Zhao Xuening discovered when he first fought against the Spaniards that their military presence in the Philippines was relatively stretched and not at all like a regular army.
The true elite of the entire army may only be a few hundred people, and even if they are elite, the discipline is very bad.
Over the years, Zhao Xuening's spy in the Philippines has repeatedly received information that left Zhao Xuening speechless.
For example, there are constant incidents around Manila of white soldiers getting married there and then leaving the army to live in local indigenous communities.
How could such a thing happen to a serious elite army?
So dealing with Spain is not difficult.
The real problem still lies in the Sulu Kingdom in the southern Philippines and the tribes in the Spanish-controlled areas that "do not accept the kingship".
The Spaniards initially only used the Philippines as a raw material supply place and trading transit point, and it was not long before they really planned to run the Philippines properly. Moreover, because their country's strength was limited, its main colonies were in the Americas, and its main overseas troops were also stationed in the Americas, so they had no control over the Philippines. The control is very stretched.
It is true that they can claim military occupation of the Philippines, but the foundation of their rule is very weak, and they even mainly rely on the existence of big businessmen and church bishops to maintain power. The Governor's Palace in Manila is not the most important core of power.
Religion and commerce were the important factors that enabled Spain to control the Philippines as a whole during this period. Compared with these two factors, military factors did not play a major role.
This brought about a series of problems, such as the local indigenous forces in the Philippines that generally disobeyed Spanish management, and the Sulu Kingdom, which had never been conquered by Spain and stubbornly maintained tributary relations with the Qing Empire.
Zhao Xuening had already been at odds with the Sulu Kingdom before he founded Lanfang Company.
During that period, due to large-scale wars such as the Seven Years' War in Europe, the main power was placed in Europe instead of Southeast Asia. Therefore, during that period, the presence of European colonists in Asia was weakened.
This not only gave the pirates greater freedom of movement, but also caused the colonial authorities to relax their control over the princes and feudal lords across Southeast Asia. The first thing these local powerful figures did after getting rid of Western control was to rush to invest in "pirates". "This is a "business" with huge profits and low risks.
The princes of Malaya, the Bugis lords east of Java, the Sulu people who made a living by selling slaves, and the headhunters of Borneo who were famous for their terror methods were all actively involved in piracy activities in Southeast Asia. These people were recruited by Europeans. Collectively known as Moro pirates.
In the years when Zhao Xuening was rising, their existence was the biggest enemy Zhao Xuening faced besides the British.
In the end, these guys were almost solved by Zhao Xuening.
The pirates in Java and Borneo were wiped out by Zhao Xuening, and the feudal princes in Malaya were also beaten to the point where they could not hold their heads high. In the end, only the Kingdom of Sulu remained.
The Sulu people of the Sulu Kingdom are an important part of the Moro pirates. They travel to and from the waters of Southeast Asia, and their main business is robbing merchant ships and human trafficking. Not only do they rob goods, but even the people on the ship cannot escape their vicious hands. , no matter who you are, you will be sold as a slave by them.
In early summer, a large number of pirates set out from the Sulu Islands and followed the monsoon to attack Borneo, Java, Sumatra, Malacca and other places. After autumn, they rode the wind back to Sulu. Juluo on the Sulu Islands became the center of the Southeast Asian slave trade. center.
In the years before Zhao Xuening's rise, this group of pirates also caused a deep headache for the Dutch colonial authorities.
After the rise of Zhao Xuening, these people of course became Zhao Xuening's confidant, so Zhao Xuening fought with them more than twenty times, using various methods, and finally curbed the arrogance of this group of desperadoes.
However, although their crazy plundering actions were curbed, they were not able to completely eliminate them. As a result, the Sulu pirates based on the Sulu Kingdom still appeared from time to time to harass Dutch merchant ships and Lanfang Company merchant ships. Zhao Xuening therefore I once thought about the possibility of completely destroying the Sulu Kingdom.
However, because the Sulu Kingdom was a vassal state of the Qing Empire, Zhao Xuening, his subordinates, and the Batavia authorities had some different views on whether to send troops to attack the Sulu Kingdom.
They were generally worried that if the Sulu Kingdom was really destroyed, the Qing Empire would react to this incident and send troops to attack Lanfang and Batavia.
Although Zhao Xuening knew that the old guy Hongli would never send troops to Nanyang easily, but that was aimed at the Europeans. Hongli did not want to have any disputes with the Europeans at all, as long as they lived in peace, that would be fine.
But if he knew that Lan Fang was leading the action and that Lan Fang was a force established by a group of Han people, he didn't know if this old guy who wanted to defend Han people would do anything unexpected.
After all, Europeans would not think of overthrowing his regime, nor do they have the ability, but the Han people can.
Taking this into account, Zhao Xuening, who was not strong at the time, did not stick to his own ideas.
But today, Lanfang's strength has greatly increased, and the external environment is also unprecedentedly good. If we don't take this opportunity to destroy the Sulu Kingdom, leaving a disgusting person like a piece of psoriasis, it is really unbearable.
Therefore, Zhao Xuening made up his mind to deal with the Sulu Kingdom before dealing with the Philippines to prevent this disgusting group of pirates and slave traders from threatening his marching route from behind.
The Spanish have actually been attacking the Sulu Kingdom, but the Sulu Kingdom is relatively resilient. It has persisted since the 16th century and has not been solved by the Spanish. Although its strength has been greatly weakened, it still maintains its independence. For this reason, the Spaniards Very headache.
Just let the Spaniards be happy for the last time.
At the military meeting, Zhao Xuening proposed the strategic goal of destroying the Sulu Kingdom, which received responses from some military officers, but also caused silence and hesitation from some military officers.
Zhao Xuening pointed out the reasons for their worries.
"I know that you are worried about the Qing Dynasty's actions, but I still say the same thing. If the Qing Dynasty really goes south to attack Lanfang for this reason, as the president, I will definitely take the lead and lead you to charge. I will never let you die before me.
But I also insist that the Qing Dynasty will not have much reaction to our actions. As long as we do not raise the banner of claiming kingship and hegemony, and timely claim that we will pay tribute to the Qing Dynasty, the Qing Dynasty will never launch an attack on us. attack.
Moreover, the behavior of the Sulu people is really too bad. In these years, in addition to other forces, many of our Lanfang people have died at the hands of the Sulu people, and many of our compatriots have been captured and sold by the Sulu people. Is such hatred possible? Can it be forgotten? "
After Zhao Xuening's speech, the officers responded one after another and did not continue to dwell on the possible interference of the Qing Empire in this matter.
Zhao Xuening then determined the blitz operation, attacking the enemy unprepared, resolving the battle as quickly as possible, and destroying the Sulu Kingdom in a thunderous speed, leaving everyone unable to react.
As long as I'm quick enough, others won't even know what's going on, and by the time they figure out what's going on, a long, long time has passed.
Zhao Xuening made the final decision, and the military meeting immediately began to study the tactics and plans to attack the Sulu Kingdom. A group of people brainstormed and discussed for three days before coming up with a complete set of tactics.
Because the main territory of the Sulu Kingdom is on the islands, and there are hundreds of islands, large and small, naturally the navy will be the main attack in this battle. The army will follow the navy on troop carriers to attack the main islands of the Sulu Archipelago. military occupation.
The Sulu Kingdom's armament is not strong. In other words, under the persistent attacks of the Spanish, their population and armament cannot support it, nor can their economy. The emergence of large-scale pirates may also be a helplessness. options below.
At this moment, the Kingdom of Sulu is at the trough of national power, while Lanfang is thriving and heading towards the fast lane of development. Comparing the two, they are completely different situations. It is not difficult to deal with them completely.
When he decided to send troops, Zhao Xuening remembered something.
It seems that the Sulu Kingdom once requested to be included in the Qing Empire, and the country's territory and population were recorded and brought to the capital to Hongli, hoping that Hongli would allow them to join the Qing Empire, but in the end Hongli refused.
Hongli was not stupid either. He must have known that the Sulu Kingdom was being invaded by the Spanish and could no longer bear it, so he wanted to ask the Qing Empire to help them send troops to deal with the Spaniards. The result of Hongli's rejection of this proposal was enough to prove that Hongli It does not want to have a head-on conflict with Western countries.
In this way, if Lan Fang destroyed the Sulu Kingdom, the Qing Empire would know about it sooner or later. In other words, the Qing Empire might already know about Lan Fang's existence and its own existence.
If the Sulu Kingdom was further destroyed, how would the Qing Empire react?
Zhao Xuening was not sure, but he felt that since the Qing Empire did not respond when he founded the country and started trouble, and the Qing Empire did not respond when he sent troops to conquer India, then he could indeed try to destroy the vassal states of the Qing Empire and see what they had reaction.
If the Qing Empire still did not send troops to interfere in the situation in Nanyang even though it knew that Lanfang was a country established by the Han people in Nanyang and was developing and growing, then Zhao Xuening could be sure that Mr. Hongli really didn't want to continue to bother.
He just wanted to enjoy his prosperous Qianlong era in peace and stability, and did not want to cause any more complications.
In this way, he can freely implement his strategy of domination in the Nanyang region.
Aging will permanently and irreversibly damage a person's physical and personality health, and will turn a once wise, decisive, intelligent and resourceful person into a rotten person.
I just don’t know how much ambition Hongli still has when he was young.
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PS: It’s snowing and very cold. It’s better to have a bowl of hot pork bone noodle soup and a few pieces of luncheon meat in the morning~
PPS: Keep asking for votes~
