amaotonovel Chapter 1131: The Western Expedition Encounters Obstacles
Chapter 1131: The Western Expedition Encounters Obstacles
Chapter 1131: The Western Expedition Encounters Obstacles
At this time, Zhu Di's Chinese Western Expedition Army had been fighting the Crusaders for two years and four months. The weather had turned cold again, and it seemed that the war this year should be temporarily suspended. On the second day of the snow, Zhu Di ended his inspection of the front line and led his Han soldiers back to Constantinople.
The Byzantine Empire had been destroyed by the Western Expedition Army, and the Byzantine emperor was said to have fled to the Vatican in Italy. At this time, this old Eastern Roman capital had become the headquarters of the Ming Dynasty's Western Expedition Army. Yao Guangxiao, Zhang Yu, Mahamu and other generals of the Western Expedition were stationed in this city.
Constantinople plays a pivotal role for both Europeans and Turks: in the past, Christianity was divided into Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism, and Constantinople was the core of Eastern Orthodoxy and the undoubted territory of God. At the same time, Constantinople was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire. You know, the Roman Empire was the pride of all European nobles. Even though Rome had been in decline for hundreds of years, many European countries still regarded themselves as Romans.
It can be said that in the eyes of Europeans, this city is second only to the holy city of Jerusalem;
For the Ottoman Empire, this place also has a pivotal significance. It is the border between Asia and Europe and an important hub for the East-West land trade route. Previously, Constantinople, as a bridgehead blocking the Ottomans from entering Europe, has always been a thorn in the eyes and flesh of successive Ottoman sultans.
Europeans called this city "Constantinople", while the Ottomans had their own name for it. They called it "Istanbul", which means "Go to the city!" This shows that the Ottomans were determined to win this city.
Now, Constantinople was conquered by the Ming Dynasty, and neither "Constantine" nor "Istanbul" was applicable. Therefore, Zhu Di named the city "New Xianyang City", which was inspired by the fact that Rome was called "Daqin" during the Han Dynasty.
Because they intended to bring this city under the control of the Ming Dynasty as a colony, Zhu Di, Yao Guangxiao and others put a lot of effort into the governance of the new Xianyang City. After clearing out all the remnants of the Byzantine nobles, Yao Guangxiao implemented benevolent policies in this city according to local conditions, returning most of the profits seized by the nobles to the free people in the city. Then, all the slaves of the nobles were incorporated into the army, promising that even slaves could become free people if they made meritorious contributions. At the same time, the policy of freedom of religious belief was implemented, which won the support of the Byzantine free people.
You should know that Byzantium is the birthplace of Eastern Orthodoxy, and most of its residents believe in Eastern Orthodoxy and do not have a strong sense of belonging to Western Catholicism. The reason why the Byzantine emperor was able to obtain the support of the two Western popes and call on the Catholic Crusaders to fight against the invasion of the Ottoman Empire was because he agreed to the conditions of the Catholic Church and issued a decree to merge the Eastern Orthodoxy into the Catholic Church.
At the same time, due to historical reasons, some residents here believe in Greek religion or even Islam, which are religions prohibited by the Byzantine government. The religious situation here is so chaotic that it is almost comparable to that of Sindhu.
The "freedom of belief" policy introduced by Yao Guangxiao allowed residents to openly believe in the religion they believed in, which further reduced the resistance of the free people.
Of course, facing this chaotic religious situation, Yao Guangxiao would not forget the "Tianyi Sect". With the overt and covert support of the monk Daoyan and the halo of "coming from the Eastern Ming Dynasty", the Tianyi Sect developed very rapidly in the new Xianyang City, and perhaps in a few decades, it would replace all other religions.
When Zhu Di returned to Xinxianyang, the traces of the war had almost completely disappeared. Under Yao Guangxiao's governance, the city recovered its prosperity at the fastest speed. Even more merchants appeared here under the Great Ming rule. The market was bustling with merchants of all races hawking all kinds of rare items along the street.
Many of these merchants were even from the caravans of nobles of a certain country that was confronting the Western Expedition Army. Those European nobles fought, but when it came to making money, they would not shy away from suspicion. This really amazed Zhu Di at the beginning.
The Western concept of religion is obviously above the country. And the nobles are mostly obsessed with money, as if they are businessmen.
At the beginning, Zhu Di ordered a strict inspection of merchants to prevent spies from sneaking in. However, these caravans were very honest. In order to earn money from the East, they often behaved cautiously and followed the rules. In some cases, they even brought weapons, armor, horses and other items to Xinxianyang City to sell. Over time, Zhu Di just let it go.
With Yao Guangxiao around, he would keep a close eye on these merchants. Moreover, allowing these merchants to come and trade would bring more benefits than disadvantages to the Ming army.
Facing Zhu Di, the noble from the Ming Dynasty, the merchants and residents in the city were still somewhat afraid. Seeing Zhu Di entering the city, they temporarily put down their business and knelt down on both sides of the road to show their obedience to Zhu Di. Zhu Di did not speak the same language with them, so he did not say much, but just nodded to these merchants, and then rushed to the Grand Palace of Xinxianyang City.
The Grand Palace was the former palace of the Byzantine king, and now it has been transformed into the central military headquarters of the Western Expedition Army. When Zhu Di arrived at the palace in the snow, he saw the general of the new army of Kangju City, Emir, walking towards him in the snow.
When he arrived beside Zhu Di, the Muslim general clasped his hands in front of Zhu Di in the manner of the Han Chinese and said, "Your Highness, my master has instructed that when you return, please go to the side hall to discuss matters."
"Where?" Zhu Di frowned slightly. Emile's master was Yao Guangxiao.
As the undisputed think tank of the Western Expedition Army, Yao Guangxiao has been in charge of the central army on behalf of Zhu Di during his inspection of the frontline positions. Yao Guangxiao in Xinxianyang City and Zhang Dingbian in Kangju City are the most important left and right arms of Zhu Di's Western Expedition Army.
He had just returned to the city when Yao Guangxiao hurriedly sent someone to invite him. Zhu Di naturally felt a little depressed.
The emir led Zhu Di to where Yao Guangxiao was. This was a side hall used to display treasures. The round roof was engraved with various intricate reliefs, which looked magnificent. The room was originally filled with various treasures, some of which were directly given by Zhu Di to his subordinates as rewards. The remaining crude ones were all moved to the corners, leaving the middle empty.
Yao Guangxiao had just taken off his boots and was lying on the ground. On the ground was a large sheepskin map. This was a map that had been searched out of the Byzantine palace. In terms of the level of detail in marking Europe, it was much more detailed than the general world map "Kunyu Wanguotu" that Zhu Su had presented to Zhu. Yao Guangxiao had also marked most of the Western languages on the map with Chinese characters. At this moment, he was lying on the map and searching carefully.
"Old monk, what's the matter?" Zhu Di strode into the hall. As he walked, he took off his long robe and threw it to Emile.
"The Fourth Prince is back." Yao Guangxiao seemed to be interrupted from his concentration. He raised his eyes and saw Zhu Di. He was about to stand up and salute Zhu Di, but Zhu Di had already thrown off his boots, stepped on the sheepskin map, sat down next to Yao Guangxiao, looked in the direction he was looking at, and said, "What's up? Is there any military information?"
"Your Highness, please take a look." Zhu Di was informal, so Yao Guangxiao followed suit. He sat down cross-legged, took out something from his robe, handed it to Zhu Di, and said, "Please take a look, what is this?"
"Silver ingot?" Zhu Di was stunned when he took the thing that was so familiar to him. He subconsciously looked at the bottom of the silver ingot and saw that there were indeed Chinese characters engraved on the bottom, which read "The 20th Year of Hongwu" and "Yingtian Official Treasury".
"Official silver?" Zhu Di couldn't help but sit up straight. "Where did it come from?"
"I got it from a merchant in the city." Yao Guangxiao said.
Most of the silver in the West was cast into silver coins, which were often engraved with the heads of the kings of the countries, but pure silver could still be circulated. When Ming merchants went out to sea for business, they would occasionally trade in pure silver. Therefore, it was not uncommon for silver from the Ming Dynasty to flow into the West.
The strange thing is that this silver ingot is clearly official silver. It is engraved with the words "Yingtian Official Treasury", indicating that this silver is the national treasury silver deposited in the 20th year of Hongwu.
The silver in the national treasury would not flow out easily. Except for rewarding meritorious officials and allocating money for large-scale construction projects, the rest of the time it was almost all in the form of treasure notes. Even if it occasionally flowed into the private sector, merchants would prefer to keep these official silver ingots of excellent quality as reserves, and use treasure notes and small silver for business.
Not to mention bringing it all the way to the West to spend it.
A more likely outflow was another channel: for this Western Expedition, the imperial court had allocated hundreds of thousands of taels of silver to deliver to the fleet of Zhou Wang Zhu Su...
"Where is that merchant now?" Zhu Di jumped up excitedly, looking at Yao Guangxiao with burning eyes. Yao Guangxiao chanted the Buddha's name softly, and then said, "Fourth Prince, please be patient."
"Such a big thing, I have already personally investigated it. The merchant only said that the silver was obtained from another merchant in Portugal. I have sent people to Portugal to investigate and find out the origin of the silver ingot."
Zhu Di heard that the clue was broken, and then sat down again with a little disappointment. He exhaled a long breath, and then said: "Fifth brother's whereabouts have been unknown for several years. If this silver ingot really came from Fifth Brother's army, then I think he is close to the European continent now."
"The sea is vast and dangerous. Even if the Fifth Prince has already penetrated deep into the hinterland of the Western Barbarians, if the loss of troops is too great, it will certainly be more dangerous than good." Yao Guangxiao's face was also filled with deep worry. "I have made several deductions, but with no news, I really can't tell where the Fifth Prince is at this moment."
"In order to avoid fighting alone, it is better to contact the Fifth Prince as soon as possible."
Zhu Di looked at the map under his feet, his sword-like brows furrowed deeply. In his early years, he and his fifth brother Zhu Su agreed to advance by land and sea, thinking that Zhu Su would reach the junction of Asia and Africa by sea, reach the southern coast of the Mediterranean through the Western Red Sea, and then gain a foothold, form a Mediterranean fleet, and wait for an opportunity to threaten the heartland of Europe.
However, more than two years had passed, and Zhu Su, who was supposed to provide flank support or even appear in the heart of Europe as a surprise force, had not appeared. Zhu Di was even worried that his brother had died in the storm at sea, and even contacted the mainland of the Ming Dynasty and sent several fleets to search along the way, but no trace of him could be found.
Seeing the silver ingot, Zhu Di was delighted but also worried. His fifth brother did not show up on the scheduled route, which meant that he must have encountered some misfortunes during the sea route. Even if he survived, he might have been seriously injured.
It was already midwinter, and it was difficult for the army to move forward. If my fifth brother got stuck in enemy territory, how could I rescue him?
"No matter what, we should try our best to find the whereabouts of my fifth brother. If that doesn't work, we can use this new Xianyang city as a bargaining chip to exchange my fifth brother with the Western Barbarians." Zhu Di said after thinking for a while.
The location of Constantinople was extremely important to the Western Expedition Army. If Constantinople was surrendered, it could be said that the achievements of the Western Expedition in the past two years would be wasted. However, Yao Guangxiao nodded and said that he would make corresponding preparations. Then he asked Zhu Di: "Your Highness, you have inspected the front line. I wonder how the situation is?"
"The Western Barbarians have increased their forces, and that damn Pope has recruited a lot of soldiers... Waves after waves are like a plague of locusts." Zhu Di complained. "Perhaps it's because we purged the nobles in Xin Xianyang, and those Western Barbarian nobles are now afraid of us like a tiger."
"When we mobilize the troops, we will spare no efforts."
"We Chinese have no roots here, so we can only win over the common people... If we cooperate with the nobles, they will be two-faced, and then we will be unstable and it will be difficult to succeed in the long run." Yao Guangxiao said. "But if we do this, the nobles of the Western Barbarians will do their best to deal with us."
"Now that we have demonstrated our strength, I think there will be nobles who sincerely join us. We can treat them well and even support them to establish their own country. It is a great investment. Seeing that joining us will bring more benefits, the Western nobles will not continue to work so hard."
"The main problem is the two popes," Zhu Di said. "The Western Barbarians are splitting up the countries, and it's all thanks to these two villains that we can work together."
"...No matter what, we have to wait until the beginning of next spring and win a few more battles before we can break this situation...Have the food and fodder been delivered to the city?"
"Not yet." Yao Guangxiao said. "The three sultans had sent messengers earlier, saying that the roads were blocked by muddy water and heavy rain in the past few days. They begged for a few more days, and I, on behalf of Your Highness, have granted your request."
"Yes." Zhu Di nodded. "This year's harvest is not good, and there was a sudden war a few years ago. The three countries are already having a hard time. Don't push them too much and make their people have no way to survive."
"If something goes wrong in the rear, that would be a big deal."
Yao Guangxiao nodded, and then said: "But when a large army goes out to fight, food and grass are a big problem after all."
"Even though the three sultanates can barely provide us with food and fodder this winter, by next year, our army will be running out of food and fodder."
"Your Highness should make plans early."
(End of this chapter)