Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales
Chapter 1294 – Plotting for the Whole of Mankind
Gaia 8th year, 4th month, 5th day, Emperor Squadron Fleet Admiral Zhou Yu was summoned to the imperial city.
He came to accept a new appointment.
A day ago, due to the Egypt Dynasty submitting, Great Xia would return to the Mediterranean. Ouyang Shuo made a suggestion, and the Imperial Court agreed to restart the Atlantic Squadron name.
In truth, long ago, during the 6th year, 4th month, the Atlantic Squadron rebuilding work had already started. Relevant training and warship building had always been underway.
The Africa Governor-General House was the main camp of the Atlantic Squadron.
They had dragged the matter on till now because of the uncertain situation in the Mediterranean. Even if they restored the Pacific Squadron, it would not be able to do much and would instead cause the European dynasties to be on guard.
Zhou Yu would become the new Atlantic Squadron Fleet Admiral.
At the same time, the Imperial Court would also remove the Emperor Squadron. It would merge into the Atlantic Squadron and become its 1st division.
This was Ouyang Shuo’s suggestion.
The Emperor Squadron existed to protect Ouyang Shuo on his voyages. Ouyang Shuo’s two voyages had helped to set up a firm foundation for the Empire’s ocean authority.
During this period, the Emperor Squadron had helped a lot.
In the current day and age, Ouyang Shuo had no need to go on voyages. As Great Xia’s territory had spread across the world, keeping such a squadron was a waste.
In the recent two years, the Emperor Squadron had been parked at the Gulf of Tonkin, having no chance to sail out.
Merging the Emperor Squadron into the Atlantic Squadron would help the Imperial Court to save on a huge sum of expenditure, and it would also help send a core division over to the Atlantic Squadron. This move would help to raise the overall strength of the Atlantic Squadron.
As such, the Great Xia navy would still keep a five squadron system with three voyage squadrons and two sea squadrons.
The navy structure was still quite stable.
The defensive region of the Atlantic Squadron, apart from the Mediterranean, would mainly include the Atlantic Ocean, including South America in the west and Morocco in the east.
Especially South America, which would be one of their focuses.
The flag ship of the Atlantic Squadron would be named the Alvaro in memory of the fallen Fleet Admiral.
This was also a legacy of sorts.
This appointment was a new stage for Zhou Yu to show his skills.
After accepting the appointment, Zhou Yu led the Emperor Squadron to pass the Indian Ocean and head toward Africa to meet up with the other four divisions.
The first battle for them would be the fight for ocean supremacy in the Mediterranean.
…
After sending Zhou Yu away, Ouyang Shuo started to reading memorials.
The matters decided during the meeting at the start of the year was executed after the offices reopened. In the 3rd month that had just ended, the News Publishing Department and Sports Department had been established.
All sorts of newspaper publications popped up and added a lot of excitement to the lives of the people.
Subscribing to newspapers had become the new trend of the cities.
Facing such new matters, the monitoring levels of the News Publishing Department was really strict. It had demands such as the newspapers not discussing country matters and not spreading lowlife culture.
Ouyang Shuo’s attitude was to rather take slower steps than walk too fast and mess up.
Of course, for some elite newspapers, the Imperial Court showed their strong support. For example, the writers association established the poem weekly, entertainment bites, and the like; they obtained 10 thousand Great Xia coins in support to spread the papers overseas.
Ouyang Shuo even subscribed to these two and read them when he was free.
Everyone could see that Ouyang Shuo was saving no energy to promote Chinese culture.
Ouyang Shuo’s attitude was to raise interest in the local provinces, especially overseas regions like Africa to keep Chinese and make it into a trend.
A cultural unification was slowly sprouting.
Even during the Federation era, such methods were tough to implement. As the game world was an empty canvas for Ouyang Shuo to draw on, he was able to create such a new situation.
The information of the empire’s 1st Olympics had been spread through the country and had caused a huge athletic buzz. To promote fairness, martial artists were not allowed to participate.
Ouyang Shuo wanted everyone to be healthy and spread the spirit of sports. This was not an event for martial artists to brag and show off at. The stage for martial artists should be the martial completions held yearly.
Before holding the Empire Olympics, the various provinces would hold selection meets to select top athletes to participate.
For this, the newly established Sports Department hired large amounts of players who were experts in real life to help develop judges and umpires.
The provincial level sports divisions also did the same, solving the problem of players not being able to get jobs.
As it was built up in a hurry, there were many things lacking with this. However, Ouyang Shuo was not worried. As long as it started to run well, modeling the system and managing it would be simple and could be done slowly in the future.
Apart from that, after deciding to develop Shen City, Zhenhai City, and the like, the Imperial Court started to increase their support for these cities. Apart from financial help, it gave them welfare to help attract talents.
The Empire’s industrialization was walking on a fast track unlike before.
The cities near the sea all showed eye-catching strength and were becoming the engine of the Empire’s economic development.
The removal of the various Houses were also underway in an orderly manner.
While firing some officials, they also hired a bunch of professionals. The targets were naturally players to raise the professionalism of the various offices.
Of course, hiring players could only help to solve the problems on the surface.
Ouyang Shuo’s strategy was that while focusing on university building, they would activate a countrywide education to push out private schools and other similar organizations to build up a top to bottom education system.
Primary school, middle school, high school, and university to complete it all.
“To let all the children of suitable levels enjoy free education.” That was Ouyang Shuo’s promise.
As a wise old man had said, “100 years of plan starts with education.”
Gaia could instill knowledge into NPCs, but it could not help the territory build a modern education system.
In the 7th year of Gaia, education expenditure was 5.5% of the Empire’s GDP; this year, it was adjusted up to 6%, showing the importance that Ouyang Shuo placed on it.
Ouyang Shuo’s ambition for education did not stop there.
He hoped that in the near future, after they arrive on Planet Hope, NPC children could be like player children and sit in the same classrooms in this virtual world.
There would be no differentiation between players and natives.
One has to say that such ambition included Ouyang Shuo’s shocking plan.
It was also the biggest scheme Ouyang Shuo had thought of till date.
Ouyang Shuo was really clear-headed. One must not look at how the player group was slowly merging into Great Xia and gaining recognition of the Empire. To the people who had lived under the Federation, they had a mind filled with personal freedom and independence. Deep down, they would not recognize Ouyang Shuo’s rule.
Much less spreading such a rule down.
If it were not for Great Xia controlling their interests on Planet Hope, they would not be so well-behaved now.
The elite China level rejecting and opposing Ouyang Shuo’s recruitment while wanting a piece of his power was such a clear sign.
It was enough to put him on guard.
Hence, Ouyang Shuo did not have high hopes with regards to this generation of players.
Both sides could only get what each other needed and were bounded together by interests.
However, the natives were different.
Their parents went from the wilderness into the loving arms of the Empire. The Empire gave them a second life. They saw the Empire as their home and Ouyang Shuo as their ruler.
Great Xia had become a faith.
Their descendants grew up under the teachings of the Empire.
The leaders amongst them were developed by Ouyang Shuo, becoming officials and giants amongst officials and people that Ouyang Shuo trusted the most.
They were the true foundations of Ouyang Shuo’s rule.
If he tightly held onto this power, Ouyang Shuo’s position would be unshakeable.
To let their descendants and the player’s descendants obtain the same education chance was to reduce the influence of this generation of players and make them all the same.
After two to three generations, there would be no difference between the two, and they would all recognize the same faith of Great Xia.
This was Ouyang Shuo’s final goal.
…
Just as Ouyang Shuo was going through memorials, Bing’er carried a pile of memorials and walked in.
