Bringing the Railway to Daming

Chapter 209 What! The Yongle Encyclopedia was stolen? The Western Barbarians want to establish the Ming Dynasty Emperor! [Subscription Request]

Zhu Yuanzhang knew that the Ming Dynasty would eventually perish from attacks from both the peasant army and the Jurchens, not from Spain.

However, it is possible that although Spain's invasion of the Ming Dynasty failed, it still caused huge losses to the Ming Dynasty. It is even possible that the Jianzhou Jurchens rose to power while the Ming Dynasty was busy dealing with the Spanish.

Thinking of this, he said, "Tell me about the process of this incident."

Liu Kuan said, "Although Spain dominated the world at that time and was known as the empire on which the sun never set, its missionary work and trade in the Ming Dynasty encountered obstacles and setbacks."

"In terms of trade, for thousands of years, China has been selling porcelain, silk and tea overseas, especially in Europe."

"By the late Ming Dynasty, Ming products such as iron pots, paper, and sugar were also popular in Japan, Korea, Southeast Asian countries, India, and West Asia."

"When the Spanish traded with Ming merchants, they had to import a lot of goods from the Ming Dynasty. However, they could only sell a few goods to the Ming Dynasty. Among them, the more famous ones were Western curiosities such as glass mirrors and firearms."

"Under these circumstances, although Spain plundered a large amount of gold and silver from the Americas and other places, a considerable amount flowed into the Ming Dynasty every year - later generations called this a trade deficit."

"Since Spain calls itself the Empire on which the Sun Never Sets, it is naturally unwilling to bear the cost of a trade deficit and watch its gold and silver flow into the Ming Dynasty in large quantities."

"Secondly, because European nations were deeply influenced by religion, and even the authority of the church once overrode that of the monarchy, one of the missions of European nations after embarking on the great voyages of discovery was to promote their religions and recruit followers."

"As early as the middle of the Ming Dynasty, when the Portuguese arrived in the Ming Dynasty, they began to try to spread their religious beliefs to the Ming Dynasty."

"However, the people of the Ming Dynasty, on the one hand, had deep-rooted ancestral 'faiths,' and on the other, were deeply influenced by Buddhism and Taoism. Coupled with the influence of Confucian culture, the development of Western religions in the Ming Dynasty was extremely slow, and in fact, there was no significant progress for hundreds of years."

"In the late Ming Dynasty, they simply translated and disseminated some books and knowledge about the Western Roman Empire and West Asian Arab culture to attract some gentry who were curious about the West to convert to Christianity."

"Or perhaps they could convert poor people to Christianity through charity. But in the eyes of Western missionaries, whether they were Ming Dynasty gentry or poor people, most of those who joined the religion had ulterior motives and were not sincere in their faith."

"Not to mention, compared to the Ming Dynasty's population of 100 to 200 million at the time, the number of people who joined or believed in the religion probably did not exceed 10,000."

Upon hearing this, Zhu Biao, Zhu Di and others were all surprised. They did not expect that there would be such a reason for Spain's invasion of the Ming Dynasty in later generations.

Zhu Yuanzhang thought from the Spanish perspective - if the Ming Dynasty dominated the world, but its silver and money flowed into another country year after year, he would definitely be unwilling to accept it.

In this case, it seemed inevitable that Spain would attack the Ming Dynasty.

As expected, Liu Kuan continued, "For Spain at the time, whether it was facing a trade deficit or obstacles to its missionary work, the best solution was to use force to open the Ming Dynasty's borders, or even to destroy the Ming Dynasty and turn it into a colony."

"It just so happened that the then Governor of Luzon heard about an incident in which dozens of Japanese pirates reached the outskirts of Nanjing during the Jiajing period."

The princes and grandchildren who heard about this for the first time were once again surprised and even found it unbelievable.

Zhu Di was even more stunned, thinking: How many generations of my descendants is Jiajing? How could he allow dozens of Japanese pirates to attack the city of Nanjing? This is too unbearable!

Then he looked at Zhu Yuanzhang guiltily.

Seeing that Zhu Yuanzhang did not look surprised or angry, and seemed to have heard about this matter, and had no intention of blaming him for the moment, he finally breathed a sigh of relief.

"I must find an opportunity to ask Liu Kuan about the future of the Ming Dynasty. Otherwise, listening to him talk about the descendants of those tyrants in the future in front of my father is too frightening. Sooner or later, I will be frightened to death."

Liu Kuan, unaware that Zhu Di was frightened by his words, continued, "At that time, Spain defeated hundreds of Japanese pirates in a naval battle with only a few dozen men. So, when the Governor of Luzon heard that dozens of Japanese pirates had invaded Nanjing, he concluded that the Ming Dynasty's fighting power was extremely low."

"He thought that if a few dozen Japanese pirates could reach the capital of the Ming Dynasty, then a few dozen Spanish soldiers could potentially defeat tens of thousands of Ming troops."

Hearing this, Zhu Di finally couldn't help but say, "How can war be calculated in this way? Even if tens of thousands of Ming soldiers were unarmed, they could still kill dozens of Western barbarian soldiers, right?"

Liu Kuan smiled and said, "Your Highness the Prince of Yan seems to have a point, but the premise is that most of those tens of thousands of people are fearless and their generals are well-managed."

"If these tens of thousands of Ming soldiers were cowardly, or unwilling to die for the court, and their generals were even more cowardly, then it's not impossible for them to be defeated by dozens of Spanish soldiers armed with cannons and muskets."

"The Governor of Luzon wasn't just imagining things. In fact, when they colonized South America, they defeated an Inca army of tens of thousands with just over a hundred men—and those hundred or so weren't elite soldiers, but a ragtag group of adventurers, criminals, sailors, and the like."

"Also, in later times, during the late Ming Dynasty, there were instances of dozens of Jurchen cavalry chasing thousands of Ming troops."

Zhu Di suddenly understood.

He had been in the army for seven or eight years and had participated in two northern expeditions. In addition, he had learned a lot of military tactics. In fact, he knew that the number of troops was not the decisive factor in the war. Under normal circumstances, military strategy, military morale, equipment and logistics were more important than the number of troops.

It was just that the difference between dozens of people and tens of thousands of people was too big, which made it difficult for him to accept what Liu Kuan said.

After coming to his senses, he asked, "Could it be that the Governor of Luzon really only sent a few dozen people to attack the Ming Dynasty?"

Liu Kuan said: "Of course not - after all, even if they can defeat the Ming army, they still have to take over the Ming city and rob the gold, silver and treasures. A few dozen people are definitely not enough."

"In fact, Spain was still digesting the fruits of its colonization of the Americas and the Luzon Islands at the time. Furthermore, the idea of ​​'a few dozen people destroying the Ming Dynasty' seemed a bit unreliable, so the King of Spain did not approve it."

"Two years later, the Luzon Governor-General resigned, and his successor also set his sights on invading the Ming Dynasty." "He learned from the previous Governor-General's failure in this matter and prepared to develop a detailed and feasible plan to attack the Ming Dynasty in order to persuade the King."

"Before the war broke out, intelligence was already flowing. This Governor-General of Luzon first used missionaries, religious gentry, and common people in Ming territory to gather intelligence on all aspects of the Ming Dynasty, and then bribed some Ming Dynasty officials with money."

Having said that, Liu Kuan paused and mentioned another thing.

"Oh, yes, there's even a rumor in later generations, whose authenticity is unknown. It's said that Western missionaries used Nanjing as a missionary center at the time and had immense influence there. At their peak, they even bribed officials, eunuchs, and guards within the Nanjing Imperial City to steal the Yongle Encyclopedia."

"Later, they colluded with the Qing court to destroy the Yongle Encyclopedia hidden in Beijing."

"Then, Westerners shamelessly recast the Yongle Encyclopedia, which contains records of Chinese science, technology, thought, and even classic texts, claiming they were the work of their Western predecessors."

"For example, there was a great sage in the West named Aristotle. Many of his theories and even writings in later generations were highly similar to the thoughts and classic articles of Chinese sages."

"His creative achievements in ideology and theory are even comparable to those of several schools of thought during the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods in China. This is simply incredible."

"A few years before I arrived at the Ming Dynasty, a wave of criticism of Western history was launched. This school of thought believed that a considerable portion of Western history was fabricated and that many elements of Chinese culture were appropriated as its own, ultimately accusing China of plagiarizing the West."

Old Zhu, Zhu Biao, Zhu Di and others all widened their eyes when they heard this.

It was already incredible that Spain wanted to defeat and destroy the Ming Dynasty with only dozens of people, but now I heard something even more incredible.

It was fine for others who didn't know the meaning of the Yongle era, but Zhu Di was completely upset.

According to the history of the Yongle Dynasty in later generations that he "eavesdropped" on, he specially ordered people to compile the "Yongle Encyclopedia" to demonstrate his cultural governance. He didn't expect that it would be stolen by the Western barbarians?

These Western barbarians are so hateful!

Kill!

No, their country should be destroyed!

People like Zhu Xing and Zhu Su, although they did not know that the Yongle Encyclopedia was compiled by Zhu Di, were shocked by the shamelessness of the Westerners after hearing this.

At the same time, he deeply felt that the interests involved in the conflict between China and the Western Barbarians were greater than those in the conflict between the Han people and the Mongols.

Mongolia only destroyed the Han Dynasty, but the Westerners wanted to destroy even the Chinese culture, and seemed to have the ability to do it!

When many princes listed Westerners as enemies, Liu Kuan set the topic straight.

"I used the example of the Western barbarians possibly stealing the Yongle Encyclopedia to illustrate how easy it was for them to gather intelligence in the Ming Dynasty."

"Thus, the Governor-General of Luzon and the Spanish court quickly learned of the Ming Dynasty's strengths and weaknesses. This was during the middle and late Wanli reign, and due to the Wanli Emperor's incompetence and selfishness, the Ming Dynasty, despite winning three major wars, was about to run out of treasury."

"Moreover, at that time, the Ming Dynasty's central government's control over the local areas was extremely weak, the court was dark, and the officials were corrupt."

"In addition, the Ming Dynasty's military focus has always been in the north, Liaodong, and the southwest. The southeastern coastal defenses are weak, and the army has little combat effectiveness."

"Combining all of this, the Governor-General of Luzon formulated a war plan to destroy the Ming Dynasty with 6,000 men."

"This time, the King of Spain was attracted by this relatively reliable plan and summoned his ministers to discuss the matter."

"After many discussions and learning more about the Ming Dynasty, the Spanish monarch and his ministers concluded that the Ming Dynasty was indeed vast and much more powerful than the Inca in America."

"To be on the safe side, they revised the Governor-General of Luzon's plan and decided to send 25,000 Spanish soldiers, plus 5,000 Portuguese soldiers, 5,000 Japanese ronin, and tens of thousands of Nanyang natives as vassal troops to attack the Ming Dynasty."

"In addition, they considered that the Han Chinese were needed to produce porcelain, silk, tea and other valuable commodities in Europe, and revised the Governor-General of Luzon's idea of ​​destroying the Ming court."

"After defeating the Ming army, they decided to force the Ming court to surrender and make the Ming emperor a puppet of the Spanish, helping them enslave the Chinese people and thereby continuously extract wealth from China."

Hearing this, Lao Zhu was so angry that his nose almost became crooked.

He slapped the armrest of his armchair and snorted angrily, "They actually want our Ming Emperor to be their puppet emperor? These Spaniards are so bold!"

Zhu Di was also very angry.

In later history, it was his lineage that sat on the throne. If Spain's plan to conquer the Ming Dynasty had succeeded, it would be Zhu Di's descendants who would become the Western Yier Emperor.

He immediately stood up, clasped his fists, and said, "Father, when the Age of Discovery begins, I am willing to lead the fleet to Europe and destroy Spain!"

After saying this, he thought of something and looked at Liu Kuan again, asking, "Third brother-in-law, then Spain should still exist now, right?"

　Second update.

　　Good night~
　　
　　
　
(End of this chapter)