Over the years, the Dachu Empire's overseas expansion has been diverse. Sometimes it was just the establishment of trading strongholds to conduct business and trade.
Sometimes they also engage in proxy colonial rule to plunder economic benefits.
But the Chu Empire never engaged in direct colonial rule!
The first type is naturally similar to the colonization of ordinary European countries, by ceding land, leasing land, or just establishing ordinary trading strongholds to carry out trade with local indigenous countries.
This is the most basic and purest, and it is also the expansion mode that the Chu Empire first started to expand after going to a certain area.
After all...if you don't even have a place to stay, you can't just transport troops all the way there to fight a war of annihilation.
The second one is also an advanced version of the first stronghold trade model. When the overseas colonial power of the Chu Empire obtains a trade foothold in a certain area, it will gradually increase its troops, build coastal port fortresses, and then gradually carry out Expansion and control, and through a number of military operations to subjugate the local indigenous regimes, and then force them to sign a series of unequal treaties.
Turn the indigenous countries into puppet states of the Chu Empire.
This is the puppet colonization or agent colonization model currently widely used by the Chu Empire in its overseas expansion.
For example, today's Myanmar, Siam, Kingdom of Aceh, Fusang Islands and other regions are typical cases of colonization by supporting local puppet regimes.
The Dachu Empire did not directly rule these areas, but used puppet rule to squeeze and plunder local economic interests in an all-round way. This is particularly obvious in the Fusang area.
Over the past decade or so, the Chu Empire has obtained massive amounts of gold and silver from the Fuso Islands, and has used the area as a dumping ground for industrial products.
Among them, the sales of weapons among industrial products are very large, because the big names on the Fuso Islands are fighting every day... Ever since the Tokugawa shogunate was beaten to the ground by the Dachu Empire, the Tokugawa shogunate has been unable to continue to suppress them domestically. There are many ambitious names.
And these Fuso daimyo all have great ambitions, and many of them want to become the next Tokugawa shogunate.
In order to dominate the world, these great names have been fighting against each other for more than ten years, and the fighting has been very fierce.
This has also resulted in the sales of weapons products of the Dachu Empire being very good in the Fuso Islands. In the past ten years, the local lords have tried every means to collect various resources and export them to the Dachu Empire, and then exchange them for various weapons and equipment. war.
The mutual conquests of these daimyo have also caused the local population in the Fuso Islands to drop significantly in the past ten years or so.
In fact, the number of people directly killed by the war was not very large, but the famine caused by the stagnation of agricultural production caused by the war and the abandonment of a large amount of farmland was truly fatal.
However, when these big names compete for hegemony, they naturally don't care about that much.
Similar situations have also occurred in several other puppet states and the Indian Peninsula. The local internal wars have been raging one after another, which has led to a large increase in the local sales of weapons products of the Da Chu Empire.
For example, in the Kingdom of Aceh, there was an internal turmoil within the royal family three years ago. Three groups of people fought back and forth. The weapons they used were all matchlock guns, early smoothbore cannons, and armored spears imported from the Chu Empire. sword.
Even military uniforms, tents, military rations and other materials were purchased in large quantities from the Dachu Empire.
There was no internal fighting in Myanmar, but the war with the Kingdom of Arakan in the west has never ended.
It is worth noting that after losing Chittagong, the Kingdom of Arakan, which was hostile to the Chu Empire in the early days, was forced to sign a series of agreements with the Chu Empire to cede land, open the domestic market, govern outside the law, and pay tribute as a vassal. Unequal treaties, in exchange for the Chu Empire's cessation of conquests against them and the right to purchase weapons, they also purchased a large amount of weapons and equipment from the Chu Empire to deal with the attack of the Kingdom of Burma.
As for the internal wars between puppet states, the Chu Empire has always maintained a neutral attitude. As long as you do not infringe on the interests of the Chu Empire, you can fight as you like. You will not be like some big countries that care about face. , if there is a fight between younger brothers, they have to go up to mediate.
Although the Arakan Kingdom has a smaller land area and a smaller population, it is very tenacious and its army's combat effectiveness is relatively good. Therefore, after acquiring the weapons and equipment of the Dachu Empire, it quickly launched a counterattack and pushed back to Burmese hinterland.
Today, these two countries are still engaged in frequent and large-scale wars.
As for the Kingdom of Siam, there was internal turmoil. Because of the long-term oppression by the central ruling class of Siam, many local power factions within the Kingdom of Siam were very dissatisfied, and then launched rebellions, so they also fought. It's a mess. If it weren't for the turmoil within them, they would have probably sent troops westward to attack Burma. They would have fought against the Arakan Kingdom from east to west and killed Burma.
The situation is similar in the Nanzhang Kingdom. The Nanzhang Kingdom is a place where the local nobles are strong and the central government is weak. It is on the verge of splitting. When faced with continued internal and external turmoil and a large loss of interests, internal conflicts will naturally arise. It's coming.
Although their strength was not very good, the fighting was actually more brutal. Many of the so-called local nobles were no different from small warlords, and they were very brutal.
As for the wars within these puppet states, the Chu Empire still says the same thing: As long as it does not affect my business, you can do whatever you like.
Finally, there were actually a lot of wars on the Indian Peninsula. Although there seemed to be only a few relatively large countries within them, in fact, even in the Mughal Empire, it was difficult for the central government to actually control the local area.
Today's Indian peninsula seems to have only a few large countries, but in fact there are hundreds of princely states.
These princely states are independent regimes with armies, independent financial powers, and personnel powers. Some of them are quite large and powerful, such as the previous Madurai, Bijapur, Mysore and other kingdoms.
Because there are so many various princely states, the governor's office of India in the Great Chu Empire has not even been able to figure out how many princely states there are in India... let alone understand the extremely complicated relationship between them. .
Today's Indian peninsula is more chaotic than the Fuso Islands...
Faced with this situation, it was not long before the Chu Empire really set foot in and controlled the overseas trade of the Indian Peninsula. Therefore, in this area, it mainly adopted a trade-oriented strategy, but in the vicinity of some of its own coastal colonies , it adopts a continuous annexation mode.
Directly annexing the Madurai region can be regarded as an attempt to see the reaction of the countries in the Indian peninsula and see what the actual effect is.
For the Indian peninsula, which is a huge area with a population of 100 to 200 million, the Chu Empire's expansion policy here is very cautious, and is often implemented in several ways at the same time.
There are ordinary trade cooperation, such as with the Mughal Empire and several larger central and southern princely states.
There is also a puppet agent mode, which mainly targets some medium-sized princely states around several colonies.
Still others are direct annexations, where land is merged into colonies for direct rule, mainly for areas surrounding overseas territories, and now Madurai is also added.
As for overseas directly administered territories, this is also the third expansion model of the Chu Empire in overseas areas.
Such as some small-area colonies, such as Bangkok in Siam, Dagon in Myanmar, Chittagong in Arakan, Gohe State in Peninsular India, Goa in Bijapur, and Bombay in the Mughal Empire .
Then there are some larger areas with provinces, such as Malacca Province, Luzon Province, Borneo on the Malay Peninsula, Banten Province and Dongtan Province on Java Island, Ceylon Province in the Indian Ocean, and the Pacific Ocean. Deep in the Sandalwood Mansion, the North American Province of North America.
In these areas, the Chu Empire would establish a standard administrative management model, and then organize a large number of immigrants from the country. Starting from the ports, along the roads and rivers, they would gradually penetrate into the interior and control the places. Over time, these places became the Chu Kingdom. A place for people.
As of now, many of the above-mentioned overseas territories have no indigenous presence.
Of course, in the end, the local officials of the Chu Empire will still classify them into a number of indigenous reserves to allow the remaining indigenous people to live.
Today, several overseas territories of the Great Chu Empire on the Indian Peninsula basically follow this model, such as Ceylon Prefecture and the newly added Madu Prefecture.
The reason for this is not only that some places are important and have strategic positions that require comprehensive control, but the other reason is to find new land for the large number of poor people in the country to survive.
Expanding the living space is the biggest driving force for the Chu Empire's overseas expansion. Others, including the so-called overseas trade, are incidental.
In the newly occupied Madurai area, the Chu Empire continued to pursue this strategy, directly establishing Madurai Prefecture, and then organized a large number of immigrants to move there, and then turned this place into the people of the Chu Empire themselves.
The expansion in the Madurai region can also be seen as the Chu Empire having completely established a foothold in the Indian Peninsula and initially taking control of the local situation, so that it can start its local expansion.
To this end, the Dachu Empire has invested a lot of manpower and material resources in the past many years. The permanent troops dispatched by the army alone have reached more than 60,000 people.
There are tens of thousands of sailors and marines in the navy.
In addition, there are troops that are not regular troops and armed tax police.
Finally, there are the militias among the most basic immigrant groups.
Within the Dachu Empire, the militia was only part of the mobilization system. In the early years, there were relatively many of them, and they were trained more frequently. They played a large role in maintaining local security and combating violent crimes.
However, with the long-term domestic peace in the Chu Empire, various bandits, landlord armed forces, gang members, etc. continued to be exterminated on a large scale. More importantly, as living standards continued to increase, the importance of grassroots militia organizations also continued to decline. .
After the Chu Empire established a large-scale C-class garrison force and used it to suppress the vast hinterland, the importance of local popular organizations in the country further declined.
Up to now, the militia organization has been reduced to a part of the mobilization system... But in the past twenty years or so, the Chu Empire has actually not conducted any war mobilization...
Of course, the smaller role and less actual use does not mean that militia organizations no longer exist, or that they are not taken seriously.
There are still local militia organizations in the country, and training is still organized regularly.
Even the quality of the personnel is quite good, with most of them being retired soldiers.
Militia organizations exist not only in towns and villages, but also in some large government-run enterprises. For example, the Tangshan Coal and Iron Company in the north has a full militia group.
It's just that although these militia organizations exist and train regularly, their equipment management is very strict. At the same time, militia organizations are rarely used to engage in combat tasks. When used, they are basically used in conjunction with local garrison troops or patrol police for disaster relief. , search for violent criminals or something.
However, this situation is different overseas. Due to the lack of regular troops overseas, it is difficult to cover a large number of immigrant settlements. Therefore, immigrants need militia organizations in order to protect themselves.
Therefore, in overseas directly administered territories, militia organizations are widespread and play a relatively important role.
Many times, sporadic or even small-scale battles with indigenous people actually occur within militia organizations.
Therefore, the Dachu Empire also attached great importance to the militia system in overseas areas, and often equipped them with a large number of weapons and equipment.
For example, there are early flintlock guns and even current percussion guns, some light artillery, light plate armor and so on.
At the same time, training, live ammunition shooting, etc. are also organized regularly. In the militia training in some unstable areas, the intensity of live ammunition shooting training is even higher than that of the domestic garrison!
In some domestic C-level garrison units, soldiers rarely conduct live ammunition shooting in their daily training. Most of them are physical fitness, tactical training, and simulated shooting training.
However, militias in overseas territories have long been threatened by violent attacks from indigenous peoples, so they conduct more live-fire training.
It is even an exaggeration to say that in some small-scale and sporadic battles, the domestic C-level garrison troops may not be able to defeat the militiamen in overseas directly administered territories...
The militias in some overseas areas are very tough!
This is due to different impacts caused by different environments.
The large number of regular troops and the militiamen who are not weak in combat effectiveness allow the Chu Empire to have more than 100,000 regular and militia armed forces in the Indian Peninsula. This force has strongly suppressed the possible emergence of military forces in the Indian Peninsula in the past few years. Confrontation against the Chu Empire.
With strong military support, the Chu Empire also began its comprehensive colonial expansion into the Indian peninsula.
The direct annexation of Madurai is just one of them. Various expansion actions are also being carried out rapidly in other places, but they are not so radical.
This was not only the case in the Indian peninsula, the Chu Empire also set off a new wave of overseas colonial expansion in West Asia and Africa.
Especially in southern Africa, the Chu Empire has coveted South Africa for a long time and has long wanted to snatch South Africa from the Dutch.
Before, they just secretly set up a foothold there, but after several years of development, the local foothold has turned into a large-scale military base. At the same time, it has extended to other places and established multiple coastal port fortress supply points.
After several years of exploration and armed conflicts, the Chu Empire has established a complete supply line from the Indian Peninsula to West Asia, to Northeast Africa, and then to South Africa. There are more than a dozen colonial ports along the line that can provide ships along the way. Provide supplies.
With such a supply line in place, the Chu Empire was also preparing to take action against South Africa.
But before taking action against South Africa, the Chu Empire was also preparing to expel the Portuguese and Dutch in Northeast Africa, East Africa and other coastal areas.
After all, we can't go to war with them in South Africa and have their supply lines attacked on the back foot. Even if their maritime power does not pose any practical threat to the maritime transportation of the Dachu Empire, it is still disgusting.
After the European colonists in these places were solved, it was time for the Chu Empire to take action against South Africa.
And this day will not be too far away.
(End of chapter)
