The Admiralty of the Ming Dynasty is now located on Chang'an Street opposite the Imperial City's Xiyuan. It is a very wide courtyard with two buildings with Chinese-style roofs. The buildings are not high, with only four or five floors (the main building has five floors and the podium building has four floors). One building is used by the Admiralty Headquarters, and the other is used by the Naval Staff Department under the Admiralty.
Zhuge Weidao is a military diplomat affiliated with the Naval Intelligence Bureau, which is an agency affiliated with the Naval Staff. Its office is on the third floor of the left podium of the Naval Staff Building, occupying the left skirt. The entire floor of the building is obviously a very important yamen - this is natural. Since the Ming Dynasty has pursued the national policy of peaceful development for more than a hundred years, of course the Ministry of Navy is "deficient in the five elements", and the people below are in charge of combat. The department has no chance to make meritorious deeds, but the Naval Intelligence Agency has no chance to make meritorious deeds. Therefore, the elite children from the eight major families who join the navy have to work in the Naval Intelligence Bureau for a few years, accumulate some merit points, and then join the army. This will make it easier to be promoted.
And Zhuge Weidao, with the rank of major, got the position of military attache of the embassy in Rakshasa Kingdom, and also got a big project that his father had started to arrange before his death. I don't know how many people were envious and jealous... ..But in the end, this errand turned out to be a joke!
Zhuge Weidao himself was accidentally shot in the Winter Palace Square, and hit in the head, which made him look stupid. In order to bring the Grand Duke back to the Ming Dynasty, Rakshasa and Daying were actually pushed to marry and share the throne. This is not over yet... Zhuge Weidao, who was supposed to coax the Rakshasa Grand Duchess Natalie back to be the queen, didn't know whether he really forgot his mission or deliberately pretended to be crazy. In the end, he seemed to have tricked the Grand Duchess I slept with him so that the Grand Duchess could not pass the examination by the Royal Female Physician!
Although Empress Dowager Zheng, who had been playing with Zhuge Weidao since childhood, generously gave him a hand at the critical moment and covered up the past for him. But the people in the Naval Intelligence Agency were all smart and they all felt that Zhuge Weidao must be going to defend the Arctic Ocean or simply retire and leave the navy. But today, a well-informed person leaked the news, saying that although Zhuge Weidao had done a lot of bad things, the senior officials of the Navy still believed that he was meritorious and wanted to promote him!
As soon as the news came out, the entire Naval Intelligence Agency was in an uproar... Isn't this too chaotic? Although the Zhuge family is powerful enough, they can't do this! Moreover, the officers in the Naval Intelligence Agency are either from aristocratic families or from noble families. There may not be any who look better than Zhuge Taoist Commander, but there are many who have better backgrounds than him! Zhuge Weidao was just a concubine from a noble family, but there were many direct descendants of aristocratic families or direct descendants of collateral lines from aristocratic families who now served in the Naval Intelligence Agency.
None of them dared to imagine that they could get promoted and make a fortune even if they made a big mistake, so many of them were already ready to ask Li Tiezhu, the director of naval intelligence, for an explanation.
But before these people started taking action, something unexpected happened to them. At noon that day when Zhuge Weidao and his assistant Guo Xiaobao returned to their office in the Naval Intelligence Bureau in a low-key manner, just after dinner, the Naval Intelligence Bureau had a distinguished guest! Not just one, but a group!
The highest-ranking among them was Lin Zexu, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, then Zheng Guoan, the Minister of the Navy, Zhuge Weiyi, the Minister of Armament, and Li Baoyi, the Director of Army Intelligence... A large group of people, including the adjutant secretary, poured into the navy with great cheers. The small hall of the Intelligence Bureau.
Zhuge Weidao, who had already achieved the rank of lieutenant colonel, and Guo Xiaobao, who had also been promoted to captain, also followed Li Tiezhu, the director of naval intelligence, with great satisfaction, and walked together in front of everyone. Enter the chapel. At this time, those who originally planned to ask Li Tiezhu for an explanation suddenly realized that something big had happened!
When the door of the auditorium was closed, a sign saying no one should enter was hung, and two guards were guarding the door, a group of naval intelligence officers with good ears and eyes began to whisper to each other.
"Hey, Zhuge Baier, what did your family 108 do? Why is there such a big movement?"
"I don't know much about this. I just heard from some old men at home that they wanted to slap the British in the face. It seems to be related to the Kingdom of Jin... Did you see the white-faced scholar following Lin Shangshu just now? That was Ambassador to the Kingdom of Jin.”
"The Kingdom of Jin? The affairs of the Kingdom of Jin are also under the control of the navy?"
"Liu Laoba, you didn't know that you worked in the Jin Kingdom's embassy? Jin Kingdom's affairs have nothing to do with the navy, but they have a lot to do with the Zhuge family..."
"Yes, yes, my one hundred and eighty brother also brought back a fairy from the Kingdom of Jin. It's so beautiful!"
"Stop talking about fairies, let's talk about business... Is our Ming Dynasty's national policy about to change?"
"This national policy has been stable for more than a hundred years. Is it time to change it?"
"That's right, Britain is becoming more and more arrogant now. They also say that we are a Yellow Peril and compare us to the Mongol Empire..."
"I'm afraid the national policy is not that easy to change, right? But... I'm afraid there will be more opportunities for people of my generation to make meritorious deeds!"
"That would be great!"
It is true that the national policy of the Ming Dynasty is not that easy to change. Even if Zhuge Weidao has convinced some of Zhuge's military advisors in his military advisor test, a group of old Zhuge "Zhuge is only cautious in his life" will not be fooled by Zhuge Weidao's few words. Understand.
They are just a little interested in Zhuge Weidao's plan to encourage Daoguang to print. This plan can not only cause trouble for the British, but also find out the British's background... If the British Empire cannot deal with Daoguang, then the Ming Dynasty will It is natural to seek a larger sphere of influence.
If the British Empire retreats in the face of Ming's expansion intentions, then Ming will push forward and continue to encroach on the British Empire's sphere of influence... This national policy will change step by step and slowly encroach. .
...
In the small auditorium of the Naval Intelligence Agency, a meeting that may ultimately change the cautious national policy that the Ming Dynasty has implemented for more than a hundred years is underway.
"... Sirs and colleagues, the world today is in the midst of a major change that has not been seen in three thousand years. The starting point of this major change was the Industrial Revolution that began more than a hundred years ago. Since then, steam-driven machines have gradually replaced manpower and animal power, and have become the power of sails on the ocean. This industrial revolution has greatly increased the productivity of the world, and has also brought countries around the world closer than ever before. A sense of distance. Intercontinental travel that used to take years can now be reached within a month or even ten or twenty days by ship or train. For example, taking a steamer from the United Kingdom through the Mediterranean Sea, the Suez Canal, the Indian Ocean, The time it takes for the Strait of Malacca to reach our country is usually within one and a half months! The time for crossing the Pacific Ocean from the southeastern coastal area of our country to the New World can also be controlled in about 20 days. The time for traveling south from Luzon and Borneo to Australia is even longer It only takes ten or a few days. And because giant ships with a displacement of more than 10,000 tons have become very easy to build, sailing across the ocean has become very safe, and the cost of sea transportation is low enough.
This means that the world's military powers can deploy their armies and navies to places that were originally out of reach with unprecedented speed and convenience...compared to the era when military mobilization and logistics transportation relied on animal power and manpower. Comparatively, the difficulty of conducting an expedition across 10,000 nautical miles is even less than that of sending troops thousands of miles back in the past!
Think about it, if the distance between us and the British Empire is not 10,000 nautical miles, but a thousand miles... what will happen between us and them? "
Zhuge Weidao is now a strategic-level strategist!
Although his little calculations are not as good as those of the original Zhuge Weidao, and his IQ and EQ seem to be much lower, he has a strategy! What he said now made everyone present realize that there must be a big war between Ming Dynasty and Daying!
