Bringing the Railway to Daming

On February 27th of the sixth year of the Yongle reign, Zhu Xiong Ying hosted a banquet at the Da Shan Hall for Zhu Di, Zhu Zhen, and several princes who remained in the Ming Dynasty, including Zhu Su, Zhu Zi, and Zhu Chun. He also invited Liu Kuan and Mei Yin to the banquet.

Because Zhu Di, Zhu Zhen, and others had returned to attend the funeral, and Zhu Yuanzhang had not been dead for long, the banquet consisted entirely of vegetarian dishes and no alcohol was served.

During the meal, Zhu Xiong Ying took the initiative to bring up a topic and chat with the various princes.

"Today, quite a few vassal kings have gathered. Uncle Yan, as the first prince of our Great Ming to establish a vassal state overseas, now commands an army of 800,000 and controls a territory of thousands of miles. Why don't you share your experience in building vassal states with the other princes? For example, Uncle Tang and Uncle Yi also want to establish vassal states in India."

Upon hearing Zhu Xiong Ying's words, both Zhu Di and Prince Tang Zhu Jing's expressions changed. Only Prince Yi Zhu (Mu Yi) continued eating peanuts and looked at Zhu Di expectantly.

Prince Zhu Jing of Tang was the twenty-third among Zhu Yuanzhang's sons. He was born in the nineteenth year of Hongwu (1386) and is now twenty-five or twenty-six years old.

Prince Zhu Yi was born in the twenty-first year of the Hongwu reign, and is now twenty-three or twenty-four years old.

Both men aspired to establish their own fiefdoms overseas, and thus had been training in the Ming army for several years. However, since there had been no major wars in the Ming Dynasty in recent years, they had not accumulated enough military merits.

However, Zhu Jing swore that although he had privately said that India was a good place to establish a vassal state, he never publicly expressed his desire to establish a vassal state in India, nor did he want to antagonize his older brother Zhu Di.

However, since those words came from Zhu Xiong Ying, he certainly couldn't deny them, so his expression was rather unpleasant at this moment.

Zhu Di's expression was also unpleasant, but he quickly recovered and said, "Your Majesty is joking. The Yan vassal state has not had any war for one or two decades. Where would we have a million troops? The vassal state's directly subordinate troops plus the local garrison troops number only two or three hundred thousand."

Zhu Xiong Ying laughed and said, "Even if a vassal state has two or three hundred thousand soldiers, that's not a small number."

At the same time, Zhu Xiong Ying snorted coldly in his heart.

According to the intelligence he gathered from the Guangming Guard station in Yan, although Yan does not currently have 800,000 troops, it does have 400,000 to 500,000, and may even have reached 600,000.

Zhu Di's offer to halve the amount immediately made Zhu Xiong Ying even more wary of him.

Zhu Xiong Ying continued, "Speaking of which, although Uncle Yan has not waged war in the past twenty years, the governance of the vassal state has been quite good, arguably the best among all the overseas vassal states. If I am not mistaken, the Yan vassal state should now have tens of millions of people, right?"

Zhu Di said, "Indeed, there are more than ten million registered people, but most of them are native Indians. The number of Han Chinese and usable naturalized natives is less than one million."

Zhu Di's words were half true and half false.

The Yan Kingdom currently has a registered population of 10.3 million, but there should be another one or two million unregistered residents who are under the jurisdiction of the Yan Kingdom.

As for the number of people who can be naturalized, it depends on the level of understanding. If we use the ability to understand and speak Chinese as the standard, the number of naturalized natives would definitely be several million. If we include the ability to read and write Chinese characters and access books, then the number would be less than a million.

Zhu Xiong Ying then asked, "I've heard that the Prince of Yan is preparing to attack the Delhi Sultanate in the west?"

Zhu Di said, "I do indeed have this intention—in recent years, the Timurid Empire has been plundering and eroding the Delhi Sultanate. If I let it go unchecked, I fear that the Delhi Sultanate will be annexed by the Timurid Empire in a few years."

"Furthermore, the twenty-year restriction period given to the Yan vassal state by the court has passed for several years. Since the King of Qi is in the south, I have no intention of expanding the territory to the south, so I can only expand the territory to the west."

"If we can destroy the Delhi Sultanate, we can also cooperate with the court to send troops to deal with the Timurid Empire."

Zhu Di's words contained little falsehood; his purpose was to demonstrate Yan's ambitions for the future development of the Yan region to Zhu Xiong Ying, thereby lowering Zhu Xiong Ying's guard.

Zhu Xiong Ying nodded slightly upon hearing this, "We must not allow the Timurid Empire to destroy the Delhi Sultanate."

Seeing that the atmosphere between Zhu Xiong Ying and Zhu Di had eased, everyone else breathed a sigh of relief.

Next, Zhu Xiong Ying guided Zhu Di and Zhu Zhen to share their experiences in governing their vassal states with the other princes, and the conversations finally returned to normal...

After this banquet, Zhu Zhen and Zhu Di left the capital of the Ming Dynasty one after the other in March.

Not long after the two left, Prince Qi, Zhu Fu, returned to the capital. Two months later, Prince Jin, Zhu Gang, and Prince Yong, Zhu Shuang, also returned to the capital. Next came the Princes of Dai, Su, Liao, Ning, Han, and Shen from Europe—these six vassal kings first traveled to the Mediterranean on their own warships, and then transferred to Ming Dynasty naval warships to return to the capital. They did not detour through southern Africa, which is why they were able to return so quickly.

Finally, the ones who arrived in the capital of the Ming Dynasty were Prince Xiang, Zhu Bai, and Prince Lu's heir, Zhu Zhaohui. However, Zhu Tan was seriously ill and unable to travel by boat, so he sent his heir, Zhu Zhaohui, back to attend the funeral in his place.

In addition, after returning to the capital to observe half a month of mourning for Zhu Yuanzhang, Prince Yong, Zhu Shuang, suddenly fell seriously ill.

It turned out that Zhu Shuang's fleet encountered a storm while sailing the South Pacific route. Although he himself was unharmed, he suffered a lot. In addition, he was in his fifties or sixties and neglected his health after returning to the capital to observe mourning for Zhu Yuanzhang. Once his illness flared up, it became uncontrollable.

Fortunately, the medical conditions in the capital were quite good. Although Zhu Shuang was seriously ill, his condition was stabilized under the treatment of a professional medical team, and his life was not in danger.

However, it will take him a long time to recover enough to sail at sea...

···
In the blink of an eye, it was the seventh year of the Yongle reign (1412).

Under pressure from the Ming Empire in various aspects, including diplomacy, trade, and cultural exports, as well as the activities of the Guangming Guard, the two countries of Champa and Lan Xang in the Indochina Peninsula finally could not withstand it and submitted petitions to the Ming Empire in February and March, requesting to be incorporated into the Ming Empire.

After going through some procedures and Zhu Xiong Ying feigning reluctance, by May, Champa and Lan Xang had finally become part of the Ming Empire.

In June, Zhu Xiong Ying issued an imperial edict to establish Cangnan Province.

At this point, only the Kingdom of Siam remained in the Indochina Peninsula. Although it was a vassal state of the Ming Dynasty, it was like a country within a country because it was surrounded by territories directly under the Ming Dynasty. Naturally, the pressure on Siam increased, and the calls within its borders to actively request to submit to the Ming Dynasty also rose sharply.

However, because Siam was at the height of its power and its kings were not incompetent but rather quite strong, it had no intention of submitting to the Ming Dynasty.

In August of the seventh year of the Yongle reign, the King of Siam was assassinated. It is said that the mastermind behind the assassination was the eldest prince. Subsequently, several other Siamese princes raised troops to attack the eldest prince, plunging Siam into internal strife.

In October, Mu Chun, who had held the title of Duke of Qian for only two years, was ordered to lead 100,000 Ming troops to intervene in the internal strife in Siam. He quelled the Siamese civil war in just two or three months.

Because of this internal strife, the Siamese royal family was almost wiped out. In the end, a distant relative of the royal family, supported by several ministers, ascended the throne as the King of Siam. Shortly afterward, he submitted a memorial requesting to submit to the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Xiong Ying pretended to decline for a while before finally agreeing.

Thus, in July of the eighth year of the Yongle reign (1413), the last independent state in the Indochina Peninsula disappeared, and the Ming Dynasty established Vientiane Province.

In October of the same year, the Ming Dynasty changed the Luzon Regional Military Commission to Luzon Province and merged many garrisons in northern Borneo and the garrisons in the Sulu Archipelago into the Southern Seas Regional Military Commission.

By the end of the year, Zhu Xiong Ying reorganized the Naval Commandery and the navy—the Ming Navy was divided into seven parts.

One of them is the Divine Dragon Guard, which belongs to the Emperor's personal guard. Although it is only one guard, it has the personnel of three guards, that is, 16,000 to 17,000 men, and is equipped with the most advanced ironclad warships and various naval weapons currently available in the Ming Dynasty.

Then came the East China Sea Fleet, the South China Sea Fleet, and the North China Sea Fleet.

These three naval forces were mainly responsible for patrolling the East China Sea, the South China Sea, and the waters surrounding Korea, Japan, and the Beiyang Commandery. Each naval force was also organized into three guards, but their ships, firearms, equipment, and even the quality of their personnel were a level below those of the Shenlong Guard.

Following that are the Pacific Fleet, the Southern Ocean Fleet, and the Atlantic Fleet.

These three naval forces each consisted of only three guards. Their ships were comparable to those of the East China Sea, South China Sea, and North China Sea naval forces, but their individual equipment, such as firearms, was slightly inferior to those of the three naval forces.

However, the salaries of the officers and soldiers of the six naval forces were the same, and the salaries of the three major ocean fleets were even higher because they often went on long-distance voyages and received various subsidies.

The Pacific Fleet is responsible for patrolling the west coast of the Americas, Australia, and other areas, which means that the entire Pacific Ocean is under its jurisdiction.

The Southern Ocean Fleet was responsible for the islands of Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean region in later generations.

The Atlantic Fleet is responsible for the west coast of Africa and the west coast of Europe, and in the future, for the east coast of the Americas. (End of Chapter)