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Chapter 923 The Answer is in Myanmar

"Where does Your Majesty think the next Thang Long Palace is?"

On the question of how to make money, Zhu Haiou followed the emperor 100%. At this point, it was obvious that he was helping the navy to find a way to make money, so he quickly asked for advice.

However, it is useless to just solve the military expenditure problem. The key issue is where the navy should go to rob wealth. The Southeast Asian waters, including the Western Ocean, cover a large number of port cities. Who can be attacked and who cannot be attacked, where is richer and where is not worth mentioning, all need to be determined before making a plan.

"Isn't it written here? As a naval commander, being so incomplete and insensitive in researching coastal countries is tantamount to dereliction of duty!" Hong Tao did not say it clearly, but picked out two memorials and threw them over.

"Dacheng Kingdom?" Zhu Haiou picked up a copy at random, opened it, glanced at it twice, and blurted out the answer.

You don't need to look closely at the content to know that this memorial was written by him personally, but it was not submitted to the emperor for his own review. Instead, it was a regular report to the General Staff.

The content was very trivial and nothing important. The only slightly useful thing was a letter from Cambodian King Chettha to Nguyen Huong Giang, asking him to borrow troops from the Ming Empire on his behalf to resist the invasion from the Ayutthaya Kingdom.

At that time, Nguyen Xiangjiang had already gone to the capital with his family, so he naturally did not receive the letter. The local garrison forwarded the letter to the Navy General Staff. Zhu Haiou, considering that Nguyen Xiangjiang was a cabinet minister and the emperor's father-in-law, specially reported the matter to the General Staff and submitted it to Beijing together with the letter from the King of Cambodia.

Now that it has been brought out by the emperor, the answer must be there. Ayutthaya is much richer than Cambodia, so if you want to rob, you must rob the rich. And you have a legitimate reason, you are bullying my little brother!

As for whether Cambodia is a younger brother of the Ming Empire, it is just a matter of one sentence. Just send someone to ask the King of Cambodia, and there is a high probability that he will get a nominal vassal state.

The reason why we are so sure is all from the records in history books. Since ancient times, the area from China to the south to the sea has been occupied by many ethnic groups, among which the larger ones are Lao, Shan, and Thai. In fact, their ancestors are all the same, the Ai Lao people.

In BC, the Ailao people established a state in the Nujiang and Lancangjiang River basins, which was called the Ailao State by the Han Dynasty Chinese. For a period of time, the Ailao State submitted to the Eastern Han Dynasty, established Yongchang County, and was mistakenly believed to be a branch of the Southern Yue people. Later, they fell out and the Ailao State was destroyed by the Eastern Han Dynasty.

But the Ai Lao people did not disappear, but chose to migrate. Some of them moved eastward along the Lancang River and settled in the upper reaches of the Mekong River, establishing a country called Lancang, which means the country of elephants, and formed the Lao people in later generations of Laos.

Some of the Ailao people chose to go west and establish the Shan Kingdom in the upper reaches of the Irrawaddy River, forming the Shan people of Myanmar in later generations. Some of the Ailao people crossed the Hengduan Mountains and came to the Assam region, and were later called Indian Assamese.

Another part of the Ai Lao people went south to the Chao Phraya River to establish Siam, and became the Tai people of Thailand in later generations. In the end, they did not go anywhere, and the part of the Ai Lao people who remained in the original site of the Ai Lao Kingdom became the Tai people in later generations.

There is a strange phenomenon in human history: the closer people are to each other, the more hostile they are to each other. For example, the Slavic people in Europe were divided into various Slavic groups in the east, west, south, and north. They fought each other fiercely and could not be persuaded.

Although the Dai, Shan, Lao and Thai peoples have a common ancestor, when they dispersed to various places and spread out, when they got together again, it was not that fellow villagers saw each other with tears in their eyes, but they picked up butcher knives and were like enemies meeting each other with jealousy.

As a result, Burma, Siam, and Laos, or the Southern Kingdom, fought and devoured each other every other day. Even Annan and Cambodia, or Chenla, which bordered them, were not at peace either. Today you helped me, and tomorrow you helped him, making it a mess.

Ayutthaya, or the Ayutthaya Dynasty of Siam, was not as peaceful and tranquil as later Thailand. It was fighting with Lower Burma in the west and trying to annex the Kingdom of Cambodia, which had once been subject to it, in the east. It was completely like the flat-headed brother of the Indochina Peninsula. The capital of Ayutthaya was called Panakorn Ayutthaya, which was only more than 100 miles away from the sea and was easier to attack than Thang Long. I guess there are many treasures hidden in the palace, which is really worth a visit.

"Ayutthaya has nothing to do with Ming, it should be Myanmar!"

But Wang Sheng did not agree with this choice. He received a memorial from Yunnan Governor Chen Yongbin. It said that the Burmese in the south were restless and often fought with the chieftains in the border areas. However, he was old and weak and could no longer lead troops to suppress the rebellion. He begged the court to send young and strong officials to guard Yunnan.

"Myanmar... Your Majesty, is it really Myanmar?" Zhu Haiou snatched the memorial from Wang Sheng's hand and glanced through it, and began to lean towards Myanmar. However, there seemed to be some hesitation in his eyes, or trepidation, and he hoped that the emperor would deny this guess.

"Yes, that's right, it's Burma. The terrain in southern Yunnan is too complicated. If we send the army to suppress the situation, it will be very difficult. Even if it works, it will be ineffective and cost a lot of manpower and material resources.

But it is much easier to attack from the sea. As long as we hit hard enough and make the Burmese king feel the pain, he will have to shift his attention from Upper Burma to Lower Burma. "Hong Tao nodded and stated his position firmly.

After returning from the Western Regions, he wanted to rest and recuperate for a few years. Apart from consolidating the results of the war and supporting Abudain and Yusup to continue to rule the Yarkand Khanate, he would not easily use large-scale military forces again.

But the tree wants to be still but the wind does not stop. He saw a hint of worry in the memorials sent to the court by officials from all over the country. The Burmese were causing trouble in southern Yunnan again, and the governor Chen Yongbin was helpless in the face of many emergencies except mobilizing local chieftains to send troops for support.

The memorial Wang Sheng saw was the second one Chen Yongbin had written in half a year, which showed that the situation was not optimistic. The court had to make a decision as soon as possible on whether to strike or appease, and implement it immediately.

Hong Tao's opinion is that they should fight, because the Ming Dynasty has been appeasing the people for more than 200 years since its establishment, which has not worked at all. There are troubles every now and then, and if they continue to appease the people like this, the court will soon become an ATM.

But how should he fight? Should he personally lead an expedition to Burma like he did against the Yarkand Khanate, killing anyone who stood in his way and killing gods who stood in his way? Hong Tao wanted to do that, but he knew that he didn't have the ability to do so.

Myanmar is very different from the Yarkand Khanate in every aspect. In terms of climate, one is an extreme temperate continental climate, with little rain and plenty of sunshine; the other is a tropical monsoon climate, similar to Luzon Island, with hot and humid dry seasons and little rain, and plenty of precipitation in the rainy season.

In terms of topography, one is mountainous, with many rainforests, rivers and few roads; the other is a huge basin filled with desert Gobi, dotted with oases and roads everywhere.

From a personal perspective, Hong Tao doesn't like these two extreme climates and terrains. From the perspective of the Ming Army, the Yarkand Khanate is more conducive to combat.

As long as you find a water source, there are basically no other difficulties. In contrast, Myanmar has no shortage of water, but there are no roads for logistical transportation, it is humid and rainy, and there are mosquitoes, ants and poisonous insects everywhere. Each of these is not easy to overcome at the moment.

The local tribal armed forces could easily hide in ravines or caves, and then come out to harass the logistics channels after the army has passed. It is too difficult to find a group of native people in the continuous mountains.

(End of this chapter)