Compared with the task of King Fu's son, the task given by Chongzhen to King Tang is much more troublesome, and of course, in terms of the ability of the two, King Tang's ability is higher. It's just that his bloodline is too remote, and he is too ruthless to attack his two uncles, so he is not as popular in the clan as the gentle Fuwang Shizi.

Zhu Youzhen asked Lu Qi to take a map, put it on his desk, and then pointed to the map to Zhu Yujian and said: "Now that the Strait of Malacca is basically controlled by our country, Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula are still a little unconvinced, but they can't make any waves.

The route east of the Strait of Malacca to our country is now completely in our hands, and the route from the Strait of Malacca to the west of the Indian mainland, we now have for the time being Salian and Chittagong, in a sense, we have only just opened the passage to the Indian mainland.

Do you know what the Indian continent means to the Ming Dynasty? ”

The prince of Fuwang was stunned and didn't know what to say, but Zhu Yujian reacted quickly and said, "It should be wealth and the market, Your Majesty." ”

Zhu Youzhen looked at him and nodded, and said: "It is equivalent to all the overseas markets and imported wealth of the Ming Dynasty, so to speak, as long as the Indian continent is included in our control, there will be no need to worry about financial difficulties in the next few decades."

And to gain access to the wealth and markets of the Indian continent, it is clear that business and friendliness alone are not enough. In the same way, it is not only us who covet the wealth of the Indian continent, but the Europeans have been trying to gain a foothold on the Indian continent for decades. The ports of Surat, Mumbai, and Goa were the strongholds from which Europeans tried to enter the interior of the Indian continent from west to east.

But it is clear that these Europeans are not in the right place. In my opinion, there are only two core areas of the Indian continent, one is the Indus Valley on the west side of the Indian continent, which flows from north to south; The other is the Ganges River basin, which flows from west to east in the north of the Indian continent. For now, the latter is much more important than the former, and it is also the core area of the Mughal Empire.

Therefore, if you want to control the Indian continent, you must first control the Ganges River basin. And the most critical place is the mouth of the Ganges River. Although Chittagong is located at the mouth of the Ganges River, it is also the front line of the confrontation between the Arakanese and the Mughal Empire, and it is difficult to become the trading port we need at the moment.

Therefore, the only way to meet our needs is to go west, to find a tributary to the Ganges to the west of the Ganges Delta, and thus to build a trading port to the interior of the Indian continent.

The arrival of Salian-Chittay in this new port is not enough to give us an advantage on the eastern side of the Indian mainland. Only by bringing the island of Ceylon, across the sea at the southern tip of the Indian mainland, into the rule of the Ming Dynasty, can these four ports turn the ocean between the east coast of the Indian mainland and the Strait of Malacca into our sea.

So, after the beginning of spring next year, you will lead a fleet of three warships and four merchant ships to visit the Indian mainland. Your mission is threefold: first, to deter the countries along the way and let them know the majesty of the Ming Dynasty; secondly, in my name, I asked the Mughal emperor for a piece of land to build the port we needed; Thirdly, he visited the countries of South India and Goa to test whether the Portuguese living in Goa would be willing to adopt Isabella as Queen of Portugal. Moreover, whatever position the Portuguese in Goa choose, they will be compelled to surrender the island of Ceylon..."

Unlike the fear that Prince Fu expressed when he heard that he was going to sea, Zhu Yujian was eager to try after listening to the task given to him by the emperor, and he was eager to go overseas to show his talents.

Zhu Youzhen was also very pleased with the performance of the Tang king, so he continued to him: "As long as you can get the land from the Mughal emperor to build a port, you will be the first governor of the East Indies, and you will be in charge of the affairs of the Indian Ocean west of the Strait of Malacca." ”

Zhu Yujian was surprised and delighted, he really wanted to do something, but he was worried that this was the emperor's temptation of him, so he hesitated for a moment and then excused himself: "Your Majesty, I'm afraid this is not appropriate, right?" The clan serves as the minister of the feudal territory, and I am afraid that the ministers of the court and the central government will gossip. ”

Zhu Youzhen glanced at him and said, "Don't worry too much, you, the governor of the East Indies, have to build their own jurisdiction, if you have this ability, the courtiers can just let them say whatever they say."

In addition, I want you to serve as the Governor of the East Indies, and I have selfish intentions. Most of the current maritime forces of the imperial court in the entire south were former pirate forces. Although they have now surrendered to the imperial court, the emperor is far away, and God knows what they can do overseas in the name of the Ming Dynasty.

Not to mention the ocean west of Malacca, the imperial court is even more out of reach. So it's time to reorganize these pirate gangs and turn them into the armed forces of the imperial court.

If I had found someone else, I might not be able to suppress these lawless pirates. Tang Wang, your status is precious, you are in charge of the Indian Ocean, and with the support of the imperial court, I think those pirates will be more peaceful. The plot against the Indian continent itself is an extremely manpower-intensive and material-intensive plan, and it is just taking advantage of this incident to integrate them into the Ming Navy one by one, which can be regarded as subtracting a worry for our country.

So, you don't have to worry about anything, just answer me if you want to be the Governor of the East Indies. ”

Zhu Yujian was already willing in his heart, but he still hesitated for nearly a minute on the surface before bowing to Chongzhen and saying, "The minister must do his best to build this port for His Majesty..."

The weather on the Mongolian plateau in November is already extremely cold, but for Wu Youxing and other members of the epidemic prevention team, it is obviously not only the weather that is cold this winter. Since the emperor gave a speech to the teachers and students of Beijing Medical College in the spring on the fight against the plague, this academy, which gathered the most outstanding doctors of the contemporary Ming Dynasty, successively sent 179 medical students and teachers to Ningxia, Hohhot, Fengzhen and other places, and set up three hospitals in Yinchuan, Hohhot and Fengzhen.

But as the emperor said, the best way to deal with the plague was to isolate the source of infection, not to help the sick. Although Wu Youxing and others risked their lives to enter the village where the pimple disease occurred, they did not find a cure for the disease.

They could only gather information from survivors, who first developed chills, high fever, headache, fatigue and other symptoms, then clumps in the groin, armpits, neck and jaw, then began to vomit blood, then died within three to five days, and very few survived.

When half of the people in the village began to get pimple, a new illness appeared, and the people who had been fine suddenly began to have a fever, and then chest pain, cough, and sputum, and the sputum quickly turned from a small amount to a large amount of bright red bloody sputum. Anyone who suffers from such a disease will die within three days, and almost no one will survive.

The team led by Wu Youxing, after paying a third of the mortality rate, finally had a basic understanding of the symptoms and contagion of the plague. Although this knowledge cannot be used to treat the plague, it provides a theoretical basis for the prevention and control of the plague, and gives the military and civilians who undertake the epidemic prevention work a little confidence.

Of course, the bubonic plague, which was originally unknown to the people, also caused a lot of panic among the people in the border areas under such large-scale propaganda. For example, when these people learned that the plague was first transmitted through fleas on rats, especially marmots and squirrels, they spontaneously formed village guards to prevent fur traders from entering their villages. Some of them had a fierce temperament and even directly set fire to the furs carried in the caravan. This led to a sharp tension between the common people, merchants, and Mongol tribes inside and outside the Guan.

In some villages where the plague has occurred, some family members of the patients are extremely angry that the anti-epidemic personnel have blasphemed the bodies and homes of the patients, believing that it is a desecration of the dead, and they either prevent the anti-epidemic personnel from burning them, or openly claim that they will retaliate against the anti-epidemic personnel.

Fortunately, the imperial court arranged for lamas to preach everywhere that the burning of the corpses and clothes of those who died unnaturally was a good deed to protect the living, so that there was no fierce conflict between these Mongolian tribes against the epidemic prevention personnel.

However, in September and October, the spread of plague accelerated sharply, obviously this cold weather is more suitable for the spread of diseases, and the development of the Monan grassland by the imperial court in recent years has also made the sparsely populated grassland areas become densely populated, coupled with the flow of caravans, resulting in the acceleration of the flow of people inside and outside the Guan.

In this winter alone, more than 9,000 Chahar and Han Chinese immigrants living in Tumut River died. Even Wu Youxing was infected with pimple disease, and once thought that he was going to say goodbye.

However, as the Northwest Epidemic Prevention Department continued to sum up the experience of epidemic prevention, by November, the spread of plague was finally contained in the area west of Fengzhen.

Wu Youxing and the members of the epidemic prevention team summed up the three no's principles to isolate the spread of the plague. They also began to realize that hygiene products such as high alcohol and soap can kill bacteria, while protective clothing, rubber shoes, rubber gloves, cotton muzzles, and glasses can isolate the invasion of fleas and germs.

In order to better isolate fleas, the members of the epidemic prevention department began to shave their hair, which even led to a craze for military and civilian shaves in the northwest to avoid epidemics. The plague, which originated in the Hetao area, greatly contributed to the epidemic of soap and other hygiene products, and even increased the price of rubber by 30%.

At the same time, the Northwest Epidemic Prevention Department has also formulated a series of systems on public health, epidemic prevention and control of infectious diseases, medical education, medical management, and quarantine of infectious diseases, laying the foundation for the modern medical system of the Ming Dynasty.

Of course, the price paid by the Northwest Epidemic Prevention Department for this is also extremely heavy, including the members of the Beijing Medical College, plus more than 300 doctors recruited from the northern provinces, by the end of the decade Chongzhen has lost nearly a quarter of its personnel. Although many people retreated because of this, more doctors and medical students rushed to the northwest to join the battlefield of fighting against the plague god.