The attitude of Ming officials is understandable. For thousands of years, China has always been the Celestial Empire, the only country that is sovereign. Therefore, the Chinese people naturally have a deep-rooted belief that only the Chinese land is valuable, and foreign lands are worthless no matter how big they are.
Therefore, there is no need to understand foreign countries. Unless you can't survive there, there is no need to go abroad to make a living.
This arrogant mentality is the biggest enemy of Zhao Hao in opening the era of Ming Dynasty's maritime power. But what's interesting is that this kind of domestic concern for overseas mushrooms has protected Zhao Hao to the greatest extent.
Let's not talk about anything else, just say that if his military parade today was held in China, for example, on Poyang Lake, after today's performance, there will be a lot of memorials accusing him of treason tomorrow. Not to mention his father-in-law, even his biological father can't protect him... Well, how can his biological father be as reliable as his father-in-law?
Now, he only needs to order the group to conceal the information in China, and then he can let go of his overseas activities. Even if there are rumors, the common people and the officials in the court will regard them as exaggerations and laugh them off. No one will offend Zhao Hao today for a rumor.
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However, for these local emperors in Southeast Asia, the Jiangnan Group and the Coast Guard Fleet are real mountains pressing down on their heads, reminding them that their father the Celestial Empire is actually a strict father with serious violent tendencies.
On the one hand, Dad will protect them and not allow others to bully them. But if any of them disobey, Dad will punish them according to the family rules. Anyway, Dad has many children and grandchildren, so beating one or two to death is not a big deal.
After boarding the majestic Haiquan, they all became obedient children, honestly gave up their original titles, and accepted the reality that they had become chieftains of the Ming Dynasty.
If they were somewhat reluctant before, then when the review ship entered Brunei Bay, that reluctance disappeared.
In the calm Brunei Bay, there were more than 300 large and medium-sized warships densely and neatly parked!
Those were all the Coast Guard warships that participated in the South China Sea War. In addition to the Combined Fleet, the defense fleets of the two major garrison areas and the Luzon Theater also participated in the review!
In order to boost his momentum, Zhao Hao also brought in a warship that was launched two years ago. The entire fleet on review included 14 battleships, 32 cruisers, 64 destroyers, 128 frigates, and 60 Swordfish galleys.
Including the two review ships, there are exactly three hundred warships!
Seeing this, the local emperors felt their scalps tingling. The Queen of Patani could not help but ask, "Zheng He's fleet was not this large, was it?"
"No." Zhao Hao looked back at the graceful queen and said seriously, "We just restored the scale of Zheng He's fleet back then..."
As he said this, he turned around and looked at the huge fleet that stretched as far as the eye could see on the sea, and said in a deep voice: "This is the starting point, not the end!"
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Of course, such a grand display was not just for the local tyrants in Nanyang. On the deputy review ship No. 16, there were also role models who emerged in the Nanyang War, outstanding workers of the group, relatives of martyrs and combat heroes, and hundreds of others who were invited to review the troops with Zhao Hao.
Xu Brothers Pictures also sent out its most capable team of painters to climb up the mast to capture the precious scenes of the parade, sketch them down, and then make a full-color promotional video for the people in Luzon and Taiwan who were unable to attend. They also selected some scenes that were not too taboo to be shown in Jiangnan Cinemas.
But I guess after Sister Ma reviews all the pictures, only a few close-ups and close-ups of characters will be allowed to appear in newspapers and theaters...
But this did not affect the painters' excitement at all. They had been deeply moved by the atmosphere on the scene. The brushes in their hands moved quickly, faithfully recording the moment when the Ming Dynasty became great again!
When the two review ships slowly passed in front of the majestic fleet that stretched for more than ten miles, every time they crossed with a warship, the coast guard officers and soldiers, dressed in full dress uniforms and standing on the side of the ship like javelins, led by the two chief officers, saluted the commander-in-chief with thunderous cheers.
Zhao Hao was also wearing his chief police inspector's uniform and returned the salutes to the soldiers frequently. The atmosphere was grand and solemn.
Seeing that the marine officers and soldiers on each warship were all dressed in bright armor and stood still like a mountain, the local tyrants were frightened again. They all had armies, so they naturally knew that military appearance and combat effectiveness were directly proportional.
It is understandable that the officers and soldiers on Mr. Zhao’s several battleships performed well, but it is outrageous that all the warships were equally uniform.
At noon, the naval review ended. After Mr. Zhao and other distinguished guests went ashore, they reviewed the Marines and soldiers.
Compared with the coast guard warships, which are difficult to move and require a lot of time to form a team, the infantry can do more things.
After Master Zhao and the distinguished guests stepped onto the makeshift reviewing stand, the Marine Corps Commander Wu Da, who served as the chief commander of the land-based parade, came into view. He was wearing a neat woolen police inspector's uniform, with gold stars sparkling on his shoulders and enamel decorations and medals shining on his chest.
He ran to the reviewing stand, saluted Zhao Hao, and shouted in a strong voice: "Reporting to the commander-in-chief, the reviewing troops have been assembled, please give instructions!"
"Start the review!" Zhao Hao said in a deep voice after returning the salute.
"Yes!" Wu Da stood at attention, stepped back, turned around and shouted, "Standard soldiers, take your positions!"
At his command, 60 carefully selected parade standard-bearers marched into the venue, carrying silver-gleaming rifles with bayonets as sharp as snow, marking the beginning of the land parade.
60 standard-bearers formed a line and simultaneously spread out to both sides of the reviewing stand, swinging their arms, kicking their legs, and landing with precision, to the millimeter and second. The heels of their military boots hit the newly paved cement floor of the parade ground in unison, without any noise.
From the moment they entered the venue until the last pacesetter completed the last movement, there was not a single mistake.
After the standard-bearer took his position, eight buglers blew the Coast Guard assembly call, and the parade began.
Then, to the sound of rhythmic drumbeats, the parade formations, led by the flag-bearer and the formation leaders, marched in neat steps and formed standard squares towards the reviewing stand.
The soldiers in the square formation, no matter you look at them horizontally, vertically or diagonally, are all straight and straight, without a single hair out of place. The 81 pairs of feet in the square formation rise and fall at the same time, and every step seems to be measured with a ruler, so they can maintain such a perfect formation while marching.
The people on the stage who had never seen a military parade were all so surprised that their mouths could not close. Some people might not have had much experience with the previous naval parade, but these infantry formations shocked everyone. The rumbling sound of each footstep seemed to step on people's hearts, giving them a strong sense of oppression.
When the square passed the reviewing stand, the square leader quickly drew out his sharp sword and shouted a command: "Salute!"
The officers and soldiers all changed to marching in unison, while at the same time changing their hands to hold up the Longqing rifles on their shoulders, and saluting with their bayonets gleaming with frost.
The suddenly rising forest of bayonets reflected the sunlight onto the reviewing stand, blinding many spectators and making them unable to open their eyes. It was terrifying.
After the parade, artillery firing was held.
There was a round of artillery bombardment on both land and sea. In order to achieve a better program effect, the director team had no choice but to add some extra ingredients in advance.
However, the scene of the warships on parade firing volleys at the sea, with thousands of shells instantly blasting a fleet of target ships into pieces, leaving only one in ten intact, was enough to make the local tyrants unforgettable for a lifetime.
Then came the prisoner presentation ceremony, which still amazed the local emperors.
That’s a full 100,000 prisoners!
Among them, of the 80,000 prisoners in Brunei City, only more than 70,000 survived after two months of isolation and quarantine.
There were also the last three thousand prisoners left alive in Cebu City.
And the more than 14,000 red-haired devils captured last year... 19,000 were captured initially, and 17,000 were left after quarantine. After hard labor in the Baguio gold mines, more than 3,000 died in less than a year...
So it's not that the Indian miners' lives are fragile, but that the red-haired devils don't treat them as human beings. If they don't treat the red-haired devils as human beings now, they will still die without their mothers recognizing them.
Zhao Hao brought these Spaniards who were sentenced to life hard labor to Brunei, firstly to let the local tyrants and the representatives watching the ceremony see clearly that the coast guard and the red-haired devils really had a brutal decisive battle, but in the end they adopted the tactic of encircling but not attacking in order to avoid losses.
Secondly, the most dangerous work at the Baguio Gold Mine has been done, and regular miners should be hired in the future, so that the mine can improve efficiency and produce more gold. It will not be ruined by a bunch of prisoners...
On the Borneo side, a large number of workers were urgently needed to carry out the many arduous preparatory work before immigration, such as land reclamation, road construction, grass burning, and logging. The early mortality rate was as high as one-third.
In the Nanyang region, which is covered with primeval forests and swamps, these tasks require the loss of lives. There is no other way.
In another time and space, the Dutch and British colonists recruited overseas Chinese from Fujian and Guangdong to reclaim wasteland and used the lives of the Han people to turn Southeast Asia into a livable place.
This time, Zhao Hao used the red-haired ghost's life to fill the hole. It was a tit-for-tat, and there was nothing to feel guilty about.
Borneo is also worth the human lives. It is seven times the size of Luzon Island, with gentle terrain, abundant rainfall, crisscrossing rivers, tropical rain forests covering almost the entire island, and volcanic ash soil.
Although the acidic volcanic ash soil of Borneo is much inferior to the basic volcanic ash soil of Luzon and Java, it is still a rare and high-quality soil, and it is still virgin land. The difficulty of cultivation is much less than the land that has been cultivated for thousands of years in the Ming Dynasty and has long been barren.
In addition, Borneo's abundant water resources can not only be used to irrigate rice, but also to install water wheels to drive spinning machines, looms, rice mills and other water conservancy machinery.
The reserves of copper, iron and coal are also abundant and easy to mine. For today's Jiangnan Group, it does not take much effort to build a self-sufficient small society and then embed it into the group's large division of labor.