Daming Military Empire

Chapter 304 Arriving in Ceylon
Farewell to Luzon, Zhu Cijiong led the combined fleet to continue westward. The next stop will be Ceylon, which is full of rubber trees. Manila is about 8000 miles away from Ceylon. At the current speed of the fleet, it will take about seven days to sail. Of course, before that, They have to pass through a very important place, this place is the Strait of Malacca.

The Strait of Malacca is an important throat connecting the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. It is extremely prosperous in later generations, and thousands of ships pass through here every day, but it is still desolate now. It seems that the great powers have not discovered the importance of this place. There was a struggle here.

The current Strait of Malacca nominally belongs to Portugal. The Portuguese governor in Goa sent troops to defeat a small indigenous kingdom called Malacca in the middle of the strait more than 100 years ago, and stationed a [-]-man squad there, so it is considered a stronghold of Portugal for the time being. , and Portugal has developed a total of more than ten small strongholds like this in the Nanyang region.

Malacca is still only a stronghold the size of a fishing village, and there is nothing to see, so Zhu Cijiong did not arrange to stop here in his itinerary, but Zhu Cijiong still checked it carefully with a telescope when he passed the strait.

Sure enough, it is an important throat. The narrowest place is less than a hundred miles away. As long as bastions and forts are built on both sides of the strait, and then a fleet is sent to pierce the middle, it is impossible to break through with the current naval strength of the great powers. Zhu Cijiong decided Alright, this place must be in your hands!
He pretended to ask Shivira on the side casually: "Is it suitable for planting rubber trees here? Why don't you plant rubber saplings here?"

Upon hearing this, Shivela said in embarrassment: "Your Majesty, you don't know. The natives here are really annoying. They like to make sneak attacks at every turn. It is estimated that the rubber saplings will be destroyed by them after a few days of planting. And the Dutch People seem to have taken a fancy to this place, and they are likely to send troops to attack it. It is too unsafe, so Weichen did not arrange for people to plant rubber trees here."

Hearing this, Zhu Cijiong rolled his eyes, pretending to be injustice and said: "The Dutchman is too arrogant, they are still coming to snatch it even though you occupied it first!"

Shivela said helplessly: "Oh, there is no way, they have a lot of ships, and their navy is stronger than Spain's. Now Portugal can't compare with them at all."

Zhu Cijiong pretended to be disdainful and said: "Hmph, there are so many ships, how can I have as many Daming ships? When I come back from Europe this time, I will send a fleet to station here, and see if the Dutch dare to come and snatch it."

Shi Weila was overjoyed when he heard this and said: "Thank you, Your Majesty, Kong Dede has a headache because of this. This stronghold is really worthless. If it wasn't for the convenience of traveling to and from Daming, Kong Dede would have withdrawn this stronghold a long time ago. It can't be better, after all, we don't have any soldiers under our command, and these one hundred people are quite a force. It's too wasteful to be stationed here every day. Why don't we go to Mysore to help guard the territory."

Zhu Cijiong couldn't help but sniggered in his heart, it's worthless?For Portugal, it may be of little value here now, but it is different for Ming. If troops are sent to defend this place, the navy of the great powers will have to go around more than half of the world to reach the southeast coast of Ming. This place is simply too valuable for Ming. up!

Of course, he can't be too impatient, Shivira is a ghost, it's not good to let him see the clues, he pretended not to care and said: "That's it, when I come back from Europe Say more."

Zhu Cijiong was in such a good mood that he won an important place for no reason. In the next few days, he even took Qin Mingyue behind closed doors to learn Spanish with Princess Anna. Of course, I don’t know if he is really learning Spanish. Said: Don't say it, don't say it.

After crossing the Strait of Malacca, Ceylon is not far away. After the United Fleet continued to sail for about three days, Ceylon Island was already in sight.

Ceylon is the largest island at the southern tip of the South Asian subcontinent. Since the period of the Three Kingdoms, two indigenous kingdoms, the Sinhala Kingdom and the Tamil Kingdom, have appeared on the island. These two indigenous kingdoms have fought against each other for more than 1000 years. Until more than 100 years ago, Eventually conquered by Portuguese adventurers.

It is less than three thousand miles away from Goa, so it is naturally under the jurisdiction of the Governor of Goa, Portugal. However, due to the limited force of Portugal, it has never occupied the entire territory of Ceylon. It only sent a small number of troops to station here. In a strict sense , this can only be regarded as a stronghold of Portugal, not a colony of Portugal.

Of course, this situation has completely changed since the arrival of the Second Army of the Ming Expeditionary Army. The Second Army of the Expeditionary Army is a regular army of the Ming Dynasty. Occupied by the Second Army Corps, of course, in name it is still a territory of the allied Portugal.

Hearing that the emperor is coming to inspect Ceylon, Qin Yiming naturally started preparations early on. Not only did his soldiers clean up, but even all the rubber forests were cleaned up by the natives. He is the elder brother of Queen Qin Mingyue. It doesn't matter if he hurts his own face, but it's a big trouble for his sister to be criticized because of it. His aunt Qin Liangyu must peel off his skin.

Another 200 troops lined up to greet them, and the voice of Shan Hu Long live was also deafening. The European diplomatic missions did not show much surprise this time, because they were already numb. They already believed the rumor that Ming had more than [-] million troops. That's absolutely true!

Naturally, Zhu Cijiong would not show off in front of his uncle, he just arranged for ten thousand Jinyi guards to go ashore to take charge of security, and then took Qin Mingyue and Princess Anna off the Daming ship.

Now that Zhu Cijiong has a lot of experience in boosting morale, it is inevitable to encourage the soldiers of the Second Corps of the Imperial Guard. After the encouragement and rewards, Qin Mingyue took Qin Yiming to talk, and it seemed that the two brothers and sisters had endless things to say Zhu Cijiong simply took Princess Anna and led Shivela and others to walk towards the rubber forest not far away.

It has been almost three years since the rubber tree was planted, and now it has grown taller than an adult. Zhu Cijiong looked at the growing rubber tree and asked enthusiastically, "When can these trees harvest raw rubber?"

This is his cash cow, and Shivela is naturally very familiar with it. He replied without thinking: "Back to the emperor, according to the estimates of the Indians invited by Weichen, these trees can start harvesting raw rubber in three years."

Three years, I am afraid that it will not be able to catch up with the laying of the Daming telegraph network. Now the telegraph lines leading to the state capitals are almost finished, and the telegraph lines leading to the counties are almost two years away, but it does not matter. There are also vassals and colonies. As long as the big powers pay, they can also help them lay telegraph networks. Independent business is the most profitable. According to the current speed of technological development, they have to understand the principles of electromagnetism. It will be impossible for decades, and by then Daming will have already made a fortune.

Besides, this rubber can not only be used as a cable insulation layer, but also has many uses. With the gradual application of rubber, Daming's military and civilian technology will surely reach a new level!
(End of this chapter)