Daming 1805

Chapter 419 Another Compromise and Compromise

The Prince of Wales and Queen Charlotte left directly, and the discussion in the British Parliament could not continue.

At first, before the prime minister and delegates realized, Charlotte had literally run straight out of London.

By the time the news was confirmed and spread, it was already night.

In order to deal with the unprecedented crisis, Grenville had to call a temporary cabinet meeting immediately.

What started as a meeting, however, turned straight into another brawl on a scaled-down scale.

"Betrayal! This is a blatant betrayal!"

"The royal family actually forced the government to sell British interests to Ming!"

"Leave London and go to Ming Dynasty. This is a defection. The British royal family has once again betrayed the British people!"

"His Royal Highness Charlotte has been completely controlled by Prince Dashi!"

"Evil Daming people, there is no way to defeat us externally, so they will destroy us internally!"

"We absolutely can't let it go like this! We want to protest to Daming!"

But this kind of quarrel is already pure emotional catharsis.

Everyone basically said their own things, yelling out the things they wanted to denounce.

As Charlotte said, the British bourgeoisie is still weak.

These bureaucrats caught between the nobles headed by the king and the bourgeoisie are even weaker.

So after yelling what they wanted to say, they immediately began to explain to each other or refute what others said.

"If according to Her Royal Highness Charlotte, the royal family represents the interests of the entire British people, Her Royal Highness Charlotte's request does not seem to be a betrayal of the British people, but a conflict with the bourgeoisie..."

"It cannot be said that Her Royal Highness Charlotte is completely controlled by Prince Dashi. Her Royal Highness Charlotte's request is obviously in line with the interests of the British royal family. Therefore, although His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales did not speak, he actually supported her."

"Her Royal Highness Charlotte was originally the Queen of America, and she would leave London to go to America for a period of time every year. Of course, going to America is not a defection, and we can't fight against our future Queen like this..."

"The people of Daming can also defeat us outside, otherwise we wouldn't be in such pain now, and His Highness Charlotte has no way to threaten us with Daming's support..."

"What's the use of protesting? Strictly speaking, this is our own business, and it has nothing to do with Da Ming. If you really think about it, Da Ming's proposal is also a transaction, not pure persecution."

"If we don't want Ming's technical support, if other countries want support, our navy will immediately lag behind France, Prussia and other Western countries..."

"What's the use of talking about it now! The top priority now is to finalize the joint venture between Her Highness Charlotte and Prince Dashi before Her Highness Charlotte actually goes to Daming!"

They had a tacit understanding, and the noise and disputes gradually weakened, turning to the discussion of compromise plans.

The direction is basically the same as Charlotte expected.

"There is no way to completely veto this joint venture, which means a break between the bureaucracy and the royal family..."

"It also means the break between the British bourgeoisie and the aristocratic group headed by the king."

"What's more important is that Britain has once again established its hostile stance with Ming!"

"So the joint venture between Her Highness Charlotte and His Highness Dashi Darknet will definitely be established in the UK and even the whole territory."

"Then we can only limit the company's business scope..."

"This range is hard to determine..."

"Too much openness will seriously damage the interests of British manufacturers and overinflate the authority of the royal family."

"If it's less...His Royal Highness Charlotte will not accept it, and the technical support from Daming will be very limited."

"This matter is actually not troublesome. There is actually a ready-made reference object before."

"What reference object?"

"The French across the strait, the business scope of the joint venture between His Royal Highness Prince Charles of France and His Royal Highness Prince Dashi."

"Uh... how could we refer to the French..."

"Don't worry so much, first stabilize the royal family and determine the direction of compromise!"

By this time, the discussion finally had a basic direction.

Now that the situation is urgent, Grenville, as the head of the cabinet, can't wait to discuss a specific plan.

After directly confirming this direction, let the other cabinet members continue the discussion, and immediately ran to see the Prince of Wales.

After the Prince of Wales sent his daughter away, he is really a little nervous now.

This is, after all, a confrontation with the British bureaucracy.

Although Charlotte said that after she left, the Prince of Wales would be safer, but she was a little worried after all.

The Prince of Wales couldn't say it, he could only hold it in his heart.

This made him feel a little lost, giving people a rather sad feeling.

Grenville saw it, and of course felt that it was caused by his daughter's disobedience and messing around.

Grenville stated the tentative direction of the discussion, and then asked the Prince of Wales:
"His Royal Highness, the cabinet already has a plan for the joint venture company, and we will persuade the parliament later.

"So I would like to ask Your Highness to persuade Your Highness Charlotte, it is best not to leave London..."

The Prince of Wales was a little surprised and delighted when he heard Grenville's explanation.

This group of people is really weak, there is a compromise plan so soon.

And according to the French plan, there are many industries that can be opened up, and there are many industries that the royal family can control.

If this matter was promoted by the Prince of Wales himself, he may directly agree to it now.

But Charlotte, who is now pushing things forward, told the Prince of Wales when Charlotte left.

So at this time, the Prince of Wales responded according to his daughter's request:
"Charlotte is the Queen of America, and going to America is a perfectly normal thing to do.

"She was angry with you in London, and it is obviously impossible for her to just stay right now.

"When she left, she also told me that after the parliament passed the cooperation bill, she could send a telegram directly to the United States.

"After she arrived in America, she read the telegram, and if she was satisfied, she would stay in America.

"If you are not satisfied, you will really go to Daming..."

Grenville's mood and expression were very bitter.

This Her Royal Highness Charlotte is really different from the Prince of Wales.

It's useless to simply agree to the direction verbally, it needs to be formed into a formal legal document...

The cabinet discusses to determine the direction, and the formal law is formed in the parliament. These are two completely different things.

The difficulty cannot be agreed upon at all.

Grenville verbally promised that he would push the parliament to pass the relevant bill as soon as possible.

Ask the Prince of Wales to get Charlotte back first.

The Prince of Wales seemed completely convinced by Grenville, and stood directly on Grenville's side to help complain about Charlotte.

But it's just standing here and complaining.

He bluntly stated that he could not call Charlotte back directly, otherwise he would not let her go at all.

Grenville began to worry, knowing that he had to follow Charlotte's request.

From London to Richmond, if it is a [-]-knot boat, it will take eight days, and if it is a [-]-knot boat, it will only take ten days.

Ten days does not seem short, but ten days is a very short time to form a law...

The point is that the naval treaty needs to be prepared now, and Britain's goals and bottom line in the naval treaty must also be confirmed.

While Grenville agreed on the surface, he was really at a complete loss in his heart:
Why is it so difficult for me to be the prime minister...

The next morning, Grenville sent people to list all the details of Daming's cooperation with France.

It is going to directly copy the scope of business authorized by France to the joint venture between Zhu Jingyuan and Shire, and lists the initial scope of authorization for the joint venture between Charlotte and Zhu Jingyuan.

I don't have time to study it carefully, so I copy it directly and bring it to the parliament to discuss the facts.

At the same time, he took the cabinet members and found several most important British naval generals headed by Nelson, and began to discuss the naval treaty.

Nelson already knew about the naval treaty, but Grenville first introduced it, and also explained the basic attitude of the prime minister and the cabinet:

"...The situation is like this. The cabinet believes that the overall situation in the world is now peaceful.

"Britain currently and in the future, within ten to 20 years, does not have a war goal that may cause a naval battle.

"It is currently in the UK's interest to sign a treaty with the Thai and Western countries to limit the tonnage and number of naval vessels.

"This way we can devote more energy and resources to economic development and colony building.

"What are your thoughts and suggestions, Lord Nelson?

"What are your views and suggestions on the restrictions on the tonnage and number of ships?"

Nelson's mental state seems a bit decadent, but there is still a persistent light in his eyes:

"All old ships should be phased out, including traditional battleships with multi-level main guns and armored cruisers. Now it is meaningless to fight pirates.

"However, there is no need for a ship of this level to fight pirates. A [-]-ton cruiser is enough to maintain order in the colony.

"However, the latest high-speed main gunship also does not need to be built too much, nor does it need to be too large.

"With a 360mm main gun, a battleship with a full load of [-] tons is already the limit, any bigger is a complete waste of resources!
"The future development direction of the navy should be aircraft-carrying cruisers!
"So I think we just need to make sure that other Western countries don't overtake us in terms of the tonnage of the capital gunships.

"Even, in order to reduce the tonnage of the main gunboats we need to build, we can take the initiative to ask to jointly reduce the tonnage.

"I think we can try to limit the tonnage of the main gunboats of all countries to less than 16 tons.

"Based on that, we should make sure we have as much cruiser tonnage as possible to gain a relative advantage in cruisers.

"Even, a special tonnage share is specifically requested for aircraft-carrying cruisers.

"The aircraft-carrying cruiser must have sufficient tonnage and scale in order to exert a sufficient advantage.

"At least it should be the tonnage and size of a traditional armored cruiser, preferably the size of a [-]-ton high-speed battleship."

Grenville and the other cabinet ministers were obviously a little dazed when they heard this.

"Your Excellency Nelson, I remember...you are in favor of building more and larger high-speed battleships!
"When did you switch to supporting cruisers?"

“So do you now think cruisers with aircraft are the future of the Navy?
"We haven't heard that Daming has special research and planning on aircraft-carrying cruisers!"

Nelson immediately replied very seriously:

“What I stand for really hasn’t changed.

"I always believe that the best warships should run faster and fight farther.

"Speed ​​and range are the best defenses.

"Before the appearance of flying machines, we could only build faster capital ships and use larger main guns to obtain greater range.

"But after the flying machine matures, the distance that the warship equipped with the aircraft can control and launch an attack has an absolute advantage over the traditional gunboat.

"So of course I will support the construction of aircraft-carrying cruisers!
"Although the current world situation is peaceful, military thinking and equipment technology are undergoing subversive innovation.

"I think high-speed battleships will be eliminated by aircraft-carrying cruisers before they mature.

"Daming did not leak information about the aircraft-carrying cruiser, but it was one of the important reasons why I paid more attention to related technologies.

"The Ming people may have realized that aircraft-carrying cruisers are more important than high-speed battleships, so they adopted stricter secrecy measures.

"So, in cooperation with Daming's technology, I think the highest priority should be technology related to flying machines and engines."

After Nelson finished speaking, the scene was silent for a few seconds, and then Grenville asked:

"Your Excellency Nelson, is this what the Navy has in common?

"Fewer fast battleships, more aircraft-carrying cruisers?
"Can aircraft-launched cruisers really gain an advantage against fast battleships?

"According to the information I know, the aircraft-carrying cruiser is currently only in an experimental state.

"Da Ming took secret measures for the aircraft-carrying cruiser. This is just your guess, and there is no way to verify it."

Nelson seemed a little decadent when he heard this question:

"Indeed, if Daming doesn't take the initiative to disclose, this is indeed something that cannot be easily verified.

"The mainland of Ming Dynasty and its surrounding areas, and all the coastal areas of the mainland, can be regarded as forbidden areas for other countries.

"If Ming wants to find a large enough sea area, it is too easy to carry out related tests and research secretly.

"Of course I also understand that the navy understands the risks of weaponry innovation better than politicians.

"So although I fully support aircraft-carrying cruisers now, my request is only to reduce the tonnage and share of high-speed battleships, not to eliminate high-speed battleships altogether.

"After all, if aircraft-carrying cruisers can completely replace battleships in actual combat, building some battleships now is just a waste of money and steel.

"However, if aircraft-carrying cruisers cannot replace high-speed battleships in actual combat, if they cannot cope with high-speed battleships, and do not build battleships at all, what we may lose is the entire fleet and even the country.

"This is already a safe suggestion after enough compromises and compromises have been made after discussions and negotiations within the Navy.

"We are planning to design a large aircraft-carrying cruiser with a full load displacement of [-] to [-] tons.

"After it is completed, we can conduct more comprehensive and closer to actual combat exercises to verify it.

"I think that if we want to sign a naval treaty, we should reserve at least [-] tons for aircraft-carrying cruisers, and it is best to have the same share as high-speed battleships."

Grenville nodded with complicated emotions after listening:
"I understand. Thank you, Your Excellency Nelson, for your suggestion. We will seriously consider it."

(End of this chapter)