The French colonies in Madagascar did not have many troops, and although their naval base was well built and the Ming fleet could not occupy it from the front, it was a foregone conclusion that the French would lose it when they landed on the flanks and outflanked their batteries. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

It took more than ten days to capture the port of Diego Suares, which was defended by only 800 French troops, but the actions of the Ming navy did not stop, but bypassed the Cape of Good Hope in Africa and continued to advance towards North Africa, which was the core area of the French colony.

By mid-November, Vietnam's rainy season was basically over, and although the southern part of the country was still rainy, it was already dominated by short-term thunderstorms, and sunny days began to increase.

Zhu Jinglun planned to encircle the French army for a long time, and he did not need to express his attitude directly, because his attitude would be interpreted by Hurd and reported to the British. Zhu Jinglun did not want the British to feel that they were waiting for a price and were not sincere enough to go north to fight Russia.

However, Zhu Jinglun only needs to agree with the opinion of the civilian officials of the Ministry of War, who generally believe that the French army is at the end of its strong crossbow, and the results of previous attacks show that the cost of a strong attack is too great, so they are in favor of forcing the French army to surrender through a siege, and they believe that by the end of this year, the defenders of Da Nang, which has been surrounded for half a year, will surrender.

In the Saigon area, the main force of the French army was firmly pinned down on the other side of the Saigon River, and they would never dare to divide their troops under the pressure of the Ming army, which gave other directions an opportunity.

The Nanqi area was developed by Chinese as early as the end of the Ming Dynasty, when it was not even the land of Vietnam, and the armed immigrants from China were the first to develop it in the late Ming Dynasty.

Later, the Vietnamese Nguyen Dynasty expanded southward, annexed the Champa state, and encroached on the territory of Cambodia step by step, causing the prelude to competing with Siam for hegemony in Cambodia again and again, and the general situation was that Vietnam under the rule of Confucian culture was more organized than Siam under the rule of Buddhist culture, and as a result, although the steps of the Vietnamese to the south had ups and downs, they always went south step by step.

The way the Vietnamese went south to conquer, there are great characteristics of the Central Plains, that is, through the construction of canals to expand, they have built the Rui River, the An Thong River, it is worth saying that the An Thong River is located in the southwest of Saigon a canal, the construction of this canal, so that the Saigon River flood elimination, Saigon has the conditions to become a big river port, it is worth saying that the dredging of this river mainly relies on the strength of the local Chinese, so it is also called the China River.

Two canals were built in succession, but it still did not help to change the situation that Cambodia was sandwiched between Vietnam and Siam, and the two countries were fighting for the land, and in order to have an advantage in the competition with Siam, the Vietnamese emperor decided to build a third canal.

Just as Emperor Yang of the Sui Dynasty successfully controlled the Jiangnan through the Grand Canal, Vietnam successfully controlled the Nanqi region by building a Grand Canal, which Vietnam called the Yongji Canal.

This canal connects the Mekong River port of Chu En Duc to the port of Ha Sengang on the side of the Gulf of Siam, so that the Mekong waterway can be connected to the Gulf of Siam waterway, and in the event of another war between Vietnam and Siam, Vietnam will be able to send supplies to the front line through water transportation as quickly as possible, and even be able to directly threaten Bangkok from the Gulf of Siam.

This canal, like the Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, exhausted manpower, and in order to build this canal, the Vietnamese spent two emperors and two generations. First of all, in the eighteenth year of Emperor Gia Long (1819), the construction began, and a total of 80,000 local Cambodians, Chinese and Vietnamese were requisitioned, which lasted three months to dredge.

Although the river is only more than 80 kilometers long, compared to a small country like Vietnam, it is tantamount to a super project, the first phase of the canal project has just been completed, the local people broke out a big uprising, after the suppression, during the tenure of Emperor Gia Long, there was no construction.

It was not until the fourth year of his son's reign (1823) that he decided to renew the canal, and the second phase of the Yongji Canal project began.

After the canal was completed, the Nam Ki water network was connected, and the Gulf of Siam could be reached directly from Saigon, which was equivalent to extending the Dong Nai River system to the south to the sea twice on the Dongou Peninsula, and troops could be sent directly to Cambodia from Dong Nai, the old ruling area of Vietnam.

This was originally favorable to Vietnam's topography, who would have thought that when the canal had just been built and Vietnam had not yet enjoyed its benefits, Siam, which felt the serious threat of the canal, took the lead in using the river, and Siamese warships went straight from the Gulf of Siam into the Mekong River basin, and the first Vietnamese-Siamese War broke out (1833).

After winning the war, Vietnam took advantage of the situation and annexed Cambodia. However, a few years later, during the Cambodian uprising (1841-1845), Siam intervened again, and after the war, Vietnam found that it could not annex Cambodia against Siam's opposition, thus returning Cambodia to the era of paying tribute to both Siam and Vietnam.

So the Vietnamese really controlled the Mekong Delta, but from the 1820s, until the 1840s, it was a contested area with Siam, so the local situation was complicated, there were people who moved here during the Ming Dynasty, still maintained Han culture, Chinese expatriates called Ming Xiang people, Cambodians by the Vietnamese government, Champa people and other local natives, and immigrants from Vietnam to the south.

Before Vietnam could assimilate the local peoples through canal operations, the French were killed.

After the arrival of the French, on the basis of the river network built by the Vietnamese, further canals were built to relieve the flooding and open up a considerable amount of land. By leasing land to the French, the French attracted a large number of French farmers to invest in small farms here, and also hired Chinese to start large plantations.

Due to the development of the Ming economy, the promotion of Vietnamese rice exports, the French invested heavily to build a large number of dikes and dredging and irrigation canals here, and under the impetus of French financial capital, the rice cultivation area in the Mekong Delta increased from 250,000 hectares in 1868 to 2 million hectares, and 1 million tons of rice were exported every year, equivalent to more than 16 million quintals, becoming the largest food supplier in the Ming Dynasty.

The French, on the other hand, reaped more than five million francs a year through lending, collateralized by local taxes. The colonial government made a large amount of fiscal revenue by monopolizing the local rice trade, and the annual income from the rice trade accounted for more than one-third of the colonial government's fiscal revenue.

But the development potential here is by no means limited to this, in later generations, it fed sixty or seventy percent of Vietnam's population, and could also export a large number of rice, rubber and cane sugar, coffee and other agricultural products, this meaning alone is something that the Ming cannot lose, because it has the potential to feed half of the Ming population.

But how to get here is a technical problem.

Direct occupation is not impossible, but the Vietnamese will not be honest, and complex ethnic issues such as Cambodians and Champongs here will make this place turbulent for a long time.

Relying on the local Chinese, immigrating and cultivating here, and infiltrating here step by step, is the best means of operation. As for the Vietnamese nominally owning this place, Da Ming didn't mind at all.

In addition, the direct occupation of this place is too costly politically, once the Ming Dynasty has territorial ambitions for the surrounding countries, the seeds of distrust will be deeply rooted in the hearts of the surrounding nations and countries, and there will be no more peaceful regional environment, which is not conducive to Zhu Jinglun's strategic plan to firmly tie East Asia to the Ming chariot through the sharing of interests.

But once the Vietnamese completely recovered this place and let them really firmly control this place, if the Vietnamese can honestly allow the Ming to settle here, then hell, the conflict between the forced immigrants of Northeast Japan and the local Chinese in later generations is a lesson.

In order to make Vietnam honest and obedient, there must be a knife on his neck, so that he always feels cold in his neck, Da Ming directly put this knife on the table, which will only make him constantly resist, just like during the French colonization of Vietnam, there will be no big confrontation, but there are always small actions, which greatly increases the cost of governance.

Therefore, it is very appropriate for this knife to be set up by others, and the most suitable person, except for France, who else can there be?

After careful consideration, Zhu Jinglun believed that it was really inappropriate to completely drive the French away, and it was very necessary to use France to balance the Vietnamese and beat them down on their undesirable ambitions.

The French will definitely want to stay here, but they can't do it in vain, and it would be very appropriate to exchange them for the benefits of Africa, in exchange for a pass to enter Africa.

It all depends on the political situation of the French.

At this time, France was not only in chaos, but also really began to panic, because the Ming fleet entered the mouth of the Congo River.

Although it did not attack the Congolese colony that France had firmly managed, the appearance of the Ming fleet here was a danger, and since the Ming fleet could reach North Africa, it would naturally be able to reach Europe.

French newspapers added fuel to the fire, constantly exaggerating the threat of the Ming Dynasty, stirring up popular sentiment and putting pressure on the government.

At this time, a responsible French politician finally appeared, and in early December, Marie François Sadie Canot of the Carnot family, a political family that rose during the French Revolution, was elected the fourth president of the Third Republic.

He promised the electorate that the war would be ended, that the damned Cochinchina would rot on its own in the rotten breath of the East, that France would not have to pay a heavy price for spreading civilization to the East, and that his slogans would allow him to win the elections, and those patriots who shouted war back then were tired of the war and turned to chanting for peace.

So President Cano appointed Georges Clemenceau, who had gained a majority of support in parliament because the French were tired of war, as prime minister, and he told Clemenceau to end the war, at all costs.

The coming to power of such a socialist with an idealistic atmosphere will bring about any changes to Daming's layout in Vietnam, and Zhu Jinglun can't say that if this guy really wants to completely withdraw from Vietnam, it will be a troublesome thing for Daming.

Before the French could express their position, a new trouble arose in Cochinchina, this time not from Nanqi, but from neighboring Cambodia, the king of Cambodia suddenly announced the abrogation of the Franco-Cambodian Treaty, did not recognize Cambodia as a French protectorate, and then Siam Rome announced that Cambodia was recognized as an independent country, and demanded that France withdraw the remaining envoys and troops from Cambodia and stop interfering in Cambodian national affairs.

After France explicitly refused, Siam declared a state of war with France, apparently intending to regain suzerainty over Cambodia by taking advantage of France's defeat at Cochinchina. As for how they persuaded the Cambodian king Norodom to cooperate, it is unknown.

Immediately after the declaration of war, the Siamese army marched into Cambodia, which was empty, proving that Siam had been prepared.