Of course, compared with the East African Imperial People's Assembly Hall, the most important building in all of Rhine City was clearly East Africa's new royal palace—the Rhine Palace.
The design of Rhine Palace was still underway. Unlike the Imperial Great Hall, which had already broken ground, this would be Ernst's future residence, so he naturally devoted exceptional care to it and imposed numerous requirements.
"This time, the design of Rhine Palace will not focus on the palace itself, but on the gardens. It must emphasize feng shui arrangements, create harmony between man and nature, and blend East with West."
Those were Ernst's original words. In his view, one landmark palace was enough. There was no need to triumph through sheer scale or quantity, whether by creating a vast complex of buildings like the Forbidden City or a gigantic single palace structure like the Palace of Versailles.
Take the Palace of Versailles and the Forbidden City. Versailles covered more than 1.1 million square meters, while the Forbidden City was in fact a cluster of structures, occupying 1.043 million square meters, with a floor area of 218,400 square meters.
By the numbers, the Palace of Versailles in later generations seemed larger than the Forbidden City. In reality, Versailles included its immense garden area, while the Forbidden City covered only what was now the inner royal city of the Far East Empire.
However, Ernst personally did not like European gardens. Their planning was overly regular and obsessed with geometric shapes. The gardens of the Palace of Versailles, for example, gave him the impression of a city park from the later Far East Empire.
Therefore, Ernst hoped the gardens of Rhine Palace would follow Rhine City's terrain and contours, merging with nature. A little more "disorder" would be better.
Thus, unlike the previous