Zhu Ying did not oppose the princes developing their own overseas power, and he did not want to suppress them too much.

Throughout history, emperors have always suppressed their vassal kings because they were worried about the instability of their thrones or even afraid that the vassal kings would seize the throne.

Of course, in history, no vassal king had ever successfully rebelled. Now that Zhu Ying had entered the palace, Zhu Di naturally had no chance anymore.

It is only because of the special nature of Japan that the four feudal lords are prohibited from provoking war conflicts.

If it were in the Middle East, Zhu Ying wouldn't care so much and would just develop it the way he wanted.

The first month of the 30th year of Hongwu.

This year's New Year's Day is as lively as ever.

With the rapid development of the capital's economy, all walks of life in the capital are now thriving.

The most important thing is that the public security in the capital is very good.

With the permission of Zhu Ying's decree, the Public Security Bureau expanded rapidly, and there were nearly 40,000 registered Public Security Bureau personnel in the capital alone.

It includes all the streets and alleys in the capital.

Any petty theft will be severely punished, and anyone caught will be sent to forced labor.

Because of the nationwide shortage of land for construction projects, anyone convicted of a crime will now be sentenced to two years of hard labor, so free labor should not be wasted.

Especially for those idle street urchins who have no life skills, it is a good thing for them to be reformed through labor.

No matter which industry you are sent to, you will always learn professional skills, so that you can start a new life after completing your labor.

For repeat offenders, the second conviction will double the punishment, starting at four years.

Under such a governance environment, the public security in the capital can be described as being so bad that doors are not locked at night. Especially for businessmen from other places and foreign countries, the business environment is unimaginably good.

In order to prevent wrongful convictions, Zhu Ying specifically reserved the power for the people to apply for a joint trial by the three courts after being convicted. However, when exercising this power, if they deliberately wasted government manpower, they would be severely sentenced.

Similarly, if an official is responsible for a false or wrongful case, dismissal from office would be considered a light punishment and a strict investigation would be carried out.

Rules and regulations are enforced by people, and there will always be some people who violate them. There is no way to prevent these things. At least for now, Zhu Ying has made it so that in the current Ming Dynasty, at least in public, no official dares to do anything wrong.

In the cases in the 29th year of Hongwu, most of the offenders were the second sons of nobles or illegitimate children. Many of them were sentenced to hard labor and were not allowed to enjoy any privileges.

Because whenever there was a case involving the offspring of officials or nobles, Zhu Ying would involve the censors.

The censors, who usually held their anger, naturally put all their strength into it.

It was also in this year that the situation in Europe changed greatly.

The Ottoman Empire was the overlord of the Middle East, especially after the accession of monarch Murad I, he launched a large-scale military operation to the southeast of his country.

They occupied Adrianople, an important city of the Byzantine Empire, and renamed it Edirne, which then became the capital of the Ottoman Empire.

This put a lot of pressure on many European kings, but it was difficult for Europe, which was full of contradictions, to unite to fight against the Ottomans.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, the Ottomans conquered Western Thrace, Macedonia, Sofia, Thessaloniki and the entire northern Greece, forcing the rulers of Bulgaria and Serbia to pay tribute.

Subsequently, the coalition forces of Serbia, Bulgaria and Hungary were defeated in the Battle of Kosovo.

Enormous pressure forced the whole of Europe to unite against the Ottoman Empire.

Just like the current grassland alliance against Timur, the entire European military forces are assembled on a large scale to support the Byzantine Empire.

Sometimes, when it comes to war, it really isn't just about who has more soldiers. Even though Europe sent a large number of reinforcements, and their apparent military strength far exceeded that of the invading Ottoman Empire, they still suffered a disastrous defeat.

There were many factors involved. Perhaps the European coalition had many opportunities to turn the tide, but they missed them in the end. The result was that after the entire European coalition was defeated, nearly 10,000 Crusaders were captured. Except for 300 noble knights who were redeemed with huge sums of money, almost all the others were killed.

Europe had no way to stop the expansion of the Ottoman Empire and could only watch the Byzantine Empire get closer and closer to destruction.

It was precisely because of the consecutive victories that the Ottoman Empire became more and more arrogant.

Such arrogance is passed down from the new successor, the Ottoman monarch Bayezid I, from top to bottom.

Therefore, the envoys sent to the Timurid Empire were also very powerful, which angered Timur, who then detained envoys from all countries.

Of course, this itself is also an excuse for this matter.

Timur's army is now becoming increasingly powerful, and is about to launch a larger-scale military operation to expand its territory.

As the Byzantine Empire was about to fall, Osman and Timur started fighting.

The Mongolian cavalry was truly a nightmare to the entire Middle East and Europe. The Ottoman Empire, which had never tasted defeat, was not willing to give up and naturally had to fight Timur.

"Mobilize 500,000 troops. This time I will personally lead the Ottoman expedition."

During the first month of the year, Pirmahamad was also summoned back from the Delhi Sultan to attend the council meeting.

Compared with the Delhi Sultanate, the Ottoman Empire, the dominant empire in the Middle East, is obviously more important.

Even Timur was not to be taken seriously.

The Delhi Sultan was like a lamb on a sticky board, and Timur did not think he could create much of a wave.

But the Ottoman Empire is completely different. At least in the entire Middle East, the current Ottoman Empire seems to have no rivals.

Before attacking the Delhi Sultanate, Timur wrote a letter to the Ottoman Empire to warn: "You are like ants. Remember not to provoke elephants, otherwise you will be retaliated by us."

Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I naturally replied strongly: "If I am scared away by your army, my wife will abandon me. But if you flee from my army, all your women will find other husbands."

In the dialogue between the two overlord-level kings, neither was willing to show weakness, which led to tensions between the Timurid Empire and the Ottoman Empire.

The Turkish princes who had been driven out by Bayezid and taken refuge in Timur's court provided the Ottomans with a pretext for war.

Soon, Bayezid demanded that the emirs who had surrendered to Timur pledge allegiance to him, creating a diplomatic excuse for going to war.

At the same time, the Ottoman Empire withdrew its siege of Constantinople, the Byzantine Empire, and recalled its troops to face the war with Timur.

As intelligence was exchanged, the Ottoman Empire gained a deeper understanding of Timur and began to fear him.

Even Bayezid felt a little regretful that he should not have provoked Timur. The Byzantine Empire was already a cooked duck, but now he could only watch and not take any action.

But the words have already been spoken, we can't just give in, the only way to solve the problem is through war.

It’s not that Bayezid was afraid of Timur, but from the perspective of the empire’s interests, it was best to capture Byzantium first and seize its wealth.

Now that Byzantium had failed to gain its wealth, it was plunged into another quagmire of war.

Timur's power rose in the last twenty years. Although he achieved great victories in northern India, these were not taken seriously by the Ottoman Empire.

A large number of Mongolian cavalry gathered towards the border. With the newly built cement road, Timur easily gathered an army of nearly 400,000.

As soon as the cold winter passed, Timur led 100,000 elite cavalry from Samarkand, ready to engage in a huge battle with the Ottoman Empire in the spring.

The size of the army this time could be said to be the gathering of all Timur's elites, and Timur was leading the army in person.

Apart from the 300,000 troops of the Delhi Sultanate, these 500,000 troops were all the troops that Timur could mobilize. After all, other border areas also needed troops to maintain stability, and it was impossible to withdraw all of them.

Of course, although it is said to be an army of 500,000, in reality Timur's core elite troops were not that large, and most of them were composed of slave troops.

Timur's core elite forces consisted of more than 100,000 cavalry and a small number of elite infantry, as well as 32 war elephants.

The main force of the Ottoman side was 85,000 people, including the powerful Janissary Guards, Sipahi cavalry, cavalry from Serbian ally Stefan and mercenaries.

If Timur was defeated this time, it would be a huge crisis for the entire Timurid Empire.

"What a pity, the distance is too far, there is no way to participate at all."

When Zhu Ying received the news, it was three months later, which was already the fastest speed.

Normally, the journey from Samarkand to the capital of the Ming Dynasty would take nearly half a year, even at the fastest speed.

In order to better obtain news from the Middle East, Zhu Ying specially built a military post route specifically for transmitting intelligence, and sent special people to deliver the news, with a speed no less than a hundred miles express.

Moreover, the transmission of intelligence on this special route must be carried out at least once every seven days, even on normal days. If there is any important intelligence, it will be carried out overnight.

To this end, the Ming court naturally invested a lot of manpower and financial resources. The postmen who delivered intelligence were all riding two horses, and the main members were all Mongolians, or even Northern Yuan cavalry.

The reason why a large number of Mongols were used was mainly because they had the ability to sleep on horses.

On the road from Samarkand to the capital of the Ming Dynasty, especially the section through Tubo, it was difficult to build post stations with a short distance. Often the distance between two post stations was hundreds of miles.

This special ability of the Mongols allowed intelligence to travel through the vast Tubo region day and night.

Three months is already the fastest speed.

"This is already very good." Zhu Yuanzhang said with a smile.

The completion of the intelligence line and the transmission of large amounts of intelligence allowed Zhu Yuanzhang to open his eyes to the world.

Previously, for Zhu Yuanzhang, the Tubo region was the farthest border that the Ming Dynasty could reach. Although he knew that there were many countries outside Tubo, Zhu Yuanzhang did not understand them and had no interest in them.

You must know that if there had not been the intelligence line established by Zhu Ying, it would normally take at least three to five years for news from Europe and the Middle East to be naturally transmitted to the Ming border.

Moreover, if there were no special people to collect this information, it would never have been passed on to the Ming Dynasty, let alone Zhu Yuanzhang would have known about it.

There is also the influence of cultural differences. Even if someone heard it, no one would care. No matter how the Middle East and Europe fight to the death, it will not have the slightest impact on the Ming Dynasty.

You know, in order to maintain this military line and transmit seemingly useless intelligence, the Ming court had to spend nearly 400,000 strings of treasure notes every year. This was a cost that the Ming court could never afford before Zhu Ying entered the palace.

Only now that the Ming Dynasty is wealthy and powerful can it afford to maintain such a costly intelligence line.

The key point is that there is more than just one intelligence line like this.

Although the other routes are not as long and costly as this one, the total annual consumption is almost two million strings of treasure notes.

Two million strings of treasure notes may not be a big deal nowadays, but before the reform of officials' salaries, this was the total annual salary expenditure for all officials in the Ming Dynasty.

"If the Ottoman Empire and the Byzantine Empire were to fight, which one do you think would have a greater chance of winning?"

While the grandfather and grandson were chatting, Zhu Yuanzhang asked.

Zhu Ying said without hesitation: "Of course Timur will win."

Zhu Yuanzhang was somewhat surprised: "Is Grandson so sure?"

Zhu Ying shrugged and analyzed: "In today's world, there are really few who can defeat Timur. Even if we are the Ming Dynasty, if we get close to Timur, the chances of winning or losing are fifty-fifty."

"The area where Timur is now located was once the Persian Empire, a powerful country in history. Due to the nature of the geographical area, Timur is now a semi-agricultural and semi-nomadic people. Such a composition is very easy to form a strong combat force."

Hearing the word Persia, Zhu Yuanzhang nodded in agreement.

In fact, Persia had a lot of exchanges with the Central Plains dynasties, and it was even very intensive. Compared with the Central Plains period, it belonged to the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.

Even the present Ming Dynasty has been influenced by Persian culture.

The Ming Cult in the novel originated from the branch of Persian Religion in the Central Plains.

Although the current Timurid Empire is mainly composed of Turkified Mongols, it has been assimilated into Persian culture.

Including the current court language is Persian rather than Turkic.

The official agencies that Timur now controls in various places are basically composed of Persians, who are also the most populous group in the Timurid Empire and the main body of the entire empire's manpower and material resources.

There is a saying that poor mountains and bad waters produce unruly people. The geographical conditions of the Timurid Empire were very harsh.

The towering mountains of the Zagros Mountains, the endless, rugged and complex Iranian plateau, and the many arid and water-scarce deserts are comparable to the Ming Dynasty's strong cities and walls.

In other words, when Timur fought against the Ottomans, Timur could march into the Ottoman Empire without having to worry about the Ottomans attacking him.

The Ottoman Empire, located on the Anatolian Plateau, would feel very uncomfortable entering Timur's territory, which was like a natural barrier.

To put it simply, I can send troops to attack you at any time, but you are not in a position to send troops to attack me.

"When the Ottomans and Timur start fighting, our ocean-going fleet should be approaching, and we can then put some pressure on them."

Zhu Ying said with a smile.

Of course, this pressure is on Timur.

It’s because Timur is too powerful now, which is totally inconsistent with the interests of the Ming Dynasty in Central Asia and Europe.

Especially now that Timur has detained the Ming envoy, this provides a good excuse.

Although the ocean-going fleet has only more than 10,000 troops, the deterrent power of the Ming treasure ship is more than that.