However, the Portuguese are still quite powerful in dealing with these indigenous countries. After all, they are far better at artillery and guns than the indigenous countries. The only shortcoming is that they have too few troops.
But now with the support of the Ming army, it just makes up for their shortcomings. At this time, it was more like a fox pretending to be a tiger. Relying on the Ming tiger behind them, the Portuguese army in the vanguard was very energetic and pushed directly across. The target was the capital of the Ariba Dynasty.
In the process of this attack, it soon became apparent that the Portuguese and the Ming Dynasty treated their overseas territories differently.
The Portuguese's strategy was to accept all the nobles and nobles of the Ariba Dynasty who could surrender and use them to rule the place, and they only ruled those nobles and nobles who surrendered.
In this way, not to mention, under the intimidation of the Ming army, most of the nobles of the Ariba Dynasty chose to surrender to the Portuguese and pay taxes and tribute. For them, whether it is handed over to the Portuguese or the previous Ariba dynasty, it is the same.
In this way, the entire process of attacking the Ariba Dynasty was extremely easy and progressed extremely quickly. Even later, the nobles from various places who had taken refuge with the Portuguese led more and more troops, and they did not need the help of the Ming army, and they already had the advantage.
But Phillips knew very well that these local nobles were only forced to surrender by the Ming army. At least for now, they cannot be truly trusted. In the end, they will have to rely on the Ming army to be at ease.
Based on this factor, Phillips did not dare to monopolize the captures of the Portuguese and the tributes from various nobles. They must be distributed to the Ming army, even if the Ming army just followed behind and did not fight a single battle.
In this way, it took two months to destroy the Ariba Dynasty. Subsequently, the Portuguese became the masters of this land and began to rule the place through nobles from various places.
Relatively speaking, the local nobles are not much different from before. The only difference is that their master has changed.
For this kind of governance, you can spend less time and quickly achieve the goal of changing dynasties. However, the foundation is unstable. If the situation changes in the future, the Portuguese rule will soon be overthrown.
The Ming army's method was to kill those who had vested interests and distribute the benefits to those who had nothing and the poor, which was equivalent to tying them to the Ming Dynasty with benefits.
Although it will encounter strong resistance from nobles of all sizes in the early stages, as long as it can be implemented, there will be long-term peace and stability. At least Ming Dynasty's intention can be completely realized on the newly occupied land, thus achieving the purpose of transforming the local area.
After helping his allies achieve their goals, Yan Yingyuan sent his troops westward and began to attack the Ottoman Empire.
The reason why they didn't rest was actually that for the Ming army, the previous period was just for traveling, so there was no need to rest or recuperate.
The Ottoman land on the Arabian Peninsula is too far from their capital Istanbul. Therefore, at this time, such a distant province was actually half out of the control of the Ottoman court.
However, when various places were attacked by the Ming army and were unable to resist, they thought of the Ottoman court again. As a result, they sent people to report to their emperor as quickly as possible, requesting reinforcements.
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At about this time, the Ming army led by Emperor Chongzhen had captured the most important towns in Persia. The vanguard, that is, Racine's Cossack troops, all reached the Ottoman border.
At this time, the Ottomans had already responded. At least on the surface, they had assembled heavy troops and were ready to fight.
However, the Cossacks were originally tough, and now they were already members of the Ming army. They had experienced countless victories, and were the source of devastating victories, so they were even more tough. The Ottoman Empire was a defeated army, and its 200,000 to 300,000 troops were wiped out by the Ming army. In this case, if you still fear the Ottomans, you are a ghost!
Therefore, although Emperor Chongzhen's order was not obtained to invade Ottoman territory, small groups of troops often entered Ottoman territory to provoke. Suddenly, like crabs, the Ottomans did not dare to start a war easily.
At this time, Emperor Chongzhen was still in Zhennan City. His primary goal was not to attack the Ottoman Empire again, but to stabilize the territory of Persia and secure this land. Then he would inevitably send troops to sweep away areas that had not been reached before and establish the Ming Dynasty. Only true governing order will do.
However, although the Persian Empire originally had a very wide territory, if it really wanted to take care of it all, it would definitely not be accomplished in a short time. As Ahmed analyzed, the Ming army will be a problem in terms of military strength, logistics, etc.
But Emperor Chongzhen did not intend to take care of all the corners from the beginning, but focused on the key points.
Most of the territory in Persia is plateau, not to mention not rich in materials, transportation is not good, and the population is sparse. After being tortured by Abbas II for so long, the population became even smaller.
Therefore, Emperor Chongzhen's focus was to quickly rebuild those places with rich products first, and other places would be slowly managed after the new governor arrived. Anyway, what matters to this land is not how much tax you want to collect in these places where birds don't poop, but the "gold" underground.
In addition, Emperor Chongzhen was actually a little worried. The reason is very simple, too much territory has been occupied at once, and there is a shortage of people!
A new town, no matter what, must be guarded by some Ming troops, which must be divided into troops. Although locals can be recruited as auxiliary troops to the main force to supplement the shortage of troops. But no matter what, this situation will weaken the combat effectiveness of the main force of the Ming army.
In addition, military control can be implemented in a newly occupied city in a short period of time, but if it takes a long time, it will inevitably be governed by civilian officials. The civil servants who govern must be officials from the Ming Dynasty. No, those officials are still on the road with their governor!
If the local affairs are not handed over and the main force of the Ming army is not released, there will be no way to proceed to the next step. After all, the next Ottoman Empire was a country several times larger than the Persian Empire, and it was not a small country that could be destroyed easily.
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Although Ahmed had some guesses about the situation on the Ming army's side, after all, he had already turned a blind eye to today's Persia. What he could hear was that those who fled to the Ottoman territory were the former Persian nobles and the Ming army. Just fear.
Later, the border guard reported back the arrogance of the Ming army, that is, the Cossacks. Judging from this posture, it is uncertain when the Ming army will suddenly launch an attack and penetrate into Ottoman territory.
This made the border guard very anxious and kept asking for help. Because the so-called massed troops over there are actually just an illusion and a bluff. The Ottoman army had suffered such heavy losses before, so how could it gather such heavy troops?
To be honest, Ahmed has never had a good night's sleep since he last received news from the border guard that Persia was about to be destroyed. He was worried that the Ming army would soon attack the Ottomans, and he was also worried that someone in the country would use him and his family as a scapegoat. For this reason, his hair has turned gray.
The army is not a leek, and an elite army is even less a leek. If the Ottoman Empire wants to have an elite army again, it will definitely take a long time. However, the border guard reported a big report every ten days and a small report every three days, as if the Ming army could invade the Ottomans at any time.
If he is like this, the Ottoman Empress Dowager is not much better. She is also worried. The Persian Empire has been destroyed, and the Ming army continues to be arrogant at the border. It is really uncertain when they will attack the Ottomans. As for Osman, she could not rest assured that there was no elite that could resist the Ming army.
For this reason, she could only ask Ahmed again, hoping to seek peace of mind from Ahmed.
What else could Ahmed say, he could only continue to emphasize his previous remarks, indicating that the army would definitely not attack the Ottomans in a short time. He still has time and is stepping up training of the army.
The Empress Dowager of the Ottoman Empire heard this and could only do this.
But who would have expected that later on, in addition to the urgent reports from the guards on the Persian border, people from the Arabian Peninsula, which had not been much visited by the Ottoman court before, would also send people one after another to report that they were attacked by the Ming army and urgently asked for help. military.
And judging from the emergency reports, the Ming army's offensive was very fierce, moving all the way north along the southern shore of the Persian Gulf, with almost no pause.
What they didn't know was that the emergency report itself had problems. First, the military situation on the battlefield was unclear, and the estimate of the number of Ming troops was inaccurate. During the insurance period, they would estimate the strength of the Ming army to a higher extent; and the nobles had the same mentality in their urgent reports to the Ottoman court. They were afraid that the court would not care, so they also estimated the strength of the Ming army to a higher extent.
They didn't expect that this would scare people!
At this time, both the Queen Mother and Ahmed were dumbfounded.
Doesn't it mean that the army has too few troops to take care of it? Then why can the Ming army still divide its forces and is already attacking the Ottoman Empire's provinces in the Arabian Peninsula?
Now that the Ming army over there has already taken action against the Ottoman Empire, will it be long before the Ming army in Persia takes action against the Ottoman Empire?
Thinking of this, the Queen Mother became anxious and severely reprimanded Ahmed and must come up with countermeasures.
They didn't know that the order that Yan Yingyuan received was that Emperor Chongzhen asked him to rely on the Persian Gulf and occupy the better land along the coast first. The troops would eventually reach Baghdad and capture the most fertile land here. As for the Arabian Plateau and deserts, let’s leave them alone first. After stabilizing the prosperous places, we can then raid those places.
It was also because of this that the Ming army's offensive was so fierce. Otherwise, Yan Yingyuan's troops would not be able to advance so quickly no matter how many people they had. After all, the Arabian Peninsula is also very large.
