Emperor Ming Dynasty

Chapter 715 Sun Kewang is in Northern Myanmar
Summer rains are continuous, which is just a common rainy day in the south, but in Myanmar, it is overwhelming rain.

Throughout Myanmar, spring, summer, autumn and winter are not obvious, and the biggest distinction is only between the rainy season and the dry season.

The rainy season is from May to September every year (Gregorian calendar).

The torrential rain poured out, sweeping a large amount of vegetation, and poured down from the mountain forest path, like a mountain torrent along the way, taking away all obstacles.

Many animals and plants, as well as people and houses, were swept away and submerged in the vast torrent.

The path in the past is now muddy and bottomless, and it is simply impassable.

As for the rice fields in those ravines, there are seven or eight out of ten that will yield nothing.

In Mubang City, Sun Kewang looked at the scene in the distance and couldn't help clenching his teeth, feeling extremely excited.

Although he was wearing a bamboo hat, the bean-sized raindrops slapped on his body, which made him feel especially painful.

Withdrew from Yunnan, walked all the way to Luchuan, swept Mengmao calmly, waited for the dry season, took away the population and supplies, and then slowly crossed the Hanlong Pass.

Mupang is the first real Burmese city he won.

Of course, he didn't know about Burma, it was just the Xuanfu Division of Mubang, which used to belong to Yunnan.

"From April to August, there is a five-month rainy season. Who can stand it?"

"This ghostly place, no wonder the court abandoned it and refused to take it back."

Yang Changzhi looked at the insects crawling continuously on the city wall. They seemed to be leeches, but they didn't look like them. Some snakes could be seen sporadically blown to the city wall by the wind, which made people feel terrified.

But compared to the torrential rain outside the city, it seemed inconspicuous.

This is a torrential rain beyond his knowledge, and it has been falling for several months without stopping. If it hadn't been built on a high ground, the entire Mubang City would have been buried long ago.

Such a harsh climate, no matter how fertile the land here, Da Ming would not like it, let alone the barren land.

"This guy Li Dingguo stopped at Hanlong Pass and never took a step forward."

Sun Kewang gritted his teeth, feeling extremely uncomfortable: "Follow us and clean up those toasts, and I will rob him. He buys people's hearts. It's really comfortable."

"Your Highness, Yunnan is in the past, we have to look forward."

Yang Changzhi sighed, glanced at the demoralized soldiers, and said in a deep voice:
"Mubang Xuanfu Division's land is only tens of thousands of mu, and most of the land under its jurisdiction is mountain people, and there is no oil or water to fish at all."

"It's not good for us to sit and eat like this."

"In this damn rainy season, even if it's practice, you can only stay indoors." Sun Kewang cursed secretly.

"My lord, it doesn't matter if your legs and feet are useless, you can still practice if you have enough food and clothing, but if your mind is useless, it will be difficult to get up again."

"did you mean?"

Sun Kewang narrowed his eyes and became serious.

"The river next to us is called the Ava River. Along this river, it goes southward and is the city of Ava, the capital of the Toungoo Kingdom."

Yang Changzhi said: "We came here for this city of Ava, but if we don't accumulate steps, we can reach a thousand miles. We can't go straight down to Ava, right?"

"Weichen asked those mountain people about it, and along a small road, there is a market two or three hundred miles away. The busiest place with a radius of several hundred miles is called Lashio."

"There is not only fertile land, but also caravans, farmers, fishermen, and scarce craftsmen."

Hearing this, Sun Kewang didn't understand, this is where he will use his troops next.

"How much land?" he asked hastily.

"Anyway, it can feed 100,000 people." Yang Changzhi said in a deep voice, "These lands are not mountains but plains, and they are very fertile."

"As long as they are distributed to the soldiers and cultivated again, the land will be harvested twice a year, and food for soldiers can be stored in just one year."

Inspired by Yang Changzhi, Sun Kewang hastily mobilized more than [-] soldiers who followed him, and after promising them fertile land no less than that of Yunnan Prefecture, their morale was greatly boosted.

After some emergency drills, in mid-August, the rainy season finally stopped and the dry season came.

The Western Army was like a mountain tiger, and nearly 5000 people swept the Lashio Basin.

In later generations, this place is the capital of Shan State, and it is a rare basin plain in northern Myanmar, enough to feed 300,000 people.

After occupying this place, Sun Kewang saw so much plain land, and immediately organized a large number of mountain people to reclaim and farm.

In addition to farming, he also recruited mountain people as soldiers, and the total number of troops exceeded [-].

He also brought brick-burning technology to Lashio, and established the first brick city in northern Myanmar.

Lashio is located in an important position in the basin, and it was not built as a city, but as a fortress.

Tens of thousands of mountain people were enslaved and worked hard for several months to build a mountain castle.

As for the land, there are nearly [-] mu of newly reclaimed and old soil, supplemented by the cultivation technology of the Central Plains, and the harvest has almost doubled.

It turns out that the mountain people in northern Myanmar are almost all slash-and-burn farming. They sow a handful of seeds and do whatever they want. The harvest per mu of land is often only a few tens of catties, or at most a hundred catties.

However, through the cultivation techniques of the Han people, the yield per mu has generally reached more than 150 catties, and Lashio City harvested 150,000 stones, which can be described as a bumper harvest.

The Ming people built a city in Lashio, which deeply stimulated the Toungoo Kingdom.

The sound of beating and killing continued for a while.

But the merchants in Ava City saw the way.

"Ming Kingdom?"

A certain Ceylon businessman seemed familiar.

Suddenly, he remembered that those white-skinned ghosts like to buy and sell things from the Ming Kingdom, especially the silk, which they love very much.

He traveled to and from India, and what the Portuguese in Goa liked most was the ships from the East, which were full of spices, silk, and porcelain.

"If the Ming people were in the Toungoo country, then I wouldn't need to travel thousands of miles across the sea to buy precious silk and resell it to those white people."

The more he thought about it, the happier he was.

I couldn't help but write a letter and send it back to my hometown, asking my younger brother to send more gold and silver.

When this letter came to Ceylon, it caused huge waves.

When Zheng He's fleet arrived in Ceylon, King Ariel Kunel presented many gifts to the Ming Dynasty, expressing the peace between the two countries.

Unexpectedly, Ariel Kunel, who was not greedy, saw Zheng He's fleet loaded with a lot of gold and silver, so he pretended to invite Zheng He to his palace.

After the banquet, he asked Zheng He for gold coins again, but secretly sent troops to rob Zheng He's fleet.

As a result, more than 2000 soldiers, under the command of Zheng He, unexpectedly attacked the capital of Mount Ceylon, and captured Ariel Kunel and his wife and officials alive.

This has aroused great repercussions in Ceylon.

For more than a hundred years, Ceylon continued to pay tribute.

The strength of Daming has been deeply imprinted in their minds.

"Why don't you ask Daming for help and beat those Portuguese away?"

The king of the Kandy dynasty, Rajsingh II, couldn't help but come up with ideas.

(End of this chapter)