The argument lasted for several hours, and Bai Zhizhan was nothing but shocked.
After the topic was brought up, the attending officers had no more reservations, and they poured out everything that should and should not be said, which was truly terrifying.
The topic of the argument was only one: Who defeated the Imperial Navy, or rather, how did it fail?
Although Bai Zhizhan had been argued into a state of dizzy confusion, he wasn't muddled and had long realized that discussing the reasons for the defeat was only a means to an end.
The goal was very clear, it was about who had the final say, who actually controlled the Imperial Navy.
In fact, ever since the birth of the Imperial Navy, a farce with the He Family and Liu Family playing the main roles on the stage of the Imperial Navy had officially begun.
However, this drama had only been connected to the great war for a little over a decade.
As previously mentioned, before the Bulan Royal Navy designed and built the "Dreadnought," the Imperial Navy's ship designers had proposed similar concepts, which in some aspects even surpassed the "Dreadnought." The Imperial Navy could have initiated an arms race a decade earlier. Unfortunately, the construction plan was shelved for ten years, and the Imperial Navy thus perfectly missed the excellent opportunity to lead the trend in naval development.
So, whose fault was it?
At that time, it was the He Family who vigorously supported the construction of the new main battle ships, while the Liu Family was strongly opposed.
The reason was simple, the He Family dominated the arms manufacturing system, and they would have been the biggest beneficiary of building new battleships, and they could also take the opportunity to place their people in strategic military positions.
And this was merely the beginning.
After this, the Imperial Navy missed multiple opportunities to overpower other great powers.
For instance, as the "Dreadnought" was launched and the navy arms race fully began, the Imperial Navy still suppressed many of the plans to build new main battle ships under the pretext that the new technology was not reliable enough, and continued to methodically build more than a dozen pre-dreadnoughts, wasting a vast amount of resources.
More crucially, they wasted time even more precious than resources.
Following the outbreak of the great war, these pre-dreadnoughts all became useless decorations!
Had there been a dozen more dreadnoughts and super dreadnoughts built in synchrony ahead of time, then more than four years ago, the year the war erupted, the Alliance Group led by the Bulan Kingdom, Locke Republic, and Luosha Empire would never have dared to hope for achieving partial naval supremacy.
Without the capability to ensure partial naval supremacy, the naval dependent Bulan Kingdom would never have rashly initiated war.
Without Bulan Kingdom, where would the other two great powers find the courage to challenge the Liangxia Empire?
To put it bluntly, if the Imperial Navy had maintained the standard of two strong powers, perhaps the great war might not have erupted.
Of course, arguing about this now doesn't have much significance.
Moreover, what shocked Bai Zhizhan wasn't the internal discord of the Imperial Navy; after all, any officer who had spent years at the Naval Academy had heard about the feuds between the two major families. If there were no disagreements and the two families always coexisted harmoniously, that would have been strange.
The real big news was the impending ceasefire agreement.
Just a few days ago, Bai Zhizhan was lamenting how even the once invincible Tiaoman Empire could come to a desperate impasse and sign a humiliating surrender agreement.
Now, the same thing was happening to the Liangxia Empire.
Though it wasn't a surrender agreement, the specific terms and detailed contents were not much different from a surrender agreement, except for the name.
To sum it up, it essentially came down to one sentence.
The Liangxia Empire must unconditionally return all the resources it had plundered and territories it had annexed around the world over the past half century.
To put it in simpler terms, it was "a return to the pre-Constitutional Amendment era."
On the land battlefield, if the front was outside the territory of the Liangxia Empire, the Liangxia military had to withdraw to pre-war positions, meaning they had to retreat back within their own borders. If the front was within the Liangxia Empire, the status quo was maintained until a ceasefire agreement was signed, after which specific issues would be negotiated separately.
The Northeast Front was a special case.
Because the Saiyi Imperial Kingdom refused to give in, the Alliance Group insisted that the Liangxia Empire compromise and accept the ceasefire terms proposed by the Saiyi Imperial Kingdom.
To acknowledge the Ice Storm Peninsula as an internationally administered area and negotiate further after the ceasefire.
What was this?
Although Ice Storm Peninsula was not a colony of the Empire, it was more like a vassal state relying on the Empire. But to just cede it outright was utterly unacceptable.
However, the stance of the Saiyi Imperial Kingdom was extremely resolute.
The Saiyi Imperial Kingdom had sent troops to war, suffering casualties numbering in the millions. Was it all for nothing?
For decades, all reforms, including top-to-bottom modernization movements undertaken by the Saiyi Imperial Kingdom, were aimed unexceptionally at breaking free from the control of the Liangxia Empire.
Geopolitically, landing on the Ice Storm Peninsula was indeed the first step for the Saiyi Imperial Kingdom to become one of the Great Powers.
To put it bluntly, if they couldn't get ashore, even if they flailed into the sky, the Saiyi Imperial Kingdom would remain just a small shrimp in the East Ocean.
Don't forget, in ancient language, "Saiyi" was also called "shrimp people," referring to the barbarians who lived on islands and survived by fishing for shrimp and small fish.
For this reason, the Alliance Group agreed to let the situation on the Western Front remain unchanged, and the Liangxia military didn't have to withdraw.
On the Southwest Front, since the Liangxia military had been predominantly defensive, there was no controversy; the current situation could simply be maintained.
The key issue was actually the downsizing or limitation of military forces.
In fact, this was the first major point of contention between the sides.
Since it was only a ceasefire and not a surrender, the Imperial side initially did not agree to unilateral downsizing. However, no one could deny the fact that the Empire had been defeated and that after the ceasefire there would be no need to continue maintaining up to fifteen million military personnel.
A reduction in forces was inevitable, although it had to be limited and not a unilateral action.
In the end, discussions concluded with the Liangxia Empire compromising.
According to the agreement, after the official ceasefire, the Liangxia Empire would reduce its total Army forces in three stages over three years to no more than fifteen hundred thousand, with retained artillery not exceeding three thousand units, machine guns not exceeding fifteen thousand, and military horses not exceeding one hundred fifty thousand.
Furthermore, the Liangxia Empire had to abolish the decades-old War Mobilization System within six months, i.e., before the initial stage of military downsizing, and after completing the three stages of downsizing, eliminate compulsory military service and gradually establish a recruitment-based voluntary military service.
Another key point was that the Liangxia Empire had to, within three years, deploy troops in a military operation against the Luosha Federation!
To speak plainly, it meant deploying troops under the command of the Alliance Group to attack the Luosha Federation, aiding the Alliance Group in quelling a rebel movement ignited against the Empire.
In fact, this was precisely why the Alliance Group allowed the Liangxia Empire's Army to maintain a force of fifteen hundred thousand.
If it was just about defending the homeland and suppressing domestic unrest, maintaining a force of five hundred thousand would have been sufficient.
As for deploying troops against the Luosha Federation, the two sides were in full agreement, except for the specifics of troop deployment and command; in other areas, there was basically no divergence.
Fortunately, this exceedingly harsh ceasefire agreement, nearly akin to a surrender, did not target the Navy or rather did not include the Navy.
Navy matters would be negotiated separately!