Chapter 1014

Qingzhou.

A month after Lei Ming’s expedition to Australia, the first battle report was finally delivered to Xiao Ming.

As he had expected, the battle went smoothly. The British army was no match for the machine guns that swept through the line formation tactics.

“Your Majesty, Lei Ming’s capture of Australia is certainly a great achievement, but privately distributing Australian land to his subordinate generals might be inappropriate.”

In the Imperial Study, Fei Ji’s expression was serious. These days, the Cabinet had been planning for Australian land, and now that Lei Ming had suddenly interfered, he was naturally a bit displeased.

Pang Yukun sneered, “Elder Fei’s eyesight seems to be a bit poor. The battle report clearly states that Lei Ming asked Your Majesty to approve it, so how can it be private? Rather, isn’t it inappropriate for Elder Fei to think of keeping the fertile land of Australia for himself before the Australian war is even settled?”

“Nonsense!” Fei Ji choked, utterly furious.

“Enough!”

Xiao Ming was originally in a good mood, but the quarrel between the two suddenly made him unhappy. Too many people wanted to divide the cake after the victory, and maintaining a relatively fair distribution was more difficult for him as an emperor than war itself.

He coldly glared at the two of them, then continued, “Australia is just the first battle of the colonial war. Next, North America, South America, Siberia, Southeast Asia, and Africa will all have our interests. There will be so much land in the future that you will eventually be too lazy to even want it. What’s the hurry! So the urgent task is not your petty calculations, but the Empire’s grand strategy.”

With that, Xiao Ming threw a document in front of the two. “This is the Merit Law I drafted after a month of thought. From now on, whether it’s officials, common people, or generals who achieve merit, they will receive merit points according to the actual situation. Those with merit who want to acquire colonial land can exchange it with merit points. The geographical location, land area, and quality of the land will all require different numbers of merit points. Those without merit points who want to acquire land can exchange it with real gold and silver.”

Pang Yukun and Fei Ji were stunned for a moment, then they picked up the document and quickly scanned it. This document, sprawling over more than thirty pages, meticulously listed the number of merit points that could be obtained for various merits. At the same time, both domestic land and colonial land were clearly priced in merit points and dragon coins.

In addition, property on the colonies was also included in this list. Simply put, with the introduction of this merit order, the officials’ right to allocate land would be officially revoked, and everything would be handled according to regulations.

The punishment for violating the Merit Law was also very cruel: severe offenders would be subjected to slow slicing, while minor offenders would be exiled to Siberia.

Pang Yukun and Fei Ji’s expressions changed, and both felt a chill in their hearts. In their opinion, Xiao Ming was taking an important step to strengthen rule of law, and perhaps the domestic chaos during this period had reached an unbearable level for him.

“For matters of state, heavy measures must be used! With the Merit Law in place, there will be no more objections to the distribution of land,” Fei Ji said, bowing.

Xiao Ming nodded. In this era where human civilization had just begun and human nature was still barbaric, strict criminal laws were necessary to regulate individual behavior.

“So the reply to Lei Ming this time is this Merit Law. Under the system of rewarding according to merit, he can allocate land to his subordinate generals according to the Merit Law. Moreover, we also need people to migrate here to achieve complete control over Australia. After you return, officially promulgate the Merit Law and open up the authority to exchange Australian land to the private sector.”

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Pang Yukun and Fei Ji said in unison.

After dealing with this matter, Xiao Ming sent the two back. As for the temporary slave act promulgated by Lei Ming in Wales, he did not bring it up for discussion.

Perhaps in modern times, some bleeding hearts would criticize his actions, but this was only the eighteenth century. Humanity had not long emerged from the wilderness of civilization, and barbarism was still the byword of this era. European slavery was reaching its peak, and such unwarranted benevolence would only invite ridicule.

Moreover, even during World War II, there was basically no difference between captives and slaves, it was just a more grandiose term.

After seeing the two off, Cui Shang’an, who had been waiting outside the Imperial Study, walked in. He had asked Cui Shang’an to come over when he received the battle report.

“Your Majesty.” Cui Shang’an appeared cautious. Xiao Ming had been a little displeased earlier due to the quarrel between the two grand secretaries, and he did not want to incur his wrath now.

Xiao Ming glanced at Cui Shang’an and said, “I summoned you today for a very important matter. Now that Australia has been conquered, the Empire’s Southeast Asian strategy has had a good start, but it is still far from meeting the Empire’s current needs. The reason Britain can sail all seas in the world relies not only on sailing warships, but most importantly, on ports.”

Coming to the map, Xiao Ming pointed to a series of marked British ports on the world map, from Britain to America, Africa, and then Asia. He said, “You see, this is the foundation for Britain to maintain its maritime hegemony and economic interests. Without these ports, they cannot project military power at all.”

“Your Majesty means that we also need to build our own ports?” Cui Shang’an had a plan in mind.

“That’s right. While destroying European ports, we must establish our own. As long as we control the ports, the world’s economic hegemony will be in our hands. I call this strategy the ‘String of Pearls’ plan. The results that Europe achieved in two hundred years, I hope to achieve in a short time,” Xiao Ming said solemnly.

With the development of the imperial industry, the demand for markets was also growing. Goryeo and Japan alone could not satisfy the current domestic market demand.

If new markets could not be found, the Empire’s industry would gradually shrink due to a lack of profit.

Therefore, he now continued to export goods to Southeast Asia, India, the Ottoman Empire, America, Africa, and even Europe to earn profits.

But contrary to this wish was the news brought by the Dutch three days ago.

The impact of the breakdown of negotiations with Britain and France was that the British and French delegations, on their way back, ordered coastal colonies and trading ports to close to the Chinese Empire, no longer allowing any Chinese Empire merchant ships or warships to dock.

If the delegations returned to Europe, Britain and France would likely jointly pressure the Netherlands to make decisions unfavorable to the Chinese Empire.

It was precisely because he received this news from Rhodes that he decided to launch this String of Pearls strategy to break Europe’s arrogance.

However, achieving this plan was not easy. After all, there was only one way to achieve this plan: globally deploy troops to occupy European colonies.

Cui Shang’an nodded. He said, “If that’s the case, we need to increase our investment in the navy and build an invincible fleet that dominates the seas.”