Chapter 978

London.

On Monday, Murphy arrived at the Tulip Palace early to wait for Queen Victoria. Unlike in the past, his face was a bit pale today, and even the maids of the Tulip Palace could see the deep worry in his eyes.

After a while, the door to the Queen’s bedroom slowly opened, and Victoria, as radiant as ever, appeared in front of Murphy.

But the current Murphy was not in the mood to appreciate her. He quickly walked up to Victoria and whispered a sentence.

Hearing this sentence, Victoria’s face turned pale, and all the color drained from her fair skin.

“Your Majesty, the Conservatives are using the failure of the combined fleet to attack our foreign policy, and their voices have gained the support of many moderate members of parliament. We are in trouble this time,” Murphy said with great concern.

The Liberal Party currently had only a slight advantage over the Conservative Party in the House of Commons, and this failure was enough for the Conservative Party to turn the tide. If that happened, the Queen’s power would be restricted by the Conservative Party, which was what Victoria least wanted to see.

“How could the combined fleet lose so badly? This is simply unbelievable.” Victoria was almost frantic. As she spoke, she and Murphy walked out the door.

After getting into the carriage, she and Murphy quickly arrived at the parliament. By this time, the parliament was already full of members, and it was clear that this failure had a huge impact.

This was because for decades, they had never suffered such a heavy defeat.

“Your Majesty the Queen, just three hours ago, two almost-broken warships arrived in London. It can be confirmed that these two warships belong to the East India Company. The pitiful soldiers on the warships recounted the failure they suffered in the Great Yu Empire. As was the reason we opposed this plan in the first place, we have now lost most of our naval power in Asia, and we have also provoked a powerful enemy .” A gray-haired, skinny parliamentarian in a gray waistcoat, who was the leader of the Conservative Party, Nick Timothy, stood up from the Conservative Party’s seats just as Victoria sat down.

When Victoria came in, her eyes were fixed on a group of naval soldiers in the middle of the parliament. These naval soldiers were in rags and were as skinny as skeletons, which showed how much suffering they had endured on their way back to Britain from the Great Yu Empire.

“Earl Nick, first of all, I feel very sad for what these naval soldiers have gone through, but I do not think the original decision was wrong. Everything I did was for the benefit of the British Empire. Only by destroying the Great Yu Empire’s soldiers can we have more time to realize the technologies we have obtained one by one. As you said, the Great Yu Empire is a powerful enemy, and for now, they are only in Asia. When their tentacles reach North America, South America, Africa, and even Europe, it will be too late for us to restrain them.” Victoria looked at Nick with a firm gaze and did not back down.

“Shhh…”

As Victoria’s voice fell, there was a chorus of boos from the Conservative Party’s seats. After the “Bill of Rights” was passed, the Queen actually reigned but did not rule in Britain, and the real power fell to the House of Commons.

However, Victoria cleverly used her influence to cooperate with the Liberal Party’s prime minister, which further expanded the Queen’s influence, making it seem as if she once again had the right to rule Britain.

In fact, in Nick’s view, this was just the Liberal Party using the Queen’s influence and the Queen using the Liberal Party’s power. In reality, they were not afraid of the Queen.

“Your Majesty the Queen, look at these poor soldiers. These two warships originally had more than a thousand soldiers, but after returning to Britain, there are only more than a hundred left. Most of them starved to death at sea or died from illness. This is the price of fighting in the distant East, and most importantly, your decision did not protect Britain’s interests. Next, we may have to face the Great Yu Empire’s retaliation. India, Australia, these are our important colonies, and they may be lost as a result .” Nick said calmly.

Victoria held her forehead in a headache. She had never suffered such a setback since she took the throne. Just as she was about to say something, a person stood up, who was her uncle, the Duke of Paston.

He stopped Victoria’s argument and said, “Your Majesty the Queen, now we must improve our relationship with the Great Yu Empire to avoid losing more, otherwise the Liberal Party will lose the support of many nobles. These nobles have a lot of interests in India. You don’t want to see the Liberal Party being driven out of power, do you?”.

“That’s right, Your Majesty, it is very unwise to continue to provoke a war, especially in such a distant place. Since the combined fleet has failed, we must change our strategy,” Murphy echoed.

Ever since she received the news, Victoria had been panicking. Facing Nick’s questioning, she was merely defending her mistake.

Now that Paston and Murphy had said that, she suddenly had a realization. If they continued to confront Nick, they would become more passive. Only by appeasing the nobles could they leave themselves some room to maneuver, but now she had to put forward an effective suggestion to show that she, as the Queen, could lead Britain out of its predicament.

After calming down, she stood up and said, “I feel very sorry for the failure of the combined fleet, but this also allows us to see the true strength of the Great Yu Empire, which prevents us from making bigger misjudgments in the future. Therefore, through this matter, we should adjust our relationship with the Great Yu Empire. We should now send a delegation to the Great Yu Empire to ease the relationship.”.

After a pause, she continued, “At the same time, we must invest more manpower and financial resources to accelerate the research of new technologies so that we can defeat the Great Yu Empire’s army in the next war. Moreover, we must also support the Great Yu Empire’s enemies. I suggest selling steam engine technology to Tsarist Russia and helping Tsarist Russia popularize steam engine factories. They will effectively contain the Great Yu Empire’s military strength.”.

After Victoria’s speech, the Conservative Party members did not deliberately boo her. Their previous boos were just dissatisfaction with the Queen’s sophistry. In fact, when Britain suffered a setback, they also hoped that Victoria could come up with effective countermeasures.

Seeing that her speech had achieved a good effect, Victoria continued, “Ideas are sometimes more effective than weapons. The Great Yu Empire is still an imperial power state, and we are moving from imperial power to popular election. It is often easier to make an empire collapse from within than to destroy it from without. On this point, our parliamentarian Cao Kun knows better than we do.”.

While Victoria was speaking, she looked at the two seats in the corner of the Liberal Party, where the father and son, Cao Kun and Cao Zheng-tong, were sitting.