At the moment, William does not know about this. The www.biquge.info that is, Victoria began to look at him unpleasantly again, and was ready to use certain means in some ways to sanction and limit the development of the nascent empire. Of course, even if he knew most of it, there was probably nothing he could do.

Nowadays, the research of ironclads has encountered some bottlenecks.

Although the power of the steam engine is enough, the steelmaking is also enough, and some secret experimental ships have also been made. However, there are still two problems that have not been solved - the first is that the current ship designers have not yet shaken off the trap of galleys. Although they had worked the design, their design still had a very obvious shadow of a line and a wooden-hulled sail battleship.

This distressed William.

But he also knew there was nothing he could do.

The counterweight ratio, displacement, layout, spread design of the battleship involved a lot of expertise. There are all kinds of physics knowledge, all kinds of mechanical knowledge, all kinds of materials science, all kinds of dynamics and even feng shui.

All in all, the ironclad steam warships have spent a huge amount of money and materials to build several experimental warships.

The combat effectiveness of these warships is theoretically excellent, but it is completely different from the feeling that William expected to be a decisive force and replace war into a new era. Not at least for now.

"So, we now have two options. ”

The dwarven engineer Leonardo, who presided over all this, and of course many other engineering studies, and had been hired as an honorary academician of the highest engineering academy of the Russian-Gothic Empire, said to William rather wearily:

"First of all, we can choose from the few experimental ships we currently have, and then redesign one of the most superior ships, as the first type of ironclad steam battleship, and then the scale of the assembly part.

This would stimulate the construction of warships in the Empire, as well as industrial production. At the same time, it will give the workers experience in building ironclad ships.

Of course, I want to make one point, Your Majesty the Emperor—"

"—I'm not an emperor yet," William interrupted the old dwarf.

Yes, William is not yet an emperor, at least not yet. This is a very strange phenomenon.

For all reasons, Wilhelm defined the Russian-Gothic Empire as an "empire", but at the same time he did not claim to be emperor, but to be the supreme commander of the Great Frontier and the guardian of all the Goths.

This nondescript title is, of course, just a transition. William is still waiting for an opportunity, an opportunity to realize his ambitions and desires.

This opportunity is either after a war, or after a major event.

Speaking of which, William recently received an emissary from the Holy See. They claimed that the Pope was willing to crown William as emperor. The prerequisite was that William had to recognize the Orthodox faith as the legitimate and only faith of the Empire.

But William turned him down. Now he is propagating pan-belief in the empire, that is, whether it is an orthodox sect, or a Protestant sect, or an Eastern sect that the Slavites like to believe, it can be propagated and popular. The prerequisite is that the use of violence, intimidation and other means to spread the faith is absolutely not allowed.

If this happens, it will be ordered to stop preaching, and if it is not changed, it will be declared an illegal church by the empire and banned.

This pan-belief puts the faith of the Russian-Gothic Empire in a comparative, nay, should say, more confused situation.

There are quite a few people who believe that this strategy is wrong. It is believed that William needs to choose the right faith to unite people's hearts.

William, however, was noncommittal.

Everyone thinks that there must be an orthodox faith, a person who needs a religion to guide people's hearts, and William feels that he is outdated and outdated. With the opening of the people's wisdom and the improvement of the people's living standards, religion is a matter of course, and it is inevitable that religion will turn towards secularization.

The use of religious means to unite people's hearts is something that only the most unpopular politician would think.

William had already thought about it, and the next era was the era of new ideas, the prevalence of various isms. Religion inevitably gave way to the great philosophical ideas that erupted in the Enlightenment. Under such circumstances, religion will inevitably take a back seat, will inevitably become secularized, and the power and authority of religion will certainly be greatly reduced.

This is something that William had already envisioned, and it will never be changed by anyone. Pan-Radiant Episcopalism was only the first reform he introduced. And in due course, he will introduce the Religious Administration, which will completely bring religion under the control of the imperial government. Either survive or perish. William believed that the priests, and the imams of the mullahs, would be obedient.

Otherwise, William would have let them go to God.

It's pleasant to think about.

That's it, William refused the words of the papal emissary without even thinking about it.

And when the news of William's refusal came, there was a wail within the Holy See - they had regarded William, a "devout holy warrior", as the last straw for the traditionalist faith.

With the imminent defeat of the Emperor and the Swabian family, any fool can feel that traditionalist beliefs are about to become a thing of the past. After that, the Holy See will plummet. They can no longer sustain the status of a beacon of faith in the human world, nor can they dictate to any human monarch.

Their time has finally passed.

That's it, for the Hereford family, William's wooing will be the last effort made by the Holy See. After this effort failed, the Holy See finally had no value to save. Although they can still maintain their presence and power in central Lombardy for the rest of their lives, that's just it.

They will be an insignificant supporting character, a scum character who doesn't care about anyone.

Even because of the problems of the Holy See itself, they are worse than any other country that occupies so much territory and population.

In this era of great waves and sand and death if they do not advance, they are finally destroyed by secular monarchs who are secularized and no longer have the slightest reverence, and in the end only a little territory is left, as a symbolic existence, which is already destined.

William had no interest in saving the scumbag country.

If it had been before, he might have been in the mood to make a fool of himself with them, and if he could, it would be best to cheat some money from the Holy See.

However, seeing that the degree of centralization of power in various countries is getting stronger and stronger, the tithes that should be paid by the Holy See have been eliminated in various countries to various degrees and for various reasons.

With the defeat of the Swabians, the Ostrogothic Empire will enter the Protestant era, and in that case, they will not give a word to the Holy See.

The two means of collecting wealth in the Holy See were tithes and indulgences. Both of these methods have been abolished, do you want the clergy of the Holy See to go to farm?

Well, then again, in fact, the Holy See has a lot of teaching properties in various countries and regions. The two Gothic empires, as well as Asturias, and even the Russian-Gothic Empire. Some clergy simply formed bishoprics. Its size is not far behind that of ordinary cities, counties, and even dukedoms.

However,

Yes, however.

However, these properties are usually held by local bishops and clergy. At a time when the authority of the Holy See was very high, these guys did not hesitate to give worship to the Holy See. In many cases, these ecclesiastical properties are simply firmly controlled by the Holy See.

But when the authority of the Holy See was already in place, these bishops began to be half-hearted.

They embezzled a large amount of religious property and turned it into their own private property. At the same time, they also ignore the orders of the Holy See.

"Maybe no one would have thought of it. William thought to himself: "The Holy See, which was once powerful in the Middle Ages and gave generous money, is about to go bankrupt.

When I think about it, I feel very happy and excited. ”

Of course, they love to die, and William won't go, and he doesn't want to care. For now, let's talk about ironclad battleships.

After thinking about the difficulties of the battleship, William finally made two choices.

One of them is not to stop researching new ironclad battleships, but to continue researching better warships for the Empire. Second, these battleships could be built and used - but not in the Polotsk Sea. Because it's so close to the Britons.

Although the Britons did not have a stronghold in the Bolotsk Sea, a large number of Briton merchant ships still came in and out. There will be no shortage of these guys in any port on the Bolotsk Sea.

In this case, the large-scale public manufacture of ironclads is easily felt by the other side.

If the Bretons had been inspired by the ironclad, then William would have wept - the other side was a sea power, and he was very interested in the development of any warship, as well as in the construction and new technology. In this case, they will inevitably invest more strength, money, and technology than the Hereford family to research ironclads.

By then, William's own ironclad ship may not have been ready, and the Britons on the opposite side have already built a fleet of ironclad ships. William shuddered at the thought of such a situation.

If that's the case, then he'll probably find it difficult to defeat the Bretons in his life.

Even if all the territories of the Britons were annexed on the continent, it would be useless. Because they also have large overseas colonies, as well as the Briton Islands. They have the most powerful navy in the world, and they also have sea supremacy. In this case, they attack wherever they want. They have the absolute initiative.

And in the case of the strong opposition of the Britons overseas, anyone who is defeated by William, the opponent on the mainland will definitely not give up.

Like Napoleon, William would eventually die under numerous anti-imperial alliances.