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Chapter 976 Slave Hunting Order

The Navy and the Marines had no good way to deal with these ethnic groups. After a period of lessons, they realized that villages near the sea were vulnerable to attacks by the Ming army's large ships, so they gradually moved the villages and towns inland, away from the sea. If they wanted to clear them out, they had to send a large force.

However, the disparity between the money and food consumed by the large army and the results achieved was too great. After clearing an island with great effort, it was all in vain. After withdrawing for a while, they migrated from nearby islands, continued to live in the primeval forest, and continued to harass the north.

In view of this situation, the emperor issued an order early on not to allow the navy to clear the southern islands on a large scale, and even abandoned Mindoro Island, shrinking the defense and concentrating its efforts on managing Luzon Island.

Since then, the waters south of Luzon Island have become a black hole for commercial routes, and almost no merchant ships are willing to set foot there except for the navy's regular dispatch of warships for patrol.

There were too many pirates, and Chinese merchants, Dutch merchant ships, and Portuguese merchant ships all suffered heavy losses in this sea area. Even though sailing north from the Spice Islands to Manila Port could save nearly half the voyage, most merchant ships still chose to take the route west of Borneo.

"Your Majesty, according to the intelligence analysis obtained by the Navy General Staff, the Visayan people's continuous northward invasions throughout the year were mainly supported by the secret support of the Sulu Kingdom." Hearing the emperor mention the security issues in southern Luzon, the commander-in-chief of the Marine Corps, You Bushai, quickly stood up and responded.

The entire navy has always been concerned about the resistance forces in this area, especially the South China Sea Fleet, which is extremely unwilling to have a security risk in its own backyard.

For this reason, the Navy General Staff has submitted petitions many times, requesting the emperor's permission to send a large army to wipe out the rebellion. But each time it was rejected. Now that the emperor is here in person, it is definitely a good opportunity, and we must seize it to end it once and for all.

"Well, I have read the memorial of the Navy General Staff regarding the Sulu Kingdom, but the combat plan you formulated is too large in scale and too costly, so it is not cost-effective." Hong Tao really did not want to clear this obstacle on the sea, but everything has its priorities.

From the emperor's perspective, the problems of the Sulu Kingdom and the southern Philippine Islands were not as urgent as those of the Yarkand Khanate, the Oirat Mongols, the navy's westward advance into the Indian Ocean, and the system of native subjects in the four southwestern provinces.

From the perspective of strategic and economic value, this sea area and archipelago is basically useless to the Ming Empire. It has Luzon and Annan, and it does not occupy a strategic position. It is a loss-making business to start a war.

The most important reason is that it is difficult to implement. The Sulu Kingdom sounds like a country, but in fact it is a loose union of a large number of small chiefs, roughly including hundreds of islands.

Whether sending the Marines or the Army to the island for a cleanup, they will face two very practical problems: using cannons to kill mosquitoes, and the result will be completely useless.

"According to your Majesty's opinion, what should I do?" You Bukuai was really confused. The emperor was determined to eliminate the hidden dangers south of Luzon Island, but was unwilling to send a large army to clear it out. Could there be a quick and economical way to do it?

"Now that the north is at war with the Oirat, if nothing unexpected happens, the areas north of the Tianshan Mountains and south of the Altai Mountains will be incorporated into the Ming territory, and the three Outer Khalkha tribes will also submit.

Such a large area needs a lot of population to fill, plus the Yarkand State and Liaoyang Province, the gap in immigration is very, very large. The navy can change its thinking from extermination and occupation to capture. As long as the population is not land, those islands will have no use in the short term, so just let them be abandoned.

The hundred households or teams should be taken as the standard. Take off the military uniforms and board merchant ships to cruise between the islands. If you encounter bandits, capture them. Then find the local settlements through them and go ashore to encircle and suppress them. Send all the captured people to Thang Long Prefecture. Yunnan and Guizhou are in urgent need of a large number of people. Capture as many as you can. In addition, you can mobilize the people on Luzon Island to go out to sea to capture people on their own initiative. The government will pay for the purchase and then sell them to the provinces that need immigrants at a higher price. You can decide the specific price yourself. "

Does Hong Tao have a quick and economical method? He must have one, and it must be useful, because he had used it in his previous lives. He didn't use it before just because he didn't want to make the Nanyang countries chaotic and distract the empire's attention. He also wanted to try to use economic means to exert influence on the surrounding countries and make them actively move closer.

Now it seems that the economic means have limited effect. Brunei in northern Borneo, Johor in the Malay Peninsula, and Jambi on the island of Sumatra all respect the Ming Empire. But there are also some that do not buy into it, such as the southern Philippine islands, Sulu, and Aceh.

Since the effect is not very good, Hong Tao is in no mood to play the appeasement game with them anymore. When it is time to use the big stick, he has to swing it hard. If he doesn't beat the other party until they are covered with bruises, they will think you are weak.

However, this time the big stick is not entirely composed of troops, nor does it require attacking cities and villages to destroy countries and families. Instead, it has changed to a method that is gentler on the surface but more immoral in essence: plundering the population.

In addition to economic factors, there is another main reason for doing so, which is faith. There is a characteristic of the Southeast Asian countries in the Ming Dynasty. Most of them are Buddhist countries that are connected to the mainland, with the exception of Johor. The island countries that do not border the mainland basically believe in Islam.

How this situation came about is not discussed first, what Hong Tao needs to consider is how to change the status quo. He is determined not to allow other religious forces, including Buddhism, to grow stronger in the inner sea of ​​the Ming Empire.

However, attacking any sultanate without warning could easily trigger a chain reaction, which would not be helpful in stabilizing the situation in Southeast Asia.

Where should we start? Hong Tao thought about it for several years before coming to a conclusion: starting from any country would not be perfect. So there is no need to target any country, but only the population.

I arrested people, and kept arresting people when I caught a target. I arrested one and then the next, and sent all the arrested people to the inland and the north to live together. In a situation where the Han people have an absolute advantage and no privileges, any religion is useless, and they will be assimilated in a minute.

But arresting people costs money, and it is slow and expensive for the army to do it alone. What can we do? As the ancients said, there is strength in numbers. With the influx of a large number of Han immigrants into Luzon, if they were allowed to join the ranks of arresting people, the efficiency would immediately increase and the cost would drop significantly.

Would the Han Chinese capture the Nanyang natives for money? You can be assured of this. The Han Chinese in the Ming Dynasty claimed to be civilized people, but the largest pirate gang in Nanyang was also Han Chinese. They were both sea merchants and pirates, and they would even rob merchant ships of their own country.

As long as the profit is sufficient, they will not resist any immoral act. If they have the support of the imperial court, they will be as cruel and vicious as the slave traders in Portugal, the Netherlands and other countries at that time.

As for people, you can choose not to believe in the good in human nature, but you must fully believe in the evil in human nature. Even if you let your imagination run wild and think hard, you may not be able to find the end.

(End of this chapter)