Afterwards, Zhao Hao gave the senior executives some time to digest what he had instilled in them.

After following Zhao Hao's lead in observing the world for many years, everyone soon realized the brilliance of the 'Six Links and Four Reaching Points to Control the West' strategy.

These six sea passages are indeed extremely important!

Needless to say, the Strait of Malacca is still the maritime lifeline of East Asian countries four hundred years later. Moreover, the long and narrow strait is very easy to control, and is naturally the gateway to the South Seas for the Celestial Empire.

However, controlling the Strait of Malacca alone is not enough to keep the South China Sea from being touched by outsiders. If it weren't for Zhao Hao, in another 15 years, the Dutch fleet would have sailed around the Cape of Good Hope and become a new player in the Age of Discovery.

In order to avoid the North Indian Ocean coastal routes controlled by the Portuguese, they crossed the Indian Ocean from Madagascar and entered the South China Sea from the Sunda Strait, the gap between Sumatra and Java. They set up a base in Jakarta on Java Island and renamed it Batavia, thus starting the glorious history of the Dutch East India Company facing Southeast Asia.

And because of the strong South Equatorial Current flowing westward from the Timor Sea, in this era, after arriving at the Sunda Strait, it was difficult for sailing ships from the west to continue upstream to the east to find the Lombok Strait on the other side of Java Island to enter the South China Sea, let alone the Timor Sea further east.

Therefore, if we defend the Sunda Strait and the Malacca Strait, we will be able to defend the South Seas. At least that was the case in the sailing age.

Ceylon is known as the crossroads of the East, located in the center of the Indian Ocean. It is a necessary transit point on the Ming Dynasty's Nanyang to India, West Asia, and North Africa route. Naturally, it is a must-fight place for players in the Age of Exploration.

The Cape of Good Hope was the only way for European sailing ships to reach the East. If they controlled this place, they could keep European sailing ships out of the Eastern world. Although the earth was round, they could also go around America, but after seeing the fate of the Spanish expeditionary fleet, no European navy dared to cross the vast Pacific Ocean again.

The Strait of Hormuz and the Strait of Mandeb were the two traditional passages between Asia and Europe before the Age of Discovery.

For the past thousand years, precious goods from the East have been transported from the Strait of Hormuz to the Persian Gulf, from the Strait of Mandeb to the Red Sea, and then to Europe.

Seeing that Mediterranean merchants and the Ottoman Empire had joined forces to monopolize these two trade routes and made a fortune, the jealous Portuguese sailed south along Africa and finally found the third route by bypassing the Cape of Good Hope.

~~

That is why it is said that whoever occupies these six important roads will rule the seas of Asia.

Half a century ago, the Portuguese occupied four of them! And they did not know that they could sail directly from Africa to the Sunda Strait, so they took it for granted that as long as they controlled Ceylon, there was no need to disperse their forces to occupy the Sunda Strait, which allowed the Dutch to take advantage of the loophole.

What they really wanted was the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. It was this loophole that allowed them to monopolize the spice trade and shattered the Venetian merchants' dream of going out to sea to fish.

However, to have such an achievement is already an unprecedented highlight in Portuguese history.

Some people may ask, wasn't the Ottoman Empire at its peak? Could it tolerate the Portuguese being so arrogant?

One reason is that the Portuguese navy is indeed capable of fighting. For nearly a century, it has been beating the navies of the Ottomans and Indian princes and has always firmly grasped the control of the sea in the Indian Ocean.

The second reason is that although the Ottoman Empire claimed to span three continents, it did not unify the Middle East.

To the east, the Safavid dynasty of Persia blocked their eastward invasion. To the south, the tribes on the Arabian Peninsula were unruly, and the Ottoman Empire's focus was in the west, so they only occupied one end of the Persian Gulf and stopped. They could only watch as the Portuguese firmly controlled the other end of the Strait of Hormuz.

Later, as the Ottomans transferred the Eastern Fleet from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea, they completely gave up the fight for control of the Persian Gulf.

The Ottomans fared much better in the Red Sea. In 1517, they conquered Egypt, and then continued their efforts to completely capture the coastal areas on both sides of the Red Sea, keeping the Portuguese out of the Red Sea.

Later, the Ottomans incorporated the territory on the southern coast of the Red Sea into the Egyptian province for rule, so the Mamluk nobles were able to give Djibouti to the Jiangnan Group.

The reason why the Mamluk nobles were so generous was that building the Suez Canal was their dream. Once the canal was built, it would not only bring great benefits to Egypt, but also separate Egypt from the Ottoman mainland by land.

But Djibouti was not theirs in the first place, but was seized from Ethiopia by the Ottoman Empire in 1517. This Christian black country was taken away from its coastal areas including Djibouti by the Ottomans, and was turned into a landlocked country.

With the support of the Portuguese, they had been trying to take back their territory from the infidels, which was a great drain on the Mamluk military group.

Moreover, 40 kilometers east of Djibouti is Zeira, an important seaport city in Somalia, making Djibouti, which is severely short of water, a waste of resources.

Therefore, the Mamluks were happy to do a favor to the Jiangnan Group and get rid of the burden of Djibouti. As for whether this would affect the Ottomans' dominance of the Red Sea, that was a problem that the Turks should worry about. The Mamluks were eager for them to fight with the Ming people.

~~

In addition to being shocked and inspired, everyone naturally had some questions. Wang Mengxiang slowly asked: "Since Ethiopia has always wanted to take back Djibouti, will it involve our troops? And it seems that the Sinhalese Kingdom on the island of Ceylon has always wanted to take back Colombo from Portugal. Will we be stuck in these foreign territories?"

"Uncle, this is a good question. This is also something we must try our best to avoid, otherwise there won't be enough people to fill the gap." Zhao Hao nodded heavily and said, "We must remember that compared to the vast world overseas, our strength is always insignificant, so we must learn from the Portuguese people's careful calculations. This is even more true in the West. We must remember not to be arrogant, impulsive, or blindly act. Insist on doing what we should do and not doing what we shouldn't do. Don't forget your original intention, and you will succeed..."

The senior executives quickly wrote down Mr. Zhao's instructions in their notebooks.

"Specifically speaking about Ceylon, Representative Liang also brought back good news." Zhao Hao said and glanced at Liang Qin.

Liang Qin quickly stood up. He was a son of an aristocratic family and was more respectable, so he skipped the self-boasting and went straight to the point:

"…Ceylon is not a foreign country, but a former vassal state of the Celestial Empire. We have reached an agreement with the King of Sinhalese to help them resume tribute. According to the instructions of the prince, we have also promised the King of Sinhalese that we will only take over Colombo controlled by the Portuguese, and will neither further invade Ceylon nor interfere in the internal affairs of Sinhalese."

After a pause, he smiled faintly and said, "At first the Sinhalese king was reluctant, but when we revealed that the Tamil king had agreed to provide us with a port, they immediately changed their attitude and became very cooperative."

"Well done! There are two good points in Representative Liang's experience that I hope everyone will remember. First, we must fully understand the local history, culture, ethnic origins and political structure. Only by understanding these can we use various contradictions to achieve twice the result with half the effort." Zhao Hao nodded approvingly and said:

"Second, we need to fully communicate with local governments and let them know that we only need a few coastal ports to protect our maritime traffic and trade. We have no intention of occupying their territory, but can also protect them from pirate attacks and bring them the goods they need, which is beneficial rather than harmful to them. In this era, most countries value land power more than sea power, so there is not much conflict of interest and we can coexist in a friendly manner."

"This will definitely greatly reduce our control costs." Jiang Xueying breathed a sigh of relief. Zhao Hao had already thought of the problem she was most worried about.

"We won't go deep into the inland anymore in the future?" Wang Mengxiang suddenly asked.

"We'll talk about the future later. We are not Portugal. We have a population of 200 to 300 million. For us, nothing is impossible in the future." Zhao Hao said calmly, "It's just that our generation needs to focus on Southeast Asia first."

"Understood!" Everyone understood the implication of Mr. Zhao's words. Some things are to be left to future generations.

In fact, there is another reason that Zhao Hao did not mention, which is that India, the Middle East, and Africa are not good places for large-scale immigration. Why not put that extra energy into America?

~~

After the meeting, the heavy pressure on the participants' hearts dissipated a lot, and they were full of confidence again.

If the group only maintained ports and routes like the Portuguese, and did not go deep into the inland, it would naturally be able to cope without too much manpower and material resources. Although the manpower will definitely be tight in the next few years, Jiangnan Education Group has reached the harvest period, with more than 20,000 graduates entering the group every year. After a few years of hard work, it will be almost over.

"By the way, Master, there is also Brazil..." Seeing that the meeting was about to end and Zhao Hao didn't mention it anymore, as if he had forgotten about South America, Lin Feng couldn't help but remind him.

She is also going to erect a statue of her master in Rio...

"Brazil. There's no rush for that. Just take the title first and talk about it in a few years." Zhao Hao's answer made her dissatisfied.

There was no way, as a teacher, he couldn't tell her, because the illegitimate son of Portugal, Antonio, would be exiled to Paris next year after being defeated by the Spaniards, and would be warmly welcomed by the French Queen Mother. In order to exchange France for sending troops to help him restore his country, he bribed the Queen Mother with a large sum of royal jewels and promised to transfer Brazil to France.

Although in another time and space, France failed to obtain Brazil because of its interference in Spain's annexation of Portugal. But now Sebastian is alive and will return to Europe with the colonial army and a powerful volunteer maritime police force, the result is likely to be very different.

Regardless of whether France will ask Sergio for the debt owed by Antonio, it is always a good idea to get the claim against Brazil first.

At the end of the meeting, Zhao Hao announced a series of military and political personnel appointments.

Outside the Strait of Malacca, the Coast Guard will temporarily be divided into two major battle zones using the Cape of Good Hope as the boundary.

East of the Cape of Good Hope is the Indian Ocean Theater, with Jin Ke, deputy commander-in-chief of the Coast Guard, as commander, and Rong Sheng as commissioner of police affairs. The headquarters is located in Ceylon.

The Atlantic theater of operations is west of the Cape of Good Hope, with the commander being Ma Yinglong, the chief of the Coast Guard's general staff, and Haierdi, the commissioner of the police affairs. The headquarters is located at the Cape of Good Hope.

The Tamra Garrison and the Taiwan Garrison were merged into the East Asia Theater, with Deputy Chief Police Commissioner Zhu Jue concurrently serving as commander and Haierge as police commissioner. The headquarters was located in Tamra.

The Luzon Theater was expanded to the Nanyang Theater, with Lin Feng as commander and Xue Hua as police commissioner. The headquarters was located in Xingzhou.

In addition, Liang Qin will serve as CEO of the India region, Liu Zhengqi will serve as CEO of the Middle East region, Tang Baolu will serve as CEO of the West Africa region, and Yu Ben will serve as CEO of the East Africa region.

~~

Ten days later, Sebastian took more than 10,000 Portuguese from Malacca and left Malacca on fifty large and small sailboats.

Also setting out at the same time were 220 Coast Guard warships and a supply fleet consisting of 100 ocean-going cargo ships, a vast fleet stretching for twenty to thirty miles.

This huge fleet carried a total of 60,000 Ming men.

Sixty thousand men sailed to the West, finally surpassing the scale of Zheng He's fleet at that time!

Among them, in addition to the 20,000 volunteer officers and soldiers who were going to Europe to fight, there were also 20,000 troops ready to take over ports, strongholds, and fortresses along the way...including 5,000 coast guard officers and soldiers, and 15,000 soldiers from Luzon and Taiwan.

These 20,000 officers and soldiers are the entire force belonging to the two major war zones.

In addition, there are 10,000 Royal Shipping and South China Sea Shipping crew members in the transport fleet, as well as 10,000 employees drawn from Jiangnan Group, South China Sea Group, Xishan Group and major overseas territories. Under the leadership of the four presidents, they will be responsible for restoring the operations of the port cities they have taken over as soon as possible, and provide nearby support for the volunteer fleet as much as possible to alleviate the terrible logistical pressure.

The remaining eighty warships will be divided into two fleets, stationed in the Strait of Malacca and the Sunda Strait, and under the command of the South China Sea theater.

In the end, the entire coast guard force was reduced to just a few frigates, patrol boats and Swordfish-type galleys, cruising in the thousands of miles of sea from Ainu Island in the north to Java Island in the south.

This operation, which is unprecedented in scale, scope and cost, is called the "Whale Swallowing Plan"!

[End of this volume]