In Nanjing, nearly 30,000 miles away in western Europe, Xiao Xuan received envoys from the Ottomans who came to meet, of course, Dongying and other countries that had never expressed the attitude of vassal states in a serious manner before, and in the spring of the ninth year of Chongzhen, there were many small countries in the Chinese cultural circle that came to pay tribute, and of course, there were Mughal empires that were not part of the vassal before.

In order to cause the misjudgment of "the Ming Dynasty at this time is no different from before", the scale of the tribute this time was not handled much, but Xiao Xuan still personally met with these envoys who came to carry out tributary trade, and the envoys who came with the money obviously felt that this was not the big country that took etiquette very seriously, and there were many clichés in the conversation, and it seemed that there had been a great change in the way of language and even the attitude of speech.

At this time, Xiao Xuan didn't really care too much about what the impression he left on these envoys and what the reaction was, so he said calmly: "Actually, when I just ascended the throne, especially after defeating the Manchurians, the great enemy in the north, I had the determination to conquer the places where the sun could shine under the whole sky like Genghis Khan's ideal, and just to dominate the world. However, after a series of turmoil in Kyushu in the Central Plains during the expedition, I began to understand why the Central Plains Dynasty nearly 2,000 years ago, including the Kublai Khan regime of the Mengyuan Dynasty, did not expand its territory significantly larger than the era of Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty. The boundaries of every empire have their limits. This is not only about the difference in civilization and population, but also because if you want to govern many ethnic groups within a radius of thousands of miles, you will inevitably need a large group of warriors. Perhaps in my area, there are enough means and prestige to maintain the relative unity of the empire like Genghis Khan did back then, but when I am a hundred years later, when the generals thousands of miles away, the local garrisons and even the vast lower strata of those garrisons are not selected by me like the army I created, why did I finally end up with me? If a king's rule is to be stable for a long time, it does not depend on how big the boundaries are and how vast the territory is, but whether the people under his rule can usher in a peaceful and prosperous era with fairness everywhere. To a large extent, internal strength is far stronger than external strength. To a large extent, this is actually contradictory, not to mention the rich and noble people at the top, but the common people at the bottom, if life is comfortable, they are naturally unwilling to take the risk of war. Therefore, saying that the Chinese nation is bound to be a peace-loving nation is not a kind of empty talk that keeps the light on the horizon or is face-saving. If you seriously flip through the history books, even if it was the Han Dynasty or the Tang Dynasty, how could their foreign wars or border achievements not be a kind of self-defense counterattack because of the border provocations carried out by foreigners in the first place? If there are conditions, an emperor of the Central Plains Dynasty actually only needs 50,000 or at most 70,000 or 80,000 decent regular troops, which is enough to suppress the rebellion of the people, it is enough. The border army group is nothing more than a kind of self-defense in strategic security... ”

At this time, Xiao Xuan of course also had some seemingly disdainful glances, so he also said unabashedly: "I know that some of you don't think so, thinking that my words are just because the army far away in Taixi has encountered difficulties, and the civil war has just subsided and the external peace is in crisis, so there is such a statement." But what I want to say is this: the Christian civilization is a completely different civilization from yours, and they pose a great long-term threat to other civilizations, including ours. If we don't launch an expedition to contain them as soon as possible, maybe it will be a few decades or more than a hundred years from now. All of you here are from monarchies that have had some turmoil, but most of the time they still have a limit to the peace of the country and pay more attention to internal survival, but this is not the case with Christian civilization at all. They are not only strong because of the competition between the warriors for power, but also have the most favorable fields, mining areas, and even geographical expansion space in the whole world, and they have a truly lofty ideal... Or ambition. Therefore, for the sake of the long-term security of the entire civilization, even if this "border work" spanning 20,000 or 30,000 miles is extremely harmful and burdensome to me and my regime, we must take this risk... ”

Hearing this, the envoy sent by Murad IV couldn't help but echo: "What His Majesty the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty said is true. Maybe it's because of the distance, maybe many people don't know much about the Tessians, but we have been dealing with them for hundreds of years. Those men possessed sophisticated armor and firearms-making skills, and were very good at oppressing the common people and elevating the status of ordinary people and warriors, so as to gain strong military power, and they were also extremely rich in gold and silver, and they were also good at shipbuilding. We didn't feel the pressure back then, but in recent decades it has been completely different. If it weren't for the fact that Tessie was still limited to strife and war at this time, and the number of troops that could be used externally was limited, then we would have been forced to move east... Seeing Xiao Xuan so calm, the envoy of Osman Mudra IV who came didn't mind saying a few more words of welcome.

Many other envoys from South Asia and even the Southeast Peninsula or Korea and Japan were more polite and polite to this, and at the same time, many people were already thinking that if this eastern power seemed to be no longer what it used to be, it was not known whether this belligerent monarch would involve some of his energy in pacifying Taixi.

This is, an envoy of the shogunate suddenly said: "His Majesty the Emperor, there have been a lot of Taixi's fleets recently, perhaps because of the fall of their hometown, and they have moved eastward to bring a lot of threats to various countries, and I hope to help... ”

Hearing this, many other envoys also began to echo it, and Xiao Xuan certainly knew something about this. In the past, the armed forces in the Far East, from Batavia to Mania, from the Netherlands to Spain, were actually just some armed merchant ships in the nature of sea forces plus a total of no more than 10,000 armed forces, and there may not be as many Cossack hunters in the northern Baikal area, but since the great changes in Taixi a few years ago, the Western maritime forces from the south to the southeast of the Mughal Empire have increased dramatically, and the number of troops has increased by tens of thousands, which has become a major threat to the countries of Fanbang.

In this regard, Xiao Xuan was silent for a moment, and then looked at a person not far away.

(End of chapter)