Time flies, and another decade has passed in a blink of an eye, and Zhou Chong has once again been a supervisor of the country for a full decade, but he is now gradually handing over government affairs to his son Zhu Zaiyuan, after all, he is already in his twenties, and he has been married a few years ago, and even gave birth to a grandson, so Zhou Chong is now beginning to shift the focus of his life to the family, and most of the government affairs are handed over to the cabinet and Zhu Zaiyuan.

Compared with Zhou Chong's children and grandchildren, Zhengde, who is the emperor of the Ming Dynasty, has been staying alone in the Western Regions, no matter how many letters Zhou Chong wrote to him, Zhengde refused to come back, and later Zhengde's wife Empress Xia was also unwilling to stay in the capital, so she took someone to the Western Regions, and now has been accompanying Zhengde by her side, perhaps it was Empress Xia's move that moved Zhengde, and I heard that the relationship between the husband and wife is very good.

Of course, Zhengde did not waste time in the Western Regions in the past ten years, after integrating the Mongolian cavalry, he went all the way to the west, and killed Yili to kill the Li into the Western Regions, which made the Central Plains Dynasty enter Central Asia again since the Tang Dynasty.

Central Asia was originally the territory of the Timurid Khanate, but in the second year of Zhengde, the Timurid Khanate because of civil war and other problems, so that the national strength declined, and finally was destroyed by the Uzbeks, Uzbeks are also nomadic people, the internal are composed of tribes, on the surface they are called the Uzbek Khanate, but in fact, the internal is still divided into large and small forces, and they fight with each other.

The scattered Uzbeks were no match for the Ming army, so when Zhengde led the army into Central Asia, the Uzbeks were defeated one after another, and Samararm, the capital of the original Timurid Khanate, was also captured by the Ming. It became the most important military town of the Ming Dynasty in Central Asia.

But Central Asia is too vast. Although the army led by Zhengde had no opponent in Central Asia. However, as the battle line was lengthened, the domestic supply of the army was also very difficult, so in this case, Zhengde was unable to completely occupy the territory of the original Timurid Khanate, and finally occupied only one-third of the huge territory of the Timurid Khanate, and the remaining two-thirds were still ruled by the Uzbeks.

It's just that although the war stopped, the Ming Dynasty's economic expansion to the outside world was more rapid, especially for the Uzbeks. They were already frightened by the Ming army, and finally had to sign a trade treaty with the Ming, allowing the Ming caravans to pass through their territory to the Asia Minor Peninsula, that is, the territory of the Ottoman Empire, which also meant that the land Silk Road in the Han and Tang dynasties was opened again.

At the same time as the Ming Dynasty expanded to the west, Zhou Zhong did not ignore the expansion of the southeast direction, especially Vietnam and other countries in the southeast peninsula. It's a pity that a hundred years ago, the Vietnamese Le Le launched the Nanshan Uprising and made Vietnam independent from the Ming Dynasty again. Moreover, he established a vassal relationship with Da Ming, but this relationship was not stable, and Da Ming often supported several other countries in the southeast peninsula to attack Vietnam.

In the past, the national strength of the Ming Dynasty was limited, so it could not directly send troops to the Southeast Peninsula, but later with the enhancement of the national strength of the Ming Dynasty, the various countries on the Southeast Peninsula also began to be tough, especially the Vietnam that had resisted the Ming Dynasty, and it was directly hit by the Ming Dynasty, which was not only to retaliate against the resistance of the Vietnamese back then, but also because of economic interests.

Vietnam's territory is a long and narrow strip, and the eastern coast of the southeast peninsula is almost completely occupied, originally the south of Vietnam is the territory of Champa, but a few decades ago, Champa has been captured by Vietnam, now Champa is still a country in name, but in fact has become a subsidiary of Vietnam, and Champa is also a subject of the Ming Dynasty, when it had asked the Ming for help, but unfortunately the Ming Dynasty was not strong enough at that time, although Vietnam was asked to withdraw from the Champong, but in the end it was rejected by Vietnam.

It was also in this situation that the Ming Dynasty launched an attack on the Lê Dynasty of Vietnam from both sides of the land and water under the banner of helping Champa independence, and it took only one month to defeat most of the Vietnamese army and occupy various important ports along the coast, which will play a greater role in the hands of the Ming Dynasty and make the Ming Dynasty more closely connected with various parts of the South Seas.

And in the last year of the decade, the Suez Canal built by the Ming Dynasty and the Ottoman side was finally successfully navigable, and the fleets of Asia and Europe can travel through this canal, which not only increases the civilization exchanges between the two continents, but also greatly promotes the economic exchanges between the two places, among which the greatest benefit is the Ming Dynasty, which occupies the South Sea and the Indian Ocean The Ming Dynasty can send its fleet directly to the Mediterranean Sea through this canal, and trade with merchants in Venice and other places, This made Daming's maritime trade volume rise directly to a higher level.

Of course, the Ottoman Empire as the direct controller of the Suez Canal, they can earn a huge amount of taxes from the canal every year, which has also become a major source of revenue for the Ottoman Empire, but the number of taxes they collect on the passing ships of the canal is not arbitrary, but must be agreed by the Ming Dynasty, first, the Ming Dynasty is one of the contractors of the canal, and secondly, the Ming Dynasty merchant ships are also the largest users of the canal, and finally the Ming Dynasty also maintains a strong navy in the Gulf of Aden, controlling the number of fleets entering and leaving the Red Sea. Therefore, the Ming Dynasty also has a considerable say in the Suez Canal.

Speaking of the Ming and the Ottoman Empire since the signing of the Suez Canal Treaty, the relationship between the two sides has always been very good, even after Selim's death, Suleiman became the new sultan, the young sultan is more active with the Ming Dynasty, the two sides have a lot of cooperation in industry and commerce, including not only non-governmental cooperation, and even the Ming also agreed to export some weapons to the Ottoman Empire, such as Ming artillery, muskets and swords, etc., which are urgently needed by the expanding Ottoman Empire.

However, the beast is a beast after all, they may be able to live in peace in a short time, but after a long time, sooner or later some conflicts will break out, the same is true of the Ming and the Ottoman Empire, with the expansion of the Ming in Central Asia, the Ottoman Empire also began to expand eastward, and they have defeated the emerging Safavid Empire several times, and advanced their territory to the Azerbaijan region, as long as they wait until they completely destroy the Safavid Empire, they can enter the territory of the original Timurid Khanate, At that time, it may be difficult for them and Daming to live in peace.

In addition, the huge profits of the Suez Canal every year made the Ottoman Empire pay more attention to it, and they have been fighting abroad for many years, and they need huge financial support, and now the Suez Canal is one of their economic backings, and even they want to increase the amount of taxes, but this will undoubtedly damage the interests of the Ming Dynasty, so the two sides have disagreed on this issue, but the time is still short, and it has not broken out for the time being.

In addition to the above, the most important breakthrough of the Ming Dynasty is the interests in the Pacific Ocean, ten years ago the Ming Dynasty organized the first exploration fleet to go to the Americas, due to sufficient preparations in advance, so the exploration was very smooth, the fleet soon arrived in the Americas, and along the coastline of North America to the south, and finally came to Central America, and also met the Spaniards.

The Spaniards were also very surprised when they saw the Ming fleet, although many people in Europe believed that the earth was round, but this speculation was not confirmed, so they always thought that the Ming was in their east, but they did not expect the Ming to suddenly appear from their west, which made the Spaniards unable to believe it for a while.

The Spaniards have long regarded the Americas as their private territory, and any invasion by other forces will be regarded as enemies by them, so after the Spaniards reacted, they quickly attacked the exploration fleet of the Ming Dynasty, but their sea forces were concentrated on the east side of the Americas, and the Ming fleet from the west was at most blockaded the coast and did not let the Ming fleet dock for supplies, but the coastline of the Americas was very long, and this blockade did not have much effect on the Ming fleet. Except for the loss of some men at the beginning, the others did not suffer much casualties.

However, the arrival of the Ming fleet also woke up the Spaniards from the dream of dominating the Americas, and they immediately organized people to explore the route to the west coast of the Americas, and finally they finally found the Strait of Magellan, although this strait was very dangerous, but let the Spaniards mobilize several fleets to the west coast to prevent the Ming fleet from invading again.

The Spaniards are too greedy, they know that the two Americas are vast, but they still want to prevent the invasion of other forces, in the original history, they did rely on their strong national strength to keep the rest of Europe out of the Americas, but later with their weakening, European countries have entered the Americas, and soon divided the Spanish power, except for those in the Americas who are mixed with the locals, Spain has left almost nothing in the Americas.

Zhou Zhong knew the importance of the Americas, and also coveted the vast land and rich resources there, so he was also bound to get the Americas, when the exploration fleet returned, and learned of the conflict with the Spaniards, which made him very annoyed, and stepped up to send several exploration fleets, after thoroughly figuring out the route, at this time the Ming Navy has also been reorganized, the newly formed Pacific Fleet set out for the first time, the goal is to defeat all the Spanish forces on the west coast, and establish a port there belonging to the Ming Dynasty.

It was in this situation that the war between the Ming and the Spaniards finally broke out, and when the Ming fleet and the Spanish fleet met on the west coast of the Americas, the first conflict broke out between the two fleets, which also opened the curtain of the war between the Ming and Spain that lasted for hundreds of years. (To be continued......)