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This time Tang Tong's purpose was not to plunder, but to consume the merchant colonial armies, so tactically, he advanced very slowly, so slowly that the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan thought that the merchant colonial armies fighting against them were regular armies, and thus the Mughal emperor thought that Tang Tong's men were only so strong in combat.
In the history of India, Emperor Shah Jahan of the Mughal Empire could be regarded as a man of great talent and strategy. However, he was unlucky enough to run into the Tang Dynasty. Faced with weapons more powerful than those of the Westerners, Shah Jahan could do nothing. At this time in history, the Westerners' colonization of India had just begun, and the Mughal Empire was still powerful. Emperor Shah Jahan was still dreaming of becoming the emperor of the world. Like the Turkish emperor, he believed that he was the master of this world. However, at this time, Westerners' muskets began to dominate the world.
Both India and Turkey began to decline in the face of this new weapon, but the emperors of these two places still did not see the situation clearly and were still dreaming of becoming the emperor of the world. The Turkish emperor at this time had no power, but Emperor Shah Jahan of the Mughal Empire in India still had power in his hands. It was not until Shah Jahan's death that a civil war broke out within the Mughal Empire, which caused a sharp decline in India's national strength.
What Shah Jahan is facing now is the army under Tang Tong. Ever since Tang Tong led his men to start colonizing India, Emperor Shah Jahan has not won a single battle. The repeated defeats have not only emptied the treasury of the Mughal Empire, but also caused the territory controlled by the Mughal Empire to become smaller and smaller. Now when Tang Tong launched the final blow, the territory Shah Jahan can control is less than half, and in terms of population, it is only a small half of the original population.
Tang Tong's attack on India this time was led by the colonial troops of merchants. The weapons in these people's hands were partly obsolete muskets purchased from Tang Tong, partly muskets purchased from Westerners, and partly traditional cold weapons. In terms of overall weaponry, they were slightly stronger than the Mughal army, and only slightly stronger than the army under Shah Jahan. This caused a misunderstanding in Emperor Shah Jahan's mind, thinking that Tang Tong's strength was limited, and he had a little confidence in whether he could defend the Mughal Empire.
It was this little confidence that prevented Shah Jahan from thinking of surrendering to Tang Tong, but instead he threw all his troops into the battlefield. All men over the age of fourteen were recruited into the army by Emperor Shah Jahan. In terms of population, India has a large population, with a total strength of nearly three million. Although these old, weak, sick and disabled troops have no combat effectiveness, they are still good cannon fodder. At least in terms of human wave tactics, they are also very attractive.
Liu Dashan was a businessman in the Ming Dynasty. Among all the merchant colonization teams, Liu Dashan's team was considered medium-sized, with about 1,600 people under his command. Such a colonization team brought Liu Dashan a lot of benefits. Liu Dashan followed Tang Tong's footsteps and became a maritime merchant early on. Before that, Liu Dashan was just a small businessman in the Ming Dynasty, but he was bold. At that time, he had no capital at all, so he could only follow other people's merchant ships to do some small business. Later, after Tang Tong sent troops to establish a concession in Japan, Liu Dashan saw that Tang Tong had a promising future.
When Tang Tong led his troops to occupy colonies everywhere, Liu Dashan followed Tang Tong to plunder together with some brave Ming Dynasty merchants. In the early days, Liu Dashan could not hire many people in Ming Dynasty, so he got some cheap Japanese people in Japan to be his subordinates. Later, when he had some money, he hired some Ming Dynasty refugees in Ming Dynasty to be his subordinates. They followed Tang Tong's army to plunder all the way, and gradually developed into a scale of about 1,600 people. Later, they occupied a colony near the territory of Turkey. Ordinary people would not occupy such a place, because relatively speaking, the Turks still had some strength at that time, and occupying a colony next to them was not a good thing.
But Liu Dashan was only a medium-sized merchant colonial army after all. He did not have the ability to occupy those good places, so he could only boldly occupy the places near Turkey. The reason why Liu Dashan had such courage was that he believed that he had the army under Tang Tong as his support. Later, after Tang Tong issued the order to enfeoff, Liu Dashan was also a very insightful person. He smelled something wrong. Liu Dashan knew that the strength under his command was not enough for Prince Tang to look down on, so he consciously handed over the army in his hands to Tang Tong, and was able to be enfeoffed as a baron. The territory occupied basically became Liu Dashan's hereditary territory, but Tang Tong did not give the places where there might be oil in the future to Liu Dashan.
After Liu Dashan handed over all his troops to Tang Tong, he saw Tang Tong's army attacking the Mughal Empire in India, so he took the family he could bring with him and ran to India to plunder. For people like Liu Dashan, Tang Tong gave very preferential policies. He gathered these people together, sent an auxiliary army and some militia to form a team with Liu Dashan and his men. This looting team became the safest team in the looting activities in India.
Although Liu Dashan and his twenty armed men moved slowly along the way, they were able to loot a lot of things. The main reason for this was that the merchant colonial armies that did not hand over their troops to Tang Tong often encountered Shah Jahan's main army. Those merchant colonial armies that seemed to be fully armed could not gain any advantage in the confrontation with the main army of the Mughal Empire. Sometimes they were accidentally beaten and retreated by Shah Jahan's men. As a result, the good things were obtained by merchants like Liu Dashan who listened to Tang Tong.
There were some smart merchant colonial teams who wanted to sneak into Liu Dashan and his group, but the auxiliary troops would not let these people follow them. These auxiliary troops would generally carry out Tang Tong's orders seriously and would not let such people take advantage of loopholes. There were also some merchant colonial teams that suffered losses in front of the Mughal army and would retreat to a safe area to wait and see, hoping to pick up some bargains after it was safe. However, when they saw that the colonial troops in front had looted a lot of property, these people became tempted again. Some merchants took their men back to the battlefield again, because if they stayed in the rear, they would have no chance to loot anything.
Although Liu Dashan brought a small number of people, they were able to loot more than those merchant colonial teams with hundreds of people under their command. Especially when he saw some colonial armies that encountered the main force of the Mughal Empire, they often suffered heavy losses. He understood more and more what Tang Tong wanted to do. This made Liu Dashan feel secretly proud, thinking that his previous decision was correct. This Prince Tang wanted to use this battlefield to weaken the strength of those disobedient guys.
Although Liu Dashan didn't know what Tang Tong was going to do, he would not tell anyone else. In Liu Dashan's heart, he just hoped that all those merchant colonial armies would be wiped out in this military operation. In that way, Liu Dashan, a second-class baron, would be very valuable. If too many people were conferred with the title, wouldn't he, a second-class baron, have to pay? Of course, there were some other people who wanted to know, and these people had similar thoughts to Liu Dashan. Seeing the merchant colonial armies defeated by the Mughal Empire along the way, they couldn't help but feel a little gloating.
The main force of Tang Tong advanced very slowly on the battlefield in India, and with the help of a perfect reconnaissance system, Tang Tong's main force had been avoiding the main force of the Mughal Empire. Tang Tong's idea was to make both sides consume some strength, among which Zheng Zhilong's army was especially needed. Zheng Zhilong did not think that Tang Tong would have such an intention at the beginning. He always thought that if Tang Tong did not want to tolerate the existence of their armed forces, he would directly take military action against them. Therefore, when Tang Tong attacked India, Zheng Zhilong did not want to think about Tang Tong's plan for a while because he did not have the information given to him by his son, and he brought his army to the Indian battlefield to plunder.
Zheng Zhilong dispatched an army of 150,000 this time. Such a large army made Shah Jahan mistakenly think that it was the main force of Tang Tong. He concentrated a large army to deal with Zheng Zhilong's team. The two sides fought several battles, and for a while, both sides won and lost. Originally, Zheng Zhilong also had some military talents. He led the army for many years, and no matter how incompetent he was, he would have some experience. Because of this, he fought against Shah Jahan's army in a decent manner.
Later, Zheng Zhilong found that others had looted a lot of things, but his large team could not loot much. The Mughal army seemed to be harassing them all the time. Zheng Zhilong was smart and realized after thinking about it that he seemed to have become cannon fodder for the Prince of Tang this time. This made Zheng Zhilong very angry.
Zheng Zhilong immediately became disloyal and thought about how to preserve his army and how to gain some benefits from Prince Tang's men.
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