Ever since the affairs of southern Xinjiang were handed over to Huang Zhiting, Gao Pragmatic had not worried much. He only learned about them from various reports received or discovered by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.
There were some occasions when he wanted to fine-tune Huang Zhiting's arrangements, but he endured it in the end. On the one hand, there were no major flaws in Huang Zhiting's handling, and on the other hand, he attached great importance to employing people without trust, and he firmly believed in being a good person.
You have to keep your word, even to your own wife, so you don't want to break your promise even a little bit, so you just "just don't say it."
It can be counted from the time Gao Yuan was born that the situation in southern Xinjiang has stabilized.
Judging from Gao Pragmatic's plan, this period of stability may not be short, ranging from three to five years to seven or eight years at most. Gao Pragmatic has no plans to make too many moves.
It's fun to open up territories and expand territories, but it's not enough to conquer territory. You have to establish a long-term and stable rule before it truly falls into your own pocket. Alexander's conquests seemed fun, but as soon as he died, he immediately
It fell apart, and the empire could not continue as a unified entity.
Of course, the reason why the death of Alexander the Great had such serious consequences had a lot to do with the fact that he had no heirs at the time. Although Gao Pragmatic was not the "Great Emperor", he had an heir now, and he was his eldest son.
The most legitimate successor in law.
However, there is no guarantee that his foundation will be stable in the future. Even he himself cannot guarantee it. What can really ensure this is for Jinghua to always be vigilant and not act blindly or radically.
For a person as powerful as Li Shimin, he had to calm down and develop himself first during the Weishui Alliance, not to mention he was very pragmatic. Moreover, he was the emperor, and Jinghua's rule in southern Xinjiang was far from justified, so he had to be even more careful.
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However, he also knew that Huang Zhiting was now eyeing two targets, one was Arakan further west in Myanmar, more specifically Chittagong in Arakan, and the other was the Malay Peninsula further south from Siam.
Chittagong was targeted by Huang Zhiting herself. Gao Pragmatic did not hint at anything and even rarely mentioned it.
The reason is not complicated. If you want to hit Chittagong, there is almost only one land route, which is easier for the opponent to defend. If you want to take the sea route, Arakan itself is a country based on the navy. Not only is the fleet strength not weak, but the coastal defenses are definitely better.
Complete. No one can predict in advance what kind of losses the fleet will suffer if there is a battle.
Secondly, Chittagong is adjacent to the Kingdom of Bengal, and Bengal has been conquered by the Mughal Empire for nearly ten years. If Beijing suddenly launches a large-scale military attack on the "bed side" of the Mughal Empire, it will be difficult to guarantee that this expansion will be at a disadvantage.
Will the empire in its strongest period declare an Eastern Expedition on a whim?
The Mughal Eastern Expedition itself did not frighten Gao Pragmatic so much. After all, the Mughal Empire's current superior force is actually cavalry. Therefore, Wei Jinghua retreated a little eastward and retreated to the mountains of western Myanmar to fight with the Mughal Empire in the mountains.
In war, with wolf soldiers as a "trainer" or a "model army" guard force, you are not afraid to play with the Mughal Empire in the mountains.
But not being afraid does not mean that there will be one. The Mughal Empire is an empire with a land area of about four million square kilometers. It is not much smaller than the Ming Dynasty. Moreover, unlike the Ming Dynasty, it is still under the control of the third generation emperor Abak.
Under the rule, it was a period of prosperity, and the country was very powerful.
In short, the Mughal Empire should not be too afraid of tug-of-war now, and although Gao Pragmatic can claim not to be afraid, at least he has suffered a loss - the war in Beijing only cost him his own money, and the countries in southern Xinjiang have just
How can there be much surplus after coming out of the war? Even if we don’t repay it, we have managed it very well.
So whether you can win is one thing, whether it is cost-effective is another. It is not cost-effective to risk war with the Mughals for a mere Arakan Kingdom. Chittagong sailors are certainly a wealth.
But it is not absolutely irreplaceable. At least after so many years since the Ming Dynasty opened the sea, it is no longer as difficult for Gao Wu to recruit sailors in the southeastern coastal provinces as it was in the early years.
Huang Zhiting's other goal is the Malay Peninsula. The emergence of this goal has a lot to do with Gao Pragmatic. The main reason is that when Gao Pragmatic explained the situation in Nanyang to her, he repeatedly emphasized the importance of the Malacca Strait.
"A car can travel half a hundred miles, but a ship can travel a thousand miles." At this time when transportation is backward, the advantages of sea transportation are self-evident. As a maritime transportation artery and shipping hub, the strait must be a battleground for military strategists.
The Strait of Malacca is Asia's outlet to the sea, like a gateway. When the maritime age is about to come, whoever controls this place will be the overlord of Asia's oceans.
As early as the beginning of the 15th century, the Ming Dynasty and Malacca formed a relationship similar to a strategic alliance. The Kingdom of Malacca became a regional power with the support of the Ming Dynasty, and the Ming Dynasty established a maritime transit center in Malacca by establishing a maritime transit station in Malacca.
tributary circle, and then controlled the route from the Pacific to the Indian Ocean, becoming the empire that controlled the Asian oceans in that era.
In 1403, Zhu Di, who had ascended to the throne, inherited the tributary system and diplomatic thinking in Chinese history. When he came to power, he immediately sent envoys to all directions to announce the succession of the imperial throne and reaffirm the empire's overseas influence.
and control. Immediately, envoys from Ryukyu, Japan, and Siam successively came to pay tribute to the Ming Dynasty, establishing vassal and canonization relationships.
At this time, the Kingdom of Malacca was called Manlajia by the Ming Dynasty. It was located on a strategic corridor and received great attention from the Ming court, which quickly included it under the Ming Dynasty's tribute system. In October 1403, Zhu Di sent the eunuch Yin
Qing went to Manlajia and presented gifts to his king. "Bailimisula was very happy and sent envoys to accompany Qing to pay tribute." This set a precedent for the Yongle Dynasty's imperial inscriptions on gifts.
Emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty also wrote an inscription in his own handwriting to confer Man Lajia. The inscription praised Man Lajia and his king: The king is kind and considerate of his dynasty, and he wishes the Yi Hua Feng of Bi Nei County. However, what is the "Hua Feng"?
Too concerned. What he cared most about was to get rid of the rule of Siam immediately. This was the essential meaning of his friendship with the Ming Dynasty.
At the beginning of the founding of the Kingdom of Malacca, there were powerful enemies everywhere. Paramesura used his soft body to fight for a living space. On the one hand, he established a good relationship with the Kingdom of Siam and paid 40 taels of gold to the Kingdom of Siam every year in exchange for temporary peace.
The kingdoms on the Indonesian archipelago in the south formed a marriage alliance, and at the same time took the Ming Dynasty as the suzerainty, and established a suzerain-vassal relationship with political significance greater than actual jurisdictional significance.
In 1406, Paramesura, together with his wife and more than 540 ministers, accompanied Zheng He's fleet to visit the Ming Dynasty. This was the largest foreign mission to visit the Ming Dynasty since the Ming Dynasty. During this visit, Paramesura was favored by the Ming Dynasty.
Courtesy treatment from the imperial court. On the 25th and 28th of the seventh lunar month, the first of August, the first of September, and the fifteenth of September, Emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty all entertained or rewarded the envoys. When the envoys left on September 18th
After returning from Nanjing, Emperor Chengzu of the Ming Dynasty ordered a farewell banquet to be held at Longjiang Post. Such standard treatment was the only one seen in the Ming Dynasty that received visiting kings from other countries.
In 1411, Paramesura visited China for the second time. In 1414, when Zheng He led a delegation to return from his fourth voyage, Paramesura led a delegation to visit the Ming Dynasty for the third time.
It is self-evident that Malacca has important strategic significance for the Ming Empire. Controlling the Malacca Strait means that the Ming Dynasty will have long-term maritime peace. The Ming Dynasty's control of the Malacca Strait was achieved by establishing close vassal relations and ocean shipping transfer stations.
of.
In the next century, Malacca maintained close relations with the Ming Dynasty. During Zheng He's seven voyages to the West, he visited Malacca six times.
The establishment of the Malacca shipping transfer station meant that the Ming Dynasty established a strategic buffer zone based in Southeast Asia. At that time, the South China Sea truly became the inland sea of the Ming Dynasty.
However, with the death of Zhu Di, the Ming Dynasty's maritime strategy shrank significantly and began to ban the sea. The "transit stations" in Malacca and other places lost their meaning and gradually dispersed and collapsed. Today, only the Guangdong Navy occasionally sends ships to patrol the south, and their role is almost just for display.
exist.
And when the Ming Dynasty's strategy shrank for more than a hundred years, the Portuguese came.
It was from Malacca that the Portuguese gained a relatively real impression of China, and the steps towards China also began from Malacca.
After Vasco da Gama's fleet arrived at Guri in the Kozhikode area of present-day Kerala State in the southwest of the Indian peninsula, they systematically collected geographical and humanistic information about Asia on a large scale, with the main target being the Ming Dynasty in the Far East.
After Portugal occupied Goa, it paid more attention to the Ming Dynasty. Historian Gorea, who lived in India for half a century, said that he encountered Chinacota at that time, which means "the fortress of the Chinese" because the "white race with black and long hair" Chinese were in India.
There used to be many "official factories" in the area.
In 1508, King Don Manuel I of Portugal asked Fleet Commander Seguera: "You must find out about the Qin people (i.e. Chinese people, Ming people). Where did they come from and how far did they travel? When did they arrive in Manchuria?"
Luca or other places where they traded? What goods did they bring? ... Were they Christians or pagans? Was their country large? Did it have more than one king? Where did their territory extend? What countries did they interact with?
As a neighbor?”
In 1512, the Portuguese who conquered Malacca bribed five Ming shipowners and began planning a plan to go to the Ming Dynasty.
In 1517, the Portuguese officially arrived on the southeast coast of the Ming Dynasty. Around 1557, they occupied Macau through fraud and bribery.
The Portuguese colonists were of course interested in the wealth of the Ming Dynasty, and imagined that the Ming Dynasty would fall into their hands as easily as Malacca. Although after hundreds of years of arriving on the coast of the Ming Dynasty, they found that this empire was not something they could swallow, but
The capture of Malacca indeed opened the most glorious history of the Portuguese maritime empire.
In addition to encountering powerful foreign enemies, another important reason for the demise of the Malacca dynasty was internal decline and disputes. The Ming Dynasty, the nominal suzerain state at that time, had long ignored sea power, and they showed indifference to the fall of Malacca.
The Ming court learned that Malacca had been invaded in 1520. At that time, nine years had passed since Malacca fell into the hands of the Portuguese. During these nine years, the Portuguese had already crossed the South China Sea and entered the coast of Guangdong.
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If it were not for the presumptuousness of the Portuguese and the envoy Mohammed, the prince of Malacca and Prince Bintang, who came to Yanjing and sent a letter of Malacca's request for help to the Ministry of Rites, the Ming court might even have been kept in the dark about Malacca falling into the hands of the Portuguese.
inside.
It was the Zhengde Dynasty at that time, and Emperor Zhengde had lost the ability to solve the matter at that time - he passed away after being ill for three months. However, with the advice of a group of ministers at the time, the imperial court finally took action against the fall of Malacca.
The government responded: Franji (Portugal) was not allowed to pay tribute. At the same time, Pires and his entourage, who were Portuguese envoys to the Ming Dynasty, were taken to Guangzhou in the spring and summer of the same year, and were thrown into prison as hostages for the return of Malacca territory.
Faced with repeated requests for help from the Malacca court, the Ming court declared that it required Portugal to return Malacca, otherwise it would detain the mission until it was returned to Malacca.
This method of detaining envoys to deal with the armed occupation by the Portuguese was simply nonsense in Gao Pragmatic's view. It was not only incompetent, but also showed a lack of international ocean view.
However, after all, the Ming Dynasty had no military presence in the Nanyang area at this time, and its tributary relationship with these Nanyang countries was just a piece of political commitment to each other, which was completely feeble. To be precise, when kings like Zheng He's fleet disappeared
After Nanyang, Ming Dynasty's powerless diplomatic words and negotiations could not save Malacca from its fate, let alone spread the voice of the empire to the world.
In order to spread the voice of China to the whole world, we must have a powerful fleet and effectively control Malacca.
Huang Zhiting was so anxious that what impressed her most was when Gao Pragmatic drew the Pacific and Indian Oceans on the map: "The capture of Malacca is the beginning of Beijing's control of the two oceans."
Huang Zhiting has always been convinced by Gao's pragmatic strategic vision, so she firmly believes in his words. Since then, she has been thinking about how to capture the Malay Peninsula - yes, she will not just capture the Malay Peninsula like the Portuguese.
Malacca City, relying on this stronghold to control the entire strait.
If she wants to take it, she must take the land as well, and the entire Malay Peninsula must be firmly under her control.
As for the truth, just as China has been divided for a long time, the cultural tradition in the bones is that the winner takes all. When some foreign educators in later generations mentioned the shortcomings of the Chinese students they taught, they once said that Chinese students have too strong a desire to win and lose, and they do not win the first place.
I immediately felt like I had failed.
In fact, this is also a manifestation of the winner-takes-all spirit, and even the tribute system is inseparable from this idea.
What is the spiritual nature of tribute?
It means that I am the best in the world, "you will not accept my concubines".
Even if Huang Zhiting is a woman, she is still affected by this culture. Therefore, in her understanding, Gao Pragmatic wants to control Malacca, that is, to capture the Malay Peninsula.
Her husband wanted it, and she was given control of southern Xinjiang. Of course, she began to plot the Malay Peninsula wholeheartedly.
Gao Jingshi guessed what she was thinking from the way she transferred Gao Ruiqiao to Siam. Although he agreed to the transfer as always, he still hoped to cool down his wife's mind a little.
After thinking for a long time, he walked to the table, sat down, and began to write a letter.
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