Chapter 488 New Government Buildings and Royal Palaces
How difficult is it to build a capital city from scratch? Arthur didn't have a definite answer before. After seeing the construction process of St. Arthur's Castle with his own eyes, he finally had a preliminary and clear answer.
Let alone the capital of a country, even if it is just an ordinary city, construction from scratch must go through strict site selection, planning, and design before construction can begin.
Even if construction begins, the city's drainage and other infrastructure must be designed first, and then the city's high-rise buildings can be built.
The construction period of St. Arthur's Castle will take at least five years, and the relocation of the capital will have to wait until seven, eight or even ten years later.
After all, St. Arthur's Castle must at least have complete administrative facilities in order to serve as the capital of a country.
At present, the construction has only started for more than a month, and most of the construction has not even begun to take shape.
Arthur first visited the construction of the new Government Office.
To be precise, this is a large building that integrates the Government Affairs Council, the House of Representatives and the National Court.
If you just look at the design drawings, this building is somewhat similar to Kanji Six, but the square in the middle is more like a square.
The Government Administration Council, the House of Representatives and the National Court are three different directly subordinate institutions, respectively deployed at three points in the Sixth Form.
The square building in the middle is where large conference rooms, reception rooms, open areas, etc. are located.
This six-shaped building composed of four buildings, plus its accompanying building area and garden area, together constitute the seat of the new national government.
Compared with the Government Affairs House on the outskirts of Sydney, the area of this new national government building is several times the size of the previous Government Affairs House, and it is more majestic and gorgeous.
Of course, this is just the effect of the design drawing. The actual effect cannot be seen until the complete building is completed, but it is definitely a huge building and will be one of the national symbols in the future.
The government's budget for this national government building is as high as 12 million Australian dollars, which is considered to be quite serious.
However, the national government will move with Arthur, which means that if St. Arthur's Castle wants to become the capital of Australasia, it needs to wait until the construction of the new palace is completed.
In addition to this large-scale national government building, the second place Arthur visited was the location of his royal palace.
Like the layout in Sydney, the location of the palace is not far from that of the national government building, but the national building is closer to the urban planning, while the palace is closer to the nearby hills.
The new palace is larger than the Sydney Palace, and its budget is about four times higher than the previous Sydney Palace's 5 million pounds.
The new palace is expected to cover an area of 1.18 million square meters, more than twice the size of Sydney Palace.
Among them, the building area is planned to be about 250,000 square meters, the road area is 50,000 square meters, the hills are 200,000 square meters, the man-made lakes and streams are 150,000 square meters, and there is also a huge royal garden covering an area of 200,000 square meters. The area reaches an astonishing 250,000 square meters.
In addition, there is a huge Royal Plaza with a height of 280,000 square meters, which can accommodate up to 600,000 people.
The biggest change of the new palace can be seen from the area of this square alone.
Sydney Palace Square can only accommodate a maximum of more than 100,000 people, which greatly limits the number of people who can participate in National Day activities and other important festivals.
You know, the total number of people in Sydney has already exceeded 2 million, and it is already moving towards 3 million.
This also means that every important festival, Sydney's population of more than 2 million has to compete for more than 100,000 seats, which also faces competition from people from other cities.
Among other things, this has caused serious congestion on the roads near Sydney Palace. Some people from outside Sydney were unable to grab a seat after arriving in Sydney and could only gather on nearby roads, causing serious congestion in the nearby traffic.
Although it is a good thing for more people to participate in important national activities, if it causes serious traffic congestion or even leads to casualties, it will be somewhat of a loss.
The new square can accommodate 600,000 people, which is completely sufficient for the current Australasia.
After all, if the square were larger, it would be difficult to ensure that all people could participate in the activities comfortably.
Just imagine, the front row and the last row are separated by several kilometers. Is this to participate in an event or to exercise your eyesight?
The construction area has more than doubled, allowing the new palace to have more than 800 rooms, more than 30 conference rooms of various sizes, more than 30 private restaurants and 15 medium-sized public restaurants for royal members.
There are as many as 70 offices, 5 reception rooms, up to 40 guard towers and hundreds of resting spots for guards. There are so many rooms that one can even get lost.
The private rooms of royal members even cover an area of more than thousands of square meters, and there are even oversized suites of nearly 3,000 square meters to choose from.
Each room not only has an independent private living room, office, wine cabinet and bathroom, but also a cloakroom with an area of more than 200 square meters, which can be used to display a large number of clothes of the royal family members.
Like the previous Sydney Palace, the new palace has a large royal hospital, a huge church with complete facilities, a mausoleum area prepared for royal members, and several large private viewing spots for royal members to watch. Movies I want to watch.
The back mountain is specially used for training. Not only can you practice horse riding, but there is also a special shooting range to practice marksmanship. Different from the previous Sydney Palace, the new palace not only has a large man-made lake, but also relies on the Murray River to artificially establish a river that runs through the entire palace to provide for the future construction of various water bodies in the Palais des Nations area.
Because it is connected to the Murray River, there will be running water here, the water quality is relatively clean, and there is no need to worry about odor.
Of course, the safety of water sources connected to the outside world is a problem, so the new palace will also have more manpower guards.
The number of guards in the new palace will have just been increased to 3,000, and they will work in three shifts to protect the safety of the palace.
At the same time, the First Guards Division and the Second Guards Division will be stationed near the new palace. This is also the greatest guarantee for protecting the safety of the palace and Arthur.
In addition to 3,000 guards and two guards divisions, Arthur also has thousands of royal guards to protect all members of the royal family.
A considerable part of these people are composed of orphans rescued by Arthur before, and some are selected from the Australasian army. Their loyalty is absolutely reliable.
With these three defensive forces, the defense of the new palace in the future will be absolutely reliable, and there is no need to worry about any external threats.
In the future, the National Heroes Monument on Sydney Palace Square will also be scaled to the square of the New Palace.
The new monument will be bigger and more heroes' names can be written.
Even according to the estimation of the chief designer of the palace, after the palace is completely completed in the future, the National Heroes Monument can be seen on the hill of the palace, and it will be more obvious in the square.
Queen Mary also saw the design drawings of the new palace, and even the area of the royal garden in the new palace was increased after Queen Mary's strong request.
How exaggerated is the 250,000-square-meter Royal Garden? Equivalent to 0.25 square meters, 25 hectares, a full 375 acres of land.
Looking out from a high place, the royal garden in the future will be like a sea of flowers, so beautiful that it is definitely the most attractive place for girls.
It is precisely because of the water source from the Murray River that the Royal Garden will have a complete irrigation system that can irrigate the entire sea of flowers with only human control.
Of course, taking care of the sea of flowers still requires personal control.
To this end, the new palace will also prepare at least 500 maids and thousands of servants to take care of the entire palace, clean rooms and do other things.
Although it seems that such a large number of servants is a bit exaggerated and luxurious, and it also has a bit of a decadent feudal system.
If you truly understand the treatment of these servants, it will be clear that compared to ordinary citizens, they do not suffer a disadvantage, and their lives are even much better.
First of all, the annual salary of servants in Australasia is at least 60 Australian dollars, and including various welfare policies, it has even exceeded 70 Australian dollars.
This salary level is equivalent to the soldier class and far exceeds the current per capita income in Australasia.
Secondly, although servants are in the profession of serving people, they can also enjoy all kinds of delicious food with Arthur. Their basic necessities, food, clothing, housing and transportation are in the palace, which guarantees the lives of these people.
Although Arthur also needs these servants to perform services, Arthur's attitude towards servants is friendly.
After all, these servants who are often close to the royal family can easily do things that are not conducive to the royal family.
Besides, it is not that simple to become a servant or maid in the palace.
The recruitment rules for servants in the palace are even stricter than those for soldiers. First, they must live in Australasia for 20 years. This is a rigid rule.
Secondly, there was no illegal behavior among the three generations of relatives, and no one died due to government punishment.
In addition, the Security Intelligence Bureau will also conduct a very strict review of those who apply for servants. In addition to reviewing their background and previous words and deeds, they will also check whether they have any diseases, whether their appearance is dignified, whether they work neatly, and whether they are neat and tidy. Love the country, be positive, cheerful, etc.
Servants and maids who pass all the conditions will be handed over to the Kent steward for two months of training before being assigned to various positions in the palace.
Previously, the number of servants in Sydney was about 500, and the number of maids was only about 200.
This has resulted in these two jobs being very popular in Australasia. Every time there is recruitment information, a large number of people will rush for them.
But it's clear that both jobs have strict hiring requirements and long tenures.
Generally speaking, people who have been in the palace for a longer period of time will be more loyal and feel more at ease when using it.
With exceptions such as the construction of a new palace, the palace rarely conducts large-scale open recruitment.
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