When Zhu Jingyuan was ready to go to his new palace construction site, his staff Niu Jian sent a message from the West Factory:
"Your Highness, the United Kingdom has officially passed the Regency Act, and the Prince of Wales has become the Regent of the United Kingdom. In fact, he is the Crown Prince overseeing the country.
"Under the operation of British Prime Minister Pitt, the conflict between the British mainland and the American colonies intensified.
"Pete was prepared to take this opportunity to promote a direct union between the United States and the British mainland...
"At the same time, information personnel from the West Factory said that it cannot be ruled out that this was a deliberate choice made by Pete in order to retain his position as prime minister."
Zhu Jingyuan took the telegram and read the contents carefully, gaining a general understanding of the situation in the UK.
Then he asked something that seemed completely unrelated:
“Is acceptance done in Florida and Texas?”
Niu Jian was obviously stunned, but the relevant information was all in his mind:
"It's completed. The original Western settlements in the area have been cleared, and our troops have entered the main military strongholds and residential areas.
"Now the garrison is pulling a net to search the original settlements to check for possible omissions and hidden Taixi or Mexican slaves.
"The first batch of armed immigrants from Nanyinzhou Xintianfu have arrived and are cooperating with the troops to clean up the original residential areas.
"The first batch of local immigrants from Ming Dynasty are expected to arrive in the next few days and will be able to celebrate the New Year locally."
Zhu Jingyuan smiled and said:
“In other words, there is no need to worry about the Americans refusing to evacuate Florida or delaying the handover.
"In this case, we cannot allow the British to integrate the United States safely. We have to add fuel to the fire to both the British and the United States.
"Let us contact the newspaper staff and writers in Thailand and Spain to write some analysis and comments separately.
“On the one hand, promoting America’s accession to the United Kingdom will definitely become a drag on the United Kingdom.
“On the other hand, promoting the United States will become a big Ireland and become a direct target of exploitation by England.
“But don’t use too much force, just fan it a little bit, don’t make it too obvious.
"No need to use any special power, don't be discovered."
Niu Jian smiled and nodded in agreement, and went back to send a telegram to Xichang to convey Zhu Jingyuan's message.
At the same time, Zhu Jingyuan officially went out to the construction site of the new palace with a dozen guards and his two maids.
Guan Tianpei and his subordinates carefully screened all immigrants and indigenous people in the past month.
At the same time, he kept an eye on the palace staff and asked them to establish a strict household registration system in accordance with the local standards of the Ming Dynasty.
All subsequent immigrants will be screened when they disembark. After passing the screening, they will be registered with their household registration information before they can settle in Liusha City.
During this process, Guan Tianpei discovered dozens of immigrants whose origins were not particularly clear and were transferred to Oman by their families.
These immigrants themselves may not be at risk, but there is some uncertain information on their resumes, and they were sent away in order to avoid possible risks.
The climate and environment in Oman are actually better than those in Quicksand City, and it is not a punishment to be sent there to settle there.
Then Zhu Jingyuan was finally able to walk around outside the existing old palace accompanied by his guards.
Now the entire Liusha City is a big construction site. Not only is the new palace being built, there are also several construction sites around the palace.
Including collective housing buildings for more immigrants, as well as the future residence of the imperial court of the new food country.
There are more oil tanks being built on the seaside, as well as more important seawater chemical plants, water towers and reservoirs.
At the same time, the exterior wall structure project of the palace is now basically completed.
In the planning of the royal palace in the Ming Dynasty, this outer wall was usually just a "xiao wall".
It's just an ordinary single-layered wall, not a city wall on which horses can be raced.
But in the capitals of new overseas vassal states, most of these walls were turned into city walls.
Especially for a vassal state whose capital originally had no city, this wall would become a de facto city wall, as was the case with the Dashi Kingdom.
Moreover, the structure of the city wall has also changed. It is no longer a traditional city wall with rammed earth inside and bricks on the outside, but a concrete bunker surrounding the palace.
The interior of the wall is hollow and can pass vehicles and people. There are machine gun shooting holes on the wall.
At the four corners of the wall, there are four elevated watchtowers.
There is also a dug moat outside the wall. The design is to draw seawater in directly from the bay after digging enough width.
There are no rivers in the mainland to rely on, so we can only use sea water.
Overall, this is a complex modern fortification.
According to Zhu Jingyuan's understanding, this kind of defensive fortress could still play some role during World War I and previous eras.
By the time of World War II, in a war between major powers, heavy weapons were of little significance.
However, the palace has to build a city wall anyway. This fortification can give peace of mind to the officials of the palace and the immigrants around the palace.
They all instinctively felt that if they encountered any sudden danger, they could take shelter in this seemingly very strong fortress.
When Zhu Jingyuan came to the gate of the city wall, he looked at the busy workers inside and outside the wall and under the wall, smiled and bowed his hands to them.
Then he passed through the open gate of the wall and came to his own big yard.
The foundation is being laid for the inner courtyard wall of the palace, and the wall structure should be similar to the outer wall.
Workers on the main exterior wall project are gradually moving to the interior walls.
The courtyard between the inner and outer walls is now mainly used as a place for stacking construction materials, and there are also a small number of simple houses for workers to live temporarily.
However, there are actually not many workers on the inner and outer walls. Most of the workers are in the area within the inner walls, building the palaces within the palace.
At present, the main drag reduction of the three main halls and the king's palace has basically taken shape, and decoration should be started after the Chinese New Year.
The surrounding auxiliary buildings are also being constructed rapidly.
All the buildings in the inner courtyard of the palace are expected to be basically completed by the middle of next year, and Britain will be able to move in next autumn.
Although the current Ming Dynasty architecture is still in line with traditional architecture in appearance, it has basically abandoned the traditional wooden frame.
Before the large-scale development of overseas land, local large wood itself was difficult to find, and the traditional palaces built became smaller and smaller.
The key is that Emperor Sejo personally invented concrete and predicted the reinforced concrete frame structure technology.
After industrialization was completed and steel production soared rapidly, reinforced concrete buildings became popular.
Of course, this surge is relative to the classical era. Even now, reinforced concrete is not affordable for all households.
Small-scale houses built by ordinary families are basically made of bricks and tiles. Where timber is available locally, wooden beams may be used.
Where there is no available wood around, prefabricated floor slabs or concrete roofing are mostly used.
However, the official buildings of the clan, nobles, qualified elites, and the imperial court are basically reinforced concrete frame structures.
The wooden frame structure of ancient Chinese buildings has great inspiration for modern frame structures.
Coupled with Emperor Sejo's special suggestions, the development of related architectural design technology accelerated by more than 120 years.
Reinforced concrete frame structures, which were only widely used in the early 20th century, were already popularized in the Ming Dynasty in the late 18th century. By this time it was very mature and had specialized construction machinery.
The reinforced concrete frame structure does not have large walls and is very suitable for building traditional Chinese buildings and palaces.
The walls and the interior of the house continue to be decorated with wooden materials, and the final look and feel is not significantly different from that of a traditional building palace.
However, the actual room and unit spaces are wider, and the construction speed of the entire building is also much faster. Without the tens of thousands of workers in Liusha City, such a large palace and so many other buildings would not have been built so quickly.
The latest high-rise buildings and halls even have elevators inside, which of course greatly improves the ultimate comfort level.
Zhu Jingyuan walked around the construction site and saw the busy workers around him. From time to time, he smiled and handed over to them and shouted "hard work".
Zhu Jingyuan also went over to chat with workers who were taking a break, surveyors and designers, and workers who were working on some special processes.
Many boys are naturally curious about buildings, machinery, and weapons, and have little resistance when they see these things. Zhu Jingyuan is such a person.
In this era of complete integration of Eastern classical and modern technology, Zhu Jingyuan was quite excited about this large construction site that was almost the most advanced in the world.
Of course I watched the craftsmen working with curiosity, and of course I asked all kinds of interesting questions.
But this kind of behavior made ordinary workers of this era very excited.
The workers all felt that Prince Dashi was extremely amiable and had no pretensions to being a king or Prince of Ming Dynasty.
Because of the high standard of wages, the workers' enthusiasm for work has been very high, and their emotions have once again increased to a higher level.
Niu Jian and Guan Tianpei, who were following Zhu Jingyuan, were also very surprised by Zhu Jingyuan's behavior.
Both of them could tell that Zhu Jingyuan was not pretending to be a polite corporal, but he really didn't dislike the messiness of those workers.
Even the maids An Xiaona and Irene who were following Zhu Jingyuan were very surprised.
Zhu Jingyuan behaved quite amiably when he was with them and when facing the palace servants.
However, An Xiaona and the others instinctively believed that this was because everyone was Zhu Jingyuan's family and close subordinates, so they had that attitude.
Now it seems that His Highness Prince Dashi has the same attitude even if he is an ordinary worker outside.
From the staff and guards, from the maids to the workers, they all have a new understanding of the young king of their own family.
Zhu Jingyuan walked around the construction site for more than an hour. At noon, he asked the workers to rest and returned to the palace.
In the afternoon, Zhu Jingyuan received news again that Zheng Fuguang, who had been busy in the Baku area for almost two months, was back.
Zhu Jingyuan immediately went to see this theoretical company subordinate, said hello and then inquired about the situation in Baku.
When Zheng Fuguang came to the Great Food Kingdom from the Ming Dynasty, he still had a somewhat bookish temperament, but now he has completely become a resident engineer.
The cheeks are slightly dark, but also quite rosy, and the hands are a little rough, obviously he has done a lot of work himself.
Although he is in a dusty state now, he is quite energetic and looks very healthy.
When Zheng Fuguang heard Zhu Jingyuan's question, he reported like a treasure trove:
"His Highness chose the place very accurately. Baku is also a piece of land soaked in a sea of oil.
“Here in Liusha City, we still need to drill wells down to the oil layer more than a thousand meters deep, and only then can oil be produced happily from the ground.
“On the Baku side, it only takes at least fifty meters to start producing oil, and it only takes five to six hundred meters at most.
“It’s so easy to extract oil there, we can drill a well in less than ten days.
"My subordinates feel that the oil reserves in Baku may not be less than those in Liusha City.
“The only disadvantage is that it is located inland and transportation to the mainland of Ming Dynasty is very inconvenient.
"We can only hand it over to the royal consortium, let them manage it, and sell it to the surrounding Lucia, Khiva, Kazakh, and Xianbei countries."
Zhu Jingyuan knew, however, that Baku's original reserves were lower than those of the Persian Gulf.
Baku is just the most convenient large oil field to exploit. Although its output once reached half of the world's, it also once reached 70% of the Soviet Union's.
However, in just ten years after World War II, production quickly dropped to 15% of the Soviet Union's, and finally slowly dropped to 2%.
As for the oil in the Persian Gulf, Zhu Jingyuan doesn't know how long it can be exploited.
Zhu Jingyuan smiled and nodded and said:
“It’s really difficult to transport it out, so it’s left to the royal family consortium to export to Lucia and nearby countries.
“We, a big food country, collect our own oil and sell it, so we are more confident in taking advantage of loopholes.
“When it comes to other vassal states, it would be a bit too showy to do this.
"Give it to the royal consortium, it's just right to shut their mouths.
"They have to pay me dividends anyway."
Zheng Fuguang sighed with a smile and said:
"Your Highness is right. If the Baku oil field is managed by the royal consortium, we can produce oil on a larger scale in the food country.
“Now that the drilling process has been basically stabilized, the follow-up step is to continue stable drilling within the existing oil fields.
"So I want to go home and have a look. After all, the Chinese New Year is coming soon, so I ask for your permission.
"If there is need here, I can come again after the New Year."
Zhu Jingyuan suddenly realized:
"Is it still too late to return to the capital?"
Zheng Fuguang immediately said:
"It's in time. The fastest passenger ship now can reach the capital in as little as fifteen days, and we can make it back before the year."
Zhu Jingyuan sighed:
"If we can make it in time, then Mr. Zheng can go back."
Zhu Jingyuan took out his check, signed one for 30,000 silver notes, and handed it to Zheng Fuguang opposite:
"Time is tight, and I don't have time to prepare any New Year benefits, so I'll send a New Year red envelope to Mr. Zheng in advance."
During the Chinese New Year, it is also a traditional practice for Ming Dynasty manufacturers to send red envelopes to important employees.
Therefore, Zheng Fuguang was not too surprised. He subconsciously reached out and took it, and at the same time thanked him with a smile:
"Your Highness is really too kind..."
Then he subconsciously glanced at the numbers above, and Zheng Fuguang was immediately shocked:
"Ah, thirty thousand silver notes...this is too much! Your Highness...this...I don't dare to ask for this..."
Zhu Jingyuan smiled and waved his hand and said:
"It's not much. Compared with Zheng Gong's running around and busy these past few months, and compared with the income from the oil fields in Liusha City and Baku, this little money is really not much.
"Don't worry, Mr. Zheng. Don't have any pressure or bad thoughts. Continue to work hard at our Daming Airlines in the coming year and strive to get another 30,000 yuan next year."
Thirty thousand silver notes, converted according to purchasing power, is equivalent to the three million yuan Zhu Jingyuan had in his previous life.
Zheng Fuguang personally led a team of workers to help Zhu Jingyuan drive out the Liushacheng Oil Field and the Baku Oil Field.
He is the chief engineer of oil field development and the actual person in charge of the project. He has created an industry worth billions in half a year.
Although it was mainly due to Zhu Jingyuan's advance planning and direction, the three million year-end bonus was not particularly large for him.
But in this era, unless they own shares, the income of ordinary engineers is far from reaching this level.
If Zheng Fuguang's craftsman level is not promoted, he may not be able to save 30,000 silver coins until he retires based on labor remuneration alone.
In Zheng Fuguang's view, His Royal Highness Prince Dashi's actions were indeed a bit frighteningly generous.
However, thinking about past experiences, His Highness has always been very generous, and the remuneration of craftsmen from local companies is also the highest in the industry.
After Zhu Jingyuan persuaded and encouraged Zheng Fuguang, he carefully accepted the check and formally said goodbye.
After sending Zheng Fuguang away, Zhu Jingyuan called Chief Shi Liu Zhixin, who was busy with other things:
“We can start preparing for the New Year. Prepare a standard of benefits and red envelopes for all officials and workers, and distribute them before the end of the year.
"Now we have a total of more than 20,000 people in Liusha City. Regardless of men, women, old or young, everyone will be given a red envelope.
“Of course, if the position is important and the performance is good, the salary will be more, and vice versa, the salary will be less.
“Specially hired workers whose families are not here and want to go back to reunite during the Chinese New Year can go with Zheng Gong now.
“There are also several other specially hired boats to go around to purchase various New Year goods and then sell them in the city at cost price.
"Let the immigrants who have just settled here have a lively and comfortable New Year..."
