Daming: Brother, there is no future for monks, let's rebel

Chapter 188
Because in Daming's military regulations, if they died fighting for Daming, their family members can also inherit these properties and identities.

The ocean-going fleet composed of more than 20 warships is not huge at all just in terms of scale.

But if you add the merchant fleet behind the battleship, you are really qualified to dominate the world.

Behind the Ming battleship is a merchant fleet composed of fifty or sixty merchant ships.

This is a mixed merchant fleet of Hu and Han, which includes not only Ming's own merchant ships, but also Persian merchant ships led by Persian merchant Maru Ali.

The Ming Dynasty's first voyage to the West did not plan to spend too much time on the already familiar Nanyang area, and the main purpose was Tianzhu and Persia.

After giving Maru Ali some rewards, he has completely fallen for Daming.

"Brother, don't worry, although we have spent a lot this time, almost half of the Jiangnan province's annual taxes, but it will definitely benefit future generations. The future of Ming Dynasty is not only on land, but also on the sea. Well, this voyage to the Western Ocean is only the first step. As long as we start well, we can show everyone that we can get hundreds of times and thousands of times of profit on the ocean. Then we may not need to spend a penny on organizing the operation of crossing the ocean. Money." Zhu Han basically didn't have the slightest worry about this voyage.

Not only did Da Ming make several years of preparations in advance, but also Maru Ali, a persevering Persian "smart" man, even in the event of a battle, with Da Ming's ten warships, it was enough to blast the enemy into slag with artillery.

The elder brother Zhu Yuanzhang stopped worrying after hearing Zhu Han's words.

After all, Zhu Hanke has never disappointed him in all these years.

After all the ceremonies of worshiping the gods of heaven, earth and sea were over, Tang He, the commander of the Ming Dynasty's first voyage to the west, came to Zhu Yuanzhang and Zhu Han to report.

"Qizou Your Majesty, the soldiers are ready, please give your Majesty the order to set off!"

It was Daming's first voyage to the West, and he was indeed caught in a difficult situation when choosing the leader.

Because this operation spans thousands of miles of ocean, it needs to face many dangerous situations that have never been encountered before.

Generals who are not high enough can't deter the whole army at all.

Most of the generals with high enough status are not familiar with naval warfare, and they are not willing to take the risk of going to sea.

When everyone was terrified of the position of the commander of the expedition to the West, the eldest brother Tang He took the initiative to take over the burden.

When Tang He led his army to wipe out Zhejiang Dongfang Guozhen, he accumulated a lot of experience in naval warfare, especially when he suffered several losses under Fang Guozhen's hands, which made him study naval warfare for a long time.

Huang Tian paid off, Tang He used his own combat experience, coupled with Daming's endless national power, and finally captured Fang Guozhen alive, sentenced him to death in Hangzhou, and stabilized the Ming Jiangnan.

Originally thought that his naval battle experience would be useless, but it happened that Zhu Han was planning to sail to the west, so Tang He volunteered.

"Sail, let's go!"

After Zhu Yuanzhang toasted Tang He and the old brother with a glass of wine, he ordered the Ming fleet to set off.

Tang He stood on his battleship, looking at the magnificent sea ahead, his blood was already boiling.

He is now the founding duke of the highest level in the Ming Dynasty, and the number of households in the city can reach [-]. However, according to the nobility system proposed by Zhu Han, although the princes and nobles of the Ming Dynasty can inherit hereditary inheritance, not all salary levels can. handed down.

According to Tang He's founding dukedom, when it was passed on to his grandson, although the hereditary Duke Xin was still there, the salary he could receive was already a very low standard.

Only relying on the current salary and land, Tanghe's descendants will definitely have a large number of hungry.

However, the Ming Dynasty enacted strict laws to punish all occupation of land and corruption and bribery. Tang He and other princes and nobles did not dare to sway their minds in these aspects.

Therefore, not long ago, when Hu Dahai came back after drifting thousands of miles on the sea and found a new continent, Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty rewarded Hu Dahai generously. He directly rewarded Hu Dahai with 50 mu of fertile land. Not in the Central Plains!

Moreover, the 50 mu of land is hereditary. Whether it is farming, grazing or mining and breeding, everything is decided by Hu Dahai and his descendants.

But Tang He heard that gold and silver are everywhere in the new continent full of savages.

In order to earn a fortune for his children and grandchildren, Tang He is particularly concerned about this voyage to the West.

The Ming Fleet led by Tang He set off from Zhenjiang.

First, it passed through the sea in Zhejiang and Fujian, and finally arrived in Quanzhou for maintenance and replenishment.

The mighty and mighty navy of the Ming Dynasty shocked all the foreign merchant ships in Quanzhou Port.

These merchants from Nanyang, Tianzhu, and Persia had a vague premonition that the vast and boundless sea was about to usher in its new master.

The fleet set off from Quanzhou, and then entered the vast and deep South China Sea.

The hydrological conditions in the South China Sea are completely different from those in the Jiangnan area. Not only is the seabed very deep here, but the climate is also very hot.

Many soldiers and sailors in the fleet have symptoms of discomfort.

Fortunately, these ocean-going vessels are equipped with a large amount of cooling oil and essential oil.

These new medicines produced by Zhu Han have an excellent curative effect on the unsuitable symptoms caused by the hot and humid environment on the sea.

The soldiers of the Ming Dynasty Ocean Fleet used cool oil and essential oil, and at the same time thanked His Royal Highness for these inventions.

Tang He led the fleet to continue sailing in the South China Sea. Every time he encountered some small islands, Tang He would order ships to approach them for records and investigations.

Not only will the location of these islands, the products and residents on the island be counted, but also a stone tablet will be engraved on the island before leaving.

"Illuminated by the sun and the moon, the land of Great Ming!"

Although Tang He ordered his soldiers to do this, he didn't know what Zhu Han's purpose was for letting him do it.

Because in the eyes of Tang He and other Ming soldiers, although these small islands in the South China Sea have no official government, fishermen from Guangdong and Hainan of the Ming Dynasty often come to fish and rest, so it is only natural that they are the territory of the Ming Dynasty, and there is no need for such trouble. Carve a stone monument on it.

It was originally my own thing, so do I need to emphasize it so much?
Besides, there are only Jiaozhi Kingdom and Lin Yi Kingdom around. It is not too much to say that these two small and poor states are savages. Do they still have the guts to compete with Daming for the ownership of these islands?
Of course Tang He didn't know that Zhu Han planned the layout in advance for the sake of safety in the future.

The purpose is to prevent unfilial children and grandchildren in later generations from consolidating the hegemony of Ming Dynasty in Nanyang, leaving behind the law.

Tang He led the Ming fleet all the way along these Nanyang islands, and finally came to Malacca marked on the sea chart.

Most of the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty came to this place for the first time. When they were close to Malacca, many naval officers and soldiers had not sailed for such a long time, and many of them had anxiety problems.

Many people have all kinds of anxiety and delusions, and even feel that they have come to the ends of the earth, and if they go any further, they may fall into some kind of abyss.

Anxiety caused by long sea voyages sometimes causes the crew to do many irrational behaviors.

Tang He didn't panic about this situation at all. This issue was already recorded in the navigation manual Zhu Han gave him.

It also documents how to deal with the anxiety of these crew members.

Tang He used the navigation manual given by Zhu Han to easily resolve the anxiety in the army.

But Tang He also knew that the long-term sea voyage made the soldiers feel a little depressed. If they can't relax properly, it will be detrimental to the next voyage.

Because in the navigation manual Zhu Han gave him, after crossing Malacca, they will enter another ocean, and the wind and waves in the sea will be even more dangerous.

That is their final destination this time, Xiyang.

What people call the Western Ocean in this era actually refers to the Indian Ocean.

The influence of the Central Plains Dynasty is based on Malacca, and basically has no influence on the forces in the Indian Ocean.

It can be said that only entering the Indian Ocean, the fleet led by Tang He will not have any allies to rely on.

So when he docked in Malacca to rest, Tang He listened to the advice of his guide Maru Ali.

Ordered that the soldiers could go ashore to buy things and relax.

Men who have been at sea for so long, and all of them are strong young men, the first thing they think of after they set foot on land is naturally women, and the soldiers of the Ming Fleet spent a lot of money, and soon they were on the side of the Strait of Malacca. This small port town in Shanghai has made a name for itself.

Thousands of indigenous beauties threw themselves into the arms of the naval officers and soldiers of the Ming Dynasty.

Because of the arrival of these thousands of Ming soldiers and sailors, the small town of Malacca called Wuka suddenly prospered.

And everyone knows that Ming Dynasty is a powerful and wealthy country, as long as they take good care of them, there will be endless wealth.

As a small port city, Wuka is naturally familiar with the business wisdom in it.

However, it is too slow for some people to make money just by letting the soldiers and sailors of Ming Dynasty consume.

Dozens of huge merchant ships of the Ming Dynasty must have been loaded with priceless gold, silver and goods.

Suleiman III, the lord of Wuka City, has already become greedy for the Ming Fleet.

As a small city on the Straits of Malacca, Wuka City does not have a full understanding of the power of Ming Dynasty like Jiaozhi and Angkor in the north.

Suleiman III felt that the city of Uka was thousands of miles away from Daming, so as long as he secretly planned to contact the surrounding pirates and city-states to ambush the Ming fleet, no one would be able to detect the black hands behind it.

Although Uka City is a port, and commerce is its economic lifeline, blocking roads and robbing at sea as pirates is another way to get rich.

Suleiman III, who was greedy for Ming's wealth, ordered to contact the surrounding pirates and several city-states that believed in Allah.

They planned to ambush the Ming fleet in the narrow strait after it left Uka.

Because these city-state pirates who believe in Allah have excellent arson ships and fast dhows, they can attack unimpeded in narrow straits.

As long as the warships of the Ming army can be wiped out with arson ships, those merchant ships carrying huge cargo can be looted at will.

In order to find out the naval strength of the Ming army, Suleiman III brought good wine and barbecue to the Ming fleet for three days in a row. Tang He also admired this rather sensible city lord of a small Nanyang country, and every time he ate and drank was not for nothing. , rewarded Suleiman III with many Ming porcelains and mint refreshing oil.

These items, which Tang He thought were quite cheap, were coveted treasures in the eyes of Suleiman III. When he thought that the dozens of cargo ships of the Ming army were full of such treasures, Suleiman III's The last bit of vigilance disappeared.

In particular, there were only a few thousand sailors and soldiers on the dozens of large ships of the Ming army, which made Suleiman III no longer afraid.

According to Suleiman III's previous cognition, nearly half of the sailors on the ship were slaves, and they had no combat effectiveness at all.

Anyway, anyone who is a slave is a slave, and there is no point in dying in battle.

In this way, in Suleiman's eyes, the Ming army is equivalent to a three-year-old child holding a gold brick and dangling in front of his eyes.

If he didn't eat the big fat sheep of the Ming army fleet, Suleiman III believed that Allah would definitely punish him.

Suleiman III immediately sent people to contact the various pirates and several city-states. Even before the battle started, they had already discussed the plan to divide the spoils.

Suleiman III is the initiator and the largest force, and will share [-]% of the spoils, and the remaining [-]% will be distributed by more than a dozen pirates and city-states.

As for the captured Ming soldiers and sailors, in order to prevent the news from leaking out, Suleiman III will sell them all to the Delhi Sultanate as slaves.

After all, Suleiman III saw that these soldiers and sailors of the Ming army were all strong and fair-skinned, and they all belonged to the characteristics of upper-class people in Tianzhu. Selling them to Tianzhu could fetch a high price.

Suleiman III assembled a combined pirate fleet of more than 2 people and thousands of ships, large and small.

When Tang He led the Ming fleet to leave Wuka City and sail northwest along the Strait of Malacca, Suleiman III and his combined pirate fleet were ready for an ambush.

Tang He never imagined that the Ming Fleet he led was obviously the strongest naval combat force built with huge national power, but some people would think it was a weak chicken that could not be easily attacked.

These city-states and pirates in Nanyang are still at the level of calculating combat effectiveness by the number of people.

They didn't know that Suleiman III's stupid decision would completely dissipate the glory of Allah in Nanyang.

After Tang He and his fleet left Uka City in Malacca, the sailing was very smooth, and the wind and wave season here had just passed not long ago.

Coupled with the fact that both sides of the Strait of Malacca are covered by long land and islands, the wind and waves in the Strait of Malacca are very small, and the navigation is naturally extremely smooth.

"General Tang, as long as you cross the Strait of Malacca, enter the Indian Ocean, sail north along the coastline, and sail another 2000 miles, you will arrive in Bangladesh. Duan Gong, a vassal of the Ming Dynasty, has occupied a piece of land there. We can They get fresh water and supplies there," Maru Ali said, standing next to Tanghe.

Although Maru Ali obtained the official position and slave trading franchise of the Ming Dynasty, after seeing the prosperity of the Ming Dynasty, he was still full of awe for Tang and these highest-ranking princes and nobles.

(End of this chapter)