The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 139: Nationalism is a promising topic

Hexian, Wuding City, and the Ancestral Hall of the Zun Family.

After Ou Tianci and Mo Zibu paid tribute to Ou Jiu, they drove everyone out.

The father and son knelt on a cushion facing each other in front of the golden clay statue of Ou Jiu.

This treatment is extraordinary. You must know that Ou Tianci is the lord of Hexian. He is the one who has the final say both internally and externally. There has never been anyone who can compete with him behind closed doors.

"My son, do you want to take this opportunity to ask the Qing Dynasty for an enthronement?" Ou Tianci asked in a low voice.

"Father, don't you want to?" Mo Zibu did not answer, but asked Ou Tianci instead.

Ou Tianci raised his head and looked at the golden clay statue of his father Ou Jiu with a very complicated expression. He spoke after a while.

"Ha Tien is located in a war-torn area, and without a strong backing, it will either be annexed by Quang Nam or Siam in the future. There is no way it can escape.

You tell me, how could I not think about it.

I think your second uncle and others want it too.

But I can see that you don’t want to do it. Can you tell me why?”

Mo Zibu also raised his head and looked at the statue of his grandfather Ou Jiu. He knew that the words "You said, how can I not think about you" that Ou Tianci had just said did not seem to be said to him, but more like he was saying it to his grandfather Ou Jiu.

"Yeah, why do I always want to? Why don't I want to be canonized by the Qing Dynasty? Obviously, I can become a free and easy prince."

Mo Zibu murmured to himself, no one is saint, no one can resist all temptations, and Mo Zibu is certainly no exception.

He knew that if he could lower himself and lick the Qing Dynasty now, it would be because of the many videos and articles he had read in later generations by history experts analyzing Qianlong's character.

Mo Zibu was sure that he could flatter the Qing Dynasty and Emperor Qianlong to his great satisfaction.

He could even ask Emperor Qianlong to raise his banner based on his great achievements and become the leader of the Eight Banners in Southeast Asia.

With the support of the Qing Dynasty, his career would soar at a rocket-like speed, and the speed of establishing a strong power in Southeast Asia would be much faster.

After his creation, he would definitely be able to leave behind a kingdom that would be more powerful than the Bangkok Dynasty of the Chakri family, and even his descendants would still be able to become kings three hundred years later.

But why wouldn't he want to?
Mo Zibu slowly closed his eyes.

The signing scene of the Treaty of Nanjing and the ruins of the Old Summer Palace.

Deng Shichang's unwilling eyes and Feng Zicai's grief and indignation at being defeated despite not being defeated.

The cries of Nanjing City and the ice sculptures of volunteer soldiers on the Korean Peninsula.

The three Bodhisattva statues in the British Museum, which were cut into three parts, all came to his mind.

He also saw it, he saw countless ancestors roaring in blood and fire, in the hail of bullets!

No! Mo Zibu shook his head fiercely. He couldn't let this happen again.

To overthrow the Qing Dynasty and turn the tide in this last chance, it is definitely not possible to just train 80,000 or 100,000 soldiers in Southeast Asia.

The Han vested interests who colluded with the Qing Dynasty and were in cahoots with it were extraordinarily powerful.

To overthrow the Qing Dynasty, the slave-owning regime, and its accomplices, we need to awaken the 200 million compatriots on the mainland.

When they wake up and gather around Mo Zibu, the Qing Dynasty will fall to the ground at its most powerful.

Simply put, if you wanted to defeat the Qing Dynasty during the Qianlong era, you didn't rely on strong ships and powerful guns.

Historically, European powers could easily defeat the Qing Dynasty with their powerful ships and cannons. That was because the Qing Dynasty knew that the European powers were only coming to ask for some money and they would not take its life.

They would even protect the Qing Dynasty for their own interests in order to exploit hundreds of millions of Han people.

But Mo Zibu is different. As soon as he shows up, the Qing Dynasty will know that he is here to kill them. They will fight Mo Zibu with all their might and will never be easily defeated.

If the Qing Dynasty really started to fight hard, how could Mo Zibu defeat the Qing Dynasty with only Southeast Asia and the size of Thailand and Vietnam at most?

Therefore, his only reliance was to awaken the millions of oppressed Han people from the middle and lower classes, promote nationalism, and launch an anti-Manchu revolution.

Don’t you see, more than a hundred years later, at the end of the Qing Dynasty, when ordinary people in Lu Xun’s works mentioned the revolutionary party, they all said:

"The revolutionaries, in white helmets and white armor, are the Han people who have come to avenge Emperor Chongzhen."

This shows that nationalism is feasible. Mo Zibu can only overthrow the Qing Dynasty by using the Tiandihui and other means to awaken 200 million compatriots.

To play the role of an awakener well, you cannot have too many stains on yourself.

Mo Zibu couldn't be sure whether he would be unable to resist the temptation and start to do bad things with a stain on his face in ten or twenty years.

Therefore, he could fool and deceive the Qing Dynasty, and could establish connections with the Qing Dynasty to a certain extent, but he could never side with them.

Once he accepts the Qing Dynasty's enthronement, the righteousness from Ou Jiu and Chen Shangchuan in Mo Zibu will immediately disappear.

Look at Wu Sangui shouting about overthrowing the Qing and restoring the Han dynasty, but did anyone pay attention to him? Although Mo Zibu's acceptance of the title wouldn't be as serious, it would still undermine the foundation of his legitimacy.

So Ou Tianci could dream of being enthroned, but Mo Zibu was not allowed to have any chance at all.

But Mo Zibu could not tell all this to Ou Tianci. If he dared to say that he would overthrow the Qing Dynasty in the future, Ou Tianci would either be scared or think that Mo Zibu was crazy.

Originally, Ou Tianci was worried that the Hexian business could not be passed on. So would he still be willing and confident to hand over Hexian to a mentally ill son?
So, Mo Zibu adjusted his direction and said to Lu Tianci:

"Father, do you know? Western Europe began to have a Hundred Schools of Thought two hundred years ago, and a hundred years ago they were already considered invincible with their guns and cannons.

And now, they are in an era of drastic change.

Father, this world is about to undergo a great change. In the future, coal and iron will rule the world.

Whoever controls the most coal and iron can produce the most and most powerful guns and cannons, and then conquer the world.

And all of this is undoubtedly in the hands of the Westerners. In the future, their strength in Southeast Asia may very well surpass that of the Qing Dynasty.

A Western philosopher famously said, "Don't put all your eggs in one basket." This is a truly profound statement. Father, we must seize this opportunity to gain the favor of the Qing court. Even if we can't be enthroned, we must establish connections so that we can gradually grow stronger.

At the same time, the third brother should go to Western Europe.

Let him go on my behalf and establish contact with the Kingdom of France. It would be best if he could marry the daughter of a great French nobleman, or even the daughter of the King of France.

That way, our Mo family will have double protection. If the Qing Dynasty is unreliable, we can rely on the Western Regions. There will always be one side we can rely on."

Ou Tianci breathed a sigh of relief and nodded with some relief. In fact, he was quite scared in his heart, afraid that Mo Zibu would hate the Qing Dynasty to the point of losing his mind.

For Ou Tianci, his father's heroic deeds could no longer prevent him from getting closer to the Qing Dynasty.

He is now an old man who is almost seventy years old and worries about the future of Hexian every day. What Ou Tianci cares about most is the Hexian foundation, and everything else can be compromised.

So, after hearing Mo Zibu's reasonable and even brilliant decision, he was very satisfied and even joked with Mo Zibu.

"What if both sides can be trusted?"

“Then let Hexian continue to rely on the imperial court.

France is a great power in Europe and has great ambitions for the rich lands in the East. What's more, the Netherlands is right next to France, so it can easily control the Dutch at any time.

When the time comes, we will work together with the French to drive the Dutch out of Batavia and let my third brother become the lord of Batavia."

"Okay, hahaha!" Ou Tianci laughed. He had been a little dissatisfied with Mo Zibu recently.

Because of Mo Zi Bu's influence, Taksin's reputation was much greater than before, and he took over Chanthaburi without even asking for help from Ngo Tien Ci.

This completely thwarted Ou Tianci's attempt to gain some benefits through this incident, but now that he heard Mo Zibu had such a plan, he immediately ignored everything.

"Wu Shiying said that my son is the founder of the sect. It's true. Call your third brother back. You can't motivate him to study. Let me do it."

Mo Zibu nodded. The power of the beauty trap had decreased a bit now. Ou Zirong started to whimper and make small moves again. He really needed to increase the intensity.

"It's just about my sister-in-law..." Mo Zibu said in a low voice. Ou Zirong was five years older than him and was already 24 years old this year. Naturally, she had been married for a long time, but she didn't have any children yet.

"Don't worry about this, I'll take care of it." Ou Tianci waved his hand nonchalantly.

Ou Zirong's wife, Pei, was the daughter of Ou Tianci's cousin. She was jealous and childless. If it weren't for Ou Tianci's protection, she would have been divorced long ago.

The father and son walked out of the ancestral hall with smiles on their faces, and then Mo Zibu's mother, Chen, rushed over to them.

Mo Zibu watched from afar and felt that Chen's eyes were red and she seemed to be about to cry.

Just when I was thinking about whether I should shed some tears as well, I didn't expect that Chen would grab my ear the next second.

"You bastard, you still remember to come back! For six whole years, you almost scared me to death!" Chen yelled and finally tears came down.

"Also, now that you're back, why don't you bring Li Xianwen back with you?

Have him come to Ha Tien immediately and bring his birth date. Your sister will be twenty-two next year. If you delay any longer, she will be the laughing stock of the world."

Mo Zibu was just about to say that Li Xianwen really couldn't leave because he had to help Mo Zibu stabilize Luo Kun, but when he saw his mother Chen's expression, he knew it was useless to say anything, so he could only quickly agree.

"Okay, I'll go to the boat and ask my second brother to come back, and try to marry my sister off by the end of the year."

Mo Zibu had just finished speaking when he heard a scream outside the door, and Ou Hui, who had just arrived, fled in panic.

. . . .

At night, Mo Zibu called Lin Tong to give him instructions in person, because Mo Zibu seemed to be a time traveler, but in fact his understanding of history was not enough.

He knew the story of the Fourth Qing-Myanmar War and where Fu Heng went, thanks to watching a few episodes of Princess Huanzhu.

Although most of the history in this TV series is inconsistent with historical facts, it still successfully reminded Mo Zibu of the commander-in-chief of the Fourth Qing-Myanmar War.

He used all the information he could collect and speculated that the person who would go to clean up the mess in the end was most likely Li Shiyao.

But how did he fail the fourth time, and what kind of personality Li Shiyao had, Mo Zibu had no idea.

That's why he insisted on letting Lin Tong go. With Lin Tong's ability, Mo Zibu believed that he could bring back a rough portrait of Li Shiyao's character through limited contact with people around Li Shiyao.

This is very important for Mo Zibu's subsequent choices and judgments.

By making friends with Li Shiyao, Mo Zibu will be able to obtain permission to export refined iron.

These refined irons not only include iron blocks transported to Pattani and Nakhon Si Thammarat for making firearms, but more importantly, iron pots used for cooking and iron farm tools.

The productivity at that time was much lower than later generations believed. The only countries in the entire Nanyang region that could manufacture iron pots and agricultural tools on a large scale were Myanmar and Northern Zheng.

Even Myanmar and Beizheng face the disadvantages of poor quality and high costs.

Guangnan and Siam even had only a few small workshops among the people, and they did not even have the ability to produce on a large scale.

At the same time, the countries in Southeast Asia are basically unable to produce large quantities of qualified refined iron needed to make iron pots and farm tools.

It is no exaggeration to say that the iron pots and iron farm tools of the Qing Dynasty at that time had a higher status than the automobile manufacturing industry of the later Republic.

The automobile manufacturing industry in later generations was still in the second tier in Southeast Asia, but the Qing Dynasty's Foshan iron products had no competitors in Southeast Asia and were in a deformed market where buyers were begging sellers.

If Mo Zibu cannot get enough iron pots and iron farm tools from the Qing Dynasty, he can forget about developing the Andai area on a large scale.

There is no pot to cook and no farming tools can be provided. Who will help you open up wasteland and cultivate land?
Therefore, no matter how unwilling he is, Mo Zibu must now put establishing good relations with the Qing officials first.

I'm afraid it would have been like this before we failed to conquer Beizheng and build a small industrialized industry with the help of the French.

"Dav, after your trip to Guangzhou, you'd better find a way to go to Foshan and carefully record the current status of Foshan's steel and handicraft industries. Keep an eye out for unsuccessful talents, even if they have poor skills.

If possible in the future, we must recruit a group of skilled workers to go to Southeast Asia, otherwise we will always be controlled by the imperial court."

As for the future, Mo Zibu wants to establish preliminary primitive industrialization, and skilled technicians from Foshan are what he needs most, so now he has to let Lin Tong find out the preliminary situation.

(End of this chapter)