The fleet docked, and the Tianxiong army completed the reorganization and was temporarily stationed in Tianjinwei, and the generals followed Zhu Jie back to the capital.

Zhu Jie issued a decree, the whole country celebrated, and finally defeated the most powerful enemy in the world, at least for the foreseeable decades, Western countries have absolutely no strength to compete with the Ming Empire, this is definitely a thing worth celebrating!

Zhu Jie gave a royal banquet in the Qianqing Palace, and in order to wash the dust for the soldiers who returned from victory, Zhu Jie personally poured a bowl of wine for Xu Yifan and brought it to Xu Yifan.

"Haha, Yifan, you are our Ming Dinghai God Needle, with you, I don't know how much trouble I have saved, no one in the world, this bowl of wine, I have to personally respect you!"

Zhu Jie laughed.

Xu Yifan hurriedly stood up, bowed down and said: "Your Majesty, this is all a matter within the courtiers' duties, as long as the four seas are peaceful, the people are rich, the society is stable, and the ministers are willing!" Where do you dare to let the emperor pour the wine himself! ”

"Come on!"

Zhu Jie laughed and said, "When I didn't ascend the throne, didn't I often pour wine for you? Mu Feng and Lao Cha haven't stolen the wine yet, their own brothers, where did they get so many clichés? Come, Lao Cha, all the ministers, drink and win! ”

"Your Majesty, the minister has a matter, and he is a little confused, and he asks Wei Guogong for guidance......"

The courtiers present had finished drinking, and Sun Chuanting gently put down his wine glass and asked in a low voice.

Xu Yifan hurriedly smiled and said, "Brother Bai Gu, what do you have to do, just talk about it, what else do you not point to?" ”

Everyone looked at the two of them.

Sun Chuanting said in a deep voice: "That treaty, the old man has read it many times, and there is no doubt about the others, only the limitation of troops, I am puzzled, it is reasonable to limit the strength of Western countries, why should we limit the strength of our Ming Dynasty?" You know, just more than ten years ago, the Ming Dynasty only had the mainland in hand, the territory was nearly twice as small as it is now, and there were hundreds of thousands of troops in charge, but now the territory is so vast, why do you want to control the army? And our naval fleet is also limited? Isn't this putting a rope on ourselves? ”

Xu Yifan looked at Zhu Jie, and Zhu Jie said with a smile: "Yifan, say whatever you want, this time you signed a treaty, but I didn't have a face-to-face lecture, it was all agreed between you and Lao Cha and Guilin." ”

Xu Yifan nodded and replied: "Your Majesty, Bai Gu, this expedition, the emperor gave me the right to act cheaply, military, foreign diplomacy, all can be decided by themselves, the signing of the contract is carried out in Paris, tens of thousands of miles away from the Ming Dynasty, one back and forth, it will be close to a year, it is impossible to ask for instructions on everything, whether it is a battlefield or diplomacy, the opportunity is fleeting, it is really impossible to delay, although we defeated the five Western countries, but after all, it is above the homeland of others, and the strength of the five Western countries is not weak, If it really drags on for a year and a half, the consequences are unimaginable, and once they secretly prepare for confrontation, it will not be enough to suppress the entire Western Ocean by relying only on our fleet and 60,000 or 70,000 troops, so we must quickly cut through the chaos and conclude the negotiations as quickly as possible, so as to strive for the most favorable conditions for us. As for the question asked by Shiratani. ”

Xu Yifan paused, and then said: "First, let's talk about the navy first, after more than ten years of development, our three fleets are strong enough, maybe it is not enough to face all the navies of the five Western countries alone, but they must not go through a whole, there are sharp contradictions between each other, yes, there is no need, so that our naval strength must surpass the overall military strength of the Western Ocean, we maintain a navy with more than 500 warships and more than 100,000 troops, the annual cost is too great, If the scale is expanded again, it will bring a huge burden to the imperial court; Moreover, the future of science and technology is changing with each passing day, our technology emerges in an endless stream, the emperor once said that the future battlefield, not relying on quantity to win, but quality, what we want to do in the future is not to increase the number of warships, but to maintain a certain scale, and then use more money and food for the development and production of more advanced warships, if we develop a newer super battleship, put a thick armor on the battleship, and use our new explosives for the production of shells, a capital battleship, can match four Western warships, Is it necessary for us to have so many warships? Even only two hundred warships are needed, and it is enough to run rampant in the world. ”

"Second,"

Xu Yifan said, "Let's take a look at the army, in the past, we maintained at least six or seven hundred thousand troops to defend the territory, that is because our soldiers have too poor ability to act, each stationed on one side, mobilization, extremely inconvenient, and in the north, we have Manchuria, Mongolia, two strong enemies, and even face the threat of the Rakshasa country, we have to expand our armaments, relying on numbers to defend against fierce opponents; But now there is no need, first, our Tianwei Army and Tianxiong Army are unparalleled in combat strength, and they can deal with any potential opponent by dispatching one or two military towns at will; Second, the emperor decreed that the construction of basic works and roads throughout the country would not be long before the railways would be built to all corners of the country, and at that time the army could reach any part of the country in a short time. Naturally, there is no need for us to maintain six or seven hundred thousand troops; And again, the establishment of a professional soldier system, vigorously invest money and food in the research of more advanced weapons, so that our army can maintain its peak combat strength for a long time, is much more useful than having a large and bloated army! ”

"Haha!"

Zhu Jie laughed and said: "Yifan, I thought of going together, all the ministers, in order to have a strong army, I racked my brains and constantly increased military spending, that was actually a last resort, I want to sweep away all the hidden dangers of the Ming Dynasty in the shortest possible time, and now, our opponents have been beaten down by us. Wei Guogong's strategy has been seen for 20 years, and in accordance with the agreement signed by Wei Guogong, the whole country began to disarm, the local garrisons were minimized, and priority was given to the local security agencies, and if it really needed to be abolished, then enough silver taels were allocated, and the 300,000 army troops were stationed in various places to be responsible for military defense, and other things were not taken care of; The same is true of the navy, backward warships, all delivered to civilian caravans, to protect the safety of caravans, our steel production is getting higher and higher, technology is getting stronger and stronger, and it is time for us to equip armored ships! ”

(End of chapter)