Chapter 644: Prelude to the Great War of the Empire
Zhu Ying did not object to the feudal princes developing their own overseas power, and he did not want to suppress the feudal princes too much.
Historically, emperors always suppressed vassal princes because they were worried that their own throne would be unstable, or even feared that vassal princes would seize the throne.
Of course, in history, vassal kings have never successfully rebelled. Now that Zhu Ying has entered the palace, Zhu Di will naturally have no chance.
It was just because of the special nature of the Japanese country that the four feudal kings were prohibited from causing war conflicts.
If it were in the Middle East, Zhu Ying wouldn't be in charge of so much, and he could just develop how he wanted.
The first month of the 30th year of Hongwu.
This year's Zhengdan is as lively as ever.
With the rapid development of the capital's economy, all walks of life in the capital are now in a prosperous state.
The most important thing is that the security in the capital is very good.
With the permission of Zhu Ying's decree, the Department of Public Security expanded rapidly. There were nearly 40,000 personnel in the Department of Public Security in the capital alone.
Including all the streets and alleys of the capital.
Anyone who commits petty theft will be severely punished, and anyone discovered will be directly sent to labor reform.
Due to the shortage of construction land across the country, once a person commits a crime, he or she is required to undergo a two-year hard labor reform at the beginning, so the free labor does not go to waste.
Especially for those idle street gangsters who have no life skills themselves, it is a good thing to be reformed by labor force.
No matter which industry you are sent to, you will always learn professional skills so that you can start a new life after you are released from labor.
For those who commit the crime again, the penalty will be doubled for the second conviction, starting with four years.
Under such a governance environment, the security of the capital can be described as keeping the house open at night. Especially for businessmen from other places and foreign countries, the business environment is unimaginably good.
In order to prevent unjust and false accusations, Zhu Ying specifically reserved the right for ordinary people to apply for a joint trial by the three divisions after being convicted. However, while exercising this power, if the government's manpower is deliberately wasted, the crime will be severely punished.
Similarly, once an unjust, false or wrongful decision is caused by an official, dismissal from office will be considered a minor offense and a strict investigation will be carried out.
Rules and regulations are driven by people, and there will always be some people who violate them. There is no way to prevent these things. At least for now, Zhu Ying has made it so that in the Ming Dynasty, at least on the surface, no official dares to do anything wrong.
In the case of the 29th year of Hongwu, most of the perpetrators were the second sons of honorable nobles and concubines. Many of these people were sentenced to hard labor and were not allowed to use any privileges.
Because whenever it involves the heirs of officials and nobles, Zhu Ying will involve the officials.
Yan Guan, who usually held his breath, naturally used all his strength.
It was also during this year that the situation in Europe changed greatly.
The Ottoman Empire was the overlord in the Middle East, especially after the succession of its monarch Murad I, it launched large-scale military operations in the southeast where its country was located.
The city of Adrianople, an important town in the Byzantine Empire, was captured and renamed Edirne, which became the royal capital of the Ottoman Empire.
This put a lot of pressure on many European kings, but Europe, with its own contradictions, could hardly say to unite against the Ottomans.
Taking advantage of this opportunity, the Ottomans conquered Western Thrace, Macedonia, Sofia, Salonika and the entire northern Greece, forcing the rulers of Bulgaria and Serbia to surrender and pay tribute.
Subsequently, they defeated the Serbian, Bulgarian, and Hungarian coalition forces in the Battle of Kosovo.
Intense pressure forced all of Europe to unite against the Ottoman Empire.
Just like the current steppe alliance against Timur, troops from all over Europe gathered on a large scale to support the Byzantine Empire.
In wars, sometimes it really doesn't matter who has the most soldiers. Even if Europe sent a large number of reinforcements, and the strength of the troops was obviously far greater than that of the Ottoman Empire's invading army, it was still a disastrous defeat.
There are many factors involved. Perhaps the European Allied Forces also had many opportunities to turn defeat into victory, but they missed it after all. The result was that after the entire European Allied Forces were defeated, nearly 10,000 Crusaders were captured. In addition to 300 noble knights who were ransomed for a huge sum of money,
After returning home, almost all the others were killed.
Europe has no way to stop the expansion of the Ottoman Empire. It can only watch the Byzantine Empire getting closer and closer to its demise.
It was precisely because of the consecutive victories that the Ottoman Empire became more and more arrogant.
Such arrogance started from top to bottom with the new successor, Ottoman monarch Bayezid I.
Therefore, the envoys sent to Timur's empire were also very powerful, which angered Timur and detained envoys from all countries.
Of course, this is also an excuse in itself.
Timur's current army is getting stronger and stronger, and he is about to conduct larger-scale military operations to expand his territory.
Seeing that the Byzantine Empire was about to collapse, Osman and Tamerlane started fighting.
The Mongolian cavalry is really a nightmare for the entire Middle East and Europe. The Ottoman Empire, which has never tasted defeat, will naturally have to fight Timur if it is willing to give up.
"Mobilize an army of 500,000 people. This time I will personally go to conquer the Ottomans."
During the first month of the year, Pirma Heima was also summoned back from the Sultan of Delhi to attend the meeting.
Compared with the Sultan of Delhi, the Ottoman Empire, the dominant empire in the Middle East, was obviously more important.
Even Timur cannot be taken seriously.
The Sultan of Delhi was like a lamb on a sticky board, and Timur did not think he could make a big wave.
But the Ottoman Empire is completely different. At least as far as the entire Middle East is concerned, the current Ottoman Empire seems to have no rivals.
Before attacking the Sultan of Delhi, Timur wrote to the Ottoman Empire to warn: "You are like ants, remember not to provoke the elephant, otherwise you will be ravaged and retaliated by us."
The Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I naturally responded strongly: "If I am scared away by your army, then my wife will abandon me. But if you run away from my army, all your women will find others."
His husband."
In the dialogue between two overlord-level kings, neither one was willing to show weakness, which made the relationship between the Timurid Empire and the Ottoman Empire tense.
The Turkish princes who were driven away by Bayezid and took refuge in Timur's court provided the Ottomans with a pretext for war.
Soon, Bayezid asked the emir who had surrendered to Timur to pledge his allegiance to him, creating a diplomatic pretext for war.
At the same time, the Ottoman Empire withdrew the siege of Constantinople in the Byzantine Empire and redeployed its troops to face the war with Timur.
With the exchange of intelligence, the Ottoman Empire deepened its understanding of Timur and began to be wary of him.
Even Bayezid regretted that he shouldn't have provoked Timur. The Byzantine Empire was already a cooked duck, but now he could only watch and couldn't stop talking.
But now that the words have been released, we can't give in. Then we can only use war to solve the problem.
It's not that Bayezid was afraid of Timur, it was just that in the interest of the empire, it was best to capture Byzantium first and seize the wealth.
Now that Byzantium has not obtained its wealth, it has fallen into another quagmire of war.
Timur's power has only risen in the last twenty years. Although he has achieved great victories in northern India, these were not taken seriously by the Ottoman Empire.
A large number of Mongolian cavalry gathered towards the border. With the newly built concrete road, Timur easily gathered almost 400,000 troops.
Just after the cold winter, Timur set out from Samarkand with 100,000 elite cavalry, preparing for an unprecedented battle with the Ottoman Empire at the beginning of spring.
The size of the army this time can be said to be that of all the elites of Timur, and it was under the circumstances of Timur's personal conquest.
Except for the 300,000 troops of the Sultan of Delhi, these 500,000 troops were all the troops Timur could use. After all, other border areas also needed troops to maintain stability, and it was impossible to say that they could all be withdrawn.
Of course, although it is said to be an army of 500,000, Timur actually did not have that many core elites, most of whom were composed of slave troops.
Timur's core elite was probably more than 100,000 cavalry and a handful of elite infantry, as well as 32 war elephants.
The main force on the Ottoman side was 85,000 men, consisting of the powerful Janissary Guards, Sipaxi cavalry, cavalry from Serbian ally Stefan, and mercenaries.
If Timur is defeated this time, it will be a huge crisis for the entire Timur Empire.
"It's a pity that the distance is too far and there is no way to participate."
When Zhu Ying received the news, it was already three months later, which was the fastest possible time.
Normally, even the fastest trip from Samarkand to the capital of the Ming Dynasty takes nearly half a year.
In order to better obtain news from the Middle East, Zhu Ying specially built a post military route specifically for transmitting intelligence, and sent special people to transmit the news at a speed no less than Baili Express.
Moreover, the information transmission on this special route must be carried out at least once every seven days even in normal times. If there is any important information, it will be set off overnight.
For this reason, the Ming court naturally spent a lot of manpower and financial resources. The postmen who delivered the information were all one man and two horses, and the main members were Mongolians, even Northern Yuan cavalry.
The reason why a large number of Mongolians are used is mainly because they have the ability to sleep immediately.
On the journey from Samarkand to the capital of the Ming Dynasty, especially the section passing through Tubo, it was difficult to build a post station that was too short. The distance between two post stations was often hundreds of miles.
This special ability of the Mongols allowed intelligence to travel through the vast Tubo region at night and at night.
Three months is already the fastest speed.
"This is already very good." Zhu Yuanzhang said with a smile.
The establishment of the intelligence line and the transmission of a large amount of intelligence allowed Zhu Yuanzhang to open his eyes to the world.
For Zhu Yuanzhang, the Tubo region was already the farthest border that the Ming Dynasty could reach. Although he knew that there were many countries outside Tubo, Zhu Yuanzhang did not understand them and had no interest in them.
You must know that without the intelligence line established by Zhu Ying, normally it would have taken at least three to five years for news from Europe and the Middle East to be naturally transmitted to the border of the Ming Dynasty.
Moreover, if there were no dedicated people to collect this information, it would never have spread to the Ming Dynasty, let alone Zhu Yuanzhang to know about it.
It is also mixed with the influence of cultural differences. Even if someone hears it, no one cares. No matter how the Middle East and Europe fight life and death, it will not have the slightest impact on the Ming Dynasty.
You must know that in order to maintain this military line and transmit seemingly useless information, the Ming court spent nearly 400,000 guan of treasure money every year. This was a price that the Ming Dynasty could not have spent before Zhu Ying entered the palace.
.
Only now that the Ming Dynasty is rich and powerful can it afford such a costly intelligence line.
The key is that there is more than one intelligence line like this.
Although the other journeys are not as far away as this one and consume as much money, the total annual consumption is almost two million guanbao.
Two million Guan Baobao is nothing now, but before the official salary reform, this was the total annual salary expenditure for officials throughout the Ming Dynasty.
"If the Ottoman Empire and the Byzantine Empire were to fight, which one would Da Sun think would have a greater chance of winning?"
When the grandfather and grandson were chatting, Zhu Yuanzhang asked.
Zhu Ying did not hesitate at all: "Of course Timur wins."
Zhu Yuanzhang was a little surprised: "Is the grandson so sure?"
Zhu Ying shrugged and analyzed: "In today's world, there are really not many people who can beat Timur. Even our Ming Dynasty, if we are close to Timur, the outcome will be 50-50."
"The area where Timur is now located was the seat of the Persian Empire, which was once a powerful country in history. Due to the nature of the geographical area, Timur is now a semi-agricultural and semi-nomadic structure. This type of composition is very easy to form a strong combat power.
"
When he heard the word Persian, Zhu Yuanzhang nodded in agreement.
In fact, Persia had not many exchanges with the Central Plains dynasties, and they were even very intensive. Compared with the Central Plains period, it belonged to the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.
Including the Ming Dynasty, all were influenced by Persian culture.
The Mingjiao in the novel is derived from the branch of Persian religion in the Central Plains.
Although the current Timurid Empire is dominated by Turkic Mongols, it has been assimilated by Persian culture.
Including the current court language is Persian rather than Turkic.
Timur now controls the official institutions in various places, which are basically composed of Persians. The Persians are also the largest population group in Timur's empire and the main body of the entire empire's manpower and material resources.
There is a saying that bad mountains and harsh waters bring out unruly people. The geographical conditions of Timur's empire were very harsh.
The high mountains and ridges of the Zagros Mountains, and then the endless and complex Yinlang Plateau, as well as many arid and water-deficient deserts, are comparable to the strong cities and sharp walls of the Ming Dynasty.
In other words, when Timur was fighting against Ottoman, Timur could march into Ottoman without having to worry about Ottoman coming over.
The Ottoman Empire, located on the Anatolian Plateau, would be very uncomfortable when entering Timur's territory, which was equivalent to a natural barrier.
To put it simply, I can send troops to attack you at any time, but you have no conditions to send troops to attack me.
"When Osman and Tamerlane fight, our ocean-going fleet should be almost there, and we can put some pressure on it by then."
Zhu Ying said with a smile.
This pressure, of course, must be placed on Timur.
Who said that Timur is too powerful now? This is completely inconsistent with Ming Dynasty's interests in Central Asia and Europe.
Especially now that Timur has detained the Ming envoys, this gives him a good excuse.
Although the strength of the ocean-going fleet is only over 10,000, the deterrent effect of the Ming Dynasty's treasure ships is not much more than this.
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Thanks to the elders for their monthly tickets, I was supposed to do extra updates in these two days, but I ended up suffering from pulpitis. The pain was so heartbreaking that I couldn't sleep all night.
After the tooth is extracted the day after tomorrow, the fillings and extensions will be gradually returned. Thank you for your understanding.