On the first day of February in the ninth year of Hongwu, before preparing to rush to Dananguan, Su Yonglin received in Guangzhou the envoys of the Champa State who came to pay him a formal visit.
The head of the Champa State envoy was the nephew of the usurped king Zou Yana. He respectfully saluted Su Yonglin and presented a gift list.
Needless to say, there are gold, silver, pearls and jade, as well as local specialties such as agarwood, ivory, tortoise shell, sandalwood, pepper, pearls and other rare and exotic treasures, as well as several rhinos and lions.
What’s more interesting is that the Champa Kingdom also presented 20 war elephants and 200 elephant slaves who were specially trained to raise war elephants to the Ming Dynasty as a national gift to the Ming Emperor to express gratitude to the Ming Emperor for providing help in times of need and saving Champa City. The country is in danger.
War elephants, as a special unit in the tropical rain forests of Southeast Asia, are actually quite novel for the Central Plains dynasty.
The practice of running elephants in the Central Plains can be traced back to the Shang Dynasty. At that time, the Yellow River Basin had a tropical climate, and elephants ran everywhere. Maybe there were elephant soldiers in the Central Plains at that time. When various tribes competed for war, they may have driven the elephants to charge each other. .
Now there is no more.
Moreover, the Elephant Soldier is strong even if it is said to be strong. After all, it is a behemoth and has a natural suppressive effect on smaller creatures.
But to say that it is easy to deal with, it is indeed easy to deal with, at least in front of the Ming army with artillery, the elephant soldiers are simply super large moving targets, which can allow the artillery soldiers to practice shooting accuracy and improve the gunners' shooting ability.
Su Yonglin personally watched the elephants' combat demonstrations and watched the elephant slaves skillfully manipulate the elephants to perform certain tactical actions that they thought were very delicate.
Indeed, it has its merits. The generals who watched the elephant soldiers' combat exercises with Su Yonglin all praised the might of the elephant soldiers. At the same time, they suggested that if there are no firearms, as long as the elephants are armored, there is really no good way to contain this group of elephant soldiers using conventional combat methods. The giant moves forward.
But with firearms it's completely different.
Su Yonglin smiled and accepted these gifts, and then officially ordered Zou Yana to be canonized as Doctor Jin Ziguanglu, Yushi Zhongcheng, King of Shangzhu Kingdom and Champa City, and then granted 6,000 households in the city.
Because foreign monarchs are nominally ministers of the emperor of the central dynasty, in the process of canonization, the central dynasty will often follow the country's practice and confer official positions on foreign monarchs, and then canonize a certain king to show that the foreign monarch is the shackles of the central dynasty. Yes, hitting him means not giving the emperor face, and he will be punished.
Because the Ming Dynasty did not have so many fictitious titles for Zou Yana, Su Yonglin found some useful titles for Zou Yana from the official position system of the Southern Song Dynasty. Anyway, this was not a practical thing, just a name.
Moreover, what Zou Yana cares about most is definitely the title of [King of Champa]. With this, he will definitely be happy.
After the granting of the title, the Champa State became the fourth official vassal state of the Ming Dynasty after Goryeo, and the second vassal state that still exists. The Champa State will enjoy a series of rights and also need to bear a series of responsibilities. .
For example, it became an important strategic support for the Ming Dynasty to contain and eventually eliminate the Li Dynasty of South Vietnam.
Although the Ming Dynasty is a big country and South Vietnam is a younger brother, there are not many examples in history where a small country finally won the war, and South Vietnam itself was one of them.
Whether it was dealing with the Southern and Northern Song Dynasties or the later Mongolian and Yuan Empires.
The Mongolian Yuan Empire was so arrogant and powerful at the time. It swept across the Eurasian continent with almost no opponents. However, in the southward strategy, it achieved few commendable victories. Instead, it suffered several losses and lost several generals. Hundreds of thousands of troops marched south to Southeast Asia. No results were obtained.
Of course, there are many reasons, including climate, logistics, military morale, etc. These reasons are all very important, but this also proves from the side that it is never easy to completely defeat a national power with a relatively strict organization.
Su Yonglin was very confident. He was convinced that in terms of military combat effectiveness, the Ming army was invincible. However, combat effectiveness did not always determine everything in war.
If the Champa State can be used as a support to form a north-south pincer attack on South Vietnam, then the navy will be used to assist soldiers to land from other directions and march in three directions, the victory rate will be greatly increased.
So when talking to the head of the Champa State envoy, Su Yonglin specifically mentioned this matter to them.
However, Su Yonglin's original intention was to reach strategic cooperation with the Champa State and assist the Ming State in cleaning up South Vietnam at some point in the future. However, the Champa State actually directly hoped that the Ming State could immediately go south to attack South Vietnam, saying that they could send some troops to attack South Vietnam. Soldiers and horses assisted the Ming Dynasty in completely killing South Vietnam.
Dad Ming is so powerful, he can definitely do it, right?
Anyway, the army is now in Lingnan, and the distance is very close. It is easy to kill them directly, right?
Su Yonglin was speechless about this.
"There are still many things that need to be dealt with in the Ming Dynasty. There are still many things that need to be resolved in the land of Lingnan. It is not the time to launch a full-scale war, nor is it the time to completely clean up the Li family's court. From the current point of view, a little beating is the best. result."
The Champa envoys were disappointed with this, but they did not dare to oppose Ming Dynasty's decision and could only put forward their own opinions.
"The Li family of South Vietnam has always been arrogant and belligerent. The whole dynasty is full of belligerent people. They invade other countries everywhere and act like barbarians. Internally, they call themselves the Kingdom of Great Viet and call themselves the emperor. They behave like the emperor of China. This is disrespectful. In the past, In that year, the Li family of South Vietnam even coveted the territory of the Central Plains, and was very disobedient. I was privately worried about the Ming Dynasty."
Su Yonglin certainly knew what this guy and Zou Yana were thinking.
But fighting a war is not something that can be done at once. Guangdong and Guangxi have just been pacified, and nothing has been completed. At this time, going south to crusade against the Li Dynasty of South Vietnam will inevitably make the same mistakes that Zhao Guangyi made.
Su Yonglin was not good at drifting, and he was not as shameless as Zhao Guangyi. If he got to that point, he would probably commit suicide in shame to thank the world.
"The Li family in South Vietnam has been disobedient for some years. In recent years, I haven't heard any news about it. Let's see what they will do. I will send people to ask the Li family not to continue to send troops south. You Just let your king rest assured."
"Then...then what if..."
"If the South Vietnamese Li family refuses to listen to their kind words or drink toasts, Ming Dynasty will naturally make them understand what it means to be a great country."
Su Yonglin had reached this point, and the head of the Champa State envoy had nothing else to say. The matter had reached this point and he could only wait for Ming State's action.
Moreover, Su Yonglin also said that if South Vietnam did not give Daming this face, Daming would naturally let them know what it means to be a great country.
Obviously, the style of a great nation = armored soldiers.
He had nothing more to say, so he saluted and thanked Su Yonglin again, then took the people away and returned to Champa Kingdom to return to Zou Yana.
After they left, Su Yonglin sent several envoys as envoys of the Ming Dynasty to Thang Long City, the capital of South Vietnam, to convey the Ming Emperor's meaning to them, and then read their replies.
If they agreed, they would probably take a rational approach, ignore ideological issues, surrender to the Ming Dynasty, and try to gain recognition from the Ming Dynasty to gain formal independent status.
If they do this, it means that they have no intention of having a military conflict with Ming Dynasty.
But it's not impossible if they have other ideas.
The Ming Dynasty indeed swept through the Central Plains and Jiangnan, with unparalleled power for a while, but the stick would not hurt unless it hit itself. Thinking about it later, they even dared to confront the Mongolian Yuan army that swept everything with real swords and real guns. What on earth would they do? It’s hard to say whether to do it or not.
After much thought, Su Yonglin decided to make some military arrangements.
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