Chapter 1626 - The Art of Kingship

"Port wine? That shouldn't exist yet! If I recall correctly, it became famous even later than Cognac!" Liu Xiang asked doubtfully.

Qian Shuixie leaned close to Liu Xiang's ear and whispered, "Manor Owner Lu's vineyard produced its first vintage this year. Semi-fermented grape juice mixed directly with brandy shipped from Europe. Whether this Port counts as locally produced or imported is anyone's guess, hehe."

Liu Xiang knew a thing or two about wine. Hearing this, he gave an immediate thumbs up. "Ruthless! Willing to invest the effort and capital! Though I remember later versions of Port, Sherry, and such were all mixed with pure alcohol."

Qian Shuixie's expression turned disdainful. "Forget that kind of adulterated swill—I wouldn't drink it if you handed it to me gratis. Besides, 'brandy shipped from Europe' is a brilliant marketing angle. The special supply store is counting on this to recover currency. Minister Hong is practically bouncing off the walls, ready to make a killing."

"You mean his Number 82..."

"Exactly. Already approved." Qian Shuixie nodded. "For now, it's still officially listed as an enterprise under the General Office."

Hearing it was that Minister Hong's private venture, Liu Xiang nodded and dropped the subject. He simply joked, "Why not 'invent' glass bottles and corks while you're at it, and export the wine back to Europe? In the future, Port wine won't have anything to do with Oporto!"

He didn't bother lowering his voice for this, and Sonia, savoring the wine in her glass, caught a snippet. At the familiar place name "Oporto," she stared blankly at the two Senators for a long moment, then shook her head in visible disappointment. "Oporto—and the entire Douro River basin—produce fine wine, but nothing with this flavor. Besides, I cannot imagine transporting wine halfway around the globe to the Far East... From the wine-producing region closest to the New World on the outer ocean, the port of Madeira, to Pernambuco takes roughly sixty days with favorable winds. Ensuring even half the barrels don't turn into foul-smelling vinegar would be considered God's grace..."

Liu Xiang smiled faintly. "That's because you understand neither why wine sours and spoils nor the more advanced navigation technology we command."

As he spoke, he fished a lamb chop from the serving plate. A foodie who couldn't enjoy a meal without meat—how could he not start with protein?

"We do, in fact, possess a method for transporting wine over vast distances—not strong spirits like brandy, but freshly brewed sweet wine. Naturally, this is a major commercial secret. The interests behind it are staggering. Forget the Far East and the colonies scattered across the globe—shipping it to England or Northern Europe alone would generate fortunes enough to mint countless tycoons." Liu Xiang bragged freely between bites of lamb. "As for navigation, the Two Teeth—no, the entire Iberian Peninsula—has begun to fall behind comprehensively. Just over a decade ago, a medium-sized ship ferried a band of Puritans who refused to acknowledge the Church of England from Plymouth to the pioneer lands in northern New Spain in only sixty-six days! Meanwhile you Iberians still lumber across the Atlantic in galleons as ponderous as turtles..."

For some reason, Liu Xiang's showmanship was in rare form tonight. Soon the topic drifted from the ungainly hulls of galleons to the disastrous defeat of the Spanish Armada in the "last century," then traced back through British and Northern European shipbuilding developments to the Baltic trade during the Hanseatic period. He mocked Europe's bizarre policy of taxing vessels by deck area, praised the Dutch Fluyt invented at the "end of the last century" specifically to exploit such policies, and finally launched into a lengthy discourse on the superiority of deep-V hull sections and watertight compartments...

Qian Shuixie wondered privately: Why is Liu Xiang showing off so hard? Does he have designs on Sonia? Seeing the naturalist's face radiant with admiration, he couldn't help worrying: Old Lin might strike him down with lightning.

When Liu Xiang mentioned that he'd brought along a "design" model of a high-speed ship—"only ninety days from Lingao to London"—Qian Duoduo wolfed down the rest of her meal in three bites and loudly demanded to see the 66-centimeter model of that Cutty Sark ("Short Shirt") Liu Xiang had been boasting about. Sonia insisted on viewing it as well... In the end, by the second half of dinner, only Liu Xiang, Qian Shuixie, Little Zhang, and Little Lin remained at the table.

Once the boasting wound down and the conversation lapsed, a strange silence settled in. Odder still, Zhang Yunmi had sent Zhong Xiaoying away. What was this about?

The table stayed quiet for about the time it takes to eat two lamb chops before Zhang Yunmi finally organized her thoughts.

"Teacher... Liu, I remember you lectured on economics when you taught us, right?"

Liu Xiang's face twitched. Back when he'd "lectured on economics," the topic had earned him multiple scathing criticisms in Morning Star, accused of "poisoning the next generation of Senators."

Why is this girl bringing it up now?

"Last week... Supervisor Ma... Uncle gave us a weekend special class on political economy, and at the end he assigned us several economics articles to study and write our own reflections on..." Zhang Yunmi grew more embarrassed as she spoke. After all, this was essentially asking someone to do her homework.

"Yeah, yeah—and what Little Zhang got was in the original English, too. Poor thing..." Little Lin chimed in.

"Weekend special class?" Liu Xiang glanced questioningly at Qian Shuixie, who gave a brief explanation. The class was indeed held on the "weekend"—specifically, every Saturday, reserved for the Junior Senators. Naturalized citizens rested only two days a month; only the children from the original timeline observed Saturday as a holiday. The sessions covered material unsuitable for general instruction: all political, economic, and technological content involving "historical events that haven't yet occurred" in this timeline. No one expected the Junior Senators to master these subjects—merely to acculturate them, ensuring they remained ideologically closer to the "older uncles" rather than drifting toward the local naturalized population. Aristocratic education, in a sense. Or perhaps "The Art of Kingship."

Supervisor Ma takes the ideological formation of the Junior Senators very seriously.

"Which aspect?" Liu Xiang asked. "Is it that you don't understand it, or that you can't find a thread?"

Failing to understand was a matter of knowledge structure, or at least professional vocabulary—English-language material was essentially impenetrable to non-specialists. Lacking a thread was easier to address. Having frequented several high-level forums in the original timeline, Liu Xiang had picked up a thing or two about economics as a hot topic—at minimum, he knew to ask "Did you pay tax?" after someone smugly finished the joke about the two economists eating shit.

"My English articles are about Neoliberalism in South America." Just as Zhang Yunmi finished, Little Lin jumped in: "Mine are all about South Africa."

Hearing Lin Ziqi's description, Liu Xiang and Qian Shuixie exchanged glances—both saw bewilderment in the other's eyes.

"Does Duoduo have to write one too?" Qian Shuixie followed up.

"Yeah, it seems to be some really obscure topic—Walloon something?" Little Lin offered.

Qian Shuixie rang the silver bell on the table. Qian Xuanhuang appeared, received her instructions, and not long after, a visibly reluctant Qian Duoduo returned to the dining room alone.

"The topic assigned to me is the industrial decline of the Walloon region and the separatist tendencies of the Flemish people."

Qian Shuixie was utterly baffled. "That difficulty level is a bit absurd."

"Do you know what the others got?" Liu Xiang didn't answer him directly but asked another question.

"Zhuo Xiao—Shou—er—Min's is about something called the 'Prussian Path.'" Little Lin accidentally let a name slip.

Zhang Yunmi nodded. "The others have topics like the Homestead Act, something about Northern Italy... Oh, and Uncle Ma also told us that if we can't figure things out, we should visit the Grand Library for research materials, or ask other uncles who 'understand economics and history.'"

She placed notable emphasis on the second half of that sentence.

"The Supervisor really is bullying you!" Liu Xiang blurted the nickname carelessly. "The logic here is a bit convoluted. Yunmi, you'll need to write this essay in reverse. Don't write about the medicine of 'Neoliberalism'—write about the disease it was meant to cure." He then explained in detail the concept of Developmentalism as originally implemented in Latin America.

"...The fundamental goal is industrialization—breaking the unequal 'Center-Periphery' international economic structure dominated by developed countries. Industrialization relies on three major instruments: large-scale investment; protectionist policies combined with strict foreign-exchange controls; and adjusting taxation, wages, profits, and employment policies to encourage domestic enterprise. During industrialization, 'Import Substitution' must be pursued to break dependence on international markets—especially on products from developed nations—thereby establishing indigenous production capacity and achieving economic independence. It's worth noting that when Latin American countries began implementing import substitution successively from the 1930s onward, foreign capital already occupied a dominant position due to historical factors—unlike China, where foreign interests fled once the revolution erupted. So China started learning manufacturing from scratch, essentially without foreign investment, whereas Latin America engaged in substitution, targeting existing foreign capital."

Yet transposed to this timeline, the only "foreign capital" capable of exporting industry seemed to be... themselves and no one else! The Senate here occupied not the position of Latin American countries but that of a developed nation!

Has the Supervisor's thinking shifted?!

For some reason, a bizarre image surfaced in Liu Xiang's mind: Queen Du glaring with furious eyes, raising a fist the size of a clay pot, that fist blazing with a billion rays of light.

In truth, Liu Xiang had known from the start: no matter how publicly everyone endorsed land reform, when push came to shove, anyone willing to transmigrate surely harbored thoughts of "private land ownership." Never mind how everyone praised the Great Law of Land Reform; most treated it as a technique—a technique for establishing the Senate's "Human Empire."

(End of Chapter)