The car of Zhu Jianyan and his son left the palace and drove on an unusually quiet street.

The streets in the city are all asphalt roads, the alleys are all cement roads, and the slightly larger streets are equipped with circuit lights on both sides.

The street lamps illuminated the surroundings, but there were no moving figures in the streets, except for the occasional night watchman.

Occasionally, other vehicles appeared, and they would also follow the car of Zhu Jianyan and his son, and they were obviously other princes and ministers who had received notices and were going to the palace for a meeting.

The war situation abroad is deadlocked, the domestic political situation is turbulent, there are civil and industrial uprisings everywhere, the Beijing division has long been subject to curfew, and those who can go out at night are officials.

The emperor also returned to the Forbidden City from his estates outside the city, and allowed some of the most important ministers to drive directly into the palace.

The cars of the princes and ministers drove to the noon gate, and the palace gate guards, who had received the notice in advance, immediately came to carefully inspect them, and after confirming that the people and belongings on the cars were in good condition, they saluted and let them go.

Zhu Jingyuan's car started again, slowly entered the Forbidden City through the deep doorway, then turned right through the Huiji Gate, and stopped in the square in front of the Wenhua Palace.

The princes and ministers in the car came out one after another, all put their hands in their sleeves, and looked at Zhu Jianyan and his son.

Honglu Siqing is the protagonist of today's meeting and peace talks, and the protagonist of a doomed tragedy, and no one wants to go back to the pot of seeking peace.

What surprised them even more was that this doomed tragic protagonist even brought a half-grown child over, did he think that this kind of thing could brush his son's resume!

If it were normal times, the magnates who could talk to Zhu Jianyan on the scene would definitely not help but ask Zhu Jianyan what he thought.

But in today's atmosphere, they could only shake their heads secretly, and after greeting Zhu Jianyan, they quietly lined up and walked up the stairs and entered the brightly lit Wenhua Palace.

Wenhua Hall was originally planned to be used for the prince's office, and after Xuande, there were basically no adult princes who needed to work, so it became a place for the emperor to chat with the Hanlin (sutra feast).

When Li Zicheng entered Beijing, the Wenhua Hall was destroyed, and the Shizu Emperor Zhu Cihong rebuilt it after recovering the old capital.

After the reconstruction, although the appearance of the Wenhua Hall is basically the same as the original building, the internal structure and pattern have completely changed.

The main construction directly uses reinforced concrete, and the internal room planning is more suitable for daily office, and now there are heating, electric lights, and electric fans.

The functions of the Mandarin Hall and its annexes have evolved into a place for cabinet members to work on a daily basis and to hold occasional meetings of the Imperial Palace.

At present, at the back of the hall and upstairs, there is a partitioned office area, and the remaining middle area is the conference room.

The main hall of the conference room, sitting on the main seat facing north and south, houses the emperor's throne and imperial case.

On the left and right sides of the conference room, there are three rows of solid wood high-backed chairs, which are the seats of the ministers participating in the meeting.

In the middle of the conference room was a heavy table the size of a ping-pong table, with books and signs at one end and a map of the situation at the other.

There are no chairs around the large table, and the height is also standard for people to stand, so it is a platform for small-scale discussions and presentations.

On each of the three walls around the conference room is a huge map.

The map hanging on the wall in the middle, titled "The Complete Map of the Great Tomorrow", is a map of the local area of the Ming Dynasty.

The scope of the map is roughly based on the 1820 Qing Dynasty heyday map, plus the Beihai (Baikal) and the surrounding areas of Nebuchu.

The Ming Dynasty is collectively referred to as Shenzhou, with Xianbei (Siberia) to the north, Nanyang (Southeast Asia) to the south, Anxi (Central Asia) to the west, Tianzhu (South Asia) to the southwest, and Dashi (West Asia) to the west.

Anxi, Tianzhu, and Dashi are also called Asia (called by Taixi), west of Asia is called Taixi or Europe (called by Taixi), south of Taixi is called Mozhou, also known as Africa (called by Taixi).

The map hanging on the wall on the left, titled "The Complete Map of the Ming Imperial Domain", is the complete map of all the control areas of the Ming Dynasty, including the Ming Dynasty, the feudal state, and the royal territory.

The map covers the mainland with the addition of Korea, Japan, Eastern Xianbei (Eastern Siberia), Nanyang, and Tiannan (Australia and New Zealand).

West of North Yinzhou (west of the Rocky Mountains in North America and north of Mexico), south of South Yinzhou (south of the Paraguay Basin in South America), Yingzhou (Hawaiian Islands).

Tianzhu (Bangladesh, Pakistan, northern India), Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Persia (coastal areas around the Persian Gulf).

West Sea (Sinai Peninsula), East Mexico (Djibouti, Somalia), South Mexico (South Africa), Massachusetts (Madagascar).

There are also most of the archipelagos and islands in the Greater Ming Ocean (Pacific Ocean) and the Lesser Western Ocean (Indian Ocean) such as Samoa and the Andaman Ocean.

Most of the control areas outside the mainland mainly exist in the form of vassal states, and a small number of areas are "imperial villages" directly under the imperial family.

At present, most of the two major ocean regions of the Great Ming Ocean (Pacific Ocean) and the Small Western Ocean (Indian Ocean) are the sphere of influence of the Ming Empire.

Only Britain occupies half of Tianzhu, half of the Great Food Peninsula (Arabian Peninsula), most of Mixir (Egypt), and a few smaller islands in the Lesser Western Ocean.

Spain controlled the continent from Mexico to Peru, with a few islands scattered around the area.

The map hanging on the wall on the right is titled "Kunyu Quantu", that is, the map of the world.

But this world area is actually very similar to the whole map of the Ming Dynasty on the left, and you can't see the difference if you don't get close.

Because they originally used the same base map, they were all global maps centered on the Ming Dynasty, but the emphasis of the labeling was different.

The annotation of the world map is mainly abroad, and the domestic region is relatively brief, and the annotation of the whole map of the Ming Dynasty is mainly domestic, and the foreign is relatively brief.

The world map centered on the Ming Dynasty will divide the Atlantic Ocean into two parts, and place them at the very edge on both sides of the map, which gives people a very inconspicuous feeling.

The Atlantic Ocean happens to be the vacuum area of the Ming Dynasty, and it seems that the Ming Dynasty's sphere of influence has spread all over the world, but in fact it is still a lot worse.

North Yinzhou only circled a long strip in the west, South Yinzhou only circled a triangle in the south, and Mozhou (Africa) only controlled the two corners of East Mexico (Somalia) and South Africa (South Africa).

Tianzhu only accounts for half, and the Great Food Area west of Tianzhu only controls the periphery of the Persian Gulf, and there is no stronghold in the Taixi area.

The current Ming Empire wants to turn the whole world into a vassal state, that is, a de facto colony, and combine the world map with the whole map of the Ming Dynasty.

But in Zhu Jingyuan's view, these sites are now completely sufficient.

In the future, the oil of the Persian Gulf, the iron ore and uranium ore of Australia, and the granary of South America and Indochina are all in hand.

As long as the current situation is stabilized and these lands and resources are truly digested, then the Ming Dynasty will really be invincible in the world, stronger than the British Empire in history.

Now, if you continue to hold on, in case the situation collapses and the empire disintegrates, it will really be over.

Therefore, the next task of the empire should be to end this attritional war as soon as possible and devote its energy to maintaining social stability.

If you want to stabilize the internal situation of the empire, the method is actually very simple, as long as the Ming Imperial Family spits out a little bit of benefits and no longer thinks about eating alone, but doing it is another matter.

Based on the experience of his two lifetimes, Zhu Jingyuan believes that the Ming imperial family in this world may be one of the most powerful ruling groups in the world.

The royal consortium controlled by the royal family is the largest capital group in the empire and the contractor of almost all the franchise industries in the empire.

Mining, steelmaking, petroleum, roads, railways, docks, large machinery and large ships, finance, stocks, futures, as well as tobacco, alcohol, sugar, tea and salt......

In ancient times, the traditional government-run industry was handed over to the royal consortium for monopoly, and the modern emerging profiteering industry was also handed over to the royal consortium for monopoly.

There are also a large number of high-cost industries, because of the technology, capital, and first-mover advantage of the royal consortium, which objectively completed the actual monopoly, and private commercial banks are unable to intervene.

The consortium also had privileges similar to those of the British East India Company, controlling its own armed forces and even fleets, and could directly develop, conquer, and manage the "Imperial Village" overseas.

Some researchers believe that the wealth held by the royal consortium is at least more than half of the empire's assets, and they are all key core assets.

At the same time, the clan group of the new Ming Dynasty is also completely different from the previous Ming, they have been completely modernized.

After Zhu Cihong sat firmly in the country, he completely reshuffled the Zhu Ming clan, completed absolute control, and then established compulsory elite education in the clan.

The new generation of adult Zhu Ming clans, both men and women, except for those who are really born stupid and cannot be educated, basically have a level similar to that of modern college students.

They can also shoot guns, shoot guns, ride horses, drive cars, and drive boats, and can go to the battlefield as grass-roots officers, enter the yamen as grass-roots officials, and enter the consortium as department heads.

In the last years of Chongzhen in the Ming Dynasty, the population of the clan reached about 300,000 people, and after the revival of the Ming Dynasty, it did not shrink, but the speed of reproduction accelerated again.

Since the beginning of the Renmu Dynasty, the population of the clan has doubled at a rate of 30 to 40 years, and after 150 years, it is approaching the 5 million mark.

In other words, it is not impossible that a simple clan population can pull out an army of hundreds of thousands and organize a real "imperial army" of one million people.

The elite nearly 5 million Zhu Ming clans rallied around the emperor, strengthening the imperial power while also relying on the imperial power, completely controlling the Ming Empire.

The empire's population of more than 600 million, of which at least 200 million, and possibly even 300 million, work directly or indirectly for the Ming Imperial Consortium.

The huge assets of the imperial consortium, coupled with the elite clan group, and the population dependent on the life of the imperial consortium, were the basis for the Zhu Ming dynasty to maintain its rule, and it was also the shackles that imprisoned the power of the industrialized Ming Dynasty.