Feng Yunshan waved his hand and motioned for everyone to be flat: "All Aiqing is flat!" This great victory was only due to the fact that the other side was too arrogant, defenseless against our army, and lacked supplies and European aid, plus the empire's weapons were indeed much better than those of the other side, and because of the Bengali rebels.

The secretaries must not be arrogant, in terms of overall national strength, there is still a big gap between us and the United Kingdom. Do you know that in the future, the comprehensive strength of a country will be mainly reflected in the country's industrialization level and urbanization rate, and in these aspects, the Chinese Empire and Britain are still like a chasm. Today, the urbanization rate of the native population on the other side has exceeded 50%, while our Chinese empire has not even reached 7%, and the level of industrialization is also the same. I will talk about this with Zeng Aiqing. ”

Moltke nodded, and said, "What Your Majesty said is extremely true! Mo said that compared with Britain, which has the highest level of urbanization, our Chinese Empire is also far from the traditional agricultural kingdom of Prussia and Tsarist Russia. But Your Majesty, we don't have to be presumptuous! Now the Chinese Empire, under the leadership of His Majesty, has risen suddenly. Industrialization almost started from scratch, and now there are factories in almost every county, and the military industry represented by the four major machine building bureaus and the four major shipbuilding bureaus has flourished, and there are also super arms companies such as the Imperial Krupp Iron and Steel Company, as well as various light and heavy industrial enterprises such as shipyards, steel mills, textile factories, and fertilizer factories controlled by the imperial court and private capital, have begun to develop. Regardless of the average penetration rate, in absolute numbers and the abundance of capital, the various industries of our Chinese Empire have surpassed those of European countries such as Tsarist Russia and the Kingdom of Prussia, and may be second only to Britain and France. ”

When Feng Yunshan heard this, he nodded, and said with a smile: "Mao Aiqing also has such a study of industry and economy, doesn't he want to be a general, but wants to become the minister of works of the imperial cabinet?" Okay, I'm just encouraging you not to be arrogant. Now that India has been basically pacified, do the secretaries have an idea on how to deal with India next? ”

Luo Xuan immediately took up the report and reported: "Your Majesty, on the naval side, the Indian Ocean Fleet should be able to guarantee the interests of the Indian Ocean by guarding the waters around India. It's just that Weichen is worried that Na Yingyi is known as the world's first power, and it has the most powerful navy in the world, and this time our Chinese Empire declares war on it and seizes the other party's most important overseas colony, India, they will definitely not give up. One may threaten our Chinese Empire, and through negotiations, pay some price to make our Chinese Empire withdraw its troops and occupy India again. Moreover, when its national strength is restored, it will report when it has accumulated enough naval strength. Second, it will directly prevent the troops from coming to retaliate.

Therefore, Wechen suggested that the base of the Indian Ocean Fleet be set up in Calcutta, and the base of the South Ocean Fleet should also be moved from Guangzhou to Singapore, so that the two fleets in the Indian Ocean would echo each other in the north and south. ”

Feng Yunshan praised: "What King Xinzhong said is reasonable! The Admiralty then issued an order, and Wei Jun of the Indian Ocean Fleet and Tan Tiyuan of the South Ocean Fleet did the same. However, ports such as Guangzhou and Manila still need to be garrisoned by detachments of the Nanyang Fleet to ensure the security of trade. ”

Moltke thought about it and frowned: "Your Majesty, as for the army, as for India's policy, Wechen believes that it is best not to directly and forcibly occupy it like the British, but to select key places and port cities to occupy selectively. ”

Zuo Zongtang glanced at Mao Qi strangely and said, "Your Majesty, Weichen can only partially agree with Lord Mao's statement. Weichen thinks that our Chinese Empire is different from Yingyi, the native population of Yingyi is only about 30 million, while our Chinese Empire has 400 million people. The British Yi itself is not far away from India, but our Chinese Empire is not far from India, the sea route from the Strait of Malacca to the Bay of Bengal in the Indian Ocean is only 2,000 kilometers, and the land route is even closer, southern Tibet is even almost bordered by it, and the other western Xinjiang and Yunnan are only separated from the west and east of India by the Sikh Kingdom and the Kingdom of Burma, all within hundreds of kilometers, and they are all subject countries of the Chinese Empire, and it is not impossible to directly send troops to control them. Although the army may be a little stretched in the early stage, it is possible to occupy most of the Hindustan regions by dividing some areas to the Sikh Kingdom and the Burma Kingdom, and even the Kingdom of Nepal and the Sultanate of Bengal, as well as numerous Indian princes! ”

Moltke retorted a little: "Lord Zuo, what you said is indeed the advantage of my Chinese Empire. But have you ever thought about it, the Indians themselves have a large population, and most of them believe in Hinduism, which is completely different from our Chinese empire, and if you want to directly occupy their homeland, you will inevitably offend those Indian princes, and they will incite the Indians to revolt. According to preliminary estimates, among the people in India, the people who believe in Hinduism are mainly Hindustan, Dravidian, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, Kannara, etc., about 110 million people, and the people who believe in Hinduism are mainly Bengalis, with about 24 million people, and the Punjab Sikhs who believe in Sikhism also have a population of four or five million, and there are some other sporadic forces, but in general, unless more than half of these Indians are killed, otherwise, such a large population, If you want to rule directly, it will be extremely difficult, and if you don't do it well, you will drag down the already rising Chinese Empire. Rather, it would be better to follow the original British approach and make India an initial colony that would be left to its own devices. ”

After listening to the suggestions of the two, Feng Yunshan also began to get entangled. To be honest, he didn't have much affection for the Indians, but if he directly occupied India and turned the Indian states into the territory of the Chinese Empire, according to Zuo Zongtang or Moltke, he would inevitably suppress the Indians who were constantly resisting, and he would have to kill millions of people directly or indirectly, to say the least, which he was unwilling.

After thinking about it for a while, Feng Yunshan still decided to adopt Mao Qi's suggestion, but it was not limited to Mao Qi, he felt that Mao Qi's idea was too conservative, and Zuo Zongtang's was too impulsive, and he didn't know why Zuo Zongtang was like this this time.

In Feng Yunshan's view, India is different from other places like Korea, Japan, Ryukyu, Vietnam, Burma, Luzon and even Java, etc., these places have a small total population, and there are already Chinese people all over them, even if they are locals, they have always accepted the influence of Chinese culture, and there will not be too strong opposition to the rule of the Chinese, and even like the Japanese people, they still want to be proud to join the Chinese people. In addition, Siberia of Tsarist Russia, North America occupied by Russian-American companies, northern Mexico, the island of Borneo, and even Australia are all vast and sparsely populated areas, and there is no fierce resistance from the local natives, and they occupy direct development.

India is completely different, although this place has never been unified, but the population is large, the Chinese Empire wants to occupy it for a long time, there are only two ways, the first way is to kill most of the Indians, and then immigrate over, this is difficult to do, and Feng Yunshan himself is unwilling; The second way is to directly immigrate and slowly assimilate the native Indians, just like the later generations slowly assimilated other ethnic groups, but Feng Yunshan felt that it was difficult to do it, after all, the beliefs of these Indians were completely different from the beliefs of China, they lived in their own world, and if they wanted to assimilate, it would be more difficult for them to be exterminated.

What Feng Yunshan could think of was that he had to take advantage of this opportunity to obtain huge wealth and benefits from India, otherwise, he would simply not be able to deal with the defeated British. Thirdly, it must not be the case that India could be turned into a unified federal state, and even threaten the frontier defense of the Chinese Empire in the future.

In this case, no matter what, India in the future will be divided and conquered. However, today's India is not a complete country, but hundreds of princely forces criss-cross, even if the British have been operating for hundreds of years, it still cannot be eliminated, even in later generations, in fact, there are still princely forces in each, but they are slowly consumed by the British to the point that they have no real power.

Therefore, what Feng Yunshan has to do is to let these princely forces continue to maintain their own affairs, let them constantly friction with each other and hate each other, and for some of these strong forces, they must be gradually suppressed, weakened their forces, and finally reach equilibrium.

Thinking of this, Feng Yunshan said: "For India, I have decided to adopt India to rule India, divide and rule. ”