What was his endgame?

Even when I've watched the show as, you know, a kid, I've always thought that his plan is retarded. As the de-facto leader of the Earth Kingdom, he should have known that they are losing ground to the Fire Nation and losing it rapidly. Yes, they haven't taken Ba Sing Se yet, but they've tried to do it repeatedly and almost succeeded with that drill.
Yet, when the Avatar arrived, his plan seemed to be "do whatever is necessary to antagonize him" instead of "do whatever he says, offer him as much help as possible and send him away from Ba Sing Se as soon as possible". His control of the Earth Kingdom won't be jeopardized, the Earth King doesn't have to know shit, Long Feng can do all the negotiations.
So, why did he go full retard?

The Iron Law of Institutions. Those who are in charge of institutions would rather see them perish than lose control.

He was born with nothing. So he had to struggle and connive and claw his way to power. So it made him dumb and aggressive.

And Azula totally rode his dick later.

Pretty sure he wanted the fire nation to take control, then install him and the dai li as puppet rulers

Because he had already dug himself into a hole by lying about the war in the first place. If Long Feng ended up sending troops to aid in the war, the king would notice and ask questions. Questions that would put Long Feng in prison.

How would he notice? It's not like the Earth King leaves his palace often.

this

This guy was basically Wang Jingwei, right?

>And Azula totally rode his dick later.
what makes you think that (other than your boner)?

Don't remind me, the whole bit with him was retarded; only made to prop up firebenders despite firebending being shown as the least versatile and ultimately least dangerous form od bending in the series (ironically).

I really enjoyed how the creators had Fire benders be the ones who were taking over, even when they were the shittiest element. The fact they they were the more aggressive and had as rated to industrialize before any other nations.

I'd argue that, for the unskilled, it's the most dangerous, especially if there's a lot of trees around.

When you don't need to worry about fuel to power your machines, you can come up with some pretty elaborate machines, user.

exactly, any moderately skilled firebender is essentially an unlimited amount of coal

>you can come up with some pretty elaborate machines,

Like the mech from LoK's season 4. They didn't have to worry about fuel as they had unlimited power.

I'm pretty sured any bender can get tired, just like any other person can get tired from doing work.

Of course, then Bryke went full retard and had a dozen drudges using lightning-bending to fuel a power station.

If it was so unlimited, why didn't Kuvira build a fleet of colossi instead.

limited resources, time, and large cost of making one

Crashing this kingdom
WITH NO SURVIVORS

Only so much platinum. They would need platinum for each mech and the cannon plus hack up the vines.
Smaller mechs would be more liable to get taken down as opposed to a larger one since they could be sunk or tossed around.

If i remove you from the Dai Li, will you die?

And any lightning bender is an unlimited source of electricity