In Zhu Jinglun's heart, keeping the Ryukyus has more long-term and important interests than carving up the Ryukyus. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

After the Meiji Restoration, Japan did get rid of the fate of its colonies and became the most successful country in modern Asian history, but learning from the West's strategy of military expansion to the four directions also allowed Japan to offend its neighbors, and if it weren't for the fact that New China also suffered some setbacks, joined the Soviet bloc, and fell into camp confrontation, otherwise Japan's diplomatic situation in Asia would definitely not be more favorable than China's.

Japan succeeded in becoming a developed country, but lost the opportunity to establish a leader in Asia.

Daming is different from Japan, the ancestors of the Chinese have left enough territory and enough living space for future generations, and the best piece of land on the entire Asian continent is China.

China no longer has the need to expand in other directions, just Chinese mainland is enough for the Ming to toss, not only the four southeastern provinces controlled by the Ming now, including the land still controlled by the Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and the Manchu Qing Dynasty, not only Zhu Jinglun, the Ming Dynasty and the opposition naturally believe that the Ming will definitely unify the rivers and mountains in the future, or be unified by others, and divide for a long time must be divided for a long time, this law does not exist in the West, but it has long been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people in China.

Therefore, when Zhu Jinglun formulated his diplomatic strategy, he had long considered the entire East Asian continent as the territory of the Ming Dynasty, and when he had a huge continental territory, he had no territorial ambitions for small neighboring countries such as Vietnam, Korea, and the Ryukyus.

The main reason is that Zhu Jinglun knows very well that these countries in East Asia are all smelly and hard, and it is difficult to gnaw. With the height that Chinese civilization once maintained, it took thousands of years to completely assimilate these countries, and now that they have been assimilated, they have actually lost the opportunity.

On the Korean Peninsula, during the Sui and Tang dynasties, after the two powerful emperors of Sui Yang and Tang Taizong successively failed to attack Goryeo, subsequent dynasties basically stopped trying to directly unify Korea. And Vietnam, from the Qin and Han dynasties to the Tang and Song dynasties, was directly ruled by the Central Plains Dynasty most of the time, and in this case it was not possible to assimilate, and Zhu Jinglun thought that the Ming Dynasty probably did not have the conditions.

If you really forcibly colonize these countries, militarily it is not a problem at all, it is easy to occupy them, it is difficult to rule them, especially once their sense of national identity is extreme, it is even more troublesome. France and the United States after World War II are examples, no matter how much military superiority they have, they can be dragged into the quagmire by the Vietnamese.

At a time when the Great Powers had not yet begun to divide the world, there was land overseas that could be used for colonial expansion, which was much lower than the cost of devouring the surrounding Chinese civilizations, so Zhu Jinglun never thought of directly ruling these regions.

Being able to keep them culturally sinicized is the biggest benefit, the so-called value interest.

In the case of convergence of values, as long as mutual trust is obtained, these countries can actually be brought together around the Ming Dynasty. For example, the country of Vietnam, after the war with the Qing Dynasty during the Qianlong period, maintained peace for a long time. The degree of harmony between the two sides is unimaginable to future generations.

After the rise of the Ming Dynasty in Guangdong, Zhu Jinglun found that in the Sino-Vietnamese border area, most of the military passes in the past were dilapidated, and the boundaries between the two countries were blurred in most places, and the people came and went freely, and the people in the border areas did not even know which side they were on.

Historically, it was not until 1871, due to China's civil strife that more and more heaven and earth would enter Vietnam to cede land and become self-reliant, and Hoang Zuo Yan, the governor of North Ki of Vietnam, was called the king of Vietnam, and wanted to rectify the border passes in order to strengthen management. However, Vietnam has not been able to implement measures that only involve strengthening the management of passes. In 1879, when the King of Vietnam sent a letter to the Qing government, he also said that "in the past, China and Vietnam were one family, and the people were accustomed to each other, and they were accustomed to each other, so they continued to keep the border areas open."

Historically, Vietnam and China are actually the closest, more intimate than North Korea and China, because of the direct rule of more than 1,000 years, a large number of Chinese have entered Vietnam, looking at the so-called independent dynasties in Vietnamese history, starting from the earliest Tran Dynasty, except for the current Nguyen Dynasty, other dynasties are basically established by Chinese.

Whenever China is in turmoil, refugees also migrate to Vietnam in large numbers, after the Mongols destroyed the Song Dynasty, a large number of Chinese entered Vietnam, and after the Ming and Qing dynasties, a large number of Chinese entered Vietnam, resulting in the number of Vietnamese Chinese has long been impossible to count. In later generations, the official statistics of overseas Chinese would often estimate a data with Chinese blood after the data of Chinese and overseas Chinese, but generally there will be no such data in Vietnam, because it can almost be concluded that every Vietnamese has Chinese blood.

Therefore, instead of going to the military conquest of Vietnam, of course, the Mongols will not be able to gnaw, the Ming Dynasty Zhu Di will not be able to gnaw at the emperor, and the United States will not be able to gnaw at the country, it is better to maintain the current status quo of close people-to-people exchanges and maintain free non-governmental exchanges, and it will not be long before the Chinese culture will control the country, and it can even be said that the Chinese culture has never lost control of the country.

Zhu Jinglun has long defined Vietnam, that is, what Canada means to the United States, cultural assimilation, ethnic language, almost no difference, completely unguarded borders, and almost everything is integrated except for political separation.

As for North Korea, it has to be a place where it will go back to business after unifying the whole country.

Now Vietnam has not been bullied by France, and due to historical reasons, it has always been vigilant against the Central Plains countries in the north, so Vietnam has always maintained a casual attitude towards the sudden rise of the Ming Dynasty, and Zhu Jinglun is waiting for them to take refuge.

At present, only the Ryukyus are ripe, because the Ryukyus have been annexed by Japan, and the situation has been to the point where it can no longer be suffered, if the Ming Dynasty can help the Ryukyus to restore the country at this time, this is the greatest benevolence in Confucian culture, called "survival and extinction".

When the Ming Dynasty helped North Korea drive out Toyotomi Hideyoshi, the Ming Dynasty fell for many years, and the Li Joseon always insisted on using the Ming Dynasty chronology, not that the Koreans really talked about feelings, but this is the worldview of Confucian culture, as long as the Korean state is still respecting Confucius, they must talk about this kind of thing as the greatest kindness.

The current Ryukyu is also an authentic country of Confucianism and Taoism, and the Ming Dynasty helped Ryukyu recover the country, and I dare not say how many years the Ryukyus will be grateful, but at least they will admit that this is a great favor, and keep repeating and repeating, otherwise they are ungrateful.

With such righteousness in hand, the country of Ryukyu is culturally equivalent to being tied to the side of the Ming Dynasty, and Japan in the north has always been a threat to the Ryukyus, as long as Japan exists for a day, the Ryukyus will not feel safe, and politically, they will also be tied to the Ming Dynasty.

In this case, the Ming Dynasty does not annex the Ryukyus, which is of greater significance than the annexation of the Ryukyus, and will give all East Asian countries a demonstration, so that they can understand that it is safe to follow the Ming Dynasty, and in addition to the economic rise of the Ming Dynasty in the future, the economic influence on the surrounding countries will make them inevitably form an economic and cultural community with the Ming Dynasty.

Culturally, in fact, East Asian countries have long been one, and everyone thinks that they are the same language and the same species, which is a huge political legacy left by the ancestors, and Zhu Jinglun will not throw it away in vain, and he will make trouble with the surrounding countries one by one like enemies, and that kind of diplomacy is caused by the special conditions of the New China period.

Economically, China's sheer size makes it easy to tie its neighbors to its own economic chain.

Politics alone is the biggest trouble. If mutual trust is not achieved, even if people-to-people and cultural feelings are intimate, it is impossible for governments to have no scruples about interacting with each other.

The reason why Singapore wanted the United States to enter the South Seas was explained by the Singaporean ruler Li Harry that the United States was more willing to share its interests with other countries.

Zhu Jinglun will not give the great powers the opportunity to share their interests with the East Asian countries, taking advantage of the fact that the Western powers are still in the primitive accumulation stage of grabbing interests everywhere, by slowly inheriting the political and cultural heritage left by their ancestors, establishing close ties with these countries, and then slowly establishing normal friendly relations between countries, and even when the opportunity is ripe, establishing some kind of alliance relationship, uniting the East Asian region around the Ming Dynasty and obtaining a solid strategic rear, so that there are conditions for expanding outward and in the frenzy of carving up the world. Share delicious food with the Great Powers.

Ryukyu is a key to the Ming Dynasty's inheritance of the political and cultural heritage of the Ming and Qing dynasties, when Vietnam and North Korea saw that the Ming Dynasty did not hesitate to mobilize a million troops in order to protect the Ryukyu country, North Korea and Vietnam were still in the era of dynastic politics, what feelings would be self-evident.

North Korea is currently beyond the reach of the whip, and rashly infiltrating wherever it will intensify, and the contradictions with Russia will be intensified, although it can also strengthen the relationship between Britain and the Ming Dynasty, but the Ming Dynasty does not have the consciousness to be a thug for the British.

Therefore, it is most beneficial for the Ming Dynasty to temporarily take advantage of Russia's southward situation to obtain a relatively transcendent position in the great international pattern of the British and Russian hegemony.

Even if necessary, Russia could be encouraged to expand southward, and Britain would need the Ming even more if Japan did not grow up and the Manchus were completely corrupt and incompetent.

At the moment when Britain felt that the situation was urgent and could not be delayed, the Ming would not expand north to Korea and Manchuria, and the British would promote the Ming Dynasty's expansion to the north.

Therefore, the biggest purpose of setting up the benchmark of the Ryukyus is to show Vietnam, if it can change Vietnam's vigilance against the Ming Dynasty in one fell swoop, it will greatly enhance the influence of the current Ming Dynasty on Vietnam, because Vietnam has become more and more tense under the penetration of France.

Once Vietnam completely fell to the Ming Dynasty, it was time for the Ming Dynasty to fight with France for Vietnam, and after expelling France, the Ming Dynasty would completely establish its hegemony in East Asia with the power of defeating a white country, just like the international situation after Japan's victory over Russia.

It's just that after the restoration of the Ryukyu Kingdom, the Ryukyu monarchs and ministers, who were full of the worldview of the clan system in their minds, were grateful and established a shrine for Zhu Jinglun in the Ryukyus, and the government and the opposition agreed that it was time for the Ryukyus to declare themselves to the Ming Dynasty.