I want to be emperor

In the spring of the 24th year of Chengshun, the Great Chu Empire dispatched a huge fleet to North America.

In this huge fleet, apart from dozens of armed merchant ships from the Toyo Trading Company, there are also more than a dozen warships rented from the navy for escort.

In addition, dozens of transport ships from various shipping companies were employed.

The entire fleet has reached hundreds of ships!

In addition to a large number of sailors, these hundreds of ships also carried more than 8000 armed forces of the Toyo Trading Company, namely the No. [-] Colonial Mixed Battalion-Sixth Colonial Mixed Battalion of the Toyo Trading Company.

In addition, it also carried tens of thousands of new immigrants who took families as units.

In the end, of course, various materials are indispensable, including weapons, equipment and ammunition for armed personnel, military supplies and even war horses and draft horses.

Even some construction machinery and equipment were brought over, such as hoisting equipment for the port, including several steam engines.

This time the Great Chu Empire intends to expand the scale of its colonization in North America on a large scale.

It is planned to use Seattle and San Francisco as the main strongholds, and then establish more colonial settlements in the surrounding areas to stabilize the control of the San Francisco Bay and the surrounding areas of Puget Sound.

These two bays are very large bays, and San Francisco Bay is a rare deep-water harbor in the world. At the same time, there are many places in the surrounding area that are suitable for farming for immigration.

This is also the reason why after the Toyo Trading Company arrived in North America, although it successively opened up more than ten colonial settlements in various coastal areas, it finally chose to carry out large-scale immigration development in these two places.

At present, among the 5000 people in North America, there are more than 3000 in the San Francisco Bay area, and more than [-] in the Puget Sound area where Seattle is located.

These two places alone accounted for more than 80.00% of the pre-colonial population.

However, with only a few thousand people, it is obviously impossible to completely control and develop such a large area of ​​the local area, and they need more people!

In addition, in addition to continuing to strengthen the control and development of these two areas, the Toyo Trading Company also intends to move inland along several major rivers.

Among them is the Columbia River, which is more than 100 kilometers south of Puget Sound. Toyo Trading Company has tried to send ships to go deep along the inland river before, but it has not reached the end after walking for a long time. Flat and suitable for farming.

This time, the Toyo Trading Company also intends to establish a number of colonial trading posts along the Columbia River, go deep into the inland river and control the river, and trade with the local aborigines along the way.

Then there are many rivers in the San Francisco Bay. When the Toyo Trading Company conducted a small-scale exploration before, it was found that there were rivers that could go all the way to the east and then reach an open plain area. This valley area is located between the coastal mountains and Between a more massive Sierra Nevada.

The terrain of this narrow and long valley is flat, and the water resources are not bad, so it is very suitable for large-scale reclamation.

To control the two large bays, control the coastline, and then go deep into the inland areas of North America along the internal flow, this is the established expansion strategy set by the Toyo Trading Company.

The same strategy has also won the approval of the high-level empire and gained support.

What are more than 8000 armed soldiers used for?

It is used to cooperate with the expansion. After all, when controlling the area around the bay and going deep into the inland, it will inevitably encounter obstruction from some indigenous tribes, and war will inevitably be inevitable.

If a colonial stronghold does not have enough armed forces to protect itself, it may not be long before they are wiped out by tribes who do not know where they came from.

At the same time, the Spaniards in the south also had a lot of opinions on the increasingly large colonial activities of the Great Chu Empire on the west coast of North America. The west coast of the Americas is not new.

In their early routes to Asia, they often took the North Pacific route, which passed through the west coast of North America.

It's just that the Spaniards have not carried out large-scale colonization in this area for a long time in the past.

The focus of their colonial rule is in the Mexican region with better geographical conditions. Now they rely on Mexico and continue to think about the North American region. The main expansion direction is on the east coast of North America, that is, the Gulf of Mexico and the central part. area.

As for the West, there are fewer.

However, less does not mean no!
In fact, the Spaniards have never stopped their colonial expansion of California. Now that the Great Chu Empire has come to this place to carry out colonial expansion, there will inevitably be some conflicts between the two sides.

Faced with this potential inevitable conflict, Toyo Trading Company naturally had to make preparations in advance.

The more than a dozen warships rented from the navy, in addition to escorting the road, the main purpose is to be stationed in San Francisco Bay for a long time to guard against the Spaniards.

For this reason, Dongyang Trading Company also paid a large amount of military expenses to the navy!
In fact, the combat effectiveness of the armed merchant ships of the Toyo Trading Company is not bad, but compared with real professional warships, it is still a little worse. Compared with those large-tonnage warships of the Spaniards, they are not capable enough, so they hired the navy in the name of renting shot.

For this purpose, the Navy deployed two third-class battleships, three second-class cruisers, and twelve frigates to form an American fleet to cooperate with Dongyang Trading Company to station and operate in the Americas in the name of lease.

However, whether this kind of navy’s leased name or the army’s so-called retired name is actually just a name, it belongs to the kind of deception, and few people will really regard them as civilian armed forces.

These are all serious regular troops!

----

This huge regular army carried ships all the way eastward, and then arrived at Fusang Hirado, the territory directly under the jurisdiction of the Great Chu Empire in the Fusang area.

After they had fully replenished and rested here, they continued to sail east along the Fusang Sea to the Edo Sea, where they carried out the last large-scale replenishment.

Then this huge fleet began to head east all the way, taking advantage of the ocean currents and monsoons to take the North Pacific route to North America.

There will also be many islands along the way. Some of these islands have been opened up by Dongyang Trading Company as supply points, but most of them are uninhabited deserted islands. For this reason, Dongyang Trading Company usually sends people directly to erect a piece of the Great Chu Empire. The stone tablet of a certain territory declares its sovereignty first.

As the huge fleet sailed eastward, they naturally encountered many troubles. After all, except for a few warships equipped with auxiliary steam engines, the rest of their ships were pure sailing ships.

The sailing of pure sailing ships is greatly affected by ocean currents and wind directions, so sailing is also more difficult, it takes more time and risks are greater.

Rao is that this North Pacific route is already a relatively mature route for Toyo Trading Company. It has been opened for many years and has been traveled many times. Several supply points have been established along the way, and the overall risk is controllable.

However, ocean voyage in the era of pure sailing is still very dangerous. When these more than 100 ships finally arrive in North America, there may be several fewer ships.

In the past few years, the accident rate of Toyo Trading Company's ships traveling to and from North America has been around [-]%. That is to say, out of [-] ships going to sea, [-] ships will eventually disappear or sink on the way.

This situation is unavoidable in contemporary times. If you want to further reduce the risk of ocean-going routes, you can only wait for ocean-going steam ships to mature and be used on a large scale.

Because steam engine ships do not need to worry about wind direction or ocean currents, this does not mean that they can run faster or the like, but that they can avoid dangerous sea areas and dangerous weather, thereby ensuring safe navigation.

For example, some windless belts in the depths of the ocean that make sailing ships look pale, especially the Pacific Ocean windless belts, and Indian Ocean windless belts. After these windless belt sailing ships enter, there is a high probability that they will die.

But the steam engine ship doesn't have to worry about these things, it can go straight through.

And the route safety advantage brought by steam ships was also used by the Great Chu Empire for route exploration!

Just as the huge fleet of the Dongyang Trading Company was heading eastward, a small-scale exploration fleet of the Great Chu Empire Navy was heading eastward from the city of Batavia.

This is a small fleet consisting of three ships, including a Yulin-class frigate equipped with a steam engine, the Haifeng. However, this Haifeng was removed from part of its artillery and ammunition, and only two self-defense doors remained. The artillery and a small amount of ammunition freed up a large amount of spare tonnage to carry materials such as coal, fresh water, and food.

There is also a comprehensive supply ship Huanghe with a full load displacement of more than 600 tons, and a coal supply ship Taishan with a full load of [-] tons.

This small fleet, which belongs to the Nanyang Fleet, is a very typical exploration fleet, consisting of two wet nurses and a steam-powered frigate.

When necessary, such as when entering the windless zone, after the supplies on the two nurses have been replenished, they will be abandoned, and then the crew will take the steam-powered Haifeng to save their lives.

The navy's exploratory fleet was ordered to continue to explore the mainland in the southeastern region of Java Island, which is known to the Dutch population as

'New Holland', Australia as later generations call it.

Decades ago, the Dutch discovered this place in the southeast of the Java Islands and conducted a preliminary exploration of this continent. Colonization was carried out on this land.

After the Great Chu Empire took control of Java Island and the surrounding waters, it was also interested in the so-called New Netherlands in the south. After all, according to the Dutch, although this place is desolate, it has a very large area, and the Dutch's exploration It is only limited to some areas, and this area has not been fully explored, so that it is not known how big this place is.

For this reason, Nanyang Facing sent out an exploratory fleet to conduct a comprehensive survey of this place, at least to know how big this place is, how it leads there, and then see if you can find a place suitable for immigration and reclamation, and whether there are large-scale indigenous peoples in the area. Is it possible to trade and so on.

In short, it is necessary to clarify the basic situation before making corresponding plans.

Ever since, the three exploration ships sailed all the way east to Timor Island. After the last supply, they turned south and started their exploration journey.

After they sailed south for hundreds of nautical miles, they finally saw a large piece of land in the population of the Netherlands. They found a suitable place and conducted a preliminary landing survey, but they came to the same conclusion as the Dutch. It is too barren, and it is not suitable for large-scale immigration and reclamation at all.

However, this place is a little closer to the east of Java Island, so it is possible to find a coastal place that can barely be reclaimed and build a small port as a base for subsequent exploration.

After the preliminary survey, the exploration fleet continued to set sail and sail all the way south along the coastline, while drawing charts along the way and the conditions of the explored coastline.

This walk is several thousand nautical miles... At this time, the people of the Expedition Fleet are not depressed at all, on the contrary they are very happy.

Because this island is bigger than they expected!
Not to mention anything else, the straight-line distance from north to south they have discovered so far is already more than [-] kilometers.

Such a huge place, even if it is barren, has certain value. No matter how bad it is, grazing here will be excellent, and if you look around, you might find some minerals on it.

The most important thing is that they did not find large-scale aboriginals on the coastline, only occasionally saw a few uncivilized aborigines.

In other words, there are no people in this huge place, and it is completely virgin land.

If they can fully explore this continent and report it to the empire, it will be equivalent to directly opening up an entire continent for the empire.

Thinking of this, Commodore Wang Zishi, the fleet commander of the Exploration Fleet, couldn't help becoming excited... He could already imagine the scene where he expanded the empire for thousands of miles and then conferred the title of title for the first time.

Therefore, even though the exploration all the way was very hard, Commodore Wang Zishi still led the soldiers to continue sailing with great enthusiasm.

After sailing for a long time, they found that they had bypassed the southern tip of the continent, so they almost started sailing eastward. On the way, they found that there was a place at the southwestern tip of the continent that was more suitable for planting, and it could be used as a settlement for immigrants to settle down later. use.

After continuing to sail eastward, they found more and more flat places, and at the same time found several rivers deep inland, but they were short of time, and the risk of exploring unknown rivers was relatively high, so they just sent small boats After exploring the estuary, we set sail and continued eastward.

Their task this time is to thoroughly explore this unknown continent in the south, New Holland as the Dutch population calls it, at least an approximate range, and some basic information on the surrounding coasts.

As for further exploration, even inland exploration, that is not their mission.

So they continued to sail eastward, and when they crossed a strait, they found that there was no continent in the east, so they could only sail northward.

At the same time, they discovered that there were also islands in the south of the strait, but the supplies they carried were running out, and they had to continue to sail north to explore. Go north instead.

After sailing all the way north, they found that the coastal conditions were relatively good, suitable for farming and development, and recorded several places suitable for berthing ships and opening up colonies.

After continuing to sail northward in this way, they found that their true north direction was the island of New Guinea by comparing compass and nautical charts near a strait.

This means that they have completed the feat of circumnavigating New Holland Island.

No, the New Holland Island they circled is not a simple island. The area of ​​that place is so wide that it can be called a continent!
This is a huge land of six to seven hundred square kilometers!

When the exploration fleet returned to Bada City, the news of the New World shocked the high-level civil and military officials of the Great Chu Empire in the city.

A huge island of six to seven hundred square kilometers, and no other European colonial strongholds or civilized indigenous cities were found along the coastline, which meant that this continent did not even have a master for the time being.

If the Great Chu Empire wants to control this area, it doesn't even need to fight a battle, just send people to colonize it.

Moreover, although most parts of this area, especially the northern and western regions, are extremely barren, there are many plains in the southern and eastern coastal areas. If development and reclamation are carried out, many immigrants can be resettled.

Soon, news about the southern New World was quickly sent to the native city of Jinling.

And Luo Zhixue, who was in Jinling City, saw the relevant reports, and knew without guessing that this must be the Australia of later generations.

Since the Dutch did not colonize here in advance, and there are not many civilized natives in the area, Luo Zhixue is naturally not polite, and directly writes that this continent is seven-named Australia, which is included in the jurisdiction of the territory directly under the empire, and temporarily under the jurisdiction of the governor of Banten.

He also instructed to conduct a more detailed survey of this area, and set up settlement settlements in several important coastal areas.

In short, let's first occupy some important places along the coast. As for the development of large-scale immigration, it can only be done slowly.

Anyway, with the place in hand, immigration and development in the future will only be a matter of one sentence.

The successful exploration of Australia put Luo Zhixue in a good mood, and even when he went to see the performance of the Royal Music and Dance Troupe at night, he played a few more times.

It's just that playing too much is not a good thing. When I wake up the next day, my waist is a little sore... Alas, it's not that he lacks combat power, but that there are too many people on the opposite side.

And they don't talk about martial arts, they give Luo Zhixue a wheel fight... one after another, sometimes two or three together, even if Luo Zhixue is strong, he can't hold it, let alone he is not strong.

Waist Luo Zhixue secretly made up his mind to restrain himself in the future. They can't ask for what they want, and they can't be a group of them all at once... I am not made of iron, and I will not live long in the long run.

But after making up his mind, several excellent royal dancers in light veils have already climbed over one after another.

Nima... still want to come.

Damn... I really think I'm a man of iron, and I'm going to hold a morning meeting of the ministers.

A group of goblins, don't want to destroy my heart of diligently governing the country...

Oops, the new dance these fairies have learned is quite good...why didn't I see them dance last night, let's take a look and have breakfast, anyway, it's not too late.

Whoops, I took off my clothes because I was picking and picking. Fortunately, it is summer and autumn, and the weather is warm, otherwise they will be cold to death...

No, I have to calm down, I can't be as ridiculous as last night, if I continue like this, there will be no need for this morning meeting.

But... these goblins don't talk about martial arts anymore...

Alas...it's not that I don't work hard to govern the country, there is really no way...

Participate in the morning meeting, postpone it until the afternoon!
As a result, a group of ministers and co-organizers who came to attend the morning meeting were told that His Majesty had something to do, and the morning meeting was postponed to the afternoon.

However, they didn't ask too much. His Majesty often postponed or even canceled various morning schedules when he had nothing important to do. Generally, this kind of time is usually when he sleeps in.

As for why you sleep late... Everyone is not stupid, and you can guess some of it... You can see the hundreds of concubines and the huge music and dance troupe in the harem, and you will know what your Majesty's attitude is when it comes to women.

Even ordinary people who don't know the inside story of the imperial palace will know it as long as they see the dozens of princes and daughters of Luo Zhixue.

Without years of hard work and enough harem concubines, it would be impossible to have so many children!

However, they are not worried that the Luo Zhi Institute will neglect government affairs, because the Luo Zhi Institute has never been abandoned in the past!
Luo Zhixue seems to be very busy every day, but in fact his work is very flexible. Many things can be handled in a few hours, but can also be handled in an hour.

After all, he has a large Hanlin Academy to help him handle all kinds of ordinary clerical work, and all kinds of major events are also handled by ministers of counselors and co-organizers. Luo Zhixue is the one who makes decisions most of the time, and rarely says he is specifically responsible. something.

Therefore, Luo Zhixue's daily schedule also has a lot of flexibility. Many things can be handled by himself, or not handled by himself.

However, in order to better understand the operation of the entire empire, and to better control the power and avoid any accidents, Luo Zhixue mostly did it himself.

After the council meeting in the morning and other schedules were postponed, when Luo Zhixue appeared in the outer hall after lunch time to start dealing with matters, he adopted a quick-fix mode.

It only took half an hour for the counselor's meeting to be done. Anyway, there is nothing serious recently, it's just some daily affairs.

Then I interviewed many courtiers, mainly civil and military officials who returned to Beijing to report their duties or were about to go to other places to take office. Holy, just a formality.

Only a very small number of officials who hold important positions and responsibilities will let Luo Zhixue chat for a while, but this kind of situation is usually at a specific time, and it will not be in this kind of daily interview activities.

Luo Zhixue went directly to a group of several people, and each group was given a dozen or two or 10 minutes. After quickly interviewing dozens of civil and military officials, he began to deal with various document matters.

These documents are actually not many. In the political system of the Great Chu Empire, there are actually not many documents that need to be sent to Luo Zhixue. It will not be the same as the monarchs of traditional dynasties. Every trivial memorial needs to be read.

Luo Zhixue mainly reads some general policy documents, and he usually doesn't care about specific affairs, which are handled by the subordinate ministries.

For example, the Ministry of Communications currently has a railway construction plan for the next five years.

This plan proposes that in the next ten years, it will continue to focus on the construction of two vertical and two horizontal trunk line railway networks, and has finalized several large branch line railways.

Strive to complete the construction of the main trunk railway network within ten years, and initially build the railway network of the Great Chu Empire.

Luo Zhixue had to personally review and approve such strategic planning of railway transportation.

Most of the other submissions were also these strategic matters, and Luo Zhixue reviewed them one by one and gave advice on how to deal with them.

It has been processed until the evening, and the report sent up today has almost been processed.

Seeing that night was approaching, Luo Zhixue recalled what the lead dancers of the music and dance troupe had said in the morning, saying that they had recently choreographed a new group dance and were planning to hold a large-scale formal rehearsal tonight, inviting Luo Zhixue to come over inspect.

And revealed that the dance clothes were a kind of cheongsam with high slits that Luo Zhixue designed for them some time ago.

Luo Zhixue thought about it, and decided to inspect the performance of the music and dance troupe first tonight. After all, they work hard at rehearsing and dancing every day. As a leader, he should pay more attention to the physical and mental health of his subordinates.

Although condolences will be tiring, but who makes himself a responsible emperor.

Thinking of this, Luo Zhixue sighed softly: It's not easy for me to build the foundation of the empire for a thousand years!