Chapter 637: The Finale
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There is no exact number of Han Chinese in Nanyang, but conservative estimates suggest that there are millions of them. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info especially in major cities, half of the business district is supported by Han Chinese. It's too hard to expect natives who don't even know how to count to do business.
The Han Chinese controlled a great deal of wealth and generally lived a prosperous life, but economic success did not bring real security. Because of their disorganization, perceived as outcasts, and lacking domestic support, they often face extortion and even killings from indigenous people.
When the Western colonists arrived, they quickly figured out the situation in Nanyang, and they began to provoke the natives to attack the Han Chinese merchants, loot their property, and weaken the influence of the Celestial Empire.
It can be said that their actions were very successful, and more and more Han people chose to remain silent or even surrender. Again and again, he gave away his wealth in humiliation, and endured more and more severe oppression.
Every once in a while, there was a massacre, and in the eyes of the colonizers, the Han people were like leeks, harvested regularly!
Just when everyone was resigned to their fate, the change finally arrived!
The rumbling cannons of Malacca announced the arrival of the Celestial Empire, that everyone was no longer an outcast, and that the powerful Celestial Empire Navy was a strong pillar for every Han Chinese.
Less than half a year after the end of the battle, the fleet visited almost all the coastal cities, and everywhere it went, it was warmly welcomed. The local expatriates boarded the tall sea ships with generous condolences.
The soldiers from the motherland, tall and majestic, and the white military uniforms that do not speak like words, are breathtaking and astonishing. Only such soldiers can conquer the vast sea and defeat the ferocious Westerners.
The expatriates were like the Chinese New Year, and under the instruction of the fleet generals, Chinese trading companies and merchants' associations were formed in various places. Fellow Townspeople Association and other organizations.
Don't underestimate these organizations, although in the name of business, the internal structure is like a government. In fact, it is a chamber of commerce formed with reference to the colonial trading companies of the West.
Not only did they monopolize trade, but they also had the power to bank, arm, and even mint money, acting like a government.
Obviously, the countries of Nanyang are quite dissatisfied with this, thinking that this is the Celestial Empire robbing their land, and the most violent of them is Annan. even sent tens of thousands of troops to attack the Han Chamber of Commerce, causing tragic casualties.
At this time, Annam was in the post-LĂŞ period, the north and the south were divided, and the two major families of the Nguyen and Truong families were controlled, and the king was reduced to a puppet.
The Zheng clan occupied the densely populated and relatively wealthy north, while the Nguyen clan, although relatively weak, were close to Western colonists. Being able to get advanced weapons from the Netherlands and other countries, coupled with the prosperity of commerce, the two sides were evenly matched, and neither could swallow the other.
For these two rivals. There seems to be nothing to work with, but they have found a combination of interests. The long-term fighting exhausted the families of both sides, and the wealthy Han merchants became fat in their eyes. In particular, Annan prides itself on being a strong country and does not care about the Celestial Empire. After thousands of years of fighting, it didn't destroy us!
In particular, Annan also wanted to show their bravery by attacking the Han Chinese. And then become the hegemon of the countries of the South Seas.
For various purposes, Annam's attack on the Han Chinese began, and within a week, more than a hundred merchants were killed and their wealth was plundered as much as 300,000 taels.
After the success, the Annamite actively mobilized troops to guard against the punishment of the Celestial Empire. Out of habit, Annan concentrated his forces on the northern front. There are dense mountains and mountains, and there are countless valleys and rivers. According to their experience, as long as they hold on for half a year, the Celestial Empire will lack supplies and choose to retreat, and at that time, they can also take advantage of the fire to rob and make another profit.
It is worthy of being the country that is at war with the Celestial Empire the most, Annan has rich experience, and the two families cooperate tacitly. It's just that they ignore one point, the current Celestial Empire is completely different from the past.
The First World War of Malacca made the navy famous all over the world, and the clipper sent the news of Annan's killing of Han Chinese to the capital, and Zhang Ke immediately ordered the navy to severely punish Annan.
After Ming Ruxin received the order, he immediately dispatched troops, and he concentrated fifteen battleships to attack from the south to the north, and in each port, as long as it was Annan's ships, he would not let go.
The first to suffer was the Nguyen clan, who gathered more than 300 warships to fight against the Celestial Empire. It sounds like a scary number, but when the navy appeared, all their soldiers were urinating.
One warship on the other side is worth dozens of Annan, and it is completely a war between strong men and children, without the slightest suspense. It was a completely one-sided sweep, half of the warships were sent to the bottom of the sea, and the remaining half chose to surrender.
Who had the leisure to take care of these monkeys, gather them all to the shore, and then set fire to the boats. Cleaned up the Nguyen Clan's navy, and the Trung Clan's was no exception.
For two months, apart from sporadic fishing boats, Annan did not even have a decent warship.
The sea was completely blocked, and no business was allowed to go out to sea to fish.
Annan is not comparable to the Celestial Empire, it can be self-sufficient, without trade, without the catch of the sea, it will cost half a life. A large number of fishermen lost their source of livelihood, and a series of uprisings broke out in Annam, and the war quickly spread throughout the country. Like a madman, I kept killing each other, and the corpses were piled up, and the blood stained the earth red.
From beginning to end, the Celestial Empire did not directly land on Annam, and it is unbelievable that the naval blockade alone had such an effect.
The scuffle lasted for more than a year, and Annan had to send a mission to the Celestial Empire to plead guilty. They were accompanied by more than a dozen small countries, who brought rare birds and beasts and all kinds of local products to worship the emperor of the Celestial Empire, praying that the emperor would continue to be the leader of the wrongs and treat them kindly......
"The countries of the South Seas have fertile land and abundant products. In the past, successive dynasties were unable to occupy the South Seas because they were afraid of the sea and only relied on the army. The long journey, coupled with the miasma of smoke, was difficult, and he could not bear the losses, so he had to retreat. This time, we started from the sea, that is, we completely swallowed Nanyang into our stomachs, and we will never let it go! And to tell you the good news, we have developed a brand new steamship, which is accelerating production, and in the future, our connection with Nanyang will depend on these ships! â
Zhang Ke excitedly announced that another important factor restricting the expansion of the empire was communication, which was too far away. If you can't issue a decree, you can't control it.
On land there are war horses, and on the sea are ships, but sailboats are limited by the direction of the wind, and sometimes they cannot deliver messages. Just imagine, an order to transfer troops was issued, but it was only received half a year later, wouldn't the daylilies be cold.
With a steam vessel, you don't need to care about the wind direction, and the safety factor is greatly improved. In a month at most, the news of Nanyang can reach the capital for the emperor and the cabinet to make decisions.
The technical problem was solved, Zhang Ke couldn't wait to stake the land, in the Age of Discovery, the islands in the ocean, whoever discovers it first is whoever, the first to strike. As for digestion, you can put it in the back and build the fence first.
Defeat Annan. Next up is India.
Although the third brother in later generations is synonymous with stupidity and cuteness in everyone's eyes. In fact, the third brother is still very brilliant in history. It is located in the South Asian subcontinent, with vast arable land and developed agriculture. The population is almost the same as that of the Celestial Empire, and the total economic volume is not much different. The only problem is that India has been divided for a long time, with princes everywhere and working in silos. The form does not form a resultant force.
Of course, this just gave Zhang Ke the opportunity to start, as long as India was taken, the crisis of food shortage in the Celestial Empire could be solved. And the conquest of India is equivalent to every Chinese having an overseas slave!
Thrilling to think about, Zhang Ke gave orders to the Cabinet and the Privy Council to devise a plan for the conquest of India.
Who knew that this plan was not easy, such a huge territory, almost the same population as the Celestial Empire, intricate relationships, incalculable tribes, just to figure out the state of India, it took three years.
In the tenth year of Zhang Ke's accession to the throne, an expeditionary force of 150,000 led by the crown prince Zhang Yan, together with 1,500 warships, set out from five ports in the southeast, passed through the South Ocean and other places, rested briefly in Malacca, and then entered the Indian Ocean.
In the intervening decade, the Navy has annexed the island of Sri Lanka and used it as a springboard for attacks on the Indian subcontinent. An army of 150,000 arrived, together with the local garrison, and landed in India in batches, beginning the conquest of India.
Ten years after the war, Aurangzeb, the last emperor of the Mughal dynasty in India, died in the fire of the royal palace in Delhi, and the flames of the sky engulfed the bustling palace and everything in the subcontinent.
Within a decade, the East India Company was formed, monopolizing eighty percent of trade, building a strong administrative team and colonial army. The largest shareholder of the East India Company was Prince Zhang Yan.
When he sent out the army, he was not yet in his prime, and after ten years of iron-blooded conquest, he was mature and calm, and he was ruthless and cunning towards the enemy. The huge Indian subcontinent is the stage for him to dominate and use all kinds of despicable means to divide the princes of India, let them kill each other, and force one princely state after another to submit under his feet.
The cost of conquering India was enormous, with 70,000 soldiers killed before and after, and three times as many as because of the lack of adaptation!
But there is a harvest for paying, and India alone contributes 1,000 taels of annual income to the Celestial Empire, plus 5 million stone of grain, and countless cotton. And 20 million taels of textiles were consumed, ensuring the rapid prosperity of the empire's industry.
When the crown prince led the victorious army back to the Celestial Empire, he chose to land in Guangzhou, and then took the train that had just opened, and finally arrived at the capital after a journey of six days and nights.
The Celestial Empire has really taken off, and there are factories everywhere, and there are scenes of prosperity everywhere. With the construction of railways and the rapid rise of cities, a large number of laborers were liberated from the fields and turned into industrial workers.
After ten years of not seeing him, everything made Zhang Yan ecstatic, and at the same time he still had lingering worries.
In fact, according to the promise of his father, he will be the emperor for 20 years, and he will be given to him, and now it is this time, his father is in the prime of spring and autumn, and I heard that he gave birth to a prince three years ago, whether he can give up the throne, Zhang Yan is not sure at all.
If his father doesn't want to abdicate the throne, he, the crown prince with brilliant military achievements, is afraid that the next days will not be easy. But Zhang Yan is not afraid, ten years of experience has given him enough confidence and courage to face his father.
When Zhang Yan returned to the capital, a female official took him directly to Xiyuan, and Zhang Ke was waiting for him with hundreds of royal families.
The moment he stepped into the palace door, Zhang Ke gently pulled the switch in his hand, and suddenly the surrounding of the palace shone with a dazzling bright light, Zhang Yan could hardly open his eyes, and then he heard Zhang Ke's voice and laughed: "Come and welcome our big hero back!" â
Zhang Ke personally took his son's arm and sat on the dragon chair together. Zhang Yan had already adapted to the strong light, and looked around, only to see that every foot on the wall, there was a glass ball of all sizes, emitting yellow light from it, like a small sun, illuminating the hall at all.
"Father, what is this?"
"Hehehe, I was about to test you, what do you say this is?"
Zhang Yan's brows twisted into Sichuan characters, and after thinking for a while, he suddenly exclaimed: "Father, could it be that this is electricity?" I remember last year, someone published a paper on magnetism and electricity, did it succeed this year? â
"Well, that's right, the people in the Academy are better than I thought!"
Zhang Ke smiled proudly: "Yan'er, if you master electricity, you will have the key to change the world." Things that were unimaginable in the past will now become a reality, flying into the sky, going to the sea, almost anything. Only when China has mastered the power can it prosper forever and never have to worry about being surpassed by Xiyi. â
Zhang Ke patted his son's shoulder and said with a smile: "There is only so much that Dad can do for you, the next is your era, do it well!" â
âŚâŚ
The old emperor retired simply, some of the old brothers who fought together in the world withered, and some disappeared from the political arena with Zhang Ke's abdication.
The new monarch Zhang Yan inherited his father's national policy and continued to expand his strength and push it to industrial development. In the fifth year of his reign, the Celestial Empire sent twenty ships to establish a colony in North America, while another fleet seized Somalia and began colonizing Africa and the Americas.
The following year, the West once again formed a coalition army, and the two sides fought to the death in the Middle East, and after ten years of fierce fighting, the Middle East completely fell into the hands of China, the Western coalition forces were completely defeated, and the New Crusader Army collapsed and disappeared.
At this point, the expansion of the empire also reached a limit, Zhang Yan began to pursue a policy of rest with the people, during which the automobile industry was vigorously developed, the first airplane test flight, the first submarine was launched, and the first highway appeared......
Countless firsts have completely pushed the empire to an incomparable prosperity, and the Celestial Empire is well deserved! (To be continued......)