The 19th year of Xuanping was definitely the year of greatest change after the Tang Empire unified China.
And this change does not mean simple military victory, territorial expansion, restoration of people's livelihood, or political innovation or technological progress, but a huge change in the entire society.
This year, people began to travel by train and ship, and the travel time between Jinling City and Shanghai was compressed to one day!
The Lady of the Yangtze River Shipping Company, in order to compete with the Feng Shipping Company and defend its reputation as the number one shipping company in the country, took the risk of continuous sailing day and night, risking damage to the steam engine and even shipwreck and loss of lives, creating the city of Jinling
Voyage time record to Shanghai.
With the wind and the current flowing smoothly, the sails fully opened, and the steam engine power fully turned on, they maintained the average speed at more than 12 knots. The whole journey took less than 18 hours. They made history!
On the Jingzhen line, the Zhili Railway Company began to shout the slogan of "one day round trip". People depart from Jinling City in the morning, arrive at Zhenjiang at noon, then take the train back to Jinling City, and return to Jinling City in the evening.
, complete the one-day round trip!
This year, a large number of factories began to apply higher efficiency and lower cost high-pressure industrial steam engines, and produced more and cheaper products, thus filling the market.
Thanks to the development of steam engine technology, the power costs of factories that already use high-pressure steam engines have dropped by at least half, which reduces the number of goods
This year, the Tang Dynasty newspaper officially announced that the heroic Tang Dynasty King had recovered most of the territory south of Heilongjiang. The blessings of the Holy Emperor would be spread all over this land, allowing this land that had long been occupied by barbarians to
The occupied land returned to the glory of Chinese civilization.
The empire not only controls all the territory south of Heilongjiang, immigrants are gradually entering the northeastern region, and the military also announced that it will continue to advance northward, with one force advancing to the Arctic Ocean on the map.
This year, the Tang Army tried to launch a medium-sized offensive in the northwest region to test the attitude and strength of the Tatars. About 10,000 cavalry crossed Jiayuguan and attacked Tibet, which had been completely controlled by the Tatars.
In the area, countless enemies were defeated and countless gold, silver, cattle, sheep and horses were captured.
Immediately afterwards, instead of taking military action to retaliate, the Tatars took the initiative to send envoys to seek peace with the empire. For this, they were willing to pay a huge price, not only sending several legitimate daughters of Tatar nobles and Tatar slaves.
Many foreign noblewomen such as princesses were plundered from the Western Regions, Central Asia and other places, as well as countless gold, silver, cattle and sheep, and even the most precious strategic materials 'horses'. At the same time, they also expressed their willingness to continue to regard Datang as the suzerain country and continue to use '
The name of the country was "The Kingdom of Jin" in the Tang Dynasty, and Anda Khan regarded himself as the "King of Shunyi" and paid tribute every year. They were willing to pay a huge price, and all they wanted was for an empire not to send troops to attack them.
The wise and great Emperor Sheng had an insight into the conspiracy of these barbarians and knew that this was just a delaying tactic by the Tatars. They tried to paralyze the Tang Empire so as to mobilize more troops for the Western Expedition.
According to the news circulating in the northwest region, the Tatars have become addicted to the Western Expedition. When they made the Eastern Chagatai Khanate unable to take care of themselves and were forced to surrender, the Tatars are now fighting with those farther west.
The Kazakh Khanate and the Yarkand Khanate were at war. As for why they were fighting the two khanates in the west at the same time, what else could it be? Ananda Khan felt that he was so awesome that he could fight two opponents with one hand.
Home!
So, the main cavalry of the Tatars is now in the west, fighting with the Kazakh Khanate and the Yarkand Khanate. After the empire took action behind this, they are faced with the dilemma of fighting on two fronts. Ananda Khan also simply
Anyway, we can't defeat the Tang Empire, so we might as well sue for peace. As for the goods lost on the eastern front, we can just grab more from the west.
Only then did Anda Khan take the initiative to seek peace!
The empire considers the current supply difficulties in the northwest region. The northwest railway will not be available for several years. It will be too expensive and difficult to maintain a large army for long-term operations.
At the same time, in order to divert the disaster to the west, let the Tatars go to Central Asia, even West Asia, and Eastern Europe first, and use the hands of the Tatars to first conquer the local areas such as the Kazakh Khanate, the Yarkand Khanate, and even Persia further west.
Kill the messy barbarian natives such as the Safavid Dynasty and the Ottoman Empire first.
To alleviate the resistance that the empire encountered during its large-scale western expedition in the future, it was normal for the Tatars to conquer foreign tribes and destroy families and countries wherever they went.
Of course, easing relations with the Tatars does not exclude the dozens of foreign women sent by Anda Khan. In addition to the Tatars' own noble women, well, including a direct granddaughter of Anda Khan, there are also
There are many princesses from different countries and nationalities, each with different styles.
And Anda Khan also spent a lot of effort to please the Holy Emperor. At least he understood Li Xuan's aesthetics. The women he sent here were all in line with the Holy Emperor's aesthetics.
Due to the combination of many circumstances, the Tang Empire reluctantly accepted Anda Khan's request for peace.
However, it was only a superficial agreement. In fact, the Northwest Railway was still under construction, and the Army was restocking grain, grass and ammunition in the Northwest. When the Army was ready, the next attack would be inevitable.
As for peace treaties and the like, well, what the heck, this is not the first time that the Tang Empire has torn up its peace treaty with the Tatars. It had already been torn up once during the Battle of Hetao, and it would not be a big problem to tear it up a second time.
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This year, the Navy announced that the global fleet they dispatched three years ago had successfully completed the first circumnavigation of the world. The expedition fleet set out from Shanghai that year, passed through Fuso, and headed eastward, arriving one after another.
Midway Island, Sandalwood Islands, the west coast of North America, and also learned that the area was rich in gold, so they named the area on the east coast of North America where they arrived 'New Gold Mountain'.
The fleet then headed south along the western coastline of North America, entered Central America, then South America, and finally bypassed the southernmost tip of South America. During this period of the voyage, it also achieved victory with the Spaniards who controlled some of the above-mentioned areas.
Contact, because of the good relationship and cooperation between the Spaniards and the Tang Empire, both parties can use the ports controlled by the other party for supplies, so the Spaniards did not embarrass the expedition fleet, but provided certain help, such as
Supplies etc.
The expedition fleet then sailed north along the eastern coast of South America, but soon encountered the Portuguese. At this time, the Portuguese controlled the coastline of Brazil. Although the Portuguese and the Tang Empire were in a cooperative relationship, the cooperation was still ongoing.
However, due to competition, the Portuguese did not welcome the appearance of ships from the Tang Empire in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans.
When the Portuguese refused the Tang Dynasty's expedition fleet to enter the port for supplies, they even rejected the Tang Dynasty's expedition fleet to anchor outside the port and then use money to purchase supplies.
Faced with this rude provocation by the Portuguese, the expedition fleet was forced to carry out "active offensive self-defense" as a last resort. It bombarded the Portuguese port to express the friendship of the Tang Empire and dispatched two hundred
Many people landed and used bullets to cordially express condolences to the local Portuguese garrison. After killing and injuring hundreds of people, they gained the friendship of the Portuguese and successfully obtained supplies such as food and fresh water.
Afterwards, in order to avoid trouble, the expedition fleet directly changed its course, gave up its plan to go to the east coast of North America, and prepared to cross the South Atlantic directly.
Finally, they successfully reached the west coast of Africa, then bypassed the Cape of Good Hope and entered the Indian Ocean. This area was of no interest to the Tang Empire. They did not go to India, but crossed the Indian Ocean and used the ocean currents to directly
Headed to Australia, and after arriving in Australia, returned north to Southeast Asia, and finally returned to Shanghai Port.
The entire global voyage lasted about three years. The reason it took so long was because in addition to sailing, they had to spend a lot of time looking for supplies, repairing ships, and exploring the lands they encountered along the way.
And completed a very important task, that is, in all the places encountered along the way, whether it is an island or a mainland, a stone monument is erected, all of which are the territory of the Tang Dynasty!
On the surface, this yellow ball voyage did not bring any economic benefits, and it was not even of any groundbreaking significance, because Europeans had long explored global routes, but for the Tang Empire, it was still
It is very important. In the past, we could only see the places on the map and only hear what others said about them, but now we have seen them with our own eyes, and very valuable navigation charts have been drawn up.
This will play a very important role in the future actions of the Tang Empire on a global scale.
Based on the continued exploration of the Pacific and the Americas, the Navy has officially proposed that it is time to start colonizing the Americas.
Now the empire has colonized Midway Island and Sandalwood Island. Although the administrative areas of overseas territories have not been formally established and are only managed as naval military areas, there is no doubt that these two places already belong to the empire's territory.
The immigration plan led by the Tang Dynasty Navy has successively immigrated nearly 3,000 people to the Sandalwood Islands, and established small ports there. It is expected that in the near future, these two places will be like other overseas territories.
Establish a formal administrative region and become one of the empire's many overseas territories.
Of course, not now!
At present, the Sandalwood Islands are still too far away from the mainland. For the convenience of management, they are only managed in the name of a naval base for the time being.
This place was also the bridgehead for the Tang Empire's future march to America. The navy attached great importance to it. Although there were only three thousand immigrants in the area, the navy set up a complete squadron here, the Sandalwood Squadron.