I want to be emperor

Chapter 1027 Queen Wang

On April 26, the forty-seventh year of Chengshun, the Chu Empire officially announced in the court newspaper that Luo Zhixue was about to conduct an overseas inspection.

This also means that many preparations for Luo Zhixue's overseas inspections have been fully made public... Of course, the so-called public preparations at this stage are actually the final stage.

Because in the past three years, many preparations have been made, and even the specific work of various inspections has been prepared in the first quarter of this year.

The Royal Princess, which serves as the royal pilot, has completed modifications and sea trials, and is now parked at Wusong Naval Base, waiting for Luo Zhixue's arrival.

Waiting along with the Royal Princess are many advanced warships loaned from the Navy, as well as hospital ships, ocean-going supply ships, troop transports, etc.

The accompanying Guards have also made preparations. Some of the troops of the 1st Guards Division and the 1st Cavalry Regiment of the Guards, which are scheduled to perform land protection tasks, have been dispatched to the overseas areas planned to be inspected to take over the defense of the inspected areas. , such as Singapore, the provincial capital of Malacca Province, a key area for inspection in the Nanyang region. The original local army garrison has been transferred to the Beijia area, and the local defense has been taken over by the Guards.

At the same time, the two intelligence agencies, the Military Intelligence Department directly under the Military Council and the Internal Affairs Section of the Hanlin Academy, have taken the lead in conducting overt and covert visits to the local area to eliminate possible threats in advance.

It can be said that before the Empire disclosed the news of Luo Zhixue's inspection, all the preparations that needed to be done were completed, and all that was left was some public finishing work.

For example, the empire began to temporarily requisition a number of large ocean liners from shipping companies to carry thousands of accompanying civil and military officials and nearly 10,000 Guardsmen.

The total number of Guards ground troops escorting the vehicle is more than 20,000, but only 10,000 people are always accompanying the vehicle. The other more than 10,000 people will go to the inspection site in advance to set up defenses.

Therefore, the inspection fleet will not directly carry more than 20,000 Guards officers and soldiers.

But even so, the total number of people in the entire inspection team reached more than 15,000, and just transporting these people would require a large number of passenger ships and troop ships.

At the same time, ensuring the supply of various food supplies for so many people during the voyage, as well as the supply of coal, fresh water, etc. for the fleet also requires a large number of supply ships to carry supplies.

Therefore, the entire overseas inspection fleet will be very large, with the total number of ships reaching more than one hundred... This does not include some small-tonnage traffic boats that carry out short-distance personnel transmission and communication within the fleet. These small boats It is usually carried on a large boat and then put down for use when needed.

After many preparations were completed, on May 16, the 47th year of Chengshun, Luo Zhixue officially ordered in a new round of imperial council meetings that during the overseas inspection period, the prince would supervise the country, and many council ministers , Assistant to the Co-organizing Minister.

At the same time, relevant information will be announced to the outside world through the Chaobao newspaper.

This also means that Luo Zhixue's overseas inspection has entered the actual stage!

On May 19, Luo Zhixue, who was well prepared, boarded the train at the Dongjiao Railway Station with the Queen, several concubines, many princes and princesses, and more than 20 members of the royal family. In the presence of thousands of civil and military officials and Guardsmen, Accompanied by soldiers, they took the train to Wusong Naval Base.

His Majesty took a special train, and its scale was naturally huge. On the day of the special train, the busy Beijing-Shanghai Railway directly suspended all passenger and freight trains.

On this day, no other trains passed on this railway until His Majesty's special train arrived at Wusong Naval Base.

Even though today's Beijing-Shanghai Railway, as an important railway in the Jiangnan railway network, has already realized the construction of a double-track railway, in theory, His Majesty's special train going eastbound will not affect other trains traveling westbound on another railway line.

However, in order to ensure nothing goes wrong and avoid any trouble, the Railway Corporation directly suspended operations.

Not only that, some intersections and stations along the railway line are guarded by the Guards and conducted advance inspections.

In the nearby areas along the railway, there are also local patrol police to isolate... Although it is not to the extent of one post every ten steps, there are patrols a few hundred meters apart. At the same time, there are multiple armed trains as the lead vehicles, setting off one step ahead for on-site inspections. Survey and explore.

During this time, ordinary people cannot even get close to the railway lines...

Looking at it this way, it seems to be very troublesome... but in fact Luo Zhixue went out for inspections to be such a troublesome thing.

When he went to other places for inspections in the past, he basically followed the same pattern when traveling by train.

Because the Da Chu Empire was a typical centralized feudal centralized monarchy...

To be honest, there was no direct establishment of ten posts along the railway line. This was all the result of Luo Zhixue's special instructions not to make a big show of it and waste people and money...

Otherwise, according to the thoughts of those ministers, on the day of travel, the special train would pass by every ten steps.

Such a large-scale special train traveled eastward along the railway line. Thanks to the technological development of the contemporary railway system, the special train was relatively fast and arrived at Wusong Naval Base on the same day.

After arriving at Wusong Naval Base, Luo Zhixue stayed at the local temporary palace and met with some officials from Jiangnan Province and the army and navy who came over temporarily.

After a night's rest, Luo Zhixue took more than 20 members of the royal family aboard the huge and brand-new Royal Princess the next day.

Before boarding the ship, the photographer from the Chaobao Department took a photo of Luo Zhixue and others. If nothing else goes wrong, this photo will be published in the Chaobao and announced to the world.

After Luo Zhixue and the others boarded the ship, some of the imperial ministers also boarded the ship.

The Royal Princess is huge and can carry more than 2,000 passengers during commercial operations. At the same time, when sailing at sea, transportation within the fleet is also troublesome, so it is used to facilitate office work and convey orders.

Luo Zhixue also brought the important civil and military officials of the Emperor of God on board the ship.

In addition to the royal family and hundreds of important imperial ministers, there are also hundreds of imperial guards and more than 200 female officials and maids of the royal family who provide daily services to the royal family.

Finally, there are the officers and men of the Guards fleet who drive the ships, as well as some ordinary service personnel who provide ship services to the accompanying important ministers... Of course, even such ordinary service personnel are actually carefully selected from several government-owned shipping companies. Selected crew.

So many people traveled on the same boat as Luo Zhixue, which is why the behemoth Royal Princess was used for this trip inspection!

This boat is too small to be used!

In addition to the Royal Princess, the other three drafted ocean-going luxury liners of over 10,000 tons also welcomed thousands of accompanying civil and military officials.

In addition, tens of thousands of soldiers from the 1st Guards Division and 1st Cavalry Regiment also boarded more than 20 other ocean liners or professional troop carriers belonging to the Navy.

There are more than twenty ships carrying people alone... and they are all large ships. Among them is the Royal Princess of 30,000 tons, and a luxury liner of more than 20,000 tons for senior officials. There are also seven ordinary ocean liners of more than 10,000 tons, and the rest are ordinary ocean liners or troop carriers of several thousand tons.

After all the people were on board, these ships began to set sail and leave the dock one after another in accordance with the order.

At the same time, on the other side of the Wusong Naval Base Pier, six battleships, more than a dozen cruisers and more frigates also set sail one after another. One of the cruiser formations consisting of four cruisers took the lead, with nearly twenty The high-speed road headed towards the mouth of the Yangtze River first.

At the same time, a large number of various supply ships, hospital ships, fast communication ships, etc. also set sail one after another.

More than a hundred ships have gone out to sea one after another, and these ships are all medium and large ships. The smaller tonnage should be the navy's frigates of more than a thousand tons... And the passenger ships and supply ships are basically several Large ships of thousands of tons or even tens of thousands of tons. This kind of situation is extremely rare even in a busy waterway like the Yangtze River Estuary with many ships.

However, although there were many ships setting sail, there was no congestion in the waterway!

Because just like yesterday when the Beijing-Shanghai Railway was temporarily suspended to accommodate special trains, today the channel at the mouth of the Yangtze River is also temporarily closed.

No matter what the other ships were, they had to wait for the inspection fleet to set sail and leave the Yangtze River estuary and enter the sea before they could be opened to navigation.

In fact, except for a few ships coming from overseas or other places, which were blocked due to lack of prior knowledge, in fact most of the local ships in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River did not go to these waters today... because the official had already announced this as early as five days ago On the pretext of holding a naval live-fire military exercise, this area of ​​water was designated as a military restricted area and ships were prohibited from intruding today.

As the fleet set sail one after another and headed towards the wide estuary of the Yangtze River, Luo Zhixue also came out of the cabin on the top floor and walked to the top deck, looking ahead.

Because the location of the Royal Princess at this time is actually still in the estuary of the Yangtze River, and the waters it is located in still belong to the Yangtze River. The surrounding water is not the blue color of ordinary sea water, but the yellow river water.

While Luo Zhixue was watching on the deck, Queen Wang also walked up and said beside him: "The color of the sea water is different from what I thought. Isn't it said that the sea water is blue?"

Luo Zhixue turned his head and glanced slightly. Queen Wang's hair was already a little gray like his own.

He raised his hand and pointed into the distance: "Now we are still at the mouth of the sea. If we walk more than ten kilometers further, we will probably be able to see the blue water!"

Queen Wang nodded slightly and said no more.

Just stand next to him, watching with him the intersection of the river and the sea ahead, the blue and yellow water.

Just like in all important public occasions, Queen Wang always stood by his side silently!

The couple had been together for more than forty years. Although Luo Zhixue had no feelings for Queen Wang in the early years, after decades of getting along, love still did not arise, but family affection did.

Although Luo Zhixue likes the new and hates the old in his daily life, he has doted on many young and beautiful concubines over the years, but the only woman who can stand beside him in public has always been Queen Wang.

Of course there were political considerations to this, but it was mostly because Queen Wang was his queen... or his wife in popular parlance.

As for the other concubines, they are at best mistresses.

The two are not the same concept!

At least that's what Luo Zhixue thinks.

Of course, more importantly, Queen Wang's behavior in the past few decades has been recognized by Luo Zhixue, and she does not engage in many messy jealousies, or even conspiracies and collusions in daily life.

She just stood beside him silently and supported him... Even if Luo Zhixue started a royal music and dance troupe in the early years and searched for stunning women from all over the world, Queen Wang supported him unconditionally!

The Royal Music and Dance Troupe was actually started by the Queen... and many of the talented women in it were personally selected by her to enter the palace.

Queen Wang, who was born a lady, was deeply educated by traditional women, and accompanied Luo Zhixue all the way to fight for world supremacy, was always able to clearly recognize her identity: she was not only Luo Zhixue's wife, but also a member of the Chu Empire. The queen, the mother of a country, the biological mother of the prince!

Therefore, when she gets older, when she treats things, especially Luo Zhixue's many things, she seldom treats things emotionally, but mostly from a political perspective!

The relationship between Luo Zhixue and Queen Wang is actually different from the relationship between ordinary couples. They are more like political allies than husband and wife!

As long as Luo Zhixue does not shake the crown prince position of her son, the emperor's eldest son Luo Jian, then Queen Wang will be Luo Zhixue's absolute supporter, any form of support... Although Luo Zhixue does not need her support!

For example, he used his wife's diplomacy to win over, divide, and beat some important officials in the court, and indirectly realized Luo Zhixue's political intentions in a more secretive way.

For example, if Luo Zhixue re-appointed a minister, the queen would summon the minister's mother or wife and his family members to the palace, where they would drink tea and watch a play, award various gifts, greet each other, and so on.

Another example is if Luo Zhixue is going to make some big move, Queen Wang will also use methods such as marriage grants to influence the marriage between ministers, so as to affect the relationship between the ministers... and then cooperate with Luo Zhixue to achieve his political intentions.

At the New Year's Eve state banquet, Luo Zhixue entertained the important ministers and dignitaries in the front hall, while Queen Wang entertained the important ministers and the female dependents of the dignitaries in the back hall.

What matters is the cooperation of a husband and wife!

As for finding a woman for Luo Zhixue...it's not worth mentioning!

And Luo Zhixue is also very satisfied with her way of doing things and her attitude... Although he does not need the so-called support of the queen, as the founding emperor of the empire, he has absolute authority in the empire, and does not need the cooperation of the queen as a wife. realize their political intentions.

But whether or not he needs to have sex with Queen Wang is two different things!

This is a smart woman, a qualified queen!

There were more young and beautiful women that Luo Zhixue liked more, but Luo Zhixue did not choose them. Instead, he chose Queen Wang because she was smart enough and had sufficient political IQ to be qualified for the role of queen.

Without sufficient political wisdom and means, why should Luo Zhixue be the queen of the founding emperor?

Over the past few decades, it has also been proved that Luo Zhixue did not make mistakes. Although Queen Wang was still a little immature when she was young, she matured in her twenties and adapted well to the role of queen.

As a queen, Queen Wang has managed the harem in an orderly manner over the past few decades, and Luo Zhixue hardly needs to worry about any harem affairs.

At the same time, Queen Wang also made full use of the characteristic of wife politics, assisting Luo Zhixue in indirectly handling some court affairs by summoning and winning over the wives of important ministers and dignitaries.

Although the harem theoretically does not interfere in politics... But the Chu Empire was a newly established dynasty, and the queen was an empire created by starting a business with the emperor to conquer the world. Even if the queen theoretically does not interfere in politics, in fact she still has her political influence.

This kind of woman, placed in other dynasties, no, even in the Great Chu Empire, was an important role that could directly interfere with the succession of the throne...a political figure worthy of being recorded in history books!

The position of the crown prince of the emperor's eldest son, Luo Li, is so stable that a consensus has been formed in the court and even among the people. Even if the crown prince dies one day, the throne must be inherited strictly according to the eldest son's system to avoid any succession of the throne. The possible turmoil!

In other words, the crown prince Luo Li died and the crown prince had to inherit the throne. Other princes couldn't even think about it!

The formation of these so-called consensuses is inseparable from the decades of influence exerted by Queen Wang.

But she never uses her political influence indiscriminately...

These are the reasons why Luo Zhixue has always respected Queen Wang over the years... You don't have to respect women, but you have to respect political allies who know the basics and act appropriately!

When he went to America for inspection this time, bringing Queen Wang with him was not because of any political influence, but because Queen Wang had never left the palace much in her life since marrying him.

In the past few decades, I have only returned home a few times for family visits, and the rest of the time I have stayed in the palace.

As she got older in the past few years, especially after her parents passed away one after another, Queen Wang became more and more lonely... As a queen, she was actually similar to Luo Zhixue in that she was also a loner!

So when Luo Zhixue heard her accidentally say that he wanted to go outside and see how the empire had developed, and whether the sea was really that wide, and whether the overseas territories were really so rich!

Therefore, after Luo Zhixue thought about it for a while, he took the initiative to take her on an overseas inspection...

Since he brought Queen Wang with him, Luo Zhixue simply brought a few concubines that he favored recently, as well as a few older princes and princesses who were still not adults.

It can be regarded as interspersing some family travel ideas into an overseas inspection with strong political meaning!

Otherwise, overseas inspections that are too pure will lack some meaning!

After all, during this overseas inspection, Luo Zhixue's main idea was to visit overseas territories. The so-called political significance was all added later.

(End of this chapter)