Chapter 151 Tianzhu is also very good
In fact, it was not just Zhu Gang who didn’t understand. Even Yang Siyi was confused.

I thought to myself that I was well-read and knowledgeable, but every time I met Yang Chen, I felt as if the knowledge I possessed was not even as good as that of a three-year-old child. It was really embarrassing.

“So this is what the equator means,” Yang Siyi said to himself without showing any surprise.

The reason why Zhu Biao could understand was because Yang Chen had told him about it. As for Old Zhu, it was entirely because of Zhu Xiongying.

Every time after receiving instruction from Mr. Yang Chen, Zhu Xiongying would happily return to Empress Ma to share the new knowledge he had learned that day.

Zhu Yuanzhang also learned a lot of new things, which is why he was able to introduce Yang Chen’s existence.

He was not worried at all that his power would be taken away.

First of all, Yang Chen has no soldiers.

Power is fist strength. The most brutal and crude explanation is that whoever has the bigger fist has the final say.

Secondly, Yang Chen himself said what he was thinking. He needed Zhu’s help. If he wanted the people to live a less miserable life, then both sides needed to form a united front and jointly eliminate those powerful and wealthy people who were most interested in their own interests.

Until the whole country is unified and the ruler and the people are of one mind!
After explaining to his brother what the equator was, Zhu Biao turned his head and looked at Yang Chen and said:

“So Brother Yang’s idea is that it’s similar to colonizing the American continent. We can rely on the power of fertilizers and the promotion of agricultural books to get the people of Ming Dynasty to come to this place to grow rice?”

“That’s right.” Yang Chen admitted generously and continued the conversation in depth.

“This place is not only for growing rice, but also for growing many other kinds of food. He can grow what the Ming Dynasty can grow, and he can also grow what the Ming Dynasty cannot grow.

First of all, the climate environment is very suitable for plant growth. With high temperatures and abundant rainfall all year round, as long as the quality of the grain seeds is not bad, they can take root and sprout by burying them in the ground and watering them.

Secondly, the soil environment here is rich in natural fertilizers. You know, the best farmland in China is the black soil in the north, and this place is full of soil that is comparable to the black soil.

The rice planted in this place not only grows faster, but also produces more rice ears. With many years of bumper harvests, we will surely be able to store a large amount of food, which can be transported from the South China Sea to Daming, and it will not be a problem to rescue the local people.”

After he said this, Lao Zhu’s eyes couldn’t help but shine and he licked his dry lips.

“Why didn’t we realize before that this place is actually a Feng Shui treasure land that is not inferior to the American continent?
Biao’er, we have to discuss this carefully later. Ask your uncle Tiande to come over. We will arrange for someone to go to Luzon to gather information and see if it is true as Yang Chen said, that it has black soil similar to that of the northern plains.”

When Zhu Yuanzhang thought about the expansion of the Ming Dynasty’s territory, he couldn’t help but feel happy.

As I said, there are only two things that emperors of all dynasties wanted to do: expel foreign races and expand territory.

He has now completed the first item and the second item is also on schedule.

“I understand. I will discuss this matter with Uncle Xu and the others later.”

“I have a confusion and I hope Censor Yang can answer it.” Yang Siyi suddenly raised his hand and asked, and Yang Chen motioned for him to speak directly.

“Since you proposed that Ming Dynasty should conquer Luzon, why not directly conquer Annan, which shares a land border with Ming Dynasty? There are also many plains in that place, and rice can also be produced there. There is no tsunami impact, so it should be a more suitable place for Ming Dynasty to colonize than Luzon?”

Although Yang Siyi is old, he can clearly remember which countries are surrounding the Ming Dynasty. As a small country that has been involved with the Central Plains since the Qin Dynasty, he naturally knows Annan very well.

Luzon only began to appear in the eyes of the Central Plains dynasty after the improvement of navigation technology in the Song Dynasty enabled the people to trade.

On the other hand, Annan is different. The people there may be different from those in the Central Plains. No matter what, the two sides have been communicating for hundreds of years, not to mention that Annan once attempted to become a vassal state of the Han people.

Unfortunately, Annan was too poor at the time and the Han dynasty looked down on it, causing Annan to miss the opportunity to become a part of Chinese culture again and again.

Even so, Yang Siyi knew Annan very well. The people of this place did not have a culture of their own and had always longed for China.

These ethnic groups actually have very conflicting feelings towards Chinese Han culture. They want to have some relationship with this great country, but they don’t want to become a complete vassal. This is why the Chinese dynasty did not accept Annan.

Yang Chen did not respond to this question. It was not because he did not want to answer it, but because Zhu Gang had been completely convinced by Yang Chen in their previous communication.

After hearing Yang Siyi’s proposal, he couldn’t help but speak.

He looked at Yang Siyi and explained:
“Since the fourth year of Hongwu, Annan’s political situation has been chaotic and its rulers have changed five times. Annan is located in a vast jungle, and its territory is very narrow and long connected to the coast.

When conflicts broke out between Annan and Champa, it was they who found someone to mention it to the emperor, and the emperor learned about the relationship between the Yuan and them, because their excessive military aggression led to the severe weakening of the country’s border defense strength.

Later, he took the initiative to mediate the dispute between the two, and Annan and Champa officially became one of the vassal states with diplomatic relations with the Ming Dynasty. The ethnic groups in these two places are very similar to some of the people in Yunnan and Guangxi, and can be said to be of the same origin.

However, after the war, some of them chose to leave their homeland and flee further south, thus forming different ethnic groups.

Moreover, the Annan and Champa ethnic groups simply submitted to the enemy and would not surrender completely. Their personalities are hard to describe. Even if they are defeated, they would not know how to deal with them. Therefore, I think that Annan and Champa are a very troublesome burden. “

Yang Siyi roughly understood what was meant, but still made a final effort:

“If all else fails, we can send our troops to take it down. That’s better than sending our navy to face the storm, right?”

“We can certainly fight, but the question is what to do after we defeat them?”

Yang Siyi’s face was full of confusion:

“What do you mean?”

At this moment, Zhu Biao stood up to explain the situation:
“That’s right, Minister Yang. Annan and Champa can never compete with Ming in terms of military strength. However, the situation in Annan and Champa combined is very complicated. There are nearly four million civilians alone, which is much more than the population of a provincial government in Ming.

Given the cunning nature of these natives, no one should do anything bad in the short term, but no one can guarantee that they will do anything bad in the long term. After the attack, even if millions of people were enslaved as laborers, there would not be so many supervisors to supervise them. If they were to be dispersed to other provincial governments in the Ming Dynasty, it would be a huge project, time-consuming and thankless, and a complete waste of money. Assuming that they were directly managed by other provincial governments in the Ming Dynasty, these natives had never been influenced by Han culture, and a group of barbarians did not even know what etiquette, integrity, and shame meant. How could we expect them to learn the imperial examinations and select talents from them?

In my opinion, the possibility of talents emerging from their population of several hundred thousand is not as good as the possibility of talents emerging from a village in the Ming Dynasty. Moreover, the main reason why the conflict between Annan and Champa has lasted for so long is the internal disunity. There are dozens of chieftain families in various places, and each family is the king of one side and the mountain, and no one is willing to submit to anyone else.

There are many cases of unity today and stabbing in the back tomorrow. The ethnic minorities in Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi have not been fully educated, so how can we have time to manage these millions of people without any civilization? “

After hearing what Zhu Biao said, Yang Siyi couldn’t help but reconsider his idea, which seemed to be a bit far-fetched.

He did not think that Yang Chen’s method was wrong. On the contrary, he admired Yang Chen for being able to boldly propose the central strategy of going south to colonize Luzon.

But as the Minister of Revenue, he also has his own responsibilities. The Ming Dynasty is not the Ming Dynasty of one or a few people, but is made up of tens of thousands of people. It is crucial to gain the recognition of the people.

Under the identity mission trend, he raised the last question.

“What the prince said does make sense. Wouldn’t these problems arise in Luzon? You have to know that people’s minds are unpredictable. Luzon is even more desolate than Champa and Annan. Compared to the latter two, Luzon only started to interact with the Han people in the Song Dynasty. Their civilization is probably more backward than Annan and Champa.”

At this point, Zhu Biao didn’t know how to answer for a moment.

Old Zhu felt a little unhappy with Yang Siyi, thinking that his son had explained it again and again, so why didn’t you understand what it meant?
Yang Chen, who had been silent for a long time, thought of the question raised by Yang Siyi, and soon realized that it would be less than fifty years before Yongle came to power, and he would immediately send Zheng He to the West.

When the Ming navy passed through Luzon, Zheng He saw at a glance that the terrain of Luzon was quite good, so he sent a captain of the navy to serve as the ruler there.

On the other hand, after seeing the mighty power of the Ming navy, the people of Luzon dared not show their heads and their tempers were restrained. Facing this commander of a thousand men, although they could not understand Chinese, they understood that they would definitely be retaliated against if they resisted.

Each island was ruled by a thousand-man captain for decades until Zheng He returned.

He originally planned to use this example to tell Yang Siyi that Luzon was not as troublesome as he thought, but after thinking it over again and again, he finally gave up.

Zheng He appeared before Yongle came to power. Who knows whether Yang Siyi would be suspicious of his true identity.

In the end, he could only tell the other party that such a thing would not happen with another reason.

“Minister Yang, Luzon and Annan Champa are two different places with different national conditions. What you are worried about will not happen.

Luzon lives in the sea, with archipelagos everywhere. Each archipelago has its own separatist forces. Most of their culture was brought over by the Han people, and many of them were descendants of Song Dynasty pirates who were hunted down by the imperial court and were forced to flee into the archipelago.

Compared with the people of Annan and Champa who live in the plains and hilly areas, Luzon has no root culture, so naturally they will have a sense of belonging to the Central Plains court.

Besides, according to my understanding, Luzon has no habit of unity. When facing an enemy with a visible gap, they will generally choose to give up. My Ming Navy has artillery and fleets, so why would I worry about them relying on a few hand-rowed boats?”

If Yang Chen remembered correctly, the reason why Luzon was ruled by Spain was because Spain used a strategy, the strategy of sowing discord!
They first supported a relatively powerful force and told them that if they helped Spain unify Luzon, their status would be higher than that of others from now on.

As a result, this group of Luzon people directly betrayed their own nation, sold out and killed all their compatriots, allowing Spain to successfully rule the area for hundreds of years.

“Besides, Luzon is all sea, there is nowhere to hide, it is completely different from the dense jungles of Annan Champa. They don’t have any resources or means to deal with us. Combining all of the above, I think Annan will be like an ant trying to shake a tree when facing the Ming Dynasty’s occupation. Once the Ming Dynasty makes a move, they will definitely be defeated.”

After Yang Chen explained it this way, Yang Siyi had nothing to say.

The strength of the Ming Dynasty Navy was indeed not as strong as that of the Song Dynasty. However, he was very clear that with the level of Luzon, the Ming Dynasty Navy could crush everyone by sending a large ship there.

The target of colonization to the south was Luzon, and everyone began to look forward to where to the west?

Zhu Yuanzhang supported his chin with his left hand, tapped rhythmically on the table with his right hand, and then asked:
“Boy, there is Luzon in the south, but what country in the west can we colonize using the Chinese strategy?
Could it be that in addition to Europe, there is a continent similar to America in the west?”

“Of course.” Yang Chen answered affirmatively without any hesitation.

Then tell us who this Western country is.

“The place to the west that is suitable for Ming to colonize is Tianzhu.”

“Tianzhu?”

When they learned the result, everyone was a little stunned.

Tianzhu was widely known in the Ming Dynasty. During the Tang Dynasty, almost everyone knew that Master Xuanzang was ordered by Li Shimin to go to the Western Paradise to obtain the true scriptures.

Otherwise, the Ming Dynasty would not have produced a mythological novel like “Journey to the West”.

Yang Chen learned through investigating current records that the current Tianzhu region includes some surrounding small countries such as Nepal, Pakistan, and Bangladesh.

India during this period was in chaos and not unified. The situation was probably only slightly better than that of Annan and Champa.

The advantage is that their countries are located in a huge plain area, with a landform that can avoid the little glacial climate.

If the Himalayas on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau are the roof of the world, then the Indian Plain can also be called the best place to grow grain in the world.

Compared to the American continent where there are no mountains in the north and south that would be disturbed by tornadoes, the Indian plains are simply perfect. There is an ocean in the south and a plateau in the north to block the severe cold, leaving only a piece of Feng Shui treasure land in the middle that is suitable for farming.

“The situation in India is very complicated. As far as I know, during the Tang Dynasty, a nobleman named Alona Shun usurped the throne and happened to encounter an envoy sent by the Tang Dynasty.

Unexpectedly, Alona Shun was so powerful that even the Tang Dynasty looked down upon him and wanted to send people to behead the Tang envoys. Thousands of people killed dozens of people. The envoy Wang Xuance and his deputy Jiang Shiren fled to Tubo, and issued a manifesto to fight the rebels in the name of the Tang Dynasty. They successfully borrowed 1200 Tubo soldiers and 7000 Nepalese cavalry (Nepalese cavalry). The two led nearly people to counterattack Alona Shun’s Indian regime. Facing the aggressive subordinates, Alona Shun was defeated with nearly ten times the number of troops!
“Yang Yushi, I know the people of Tianzhu. They are very stupid and have almost no blood. Apart from Buddhism, they have no good ideas. What is there to colonize in this place?” Zhu Gang touched his chin and described the general situation of Tianzhu. He looked at Yang Chen with a puzzled look on his face.

(End of this chapter)