The four princes of the Ottoman Empire were released. The eldest prince Suleiman Celebi and the second prince Isa Celebi were very shocked when they received the news.
They knew that the situation would change greatly now that Muhammad and Moussa had a closer relationship.
If they unite, the three-way balance of power will be broken.
At this time, Timur asked the three to give Musa a certain amount of territory in order to maintain his status as a prince.
Faced with Timur's threat, Suleiman and Issa were very reluctant, but they had no choice but to hand over some less developed areas to Musa.
Issa felt threatened because he was not as strong as his eldest brother Suleiman or his third brother Muhammad.
The most important thing is that he and Muhammad are both in the Anatolian Peninsula, and Musa, who has received help from Muhammad, will definitely support Muhammad, so he will naturally be the first to bear the brunt.
So he found Suleiman and wanted to unite with him to resist Muhammad.
However, this request was rejected by Suleiman.
In Suleiman's view, he was the eldest son and the heir to the orthodox Ottoman Empire. This was also the case when his father Bayezid I was alive.
So in his eyes, although the Ottoman Empire was divided because of Timur, Muhammad and Isa were no different from rebels. They took this opportunity to seize the throne that originally belonged to them.
He held a meeting to hear whether the ministers had the same opinions as himself.
"Your Highness, I think we should unite with the Second Prince, because the Fourth Prince was released because of the Third Prince, and they have the same mother, so they will inevitably unite together."
"Although the Third Prince and the Fourth Prince combined are no match for Your Highness, if the Anatolian Peninsula is ruled by the Third Prince, it will pose a great threat to Your Highness."
"We should unite with the Second Prince and attack the Third Prince's territory first."
The minister's opinion was very pertinent, but it was not what Suleiman wanted to hear, so he continued to ask other ministers.
Immediately, a minister expressed a different opinion.
"Your Highness, I think we should reject the Second Prince's request. When Your Highness was attacking the Third Prince, the Second Prince came out to stop him many times. Otherwise, Your Highness would have already conquered the Third Prince's city and even unified the Ottoman Empire."
"It actually makes no sense to unite with the Second Prince at this time. It is better to let them fight. No matter who wins, there will be great losses. Your Highness can take this opportunity to completely take over the Anatolian Peninsula and unify the Ottoman Empire."
"Or Your Highness can send troops when the Second Prince can no longer hold on, destroy the Third Prince's army, and seize the Second Prince's city at the same time."
Suleiman was very satisfied with what he heard. He was indeed very dissatisfied with Musa.
Because Suleiman had sent troops to attack Muhammad before, the situation was originally very good, but Musa suddenly sent troops to disrupt the situation, causing him to suffer heavy losses.
Suleiman always kept this grudge in his heart, so how could he possibly help Musa resist Muhammad?
This time it's my turn to be the one waiting behind the scenes.
On the other side, Muhammad was indeed preparing to attack Issa, but he knew that now was not a good time.
He needed to wait until Timur's army went to India, or the Delhi Sultanate, to confront the Ming Dynasty. Only in this way would Timur stop paying attention to the Ottoman Empire.
Otherwise, even if he was about to win, all his preparations would be in vain once Timur's army arrived.
He hoped that the Ming Dynasty could reach a stalemate with Timur, preferably for more than ten years.
…
After the fleet set off for America, Zhu Ying turned his attention to India.
At this time, the entire grassland area had been completely ruled by the Ming Dynasty, and its most important resource, war horses, had reached a peak number in the Central Plains Dynasty.
Today's Ming Dynasty already has a cavalry force of 400,000.
Many of the cavalry here are originally grassland people, but after being educated, they have been integrated into the Ming Dynasty.
In fact, this integration is not complicated. For the grassland people who are almost hungry all year round, they will naturally be loyal to whoever can give them a full meal.
The Ming Dynasty, which had almost half of Southeast Asia as its granary, saw its grain reserves increase significantly every year, not to mention the large number of high-yield crops to maintain it.
"One hundred thousand cavalrymen, it seems that the eldest grandson wants to completely conquer India." Zhu Yuanzhang said with a smile, but his voice was a little strained.
After fainting before, Zhu Yuanzhang could no longer eat big fish and meat, and often ate lighter foods such as white rice porridge and vegetarian food.
This is also to prevent the recurrence of high blood pressure.
The originally obese figure has become increasingly thin due to changes in diet and physical reasons.
In just three months, he lost a lot of weight, which really made Zhu Ying feel distressed.
"It's a waste to keep them on the grassland. A few days ago, I received intelligence saying that Timur has withdrawn his troops from the Ottoman Empire. It looks like he is preparing to station troops in Delhi Sultanate to compete with me on the territory of India."
"The Orissa occupied by Lan Yu is just a small part of the Tianzhu region. We need to occupy enough territory in more time. After all, this time we are directly confronting Timur instead of their expedition."
"One hundred thousand cavalrymen, I think that should be enough."
Zhu Ying shared some of his ideas, while Zhu Yuanzhang filled in some details.
On land, due to the obstruction of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the Himalayas, the Ming Dynasty could not reach India directly. It had to cross the Hexi Corridor, pass Tibet, and enter Central Asia, with a very long supply line.
Timur's cavalry came from here. If the Ming Dynasty also wanted to pass through here, it could only rely heavily on the cavalry to move quickly, but it would also encounter supply problems.
It is better to take a boat directly than to travel through the South China Sea. The climate in the south is harsh, there are many tropical miasma and ferocious beasts, and it is an uncivilized place, which is very dangerous. You may suffer serious losses before you even get there.
Therefore, taking a boat from the Siam Peninsula to India is now the quickest and safest way.
After a brief discussion between Zhu Ying and Zhu Yuanzhang, an imperial decree was issued and a cavalry force of 100,000 began to assemble in Guihua City on the grassland.
In the past, if 100,000 cavalrymen went to the Siam Peninsula, not to mention the time consumed, even the required military pay would be an extremely large number.
But now with the train, things have become much simpler.
You just need to take a train to Taiping Port in Changle, Fuzhou, Fujian, and then take a boat to the Siam Peninsula.
It only takes a little over a month.
August of the 35th year of Hongwu.
The Ming Dynasty sent reinforcements to India. Lan Yu recruited 200,000 new soldiers from Siam and Cambodia, and sent them to India after only simple training.
At the same time, 100,000 cavalry also came by boat.
Now, the total force under Lan Yu's command has reached 500,000, including 200,000 Ming soldiers and 300,000 Cambodian and Siamese soldiers.
It is obvious that Orissa is no longer able to bear a force of 500,000. The huge food consumption requires continuous transportation of food from Southeast Asia.
September.
Lan Yu began to send troops. Of the 500,000 troops, less than 100,000 were left to garrison Orissa, and the remaining 400,000 were divided into three groups and marched towards the Bahmani Kingdom of India.
The Delhi Sultanate failed to rule South India and was defeated by Timur in one fell swoop, leading to the fall of the dynasty, which led to the rise of many independent regional kingdoms in South India.
Among them, the Bahmani Kingdom was one of them, and the territory of this country almost overlapped with the Indian Harsha Kingdom during the Tang Dynasty, which was the Indian country that was once destroyed by Wang Xuance alone.
The Bahmani Kingdom was divided into four provinces: Gulbarga, Daulatabad, Bidar and Berar.
Among them, Gulbarga is the royal capital.
With a strong military force, Lan Yu personally led an army of 150,000 to attack Gulbarga.
Xu Huizu and Li Jinglong led an army of more than 120,000 to attack Daulatabad and Bidar provinces respectively.
October.
The Bahmani Kingdom was destroyed, and the Berar Province, which was not attacked, surrendered directly.
The news that the Ming Dynasty conquered the Bahmani Kingdom in January quickly spread to Samarkand.
After all, Timur's sights had long been on India, especially the Ming Dynasty, so he paid more attention to intelligence, and such a big change obviously could not be concealed.
Timur, who had already sent 200,000 troops to the Delhi Sultanate, immediately prepared another 100,000 troops to station in the Delhi Sultanate.
At the same time, he sent his son Shah Rukh to lead an army of 200,000 in the Delhi Sultanate to attack the Rajput state.
The word Rajput means "descendant of royal family" in Sanskrit.
Thousands of years ago, tribes such as the Kushans, Huns, and Gujaras, as well as the Parthians and Greeks, migrated to India in large numbers.
They merged with the local residents to form the Rajputs and established numerous kingdoms.
Therefore, it is rumored that the Rajputs are a tribe that produces many heroes.
Three hundred years ago, the Rajput princes formed an alliance to resist the Muslim invasion for a long time.
In a battle two hundred years ago, the coalition forces led by Prince Prisvi were defeated, and the rule of the Delhi Sultanate began.
However, the Rajputs still maintained many relatively independent kingdoms in the vast land of Rajasthan.
After Timur conquered the Delhi Sultanate, the Rajput state naturally broke away from the rule of the Delhi Sultanate and became independent.
This Rajput state, which was considered to be home to many heroes, was completely conquered by Timur's cavalry without even a decent battle.
It would be an exaggeration to say that they were conquered. When they heard that Timur's army was approaching, the cities in the Rajput State surrendered almost one after another.
There was no other way. After all, they were vassals of the Delhi Sultanate, and their suzerain state had been destroyed by Timur. What could they use to resist?
Not to mention that the Delhi Sultanate had received support from the Ming Dynasty, but it also did not change its fate of destruction.
The Ming Dynasty's competition with the Timurid Empire made the whole of India tremble.
But the remaining Indian kingdoms, including the Kingdom of Gondwana, Bangladesh, Khandesh, Vijayanagar, Sindh, and Ceylon, wanted to unite in resistance, but they felt that it would be of no use.
Even though we know that India will be completely divided between the Ming Dynasty and Timur in the near future.
After easily conquering the Rajput state, Shah Rukh did not stop his advance. He organized many soldiers of the Delhi Sultan and Rajput into a slave army and continued to attack the surrounding Indian kingdom.
The Ming Dynasty was different.
After conquering the Bahmani Kingdom, Lan Yu began to reorganize his troops.
After all, the Bahmani Kingdom had a territory equivalent to ten times that of Orissa, and had a large population, which, together with Orissa, was nearly 20 million.
Because of the caste system, the lower-class people in India did not feel much about the change of rulers. Lan Yu was originally worried that with his 500,000 soldiers ruling a population of 20 million, it would be easy for uprisings and riots to occur.
This is also a problem that many Ming generals are worried about.
However, facts proved that they were overthinking it. No matter what decrees were promulgated, the lower-class people in India were completely submissive and easily accepted being ruled by the Ming Dynasty.
In December of the 35th year of Hongwu, Timur's army captured the Sindh region of India, including the state of Gujarat.
The northwestern region of India was almost completely controlled by Timur.
The number of Timur's slave army has reached 900,000.
Although he disdained the fighting power of the Indian soldiers, Timur's total force of 1.1 million also put a lot of pressure on Lan Yu.
Under the leadership of Timur's generals, these slave armies are obviously more powerful than before. After all, they don't care about the life or death of the slave armies. If these slaves want to survive, they can only fight for their lives.
When attacking Sindh and Gujarat, Shah Rukh used the slave army as vanguard cannon fodder to attack the city. Anyone who dared to retreat would be immediately killed by the supervising army behind him.
In this situation similar to raising insects, the combat effectiveness of the slave army is constantly improving. Although it is still very poor, it is undeniable that if the number is sufficient, it can be of great use.
If it were not for logistical issues, Timur would even want to forcibly conscript all the young and strong people in the conquered Indian region.
Lan Yu was facing the threat of Timur's million-strong army, and it seemed that Timur was inclined to increase his troops.
They also had to start recruiting Indian soldiers for their own use.
However, in terms of selection, the Ming Dynasty was completely different from Timur.
Because the Ming Dynasty did not directly carry out brutal rule like Timur. After conquering a city, it would generally suppress the Indian nobles and take their gold, silver, and food.
Therefore, the Ming Dynasty still has a good prestige in India.
After discussion, Lan Yu decided to recruit 300,000 Indian soldiers as vassal troops.
Most of India has a tropical monsoon climate, so even in winter it won't feel too cold.
In order to make these 300,000 soldiers effective, generals including Lan Yu began to train the selected Indian soldiers.
At least they can have the most basic discipline so that there won’t be chaos on the battlefield.