Emperor Zhu took a shower, changed into clean clothes, took a group of palace guards and an attendant bachelor who could speak Latin, and rumbled toward the newly renovated Wenhua Palace Building on his bicycle. After a while, amid the shouts of "His Majesty has arrived," he strode into the audience hall on the second floor of Wenhua Hall.
The audience hall is located in a large room facing south, with large windows made of small pieces of transparent plate glass, and with good lighting. When Zhu Heji arrived, it was almost three o'clock in the afternoon, almost four o'clock in the afternoon. After meeting the living saints, it was time to start a meal and give a banquet.
Seeing Emperor Zhu striding towards him, Guo Youde hurriedly bowed and said, "Your Majesty, Guo Youde, respectfully greets you."
Li Guangzu also hurriedly bowed and bowed: "I, Shang, Dianke and Shaoqing Li Guangzu respectfully send my greetings."
St. Philip also followed the example of Guo Youde and Li Guangzu. He also bowed and bowed, and said in Chaozhou Mandarin: "Your Majesty, Philip de Romano, respectfully wishes the Great Emperor to be blessed!"
"Pingshen, Pingshen, give me a seat." Zhu Heji sat down on the throne and gave the three people seats with a smile.
His words were immediately translated into Latin by the bachelor attendant.
When St. Philip heard this, he was not polite and sat down directly on a chair brought by two guards, and then carefully looked at the Zhu Da Devil on the throne. In fact, he had met Devil Zhu many years ago when he was ordered to come to the Ming Dynasty to exorcise demons. At that time, Devil Zhu had just taken over Jiangxi and was still a young man with a rough mind. Now, Devil Zhu is already a middle-aged devil. He maintains a very good figure because of regular exercise (fencing, boxing, wrestling), and his bearded face looks even more ferocious with age. At first glance, you can tell that he is a very vicious devil! I don’t know if the goblin that sneaked into the palace was caught by him? If caught... he would be beaten badly, right?
When he was sympathizing with the monster, Emperor Zhu had already spoken: "Philip, we haven't seen each other for many years, right? The last time we met in Prince Teng's Pavilion in Nanchang Mansion, it was during the reign of King Ding and Supervisor of the Kingdom. This year we are all on the 10th Five years! These days really fly by!"
St. Philip tried his best to speak Chaozhou Mandarin, and sometimes mixed in a few Latin words: "The emperor is right, it is already 1694 in the Western calendar, and it will be the 18th century in six years."
Zhu Heji nodded: "The 18th century...that was a very critical century!"
The eighteenth century was the century of the industrial revolution!
Whoever seizes the eighteenth century will be able to stay ahead in the next three to four hundred years!
To seize the opportunities of the Industrial Revolution, it is not enough to rely on your own efforts, you must also find ways to hold back others... After all, there can only be one first place! The competition in the industrial revolution was not only a competition between countries, but also a competition between civilizations. Historically, Britain was the first country to open a chapter of the Industrial Revolution, but Britain's achievements were based on the entirety of Western civilization, rather than relying on England alone, with a population of tens of millions, to advance industrialization alone.
Britain in the eighteenth century, relative to the countries on the European continent, was somewhat similar to the United States in the twentieth century, relative to Eurasia... When the European continent and Eurasia were caught in continuous war, the mainland of Britain and the United States However, it can rely on the protection of the ocean to stay out of the destruction of war. It can make war fortune while taking over the capital and talents fleeing from the war zone. At the same time, it has become the final destination for raw materials produced by the colonies owned by the entire civilization. and final supplier to the colonial market.
There is no shortage of capital, raw materials, talents, and markets, and it seems natural to foster industrialization.
"What the great emperor said is," St. Philip continued Zhu Heji's words, "if it weren't for you, China would probably have lost the crucial eighteenth century...The European Christian civilization now has a population of nearly 100 million. By the beginning of the 19th century in more than a hundred years, the total population of Christian civilization will most likely reach 300 million. By then the New World will be firmly occupied by European immigrants, and even Africa and the Southern Continent will be ruled by European immigrants. By then At that time, Chinese civilization will be trapped in the land of East Asia forever!"
Although this St. Philip did not know about the Industrial Revolution, he analyzed the relationship between population and land and came to a similar result - even without the Industrial Revolution, European Christian civilization could survive just by occupying land and having children. Established control over most of the world in the early 19th century!
Although in the original history, the population of the Qing Dynasty reached more than 300 million in the early 19th century, which was equivalent to the population of the entire European Christian civilization. But by that time, Europe already had enough surplus people to send to the New World, southern Africa, and Oceania. When the white population there reaches a certain number, the coastline and national borders there will be closed, and there will be no "empty land" for colonists from East Asia to easily occupy... Even without the industrial revolution, East Asia It was impossible for the colonists to cross the ocean and launch a landing battle to drive away the white colonists who had already occupied the advantageous location!
"But now, China has not overwhelmed the West," Zhu Heji said. "The two sides are just competing, and the advantage is still greater on the West! Their territory is larger and their population is larger."
In fact, the Ming Dynasty has the advantage in terms of force and "magic". If we can find a piece of land now, and each side sends hundreds of thousands of troops to fight, the Ming Dynasty will definitely win!
But current shipping technology simply cannot support such an intercontinental war. During the Opium War in history, the British only sent 20,000 people including the navy, and the maximum number of troops that could go ashore to fight was 10,000 to 8,000. This was back in 1840!
But now, even if Emperor Zhu Da devotes all the power of the country, he can only send tens of thousands of expeditionary troops to America or India. If you want to bypass Africa or South America and send an expeditionary force of more than 10,000 people to Europe...that is basically impossible!
Similarly, it is impossible for Louis XIV to send a large army to the east of Malacca or to South America and across the Pacific to Japan and the Philippines... Even if he tried to send thousands of people over, he would still be dead. .
Therefore, a decisive battle between Eastern and Western civilizations will not occur in the next hundred or even one hundred and fifty years... If both sides engage in industrial revolution, it will not be possible for one side to overwhelm the other technically. pressure. Then this kind of intercontinental war will at least occur after the large-scale equipment of steam battleships. Just like the Russo-Japanese War in history!
But a large-scale intercontinental war will not happen, which does not mean that both sides will live in peace until the steam fleet appears.
The two sides can also compete in North America and the Indian Ocean, and can also cultivate proxies to fight to weaken the other side.
"Your Majesty the Emperor," St. Philip said, "you have been very successful in the direction of the New World. You have supported the two agents of the Shang Kingdom and the Aztec Kingdom, and you have conquered the two great Western empires at a very small cost. The Spanish Empire was in crisis. If King Montezuma could seize part or all of Mexico, and the Yin family of the Shang Kingdom could advance to the west bank of the Mississippi River...then the future situation in America would be very beneficial to the Ming Dynasty.
As for the Indian Ocean and Europe, IMHO, the current advantage lies with Louis XIV and Kangxi Khan! "
Zhu Heji's national policy was to contain the United States... He began to contain it nearly a hundred years before the birth of the United States! Therefore, the manpower, material resources, and energy he invested in the New World were greater than those invested in India and Europe.
On the European side, he supported the Ottoman Empire through the arms trade. In the Indian Ocean, the remnants of the three vassals of Wu, Shang, and Geng supported the Hindustan Empire against Kangxi Khan and a group of European colonists.
But the Ottoman Empire only had a population of more than 20 million, and was weaker than the Europeans in economy, technology, military and other aspects. When Europe was divided, the Ottomans could still take advantage. However, after the fall of Vienna, the Louis XIV Empire had already Gradually it took shape - the Battle of Vienna bought the Ming Dynasty a time window of about eight years, otherwise the development of Shang Fang, Yin Family and Aztec Kingdom would not have been so smooth. But this window period has been completely closed with the formation of Louis XIV's empire!
And Wu, Shang, and Geng Sanfan were no match for Kangxi Khan! They are okay at fighting, but they are completely amateurish at doing politics. Kangxi, on the other hand, was good at both military and political affairs. Moreover, Kangxi was young and energetic, while Wu Guogui, Shang Zhixin, and Geng Jingzhong were all old. They were all in their forties or fifties when they entered India. Now Wu Guogui and Shang Zhixin are both very old men, and Geng Jingzhong is dead!
That Wu Yingxiong has been lying flat since he entered Myanmar. He is now extremely ill and may not live long.
In addition, most of the San Francisco veterans who followed them to Burma and India were no longer good, either retired or died of illness. And the new generation of San Francisco warriors have become feudal lords who own manors in Burma and India...Served by a group of Indian Shudras, they now have no energy to fight Kangxi Khan, and even " The will to "anti-imperialism and anti-colonialism" is also insufficient.
In the territories of Calcutta and Chittagong occupied by the Wu, Shang, and Geng dynasties in Bengal, commercial embassies and embassies of Western colonists were opened everywhere, and the merchant ships moored in the ports were mainly Western... and even some There are large areas of Western expatriates, so we just need to establish concessions!
Although Zhu Heji repeatedly reminded them to be careful of Western colonists, these San Francisco nobles completely turned a deaf ear in order to make money. The Burmese palace sent by Zhu Heji (the Burmese king Zhu Yijing had not yet returned to the country) also needed tribute money from the three vassals to maintain expenses, so he turned a blind eye.
And Zhu Heji himself was actually unwilling to include Hindustan into the civilization circle of the Celestial Empire... Although the territory of Hindustan was not large, it had a large population, almost 70 million, which did not need to be much less than that of the Celestial Empire. If Zhu Heji enclosed Hindustan, wouldn’t Indian immigrants be allowed to go to Nanyang in droves?
Therefore, he could only let the Mughal dynasty engage in corruption in Hindustan.
There is nothing we can do about it, everyone will be corrupt when they get there...Sooner or later, Kangxi Khan's empire will become extremely corrupt, but because Kangxi Khan has a "Central Asian master supply chain", it can maintain it for a longer time.
At the same time, European investment in the southern Indian colonies was significantly greater than in history. Now that they can no longer enter Nanyang, they naturally can only invest more in southern India.
Therefore, in recent years, five increasingly larger colonies have appeared on the coastline of southern India: Dutch India, British India, French India, Portuguese India, and Swedish India. Based on their respective colonies, the four countries of the Netherlands, Britain, France, Portugal and Switzerland continued to expand inland, occupying and annexing the territory that originally belonged to the Indian princely states, and had a strong tendency to completely carve up southern India.
Kangxi Khan's Indian Empire has also been expanding and consolidating in recent years. To the northeast, the Indian Empire has expanded to Nepal! To the southeast, the Indian Empire had pressed to the northern part of the Deccan Plateau. Moreover, Kangxi Khan also established a large number of provinces in the Indian Empire and began to strengthen local control. There seems to be a tendency to transform India into a Qing Dynasty...
Although the current situation in the Indian Ocean direction can be maintained, what will happen a hundred years from now?
Once the great emperor Zhu Heji is gone, can Ming Dynasty still maintain its power in the Indian Ocean?
Zhu Heji looked at St. Philip who had come from afar, and seemed to be seeking solutions from this true "European sect".
"Your Majesty the Emperor," St. Philip said, "As far as I know, Emperor Louis the Great has been trying to form a grand alliance aimed at containing the Ming Dynasty... It may include the Spanish Empire, the Great Mongolia, and the Rakshasa Kingdom. The major Western powers in China compete with the Ming Dynasty in all aspects such as economy, politics, diplomacy, and military affairs!"
What a familiar plan!
Zhu Hexin said: "Why do these Westerners follow this path?"
Zhu Heji asked: "Then how should I respond?"
"Your Majesty," St. Philip said, "I suggest that you build an ASEAN to fight against Louis XIV's grand alliance."
Hmm, ASEAN seems a bit weak in its fight against NATO!
"ASEAN?" Zhu Heji frowned and said to himself: "The Warsaw Pact doesn't work, how can ASEAN succeed?"
"Yes," said St. Philip, "an Eastern League!"
"Who is there?" Zhu Heji asked again.
St. Philip said: "There is the Ottoman Empire, the Persian Empire, and the Hindustan Empire."
Zhu Heji was stunned: "But Ottoman, Persia, and Hindustan are all in the West! Also...will the Ming Dynasty participate?"
"Your Majesty, the Ottomans, Persia, and Hindustan are all considered the East compared to Louis XIV's empire." Philip explained, "As for the Ming Dynasty... My suggestion is to just maintain cooperation with the Eastern Alliance, and there is no need to join it, because This is most beneficial to the Ming Dynasty. It can not only maintain tendentious neutrality, but also avoid being affected when the Ottoman Empire fails. It is also conducive to the Ming Dynasty in cultivating major powers in the Western camp that can resist the Louis XIV Empire, such as... ....Rakshasa Kingdom!”
