Volume 2: Soaring! The Overlord of the Region Chapter 379: Cutting off Indochina
"The vassal king of Annan, Le Duy Tan..."
"The vassal state of Johor, Sultan Mullaha..."
"The vassal state of Zhenla, King Pimihe..."
"I am Awanalong, the envoy of the Burmese Xuanwei Office..."
"I am the Minister of the Laotian Xuanwei Division..."
"Greetings to His Majesty the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty. Long live the Emperor..."
On September 25, 1618, at the Siamese Royal Palace in Bangkok, Zhu Youdong sat on a royal chair in a very Thai style and accepted the worship of more than one hundred people, including kings of Southeast Asian countries, powerful ministers, and patriarchs of large tribes such as the Mon, as well as their personal interpreters.
"Please excuse the formalities, everyone. Please stand up."
"Thank you, Your Majesty."
After everyone stood up, Zhu Youdong cleared his throat and said, "My Great Ming has a population of billions and is rich. You vassals have been following the will of the Celestial Empire for many years and have been generally loyal. Therefore, my dynasty has no intention of interfering in the internal affairs of you vassals, let alone managing them. However, after being indulged for a long time, some ambitious people have not only become rebellious, but also declared war on my Great Ming. I then gave them a slight punishment, and in an instant, the King of Siam surrendered. I am telling you here that if there are any vassals here who covet the wealth of my Great Ming, you may as well give it another try!"
"We are in awe of the divine power of the Celestial Empire. We will serve the Celestial Empire wholeheartedly and pass on this teaching to our descendants. Generation after generation, we will serve the Celestial Empire as a vassal state."
"Well, please remember what I said today. If you violate it, I will not be as good-tempered as I am today to execute only the chieftain."
"Your Majesty's orders will be obeyed."
After everyone finished their opening remarks, the main part of the show began.
The first is Ming Dynasty’s own layout in Southeast Asia.
Saigon and the entire Greater Mekong Delta, also known as Lower Khmer by locals, as well as Phnom Penh, Bangkok and its surrounding areas, Singapore, Yangon and its surrounding areas, were all directly under the jurisdiction of the Ming Dynasty. These five territories were temporarily given the status of "states" and were temporarily managed by the newly established Central and Southern Governor's Office. Its first governor was Xiong Tingbi.
Of course, Governor Xiong alone could not deter so many nations and countries. Therefore, Zhu Youdong asked Liu Zhaosun's Second Army to stay here: 45,000 combat troops, in addition to retaining one town as a mobile force, the other two towns will be divided into four places.
In addition to the army, in terms of the navy, since the Siamese navy had been completely destroyed at this time, the Portuguese and Dutch who had invaded Southeast Asia before had their home countries destroyed, and the remaining ones were just a group of scattered soldiers. Therefore, Zhu Youdong only temporarily gave two Beizhili-class and twenty Jinling-class warships, and these twenty-two warships formed the Ming Nanyang Fleet. Yan Siqi served as the fleet admiral.
The five places that Zhu Youdong cut off and directly governed by the Ming Dynasty were not only important transportation routes, but also fertile lands with extremely superior natural conditions. Therefore, the land here would be distributed to the soldiers stationed here: Of course, in order to prevent these soldiers from degenerating into landowners like the officers in Liaodong, Zhu Youdong only gave them land ownership.
Who does the management right belong to? Of course, it belongs to the shareholders of the war fund.
In short, after such an arrangement, all states and military towns will come forward to negotiate with the wealthy merchants of the Ming Dynasty. They will lease the land to domestic merchants at a certain price. The lucrative profits obtained from this will become additional income for all soldiers in addition to their salaries.
Zhu Youdong also made it clear that the land in these places belonged to the state and the military town and could not be bought or sold. In other words, if you, an officer or soldier, did not serve here, you would not get such treatment!
Of course, although the Lower Cambodian land centered on Saigon covers an area of 30,000 square kilometers, it was previously unowned, so it is understandable that the suzerain wanted to take it away. Bangkok and its surrounding areas not only cover more than 10,000 square kilometers, but are also the capital of Siam. But Siam took the initiative to invade the Ming Dynasty, so you should take it away. As for Singapore, although it used to belong to the Sultanate of Johor, it was later occupied by Siam. The Ming Dynasty destroyed Siam, so there was a little reason to take Singapore.
But what do you mean by cutting off Phnom Penh and Yangon? You should know that Phnom Penh is now the capital of Chenla. Although Yangon is not the capital of Myanmar, it is also a major port in Myanmar.
Da Ming, we are all your loyal vassal states. Especially Burma, we almost died for the sake of Da Ming. Don't you feel guilty for treating us like this?
Time travelers like Zhu Youdong certainly wouldn't feel guilty, but these guys' emotions also needed to be appeased.
Therefore, the only way to compensate these guys is to use Siamese meat.
Of course, according to the agreement between the time travelers, he must first take good care of Luoyafutu's sons. Although Luoyafutu is dead, Zhu Youdong still recognizes this account.
He appointed Rājabudu's eldest son as Duke of Udon and his second son as Duke of Loei, and sent them to Udon and Loei respectively.
Both provinces are mountainous provinces close to Laos, located in remote areas with extremely inconvenient transportation. In order to develop, in addition to opening golden fingers, you also need golden thighs. In order to reward merit, Zhu Youdong also ceded Nong Khai Province, which is north of Udon Thani and Loei Province, to Laos: Laos' territory is on the east bank of the Mekong River, and Nong Khai Province is on the west bank. Laos' territory now spans both sides of the Mekong River. While its own ruling cost has increased significantly, it has also put a sharp knife hanging over the heads of the two sons of Luojiafutu.
Then he continued to be generous: Johor, you should not only give up Singapore Island, that island is only 700 square kilometers, it is too small. So, cut off the land area adjacent to this island, at least 3,000 square kilometers of land. As compensation, I will give you Songkhla and Satun in the south of Siam. The land area of these two provinces is 1.5 times that of what I just took away.
Well, you agreed, very good. What? You still want me to help you drive out the Portuguese from your land? No problem, the Portuguese there are just a stronghold, two or three old Spanish galleons, and only one or two thousand men, women, old and young. This is very simple, how about we help you do this after we have completed the land exchange?
Zhenla, right? You are a vassal state of the Celestial Empire, secretly submitting to Siam and acting as accomplices to the enemy for so many years, and you still have the nerve to come to me for compensation? What happened to Phnom Penh? What happened to the capital? Just cut it off! Move the capital back to Angkor!
What? You said Angkor is too close to Siam and it could be destroyed by Siam if we are not careful. It's okay, there will be no Siam in the future, what are you afraid of?
Well, that's it. Well, you're still crying? What the hell! Forget it, I'll give you another 500 flintlock rifles and 10,000 rounds of ammunition. How about that? That's right.
The headache is Myanmar.
According to Zhu Youdong's original plan, after Myanmar was attacked by Siam two years ago, most of the lords in the country were killed and the ruling class was severely damaged. Next, Chen Shiji would keep urging them to send troops. As long as Myanmar did not respond to the call in time, he would have a reason to cut off Myanmar. Who knew that Ahua Nalong was not stupid at all. He desperately assembled an army of 100,000 at the last minute, completely ignoring the extreme instability in the country, and personally led the army to serve on the front line...
This is really a bit difficult to deal with.
However, Yangon, as a port and naval base on the east side of the Indian Ocean, had to be ceded. Therefore, Zhu Youdong had no choice but to grit his teeth and give Siam and its neighboring Mae Hong Son and Tak provinces to Myanmar.
Now that Siam is gone, leaving a powerful Burma is indeed a huge hidden danger. Therefore, Zhu Youdong must support the Mon, another arch-enemy of the Burmese.
Therefore, Kanchanaburi and Uthaithani provinces, which were adjacent to Siam and the Mon settlements, were given to the Mon people.
In addition to granting land, Zhu Youdong also gave the Meng leader 3,000 flintlock rifles and 10 million bullets at one time. He even gave ten muzzle-loading smoothbore cannons.
After this operation, of the fifty-five provinces of Siam that Naresuan and his son had worked hard for decades to conquer, only forty remained (Bangkok and its two surrounding provinces were directly governed by the Ming Dynasty).
Even so, the remaining 40 prefectures still have 360,000 square kilometers of land and a population of more than 3.5 million. With such a scale, it would be too big to be given to a prince of the Ming Dynasty...
