Bringing the Railway to Daming

Since the Ming court issued an edict to establish the Hainan Province, it naturally divided the territory on Java Island with the Chu vassal state, and the Ming troops previously stationed in Troulan were also withdrawn.

The Chu vassal state currently has limited military strength, so after the imperial army withdrew, he only stationed 3,000 Chu vassal garrison troops and 2,000 local soldiers in Semarang on the northern coast of East Java and Yogyakarta.

The rest of the troops brought to Java Island are currently stationed with him in Tro Ulan.

As for other cities and important places in Java, they can only be abandoned for the time being.

On the second day of May, Zhu Zhen summoned his civil and military officials to the main hall of the palace to discuss important matters.

After the civil and military officials had saluted, Zhu Zhen got straight to the point: "I have summoned you all to discuss the location of the royal city."

Hearing this, many people were confused and thought: Isn’t the capital of Majapahit the existing capital of Chu?
Counselor Chen Ju then asked, "Your Majesty, don't you want to make the capital in Troulan?"

Zhu Zhen said, "When I first chose Nanyang as the place to establish my vassal state, I analyzed with you that the future Chu State would inevitably become a maritime power. Therefore, we need to attach importance to navigation and vigorously develop the shipping industry."

"Although Tro Ulan was the capital of the Majapahit Kingdom and had abundant farmland and a large population, it was located deep in the interior of East Java. This was not conducive to the development of our Chu State's maritime industry, nor was it convenient for future expansion to the east or south."

"Therefore, after much deliberation, I decided to establish the capital in Chongjialuo (later known as Sishui). It is a rare good harbor and is also convenient for ships to sail north or south."

"In addition, according to the visits of the people sent by the Lonely Army, the local temperature is pleasant all year round. Even in the hot summer, it is not too hot, and the rainy season is only about three months."

"Plus, as a port, it has convenient natural transportation, making it an excellent choice for both agricultural and industrial development."

After hearing what Zhu Zhen said, civil officials such as Lu Gang, Chen Ju, and Ouyang Gao could not help but recall the intelligence about Chongjia Luo that they had seen before. Fortunately, there were not many cities and important places in East Java, so they were able to remember the information from everywhere.

Then Chen Ju said, "Your Majesty, as far as I know, Chongjia Luo is just a small seaside town with a population of less than ten thousand. How can it be a royal capital?"

Another counselor, Su Yi, also said, "Your Majesty, not only is the city of Trowulan quite large, but it also has a ready-made royal palace. If we choose Chongjialuo as the royal capital, we will need to build a royal palace in the future, which will waste a lot of manpower and material resources. Please reconsider!"

Zhu Zhen frowned slightly and said, "The royal palace can be built slowly when Chu has more manpower and supplies. But if we choose the wrong capital, it will be very troublesome to move it in the future."

"Also, not only is the architectural style of the Trowulan Palace biased towards Brahmanism, which is not conducive to promoting our Han culture, but I don't know what mysterious things are hidden inside. Do you still want me to live there forever?"

A mysterious thing?

Upon hearing this, Chen Ju, Su Yi and others were stunned, and then their expressions became strange, thinking: Could it be that the king encountered something strange during the time he lived in the Troulan Palace?
When they took a closer look, they discovered that Zhu Zhen was indeed much thinner than at the beginning of the year.

So no one dared to continue to advise on this matter.

Zhu Zhen glanced at his ministers and said, "Since you all agree, the location of the capital is determined. However, Chongjialuo will be renamed. It is the capital of our Chu State, and from now on it will be called 'Chudu'."

"Yes."

It's just a name, so naturally no one would object to Zhu Zhen. Although the name is not normal, isn't the capital of the Ming Dynasty also called Jingshi?

Zhu Zhen continued, "Apart from choosing a capital, there are two most pressing matters for the Chu State. The first is to expand the army; the second is to collect taxes."

When the Chu vassal conquered Majapahit at the beginning of the year, the total number of its troops had actually reached more than 30,000.

In addition to the 3,000 guards and 5,000 Han garrison troops who came with him to establish his fiefdom, there was also a 3,000-strong guard battalion formed by orphans recruited from Burma and Annan.

Over the past year or so, he had also asked Ming Dynasty merchants to help relocate young women and unmarried men under the age of 30 from Japan. The Japanese women were naturally married to meritorious soldiers, while the unmarried men were selected and formed into a 3,000-man brave fighting battalion.

Next, local soldiers were selected from the surrendered soldiers of the two countries of Nanaghadaha and Tansongpuri, and four local soldier guards were trained. According to the military system of the Ming Dynasty at that time, each guard had 5600 people, so there were a total of 22400 local soldiers.

Zhu Zhen now left only a few thousand men to garrison Juyang and other Borneo cities and strategic locations, and the remaining nearly 30,000 men were transferred to Java. However, since he had previously only deployed troops to garrison three cities, it was clear that the Chu vassal state was still short of troops in East Java.

Fortunately, the Majapahit Kingdom believed in Brahmanism. Not only was there a clear distinction between social classes, with great oppression and discrimination against the lower classes, but there were also many slaves. Therefore, the Chu State was not worried about the source of soldiers.

Majapahit originated from the Hosari Dynasty, but was founded less than a hundred years ago. It can be said that it had deep roots in Java, but it was not so disgusting to the people. It can be said that it was still quite popular before that.

Therefore, when the Chu vassal wanted to recruit troops, the soldiers could not be selected from the ordinary people of the original Majapahit Kingdom, but could only be selected from the lowest class of untouchables and slaves - only these people would truly support the rule of Chu because of the changes in their identity and status brought about by Chu.

"I plan to recruit and train the Four Guards from among the untouchables and slaves throughout East Java. Of course, the mid-level and high-level officers of the guards will be drawn from the Han Chinese garrison troops."

"As for taxes, I have decided to temporarily contract them out to the city lords and large landowners in various parts of East Java who previously came to us."

"After two or three years, when we have established a firm foothold in East Java, cultivated enough talented people, and have more of our own people, we will return the power of taxation to the royal court."

The tax farming system was actually a very backward and crude system for the Han people who had replaced several generations of feudal dynasties. However, no one raised any objection to this matter at this time, because this was what Zhu Zhen had discussed with his ministers after deciding to participate in the court's expedition against Majapahit last year.

All the officials of the Chu vassal state knew that they simply did not have that many available officials and translators to send to various parts of East Java to collect taxes. Even if they did, it would be difficult for them to do a good job because they did not understand the local conditions.

It would be better to follow the original method of Majapahit and contract it out to the city lords and landlords.

Over time, this will definitely give rise to micro-warlords with money, food, and troops, and will cause great oppression to the lower-class people, to the point that even the Chu vassal court will bear a grudge against them.

But as long as the Chu vassal king's court has its own people in the future, it will have time to kill all these fattened city lords and landlords.

"The third priority is recruiting talent and immigrants," Zhu Zhen said. "At most, our Chu vassal state has only tens of thousands of Han Chinese, while East Java has over a million natives."

"Since we are fighting a large force with a small number of people, we cannot over-trust or rely on the natives. Therefore, we must not only continue to recruit Han immigrants from Annan, Burma, Siam and other places, but also send people back to Ming to recruit talents suitable for official positions here..."

···
While King Zhu Zhen of Chu was using all the knowledge and methods he had learned to govern East Java, most of the other princes who had established fiefdoms overseas were also working hard.

In the northern part of the Indian subcontinent, Zhu Di, the Prince of Yan who was the first to go out to sea and establish a vassal state, not only occupied almost all the territory of later Bangladesh, but also took over West Bengal.

The State of Yan had been regarded as a major enemy by the Delhi Dynasty, which was calling on the northern kingdoms and states that were nominally subject to it to join in attacking the State of Yan.

However, the northern Mara Kingdom (whose territory was mainly Nepal in later generations, but larger) had fought with the Yan State several times and suffered heavy losses. Knowing that the Yan State was difficult to defeat, it ignored the Delhi Dynasty.

In the southern part of the Indian subcontinent, King Zhu Yu of Qi was still in a semi-indulgent state of establishing a vassal state.

What is semi-indulgence?
On the one hand, Zhu Yuanzhang was very concerned about building the vassal state, especially building the army and expanding the territory. Although the vassal state had only been established for about three years, it had already taken over nearly a quarter of the territory of Sri Lanka in later generations.

On the other hand, Zhu Gui still acted out of tune from time to time. In addition to designing clothes that he thought were trendy, he also liked to collect beautiful women and even asked people to study a kind of magic medicine that was said in ancient Indian legend to make a man invincible in bed and worth ten people at once.

When his ministers tried to dissuade him, Zhu Yuanzhang swore that he was not researching this for his own use, but was planning to sell it to the Ming Dynasty or the West to make money.

In comparison, the development of King Jin Zhu Gang in Northeast Africa was much more normal.

In addition to training the army step by step according to the original plan of "Three Years to Gather People and Send Troops to Europe", Zhu Gang also occasionally attacked neighboring countries to rob some money and food, and expand the territory.

Up to this point, the territory of Jin State included not only Egypt in later generations, but also northern Libya and a small part of southern Sudan.

Although most of its territory is desert, in terms of area, Jin can be considered a great power both in North Africa and in Europe.

Even the Timurid Empire, the Ottoman Empire, and the weakened Byzantine Empire in the north were on guard. (End of this chapter)