The Wuying Hall is located in the southwest corner of the Forbidden City, opposite the Wenhua Hall in the southeast corner.
The cabinet has its offices in Wenhua Hall, the Military Aircraft Department has its offices in Wuying Hall, and court and military-related meetings are usually held in Wuying Hall.
The emperor asked Zhu Jingyuan and others to go to the Wuying Palace, obviously to ask the military and aircraft ministers to serve as advisers.
Zhu Jianyan, Zhu Jingyuan and his son, two officials from the Ministry of Industry, Zou Bingtai and Wang Lai, plus the driver, a total of five people, Zhu Jianyan's car can fit it.
But then the space in the back row will be relatively narrow, making it inappropriate for Prince Zhu Jianyan to squeeze in with everyone, and Zou Bingtai, an old minister, can't adapt to the car.
So everyone called a four-wheeled carriage to go to the palace. The carriage's compartment was relatively spacious, and there was no sound, vibration, or smell of the engine.
However, ordinary carriages could not enter the palace, so everyone got off the carriage at the palace gate and walked to Wuying Palace, which was not far away.
The layout of Wuying Hall is basically the same as that of Wenhua Hall, except that the table in the middle of the hall has been replaced by a sand table, which usually displays the distribution of the main garrison of the Ming Dynasty.
Cao Zhenyong from the Military Aircraft Department once again waited at the door in advance as a representative, took Zhu Jingyuan and his party in, and placed them in a small conference room on the side of Wuying Palace.
Ten minutes later, the emperor took a palace car and arrived at the gate of Wuying Hall.
When Zhu Jingyuan and others and the Minister of Military Aircraft heard the news, they came out in advance and went to the stairs of the main hall to greet him.
Zhu Jingyuan looked at the old emperor who got off the car, and vaguely felt that he was in better condition than yesterday, and his health seemed to be recovering rapidly.
Could it be that the armistice and reform had cured his long-standing heart ailments?
With doubts in his heart, Zhu Jingyuan and everyone bowed to the emperor, and then followed the emperor into the main hall of Wuying Hall.
After the emperor and ministers took their seats, Zou Bingtai, as the representative, explained the situation to the emperor and the minister of military aircraft.
After the old emperor listened with a straight face, he did not immediately show any tendency to choose, but directly came to Zhu Jingyuan's idea:
“Jingyuan, the fully equipped main gun battleship you envisioned, no matter how effective it is in actual combat, cannot be built before the peace talks are concluded.
"So the construction of this kind of warship cannot affect this peace negotiation. Why are you insisting on starting construction immediately?"
Zhu Jingyuan stood up and explained:
"Sun Chen's plan has always been to consider the next war, never just to prepare for negotiations.
“I think this kind of all-main-gun warship should become the trend of the future.
“The sooner we start construction and confirm its combat effectiveness, the sooner we can reshape the fleet and start exploring ways to fight in new environments.
"At the same time, it can also avoid continuing to waste time and resources on old warships."
The old emperor nodded slightly, acknowledging that what Zhu Jingyuan said was reasonable, but then he uttered a sentence that was neither good nor bad:
"The construction of existing warships will stop before the armistice."
When Zhu Jingyuan heard that the old emperor said that he would stop building old ships, he subconsciously showed joy, thinking that the old emperor approved of building new ships.
As a result, the old emperor's words were just like this, and there was no further content at this point. He did not mention his battleship.
After Zhu Jingyuan waited for three seconds and was sure that the old emperor had finished speaking, he couldn't help but ask:
"Grandpa Huang...then what?"
The old emperor asked:
"What then?"
Zhu Jingyuan said speechlessly:
"After the construction of existing warships has stopped, why not build a new warship for testing?"
The old emperor was so uninterested that he waved his hand and said without even asking for details:
"We'll talk about the new ships later. The focus now is reform."
Zhu Jingyuan couldn't understand why the old emperor had this attitude and why he didn't care about the new warships?
Could it be that as my grandfather, all his thoughts are on the army, so he is not interested in the navy?
After this idea came up, it was out of control.
Zhu Jingyuan immediately realized that in the past ten years that he could remember, Ming's shipbuilding speed and quantity seemed to have been conservative.
Daming's industrial production capacity and technological level are world-class today.
He completed the first industrial revolution by himself, and basically completed the second industrial revolution independently, leading the world to complete the second industrial revolution a hundred years ahead of schedule.
Countries such as Britain, France, and Pruot almost followed the Ming Dynasty, and they immediately followed whatever the Ming Dynasty did.
During the first industrial revolution, they were obviously a big step behind the Ming Dynasty.
The Ming Dynasty seized the opportunity and drove the Netherlands, Spain, and Portugal out of the east, and captured Nanyinzhou (South America), Nanmo (South Africa), Dongmo (East Africa), Dashi (West Asia), and Tiannan (Australia and New Zealand). Waiting for overseas colonies.
During the Second Industrial Revolution, several major countries in Europe and the West seized the opportunity, accelerated their pace of catching up, and barely caught up with the Ming Dynasty in important technological nodes.
In the history of Zhu Jingyuan's previous life, industrial countries such as the United States and Germany had equaled or even gradually surpassed the British Empire in industrial capacity during the second industrial revolution.
But the Ming Empire in this world is more powerful than Britain and the United States in history. It is an unprecedented powerful empire on land and sea.
The country has vast land and abundant resources, and it also has vast overseas colonies, developed imperial industry, and occupies the largest consumer market. The internal and external driving forces are very strong.
When countries such as Britain and France in this world faced the industrial Ming Dynasty, they did not have the advantages that Germany and the United States had over the British Empire in history.
Although the European and Western countries have barely caught up with the Ming Dynasty in terms of major key technology nodes, there is still a clear gap at the forefront of real technology.
The European and Western countries still need time to accumulate and settle, but the Ming Dynasty, which has completed industrialization, will not stop and wait for them to catch up.
Now all the countries in Thailand and the West are tied together in order to have a chance to compete with the Ming Dynasty. This is exactly what they did, and in the end it was basically a tie.
However, the Ming Navy now has not many more warships than the British Empire. It gives people a feeling that it is enough, and it seems that there is no full-scale shipbuilding at all.
Even when being besieged by the whole world, Ming's shipbuilding industry still did not use its full strength, which is very incredible.
I don't know whether it was because he couldn't use all his strength, or because the emperor was not interested in the navy.
Thinking of this, Zhu Jingyuan became even more worried, and then he could only continue to work hard to persuade:
"Grandpa Huang, this... we can't let the shipyard just sit idle like this.
"We have now opened up the construction of large ships for the private sector, and then stopped the construction of royal warships.
“Isn’t this waiting for shipbuilding workers and technicians to quit?
"Sun Chen believes that the shipyards of the royal consortium should at least keep the construction tasks from being completely interrupted.
“Otherwise, it won’t be that easy to find new workers and technical teams when construction is needed.
"This may directly reduce the Ming Dynasty's shipbuilding capabilities, thereby reducing the navy's combat capabilities..."
