Bringing the Railway to Daming

Although Zhu Yuanzhang was somewhat unreliable, his guards were elite troops comparable to the emperor's personal army. The 5,000 Qifan guards trained in Guangzhou were of similar quality to the current Ming Dynasty guards.

Therefore, after nearly 7,000 Qi vassal troops entered the city, they soon took initial control of this port city with a wall circumference of eight or nine miles.

Not long after Zhu Yu entered the City Lord's Mansion, people from the Guangming Guard came to see him.

"The General Banner of the Bright Guard stationed in Mannar City, Sinhalese Kingdom, pays homage to His Majesty the Prince of Qi!"

Zhu Yu nodded and asked, "The one who warned me at the dock earlier was the acting general, right?"

Dai Kai said, "That's me. I didn't expect that His Royal Highness the Prince of Qi would still fall into an ambush."

Zhu Yu smiled and said, "I understand your warning signal, but I have to go to the city lord's Hongmen Banquet. What's your fault? This time, I present a favor to you - come here, and I will reward you with thirty taels of gold for the deputy general flag!"

Dai Kai was shocked when he heard this and said hurriedly, "Thank you, Your Highness, the Prince of Qi, for the reward. However, the Bright Guards have strict rules and regulations, so I dare not accept the reward."

Zhu Yu said, "I'm giving this to you, so just accept it. I'll mention it in the telegram to my father and explain it to you."

Dai Kai felt that after what Zhu Gui did, he might not be able to stay in Guangmingwei anymore, but he did not dare to refuse Zhu Gui's reward, so he could only accept it with a wry smile.

Only after Dai Kai received thirty taels of gold did Zhu Gui talk about business.

"How long have you been in Sinhalese? Do you know how many troops Sinhalese has, how strong they are, and how they are deployed?"

Dai Kai replied, "Your Highness, I have been in Sinhalese for three years, and have mostly stayed in Mannar."

"However, according to the intelligence Captain Chen gathered in Colombo, Sinhalese currently has approximately 300,000 soldiers and horses."

"The most powerful among them are the imperial guards directly under the royal court. They only have more than 30,000 soldiers and are considered the most elite troops in Sinhalese."

"Next are the armies trained by the city lords of various regions, known as the City Guards. They all have farmland and slaves to help them farm, so they can focus on training on a daily basis. Their combat effectiveness is second only to the Royal Guards."

"Take Mannar City Lord, Mahramabahu, for example. He maintains over 5,000 city guards—2,000 of whom are naval. And among the troops participating in the ambush and defense of the city today, there are 3,000 city guards on land."

"As for the third tier, they are the servants of the Imperial Guard and the City Guard, mainly recruited from civilians and slaves."

"Māramo Bāhu has eight thousand servants under his command, including over three thousand naval troops and over four thousand land troops."

Upon hearing this, Zhu Yu was surprised and asked, "How can a small city lord like Mara Mobahu command over 10,000 soldiers? How can he afford it?"

Dai Kai explained, "Because Maramo Bahu is the lord of a large city, or rather, a feudal lord, in addition to the city of Mannar, there are several other small city-states in the surrounding area that are also under his rule. He can collect money and food to support his army."

Because Zhu Gui had previously established his vassal state in Vijayanagar, he mostly read information related to the Naga Kingdom during the Ming Dynasty. Now, after hearing what Dai Kai said, he felt that the Sinhalese system did not seem to be much different from that of Naga.

After all, Sinhalese and Nagare were both feudal kingdoms in South India at the same time.

He then asked, "How many city guards does Sinhalese have?"

Dai Kaidao said, "According to what we have learned, Sinhalese currently only has eight major city lords and dozens of minor city lords—the exact number is unknown, but it should not exceed one hundred."

"The stronger of these great city lords may have 8,000 to 10,000 city guards; the weaker ones may have 2,000 to 3,000."

"Those small city lords, if they are strong, may have more than a thousand city guards; those who are weak may only have a few dozen."

“Therefore, the entire Sinhalese city guard is probably between 50,000 and 80,000.”

Zhu Yu did not ask about the vassal army again.

Although he did not participate in the battle to seize the dock, he watched it for a few seconds. In his opinion, those servants could only fight when the wind was favorable, bully civilians, and at most wipe out bandits.

Therefore, the Sinhalese army actually had only a few hundred thousand troops that were truly combat-capable.

If we take the Mannar City Guards as a reference, excluding the royal guards, the combat effectiveness of the remaining city guards is probably similar to that of the Northern Yuan army, or even worse.

Compared with the Ming Dynasty’s garrison troops before they were equipped with advanced weapons such as artillery and bird guns, their combat effectiveness was even more obviously poor.

However, even with the obvious disparity in combat power, they still had over a hundred thousand men, and a further two hundred thousand vassal troops. If the Sinhalese court were to summon all these troops, Great Qi would be unable to defeat them and might even be forced to retreat to the sea.

Zhu Yu was just pondering this when he heard his chief of staff, Zeng Mingshen, ask, "Acting General, may I ask how many troops are there in the Sinhalese capital?"

Dai Kai replied, "In addition to the over 30,000 imperial guards, there are also approximately 40,000 to 50,000 vassal troops."

"In other words, the royal city has about 70,000 to 80,000 soldiers and horses?"

"Yes," Dai Kai said, then changed the subject. "However, not long ago, the second prince of Sinhalese led over 10,000 royal guards and over 10,000 vassal troops across the sea to the north to attack the Tamil Empire. Now, Colombo probably only has over 50,000 troops."

Upon hearing this, Zeng Mingshen immediately said to Zhu Gui, "Your Majesty, Colombo is on the coast, and the royal city currently has only 50,000 soldiers and horses. I think we can follow the example of the King of Yan."

"Destroy their royal city and seize their money and grain. Their system is similar to the feudal system of the Zhou Dynasty. Without a leader, civil strife is inevitable."

"In this way, Qi will not only be less likely to be besieged by the Sinhalese army, but it can also take the opportunity to grow and develop. In a few years, perhaps it will be able to wipe out the Sinhalese Kingdom!"

Zhu Yu's eyes lit up when he heard this, and he laughed heartily, saying, "That's a great idea. Mr. Zeng is truly my ideal Zhuge Liang. Just as Fourth Brother did, so too can I. Let's do it!"

Zeng Mingshen blushed when he heard this - he was self-aware and was just borrowing an old strategy from the Yan clan. How could he dare to compare himself with Zhuge Liang?
Zhu Yu then inquired about other information about the Sinhalese Kingdom, Mannar, and Colombo, and asked Dai Kai to find dozens of interpreters before letting him leave. Before sunset, the Qi clan's loot from Mannar was finally tallied.

The civil official in charge of finances and grain in the Qi vassal state is Wu Lun, Zhu Yu's uncle and the illegitimate son of the late Anlu Marquis Wu Fu.

Zhu Yuanzhang asked Wu Lun to temporarily take charge of finances, not only because of their kinship, but also because the current Marquis of Anlu, Wu Jie (the biological brother of the Princess of Qi), had given the Qi vassal a considerable amount of money for investment.

In Liu Kuan's words, the Wu family of Anlu Hou is now considered one of the shareholders of Qi State.

Precisely because he was a shareholder, Wu Lun's face was full of excitement when he reported a copy of the accounts to Zhu Gui.

"Your Majesty, this time we seized over 107,000 taels of gold at the docks and in Mannar City..."

Zhu Yu was surprised and couldn't help interrupting, "So many?"

Wu Lun laughed and said, "It's mainly because the city lord's treasury has a lot of gold, a full 100,000 taels!"

Zhu Yu laughed and said, "It seems that this Mara Mo Ba Hu is also a greedy man."

Wu Lun said, "If he wasn't greedy, how could he have let us get away with it?"

Afterwards, Wu Lun continued to report that more than 100 boxes of gems and pearls, more than 500,000 taels of silver in various types including silver coins, silver bricks, and silver utensils were seized, and the amount of coins was difficult to calculate.

In addition, there were about 200,000 dan of various grains and tens of thousands of pieces of various cloths.

After the report, Wu Lun's eyes flashed with greed, and he said, "Your Majesty, this is only what we captured in battle, as well as what we collected from the City Lord's Mansion and the public treasuries in the city."

"Our soldiers barely looted the city after entering it. If they had raided all the wealthy homes in the city, they would have gained even more gold, silver, and grain!"

After hearing Wu Lun's suggestion, Zhu Yu not only did not object, but instead thought of something and said, "Do you know what my third brother did after he captured the Mamluk capital?"

Wu Lun cooperated with a curious expression and begged, "Your Majesty, please tell me quickly?"

Zhu Yu chuckled and said, "My third brother's brother-in-law came up with a plan and had one hundred pairs of tongs made. They tortured dozens of high-ranking officials in the Mamluk capital and forced them to hand over all their wealth."

This time it was Wu Lun's turn to have his eyes light up. "Your Majesty, we can do this too. I think none of the powerful people in Mannar City are good people anyway."

Wu Lun was talking nonsense. They had only been in the city for less than a day. How could they know the details of the powerful people in the city? They were just coveting their wealth.

Zhu Yu did not say it out loud - he agreed to do so.

He smiled and said, "How many powerful people are there in Mannar? Colombo has many more. But tomorrow you have to stay in Mannar to help me watch over this place. You can't join the army. After I take Colombo, I'll have to find someone else to do this job."

Zhu Yu also understood the principle that speed is of the essence in war.

On the second day, five warships and thirty sea vessels, carrying 2,500 guards, 3,000 garrison troops and 3,000 mercenaries, plus 3,000 vassal troops temporarily recruited from the city of Mannar, headed south along the coastline of the big island.

Zhu Di and Zhu Xing, who had previously gone out to sea to establish their own fiefdoms, both recruited a group of mercenaries, and Zhu Gui naturally did the same. Otherwise, with less than 10,000 soldiers and horses, it would be no problem to fight against the indigenous tribes that had not yet established their own country, but it was obviously not enough to establish a fiefdom in the territories of kingdoms such as Bengal and Sinhalese.

Zhu Gui took into consideration the need to establish a vassal state in Vijayanagar, which had a tropical climate, so he recruited these 3,000 mercenaries from Annan and called them the Guard Battalion.

Some of the soldiers in the Guard Battalion are orphans, while others are young and strong men with families. They originally had no connections, but after more than a year of training, they are relatively reliable...
The 23rd year of Hongwu, the second day of April.

King Zhu Gui of Qi led an army of 12,000, five warships and thirty sea vessels to capture the Sinhalese royal capital of Colombo. After entering the city, he plundered for ten days!

That afternoon, Zhu Yu was sleeping soundly on a large golden bed inlaid with countless gems and pearls of various colors, when he suddenly heard the urgent cries of the young eunuch Zhao Bing from outside.

"Your Majesty? Your Majesty? General Ye has an urgent matter to report!"

Zhu Gui opened his eyes, pushed the limp Sinhalese princess's arms and legs away from his body, wrapped himself in a silk robe, got out of bed and walked out of the warm tent.

It was already quite hot in Sinhalese in April. Seeing this, Zhao Bing wanted to put a dark-colored robe on Zhu Gui, but Zhu Gui pushed it away and walked out carelessly.

Ye Yuan, a military officer of the shogunate outside, was not surprised to see this - in the past ten days, Zhu Gui had become more and more dissolute in the Colombo Palace, and he had slept with all of the Sinhalese king's most beautiful concubines and daughters.

This was not the first time that Zhu Yu met his ministers in this state.

In fact, these ministers have been very dissolute in recent days, doing many things that they would not dare to do or even think about in the Ming Dynasty before.

Zhu Yu didn't sit down either. He asked with a smile, "What's the matter, General Ye? Could it be that the Sinhalese noblewoman I gave you the other day wasn't good enough?"

Ye Yuan, who was almost fifty years old, blushed slightly and said anxiously, "Your Majesty, the princess sent an urgent telegram saying that the second prince of Sinhalese is leading tens of thousands of troops to attack Mannar."

Upon hearing this, Zhu Yu's smile immediately faded, his mind cleared up, and he asked, "Did you bring the telegram?"

Ye Yuan is the staff member in charge of intelligence, and this time he helps to look after the telegraph team that came with the army.

Upon hearing this, he handed over the telegram.

Zhu Yu took a quick look and saw that the anti-counterfeiting code was correct and the content was the same as Ye Yuan had said. He immediately said, "Send someone to inform the generals to come to the palace for a meeting!"

"Yes!" (End of this chapter)