The first thousand four hundred and seventy-five chapters key blockade
Li Hao, who is sitting below Li Xuan, if you just look at his facial expression, you will find that this person is expressionless like the Holy Emperor Li Xuan, as if he has not heard the arguments of many generals.
However, he kept listening, and at the same time he continued to make various speculations and judgments in his mind, and drew his own conclusions from the generals' arguments.
Of course, his conclusion will not be revealed, and no one will ask, but he himself can compare it with his father's conclusion later, and then see what is different and why.
He is learning, learning how to be an emperor!
He also knew that this was the fundamental reason why his father took him to attend such an important meeting. On the one hand, it was to expose him to military and political affairs, and on the other hand, he also taught by words and deeds.
After all, the profession of emperor is too special. There is only one person in the entire Tang Empire now, and it is impossible for him, Li Hao, to study the profession of emperor, because there is no such profession at all.
In addition to occasionally following the emperor and getting in touch with government affairs, he spent most of his time studying, but the content of his reading was different from that of ordinary students.
The main content of students these days has changed from the traditional Four Books and Five Classics to today's science and engineering. Of course, the traditional liberal arts are still very important, and they are not even limited to the Four Books and Five Classics. In addition, they have to study astronomy and geography. , etiquette art, etc.
Therefore, today's students in the Tang Empire, especially the elite students in universities, are basically all generalists who are proficient in arts and sciences.
If you want to apply for Guozijian University or Jinlingcheng University, you must be able to write good articles, which is the most basic. Then you must be proficient in astronomy and geography. If you are applying for science and engineering, then your scores in science will be better.
But for Li Hao, the crown prince of the Tang Dynasty, his study content was even more complicated. He had to learn the traditional Four Books and Five Classics, astronomy and geography, and then mathematics, physics, and chemistry. Even outsiders had some contact with him. Now I am learning Latin. As for why it is not Spanish or Portuguese, or English, French, German or the like.
Those are languages like English, French, and German, which are niche languages these days and are not spoken by many people around the world.
The Spanish and Portuguese use it more widely.
However, if you want to truly travel throughout Europe and the colonies of European countries, and communicate proficiently with the upper classes of each country, then these languages are not feasible and must be Latin.
Latin these days is the common written language in Europe and European countries.
The Tang Empire has had many contacts with European countries in recent years. Many universities have also established foreign language departments. Some teach Spanish, some teach Portuguese, and even partial languages such as English, French, German, Indian, and Tatar. Some people study, but the most popular language is Latin.
Li Hao also focused on studying history. All kinds of history books were his key study books. Why?
Learn from history!
However, even though Li Hao has studied many subjects, these are just ordinary subjects. Even ordinary people can access these things, but the other skills he has learned are inaccessible to others.
That is the way of the Emperor.
As for this thing, Li Xuan took him with him personally and taught him through words and deeds!
Li Hao also knew his father's plans, so every time he had the rare opportunity for his father to take him to attend important meetings.
Because these major meetings not only allowed Li Hao to have a deeper understanding of the empire, but also allowed him to understand more efficiently how the major institutions of the empire operated. And more importantly, he could observe how Li Xuan handled government affairs. of.
Even though he is not too young, Li Hao's main job is still studying. On an occasion like today, he is also studying.
From the beginning of the meeting, he was listening carefully.
The generals seemed to be arguing, and occasionally digressed, but they mainly focused on the war in the Indian Ocean, and the cause was naturally the Navy's plan for a decisive battle in the Indian Ocean.
This Indian Ocean decisive battle plan is very simple to say, that is, by controlling a number of key points, blocking certain sections of the waterways, and completely cutting off the Portuguese's maritime transportation lines.
The Tang Dynasty Navy had previously planned to cut off the Portuguese maritime transportation by blocking shipping routes, but the results had not been great. They thought that the Indian Ocean was too wide. The Portuguese had been sailing in the Indian Ocean for hundreds of years and were very familiar with the Indian Ocean. Able to bypass the blockade of the Tang Navy.
The number of warships in the Tang Navy was also limited, and the ships these days were small in tonnage and carried a limited amount of supplies. They needed to frequently dock for supplies, which meant that they could not stay in the deep sea for long periods of time to conduct patrols and blockades.
In addition, the Indian Ocean is too wide, and this decentralized blockade means that too many warships cannot be concentrated in the same sea area. The Portuguese are not soft persimmons. Even though they are unwilling to fight the main fleet of the Tang Navy, it does not mean that They had no power to resist at all.
Sometimes they would gather several ships for transportation. If the number of Datang Navy ships blocked and intercepted was small, the fight might not be possible.
Under the influence of many factors, the Tang Navy seemed to have blocked the Indian Ocean for more than half a year, but it was to no avail.
In order to solve this problem, the Navy plans to abandon the previous comprehensive blockade strategy and instead adopt a focused blockade.
There are two key shipping routes. One is the southern route of India, which is the strait between the Indian Peninsula and the Island of Ceylon. This route is very important because if Portuguese ships want to travel to the Bay of Bengal, they will go to the eastern coast of India and the coast of Myanmar. Most of the colonies had to pass through this strait.
Of course, they could also bypass this strait, or even bypass the Island of Ceylon, then enter the Bay of Bengal from the depths of the Indian Ocean, and then enter the relevant colonial ports.
As long as this strait is blocked, although I cannot say that it can completely cut off the Portuguese's routes to and from the waters of Bangladesh, it can still block more than half of it. If the island of Ceylon can be used as a base and the blockade can be extended southward, then the Portuguese will To avoid the blockade, you have to continue to go south, and if you continue to go south, you will reach the windless and current-free zone in the middle of the Indian Ocean.
This sea area is almost a dead place for pure sailing ships without steam engine power. Once you enter, you will not be able to get out.
For so many years, the ships of the Tang Dynasty Western Trading Company would rather compete with the Portuguese for the eastern coastal area of India than break into this sea area. This is why they bypassed it.
In addition to the waters around Ceylon Island, there is also a core focus, which is the waters of the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa!
Needless to say, the Cape of Good Hope, but all ships traveling between the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean have to pass through this sea area. However, this sea area and the South Africa area are tightly controlled by the Portuguese. The Portuguese also rely on their strongholds in South Africa, and then use
A large number of ships blocked the Cape of Good Hope, so much so that the merchant ships of the Tang Dynasty Western Trading Company were unable to break through the Cape of Good Hope and enter the Atlantic Ocean for more than ten years.
In order to compete for this area, the Datang Western Trading Company also forcibly established a place in the northeastern region of South Africa, close to the coastal territory of the Bantu people, and built ports and fortresses. It was called Western India, which means Indian Ocean.
The western end of the territory was one of the most distant overseas territories of the Tang Empire, with more than a thousand troops stationed all year round.
However, because the distance is too far, and the Atlantic route has not been fully opened, even trade in Africa cannot reach it. Therefore, this place is a pure military fortress and cannot bring any benefits to Datang Western Trading Company.
, a lot of money has been invested in maintaining this Western Indian state in recent years, and it is very difficult to continue to expand the scale.
Next is the coast of East Africa, which is the sea area where the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean meet. This sea area is also the Somali Sea, but this sea area and the land on the shore are all controlled by the Portuguese.
There are also the Persian Gulf waters in the northern part of the Arabian Sea, etc.
These key sea areas are now key routes for the Portuguese. If they can be captured and controlled, they will definitely cause big trouble to the Portuguese.
However, these sea areas and port strongholds were also heavily guarded by the Portuguese.
I won’t talk about South Africa, East Africa and the Persian Gulf region. I will only talk about Ceylon Island, the southernmost sea area of the Indian Peninsula. The Datang Western Trading Company and the Portuguese people have been trying for so many years, but they have not been able to grab it.
After the Datang Navy personally stepped down last year, although it also achieved a certain victory and captured several strongholds, so far, in this sea area, the two sides are still evenly matched.
As for this time's plan for the decisive battle in the Indian Ocean, the navy proposed to first seize and control the island of Ceylon, completely expel the Portuguese from this island, and then use this island as a rear area to attack and seize the Portuguese-built island at the southernmost tip of the Indian Peninsula.
Several colonial strongholds, and finally used it as the general base, using a large number of main fleets to completely block this sea area, completely blocking the Portuguese's routes to and from the eastern coast of India and the coast of Myanmar through this sea area.
And this is just the preliminary plan. As long as they can successfully seize this sea area, they will implement the second phase of the plan. The focus of the second phase of the plan is not in places like India, West Asia, and East Africa. They plan to directly
Across the Indian Ocean, and then completely control Madagascar Island, well, what Europeans call Madagascar.