Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen is not a short-sighted person, a short-sighted person is unable to manage such a huge empire, no matter how difficult the empire is currently in a difficult situation, Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen's heart is always in the world!

"With the development of the Age of Discovery, deepening, the whole world will become a whole, our eyes should not only be in front of us, should not only stare at Liaodong, the Central Plains and the south, the Ming is not the whole world! In front of this map, you will feel the vastness of the world! "Chongzhen Emperor Zhu Youzhen talked about the development of the whole world to his assistants from the perspective of economic development, this is not a court meeting, but every word he says today will become an important article in Daming Daily tomorrow!

The Great Discoveries were the opening of new shipping routes, and from the 15th to the 17th centuries, European fleets appeared on the world's oceans, looking for new trade routes and trading partners to develop Europe's nascent capitalism. Europeans discovered many countries and regions that were unknown in Europe at the time. With the opening of new shipping routes, cultural and trade exchanges between the East and the West began to increase significantly, and colonialism and free trade also began to appear. Europe's rapid development during this period laid the foundation for its prosperity over Asia. The opening of new shipping routes also had a long-term impact on the development of the world's continents after hundreds of years, promoting the development of European capitalism, breaking the relative isolation between the continents, and the world increasingly becoming a mutually influencing and closely connected whole.

The opening of new shipping routes. Western historians have traditionally referred to the mid-15th century to the mid-17th century as the "Age of Expansion." Europe during this period, with the opening of the new airline Guò, began to spread to the rest of the world. Massive expansion and colonization. After the 15th century. The commodity economy developed in various countries of Western Europe. There is a growing demand for gold, which is used to mint money. Merchants and the emerging bourgeoisie needed gold to expand their capital, and the upper strata of society needed gold to increase their incomes and have purchased more luxuries. However, at that time there was a lack of quantity in Western Europe. Since the circulation of "The Travels of Marco Polo" in Europe, Europeans have always regarded the East, including China, as a "paradise on earth" full of gold, and many people in Europe have indulged in the "gold hunt". Eager to go to the East to realize the golden dream. This greatly stimulated the spice trade between Italy and Asia.

Before the 15th century, spices, jewelry, and silk from the East were transported by the Persians, Arabs, and Eastern Romans to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, and then transshipped to other parts of Europe. For a time, the Venetians of Italy had a monopoly on the spice trade between Europe and Asia. After the establishment of various countries in Western Europe, the control of the Eastern Mediterranean region hindered trade between the East and the West. As a result, the countries of Western Europe were forced to divert their routes and look for new routes to the East.

After the 15th century, the objective conditions for opening up new shipping routes were also in place. The development of the productive forces, the progress of knowledge, and the development of science and technology in Western Europe have prepared the necessary conditions for opening up new routes for ocean-going navigation. Late 15th century. Portugal and Spain, having completed the centralization, at the same time loved to spread Catholicism. led to the conversion of Moslin and other pagans to Catholicism. This is also one of the main driving forces for the opening of new shipping routes.

After the 15th century, with the success of the new shipping routes, the Portuguese and Spanish colonized and plundered. In 1500, the Portuguese fleet arrived in Brazil and declared Brazil its colony, but the main direction of Portuguese expansion was Africa and Asia. Spain's colonial expansion was dominated by the Americas, with the main purpose of plundering gold and silver. From the end of the 15th century to the mid-16th century, vast areas of Central Africa, Africa, and South America, with the exception of Brazil, were included in the territory of Spain's vast colonial empire. In the sixties and seventies of the 16th century, the Philippines in Asia gradually became a Spanish colony.

In 1501, Amerigo Vespucci made a detailed survey of the northeastern coast of South America, confirming that it was a new continent, but not India, and later named the continent "Americana" after him. In 1510, Portugal occupied Goa, India. In 1517, Martin. Luther published 95 articles in Wittenberg, Germany, and the Reformation began. The Portuguese envoy arrived in Guangzhou. In 1519, the fleet of the Portuguese navigator Magellan set out to circumnavigate the globe in an attempt to discover a new route to the East. In 1520, the Ottoman Turkish Empire reached its peak with the accession of Suliman I. In October 1520, Magellan crossed the strait between the southern part of the Americas and Tierra del Fuego, and entered the Pacific Ocean. Later generations named this strait the "Strait of Magellan"

In 1521, Hernando of Spain. Cortés captures the city of Tenochtitlan, and the Aztec Empire in Mexico in the New World falls.

In April 1521, Magellan arrived in the Philippines and became involved in a conflict between the natives, killing him. His men continued their voyage, discovering the Moluccas, the so-called Spice Islands, and then crossing the Strait of Malacca into the Indian Ocean. In August 1521, the Sino-Portuguese Battle of Tuen Mun broke out. In September 1521, the Portuguese ship was defeated and fled to Malacca. On September 6, 1522, Magellan's fleet returned to the port of San Luca, completing a week around the world. In 1525, Genghis Khan's descendant Babel unified northern India and established the Mughal Empire. In 1529, Portugal and Spain signed the Treaty of Saragos, which drew another line of demarcation 17 degrees east of the Moluccas, completing the division of power in Asia. In 1532, the Portuguese nobleman Martin. Susa recaptures Brazil from the French. In 1533, Francisco of Spain. Pizarro destroyed the Inca Empire, the "Golden Country" of the New World. China has become the world's last remaining ancient civilization. In 1558, Elizabeth I of England ascended the throne and actively encouraged piracy in order to expand Britain's maritime power.

In 1561, the Japanese invaded Taizhou on a large scale, and the Ming Dynasty general Qi Jiguang led his troops to win nine battles and nine victories, and won a great victory in Taizhou! In the next few years, he joined forces with another Ming Dynasty general, Yu Dayou, to lead the Yu family army to carry out the Xinghua, Pinghai, and other Pingwei battles, and won successive battles. In 1565, the long-term plague of the Japanese was finally put to rest.

In 1566, a bourgeois revolution broke out in the Spanish Netherlands. In 1569, Mercator pioneered the use of cylindrical projection to compile a map of the world.

In 1571, the Battle of Lebando broke out, in which the Ottoman navy was defeated by the combined fleets of Spain and Venice, losing control of the Mediterranean. From then on, the Ottoman Empire began to decline. In 1580, Spain annexed Portugal. In 1581, the former northern Netherlands declared its independence and the Netherlands was born. In 1588, England defeated the Spanish "Armada". In 1592, in the "Imjin Great Patriotic War" in Korea, Toyotomi Hideyoshi invaded Korea across the sea, China aided Korea, and the Sino-Korean alliance finally broke the Japanese army. In 1595, the Dutchman Van Van . Rinshot is the author of the earliest nautical chronicles, describing the winds and currents of the Atlantic. At the end of the 16th century, the beginning of the four generations of the Age of Discovery. In 1600, the British East India Company was founded. In 1858, it was officially abolished by the British government.

In 1602, the Dutch East India Company was founded, and the conflict between Britain and the Netherlands intensified. At the beginning of the 17th century, the Dutch spectacle merchant Parrish invented the telescope. In 1604, the French East India Company was founded. In 1624, Dutch colonists invaded Taiwan.

The opening of new shipping routes made the European colonizers bring severe disasters to the people of Asia, Africa and Latin America, and the indigenous and Indian Europeans were almost extinct under the massacre, torture and enslavement of the colonizers, as well as the erosion of European infectious diseases, and the gradual decline of the labor force of the indigenous people, which led to the criminal slave trade, and at the same time, the huge wealth flowing into Europe became the main source of primitive accumulation of European capitalists, and accelerated the development of European capitalism.

The opening of new shipping routes has a heavy historical impact. Huge impact on the world, especially in Europe. (To be continued......)