After the banquet on the battleship, Zhu Jingyuan and the British and French representatives took a short rest on the ship and returned to the city in the afternoon.
The Ming Dynasty's visiting fleet will escort them back to the West, but will not directly use its own warships to carry them to live.
The warship can give them a brief tour, but diplomats with intelligence missions will not be allowed to ride for a long time.
Charlotte and Shire, as well as representatives from both countries, will still leave on more comfortable special passenger ships.
After Zhu Jingyuan sent them back to their residence, he directly reminded Charles and Charlotte that they could pack their things and prepare to return home.
Talleyrand, Grenville, Monroe and other officials were all relieved and could finally leave.
On the other hand, both Charlotte and Charles themselves were obviously reluctant to leave.
In the courtyard where Charlotte lived, Zhu Jingyuan said goodbye to Charlotte and prepared to return to the palace to busy with his own affairs.
Charlotte, however, reached out and pinched Zhu Jing's sleeve without letting go.
Zhu Jingyuan stopped and looked back at the girl beside him:
"What's wrong?"
Charlotte said what she wanted to say intermittently:
“After leaving this time, I don’t know when I will have the opportunity to see you again.
"Even if you tell me where you want to go in the future, I may not have the chance to actually see you."
Zhu Jingyuan felt that what Charlotte wanted to do was not revealed.
However, Zhu Jingyuan did not ignore the atmosphere and said: If he really wanted to see someone, the British would not be able to stop him.
I probably wouldn't specifically think about meeting Charlotte again.
For Charlotte herself, even if she becomes the King of England, she probably won't have the freedom she has now.
After a brief silence, Zhu Jingyuan turned around and opened his arms.
Charlotte hesitated for a moment, then boldly stepped forward and hugged Zhu Jingyuan's body.
Then he closed his eyes and said in a very small voice to Zhu Jingyuan's chest:
"Your Highness, I actually...want to be with you and have a baby together.
"We can't get married, but we don't need to get married. I can be your lover.
"A child with your bloodline will definitely be very good, and he will definitely become a very good king."
Zhu Jingyuan blinked and understood what Charlotte meant.
Charlotte is second in line to the British throne and the only one of her generation.
Unless her forty-seven-year-old father and his wife, who have been separated for who knows how many years, now create a legitimate son, Charlotte's order of succession has been completely fixed.
After the death of her father, George IV, Prince of Wales, she will become the King of England.
At present, it seems that the possibility of his parents giving her a legitimate brother is infinitely close to zero.
This did not happen in the original history. According to history, after she died in childbirth, her uncle worked hard to create a legitimate daughter, Victoria.
Charlotte will definitely succeed to the throne if she doesn't die, and Charlotte's own heir will definitely be chosen from her own children.
Now Taixi has openly allowed illegitimate children to inherit, but the order of inheritance is after legitimate children.
Similar to the Ming Dynasty, concubines could also inherit, but the order of succession was after the legitimate sons.
If Charlotte never gets married and has no legitimate children, she will only have a few illegitimate children with herself.
Then the eldest son of herself and her illegitimate son will become the king of England after her.
This method is of course feasible, especially with the backstage support of Ming Dynasty, even a war of succession can be won.
But the problem is that it is impossible to implement now.
Zhu Jingyuan rubbed Charlotte's head:
"You are still a child yourself, and you are thinking about having a child. At least wait until you are eighteen years old."
Charlotte's head rubbed against Zhu Jingyuan's arms:
"Charlotte won't give up the baby. Charlotte has already had her period. The doctor said she can get pregnant once she has her period."
Zhu Jingyuan explained and arranged in a particularly helpless manner:
“Theoretically it’s possible, but in practice it’s not possible at all.
“If you are thinking about getting pregnant and giving birth to a child at your age, accidents can easily happen, and the result may be one dead or two dead.
“I don’t want to see that outcome.
"If you really want to be my only woman, wait until you are eighteen and then come and stay with me for one year.
"I will give you the status of the concubine of the Dashi Kingdom. Even if the British don't accept it, the Dashi Kingdom will accept it.
"We'll think about having children then."
Zhu Jingyuan is a prince-level pro-vassal king and has a quota of four princesses. The princess is not a queen.
There is a high probability that Charlotte will successfully become the Queen of England, and it is not impossible to give her the status of the Princess of Great Eating.
When Charlotte heard this arrangement, she was both regretful and surprised.
The surprise was of course the princess, but unfortunately she could not have children yet.
It is common for members of the Thai royal family to spend the night with their lovers.
The courtiers and court personnel of the Ming Dynasty did not think there was anything wrong with the fact that their prince was blessed with a little girl.
The next day, the British and French missions headed by Charlotte and Charles officially began to pack the gifts.
Three days later, the well-prepared delegations from the two countries officially set off to leave Xintianfu.
Zhu Jingyuan also went to the dock to see off Charles and Charlotte as his master, friend and lover.
Charlotte held onto Zhu Jingyuan's hand all the way.
Charles looked at this scene from the side and always felt that something was wrong.
Zhu Jingyuan didn't think too much and sent them all the way to the dock.
Others boarded the ship one after another, but Charlotte hugged Zhu Jing and didn't want to let go, and said with tears in her eyes:
"Your Highness... we still have a chance to meet, right?"
Zhu Jingyuan smiled and nodded:
"Of course there is a chance..."
Charlotte is still worried:
"But...but what if my grandfather, father, and the British don't allow me to see you again?"
Zhu Jingyuan thought for a while:
"If you are over eighteen, they will not let you come to see me.
"If you were twenty years old and I still hadn't seen you.
“Then I will take the fleet to capture London, England, or Richmond, America.
"I will snatch you back and make you my princess."
Charlotte's worry suddenly turned into surprise:
"Really! If I can't come out, will you really snatch me back!"
Zhu Jingyuan nodded very seriously:
"Of course it's true. I always keep my word, and the United Kingdom and the United States have no ability to stop me.
"But you must remember that according to our Ming Dynasty's rules, if you want to be my princess, you cannot have an affair with another man.
"It doesn't matter whether you are married or not..."
Charlotte nodded vigorously and seriously:
"I understand, am I your exclusive royal mistress..."
Charlotte finally felt relieved, said goodbye to Zhu Jingyuan with high expectations, and boarded the passenger ship with three steps at a time.
Then Zhu Jingyuan realized that Charles was still standing not far from him.
Zhu Jingyuan and Charlotte spoke in very low voices, and Charles even deliberately avoided them a little.
So Ciel probably didn't hear what the two said.
But the state of Zhu Jingyuan and Charlotte fell into the eyes of Charles, and their relationship was exposed.
After Charlotte got on the boat, Charles came to Zhu Jingyuan with a complicated mood:
"My dear friend, I have to leave too. If you don't express your feelings, I will only remember your character of valuing sex over friends..."
Zhu Jingyuan opened his arms with a smile and hugged his best friend:
"Have a safe journey and wish you all the best, my friend."
Charles also hugged Zhu Jingyuan before he was finally satisfied. At the same time, he was quite reluctant to leave and turned around to board the passenger ship.
The passenger ship had been prepared long ago, and the whistle sounded immediately after the last passengers boarded the ship.
He quickly put away the anchor chain and gangway, and slowly left the dock with the assistance of the tugboat at the dock.
Zhu Jingyuan stood on the pier, waved gently to Charlotte and Charles at the edge of the deck, and watched them leave.
Two battleships and four cruisers had already set sail and were waiting outside the dock.
After the fleet reunited, they sailed northeast and arrived at Sanqing City the next morning.
Two battleships were to refuel here.
After the battleship docked, the preheated fuel pipeline was quickly connected to the fuel injection port.
This fuel supply process has also become the focus of observation by British, French and American officials such as Talleyrand, Grenville, and Monroe.
They had already basically confirmed through the appearance of the chimneys and the smoke emitted from the chimneys during navigation that the two ships should be pure fuel warships.
Now, in addition to reconfirming this, it is more important to directly observe the efficiency of fuel refueling.
Even for a 20,000-ton warship, it would take at least two days to fill the fuel tank with coal when it is empty.
After the tonnage is enlarged to 40,000 tons, the time to continue to replenish coal may not only be four days.
Because coal is solid, it must be loaded into the hold through mechanical equipment and must be adjusted evenly in the hold.
This is a very tedious and hard job, and the time required increases linearly with the size of the fuel tank.
Now, several thick pipes are directly connected to the fuel tank, and the heated and melted heavy oil is pushed in by the oil pump.
There is no need for complicated mechanical equipment to be transported into the cabin, and the liquid oil can be naturally and evenly distributed in the fuel tank.
So the fuel shipping efficiency is directly improved by an order of magnitude.
Finally, both battleships completed their fuel replenishment before sunset.
It took less than six hours in total.
Grenville looked at the two battleships leaving the port again, his expression full of surprise and shock:
"In just half a day, the battleship's fuel supply was completed..."
Monroe's expression became more serious:
“The draft of the two battleships has been deepened from light load to full load.
"Based on changes in waterline depth, the two battleships refueled at least 5,000 tons of fuel."
Jefferson stared at the battleship in the distance and said:
"In half a day, they added at least more than 5,000 tons of fuel...
"Five thousand tons of heavy oil...according to caloric conversion, it is equivalent to at least more than 8,000 tons of coal.
"Eight thousand tons of coal is enough for a capital ship to complete a circumnavigation of the world at a speed of ten knots!"
Monroe sighed softly, and then nodded seriously:
“That’s true, and the fuel is flowing and there are no gaps inside.
“Eight thousand tons of coal will take up more space than eight thousand tons of fuel oil.
“A fuel tank of the same size may obtain twice as much heat as burning coal.
"In other words, the theoretical endurance of a fuel-fired warship may be more than twice that of a coal-fired warship of the same tonnage."
Grenville looked at the two American officials:
"In other words, even if we build a battleship with the same displacement of 40,000 tons, it is impossible to leave a cabin that can carry 8,000 tons of coal. That would make the weight distribution of the battleship completely out of control...
"Our warships must also switch to full fuel power. Stop messing with mixed fuels. We must make up our minds!"
When Grenville said this, he hammered the railing of the ship's side hard.
After hearing this, Munro issued a soul torture:
"The Ming Dynasty has four major oil-producing areas: Nanyang, Dashiguo, Baku, and Oil Lake. We, the United Kingdom and the United States, do not have..."
Grenville was stunned for a few seconds, and then hammered the railing hard again.
On the other side, Talleyrand and Charles were also looking at the battleships that had restarted, observing with another mentality.
Talleyrand said to Charles with admiration and emotion:
“Fuel is not only convenient to refill, but also stores more energy.
“The key is that when transported in the boiler, it is much more convenient than coal.
“There is no need to manually shovel coal, and the speed of fuel injection will no longer affect the continuity of the boiler’s operation.
"The efficiency of fuel refueling is much higher than that of coal burning, and it can affect the progress of the war!
"The replacement of Ming Dynasty's new warships with full fuel power obviously takes these circumstances into consideration."
Charles thought for a while and said:
"So all our new warships in the future will use pure fuel power."
Talleyrand said with some worry:
"The advantage of pure fuel power is indeed huge, but we don't have our own oil fields."
Charles said matter-of-factly:
"You can buy it from Daming! My best friend has said that the oil production in Baku and the Great Food Country is enough to supply the entire West.
“We can even cooperate with the big food countries to build oil pipelines from the oil-producing areas of the big food countries to the coast of the Great Qin Sea.
"Then we can directly get the oil supply from the big food country without even going through the West Sea Canal."
Talleyrand said very worriedly:
“The big food country can indeed supply our fuel needs, but...
"If all French warships are powered by fuel, and all our fuel comes from the Ming Dynasty.
"Once the Ming Dynasty cuts off the fuel supply, our fleet will be completely paralyzed...
"Even if we reserve fuel in peacetime, it will be difficult to support a long war."
Ciel asked in obvious surprise:
“If France was not fighting the Ming Dynasty, why did the Ming Dynasty cut off our fuel supply?
"Does Lord Talleyrand still think that we are still capable of being enemies of Ming Dynasty? Do we still want to be enemies of Ming Dynasty?
“Our relationship with Daming can only be an increasingly close partnership, there is no other possibility.
"We won't...the key is that we can't be enemies with Ming Dynasty."
(End of chapter)
