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Chapter 934 Shalian Port 5
"Don't panic! We're going to Jiangkou to buy goods as usual. They can take whatever they want. Tomorrow, let them pay with their blood!"

Wu Gen stood up, put his hands on the awning, looked around, and sat down again. These Burmese boats that cruised on the river all day were like leeches in the jungle, living by sucking other people's blood. Any ship carrying goods had to pay a tribute if it wanted to pass.

The exact amount depends on reputation, wealth, and status. The Mon people are the poorest, but they are charged the most. If you dare to say no, your ship and cargo will be confiscated, and the people will be captured and sold as slaves. There is no reason to argue.

But the days of being bullied were coming to an end. Alfonso's tribesmen gave the Mon people thirty sharp bayonets, which were hidden in the fishing nets at the bottom of the boats. When the big boats were led into the river by the Gomin and attacked the city of Shalian, the tribesmen would take these bayonets to settle accounts with the Burmese who had been bullying the Mon people.

However, there is a question that always lingers in my mind and cannot be answered: where did Alfonso and that huge army come from?

Judging from his facial features, Alfonso was obviously different from Alfonso the Great and the sailors on the Portuguese sailing ship, and was completely different from Governor Philip ten years ago. Instead, he looked very similar to those soldiers of unknown origin on the sailing ship.

But he couldn't find the origins of these soldiers in his memory. They were definitely not from Ayutthaya, Aceh, or Arakan, nor did they look like the Bengalis in the north, nor did they look like the Mughals on the west side of the sea. No matter how many there were... Wu Gen had only seen so many foreigners in his life and his father's life.

Whether Wu Gen's tribe and the Mon people could use dozens of bayonets to create chaos in the city of Shalian and distract the defenders was not part of Huang Nanping's battle plan.

In fact, Wang Datou asked for weapons for Wu Gen not to attack the Burmese defenders, but to protect himself. In the chaos of war, it is always necessary to have some weapons to be safe. Maybe there was a problem with language communication and it was not made clear.

In the early morning of the next day, the first wave of attack fleet slowly left the anchorage more than 40 miles away from the mouth of the Irrawaddy River, and sailed northward one after another. Most of the remaining ships followed far behind at half sail, ready to send land guards to land at any time.

Even if Wang Datou tried his best to persuade the naval commanders, he could not make them fully trust Ge Min, so the first wave of attack fleet consisted of only two Qin-class warships and two brigantine communication ships.

However, the commander's rank is high enough. In addition to the two captains, the Navy Chief of Staff Wang Yuanjing is personally in charge, and he is also keeping an eye on Wang Datou and Ge Min in disguise. If there is any unusual movement, he, who came from the Haihu Division, will have to clean up the mess for His Majesty.

The Irrawaddy River is the largest river in Myanmar. It has two main tributaries, one of which originates in China, west of the Nujiang River, and is called the Dulong River.

It flows from Yunnan in China all the way into Myanmar, following the mountains from north to south, running through the entire country vertically, and finally into the Andaman Sea.

Tharyan Port is located at the southeast corner of the Y-shaped intersection of the two tributaries of the Irrawaddy River, 70 miles from the estuary. The river here is very wide, the water is very deep, and the flow rate is not too fast, making it a very good deep-water port.

There is a large pagoda right above the Y-shaped river, called Shwedaguang Pagoda. Next to the pagoda is a small village called Daguang. Later, this Daguang village gradually developed into a large city, Yangon. It became the capital and largest city of Myanmar until the capital was moved to Naypyidaw in 2005.

Since ancient times, agriculture in plains formed by river impact has developed rapidly, such as the North China Plain, the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River Plain, and the Pearl River Delta Plain, all of which are major grain producing areas.

From a geographical perspective, the location of Shalian Port is more like the Pearl River Delta Plain, with large rivers, water networks, and estuaries, and similar latitudes and climates. However, agriculture here is not particularly developed, and the population is not very dense, with most of the people being Mon. Why is this so? Two words, ethnicity. History is sometimes very similar. If you look at Chinese history and count, there are very few times when the south invaded the north, and most of the time it was the northern ethnic groups that moved south.

The same is true for Myanmar. The first people to unify Myanmar in history were the Burmese from the north. They conquered all ethnic groups in Upper and Lower Myanmar and established the Pagan Dynasty, which was later destroyed by the Yuan Dynasty. Then the various ethnic groups immediately fell apart and each ruled its own territory until the Toungoo Dynasty, which was dominated by the Burmese, unified Myanmar again.

The capital of the Pagan Dynasty was Pagan, located near Mandalay, in the middle reaches of the Irrawaddy River. The capital of the Toungoo Dynasty was Toungoo, also in the middle reaches of the Irrawaddy River.

If we also include the Konbaung Dynasty during the Qing Dynasty, whose capital was Mandalay, we will find that the ancient Burmese capitals were all concentrated in the middle reaches of the Irrawaddy River, with the northernmost capital no larger than Mandalay and the southernmost capital no larger than Toungoo City.

Why is this? Is there any magic in this area? There is definitely no magic, but the food production is huge!
The Irrawaddy River, like the Yellow River in China, is the mother river of both countries. In ancient times, when agricultural technology was not well developed, the middle reaches were more conducive to agricultural development. For example, the Guanzhong region in the middle reaches of the Yellow River developed earlier than the lower reaches.

Only with developed agriculture can we breed more people, and with a larger population we can cultivate more land. This is a positive cycle.

In addition, let's look at who unified Myanmar three times. All of them were dynasties dominated by the Burmese. The Burmese are said to come from the snowy area, which is the north of Myanmar.

According to Chinese tradition, northerners are not very adaptable to the southern climate, so when choosing a capital, the southernmost location is along the Yangtze River. The Burmese seem to have this habit as well, firmly controlling the plain grain-producing areas in the middle reaches, so that it is more convenient to go north or south.

In later times, Myanmar once placed its capital in Yangon, which developed well by taking advantage of sea transportation and became a major port in Southeast Asia. But not long after, the capital was moved back to Naypyidaw in the central part of the country, for the same reason: ethnicity.

If the Mon people in Lower Burma are allowed to develop their economy too well and control the country's economic lifeline, it will be difficult for the government, which is mainly composed of the Burmese, to control the overall situation, and the country may split again.

The reason why Hong Tao dared to send the navy to Thanlyin Port to take advantage of it was that he saw the ethnic issues in Myanmar. He wanted to support the local Mon people to fight against the Toungoo Dynasty and indirectly force the Burmese people to transfer most of their energy from the north to the south.

This would not only solve Yunnan's urgent needs, but also weaken the power of the Toungoo Dynasty in disguise. When they had time to complete the work of converting the natives to officials in Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan, they could turn around and deal with the restless Burmese regime.

At that time, whether to directly eliminate them by force and cultivate a puppet regime, or to continue to support the Mon people to expand northward, will be decided based on the status and economic conditions of the surrounding countries at that time.

This is why Hong Tao stopped expanding and devoted a lot of energy, manpower and financial resources to solving the problem of chieftains in Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan. If the internal ethnic issues are not dealt with, the more territory they occupy, the more trouble they will have, and eventually the central government will be overwhelmed and overwhelmed.

As a big green bean fly that lays maggots wherever it goes, Hong Tao is determined not to allow other flies to lay maggots on his eggs. National issues are like cracks in the eggshell and must be given priority.

(End of this chapter)