In the Chu Empire, the direction of external expansion not only involved the layout of the empire's overall expansion strategy, but also involved the promotion of domestic industry and commerce, and was also subject to competition from the army and navy.
Overall strategic layout, this is naturally the most important.
The focus here is reflected in the previous series of strategies targeting the Qingkang region and Mobei region, and even the subsequent northern strategy and northwest strategy.
Each of these strategies is for the overall strategic security of the empire, to attack potential enemies, and to ensure the strategic security of the hinterland of the empire.
Putting down the chieftain rebellion in the southwest, accepting Heshuote and then taking over the Qingkang area, these are all to eliminate the risk of rebellion in the southwest and Qingkang area.
Similarly, the previous series of strategies in the Monan, Mobei, and Northeast regions were also aimed at destroying the enemy.
Later, the northwest strategy to pacify Jungar and the northern strategy to attack the Russians were also aimed at destroying the enemy.
This method of expansion is based on destroying enemies, reducing border pressure, and protecting its own hinterland. It is not really about these barren lands, nor is it because of the economic benefits of these places or the benefits to the empire's economy. .
In fact, except for the Northeastern region, to be precise, the area south of Heilongjiang, the imperial rule in other northern regions is purely loss-making...especially the vast Siberian region that is competed with the Russians. There are so many mineral resources, but due to geographical constraints, these places are actually a burden to the empire...
Even if it is developed in the future, at most it will just maintain a balance of payments.
But the empire spent tens of millions on this!
With so much military expenditure every year, most of it is actually invested in the northern region.
Nowadays, the empire's top officials are even planning to build a northern grassland railway and a northwest railway. Both of these railways are money-losing products with huge investments but extremely low expected operating income.
The grassland railway is planned to go all the way out of Zhangjiakou from Tianjin, then all the way north to Mobei, and finally reach Kuhl City on the west side of Little Beihai (Lake Baikal). Then a branch line of several hundred kilometers will be built to reach the upper reaches of the Lena River. Xihai County is a city built by the empire at the navigable point in the uppermost reaches of the Lena River. It is also the starting point for the empire’s soldiers and civilians to go deep into the Lena River Basin from the Little Beihai area.
The Northwest Railway starts from Xi'an, then goes all the way west, passing through Lanzhou and the Hexi Corridor to Jiayuguan, and finally leaves Jiayuguan to Hami, Turpan, and Yining.
These two railways are located in areas with small populations and backward economies.
The northern grassland railway is not bad. After all, it is flat all the way and is relatively easy to build. Even if there are not many people in the towns along the way, it is easy to repair and requires little investment.
However, the Northwest Railway has to pass through many mountainous areas, especially in eastern Shaanxi and Gansu. Construction will be very difficult. After leaving the Hexi Corridor, there is either desert or Gobi Desert along the way, which is also very difficult.
However, the empire's top officials were still determined to build these two railways, for no other reason than to strengthen their actual control over newly incorporated territories such as Mobei, Siberia, and Turpan Province, and to strengthen personnel and economic exchanges. , let these places become the true hinterland of the empire as soon as possible.
A territory does not mean that it can become one's true core territory after occupying it or even killing all the locals.
If a place travels outside the actual rule of the empire for a long time due to transportation restrictions, various problems may arise over time.
Even now, the official Han immigrants organized by the empire in the past will become alienated after decades and hundreds of years of evolution, and will eventually become a new border trouble for the empire.
In order to avoid this, cultural, economic exchanges and personnel flows in these remote areas and the Central Plains must be maintained.
If you want to do this, then railways become the best choice.
Therefore, even if these two railways are loss-making goods, the empire will still repair them!
This is also an important reason why the imperial government insists on monopolizing the railways, that is, through unified planning, the profits from railway operations in the eastern and central plains and other regions will be used to support the construction and operation of remote areas.
If this is not done, then no commercial railway companies will be willing to build railways with little economic profit, such as the Northern Prairie Railway and the Northwest Railway.
These are all in order to obey the overall strategy of the empire.
But in addition to the overall strategy of the empire, the empire's external expansion will also take into account economic issues.
This has been reflected in the expansion of Southeast Asia and India before. The expansion of the Chu Empire in these places was very realistic, and it was all about money.
The main method is to use strong force to forcibly open the local market, and then use trade to plunder local economic interests.
This is a very typical colonial expansion.
There was also competition between the army and navy.
If the empire expands on the northern land, it will naturally have nothing to do with the navy. The navy can't send warships ashore. At most, it can build a small North Sea Fleet and get some river gunboats to go to Siberia to cooperate with the army.
But whether in Siberia or Central Asia, expansion in these places is destined to be dominated by the army.
On the other hand, if it is expansion in Southeast Asia, India or even the Americas, then it is destined to be dominated by the navy.
Without the navy to protect and defeat the enemy's navy first, there would be no landing operations.
Even in landing operations, the Marine Corps is still the key force.
The army is just cooperating in the fight.
This is also the reason why the navy has been promoting the expansion of the empire overseas, because only with large-scale expansion overseas will the navy have more military expenditures, more wars, more military exploits, and more Promotion and fortune...
However, due to the overall strategy of the empire, the promotion effect of the navy was not great. The empire's top leaders only supported the navy's colonial expansion overseas, but they never supported the large-scale expansion of territory overseas and the overall investment of force. It's also limited.
Although the Navy has objections to this, it must also pay for the overall interests of the empire.
Now that the Northern Strategy is about to come to a successful end, the Navy's people can't help but start promoting a new round of overseas expansion.
In October of the early winter of the 20th year of Chengshun, the Navy officially submitted the imperial overseas strategy.
This overseas strategic intention is very grand, saying that it is to seize more living space for the empire, and to seize more markets and industrial raw materials for the empire's industry and commerce.
These slogans were often shouted by the empire's top officials before.
So these slogans are nothing. In terms of specific strategies, the overseas strategy proposed by the Navy has three major plans.
The first plan is to create an absolute defense circle along the empire's home coast, the second plan is to fight for more living space for the people of the empire, and the third plan is to open up more overseas markets for the empire and protect overseas interests.
The first plan is to create an absolute defense circle along the empire's home coast, which means requiring the enemy to stay away from the empire's home coast and not even giving them the chance to get close to the empire's home coast.
To this end, it is necessary to fully control the island areas close to the empire, such as the Luzon Islands controlled by the Spanish, and the Fuso Islands.
As for the reason, the Navy said that the Luzon Islands and even the only place the empire must pass southward, falling into the hands of others is a huge security threat to the empire. As long as the enemy deploys a powerful fleet in the Luzon Islands, it can threaten Guangzhou at any time. This imperial economic center even threatened the coastal areas of Fujian and Zhejiang, and even entered the mouth of the Yangtze River.
In the conscience of heaven and earth, how can the Spaniards have the ability to maintain such a large fleet in Luzon under the eyes of the empire... Even if you give them a hundred years, it will not work.
As for the Fuso Islands... In fact, the Fuso Islands are in the process of seclusion these days. In addition to only maintaining trade with the Chu Empire, they have cut off all contacts with other countries.
Under such circumstances, in recent years, the Fuso Islands have actually become the empire's largest single overseas market, and it is also a monopoly market. A large number of the empire's various industrial commodities continue to flow through Nagasaki and several other ports directly controlled by the Edo shogunate. Enter various places in Fuso.
In the early years, a piece of land was leased to the empire to mine gold and silver.
Therefore, although today's Fusang is not a vassal state of the Dachu Empire, the Dachu Empire has actually gained very great benefits from this place.
The people in power in the Edo Shogunate were very realistic.
Their closed-door policy is actually very interesting, that is, it prohibits other daimyo from trading with foreign countries, including the Dachu Empire, but the Edo shogunate itself trades with the Dachu Empire.
To put it bluntly, the Edo shogunate wanted to monopolize foreign trade, earn a lot of economic benefits, and squeeze and suppress other domestic daimyo.
The empire doesn't care what happens to them internally. As long as the empire's goods can be sold continuously and some industrial raw materials or specialties from Fuso are obtained, how the Edo shogunate suppresses and squeezes the daimyo has nothing to do with the empire.
Under this situation, the senior officials of the empire actually had an attitude towards Fuso that as long as it didn't affect my making money, everything else would take its course.
As for crossing the sea to attack... the natural conditions of that poor place are not good, and the local population is very large... it is a very typical place with many people and little land.
As far as the empire is concerned, it is better to expand in any place in Nanyang than to attack Fusang. It is simpler and easier to make more profits.
As for whether Fuso will become a threat to the empire... Come on, this is the era of the Chu Empire, and the people are very confident. They consider whether it is cost-effective to destroy Fuso, rather than whether Fuso will hit them in turn.
But... in order to seek overseas expansion, the navy particularly likes to exaggerate the threats posed by Fuso, Spain and the Dutch.
It is said that Spain is a global empire, and it may rely on the Luzon Islands to threaten the hinterland of the empire in the future.
He also said that Fuso was right next to the empire, and how could anyone sleep soundly in the couch? He also said that with the continuous development of industry and commerce in the empire, there seemed to be signs of industrialization in Fuso, and the Jianghu shogunate had built several buildings in Nagasaki. Water-powered factories, and even new spinning machines obtained from unknown sources... In the long run, Fuso will also embark on the road of industrialization, and eventually become the core threat to the empire.
In order to ensure the absolute security of the empire's home coast, the navy strongly recommends seizing the two major areas of Fuso and Luzon Islands to establish an absolute home defense circle.
The above is the plan for an absolute defense circle along the home coast in the overseas expansion strategy proposed by the Navy.
In addition to the absolute defense circle plan, the second plan is to gain more living space for the people of the empire.
What is living space?
It’s not about industrial and commercial interests, it’s about farmland!
Food is the first element of human survival, and everything else has to take a back seat. Although there is a lot of arable land in the empire, it is not sufficient. The empire needs to obtain more arable land from other places.
Therefore, the Navy proposed to expand its operations in various parts of Southeast Asia, imitate the previous expansion of the Malacca Peninsula, and seize more Southeast Asian territories to accommodate more immigrants.
For example, some coastal areas in Siam are very good. The grain output in the Siam Plain is very high. With the current backward water conservancy infrastructure and backward farming capabilities of the Siamese people, they can achieve such a large grain output, and even be able to The empire exported large quantities of grain.
If the empire could seize this fertile area, organize a large number of immigrants to come over to farm it themselves, and build water conservancy facilities, it would be easy to double the food production.
Another example is the Luzon Islands, Borneo, even the central and western parts of Sumatra and Java. If these places are developed, they are very suitable for growing food... Even in places where food cannot be grown, some tropical cash crops can be grown. For example, growing rubber, growing tropical fruits, etc.
At the same time, it expanded in the Americas, based on the empire's current colonial strongholds on the west coast of America, and rapidly expanded into the interior of North America to accommodate more immigrants.
According to the intelligence reported by American immigrants one after another, the Americas are very rich. It is said to be rich in gold and silver. The most important thing is that the climate is pleasant. Its overall climate is similar to that of the empire.
After the people of the empire immigrated, they were able to adapt well to local life. They would not have difficulty adapting to the local natural environment and climate like those who immigrated to the South Seas or the north.
However, these areas with pleasant climate and fertile land are not on the west coast, but in the interior hinterland and west coast of North America.
If North America could be controlled, it would be easy to feed hundreds of millions of empire subjects with the good natural conditions of North America.
To this end, the Navy strongly recommends increasing expansion and development in the Americas, especially North America.
For this reason, we can temporarily put aside the expansion and development of Nanyang, India and even Fuso.
This shows that the navy attaches great importance to the Americas.
The third plan is just to open up more overseas markets for the empire, not only the dumping places for industrial products, but also the sources of industrial raw materials and agricultural products.
This will improve the overall living standards of the people of the empire.
In fact, to put it simply, this is an ordinary overseas colonization, which mainly focuses on plundering the economic interests of indigenous countries and overseas colonies. Currently, most of the overseas territories of the Chu Empire do this. At the same time, the overseas colonization of other European countries This is basically how it is done.
The above three major plans proposed by the Navy were submitted to Luo Zhixue, who was very interested.
It has to be said that although the direct starting point of this strategic plan made by the navy is to enhance the influence of the navy and expand the importance of the navy within the empire, it has to be denied that the navy is very smart and almost everyone Each plan is based on the highest interests of the empire.
At the same time, it is also in line with Luo Zhixue's appetite.
The generals of the navy are not fools. They will also study the strategies of the empire's high-level officials and what Luo Zhixue wants to do. The actual content of this plan is not important to the navy itself. The navy only needs the empire. Just expand overseas and increase the influence of the navy.
The specific content is purely to impress Luo Zhixue, other high-level officials in the country, and even people from all walks of life in the country.
Give others what they want and get what you want.
This is the direct reason why the Navy has proposed three major overseas expansion plans.
Luo Zhixue is very interested in these three major plans and believes that the Navy has done a good job and has considered all aspects of the issues.
There are both direct territorial expansion and annexation, and ordinary colonial models, which are of great benefit.
This forced Luo Zhixue to carefully consider the feasibility of these three major plans of the Navy!
But there are many problems. For example, the first and second plans can actually be viewed as a whole, because their core is to directly occupy and annex overseas indigenous countries and turn these overseas territories into territories directly under the empire. .
But this is not easy.
Pure territorial expansion is easy, but how to turn these territories into permanent territories of the empire and do it at the minimum cost and reduce the subsequent impact requires careful consideration.
For example, it is not that easy to annex Fuso.
It's not because they are difficult to fight, nor is it because the navy and others say that Fuso will be a threat to the empire in the future. This is basically nonsense.
After all, Fuso is right on the edge of the empire. There is a saying: Mexico is too far from paradise and too close to the United States!
The powerful Chu Empire would naturally have a huge impact on Fusang's social structure and economic system, and make them heavily dependent on the empire... It was impossible to pose a threat to the empire.
As for the difficulty of annexation, there is no military difficulty. Simply sending tens of thousands of Imperial Army troops to land can basically sweep across the Fuso Islands.
The problem is that there are too many indigenous people in this poor place. According to various unreliable preliminary statistics, Fuso today has a population of about 1,000 to 20 million.
And their race is not that good either, they are all very short, 1.4 meters is the norm, and 1.5 meters are all tall...
According to the empire's previous enlightenment policy, once annexed, large-scale intermarriage would be carried out in order to completely convert the local indigenous people into Han Chinese.
But Luo Zhixue felt uncomfortable when he thought that the Chinese nation would engage in large-scale integration and intermarriage with more than 20 million dwarfs... and then give birth to a group of dwarfs...
If it were really that high, wouldn't it mean that the average height of the Chinese people, which had taken twenty years to rise, would be reduced by the minute.
Average height is decreasing instead of increasing!
This is so nonsense!
Besides, Luo Zhixue personally doesn't have a good impression of Fuso. Although the things that caused him to have no good impression of Fuso came from the time and space of his past life. It is almost impossible for the same situation to happen again in this time and space, but he still feels uncomfortable...
Doesn't this exterminate them all? Even Luo Zhixue thinks he is a good person. Instead of exterminating them, does this mean that he will include them as a family and enjoy the outstanding achievements brought about by the industrialization of the empire?
Damn, there is no such good thing in the world.
Isn't this just the merger of Mexico and the United States? How miserable do you think Americans are...
Besides, after annexing the Fuso people as subjects of the empire, how can we squeeze their economic value in the future and provide superior living conditions for the people of the empire?
Therefore, Luo Zhixue wanted to annex Fusang, but was reluctant to accept all 20 million Fusang people... This kind of ambivalent mentality actually existed in other places, mainly on the Nanyang Peninsula.
The Dachu Empire has not yet annexed the Nanyang Peninsula on a large scale. It has only annexed the Annan region. Other places are still oppressively ruled by puppet states.
In addition to continuing to be squeezed economically, it is also related to the poor race of the local people. The short and ugly indigenous people are disgusted by the empire's top brass and Luo Zhixue...
Annan was better off before, and many of them were descendants of immigrants from the Ming Dynasty. The most important thing is that the local population did not have much. Annan these days has been affected by strategy for a long time, and the population is actually very small.
The Ruan family in the south has always suffered from a sparse population, poor economic development, and only a few tens of thousands of troops.
Moreover, there had been frequent wars in the area, and a large-scale civil war broke out in the area before the empire's annexation, causing the local population to plummet further.
When the empire accepted the territory of the Ruan family in southern Annam, there was only an estimated population of 400,000 in such a large place... 780,000 of them were captured as prisoners of war, and then transported to Sumatra to plant rubber. .
It was similar in the north. More than hundreds of thousands of rebel prisoners were transported to Borneo to plant rubber.
After more than 200,000 young people were sent to the rubber plantations on the two islands, most of the people left were old, weak, women and children, and the total number was not large.
Therefore, the integration of the empire in Vietnam is relatively easy. Although there are some negative effects, the overall situation is controllable.
But Fuso...it has a population of nearly 20 million, and the language barrier is very different. The cultural customs are also very different, so integration is very troublesome.
Therefore, annexing Fusang seems feasible, but it is also very troublesome. Luo Zhixue is absolutely unwilling to annex and merge directly. That would make himself uncomfortable!
As for saying that they will not integrate after annexation and let them play by themselves, that is even more ridiculous.
The education policy is the basic national policy of the empire, and it cannot be changed because of Fuso.
It is not qualified yet!
