Seeing this, Xiang Zhong, the secretary of the Ministry of War, wanted to punish the archivist, and Liu Daxia, who was beside him, said: "Under the three guarantees, the West spent tens of millions of dollars and grain, and the soldiers and civilians died and tens of thousands. Although the old case exists, it should be investigated to uproot it, and how can we investigate whether it exists or not!"

The so-called "should also be burned to pull out its roots" means that it should be burned to cut off the emperor's idea of going to the West. At that time, Emperor Chenghua wanted to emulate Ming Chengzu Zhu Di, so he asked the military department to find information and prepare for going to the West. However, Liu Daxia believed that going to the West would cost a lot of money and would not benefit the country, so he "destroyed" these materials.

In addition, Lu Shusheng, who was a scholar in the 20th year of Jiajing and the right attendant of the official department, also recorded similar content in the notebook "Changshui Ribao", looking at different officials of the same dynasty who dared to directly refer to the West as "political affairs", because they did not get a penny of benefits, but hollowed themselves out because of the act of throwing coins.

In the final analysis, it was because Zheng He's actions in the West lacked a clear and practical choice of strategic goals and practical interests.

Zheng He's generous and thin exchanges in the West and gifts everywhere, "all with grades, although it is not too much", in fact, it is the imperial vanity mentality and great merit personality of Ming Chengzu, the consequence is that the cost is huge, the people and money, and the income is small; more than sent out, but less returned, did not bring enough practical benefits to the Ming Dynasty, but caused a huge waste of materials, resulting in the emptiness of the treasury later.

In the final analysis, it is royal diplomacy, not to mention the limited effect of safeguarding the practical interests of the country, according to later generations, it is hollowing out the national strength of the Ming Dynasty and self-mutilating and abandoning martial arts.

This approach is not only an obvious lack of practical interest considerations, but also a misjudgment of the strategic environment, you must know that the Ming Dynasty at this time, the main threat did not come from the sea, but from the Northern Yuan in the north and the Timurid Empire in the west.

"In this way, isn't Zheng He's trip to the West useless?"

Yang Pingfan listened to Su Yu's analysis, and then looked at the three giants of the fleet who were staggering, and his eyes were full of the meaning of the coin boy.

From the point of view of modern international relations, so to speak. But now that the two of us are here, it's different. ”

Su Yu said that, and laughed sadly, that smile made Yang Pingfan think of Granny Wolf, and he felt goosebumps.

During the banquet, a Chinese overseas Chinese leader whispered to Zheng He, Yang Pingfan recognized it as Shi Jinqing, who had accompanied King Boni to meet Zheng He before, and the master of ceremonies had introduced him.

Zheng He asked Shi Jinqing to retreat, and after the banquet was over, he invited Yang Su, Yao Guangxiao, and Wang Jinghong to the back cabin together, and said what Shi Jinqing had come to report.

It turned out to be Chen Zuyi, a pirate entrenched in the South Seas, who was preparing to surrender and take the opportunity to raid the fleet, Zheng He asked you what your plan was.

The high-level discussions are a lot, and the unified point of view is to plan the plan, arrange the ambush, lure Chen Zuyi in, and catch them all, Zheng He and Yao Guangxiao are both ruthless characters who have participated in the Battle of Jingjing, Wang Jinghong is also a military attaché, their ideas are impeccable, Yang Pingfan doesn't understand the inside story, so he can only nod his head with care, but he was stepped on by Su Yu, and when he looked back, he saw that she was giving herself a crazy look, and her fingers drew a few words in his palm.

"Ahem, your strategy is very good, but this will inevitably cause a lot of killings, this general (Yang Pingfan claims to be the clairvoyant Shunfeng Ear general who sat down by Mazu, so he calls himself the general) has a plan, which can be bloodless, so that Chen Zuyi will come to ask for guilt. ”

As soon as these words came out, everyone was shocked, and they asked the immortals what they were going to do, but Yang Pingfan pretended to be unfathomable, and only said that the heavenly opportunity should not be leaked, and let them wait for good news.

Chen Zuyi, whose ancestral home is Chaozhou, Guangdong, during the Hongwu period of the Ming Dynasty, the whole family fled to the South Seas and entered the sea as pirates. Entrenched in Malacca for more than ten years, he became the leader of the largest pirate group recorded in the history of the world, no one, because he had more than 10,000 pirates under his command at the peak of his power and nearly 100 warships.

Later, he went to the king of Mana and became a general, and after the death of the king, he relied on the strong force of his men to establish himself as the king and became the king of the state of Bolin (not Boni).

Chen Zuyi's pirate army was active in Japan, Taiwan, the South China Sea, the Indian Ocean and other places, plundering more than 10,000 passing ships and capturing more than 50 coastal towns.

He also went to the Yongle Emperor to pay tribute, but he set off empty-shipped, grabbed all the way, grabbed what to give, and did not fail when he returned home, the most unbearable thing for the Yongle Emperor was that he not only robbed the ships of the small Western countries, but also the envoy ships of the Ming Dynasty.

Ming Taizu once offered a reward of 500,000 taels of silver to arrest him, and during the Yongle period, the bounty was as high as 7.5 million taels, which made Chen Zuyi the most wanted criminal with the highest bounty in history, but this data is not very reliable, after all, the annual financial revenue of the Ming Dynasty government at that time was only 11 million taels.

Many historians believe that a large part of the reason for the seclusion of the country during the Zhu Yuanzhang period was because piracy was too rampant. Then, according to this logic, Chen Zuyi's piracy led to the Ming Dynasty's maritime ban, and the isolation of the country led to China's backwardness in modern times.

Chen Zuyi in history, when he was in the fifth year of Yongle in the Ming Dynasty, Zheng He sent people to appease Chen Zuyi. Chen Zuyi, however, believed that Zheng He's mighty fleet "had treasures" on board, so he stayed in the old port (now Palembang, Indonesia, formerly known as Sriwijayaya). At the end of the Yuan Dynasty and the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, many Chinese came to settle here) ready to surrender to Zheng He.

He sent someone to Zheng He to say that he wanted to surrender, but in fact, Chen Zuyi wanted to surrender by fraud, and then snatch Zheng He's fleet in one fell swoop. Although Chen Zuyi's number of ships and ships were inferior to Zheng He's, he encouraged his subordinates to say: "Although the fleet of the Ming Dynasty was numerous, most of the boat operators were the division of rivers and ponds when they first set foot in the ocean; although the ships of the Ming Dynasty were large, they were slow to move and were not familiar with the terrain; although the sailors of the Ming Dynasty were strong, they had not fought for many years, and they were arrogant and mainly horse infantry. ”

In a word, Chen Zuyi looked down on Zheng He at all: What is a eunuch, and this eunuch is still famous for land warfare, our brother is a professional pirate, and it is not easy to fight a class of landlubbers.