"In the past two years, the Russians have been on the verge of crumbling rule in Alaska, especially after we refused to import furs and other goods to the Russian American Company, which was already on the verge of bankruptcy, and now the Russians can only resupply the Alaska colony from the west coast of North America with the help of the Americans.

As long as the Navy is able to escort troops to Alaska, then there will not be much of an obstacle to the landing operation! ”

Lin Zhe did not judge his words on the spot, but said that the command would conduct research on Alaska affairs, and he continued to work hard to study the affairs of Northern Xinjiang, and praised him for his merits in the affairs of Xindong Province, and said on the spot that it had been decided to award him the title of baron.

After walking out of Lin Zhe's office door, Chen Yuechuan was a little disappointed, he did not get the news from Lin Zhe's mouth on the spot that he would land in Alaska in the near future.

This is not a good thing for him, a general who has established his career in the northern frontier.

Chen Yuechuan wanted to launch a landing operation against Alaska as soon as possible, but Chen Yuechuan was just an ordinary army general in the end, and he only considered military issues and did not take into account other issues.

On the contrary, as the ruler of the empire, Lin Zhe has too many aspects to consider.

It is not difficult to take Alaska, this is something that Lin Zhe has known for a long time, in fact, if the empire had enough determination, then the empire could have landed directly in Alaska a year ago, but why didn't it do it?

Because Lin Zhe has too many concerns.

First of all, when considering the issue of Alaska, it is important to be clear that Alaska is now a barren land. Aside from a few furs and fishery resources, Alaska today is not of much practical value to the Empire.

Alaska in the Hereafter. Its economic value is reflected in the discovery of gold mines, as for a hundred years later. It was because of the discovery of petroleum gas.

Of course, in fact, the biggest role of Alaska in later generations has nothing to do with the economy, and its biggest role is to serve as an outpost of the North American air defense circle during the Cold War, and its military value is far greater than its economic value.

It's too early to talk about oil or anything, and gold mines haven't been discovered yet, maybe years, or decades, no one can say for sure. Lin Zhe knew that there was a gold mine in Alaska, but Alaska was so big, and he didn't know where the gold mine was, so there was no difference between not knowing it.

The occupation of Alaska will not yield any direct benefits, both economically and militarily, in the short term.

At the same time, if Alaska were to be sent in and controlled, it would further increase the tension between the empire and Britain and the United States.

Britain and the United States have no interest in Alaska, but that doesn't mean they want to see the empire take control of the land. For the British, if the Empire were to take control of Alaska, it would pose a major military threat to Britain's other colony, the Canadian Federation.

In 1867. Britain integrated the three major colonies of Canada into the Canadian Federation, which allowed it to be self-governing, but it was still an important part of the British global colonial system.

In addition to being a threat to Canada. Americans were also uneasy about the expansion of empire in North America, even though the dominant voice in the United States after the Civil War was peaceful development. But some discerning Americans still recognize and value the threat posed to the United States by imperial expansion.

The most obvious of these was Hawaii, where the Empire's attempt to annex all of Hawaii in 1866 caused great panic among the Americans. He even did not hesitate to break out the Hawaiian War with the Empire for this.

In the end, despite forcing the Empire to cancel its plans to annex all of Hawaii, the Empire still obtained Pearl Harbor in Hawaii.

In the past two years, the empire has carried out a large-scale development of Pearl Harbor, built a port, and built forts and forts, with more than 1,000 permanent troops in the forts, and a permanent 'Hawaiian task force'.

After the example of Hawaii, Americans are also worried about whether the empire will continue to expand southward after taking control of Alaska, which will then threaten the strategic security of the United States.

In this regard, in the past two days, Britain and the United States have been strongly opposed to the Empire's exploration activities in the Aleutian waters and off the coast of North America, and even sent warships to obstruct it several times.

Lin Zhe knows very well that there is not much military problem in occupying Alaska, and with the strength of the imperial navy, it is not difficult to control the sea supremacy in the Aleutian Sea, but the problem is that if the relations between China and Britain and China and the United States, which have been eased with great difficulty because of Alaska, will deteriorate, this will not be a good thing for the empire.

The empire needed vast markets for the United States and Great Britain and its global colonies, needed to export products to these places, and also needed to import some industrial raw materials from Great Britain.

So in recent years, the empire has been very cautious in dealing with diplomatic conflicts with Britain.

In addition, it is also very important that the Imperial Navy is not completely sure to fight against the British Navy, let alone against the entire British Royal Navy, even against the East India Fleet under the British Royal Navy.

Therefore, Lin Zhe also had to suppress the idea of external expansion.

What the empire needs today is not war, not even territory for expansion.

What the empire needs is a stable and peaceful environment for development, and then complete industrialization, and once it completes industrialization, it is time for external expansion.

Once the empire completes industrialization, relying on domestic industrial production capacity, it is time to form a large fleet and army, and at the same time, the completion of industrialization, the demand for the market for industrial products and the source of industrial raw materials will also become more, and at that time, whether the empire wants to or not, it will embark on the road of expansion.

Right now?

It's too early!

Now, with the industrial scale of the empire, even domestic demand cannot be satisfied, so how can we talk about external expansion!

This can be seen from the industrial system of the empire, the empire's current industrial system can be regarded as relatively perfect, light industry and heavy industry, daily chemical supplies in the chemical industry to paint, gunpowder, hardware parts manufacturing in the machinery industry to the manufacture of steam engines, and then to the manufacture of machine tools.

However, the vast majority of the goods available for export in the empire are still primary processed products, and the empire has been industrially developing for more than ten years, and the core industry is still the textile industry.

In addition, with the development of Northeast China in recent years, soybeans have been widely planted in Northeast China, and soybeans have gradually increased their exports, becoming a major light industry economic pillar in Northeast China.

But whether it is raw silk, soybeans or tea, these are all agricultural products that have been processed in the first place, and the woven fabric industry, which the empire has focused on in the last decade, exports are pitiful.

The textile industry of the empire is the core of the economy, of which the total output value of the cotton spinning industry is not much worse than the raw silk industry, but the domestic cotton spinning industry has a very important specialty, that is, the domestic cotton spinning industry is mainly aimed at the domestic market, and there is no energy to open up foreign markets for the time being.

This is mainly because the domestic cotton spinning market is too big, and the empire with hundreds of millions of people needs how much fabric is needed every year!

The cotton spinning industry is also a typical representative of most domestic industries, that is, the products are mainly based on domestic demand, and exports have little to do with them.

At the same time, although the empire's raw silk, tea and other agricultural products are relatively dependent on foreign markets, it is worth noting that the international tea and raw silk markets are relatively narrow, and the main tea market is concentrated in Britain.

Why? Because in these years, only the British were popular to drink tea, and this habit was cultivated by the British East India Company for a hundred years, and as for other European countries, it is now only popular in a small number and has not become the mainstream.

Raw silk, this thing does not have to worry about the market, because raw silk from China is a luxury jewelry sought after all over the world, so many years, China's annual export of raw silk has been steadily increasing, but for the huge global market, it is still in short supply.

This also means that the current empire is far from the point where it needs to compete for the international market in order to digest the surplus industrial products at home, so it is not in the interests of the empire to break out a war with Britain.

Of course, if there is a surplus of domestic industrial products that can only be digested by foreign markets, then war is necessary, and the military of the empire has always been preparing for future wars.

Otherwise, why did the Imperial Navy invest so much money in building a fleet?

After the official start of construction of the third ship of the Chiyou class, the Imperial Navy began to finalize the design of the successor ship of the Chiyou class battleship.

Today, Rear Admiral Hu Licai, director of the Navy's Ship Administration Department, came to the Xinhua Hall to personally report to Lin Zhe on the design plan of the new battleship. (To be continued.) )