On the 10th day of the ninth month of the 42nd year of orthodoxy, Yang Zhihe, the governor of Gibraltar, took the royal yacht Yongheng Princess and arrived at the Yuejianglou Wharf in Yingtianfu.

At the same time as him, he returned to Yingtianfu not only Princess Yongheng and his two children, but also representatives of European countries, totaling 1,300 people.

Before this, there had never been such a large-scale European border to Daming, and even businessmen, there were less than 1,000 people coming to Daming every year.

Today's Ming Dynasty rules the world's oceans, and any ship of various countries that has not obtained a navigation permit, as long as it is discovered by the Ming fleet, will only sink into the sea.

Yang Zhi and the Governor of Gibraltar did such an errand.

Of course, all this Daming will not promote, nor will he admit it, anyway, I will only issue navigation permits to a small number of ships every year, and the range of navigation is only as far as Europe to South Asia.

The East, which started from India, has always been a forbidden area for European countries, and even European merchants can only go to the East through the merchant ships of the Ming Dynasty.

And the Atlantic Ocean in the West is even more of a forbidden area for Europeans.

In the twenty-sixth year of Orthodoxy, ships from the Admiralty of Gibraltar arrived in Iceland, which at that time was ruled by the Kingdom of Norway and had fewer than 10,000 inhabitants.

Da Ming originally wanted to occupy Iceland directly, but he didn't expect that so many people had already lived on the island. And they had close contact with the European continent, with Irish and Scottish monks coming and going regularly.

Because it was impossible to slaughter them all, in order not to give the impression of brutality to Europeans, the Ming Dynasty only set up a supervision point on the island, limiting Iceland as the westernmost point that Europeans could sail.

In the twenty-seventh year of orthodoxy, the Ming Dynasty published a world map for the first time and distributed it in Europe.

On this map, except for some islands in the middle of the Ming Ocean (Pacific Ocean), Dongzhou, including some islands in the Atlantic Ocean, are all clearly marked.

For example, the Canary Islands in the northwest corner of Africa and the Azores in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean have all become the overseas territories of the Ming Dynasty.

At this time, Europeans realized that the earth in which people lived was a sphere.

The earth is a round sphere, and the earth revolves around the sun, and the impact on Europeans is very huge.

At this time, Europe was still a **** country, and the Holy See controlled many countries ideologically.

The Bible was declared the supreme truth, and all doctrines that contradicted the Bible were denounced as "heresy," and all those who opposed theocracy were burned at the stake.

As soon as this map of the world was published, the power of the Church also declined dramatically during this period, and many Europeans realized that many of the original Bible descriptions were wrong.

At this time, the Ming Dynasty had already occupied the vast majority of the territory, and those territories that were painted bright yellow almost filled the world.

Only some areas of South Asia, West Asia, Europe, and North Africa remained, and about one-tenth of the area remained.

When Europeans saw the world map, their curiosity about the world became stronger. For a long time, European countries were organizing fleets to explore the world.

But none of the ships they sent out again, without exception, returned.

That is, in recent years, European countries will be surprised. Knowing that the Ming Dynasty has regarded the region outside of Europe as its own territory, it will not allow anyone to explore it anymore.

Without the permission of the Ming Dynasty, Europe did not dare to sail to the treacherous Atlantic, and they could only explore in Africa and South Asia.

The Ming Dynasty would only issue trade permits for no more than 200 ships per year, with which European ships could pass through the Suez Canal.

If a ship dares to circumnavigate Africa without a trade permit, the slave trade in the local Han and Jin palaces will increase some gains.

However, the general trend of development in Europe cannot be reversed, although Europe is a continent with a mild climate and gentle terrain, but most of the continent is not fertile.

The land in most parts of Europe is only suitable for growing grass, and if it is for growing grain, the grain production is pitiful.

That's why historically, France, Poland, and Hungary became European powers, because there was the best land to grow food and feed more people.

After the precious metals in Europe were almost stripped by the Ming Dynasty through trade, Europe became almost nothing.

This is also the main reason why they want to steal the advanced technology of the Ming Dynasty in every possible way.

Moreover, more and more European serfs could not survive, they needed a way out.

In this environment, many serfs came to Crete and became coolies in the workshops of the Ming Dynasty.

Many European aristocrats were able to maintain a decent life through the slave trade.

On the one hand, there is an ideological awakening, and on the other hand, the oppression of real life, and only Europeans who are struggling to survive will recklessly attack the East, hoping to get more resources.

However, the forty-one years of war in orthodoxy made them realize the gap between themselves and the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty did not send the main force at all, and they had already been defeated.

Today, the Ming Dynasty has occupied a territory from Kiev to the Baltic Sea, leaving less room for Europeans.

All European people of insight have realized that if Europe wants to develop, it must submit to the Ming Dynasty.

From the winter of the 41st year of Orthodoxy to the May of the 42nd year, the European countries held many meetings in Cologne, Vienna, Milan, and Paris to discuss the way forward.

With the threat of the behemoth of the Ming Dynasty, they have decided to stop the dispute.

In June, the Ming Europa peace talks presided over by the two admirals of the Ming Dynasty were held in Crete, and in this peace talks, Yang Zhihe proposed a peace conference that would take the existing dividing line as the boundary, and the Ming would recognize the sovereignty of all countries, and all countries would respect the rule of the Ming Dynasty.

If European countries recognize the leadership of the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty will open its arms and provide help for the development of European countries.

After half a month of peace talks, the European countries that did not have much leverage could only accept the conditions of the Ming Dynasty.

If you don't obey, you will be beaten, and even the country will be destroyed, and even the Pope State will not dare to say a word in front of the Ming Dynasty.

In July, after reaching a preliminary agreement, all the delegates boarded the large cruise ship prepared by the Ming Dynasty and embarked on the journey to the Ming Dynasty.

There were more than two hundred kingdoms, grand duchies, and city-states that were represented, and these 1,300 people were all representatives of various countries, even the rulers themselves.

However, even the ruler is regarded as an ordinary guest on the side of the Ming Dynasty, and even if the king is there in person, he cannot bring more than ten people.

Therefore, after compression, only 1,300 people will come to Daming.

From Crete, they crossed the Suez Canal, which was dug by the Ming Dynasty, to the Red Sea. It then followed the coastline through Khurmus to India.

By the time I arrived in India, Europe was already shocked by the bustling city.

Indian countries, including Ceylon, have participated in the development of the Ming Dynasty in recent years, which has led to the take-off of the local economy.

Moreover, the area through which the fleet passes is also a typical one that has been carefully selected.

Kochi has developed into a well-known trading center in South Asia, Goa is a mineral center, Ceylon is a gem country, and rice cultivation here is also very developed, with three crops a year.

And when they came to the Malay Peninsula and Sumatra, which were included in the Ming mainland, they felt the gap between Europe and the Ming Dynasty even more.

The Malay Peninsula and Sumatra are the rubber planting bases of the Ming Dynasty, and Sumatra Island is also the oil center of the Ming Dynasty, and there are 200,000 Dongying and North Korean laborers who have contributed to the Ming Dynasty.

On both sides of the Straits of Malacca, there are ports everywhere, especially chemical factories, that stun Europeans who have never seen the scale of a modern industrial cluster.

The towers and pipes of the refinery, which stretches for miles, turn this place into a futuristic world.

Sumatra and Borneo are the oil centers of Daming, and there is no oil development and exploration in Daming itself, and even minerals are gradually using imported raw materials.

Copper from Dongzhou, iron from Nanzhou, large factories were built by the sea, and then the finished products were shipped to Daming.

Like Kuwait in later generations, it is already the naval base of the Ming Dynasty, and after the oil development of Sumatra Island is completed in the future, there will still be Kuwaiti oil that can be developed.

And the further back they went, the more prosperous the area the fleet reached, and when the fleet arrived in Annam, they saw that the shipload of grain was transported to the north, and the size of any fleet far exceeded that of all the fleets in Europe combined, and they fully realized the gap between themselves and the Ming Dynasty.

In their country, it only takes a few days to walk, while the Ming Dynasty has to walk for several months at full speed.

This is not only the size of the site, but also the huge gap in the overall development.

When the fleet arrived in Quanzhou, these European dignitaries and nobles saw the real prosperity, and those high-rise buildings rising from the ground and reaching tens of meters high made them unspeakably surprised.

Glass, which is priceless in Europe, is nothing more than an ordinary material for building houses in Daming.

Historically, the Dahlcaro brothers, the inventors of the glass mirror, once sold a book-sized mirror for 150,000 francs.

Now that neither of these two brothers has been born, naturally there will be no such story again.

Daming has sold a large number of mirrors in Europe, but in Europe, mirrors are still considered luxury.

When these Europeans saw this scene in front of them, they were already starting to become numb.

They can still chase after falling behind, but now, the gap is so big that they doubt life.

When the fleet finally arrived at Yingtianfu, they were shocked again when they saw the scale of the city that stretched for dozens of miles and passed the huge water bridge.

Zhu Zhanji, who came from later generations, attached great importance to reserving the navigable capacity of the Yangtze River, so he asked that no permanent bridges should be built in the areas below Tianfu, and only Yingtianfu built a giant bridge in the lower reaches of the Yangtze River.

How big is this bridge?

Two million square meters of concrete were used for the piers alone, each of which was huge and more than 300,000 tons of steel was used.

The height of the water surface of the bridge reached forty meters, and the lower level could pass through trains, and above it was a two-way six-lane car and horse lane.

The construction of the entire bridge took more than ten years, starting from the second year of Orthodoxy and not being fully completed until the fourteenth year of Orthodoxy.

In order to build the bridge, the Maanshang Iron and Steel Plant, including several cement factories around Yingtianfu, completely started construction for the bridge.

Over the past decade, more than 50,000 workers have started work, and when the piers were cast, more than 300 people died.

At first, all the ministries of the imperial court were very opposed to this project, and even the craftsmen of the Ministry of Works thought that it was completely unnecessary to build the bridge so high and so large.

However, this is the first time that Zhu Zhanji has insisted on going his own way, and has forcefully implemented the entire plan, requiring that the height of the lower deck of the bridge deck must be higher than 40 meters above the water surface.

In order to achieve this goal, when the technical level is not comparable to that of later generations, more materials can only be used to fill it. The concrete and steel used for this bridge were more than five times that of the later Nanjing Yangtze River Bridge, which met Zhu Zhanji's requirements.

With such a large project and a height of 40 meters above the water surface, not to mention the current 10,000-ton giant ship, it is a 100,000-ton giant ship in later generations, and there is no problem with traffic.

Of course, it will not be the bridges that will limit the tonnage of ships, but the depth of the Yangtze River.

With such a huge project, when the bridge was first built, many people did not dare to go on the bridge at all. These Europeans, who have little knowledge, only feel shocked when they see this bridge.

On the contrary, because there are many introductions of cars and trains in the books that introduce Daming, they are not so shocked when they see Daming's trains.

These people were arranged by Honglu Temple to live in the state guesthouse at the foot of Xuanwu Lake and Purple Mountain, which is the largest hotel built by the Ming Dynasty, with more than 1,000 rooms and can accommodate more than 1,500 people at the same time.

They will receive training in the audience of Honglu Temple here, and after the training is over, they will be summoned by Zhu Zhanji.

Of course, Yang Zhihe and Yongheng didn't need to wait, after they got off the ship, they were picked up by a convoy to the palace.

Although he doesn't feel very good about Yang Shiqi, he admires Yang Dao and Yang Zhihe and father and son very much.

Yang Dao acted steadily, never involved in any power struggle, and never compromised regardless of the courtship of any prince.

Therefore, Zhu Zhanji has always put him as the governor of the Dongzhou Navy, and he never doubted it.

And Yang Zhihe, compared with Yang Dao, is better than blue. His mother, Xie Zhenfang, is a famous talented woman, he has been taught by his mother since he was a child, and he has always performed outstanding in the young army.

After graduating, he was directly arranged by Zhu Zhanji to enter the General Staff Department of the Ministry of National Defense, and he showed unparalleled talent in military strategy, national policy, and tactics.

After polishing for a few years, Zhu Zhanji arranged him to his own young army, and he built the young army into the first strong army of the Ming Dynasty, and then Zhu Zhanji sent him to Gibraltar to curb the maritime expansion of Europe.

He was in Gibraltar and had been well completing all aspects of the Ming Dynasty's strategic arrangements.

If it weren't for the fact that his father Yang Dao was still in the position of the governor of the Dongzhou Navy, Zhu Zhanji would have promoted him to be the governor long ago.

This time he was called back to Daming, Zhu Zhanji was going to keep him by his side for a few years, and then arrange for Yang Dao to go to Dongzhou when he was not in good health.

The official position Zhu Zhanji also helped him think about it, the commander of the Beijing army, and the commander of the Yulin Guard.

This position actually allowed him to rest for a few years, transition a little, and take over his father's duties later.

Yang Zhihe is also well aware of this, so he has no objection to this arrangement.

He happily accepted the appointment, and then just went to Yu Linwei to order a few subordinates. Then he returned to the house and closed his doors to entertain his children.

In contrast, Yongheng has become much more public. She probably also knew that this was her last chance to stay in the capital, so she behaved very high-profile so that no one else would forget the prestige of the Donghai Mansion.

Less than 10 days after her return, Zhu Zhanji had not yet received envoys from various European countries, so she sent out invitations to invite everyone to attend the banquet held in the Donghai Mansion.

The banquet had no other purpose than to recognize Leonardo da Vinci as his godson.

This news shocked Ying Tianfu, and no one dared to believe that a princess of the Ming Dynasty would disregard her prestige and recognize a half-grown son of a different race as her godson.

And Da Vinci is not young, he is about to be fourteen years old, and he doesn't know how to avoid suspicion.

However, Zhu Zhanji didn't say anything about this matter, Yang Zhihe didn't say anything, and it wasn't the turn of others to make irresponsible remarks.

On the contrary, after Zhu Zhanji learned about this, he also specially rewarded Yongheng with a pair of Li Gonglin's "Elegant Collection of the West Garden" by Li Gonglin of the former Song Dynasty, and also rewarded Leonardo da Vinci with the latest car.

Although Zhu Zhanji did not express his position, everything was rewarded, and everyone naturally knew what he meant.

When Yongheng held a banquet, most of the nobles in Beijing attended the ceremony, and the gifts were piled up.

What surprised everyone even more was that Lan Guifei, who rarely attended banquets on weekdays, also appeared, and gave Leonardo da Vinci a painting of Shen Zhou as a gift.

Shen Zhou is now forty years old, and his paintings are highly regarded in the Ming Dynasty, although he is still alive, this painting is not valuable, but it is not thin.

From the attitudes of Zhu Zhanji and Lan Guifei, many powerful people understood the importance that the two of them attached to this da Vinci, who had many wonderful ideas.

And Yongheng was even more happy, knowing that his move was the right one.

And those representatives from various countries in Europe, seeing that the royal family of Da Ming could not dislike that Leonardo da Vinci was a foreign race from Florence and was accepted as a righteous son by the royal family, they felt the enlightened side of Da Ming.

This also gave them a lot of misunderstandings, forgetting the brutality of the Ming Dynasty at sea.

They thought that the reason why the Ming Dynasty did not let them go to sea in the past was not because they were afraid that they would discover a new continent, but because they were not disciplined.

If they can accept the rule of the Ming Dynasty and abide by the system of the Ming Dynasty, then they can also be accepted and even supported by the Ming Dynasty.

Among them, it was King Louis XI of France who was most excited.

Unlike Spain, Portugal, and England, France has always valued the continent rather than the sea.

Moreover, until then, France had been at war with Britain in order to reclaim all its territory.

Neither Charles VII nor Louis XI paid attention to the expansion of the sea.

In its original history, Louis XI and his father were enemies.

In 1440 AD, he participated in and led a rebellion against the king by the great feudal lords.

After the rebellion was suppressed, he was tolerated by Charles VII, and the king not only continued to let him lead the army in the campaign against the British, but also appointed him to administer the prince's domain.

This did not change his hostile attitude towards his father in the slightest. He hated and plotted against those who had a great influence on Charles VII. In 1446, he tried to incite the Agena revolt to force the king to relinquish the throne, but failed.

The prince's domain under his rule became almost an independent kingdom. He reorganized the local administration, established the judiciary, granted the privileges of the city, exploited the local mines and forests, and even pursued a foreign policy that contradicted his father.

In 1456, Louis XI betrayed his father again, and the father and son broke with each other, and the king stripped him of his money and wanted to capture him.

He sought refuge in the Duke of Burgundy, the good Philip III.

In 1461, Charles VII died, and legend has it that he was the murder of Louis.

Louis, who had been in exile for five years, could not wait to rush back to France, where there was no one to match him, and succeeded to the throne.

In the investigation report of the Ming Dynasty, Louis XI was a king who was confident and arrogant, and had no respect for authority. He claimed to be the embodiment of the French national consciousness, and once said to the rebellious feudal lords: "I am France."

After ascending the throne, he vigorously suppressed the feudal lords, and the princes of the French royal family, such as Anjou, Brittany, Bourbon and other families, hated him to the core.

But he had fought against his father all his life, and he had a lot of experience in fighting, and he was very strong under his command.

This time, representatives of European countries traveled east to make a pilgrimage to the Ming Emperor, and he was the object of the most attention of the General Administration. In order for him to come to the Ming Dynasty, the two admirals promised him that they would guarantee that his power would not be compromised, and that if anyone rebelled while he was away, the Ming would help him clear the rebellion.

The reason why Daming was so enthusiastic was not because of his struggle with the feudal lords, but because he also hated the church.

He is like a mad dog who has always been calm, scolding the sky, scolding the ground, and the air in the middle.

Three years ago, when he was not yet on the throne, he took aim at the church. He forced the church to disclose all its property or confiscate it all.

The Church was angry at this and called on the lords to revolt. The two sides fought for two years, and in the end, neither could help the other, so they died down.

So he took in Zhang Han, who could hardly stay in Europe, and from Zhang Han, he felt the power to overthrow the influence of the church.

For such a king, of course, Daming has to make good use of it. So this time, others can not use it, but he, Da Ming must be coaxed over.

And after he came to the Ming Dynasty, he knew that France was backward, and he didn't look at other places, just one Ying Tianfu, in his opinion, had surpassed the strength of the whole of France.

Before coming to Daming, although he saw in the book that there were two million people in Yingtianfu, he didn't know what the concept was.

After I came, I realized that the population of a city is almost as large as that of France, and a city can be built so large.

In France, even he, the king, had to ride in a carriage, but in Yingtianfu, even ordinary citizens could take a car or even a train.

He wanted to move all of this back to France, but he didn't know what he had that Ming could look up to.

From the matter of Leonardo da Vinci, he saw that listening to the words of the Ming people seemed to be taken seriously.

Of course, the distant Ming Dynasty is more worthy of wooing than the great lords and churches who directly threaten his throne, and the truth of distant friendship and close attack is not only understood by the Easterners.

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