"Sir, you are too polite. It is our duty to serve you."
Pei Lu opened her phone, scrolled quickly, and then handed the phone to Jiang Ye.
Jiang Ye began to read intently.
"15th Learning Journal / Speed Cultivation Class 1 / Yu Xiangyang"
"Reviewing my feelings this week from a technical and ideological perspective."
"From a technical standpoint, the space tactics learned this week, in my opinion, are an expansion and transformation of surface warfare tactics, akin to moving from two dimensions to three. During the learning process, I had a feeling that the human brain could only develop this form of combat. The core of space warfare actually existed in the cold weapon era. After thousands of years, humans are still humans, and have not significantly evolved. Therefore, when fighting alien races with completely different brain structures, both sides might find each other's combat thinking completely alien. I consulted the teacher, and the teacher confirmed my speculation."
"From an ideological standpoint, I've had many thoughts this week."
"I grew up in a military residential area. When I was a child, I was playing behind a ruined wall. One day, I suddenly became curious about the dense holes on the wall. My elders told me they were called bullet holes. Twenty years before I was born, this was the battlefield of the Rodelock Campaign. The Gunter army massacred tens of thousands of civilians here. In retaliation, after the Rulule army defeated the Gunter army, they massacred thousands of prisoners here."
"The education I received from childhood was this kind of education. Because my hometown has such a history, I have a wealth of similar stories to tell."
"When I was in middle school, I read history textbooks. Wars between the Rulule and Gunter regions had begun many years ago. There were occasional periods of peace for twenty or thirty years, but then they would resume fighting, over and over again."
"During times of peace, many arguments would emerge, such as that the people of the two regions should be friendly for generations, that many soldiers held no hatred and were driven to fight on the battlefield, and the classic saying that the current generation of Gunter people had not engaged in war, and their sins were those of the previous generation, so they should be forgiven. Or that the Gunter people had repented, and they were good neighbors, and war would not start again."
"When the history teacher spoke of these arguments, he became so emotional that tears streamed down his face."
"The teacher said, 'The Gunter people say they won't fight anymore, but what about our slaughtered people? The Gunter people can come and burn and kill as they please, and when they decide they don't want to fight anymore, they expect us to forgive them. Are we so servile? In times of peace, killing incurs the death penalty and heavy fines. Enemy soldiers come, kill, and leave, but how many enemy soldiers live comfortably to old age? Who can judge them? What price have they paid? Does time alone wash away sins? Does clean water wash away bloodstains?'"
"The teacher concluded with a very firm stance: 'Either we destroy Gunter, or Gunter destroys us Rulule. There will be no other choice. Let the enemy forgive us, let our descendants repent. It is better for our descendants to lay flowers at the enemy's graves than for the enemy's descendants to lay flowers at ours.'"
"After that class, I read a large amount of war history and memoirs, and my ideology gradually took shape."
"I believe that geographically, the Gunter people must dream of breaking out of the tropics and expanding into the more habitable and vast temperate zones. This means that the Gunter people will invade us at any opportunity. From a historical and cultural perspective, the Gunter people's covetousness for the Rulule region has been ingrained in their collective consciousness. Our generational wars are geographically and ideologically determined, and cannot be changed."
"The Gunter people's view of us has never changed. We have not clearly realized this, which is why we sometimes call ourselves friendly neighbors and at other times speak of the resurgence of Gunter's militaristic terror. This is actually our naivety and innocence. So-called peace is merely a pretense of a truce, providing a breathing space for the next invasion. Most people only look at the current few years and cannot step back to view the broader history and the world. If they step back, they will discover that the fate of the world is actually very clear."
"I have maintained this ideology for decades. Initially, I only believed that the relationship between the Rulule and Gunter regions was like this. Later, I subconsciously felt that all hostile relationships were like this. I believe that hostile relationships arise because they are supported by deep geographical and cultural factors, and therefore are irreconcilable. We seemingly have the option of peace, but whoever chooses it is deceived. It's like two sports cars with broken brakes and no steering wheels, speeding towards each other. Only when one is crashed, or both are crashed, will they finally stop."
"After coming to Jiang Ye Star to study, I began to realize that my view might not apply to all regions, nor to all times."
"The reason is simple: the world of Wheeler Star has been changed by the alien force known as the Jiang Ye Army."
"In the past, the changes on Wheeler Star were all superficial, based on mutual deception. But after the Jiang Ye Army arrived, they truly changed the world of Wheeler Star. This change includes economics, military affairs, and culture. It can even be said that they expanded the territory of the Wheeler people, because the Wheeler people also obtained a ticket to the universe. In the future, the descendants of the Wheeler people have the hope of settling on their own new planets, much like a family buying another house."
"In this context, ancestral enmities can be dissolved, wars can be downgraded and avoided, and true peace can arrive for a long time. Maintaining it for centuries is not a fantasy."
"Therefore, for the sake of long-term peace and to end exhausting wars, under the premise of absolute military might, using appeasement instead of violence to force the enemy into ultimate submission is a feasible path. And the massacres I carried out on the front lines to completely eliminate future troubles were redundant actions, even detrimental to the situation, equivalent to stepping on the accelerator of a vehicle that was about to brake to a halt."
"We often say we should look at issues from a higher perspective. My past habit was to observe Wheeler Star from outside its atmosphere, looking at the boundaries of continents and oceans, feeling that this was high enough. But in reality, one can stand a light-year away to observe Wheeler Star, where it becomes an insignificant speck in the dark universe. Since it is a mere speck, changes become effortless."