The World Online

Chapter 1286 – Gathering Strength to do Something Big

After Jiang Shang finished off the discussion about the removal of the House level, Ouyang Shuo looked around expressionlessly and said, “Next, let’s discuss the matter of how to change the equipment of the Pacific Squadron.”

When the officials heard that, they all exchanged glances, their eyes shining bright.

Regarding this topic, the civil servants and the military generals had a huge divide. Even before the meeting, the two sides had not come to a common consensus.

The opinion of the Cabinet was that along with the second industrial revolution technology tree being unlocked, the Empire should look further and remodel the navy. They should not busy themselves with building many iron armored warships.

On the basis of the iron armored warships, they could form more specific warships such as a main force of warfighting warships, patrolling warships, radar ships, sentry ships, protector ships, and submarine warships.

This would be a remodeling of the Empire’s navy.

However, this plan would require a long time to implement. Moreover, not only would the squadron system be changed, but the navy soldiers would also need to be retrained to familiarize them with the new warships. In the future, apart from the marines, there would be basically no close combat opportunities.

Conservatively speaking, even with the resources gathered up in the Empire, remodeling the Pacific Squadron would still take around a year and a half. Moreover, this was only because of Gaia treating industrialization really muddily.

A benefit of this plan was a reduction in blind construction. More importantly, the moment that the Pacific Squadron remodeling was finished, not only would it be able to reach the same level as the Darkness Squadron, it would even suppress them and take back ocean control.

Jiang Shang said it outright, “Along with the second industrial revolution tree being unlocked, the dynasties of the world are at the same starting line. If the Empire wants to keep our current authority, we need to have the courage to change from the bone.”

“The earlier we walk this step, the earlier we can take the lead.”

The military naturally could not wait. The Darkness Squadron had gotten one over them, and they wanted to fight back immediately. They suggested to throw in a large quantity of resources to build six to seven iron armored warships within the shortest amount of time possible.

Navy Headquarters admiral Zheng He said, “Losing control of the Pacific Ocean can potentially cause a chain reaction. It may form a challenge toward our Empire’s ocean power and affect global trading.”

“Without the support of trading, how can we go through industrialization?” Zheng He asked.

The two sides went head to head; neither party was able to convince the other.

Seeing that neither side was going to back down, Nanjiang Governor-General House Bai Hua suddenly stepped out and said, “The building speed of the iron armored warships are mainly limited by the Empire’s industrialization standards. My recommendation is that while the Empire is focusing on all out industrialization, we can gather resources to focus on developing some cities to lead industrialization.”

“For example, the area around the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta. We will be able to avoid blindly constructing things while reducing the formation time of the Pacific Squadron, achieving a balance between the two.”

Bai Hua’s suggestion caused Ouyang Shuo’s eyes to light up.

In truth, industrialization had little requirement on land; if not, the British Empire would not have been able to use just three islands to conquer the world.

Including places like Tokyo and Korea, they were all typical representatives of strong small countries.

Rather than blindly industrializing the entire Empire, why not gather their focus on those near the oceans to form an industrialization line? This could allow them to focus their production ability.

“This suggestion might work.” Ouyang Shuo expressed, “The Cabinet can take a look at it and let Shen City and Zhenhai City be the first two prioritized industrialized cities.

“Their priority level can even exceed the Capital City’s.”

The moment he said those words, everyone present was shocked.

Jiang Shang replied, “Your majesty, would this not affect the position of the imperial capital as the economic center of the Empire?”

Ouyang Shuo smiled and said, “I’ve never mentioned that we had to maintain the imperial capital’s position as the economic center. As the capital of the Empire, it has to be the political and cultural center but not definitely the economical center.”

“Along with the industrialization wave hitting strong, the geographical position of the imperial capital has also decided that it is difficult for it to take up the burden of being the Empire’s economic center. To forcefully do that will only waste resources.”

When the officials heard that, they were all enlightened.

In history, there were many countries who had their political and economic centers split up, so it was not a weird thing.

Being inspired by Bai Hua, Ouyang Shuo continued, “Shen City and Zhenhai City will be of top priority. Apart from that, Jianghu, Fushan, Binhai, Haijin, Jiaodong, Zhoushan, Quanzhou, Yinan, and Lion City will form the second layer for industrialization priority.”

“Inland places like Huining, Luoyang, Xianyang, Chengdu, Xiangyang, Jianye, and Dali will be the third layer. At the same time, we can develop one to two territories in Nanjiang and Africa.”

Ouyang Shuo’s words helped to draw up a new blueprint for the industrialization of the Empire.

Along with industrialization proceeding, the cities and provinces would welcome a new reshuffling. For example, Shen City, which was only a House-level city; after this, it would leap up to be as important as the provincial city, Jianye.

In the future, it might even exceed Jianye and become the economic center of the Empire.

Out of the second layer places, two-thirds of them were not famous cities. In the few years after this, they would use industrialization to rise up and become the pearls of the Empire.

The development of new cities also helped to increase the economic development points of the Empire.

To calm down the military, Ouyang Shuo made a decision and said, “While we fully develop Shen City, we will create a new, first-class shipyard that will be called the Jiangnan Shipyard. It will be independent from the China Shipping Group and be directly under the Asset Management Department.

“Before the end of the year, the Pacific Squadron must complete its change of equipment.” Ouyang Shuo gave a solemn order.

Only then did the generals relax. They were all people with foresight, but since they had the pride of soldiers, they could not take the humiliation of being defeated by the enemy.

Such humiliation was something that the Great Xia Army had not tasted in a long time.

The Cabinet did not say much. Before the industrialization went all out, focusing on ocean cities would actually make resource deployment much easier.

A year of time was more than enough.

“In the 8th year of Gaia, our trade with South America will probably be affected.” Jiang Shang said.

This reminded Ouyang Shuo of something, so he said, “Regarding the firearm trade with the Indian Empire, I want to sell the cannons and matchlock guns that we have replaced. What do you all think?”

“That’s feasible.”

Du Ruhui held control of the Privy Court and naturally had the most right to speak on this matter, “The data from the Privy Court shows that we have amassed around 500 thousand matchlock guns and one thousand cannons. The Combat Logistics Department was still debating about how to deal with them. If we kept them in storage, just the maintenance costs would be huge. Selling them can help to kill two birds with one stone.”

Conservatively speaking, they could earn around 12 million from this batch.

Ouyang Shuo nodded his head in satisfaction and said, “Let’s take the time to send this batch over before the Battle of Hawaii ends. Also, in the trade with them, let half be cash payment and the other hald be grain to be stored in the Ecuador Prefecture.”

“Understood!” Du Ruhui understood.

Six million gold worth of grain was enough for the America warzone for over a year.

“Also, use this chance to build a batch of military works factories in Ecuador, especially ones producing bullets and cannon shells. Before the Indian Empire establishes an industrialization system, we can earn a huge sum.” Ouyang Shuo instructed.

Du Ruhui nodded. He had long had an idea of his majesty’s ‘greed’.

“Also.”

Ouyang Shuo had many wishes, and he continued to say, “Probe them to see whether they intend to purchase warships or not. We can sell a portion of the turreted warships, and the remaining we can convert to supply ships.”

Du Ruhui noted these items down one by one.

Looking at the situation, his majesty wanted to take this chance to empty out the Indian Empire’s coffers.

Du Ruhui even felt a little bad for the Indian Empire. Even if they won the battle against the Spain Dynasty, they would be badly hurt. When that happens, would they be able to stop the expansion of the Empire?

With Du Ruhui’s understanding of his majesty, although he agreed to the firearm purchase request of the Indian Empire, he would only sell them eliminated equipment. His true intentions was probably to let the war drag on so that no one wins and no one loses.

If the Indian Empire was able to smoothly deal with Argentina region, could the Indian Empire that freed up their strength still allow Great Xia to expand?

Hence, to the Empire, this was the best ending.

It seems like the Indian Empire’s multiple cases of indecisiveness had made the emperor go from treating them as allies to treating them as business partners.

They could even become opponents in the South America matter.