Tibet.

Chapter 1481 Sinhalese Island
The Chola fleet used long oars as power, with a total of ten pairs of twenty long oars. Each long oar was operated by five soldiers. A large ship required a hundred people to row, and such warships were also very fast.

The Tang army had learned a lot from the Chola Kingdom's naval warfare tactics. After getting close to the enemy ships, the soldiers threw a large number of kerosene cans over and then threw torches to set fire to the enemy ships.

This one move made Chola the overlord of the sea until they encountered the Tang army.

However, the previous Chola fleet that had experienced the power of the Tang army had been completely destroyed, and the current Chola army did not know about it. When they saw the Tang army's warships, hundreds of Chola ships immediately dispersed and approached aggressively.

The Tang army's artillery began firing. From two hundred steps away, one shot directly penetrated the wall of the enemy's main warship. The shell exploded inside the ship, and the main ship began to sink rapidly.

In fact, it didn't matter even if the enemy approached, the Tang army still had a second level of attack. Several large enemy ships approached, and more than a hundred Tang soldiers on the ships used explosive arrows to shoot at the enemy ships, blowing the enemy ships into pieces. A large amount of seawater poured in, and the ships quickly sank.

To be prepared for any eventuality, each large ship was equipped with fifty fire-fighting soldiers. They took wet blankets and threw only kerosene onto the warships. The Tang army soldiers immediately pounced on them and covered the kerosene with wet blankets. Sand or soil would also be more effective.

In just half an hour, most of the enemy's nearly 100 large ships had been sunk, and the remaining twenty or so warships fled to the northwest, but the Tang army had set up a tight net, and they had nowhere to escape.

Soon, the Tang army completely destroyed the remaining twenty or so Zhu Guoluo warships. The sea was in a mess, with floating wood and corpses everywhere. Most of the soldiers sank to the bottom of the sea along with the ships.

The Tang army occupied Bichi Port. Li Chengshi left behind a thousand men and thirty warships, and the fleet continued to sail along the strait.

Ten days later, the Tang fleet arrived at the Andaman Islands. In a small-scale battle, they wiped out the Chola garrison of one thousand troops and seized fifty large supply ships that had just arrived at the Andaman Islands, obtaining a large amount of food and other supplies and money.

Two unexpected things happened on the Andaman Island to the Tang army. They rescued more than one hundred young Han women, all of whom were people from Jiaozhou. Three years ago, they were abducted from Jiaozhou by the Chola army disguised as pirates and became military prostitutes.

The rescued Han women cried bitterly, and King Li Fang of Shu comforted them, promised to send them home, and gave each woman a sum of money from the confiscated property.

In the end, these women did not go back, but stayed on the Andaman Islands. They eventually married the Tang army soldiers stationed on the island and settled down on the Andaman Islands.

Another amazing thing is that the Tang army actually encountered two merchants from Nanzhao, one named Luo An and the other named Luo Quan, who were cousins.

Inside the big tent, two merchants from Nanzhao were explaining their business routes to high-ranking Tang army officials in front of a map they had drawn up temporarily. Both of them could speak fluent Chinese.

It turned out that the Andaman Island was very close to the Pyu Kingdom. They drove a mule team along the dense forest trail into the Pyu Kingdom. After entering the Pyu Kingdom, they sold the goods. Later, they heard that the Andaman Island produced ambergris, and the price was very cheap. If they brought it back to the Tang Dynasty, they could make a hundred times the profit.

They followed several Pyu merchants on a boat to the Andaman Islands. However, they were surprised by the decree that the Chola Kingdom had just issued, which stipulated that the ambergris produced in the Andaman Islands could only be tributed to the Chola nobles and could not be sold outside. As a result, the two Nanzhao merchants came to nothing.

"Your Majesty, King Shu, although we were unable to purchase ambergris, we still acquired a batch of valuable shells and are preparing to ship them to Chengdu for sale."

"Does the Pyu Kingdom have a large population?" Li Fang asked.

Luo An bowed and said, "Your Highness, the population of the Pyu Kingdom is not small, mainly distributed on the great plains. There are many ancient small cities. Their ancestors were all Qiang people. They came from Bashu in the pre-Qin period and found that there was an endless great plain here. Our Nanzhao Kingdom sent officials to inspect the great plains here many times and prepared to attack the Pyu Kingdom, but found that it was still unrealistic."

"Why not realistic?"

"It's too far away, blocked by thick forests, with only small paths available. We can't guarantee logistics transportation. It took us more than two months to go out for business. We walked through the lush primitive jungle for more than a month, with all kinds of wild beasts and deadly miasma. It was very dangerous. If we were not careful, we would die. We didn't know how to get back. It happened that the Tang Dynasty's Heavenly Army came. Can we take your ship back to the Tang Dynasty?"

Li Chengshi readily agreed and asked, "Can you speak Chola?"

The two nodded, "We have been stuck in the Andaman Islands for a year and have learned their language."

Everyone was delighted that they finally had two translators.

Although the Great Plains of Pyu sounded good, it was too far away after all, and no one was interested.

After three days of rest on the Andaman Island, leaving 500 men to guard the island, the army set out again, heading for Ceylon. They invited several merchant ship captains who had been traveling between the Arabs and the Tang Dynasty for many years to serve as guides. These captains were very familiar with the routes and would definitely not go astray in the vast Indian Ocean. After another 20 days of sailing, the fleet finally saw land and arrived in Ceylon.

Ceylon is Sri Lanka, also known as the Lion Kingdom or Sinhalese Kingdom in the Tang Dynasty. It covers an area of ​​about 60,000 square kilometers. The indigenous people here are Sinhalese. They believe in Buddhism and have always been hostile to the Tamils ​​in the north who believe in Shiva, and wars have broken out frequently.

After Ceylon was occupied by the Tamil dynasty Chola Empire, the Chola Empire carried out several massacres of the Sinhalese, destroyed temples, forced them to change their beliefs, and forcibly drove a large number of Sinhalese to the northern mining areas to become mine slaves.

After a hundred years of devastation, the Sinhalese, who originally had a population of one million, has been reduced to less than one hundred thousand people. A large number of Tamils ​​poured into Ceylon, seized land, enslaved the weak Sinhalese, and classified them as Dalits, or untouchables.

The reason why Li Ye wanted Ceylon was because the geographical location of this big island was too important. It was the pearl of the Indian Ocean and the most important supply point on the Maritime Silk Road. All merchant ships coming from the Arab world and East Africa had to stop here for supplies.

The huge Tang army fleet arrived at Galle Port, the southernmost tip of Ceylon Island, the largest trade and supply port on the ancient route.

The arrival of the Tang army caused panic in the entire port, and officials fled one after another, but the Tang army did not encounter any resistance and occupied the Port of Galle without bloodshed.

The port of Galle has a population of more than 10,000, most of whom are Sangha people. More than half of the young and strong make a living as dock laborers. They suffer from cruel oppression by a small number of Tamil nobles and officials and live in general poverty.

But they still adhere to their beliefs and believe in Buddhism. There are still three Buddhist temples that have not been demolished. They are the only three Buddhist temples in Ceylon that have not been demolished. They are the spiritual home of all Sinhalese people in Ceylon. Every year, tens of thousands of Sinhalese people come from all over Ceylon to pay homage to the Buddha.

The Luo brothers were also Buddhists. They went to the temple to worship the Buddha and then brought with them several monks. When the monks heard that the Tang army had arrived, they were very excited. The Tang was a powerful dynasty that believed in Buddhism. They immediately felt that they had a strong backer and that the day of the Sinhalese's rise was coming.

The Tang army officers and soldiers felt quite cordial to see monks in robes in faraway Ceylon, and one soldier led them to the general's tent.

King Li Fang of Shu was the supreme leader of the expeditionary army. Emperor Li Ye appointed him as the Grand Marshal of the Overseas Expedition, Ma Lin and Li Chengshi as the left and right deputy marshals, and Du Huan as the chief secretary.

Several monks came to pay homage to King Li Fang of Shu, and Luo An served as their interpreter.

It turned out that the Chola Governor Rajinder hated the Sinhalese for going to Galle to worship Buddha, so he ordered the army to demolish the last three Buddhist temples. The army was about to arrive, and the monks were at a loss, just in time the Tang army arrived.

Li Fang was invigorated and asked quickly, "How many troops will come?"

"There must be at least tens of thousands of them! They are also afraid that the Sinhalese will revolt."

"How many Chola troops are there on the entire island?" Ma Lin asked.

"There are about 50,000 of them, deployed in Kandy, the former capital of our kingdom, located in the middle of the island. It takes two days to get there from Kandy. I estimate they will arrive tomorrow."

Although Luo An's translation was not very accurate, everyone understood it.

"How long has it been since the Sinhalese Kingdom was destroyed?" Li Fang asked again.

"It has been more than a hundred years. The royal family has long been wiped out, and the Sinhalese have been almost killed by them. They used massacres to force us to give up Buddha and convert to their Brahmanism, but we would rather die than obey. So they drove the Sinhalese to the mining area to mine for them and replaced us with Tamils ​​to become the new owners of this land."

“How many Tamils ​​are there in Sinhalese?”

"Probably several hundred thousand people! Several times more than us, mainly distributed in the north of the island."

Li Fang nodded and said to Ma Lin with a smile: "Ten thousand troops will come tomorrow. Now is your chance, General!"

(End of this chapter)