The 424th Geographical Discovery

The third life was more ephemeral than Wei Dongsheng imagined.

In 1465, Wei Dong died at the age of 51 when he was assassinated by Jiaozhi thieves.

Compared with the achievements of the first Emperor Gaozu of Wei Xia and the second vassal king of the Jin Kingdom, the influence of the third Wei Dongsheng on the Wei Xia Dynasty was minimal, and the name can only exist in the local biography of the Jiaozhi Domain. Therefore, the death of Wei Dongsheng III did not bring any turmoil to the Wei Xia Dynasty.

……

After the preparation time on the 18th, the fourth life training began.

……

In 1464, Wei Shansheng died and was succeeded by his eldest son, Wei Liangzhi, who was the sixth emperor of the Wei Xia Dynasty.

From Wei Anhao to Wei Shengying, Wei Yongfeng to Wei Shansheng, and then to Wei Liangzhi, the people gradually accepted the historical regression of the feudal system. Wei Liangzhi extinguished the idea of cutting the feudal domain, and turned to the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States period to treat the five princes with different surnames, the nine relatives in the sea, and the six overseas feudal states. Wei Liangzhi skillfully used diplomatic wisdom to use the topic of "Lixian" or "Liyan" to provoke the Lu State to fight for the throne; When the Lu State was busy with internal strife, Wei Liangzhifu provoked the Four Earls of Henan Province, greatly weakening the prestige of the Lu State, and at the same time, it also prompted the Zhao State, the Jin State, the Wei State, the Zhou State and other vassal states to engage in a 13-year chaotic war around the ownership of the Earl of Weihui and the Earl of Luoyang, which is known as the Thirteen-Year War of Weihui Luoyang.

The Jiaozhi vassal state presented the superiority of the feudal system, while the Thirteen-Year War of Weihui Luoyang presented the disadvantages of the feudal system.

From a real-world perspective, the so-called Weihui Luoyang Thirteen-Year War can be simply described as a big fight between the people of Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Shanxi, and Shaanxi for actual control of northern Henan. Compared with the unified Zhu Ming Dynasty in the real world, the people of the five provinces did not have to suffer from the thirteen-year war of Weihui Luoyang.

Back to the big picture of world history.

The northern vassal states were tired of war, and the people were also suffering from war, and everyone gradually missed the benefits of a unified dynasty. Under the means of Wei conscience, the people admired the emperor's grace, and the northern vassal states also obeyed one after another, and the prestige of the imperial family reached the highest peak since Wei Shengying. If he persevered, Wei Liangzhi might have the opportunity to annex the northern vassal states diplomatically.

Unfortunately, just when the situation was good, the south of the empire suddenly ushered in a new challenge.

With the slow development of natural science and the steady improvement of navigation technology, the Yue and Wei kingdoms, which were small and transparent feudal states in the empire, were slowly revealed. When the Central Plains was constantly fighting over the cutting of the feudal domain and the anti-cutting of the feudal domain, the Yue Kingdom and the Patriotic State took the opportunity to absorb a large number of war refugees with their open minds, and the maritime technology tree was hard to build with the thinking of maritime business. Although it is impossible to see any results in a year or ten years, when the time scale is measured in a hundred years, the imperial family and the northern vassal states have suddenly crossed the country and established the first and second navies in the world.

The northern vassal states had just shown a tendency to ease, and the Yue and Wei kingdoms in the south had risen again, and Wei Liangzhi wanted to cry without tears for a while.

The plan to cut the feudal domain is completely hopeless.

Speaking of the ocean, it was a surprise brought to Wei Dongsheng by the Wei Xia Dynasty.

Considering that the inferior Tomorrow Ring was only an educational product, and considering the constraints of prohibiting the dissemination of social sciences and natural sciences, Wei Dongsheng never took the trouble to start the Age of Geographical Discovery. Unexpectedly, the Age of Discovery, which Wei Dongsheng did not practice, was quietly activated by the two feudal states of Yue and Weiguo.

Looking back at the history of the Wei and Xia dynasties, as the center of gravity of the imperial family was to cut the north, the Yue and Wei kingdoms gradually became maritime trade brokers from the South Seas to the Central Plains. With such a gradual development over time, the Yue State not only monopolized the East Asian maritime trade one by one by virtue of its geographical advantages and human resource advantages, but also gathered the navies of the Shunta, Foqi, Luzon, Borneo, and Haixing vassal states to advance into the Indian Ocean as a leader. After numerous naval battles with Juan merchants (Middle East, West Asia, etc.), the Yue Kingdom took the lead in establishing maritime supremacy in the South and Indian Oceans.

There was both struggle and cooperation between the vassal states, and since the Yue State was not able to defeat all its competitors in South Asia, West Asia, the Middle East, and East Africa single-handedly, it simply shared the benefits of maritime trade with the other vassal states in the form of alliances. Among them, due to the highest degree of threat to the country, the Vietnamese state often deliberately suppressed the second child of the maritime hegemony system, and united with the five feudal states of the South Seas to limit the share of Weiguo's trade.

In order to break through the maritime blockade of Vietnam, Wei Guo had to try to break out of the traditional maritime trade zone and explore new trade zones along the East African coastline.

Unlike the real-world documentaries of the Great Voyage, the Patriotic Ocean Exploration has no scrappy marches or uplifting celebrations of legends. Commercial interests push the sea vessels to go south, stop and stop for a while, establish trade points with a smile when they encounter valuable trade goods, and declare bankruptcy in despair when they encounter a barren plateau. Failing again and again, and succeeding by chance, the Patriotic Maritime Merchants unwittingly bypassed Africa and unwittingly set foot in South America.

In 1470, five years after the death of the third Wei Dongsheng, a patriotic ship was accidentally swept away by a storm in Brazil, South America. However, until 1483, when the fourth Wei Dongsheng arrived, the Wei Kingdom did not understand how vast South America was, and they always misunderstood that Brazil was a desolate island. The latest printed nautical chart, Brazil in South America, is the outline of a large island that has not yet been explored, and has been named the Great Wilderness by the Patriotic Nation. Although Brazil in South America was extremely barren at this time, there were still some primitive tribes along the coast who did not regard gold as money, and the gold accumulated by these primitive tribes for countless years eventually ended up in the pockets of the maritime merchants of the country.

Even more surprising than Brazil in South America was their encounter with Portugal.

Portugal, one of the protagonists of the Age of Discovery in real-world geography, is also methodically moving towards its destiny in this space-time. By about 1470, Portugal had established a number of outposts in West Africa and was trying to explore the seas from Nigeria to Congo.

Patriotic armed merchant ships and Portuguese expedition ships met head-on in Southwest Africa.

Despite the inability to communicate with each other smoothly, and despite the serious religious and cultural conflicts between each other, the terrifying commercial profits led the two companies to quickly reach a cooperation agreement. Pepper, cane sugar, porcelain, silk and other goods were continuously imported into Europe through Portuguese intermediaries; Gold, silver and other currencies poured into the pockets of the patriotic maritime merchants.

In just ten years, the Wei Maritime Merchants became the wealthiest group of people in the Wei Xia Empire.

Of course, Vietnam is not willing to defend the country and enjoy the profits of European maritime trade exclusively.

However, after the establishment of the Jiaozhi Domain, the Wei Xia Dynasty had formed a vast empire consisting of the imperial family and the twenty feudal states. Just like in the Spring and Autumn period after the decline of the Ji Zhou Dynasty, the diplomacy of the princes gradually became the new normal for the vassal states to get along with the vassal states, and many princes could not bear the serious consequences of recklessly tearing up the alliance. Taking the maritime competition between Vietnam and Wei Guo as an example, if Yue Guo has no credibility and brutally tears up the previous alliance, the five Nanyang feudal states such as Shunta, Foqi, and Haixing will all doubt the sincerity of Yue and then join forces with Wei Guo to fight against Yue Guo, indirectly or directly raising the diplomatic cost of maintaining Vietnam's maritime hegemony.

Since it could not forcefully destroy the trade routes of the country, the Vietnamese had to try to find a new Portugal and a new Europe.

In 1474, the heavy bounty of the Yue Kingdom came to fruition, and the new continents such as Australia, New Zealand, South America, and North America were quickly unveiled in a short period of time. However, the new routes were heavily rewarded for commercial profits, and the value of high-quality colonies like Australia and New Zealand was so small that it could be ignored. The Vietnamese leadership resolutely abandoned the southern islands such as Australia and New Zealand, and used South and Central America, which were even more distant, as a golden route, because the indigenous states of Central America and the indigenous states of South America could quickly bring endless gold.

Wei Guo successfully advanced into Africa and Brazil in South America, monopolizing the profits of European maritime trade; The Yue State established the Pacific route and monopolized the profits of the maritime trade in the Americas represented by the Aztec Empire and the Inca Empire.

In 1483, when Wei Dongsheng arrived, neither the Yue nor the Wei Kingdom realized that the Great Wilderness (Brazil in South America) and Penglai (America) were one continent. The latest published nautical charts show that the Great Wilderness is in the west of Kunlun (Africa) and Penglai is between the vast sea in the east, separated by 108,000 miles.

Neither Yue nor Wei Guo understood the significance of Penglai New World at this time, but the Penglai New Route and the New European Route unintentionally brought a large amount of gold, silver and other precious metals to the two countries. Since the opening of the new shipping routes, the purchasing power of gold and silver has plummeted, which has meant that prices in other feudal kingdoms have skyrocketed. With comparison, there is harm, and the Yue and Wei countries used the massive gold and silver of the new routes to build more new warships and armed merchant ships, and the naval strength quickly and greatly surpassed the traditional powerful feudal states such as Wu, Lu, Zhao, Yan, and Lelang.

Wei Dongsheng never imagined that without his deliberate guidance, Yue and Wei would also successfully participate in the great geographical discoveries on behalf of the Wei Xia Dynasty.

Moreover, based on those second-hand materials that are both true and false, the ship-building process of the Patriotic State is slightly stronger than that of Portugal, and the combat effectiveness is also slightly stronger than that of Portugal. The patriotic maritime merchants commented on the Portuguese expedition ships and maritime merchants: they were stronger than the Western (Indian Ocean) maritime merchants, and they should not expect to attack more with less; But not as good as us, if the number of ships is equal, there is no doubt about victory.

This evaluation is not the arrogance and self-restraint of the patriotic maritime merchants.

The Patriotic and Portuguese clashed countless times over the distribution of trade profits, but they still succeeded in containing Portugal in West Africa. It has been more than ten years since the two met, and Portugal has never been able to break out of the southwest corner of Africa, and the colonies and trade points that Portugal has tried to establish in southern and eastern Africa have been successfully purged by the Patriotic Nation again and again. Perhaps, trade containment does not perfectly reflect the combat effectiveness of the navy, but it can prove that the comprehensive strength of the country is stronger than that of Portugal.

As the saying goes, peers are enemies. Both the Patriotic and Portuguese countries were founded on maritime trade, and whoever had more control over the sea was entitled to more profits, and it was impossible to allow the other to break into their hinterland with mutual understanding. Although the Patriotic Nation did not defeat Portugal in a strong way, it cut off Portugal's eastward expansion in the world, and it may be difficult for it to extend its tentacles to India and China. The glory of the Portuguese colonial empire in the real world may also be cut off by the Patriotic Empire.