After Tang Tongzhi temporarily resolved the issue with the Mongols, he reached out to the Jiannu and initially expressed his support for Dorgun and Daishan. At the same time, as a friend, he asked Amin and Manggurtai, who were once powerful, to help the two rebuild their respective forces within the Jiannu. Amin, Manggurtai, and Daishan were all Jiannu Beile and had considerable influence within the Jiannu.

Tang Tong's identity as a friend was self-proclaimed. People with power in their hands, such as Huang Taiji, Dorgon, and Daishan, were naturally unwilling to acknowledge him. However, when Amin and Manggurtai, who were under house arrest by Huang Taiji, extended an olive branch to Tang Tong, they could not wait to acknowledge him. Because if they wanted to live a life of superiority again, they had to rely on people who could help them.

Amin and Manggurtai were originally under house arrest by Huang Taiji. When Huang Taiji was trapped in Korea for a year, their old subordinates rescued them. After Huang Taiji came back, the two lived in hiding and had long wanted to find a force to join. After getting the support of Tang Tongzhi, the two quickly gathered some of their old subordinates and occupied a large area near Dalian New City. When they came to this point, they naturally opposed Huang Taiji.

Faced with the sudden rise of Amin and Manggurtai, Huang Taiji, Dorgon and Daishan temporarily compromised. However, faced with the increasingly powerful Tang army, Huang Taiji did not dare to take military action after all, and was temporarily in a peaceful state with the separatist Amin and Manggurtai. At this time, some Mongolian tribes provided mercenaries to Tang Tong, although the total number was less than 10,000. But this was not a sudden change. Tang Tong believed that as these mercenaries were dealt with, more Mongolians would eventually take this path and become mercenaries under the Tang army.

Two months passed quickly, during which Tang Tong met Xu Qinglian several times. However, Xu Qinglian overestimated the combat effectiveness of the 100,000 White Lotus soldiers, and Tang Tong also intended to weaken the power of the White Lotus. Two months later, the White Lotus soldiers, who were fighting each other, finally collapsed under the encirclement of the officers and soldiers. The officers and soldiers retook Shandong. The thousands of White Lotus members who escaped drifted to the sea in small boats and could be swallowed by the waves at any time.

Faced with this situation, Xu Qinglian felt remorseful. After all, she was just a little girl, and there were many things she could not understand. She had wanted to get more conditions favorable to the Holy Church from Tang Tong. She thought Tang Tong would be satisfied with the army belonging to the Holy Church, but unexpectedly, Tang Tong was not satisfied and wanted to do his best to weaken this army.

Tang Tong looked at Xu Qinglian's sad expression and felt a little reluctant. After all, she was just a seventeen-year-old girl, but she had to bear such a heavy burden. It was really cruel for her. Tang Tong first gathered the remaining White Lotus Sect members onto the big ship and brought them to the Korean Concession for rest and training.

Afterwards, Tang Tong returned to Suzhou, resigned from his post as prefect of Suzhou, and sent Chen Yuxian, his daughter, and Li Xiang to the capital.

The Tang Tong forces developed to their present level with the help of the Ming government. In the golden autumn of that year, they led 20,000 Japanese auxiliary troops, 10,000 Mongolian mercenaries, 10,000 Korean laborers, 6,000 White Lotus soldiers, and 10,000 family soldiers organized by sea merchants from Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and set out for Southeast Asia in a mighty force.

When Tang Tongxu left, he asked Hongniangzi and Chen Zilong to take 10,000 regular troops and 4,000 Jurchen auxiliary troops to reoccupy Laizhou City in Shandong, and use it as a base to expand to the surrounding areas. Zhang Yiheng led 20,000 Japanese auxiliary troops to monitor Huang Taiji and others.

Not to mention how Hong Niangzi and Chen Zilong established themselves in Shandong, Tang Tong led so many people to Southeast Asia this time, not to develop Southeast Asia, but to share some ground with those Westerners in India.

The ships that Tang Tong and his crew brought this time included ten 9,000-ton ships and thirty 8,000-ton ships. The rest of the ships were 60,000-70,000-ton ships bought from Tang Tong. These ships were the most advanced in the world at that time. Tang Tong's ships had begun to be equipped with artillery produced by military factories. These artillery were all steel cannons, much lighter than the red cannons, only about 1,300-1,400 kilograms, and had a range two to three thousand meters longer than that of Westerners. There were eighty cannons on the 9,000-ton ship, and its firepower was much stronger than that of current Western ships.

It turned out that those cannons were gradually eliminated and sold to those sea merchants. Although these cannons were eliminated, they were the most advanced cannons in the hands of Westerners after all, so when Tang Tong sold them to those sea merchants, he still sold them at a high price.

In addition to Tang Tong and Zheng Zhilong, there is also a Spanish fleet in Nanyang. This Spanish fleet with only twenty ships does not dare to provoke Tang Tong and his men who have dozens of warships. However, both sides did not tear up the original agreement and they lived in peace for the time being. Tang Tong and his men occupied a large area of land in Nanyang, and most of the local indigenous people in Nanyang were sold by Tang Tong's men. Those who could not be sold at a low price, Hei Pi and his men transported these indigenous people to Europe for free, and then released them somewhere else.

After Tang Tong led his men and the sea merchants to Daming City in the Strait of Malacca, Zhao Yapeng, Hei Pi and others held a warm welcoming ceremony. When Hei Pi and others saw the new cannons on the ship, they couldn't help but reach out and touch them. They had fought many naval battles with others at sea in recent years and knew the importance of cannons. With bigger and stronger cannons, it would be easier to win in naval battles, especially this kind of light weight and long range cannons, which not only reduced the weight of the ship, making the ship faster and more flexible, but also could suppress the opponent in terms of firepower.

Daming City developed very quickly. At that time, it had a population of nearly 100,000. The total number of immigrants from Southeast Asia was as high as 600,000, of which 400,000 were Han Chinese, and there were nearly 150,000 Japanese and Koreans, as well as 50,000 blacks. Daming City became the political center of Southeast Asia.

Among these more than 600,000 people, more than 200,000 were cultivating farmland in Australia, more than 100,000 were working in various factories in Southeast Asia, and the rest were scattered throughout Southeast Asia to cultivate plantations. When they were no longer self-sufficient in food, some of the food could be sold back to Ming Dynasty and Japan. In the eyes of the Japanese who were short of food and clothing, this place was simply a paradise. Every time the Tang army went to Japan to recruit soldiers, the Japanese were eager to sign up, because if only one person in a family became an auxiliary soldier, the whole family could live a life with food and clothing. Those who made meritorious deeds could also immigrate here and own a piece of land. This also made the Japanese auxiliary soldiers braver in every battle.

Tang Tong called all his men together for a meeting and listened to their work reports. Since the military and politics were separated here, tens of thousands of troops were in the hands of a few people. Those who held military power could not interfere in local government and finances, and local officials could not interfere in the military. Local public security was managed by an independent constable office. Tang Tong did not change the name of the constable to the later name of the security, and made this department independent. It was neither under the management of the army nor the local government. It just took orders from him and had a certain scope of authority of the Jinyiwei.

For example, among the factories in Nanyang, the most profitable one is the Nanyang Cigarette Factory, which can bring Tang Tong an income of 300,000 taels of silver a year, accounting for nearly half of Nanyang's industrial income. The rest of the income mainly comes from the mining industry in Nanyang and Australia. Although the earliest shipyard was large in scale, most of it was used by its own army and caravans, and only a small amount was sold to Ming Dynasty maritime merchants and Zheng Zhilong and others, so a lot of money had to be put into the shipyard every year.

In agriculture, in addition to the large amount of cultivated farmland, there are also many fruit orchards, and rubber plantations have also reached a certain scale. However, to date, the research institute under Tang Tong has not been able to develop a method for producing rubber, so the rubber plantations are currently not privately operated and are planted by the Nanyang local government officials using black slaves.

The aquaculture industry is also developing well, and with the marine fishing industry, people in Nanyang have no shortage of meat. As far as life is concerned, it is much better than in the Ming Dynasty. This also makes the Ming refugees who immigrated here very grateful to Tang Tong. Even the Korean laborers found that life here is much better than in their Korea. Although they are semi-slaves with no freedom, this kind of life still allows them to live a law-abiding life.

Because of the relationship between Tang Tong and his subordinates, Hei Pi, Zhao Yapeng and others did not cruelly exploit the black slaves and Korean laborers. Although the blacks had no wages and freedom, their food was not bad, and the Korean laborers would also give them some wages so that they could send it back home. As for the Japanese, they were brave in combat, so they were treated better. The young and strong Japanese were basically recruited into the army and had a good salary. Their families could also get a job in the factory and get a good salary. Those Japanese who had made military achievements were even given a piece of land.

Every month, trading ships bound for Japan would bring groups of returning relatives back to their hometowns, allowing them to show off their skills to their elders. This in turn led to even more Japanese eagerly awaiting the Ming Dynasty's Tang Army recruitment, allowing Tang Tong and his family to enjoy this kind of happy life. These were all things Tang Tong had never imagined. (To be continued. To learn more about the rest of the story, please visit idianm for more chapters. Support the author!)

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