I want to be emperor

Chapter 1143: Forced Basic Industries

In the summer and August of the 53rd year of Chengshun, Nanyang Singapore once again welcomed the officially chartered Royal Princess and the Crown Prince Luo Li and his party who came on board the Royal Princess.

Royal Princess, although this cruise ship is still nominally owned by Jiangnan Shipping Company, it has not performed commercial passenger transportation for many years.

This is because the Royal Princess was actually designed and built from the beginning for royal family members to travel, especially Luo Zhixue’s global inspections.

The several years of commercial operation during the construction were also to conduct various tests to ensure the reliability of the tanker.

After just a few years of commercial operation, the ship entered the Songjiang Naval Shipyard for upgrading and transformation. After the transformation was completed, it participated in global inspections as Luo Zhixue's ship.

After the global inspection mission, the Royal Princess, which had traveled tens of thousands of kilometers, returned to the Songjiang Naval Shipyard for maintenance, which lasted about half a year.

Later, he carried out many inspection and travel missions for royal family members to construction sites in South Asia, America, India and other places.

After completing the mission, it was upgraded and refitted after returning to China. The power system was repaired and some boilers were replaced. At the same time, the self-defense firepower system was upgraded and refitted. The old 75mm and 40mm rapid-fire cannons were removed and new ones were installed. A new generation of 75mm and 40mm rapid-fire guns and matching sight and fire control systems.

The most important thing is that the latest radio communication equipment is installed, giving the ship the ability to communicate in real-time across the ocean.

This time the upgrade and modification took a long time, mainly because the mid-term repair of the power system was more time-consuming.

After the upgrade and modification were completed, and after several months of sea trials and various tests, the Royal Princess ushered in a new sailing mission in its service career: as the ship of the Imperial Crown Prince Luo Li, participating in the westward voyage of the Crown Prince and his party. Inspection mission.

According to the scheduled voyage finalized a few years ago, the prince will lead the inspection team to inspect many places in Southeast Asia, India, and West Asia.

When you go there, take a boat and inspect various port cities along the coastline, such as Singapore, Dagon, Colombo, Goa, Mumbai, and Kuwait, and then arrive at the canal zone of North Africa Province to inspect the local Suez Canal.

For the return journey, you will take a special train in North Africa, passing through North Africa, West Asia, Caucasus, Volga, Sibe, Zhongbei, Central Asia, Northwest Province, Shaanxi-Gansu and other places before returning to the Central Plains.

This is an inspection trip that combines land and sea.

And this kind of extremely high-level inspection trip with strong political implications is naturally the moment when the Royal Princess appears.

After all, the Royal Princess is still one of the few dozen large-scale luxury cruise ships in the Chu Empire that can carry more than 30,000 tons.

At the same time, only this ship has undergone special decorative modifications, and its specifications meet the needs of the royal family.

In addition, the Guards Fleet is also very familiar with the ship. It has been operating the ship for nearly ten years, and there is no problem of unfamiliar control.

If this were a tanker, there would be many problems.

Up to now, although the Royal Princess is still officially owned by Jiangnan Shipping Company, it has actually been taken over by the Guards Fleet and is used exclusively as a royal cruise ship for royal family members to travel.

Of course, Jiangnan Shipping Company, which invested in the construction of the ship, did not lose money. They also received a large amount of supplementary funds from the Palace Affairs Department and used these funds to invest in the construction of two large-tonnage luxury cruise ships.

After the Princess Royal carried Crown Prince Luo Li and his party to Singapore, the Crown Prince and his party also began an inspection trip in Singapore. After that, they had to circle along the coastline of the Indian Ocean and finally reach the Suez Canal.

When the prince went on an inspection trip, many other adult princes in the royal family also had their own tasks to go on an inspection trip, or went to various places to express condolences on behalf of the emperor.

In the Da Chu Empire, the policy of raising vassal kings like pigs was not pursued... In fact, there were no vassal kings in the Da Chu Empire at all.

Although the princes and grandsons can all obtain clan titles, for example, the prince is awarded the title of prince, and the grandson of the emperor is granted the title of county prince, and a title system of reduced ranks is adopted.

However, these clan titles, like those of meritorious officials, are all virtual titles. They only have annuities and some political privileges, but no fiefs... Not only do they not have actual fiefs, they don't even have nominal fiefs.

Because the aristocratic system of the Great Chu Empire adopted a system of virtual aristocracy.

However, there are some restrictions, such as the prince and grandson Wuzhi are not allowed to leave the capital... There are also a lot of regulations, such as clan members joining the army and not serving in the Guards. The highest military rank is major general, and they are not allowed to serve at the division or brigade level. Commander's position.

The descendants of the clan were not allowed to serve in government positions above the third rank, that is, governors, envoys, etc., and they were not allowed to serve in the capital beyond the second rank, that is, the highest official position could only serve as ministers of various ministries, and they were not allowed to serve as ministers.

At the same time, they are not allowed to enter the Senate and Military Affairs Council.

There are quite a lot of restrictions.

However, they are not completely raised as pigs. In fact, after completing their university studies, most of the adult princes in the Chu Empire, except for the prince and the eldest son who were special in the early years, basically entered the political circles, and a few chose to Serve in the military.

Those who enter the military service are basically awarded symbolic officer ranks, and they mainly hold positions in various departments of the Gyeonggi Army or Navy. They generally do not serve in Beijing, let alone directly participate in overseas operations... No one dares to let them When leading troops to fight, we are not afraid that they will rebel, but that they will be beaten up by rebel guerrillas when they go to the war zone, and they will not be able to explain to His Majesty when the time comes.

As for those who hold civil service positions, they are mainly in Gyeonggi Province, and most of them hold fictitious mid-level civil service positions.

The princes and grandsons joined the army or politics. There was a special term in the Chu Empire called "Guan Zheng".

In addition, some princes and princes who inherit the title sometimes serve as various imperial envoys and are ordered to go to certain places to conduct various condolences and inspections on behalf of the emperor... This is also the most anticipated task of many princes and kings. It means that they can finally leave Jinling City, which is a super prison for them... and go to other places to breathe different air and see different scenery.

Princes and princes are not allowed to leave the capital without an order... This is actually a very beneficial restrictive measure.

This is tantamount to confining these clan princes to the emperor's watchful eye. Generally speaking, the clan management in the Da Chu Empire is not too strict, but it is not too loose either... it is a relatively moderate state.

As for the various problems that may arise...it can only be said that no matter how good the system is, it cannot withstand the invasion of time, nor can it stop the changes in people's hearts!

Luo Zhixue can't control what will happen decades or even hundreds of years from now, as long as there are no big problems now and in the foreseeable future.

At least for now, the clan system of the Great Chu Empire is actually pretty good and has maintained stability for decades.

Of course... this does not mean that those princes do not have the ambition to seek the throne.

In fact, many princes have this idea... Luo Zhixue has dozens of sons, and it is normal for some of them to be ambitious.

But the feasibility is very small... because they do not control the military power, nor the financial power, nor the personnel power... In addition, Luo Zhixue is very decentralized to the prince. If other princes have different intentions, there is no need for Luo Zhixue to take action, the prince You can easily suppress it with one hand!

Unlike previous dynasties that both nurtured and guarded against the prince, and in the end the father and son became enemies, Luo Zhixue still delegated power to the prince...

Based on his own self-confidence, Luo Zhixue does not believe that the prince will pose a threat to his throne...

So when it’s time to delegate power, delegate it, and when it’s time to be bolder, be bolder... And this large-scale delegation of power actually led to the prince Luo Li ascending to the throne in advance without any need to engage in rebellion... because the prince’s power is now very powerful. It's big, and if there are no big surprises, the throne will be his sooner or later, and it is very stable.

The prince had already been in charge of the imperial study many years ago, and in the forty-eighth year of Chengshun, he replaced Luo Zhixue as assistant to the council.

Nowadays, in most cases, the prince actually attends daily meetings in the Council on behalf of Luo Zhixue. Only in a few imperial council meetings does Luo Zhixue attend in person.

To a certain extent, Prince Luo Jian actually controls part of the administrative power... he can even be called the chief minister of staff, or the foreman of the minister of staff.

This is not only the case in the Senate, but also in the Military Academy, because the prince also co-manages the Military Academy.

The Prince Supervisor in the Da Chu Empire was not a joke, but a real Prince Supervisor... the kind with administrative and military powers.

Especially as he gets older, Luo Zhixue becomes lazier and less willing to spend a lot of time on ordinary affairs, so he delegates power to a great extent.

In the current state of the Chu Empire, the emperor Luo Zhixue is based in Jinling and is in charge of the strategic direction... and the actual handling and responsibility of many affairs is actually the prince.

Luo Li, the prince of the Great Chu Empire, could even be said to be the most powerful prince in the history of Chinese dynasties... Then, the prince was so busy all day long, to exaggerate, that he was so busy that he even considered how to rebel and ascend to the throne in advance. There is no time left.

You are busy all day and night, how can you have time to think about planning a rebellion... If you have that time, wouldn't it be better to take a nap and rest for a while?

You don’t understand the hardships of being a working prince...

Being a prince in the Great Chu Empire is not an easy job... It is impossible for you to sit there leisurely and point out the world. In fact, there are countless affairs waiting for the prince Luo Jian to handle.

There are a lot of meetings every day, one after another. Sometimes the meetings are open and the prince can doze off on the spot... There are dozens or hundreds of ministers who need to meet... The prince even has lunch every day. They all met with the ministers while having a meal, and they praised their names and gave them meals...

Why is it so busy?

Because Luo Zhixue was so busy in the past...otherwise how could he control power in such a highly centralized system?

If you want to control such a huge power, you must do many things yourself... The high concentration of power also comes at a price!

If we change to a lazy emperor and leave everything to his ministers, then it will become a decentralization of power...the imperial power will fall away!

In order to ensure the stability of the monarchy, the current prince, like Luo Zhixue before him, was busy all day long... While he was still busy in Jinling City, he took a large group of people on the Royal Princess to inspect various places.

During this inspection, he had to deal with various matters through radio and cable... There were so many things going on in the empire, and they would not stop just because the prince went overseas to inspect.

And Luo Zhixue will not waste his retirement time to help deal with it... Nowadays, Luo Zhixue occasionally catches fish, admires flowers, drinks tea, listens to music, and watches dancing. He lives a good life in his childhood. I don’t want to go back to the busy and dark days of the past.

In the past two years, he has paid more attention to the development of some science and technology and some new technology products, and invested a lot of time.

After all, after conquering the earth, Luo Zhixue no longer has any big pursuits. In addition to making the people of Chu live better and improving people's living standards, Luo Zhixue's personal wish is to manually travel back in time. .

Even if you can't manually travel back to the era of modern technological development, you still have to travel back to the World War II period with the characteristics of the early stage of modern civilization.

For example, there are all kinds of high-rise buildings, cars filling the streets, and things like televisions.

However, it is really difficult to travel through this method... After all, the Da Chu Empire started its industrial revolution in the agricultural era, and it has only been in the early fifty years.

It has taken fifty years to develop from the agricultural era to the second industrial revolution very quickly. In addition to the modern scientific knowledge brought by Luo Zhixue, there are also hundreds of millions of Chu people who are hardworking and eager to learn. The result of struggle.

As for the current Da Chu Empire, if we look at the basic industrial level, it is actually equivalent to the level of around 1900 in the original time and space. Some areas are higher and some areas are worse.

As for the specific application level, there is no doubt that the automobile industry is developing the fastest... Unlike the automobile industry in the original time and space, which developed naturally after other industries matured, the automobile industry in the Da Chu Empire developed in a certain way. To a certain extent, it is ahead of basic industries.

In many cases, it is the automobile industry that drives the development of basic industries...

In the original time and space, some kind of automobile application may have appeared after the emergence of certain technology and certain materials... But in the Dachu Empire, automobile design first came about, and then the automobile application technology or parts were needed, and then In turn, it encourages the development of materials and processing techniques.

The Da Chu Empire's automobile industry spends astronomical amounts of R&D investment every year, basically all of which are spent in these fields... Otherwise, it really wouldn't cost that much to design a car based on the processing technology and materials of the existing basic industries.