prosperous age

Chapter 971 The 1060th Division is famous

"Majupa Yi. Tammu Sultanate."

Wei Guangde murmured in his mouth.

The two names he muttered were naturally the names of the countries in Southeast Asia mentioned in the letter.

Majapahit occupied the old port, ending the history of the only enclave in the Ming Dynasty.

Ordinarily, if the Ming Dynasty wanted to restore the Old Port Xuanwei Division, it should retake this place from Majapahit.

Unfortunately, Majapahit was destroyed by the Tammu Sultanate many years ago, and it is this kingdom that now occupies the old port.

Upon hearing the name Sultanate, Wei Guangde guessed that it had something to do with the religion in the Middle East. He didn't know what the specific sect was, but in Wei Guangde's impression, Sultan and Chief seemed to be the titles there.

It seems that in later generations, there was a Middle Eastern country with this name.

This is why Wei Guangde connected him with the Middle East after seeing the name Sultanate.

It's funny to say that in Southeast Asia, religion seems to be very developed. Muslims and Islam seem to have established political powers there one after another.

You know, the distance between the Middle East and Southeast Asia is India, which protrudes to the south.

After thinking about it, Wei Guangde suddenly understood why Middle Eastern religions took root in Southeast Asia.

It seems that it was not just the Ming Dynasty. In fact, during the Yuan Dynasty and even the Song Dynasty, merchants from the Middle East already knew how to trade with China by sea. They brought back porcelain and silk from China and sold them to Europe at high prices.

This is why Europeans know that there is China in the East, and the products there are top European luxury goods.

After all, ocean-going trade in this era not only involves huge costs, but also entails great risks. It is natural for merchants to make enough money in just one trip.

The Europeans opened up the New World not just to come to China and trade directly with China, avoiding middlemen such as Middle Eastern merchants and Ottomans.

It seems that Chinese goods are sold from the Middle East through the Mediterranean to Italy, France and Spain in Europe. The price increases are layer upon layer, which makes more European aristocrats unable to afford them.

It seems reasonable that people from the Middle East must rely on land routes along the way to educate some locals.

Old Port.

This term appeared in Wei Guangde's mind again. The Ming Dynasty must take back this place because it is the west gate of the Ming Dynasty Sea.

Before Myanmar was conquered and stabilized, this was the intersection of Eastern and Western civilizations.

Maintaining the Ming Dynasty's influence in East and Southeast Asia and managing this traditional sphere of influence are Wei Guangde's top priority at this time.

Domestic reforms should be left to Zhang Juzheng to study, which is too offending.

At this time, although the Portuguese and Spanish had extended their tentacles to Southeast Asia, their main energy was concentrated on the development of the American continent.

In Southeast Asia, the traditional sphere of influence of the Ming Dynasty, Europeans mainly established a so-called commercial stronghold near the sea.

Commercial strongholds, which can be understood as ports, were established to ensure maritime trade routes and provide supplies, repairs and other services to merchant ships.

Of course, there are also trading venue activities and some commodity trading.

For these commercial strongholds, both Portugal and Spain fought many wars with local forces.

Generally speaking, Southeast Asian countries are weak and it is generally difficult to resist their guns. Therefore, after paying some land prices, the relationship between the two parties eased and normal trade began.

At this time, it was not that the Europeans did not want to further expand their colonies and were content to stay close to commercial strongholds. The main reason was that their strength was relatively weak and they did not have the ability to continue to expand their territory.

For example, after the Portuguese occupied the Goa region of India, they invaded Malacca in 1511, the sixth year of Zhengde, and seized it from the Manchurian Kingdom.

Although the Manchurian Kingdom asked the Ming Dynasty for help, Emperor Zhengde was very angry after learning the news. He quickly sent his minister Zhu Wan to lead an army to completely eliminate some Portuguese pirates operating on the southeast coast of China and clear all their strongholds.

And later imposed economic sanctions on the Portuguese who invaded and occupied Malacca, prohibiting Chinese people from having any economic exchanges with them.

After that, Chinese businessmen traveling to and from Southeast Asia had long avoided Malacca and avoided doing business with the Portuguese. At that time, some Southeast Asian Chinese had joined the exiled Malacca royal army and helped them counterattack the city of Malacca.

However, because of Malacca's special geographical location, the Portuguese are also very interested in it, so it has not been lost.

Wei Guangde is actually paying attention to two place names now, one is Malacca and the other is Manila.

Malacca had already been occupied by the Portuguese during the Zhengde period, while Manila was occupied by the Spanish only a few years ago. They defeated some king on the Philippine island to obtain this place.

As for the rest of the content, Wei Guangde couldn't stand it anymore because it was very confusing. One moment it was Srivijaya, another moment it was Mansikaga, another moment it was Majapahit, there was also the Tammu Sultanate, and there was even mention of the Bajrang Kingdom. , Wei Guangde was completely stunned inside.

Obviously, Southeast Asia at this time, mainly the two island countries of Indonesia and Malay, had very rapid political changes in the past hundred years, which can be understood as belonging to the Warring States Period.

As for the strength of the Nanyang Navy of the Ming Dynasty, Yu Dayou only mentioned it briefly in his letter, because it can be summed up in one sentence that it is not strong enough and cannot go south for the time being.

Yu Dayou had seen Portuguese and Spanish warships, so he had a clear understanding.

At this time, in a naval battle with them, there was no other way but to rely on numbers to win.

Such tactics are not needed by Yu Dayou. He is now urging shipwrights to design Western-style warships that can deploy a large number of artillery guns on the sides.

Of course, Yu Dayou also talked about their encounter with a group of pirates during the development of Dongfan Island. It is said that the pirate leader was named Lin Feng.

The Ming army seized Lin Feng's lair on Dongfan Island, but due to lack of preparation, Lin Feng ran away with dozens of boats, and now there is no news that his whereabouts are unknown.

Wei Guangde didn't take a second look at this, he just looked like a pirate.

But he didn't know that the existence of pirates like Lin Feng gave the Nanyang Navy an excuse to go to Nanyang.

In the next few days, Wei Guangde was doing whatever he was supposed to do in the capital, but the news sent by Yu Dayou was not enough to affect Ming Dynasty's policy towards Southeast Asia.

However, because Old Port appeared in Wei Guangde's mind again, he suddenly realized another problem that seemed to be a trouble that could not be solved well with the Ming Dynasty from its establishment to its demise, and that was the mining system.

Mining in the Ming Dynasty was actually a common thing. After all, China had a history of mining for thousands of years. Whether it was the Song Dynasty or the Yuan Dynasty, mining had never stopped, so there should not have been any problems. Unfortunately, Ming Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang was different. He believed that a mining ban policy should be implemented.

When the Ming Dynasty was founded, it regarded farming as the foundation of the dynasty and believed that mining would destroy farming.

Because mining is more profitable than farming, a large number of people will flock to this industry driven by profits. Taizu believed that this would lead to the abandonment of farming.

Secondly, the biggest difference between mining during the Ming Dynasty and today's mining is that safety is very low and the risk of mining accidents is much higher than today. Therefore, people engaged in mining at that time were generally regarded as desperadoes who risked their lives.

When such people gather together to safeguard their interests, they will inevitably unite to resist the government's management and ban, becoming a destabilizing factor in society.

It should be said that Zhu Yuanzhang's view is not wrong, but it is a bit narrow. After all, mineral development is actually a major event that benefits the country and the people. We cannot only see the disadvantages and ignore the benefits.

What made Wei Guangde think about mining was that large-scale riots occurred in coastal counties to prevent Ming Yingzong from sending navy to the West.

Mining was a very profitable business activity in ancient times. It is not an exaggeration to say that one can make huge profits.

However, in the Ming Dynasty, mining was prohibited. This was a rule set by Taizu.

However, in order to solve the financial problems of the imperial court, Ming Yingzong decided to resume mining, because after the mining ban, there was an obvious shortage of materials in the Ming Dynasty.

Resuming mining operations will not only meet the demand for mineral products from the court and the people, but also increase the court's income and solve the problem of financial shortages.

Ming Yingzong thought so, and even more so.

At this time, the mines still being mined in the Ming Dynasty were all official mines, but there were also private mines among the people.

Emperor Yingzong of the Ming Dynasty ordered the opening of mines. Since the opening of mines was to solve the financial problems of the imperial court, the minerals mined were mainly precious metal minerals, mainly gold, silver and copper.

These mines are mainly distributed in Zhejiang, Fujian, Jiangxi and other provinces, and most of them are silver mines.

In the middle of the Ming Dynasty during the reign of Ming Yingzong, due to the development of agriculture and handicrafts, the treasure banknotes and copper coins issued by the court could no longer meet the growing demand for transactions. Therefore, silver gradually became the measure of value in trade and was widely used in society.

The widespread use of silver also allowed the Ming court during the Yingzong period of the Ming Dynasty to lift restrictions on the use of silver.

The widespread use of silver caused the value of silver to continue to rise. The imperial court also began to regard silver mines as a source of profit. For this reason, it issued a ban prohibiting any individual from illegally mining silver mines.

Because the benefits are considerable and natural wealth is attractive, many people take the risk and choose to illegally mine in prohibited mining areas. The imperial ban not only did not prevent the development of private mining, but instead allowed more people to participate in it.

Since mining has a relatively high demand for manpower, the size of these mining teams is not small, generally reaching five to six hundred people, and they also have weapons for self-defense, which gives these illegal mining teams the basis for an uprising.

The person who led their resistance was Ye Zongliu, a native of Zhejiang. During the seventh year of Zhengtong, he, Wang Neng, Zheng Xiang, Cang Datou and others gathered more than a thousand people into the Xianxialing Mountains to mine silver mines.

Moreover, the safety conditions of the mines at that time were very poor, and large-scale collapses often occurred, so they were also called "traps."

But even so, the Ming government still tried its best to block off the area and hinder these farmers from mining.

Ye Zongliu realized that mining could not sustain the livelihood of these miners, so he advocated launching armed riots to solve the problem of social inequality between rich and poor.

They held an uprising in the 10th year of Zhengtong. The Ming court immediately sent surrounding officers and soldiers to suppress the bandits. Ye Zongliu had to lead the rebel soldiers to move to various states, Yunhe and other places, while continuing to mine and accumulate strength.

In the twelfth year of Zhengtong, Ye Zongliu raised troops again and captured Zhenghe County. Later, he successively occupied Pucheng, Jianyang, Jianning and other places in Fujian, and controlled the transportation of the three provinces.

The miners' uprising led by Ye Zongliu lasted for a long time, but because they had no clear goals and the soldiers of the uprising army were just trying to survive and had no more ambitious political ideals, they inevitably failed.

But since then, miner uprisings have sprung up in various places.

In fact, these uprisings were more about resisting arrests by the government and the army.

At that time, small-scale miner uprisings often broke out in Fujian, so residents of various townships organized small-scale armed forces to carry out defense work. Deng Maoqi and his younger brother Deng Maoba were both leaders of the local armed organizations.

They called on the local farmers not to pay winter livestock to the landlords and asked the landlords to go to the fields to collect the rent in person. This naturally aroused the dissatisfaction of the landlords. The landlords complained to the county magistrate. The magistrate sent inspections to arrest Deng Maoqi, but they were Deng Maoqi was defeated, and Deng Maoqi also launched an uprising.

During the Zhengtong years, the uprisings of Ye Zongliu and Deng Maoqi broke out one after another, and their impact was huge. In fact, it also reflected the serious flaws in the system formulated by Zhu Yuanzhang.

You must know that the Ming Yingzong period was the early stage of the Ming Dynasty. While the national power was still on the rise, the people rebelled and revolted for various reasons.

After that, the Chenghua and Jiajing dynasties both resumed mining to solve financial difficulties, but they were banned again due to harassment by miners.

Wei Guangde didn't know what went wrong between the opening and closing of mining during the Zhengtong and Chenghua years, but he still knew something about the situation in the Jiajing Dynasty.

When the Jiajing Dynasty mined, because it was a government mine, the life of the miners was very bad. The government conscripted peasants into service in the form of corvees and did not care about their life or death at all.

In such an environment, if they don't rebel, they will have no way to survive.

Also because they rebelled, Emperor Jiajing, who was afraid of trouble, chose to decisively close the mine.

Just think about it and give certain guarantees to the miners. The mine supervisors will not actually implement it in order to gain profits.

Wei Guangde still knew the virtues of Ming officials very well and could not count on them.

Just when Wei Guangde was thinking about the Ming Dynasty's mining reform, the news about Nanyang from Jinyiwei was finally sent back.

It can only be said that the Jinyiwei are the ones who are really engaged in intelligence. At least they figured out that the Xuanwei Division in Jiugang was occupied by Majapahit during the Zhengtong period.

Later, this land passed through the rule of the Tammu Sultanate, and the current ruler is the Bazhang Kingdom. An original lord of the Tammu Sultanate rose up taking advantage of the civil strife in the Tammu Sudan.

How to settle this account?

If Majapahit was still there now, it would be logical for the Ming Dynasty to send troops. After all, they invaded the Ming Dynasty's territory.

But now that the rulers have changed twice, even if there are still a large number of Chinese living in Old Port, so what?

When Ming Dynasty's navy arrives there, can they still get support?

The teacher has a reputation, and now the word "name" deeply stopped Wei Guangde.

"Continue to develop in various parts of Southeast Asia and figure out the situation there, especially the attitude of the Han people."

Wei Guangde could only tell Liu Shouyou to continue paying attention to this matter.

(End of this chapter)