Bao Yifen described the situation in Nanyang as follows: "There is no room for delay! ”

When Bao Yifen said it, it was as if the sky in Nanyang had fallen, which made the generals of the army have a toothache when they listened!

In that shabby place in the South Seas, what is there to delay, isn't it just a few colonies, it seems to be as important as it is.

But now it is the navy side that speaks, and the generals of the army, in order to avoid being rude in front of the king, treat it as if they didn't hear it, and let them blow it themselves!

I only heard Bao Yifen continue: "Last year, our colony in Luzon was attacked by pirates, thousands of pirates besieged our colony, fortunately, the soldiers stationed in the local area fought bravely and finally successfully resisted, but this kind of thing is one and two, especially this pirate attack, although we have no evidence, but we can judge that the preparation must have been provoked by the Portuguese!" ”

"The Portuguese have already caused a major obstacle to our colonization in the South Seas, and in the foreseeable future, they will continue to use all kinds of means to hinder our South Sea policy, so we must combat the arrogance of the Portuguese to ensure the strategic superiority of the Empire in the South Seas and the interests of maritime trade!"

Bao Yifen's words were not finished, he continued to say that the Portuguese had seriously infringed on the interests of the empire, for the interests of maritime trade, for the development of domestic industry and commerce, they would inevitably fight with the Portuguese and knock them down.

These words sound very reasonable, well, they do make a lot of sense, but no one here is stupid!

Although the contradiction with the Portuguese is big, it is not so big that it is necessary to go to war, and before the European route is established, the war with the Portuguese will be started, and how will the sea trade be carried out in the future!

The relationship between the Portuguese and the Empire was becoming more and more complex, with conflicting interests, but also great common interests.

And the common interest of both sides, before the empire succeeded in opening a second European route and establishing real trade relations with the Spaniards or other countries, fell out with the Portuguese, and it was a loss for both sides.

You must know that the prosperity of overseas trade today is largely due to the export of a large number of goods to India, West Asia, Africa and Europe through the channels of the Portuguese.

The European market, in particular, is now completely monopolized by the Portuguese!

There is no way, now the Portuguese are so awesome, they almost monopolize the African coast and part of the Indian Ocean routes, and even the more powerful Spaniards cannot compete with the Portuguese in these seas, they can only do it secretly.

As a result, the relationship between the Empire and the Portuguese could not be simply described as cooperative or hostile.

Competing in cooperation is the current relationship between the two.

In this way, the war with the Portuguese is currently worth the loss, so it is unrealistic for the navy to shout about fighting the Portuguese in the short term.

It's not a question of whether you can beat it, it's a question of cutting off trade after it's done!

You can't say that you are doing business while going to war!

Well, although this is not impossible, but it always feels a bit nonsense, since they are all in business, what kind of war are they fighting!

After all, the core contradiction between the Portuguese and the empire is not actually a few colonies in the South Seas, and even a strategic place like Malacca is not the core contradiction for the current relationship between the two sides.

Their core contradiction is that the Portuguese monopolized the route to Europe, and then made a lot of profits from East Asia to Europe, but did not leave much for the Tang Dynasty.

To put it bluntly, in the profiteering route from East Asia to Europe, the two sides have contradictions because of the proportion of spoils.

The Tang Empire wanted more, not just a small head.

The Portuguese certainly didn't do it, they put in a lot of effort to open up and monopolize the route to East Asia, how can they do it without making high profits.

This is the core of the contradiction between the two sides!

It is also the key to why the Tang Empire went to great lengths to open up new European routes, and at the same time wanted to bring in the Spaniards, in order to increase profits in this route.

I can earn a hundred taels of silver, why am I only willing to earn ten taels of silver? Why don't I just take ninety taels of silver or even all of them!

The various contradictions and conflicts of interest between the Portuguese and the empire have led to a complicated relationship between the two sides.

Even Li Xuan, the Son of Heaven, felt that the navy was in a hurry, what kind of Portuguese to fight, it would be a matter of the future, and now it is the right thing to honestly colonize all parts of the South Seas.

Now and in the future, the strategic center of gravity of the Tang Empire, if nothing else, will still be thrown to the north and northwest, where the Tatars, Tubo and Warat people are the real threat to the Tang Empire at present!

Even if they are no longer able to threaten the strategic security of the empire, even if it is for the sake of the horse farm, in order to be able to obtain horses, the Tang Empire has to launch a few wars.

Among them, the Hetao area is the most important, and the army has already formulated dozens of plans, all of which are to study how to recover the Hetao area and consolidate the defense of this area.

In this context, in fact, it can be announced that in the distribution of military spending in Xuanping's eight years, the army will still occupy the absolute majority, and the navy will occupy a small part.

However, even if it occupies the lion's share, life on the army's side will still be more difficult, because the total military expenditure is less!

In the seventh year of Xuanping, the army and navy together spent about 30 million taels of silver on military expenditures, and the army monopolized more than 26 million taels of silver.

However, this year, the total military expenditure is only 25 million taels of silver, and it has been clearly stated that there will be no additional temporary military expenditure this year.

Under such circumstances, even if the army monopolized 80 percent of the military expenditure, the total amount at that time was only 20 million, and this silver needed to support the army's total number of more than 200,000 front-line field troops, and at the same time, it was also necessary to maintain about 300,000 reserve troops in various localities, and it was also necessary to give a part of the funds to support the militia organizations in various localities.

If it is just to maintain these troops, in fact, 20 million taels of silver is enough, and not only enough, but more!

But the army is still fighting, and it costs more to fight a war than to maintain the troops!

Liaodong is still fighting, devouring a lot of military spending every day!

Then the anti-bandit operations in various places, the small-scale armed forces of the Tatars and the Tubo people in the border towns, etc., all need combat funds.

In this way, the army felt that Xuanping's eight years were a little difficult!

And it can be predicted that the future will be more and more difficult, because the more peacetime, the lower the proportion of military spending, and it is impossible for the empire to maintain such a high proportion of military spending all the time!

What to do?

What else can I do? Use various methods to save military spending, and then tighten your belt to live, for example, when you are fighting, you must save shells, don't don't use shells as money, and if you shoot out a shell, it will be a big piece of silver for nothing!

However, disarmament is impossible disarmament, and I will never look at disarmament in my life!