The island of Ceylon was once known as the most beautiful island in the world, although this statement may not be accurate, but it is enough to explain the beauty of Ceylon.

There is a strait between Ceylon Island and Tianzhu Mainland, also named after Ceylon, there are several small islands located in the strait, when the Tamils on the Tianzhu Continent migrated to Ceylon Island, the first to arrive at these small islands, so although the area of these islands is not large, but the population on the island is not a lot, plus this strait is a communication channel connecting the east and west shores of Tianzhu, and there are many ships coming and going, which makes it seem very prosperous here.

These small islands are small enough to grow food, so the inhabitants of the islands live by fishing, and when they encounter boats, they often take small boats to sell dried fish to the crews of these boats, but this peddling is of a semi-forced nature, and the boats must buy a certain amount of dried fish from these fishermen according to their size, otherwise they will not be able to leave the strait at all.

When Li Zhen and Li Yun's huge fleet entered the Ceylon Strait, they encountered this kind of forced buying and selling, and those natives who drove small boats were not afraid of the huge fleet, hundreds of small boats were densely blocked in front of the fleet, very arrogantly shouting for them to buy fish, Li Zhen and Li Yun They didn't know what these natives were doing at first, and later after Zhao Qiu's translation and explanation, they understood the meaning of these natives.

In fact, it is no wonder that these natives are arrogant, mainly because at the southern end of the Tianzhu continent, the Tamils are the overlords here, although the Tamils are also divided into countless large and small forces. But it is still very united externally, and there is no need for the passing fleet to offend this local snake for the few dollars from selling dried fish. After all, the Tamils on these small islands are inextricably linked to some Tamil forces. Offending them is equivalent to offending the forces behind these people, so most of them chose to give in to each other, anyway, the money is not spent in vain, they can also get dried fish, although the quality of these dried fish is not very good, but they can't eat the dead.

But today these Tamils have finally kicked to the iron plate, Li Zhen and Li Yun are not on behalf of the Tang Dynasty to spread light and benevolence, but to carry out violent aggression, so in the face of these Tamils who stand in the way. Li Zhen immediately ordered to move on, knocking over all these small boats with a huge hull, and even Li Zhen also issued a kill order, following Zhu Chong's example of eliminating pirates, shooting all the Tamils who fell into the water, although Li Yun felt a little cruel about this, but he didn't stop it when he thought about it.

After eliminating this small obstacle, Li Zhen and Li Yun commanded the fleet and captured all the small islands in the strait in batches. And the methods are also very cruel, and for any Tamils who resist, they are all wiped out, as for the remaining Tamils. They were all loaded on ships and sent to the island of Ceylon. So in just a few days, the entire Ceylon Strait has fallen into the hands of Li Zhen and Li Yun.

For this sudden invasion of foreign forces. Both sides of the Ceylon Strait were also quick to react. The island of Ceylon is divided into two, and the south of the island is the Sinhalese sphere of influence. The north of the island and the Straits of Ceylon belonged to the Tamil sphere of influence. The Tamils on the island reacted immediately when they learned that the strait had been taken over by Li Zhen's huge fleet. Send a force of hundreds of medium-sized warships into the strait, trying to drive Li Zhen and them out.

The Tamils on the island of Ceylon have formed a unified Tamil kingdom, occupying half of the island of Ceylon, and among the various forces in South Tianzhu, it can be regarded as a medium force, and it can send a hundred medium warships at a time, which is already the elite of the navy of the whole country. In addition, it is worth mentioning that the so-called medium warship, in the eyes of Li Zhen and them, is already the largest warship they can have for the various forces of Nantianzhu.

However, these long and narrow warships were simply sent to death when facing more than a dozen of Zhu Chong's main warships, and these warships were very different from Zhu Chong's main warships in terms of speed, size, flexibility, and other basic aspects, as well as weapons and equipment, especially each main battleship was also equipped with fifty guns, and the combat method had long since abandoned the broadside battle, and only the artillery could bombard the opponent's warships into the seabed.

It is precisely because there is such a huge gap, so when the warships of the Tamil Kingdom encountered Zhu Chong's warships, the whole battle had nothing new at all, first by the guns of more than a dozen warships, at least half of the warships were directly bombarded into the seabed, and the rest were all damaged hulls, and Zhu Chong, in order to save ammunition, ordered people to adjust the speed of the ship to the maximum at the moment, and then viciously hit it, as a result, under the impact of the hard collision angle, and the high bow squeezing, the remaining warships could not escape their fate, Perhaps in a thousand years, someone will find these shipwrecks in the Strait of Ceylon and slowly study this first war from East to West.

The result of this later known as the "First Ceylon Naval Battle" was already doomed at the beginning, the elite of the Tamil Kingdom's naval army was lost in one day, and the remaining naval army only had some small warships, and it was okay to patrol the port, and it was a dream to want to fight with others, and the construction of pro-warships was not a matter of one or two days, so they temporarily lost the ability to compete for supremacy at sea.

A Tamil force in Nantianzhu had also sent a fleet, but after hearing the outcome of the naval battle, they were frightened and immediately let the fleet sail back. However, these Tamils were very united with the outside world, and they were not willing to be defeated, and some Tamil leaders in Nantianzhu spontaneously gathered together to discuss the matter of fighting against foreign invaders.

Although the Tamils are very united with the outside world, and they are also very hostile to this sudden arrival of outsiders, but after more than a month of quarrels, they still have not been able to come up with a practical plan, one of them proposed to gather the navy of all forces, and fight to the death with each other on the sea, but the result of the last naval battle has made everyone feel terrified, and the Tamil royal family on the island of Ceylon is the strongest naval force among them, and now even the Tamil Kingdom has been defeated, and their union is estimated to be of little effect.

But without a navy, the Tamils had no way to take Li Zhen and them, so in the end, these Tamils could only think of one way, that is, to blockade the entire coast of Nantianzhu, prohibit Li Zhen and their ships from docking, and prohibit the merchants of Nantianzhu from trading with each other. Li Zhen and they can't stay on the sea all the time, and they definitely need supplies, but now that Nan Tianzhu has no one to trade with them, they won't be able to get supplies, and they will naturally leave when the time comes.

However, when Li Zhen learned that the Tamils in Nantianzhu used this method to deal with them, they laughed, what they wanted was the hostility of the Tamils to them, and it didn't matter if they couldn't get supplies from Nantianzhu, there was also a Sinhalese kingdom on the island of Ceylon next to them, and the other party was still the old enemy of the Tamils, and now he was inseparable from the Tamils, and he believed that as long as the Sinhales still had a little brain, they would treat them as guests.

In fact, the day after Zhu Chong wiped out the navy of the Tamil royal family, Wang Xuance took a delegation composed of several eminent monks from the Tang Dynasty and went to the Sinhalese Kingdom by boat with various rare gifts. The current Sinhalese king is named Sinkya, a devout Buddhist, in fact, this is also a feature of the Sinhalese Kingdom, that is, the whole country, regardless of the noble or low, is all Buddhists, and the ability to comprehend the Dharma will also determine whether a prince can inherit the throne, and since Sinkya can defeat other brothers to ascend to the throne, he is naturally very profound about Buddhism.

As a ruler, Xin Keya naturally understands that the enemy of his enemy is his friend, so he naturally welcomes Wang Xuance's arrival, especially in the previous naval battle, which made him see the strength in Li Zhen's hands, which also won his respect, so he welcomed Wang Xuance into the city very ceremoniously.

The Sinhalese kingdom is also known as the lion country, the name of the capital is called the lion city, the most magnificent buildings in the city are not the royal palace, but huge temples, the road is full of large and small Buddha statues, among which the monks wearing monk robes are particularly respected, and even some nobles who ride in the car have to take the initiative to give way when they meet the monks. Even the king, when talking to the monks, had to find a way to lower himself from the monk's head as a sign of respect for the Buddha.

Seeing this situation, Wang Xuance, who came to the Lion Country for the first time, also secretly said that he was surprised that Buddhism was prosperous in the Tang Dynasty, but compared with the Sinhalese people here, it was still much worse. As for the Tang monks who came with him, they burst into tears with excitement, thinking that this is the real Buddha country, and they have made up their minds to stay no matter what.

After Xinkeya invited the envoy into the main hall of the palace, Wang Xuance immediately sent all kinds of gifts he brought, in fact, they were nothing more than some silk porcelain, and there were also some small gadgets, such as swords and swords made of stainless steel, beautifully made glass handicrafts, Buddha statues carved from mutton fat and white jade, etc., all of which were flashy things.

However, these things are very precious gifts for Xinkeya, especially the three-foot-high jade Buddha statue, which makes him regard it as a treasure, and even said on the spot that he will fund the construction of a jade Buddha temple to enshrine this jade Buddha and let the people of the whole country come to worship!

Wang Xuance is a literati and has studied Buddhism himself, but he can't understand Sinkya's fanatical religious beliefs, after all, in his opinion, no matter what religion it is, it is a tool for the superior to rule the people, but in the Sinhalese kingdom, it is the opposite, religion will rule the entire kingdom, and Sinkya, the lord of a country, will not hesitate to spend a lot of national resources to build a redundant temple for the sake of a mere Buddha statue? This made Wang Xuance, who was a disciple of Confucianism, really unimaginable! (To be continued......)