I want to be emperor

Chapter 1025 Overseas Inspection

In April of the 47th year of Chengshun, in early summer at the Songjiang Prefecture Naval Shipyard, a large passenger ship, the Royal Princess, was slowly sailing out of the dock with the help of many tugboats.

There are also many navy warships escorting and observing.

What is even more surprising is that there are many people wearing military and official uniforms on the ship, many of whom are officials from the Imperial Household Agency wearing dragon badges.

The presence of these officials made the several senior officials of Jiangnan Shipping Company on the ship seem to have no sense of existence.

The Royal Princess is currently the largest and most advanced ocean liner in the Chu Empire, and it is also known as the safest.

This huge passenger ship is owned by Jiangnan Shipping Company and built by Songjiangfu Naval Shipyard. The purpose from the beginning was to build the largest, most advanced and most luxurious ocean liner for the increasingly fierce competition on the Pacific route, which directly competes with The target is Pacific Line's series of very large luxury liner, such as the Sun.

The registered tonnage of the Royal Princess has reached an astonishing 25,000 tons, and when fully loaded, it can reach an astonishing more than 30,000 tons... This displacement is almost equivalent to that of a super battleship in the original time and space.

In order to build this huge luxury liner, Songjiang Naval Shipyard specially expanded their No. 1 dry dock and upgraded many large equipment such as gantry cranes.

This luxury liner, unceremoniously, represents the most advanced shipbuilding technology in the Chu Empire...not just shipbuilding technology, but also represents the most advanced steel smelting technology, large parts processing and a series of advanced technologies.

Compared with the many advanced technologies used on this luxury liner, the luxurious decoration inside seems a bit inconspicuous.

And this huge luxury liner was built in Chengshun forty-five years ago, and every time it sailed a year after it was put into operation, it was full of passengers... However, it had only been in operation for a year, and this ship stole the show. The huge passenger ship disappeared from the passenger transport market and entered the dock of Songjiang Naval Shipyard for upgrading and transformation.

The outside world was unable to understand this news. It was once rumored that this passenger ship applied a large number of new technologies, so it had technical defects and is now being returned to the factory for repairs.

But some senior people in the empire who knew the inside story knew that the Royal Princess was not just an ordinary civilian passenger ship from the beginning.

Entering the shipyard for upgrading this time was also something he planned.

Because from the very beginning, the Royal Princess has not only undertaken civilian passenger transportation tasks, but also undertaken royal travel tasks. It has even served as a chariot to sail through wind and waves, carrying His Majesty to inspect various places overseas.

Many luxury passenger ships have undertaken this kind of mission before. For example, the famous luxury passenger ship Sun in the past has carried members of the royal family. When the prince visited Nanyang for an inspection last year, he took the Pacific luxury passenger ship.

The Royal Princess also undertakes this kind of mission, but this huge passenger ship has been prepared for His Majesty's travels from the beginning.

Therefore, more attention is paid to the comfort and safety of navigation in the design.

It has a large number of well-designed watertight compartments... Its watertight design is completely in accordance with the standards of a battleship. Even if it is directly attacked and the side is damaged, as long as the amount of water ingress is not too excessive, this huge ship will not be damaged. There is any risk of the passenger ship sinking.

Because these additional designs added more construction and operating costs, the Palace Affairs Department even subsidized hundreds of thousands of yuan to Jiangnan Shipping Company for this purpose.

This is because Luo Zhixue has been preparing to go overseas for inspections in the past few years... He has conquered such a huge country, but he has not gone to see it after so many years. This makes Luo Zhixue somewhat concerned.

Not to mention other small overseas territories, Luo Zhixue didn't have much interest, but the Americas had to be visited.

Because America is now one of the most important territories in the Chu Empire. Together, North America and South America have a total population of more than 60 million.

Although this population cannot be compared with the hundreds of millions of people in the hinterland of East Asia, it is still very large.

As for such an important territory directly under the empire, even if it was just to maintain rule and highlight the existence of the royal family, Luo Zhixue could not turn a blind eye.

Since the 1930s, Luo Zhixue has sent many princes to inspect America as his representatives. In the 38th year of Chengshun and the 43rd year of Chengshun, Prince Luo Jian visited North America twice.

It can even be said that the American region is the region where the royal family conducts overseas inspections most frequently...more frequently than the inspections in the Southeast Asian region.

This is all because of the importance of the Americas region.

The Da Chu Empire wanted to completely turn the American region into a part of the empire and the core territory of the empire. This does not mean simply grabbing the land and then immigrating there.

Various European countries did this kind of thing a lot in the original time and space, but in the end there would still be colonies that would become independent and eventually become independent.

For example, North America under the British!

The British expanded very smoothly in North America at the beginning and carried out large-scale immigration... However, it was not long before civil strife broke out in North America, and then North America became independent... This is how the United States appeared.

Luo Zhixue naturally knew about this kind of thing and was on guard against it.

Therefore, in the Americas and other important territories, Luo Zhixue's concept of governance is not to treat these places as colonies, but as real core territories, run locally, and all policies will be based on the core territories of the empire's East Asia region.

He didn't know what the final result of this policy would be, but at least for now, the empire's overseas core territories did not have much centrifugal force tendencies.

However, this is also related to the fact that most of the population in these overseas territories still immigrated from the East Asian mainland of the empire.

These people were born and grew up in Imperial East Asia. They have witnessed the development and glory of the Empire, and their identification with the Empire is very high.

And these people are still the main body composition in overseas territories such as the Americas. Even those who immigrated very early are still in their forties or fifties. They also control the main power, resources and even public opinion locally.

Therefore, with the support of these people, the current rule of these overseas territories of the empire, especially in the Americas, is still very stable, and there is not much conflict between the mainland and the Americas.

But it’s hard to say what will happen in the future.

Luo Zhixue's great emphasis on the Americas is also out of precaution for the future.

Putting aside everything else, at least the local gentry and common people should have a sense of identity with the royal family.

If you want a sense of identity, it is very important for the main core members of the royal family to appear in the Americas during these frequent inspections.

I can't say you take what you say seriously, but no important member of the royal family has set foot on American soil for decades.

As for Luo Zhixue himself, he wants to go to America for inspection. On the one hand, it is to further strengthen the influence of the royal family in the Americas. On the other hand, he also wants to 'go abroad' to have a look!

He has never been abroad in his previous life or even in this life... He has never been to America, Southeast Asia, or Europe.

After all, in his previous life, he was just an ordinary social animal. He worked hard for life every day. He had no money and no time to travel overseas. At most, he could only wander around the country. In this life, it will be even more troublesome.

As the emperor of the empire, every move he makes is no small matter... let alone inspecting overseas territories, even going to Dangtu next door to Jinling City for inspection is very troublesome.

The previous domestic inspections were carried out with great fanfare and the preparation time was calculated in years.

It's not that Luo Zhi loves to show off, but traveling as an emperor, especially long-distance inspections, is such a hassle.

This is still an inspection in the hinterland of East Asia. It would be even more troublesome if we go overseas.

Just providing security along the way is not an easy task.

Fortunately, in the past ten or twenty years, the intensive overseas inspections of many important royal members have allowed the Chu Empire to accumulate enough experience in overseas inspections, and it has a set of regulations for security and arrangements along the way.

When these preparations were completed one after another, especially when the Royal Princess, the proposed overseas inspection vehicle, was completed and underwent a one-year trial operation without any problems, Luo Zhixue also officially made the decision to visit Southeast Asia and the Americas last year. Take a look and walk around.

That's the empire he built, so you can't just take a look at it!

After Luo Zhixue made his decision, the overseas inspection work entered a period of secret preparation.

The planned travel vehicle, the Royal Princess, has also ended its operation and returned to the shipyard for upgrades and modifications.

The upgrade and modification mainly involves a certain degree of decoration modification of the internal cabins to meet the various etiquette specifications of the emperor's travels. At the same time, it is also necessary to modify some cabins for the residence and life of accompanying senior officials.

Luo Zhixue never travels alone. His travel team is not even just a few dozen or hundreds of people, but the number of civil and military officials accompanying him reaches thousands!

In addition, there will be hundreds of imperial guards accompanying them all the way to provide protection.

Finally, there are the peripheral Guards officers. If there is an overseas inspection, most of the Guards will be dispatched. It is planned to dispatch the two core forces of the First Guards Division and the First Lancers of the Guards to accompany them to act as ground security.

At the same time, the Guards fleet will also accompany it... However, most of the ships in the Guards fleet are offshore ships, so this time the soldiers of the Guards fleet will escort and drive the warships that will be temporarily transferred from the navy!

The Guards borrowed dozens of warships from the Navy at one go, including six state-of-the-art large battleships, more than a dozen cruisers, an equal number of frigates, and various auxiliary ships.

The above-mentioned warships are all the most advanced warships and are the absolute elite warships of the Imperial Navy.

The officers and men of the Guards Fleet had already boarded these ocean-going warships of the Navy a year ago to undergo adaptive training and prepare themselves to be able to sail ships and fight.

During Luo Zhixue's trip this time, the security tasks were mainly handled by the Guards, while the Army and Navy were mainly responsible for peripheral affairs.

Even in order to avoid trouble and prevent accidents, all naval fleets near the sea must return to the port and be on standby during the inspection period.

The army units in some inspection areas will receive the most stringent orders, which may even be communicated to the entire army. They are not allowed to leave the station without authorization during the inspection. Any unauthorized departure will be regarded as rebellion.

After all, Luo Zhixue only went for inspection, not to fight. There was no need for large-scale mobilization of the navy and army... That was just looking for trouble, or even a potential risk.

Different departments are responsible for these many preparations, and the renovation of the Royal Princess is one of the relatively simple and easy tasks. After all, it is just a simple renovation of the internal cabin.

The reason why it still took a year was mainly to conduct multiple sea tests on the ship, mainly to test navigation safety issues, but also to practice emergency transfer and evacuation at sea, emergency pipeline damage and other tests.

In order to ensure safety, there are as many as three sets of pipe damage facilities on the Royal Princess... There are five sets of emergency engines that provide emergency power and lighting power!

One of them is a very special gasoline engine generator set!

This gasoline engine power unit, produced by Tianjin Machinery Company, can be started in an emergency and provide emergency power. This emergency power can be used to operate some electric facilities on the ship and provide basic electric lighting.

The ship is also equipped with a large number of extra lifeboats. There are nine special lifeboats prepared for Luo Zhixue alone... scattered throughout the ship to ensure that Luo Zhixue can board the lifeboat nearby at any place on the ship.

Although measures such as backup power, emergency power, and over-allocated lifeboats are useless in most cases, they will even increase a lot of additional costs.

However, the emperor's trip was no small matter, and the empire's senior officials would rather waste millions or even tens of millions of funds to ensure that nothing went wrong.

Now, all preparations have been made, and the Royal Princess, driven by soldiers of the Guards Fleet, has completed all preparations and is slowly leaving the dock with the assistance of tugboats. It will then arrive at the Wusong Navy at the Yangtze River Estuary. The base, where it is undergoing technical security reviews from many departments while waiting for His Majesty's arrival.

And when the Royal Princess sailed to Wusong Naval Base, a special fleet also ushered in the Bering Strait and surrounding areas. This team was sent by the Navy and consisted of personnel from multiple departments landing at small ports. , and then leave the garrison behind.

These personnel include personnel from the Telegraph Bureau under the General Post Office, personnel from the Communications Section of the Hanlin Academy, and personnel from the Telecommunications Department of the Palace Affairs Department, as well as agents from the Intelligence Section of the Imperial Academy.

These personnel will arrive in advance at various stations along the telegraph lines connecting the mainland and the Americas to ensure the normal operation of these telegraph relay stations along the way.

To prevent accidents, the telegraph office even laid a backup submarine cable in the shallow waters of the Bering Strait.

Today, when the Pacific submarine cable has not been laid and wireless telegraphy is still difficult to produce, wired telegraphy through the Bering Strait is the only convenient communication method to communicate between East Asia and the Americas.

When the emperor traveled to America for inspection, electromagnetic communication naturally needed to be ensured.

While the inspection fleet was floating on the sea, it had no choice but to rely on a large number of communication ships to deliver messages. However, when His Majesty arrives in America, all messages must be delivered by telegraph in time.

This is not only to let the prince and imperial ministers who are staying in Jinling City know the whereabouts of His Majesty, but also to let His Majesty who is out for inspection know the actions of Jinling.

While many preparations for the overseas inspection were being prepared with the cooperation of various departments, Luo Zhixue, accompanied by the Queen, strolled on the lawn of the Yanque Palace, watching several grandchildren chasing after him in front of him. Chasing and making trouble.

Luo Zhixue, who rebelled at the age of fifteen and proclaimed himself emperor at the age of sixteen. He has been the emperor for forty-seven years and is now in his sixties... At the age of sixty-three this year, he has not only children but also grandchildren. , a lot of grandchildren.

It was precisely because Luo Zhixue, who was getting older and felt that his physical functions continued to decline, made the decision to visit Southeast Asia and the Americas, especially the Americas, in the past few years.

If I don't go now, in a few years when I get older... it will be more difficult to conduct overseas inspections. Luo Zhixue is somewhat unwilling to not see the country he has built with his own eyes.

(End of this chapter)