Bidding farewell to Luzon, Zhu Cijiong led the combined fleet to continue westward, the next stop will be Ceylon full of rubber trees, Manila is about 8,000 miles away from Ceylon, at the current speed of the fleet will sail for about seven days, of course, before that, they have to pass through a very important place, this place is the Strait of Malacca.

The Strait of Malacca, the choke point between the Pacific and Indian Oceans, was a thriving place for generations, with thousands of ships passing through it every day, but now it is still a desolate place, and the great powers do not seem to have discovered its importance, and have never even fought for it.

The current Strait of Malacca nominally belongs to Portugal, and the Portuguese Governor in Goa sent troops to defeat a small indigenous kingdom called Malacca in the middle of the strait more than a hundred years ago, and stationed a hundred-man squad there, so this is temporarily regarded as a Portuguese stronghold, and such a small stronghold Portugal has developed more than ten in the South Seas region in total.

Malacca is still just a stronghold the size of a fishing village, and there is nothing to see, so Zhu Cijiong did not arrange to stop here in his itinerary, but Zhu Cijiong still used a telescope to carefully check it when he passed through the strait.

Sure enough, it is a choke point, the narrowest place is less than a hundred miles, as long as you build forts and forts on both sides of the strait, and then send a fleet to the middle, with the current naval strength of the great powers, it is impossible to break through at all, Zhu Cijiong has decided, this place must be obtained!

He pretended to be casual and asked Schvera on the side: "Is this a good place to grow rubber trees, why not plant rubber saplings here?" “

When Shi Weila heard this, he said embarrassedly: "Your Majesty, don't you know, the natives here are really annoying, they love to engage in sneak attacks at every turn, and the rubber saplings are estimated to be destroyed by them in a few days." And the Dutch seem to have taken a fancy to this place, and they are likely to send troops to attack, which is too unsafe, so Wechen did not arrange for people to plant rubber trees here. “

When Zhu Cijiong heard this, his eyes rolled, and he pretended to be upset and said: "This Dutch is too arrogant, it's obvious that you occupied it first, and they still want to rob it!" “

Schvera said helplessly: "Alas, there is no way, they have many ships, and their naval strength is stronger than Spain, and the current Portugal can't compare with them at all." “

Zhu Cijiong pretended to be disdainful and said: "Hmph, there are many ships, can there be more of my Daming ships, when I come back from the European continent this time, I will send a fleet to be stationed here, and see if the Dutch dare to come and rob it." “

Shi Weila was overjoyed when he heard this: "Thank you emperor, Kong Dede is because of this headache, this stronghold is really worthless, if it weren't for the convenience of going to and from Daming, Kong Dede would have withdrawn this stronghold a long time ago, if the emperor is willing to send troops to garrison, it would be better, after all, we don't have any soldiers, these hundred people are also a lot of force, stationed here every day, it's really a waste, it's better to go to Mysore to help guard the territory." “

Zhu Cijiong couldn't help but snicker in his heart, it's worthless? For Portugal, it may be really worthless here, but it is different for the Ming Dynasty, if you send troops to defend this, the navies of the great powers will have to go around half the world to reach the southeast coast of the Ming Dynasty, which is simply too valuable for the Ming Dynasty!

Of course, he couldn't be too anxious, this Schvera was a ghost, so he could see that it was not good, he pretended not to care: "Then so be it, wait for me to come back from the continent." “

In the next few days, he even took Qin Mingyue to learn Spanish with Princess Anna behind closed doors, of course, I don't know if I am really learning, the Buddha said: Don't say, don't say.

After crossing the Strait of Malacca, Ceylon was not far away, and after the combined fleet continued sailing for about three days, the island of Ceylon was already in sight.

Ceylon is the largest island at the southern tip of the South Asian subcontinent, and since the Three Kingdoms period, there have been two indigenous kingdoms on the island, the Sinhalese Kingdom and the Tamil Kingdom, which fought each other for more than a thousand years until they were finally conquered by Portuguese adventurers more than 100 years ago.

It is less than 3,000 miles away from Goa, and it is naturally the jurisdiction of the Portuguese Governor of Goa, but due to the limited strength of the Portuguese army, it has never occupied the whole territory of Ceylon, but only stationed a small number of men and horses here.

Of course, this situation has completely changed since the arrival of the Second Army of the Ming Expeditionary Force, the Second Army of the Expeditionary Force is the regular army of the Ming Dynasty, and the indigenous armed forces are naturally vulnerable in front of them, and now the entire island of Ceylon has been completely occupied by the Second Army of the Ming Expeditionary Force, of course, nominally it is still a dependency of the ally Portugal.

Hearing that the emperor was coming to inspect Ceylon, Qin Yiming naturally started to prepare early, not only did he make his soldiers clean up, but even all the rubber forests were cleaned up by the natives, he was the brother of Queen Qin Mingyue, it didn't matter if he lost his face, it would be a big trouble for his sister to be criticized because of this, and his aunt Qin Liangyu had to pick his skin.

Another 100,000 troops lined up to greet them, and the sound of the mountain shouting long live was also deafening, and the European envoys did not show much surprise this time, because they were all numb, and they already believed that the rumors that the Ming Dynasty had more than two million troops, that was absolutely true!

In front of his eldest brother, Zhu Cijiong naturally didn't know how to put on a score, he just arranged for 10,000 Jinyi guards to land on the shore to be responsible for guarding, and then took Qin Mingyue and Princess Anna off the Daming.

Zhu Cijiong now has a lot of experience in boosting morale, and the soldiers of the Second Legion of the Praetorian Guard are naturally indispensable for encouragement, after the encouragement and reward, Qin Mingyue pulled Qin Yiming to talk, seeing that the two brothers and sisters seemed to have endless words, Zhu Cijiong simply pulled Princess Anna and led Shi Weila and the others to stroll towards the rubber forest not far away.

This rubber tree has been planted for almost three years, and now it has grown taller than an adult, Zhu Cijiong looked at the rubber tree that was growing happily, and asked with great interest: "When can these trees harvest raw rubber?" “

This is his cash cow, and Schvila is naturally very familiar with it, and he replied without thinking: "Back to the emperor, according to the estimation of the Indians invited by Weichen, there are still three years before these trees can start harvesting raw rubber." “

Three years, I'm afraid I can't catch up with the laying of the Ming telegraph network, now the telegraph lines leading to the state capitals are almost finished, and the most two years to the counties should be almost pulled, but it doesn't matter, after pulling the Ming Dynasty, there are still vassal countries and colonies, and even as long as the powers come up with the money, you can also help them to lay the telegraph network, the unique business is the most profitable, according to the current speed of scientific and technological development, it is impossible for them to understand the principle of electromagnetism without decades, and by then the Ming Dynasty has already made money.

Besides, this rubber can not only be used to make cable insulation, his use is great, with the gradual application of rubber, the military and civilian technology of the Ming Dynasty will go to a new level!