Chapter 1958 Datang can't afford to lose this face!
In fact, there are indigenous people in many places trying to sneak into the areas controlled by the Tang Dynasty. Not only in the mainland, but also in overseas territories, there are many indigenous people who want to sneak across.
Ceuta in Europe is a very typical place. Every day, a large number of indigenous people from Europe or North Africa try to sneak into the country and pretend to be temporary residents after crossing over.
Although Datang's control over overseas territories was also very strict, it was not so strict after all. The natives could always find opportunities to sneak across.
However, the Tang Dynasty had very strict control over the native areas and strictly prohibited the illegal immigration of indigenous people.
Since Central Asia borders the Mughal Empire and the Safi Dynasty, the Ottoman Empire is also on the border, and even the Eastern European controlled areas of the Tatar Kingdom are also on the border, so the smuggling phenomenon in this region is very serious.
At the beginning, Datang would detain illegal immigrants caught for a period of time before deporting them. But soon the local Datang officials were dumbfounded. More and more indigenous people poured in, and even directly approached the Datang military police.
Let them arrest.
After asking, I found out that even after being arrested by the Tang Dynasty military police, even if they had to do hard work every day, they could still eat, and the food was good, at least much better than they did back home...
In the end, Datang had no choice but to repatriate directly, set up checkpoints on various transportation arteries, etc., and blocked all borders except a few trade ports.
However, even so, it was still difficult to completely prevent immigrants from crossing the border. In the end, they simply took the initiative to evacuate civilians from areas close to the border in order to set up isolation zones without deploying a large number of border patrol forces.
This is also the reason why three second-line defense divisions are deployed in this area all year round, not for fighting, but to seal the border and prohibit the entry of illegal immigrants.
However, it made no difference to the Mughals, they still felt deep fear.
The surrender of the Mughal Dynasty was not a special case. Although the specific methods were different, it was actually a very common thing.
In all European countries, who doesn’t hug the Tang Dynasty’s lap and call him daddy?
Rudolf II of the previous Holy Roman Empire had already announced that he would voluntarily give up the title of Roman Emperor and only retained a series of other titles such as Archduke of Austria, King of Hungary, King of Croatia, and King of Bohemia.
Of course, this is because most of his territory has been taken away by the Tatars, but this is absolutely related to the absolute strength of the Tang Dynasty.
What the Tang Dynasty emphasizes is that there are no two days in the sky and no two kings among the people. You messy natives want to be kings, grand dukes and other titles. We in the Tang Dynasty don't bother to care about it. But if you want to be emperor, king of kings, king of kings, etc.
King or titles with similar meanings are not allowed.
It was also for this reason that Akbar of the Mughal Dynasty took the initiative to remove the title 'Shah', which is what later generations would call the title of Indian emperor.
As for Rudolf II, he publicly renounced the title of Roman Emperor and then received some military material assistance from the Tang Empire at that time, including 3,000 flintlock muskets and 12 smoothbore cannons.
More importantly, no one, including King Philip II of Spain, who was also a member of the Habsburg family, dared to claim that he was the heir of the Roman Emperor.
In fact, even though other countries such as the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid Dynasty did not do anything to give up their titles, they each took the initiative to explain to the Tang Dynasty that our current title actually translates into Chinese as King, Grand Duke.
Or a similar title. Strictly speaking, he is not even a king, he is just a ruler of a place. He is not an emperor as you people of the Tang Dynasty call him!
Even his title was shortened by himself, which shows how strong the Tang Dynasty is now!
The people of the empire who live in such a powerful empire are proud and even inflated.
They can't even say that they look down on other indigenous barbarians now. They don't even regard those indigenous people as human beings.
If you ask them to compare themselves with the natives on the same level, they will feel it is an insult to them.
This public opinion atmosphere also directly affected many of the empire's foreign policies and even the military's army-building strategies.
The military must defeat all kinds of indigenous people. Any situation where you have to fight with the indigenous people, or even require the soldiers to fight hard, is not allowed.
Datang could not afford to lose this face!
In addition to the pressure from domestic public opinion, what is actually more important is that the military has been kidnapped by the domestic industrial system.
The Tang Army's 75mm breech-mounted steel rifled cannon is enough to conquer the world. If your army builds a 200mm train cannon, what's the use of a 300mm train heavy howitzer?
It is estimated that the war will be over before these heavy artillery can reach the front line!
However, even so, the Tang Empire still did not give up its research on technology and continued to widen the distance between itself and the indigenous people.
This is not even being promoted by the military, because the military actually has no need for this at all. The military generals are quite satisfied with the current weapons and equipment. All they want is to reduce the cost of ammunition.
The empire has entered the breech-loading era, and is at least hundreds or even hundreds of years ahead of other natives.
As long as they develop step by step in the future, they can maintain their advantage for a long, long time. This time will definitely be so long that Li Xuan will not live to see the technical level of the indigenous people catch up.
However, the reason why the Tang Empire continued to promote the development of science and technology, constantly experimenting and equipping a large number of advanced weapons, besides the attention of the Holy Emperor himself.
A considerable part of the reason comes from the domestic industrial system.
The three major arms companies represented by the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises are almost dragging the military forward, forcing the military to continuously purchase their new weapons and equipment.
Naturally, the three major arms companies do this for profit.
Datang's military research and development system is relatively complex. The three major weapons companies seldom conduct research and development out of their own pockets. After coming up with a concept or preliminary design, they sign a research and development contract with the military, and the military funds them to conduct research.
If the research is successful, the order will be placed for formal production.
During this process, even in the research and development stage, the three major weapons companies have already started to make money...
In this case, if the military says it will not research new weapons and will not sign various research and development contracts with the three major weapons companies, would you believe it or not that the three major weapons companies would increase the prices of existing weapons and equipment every minute...
Now labor costs have gone up, and so have material costs. Price increases are normal!
If there were only three major weapons companies, in fact, with their energy, they would not be able to force the military to do anything. More importantly, almost the entire empire's industrial system also supported the three major weapons companies in doing so.