To put it a bit exaggerated, the Tang Navy did not even need the navy's professional warships to compete for sea control. It could just drive a few steam and steel ships and sink the wooden sailboats of other indigenous countries around the world one by one!
Therefore, starting from the Tang Dynasty's navy more than ten years ago, their biggest threat, or the only threat that the indigenous people could pose to them, was the forts, and they had to be a few forts with very good terrain conditions.
For example, for a river defense fort on a certain section of an inland river, the fort is directly built behind a bunker that can avoid the bombardment of downstream warships, and then the river is bombarded at close range.
In addition to the forts, the Navy also has a major task of transporting and supporting the Marines and the Army's ground operations.
Based on this realistic situation, the Tang Dynasty Navy had this forward strategy.
Forward presence, forward deployment, and forward operations.
On the whole, it is very similar to the strategy of using the sea to control the land by a certain great power in later generations.
A large number of shallow-water gunboats and frigates in the Datang Navy are, to some extent, the littoral combat ships and early Zumwalt-class destroyers of a certain major country's navy from the 1990s to the early 2000s.
Because the nature of their missions is almost the same, that is, they all attack land targets!
It's just that the navy of a certain great country in later generations discovered within a few years that, oh my god, although it was number one in the world, it was still not good enough to control the land with the sea, so this strategy was sprayed as
The biggest strategic mistake in the history of the U.S. Navy was followed by a return to the traditional strategy centered on striving for sea control.
But the Tang Dynasty was different!
In the foreseeable future, it is almost impossible for the Datang Navy to have a challenger. If there were, the Datang Empire would nip them in the bud as soon as possible.
Therefore, the Tang Navy's forward strategy can be played smoothly and the effect is quite good.
However, even if it pursued a frontier strategy, the Tang Navy actually did not give up on developing its main ocean-going navy.
Because the premise of the frontier strategy is to control the global ocean. Furthermore, although no one said it, many people were on guard against it!
Guard against what?
Rebellion in Overseas Territories!
Many people with a long-term perspective can see the problems in the Tang Empire today.
It's not about external enemies, it's about internal enemies.
Internally, it is not about the dissatisfaction of the local people. The people in the empire are living well now. This can be seen from the stubborn and perverted pursuit of dignity by the people in the empire.
People who don't have enough to eat don't care whether they are decent or not.
The real problem of the empire lies in its overseas territories!
Many discerning people can see that if the empire still cannot change the status quo, then the division of many overseas territories and even some overseas territories is inevitable in the future.
The only question is how long it will take!
Before the death of the Holy Emperor, this kind of thing was absolutely impossible.
But what if the Holy Emperor dies?
With the prince's prestige and ability, can he maintain the Tang Dynasty's global empire?
Don't be kidding, none of the high-ranking officials in the empire are optimistic about it.
Many people are actually worried that the Tang Empire will die. This does not mean that the Tang Empire will be destroyed, but that the overseas territories will establish themselves as kings.
Speaking of this, the imperial prince and even many of the imperial ministers regretted why they supported the enfeoffment of many princes overseas!
In the early years, both the prince and the important ministers of the empire were very happy when the Holy Emperor decided to send many princes overseas to become princes, thinking that this was a way to solve the dispute over the throne.
Great good governance, throwing all the vassal kings into barren overseas lands, can not only solve the problem of national instability, but also develop overseas territories and create a lot of vassal states.
But they really didn't expect that the world was changing so fast!
It didn't take long before and after this, not even twenty years, but the global situation has changed to the point where it is completely different from what it was back then.
In many overseas territories, due to problems such as population increase and long distances, the feudal princes who were entrusted out at the same time were all restless masters. It is estimated that most of the feudal princes were thinking about the same thing, which is to run a good business.
territory, and then violently attack the local area!
In the past few years, the three major vassal kings in North America even tried to save the country by trying to save the country. They tried to localize parts of the railway line, which aroused great fear among the high-ranking officials in the empire. The prince, in particular, was very restless during that time. This was really going to be played by them.
It has become a partial localization, and a place with a population of over ten million can appear in minutes, with excellent agricultural conditions, extremely rich resources, and a large number of factories.
If we really create such an overseas territory, the empire will have to worry about rebellion in North America every day.
This is why the empire would rather spend huge sums of money and put more energy into the localization of Southeast Asia, rather than make even a single crack in the localization of the Americas.
Other places basically have similar treatment.
However, the more localization is prohibited in overseas territories, the more dissatisfied the people in overseas territories will be.
For example, in North America, there are actually no indigenous people left. The more than 10 million people living there are all subjects of the empire. If the conditions in earlier years were followed, they would have met the conditions for localization long ago.
But it still doesn't work.
Then many imperial subjects who immigrated to North America were unhappy.
Why?
Are we not from the Tang Dynasty?
Isn’t North America an imperial territory?
In short, up to now, the localization of overseas territories has become an extremely embarrassing problem.
This is not localization, nor is it not localization!
In the end, the empire's top officials could only drag it out slowly. As for the overseas territories, except for localization, they basically agreed to everything they could and supported everything they could.
For example, logically speaking, without localization, not even a single screw can be exported to overseas territories.
But now in many overseas territories, various steam ships are running all over the world.
The empire didn't care about this, and even opened its mouth to allow this situation to occur.
At the same time, in order to further alleviate the many contradictions in localization between the mainland and overseas territories.
In particular, after Li Xuan noticed through Hantong that many people in the Americas were quite dissatisfied with the empire's localization policy, he planned to make changes.
This change has only one purpose, which is to alleviate the conflicts between the homeland and overseas territories.
Many demands for overseas territories, especially those closely related to the local imperial subjects, are prepared to be discussed one by one.
Adopt different policies according to the different demands of different immigrants.
The key point is to stabilize the foundation of the empire: the vast number of farmers, regardless of whether they are local farmers or overseas farmers, they are actually the foundation of the Tang Empire!