The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 150 Clearing the East African Coastline

When Tian Yiming and his subordinates rushed to the wall of Zanzibar, a section of the wall had already been blown down.

The slope was filled with scattered bricks and stones.

There is no way to run directly across the messy pile of bricks, but it is okay to walk quickly and carefully.

If the defenders in the castle reacted quickly enough and blocked the gap with rifles and bayonets, it would be difficult for Tian Yiming and other infantrymen to rush in.

But the fierce artillery explosions and the continuous collapse of the city walls frightened the defenders in the castle.

Even though the shelling had stopped, no one dared to approach the city walls.

Tian Yiming rushed the fastest and was the first to climb through the gap in the city wall and rush into the castle courtyard.

Then, according to orders, a battle line was arranged inside the gap to guard the breakthrough.

The infantrymen behind were still shouting and rushing forward, passing through the gaps created by the artillery battle in groups.

More and more soldiers poured into the castle yard, and officers began to command the excess infantry to deploy their troops and advance into the castle.

After the generals in the castle understood the situation, they used whips and rifle butts to command and forcibly organized several lines of troops.

But the morale of the defenders had collapsed, and they could not hold out after two rounds of shooting.

On the contrary, the morale of the Japanese legion of the Ming Wu Kingdom, led by Tian Yiming, was extremely high due to the artillery bombardment.

After defeating the opponent in several rounds of shooting, they became even more powerful.

More and more Japanese legionnaires poured into the castle, and the large number of defenders in the courtyard were forced into a corner.

Faced with the choice of surrender or death, soldiers laid down their weapons one after another.

After more than three hours of fighting, the Japanese army of the Ming Dynasty successfully occupied the entire fortress, and the Governor of Zanzibar, Oman, surrendered.

It is more difficult to make the Arabs surrender to the Ming Dynasty than to make other Arab countries surrender.

But it is a little simpler than surrendering to European countries.

Arabs, including Omanis, have long dealt with the Shenzhou Empire in history and have served as middlemen for thousands of years.

Most Arab intellectuals and businessmen are relatively clear about the cultural characteristics of the Shenzhou Empire.

The people of Shenzhou and the Emperor of Shenzhou are both pan-believers, they can worship any god.

But they don't take any gods seriously.

As long as his subjects did not place their beliefs above imperial power and lived honestly and did not break the law, they would naturally not be punished by the emperor.

As long as you are willing to swear allegiance to the Emperor of Shenzhou, the Emperor of Shenzhou will usually not kill you.

After surrendering to the Ming Dynasty, one's own beliefs will no longer be valued, but there is no need to directly enter an environment of religious confrontation like facing the Europeans.

However, the surrender of the main force does not mean that the war is completely over.

If Zhu Jianxuan's intention of sending troops this time was simply to take over a few vassal states, he could have simply used the peasant soldiers of the Ming Dynasty to fight them.

Defeat the main local forces and accept the surrender of the ruling class.

Retain some of the privileges of the original ruling class, and give sufficient autonomy to local areas.

Then the battle would basically be over, and naturally there wouldn't be too many casualties.

But such a vassal would not have any loyalty either.

As long as there is interference and support from other countries, or even just a whim, they will betray directly.

After all, the major countries in the Arab region are part of the civilized world in this era, and still a very powerful part.

They are not a simple ethnic group like the indigenous people of North America and Africa who are close to primitive society.

They have their own lifestyle and culture.

It has relatively mature local governance experience and a relatively powerful ruling class.

At the same time, their social system, mainstream culture, and religious beliefs are highly interconnected.

As long as their own system is still usable, they will not easily accept new governance methods.

All the means of changing dynasties in Shenzhou were useless.

That is, visiting and summoning local "village elders", promising to protect their special interests, and relying on their power to control the place.

In essence, it is a compromise between the old and new ruling classes, absorbing the original ruling class into the new system.

However, the cultural system of the Arab region is very different from that of Shenzhou, and this method of absorption is simply impossible.

Zhu Jianxuan was unable to serve as their Imam.

Only other Arab countries can do this.

If Zhu Jianxuan wanted to truly rule these places, he could only adopt a plan similar to that used to deal with European trade ports, but it had to be more strict.

Europe is still far away, but East Africa is close enough.

After defeating the local defenders by force, accept surrender and safeguard the legitimate interests of the local ruling class.

But they must be deprived of their social, economic and cultural privileges.

Arrange sufficient garrisons to directly guard the area.

Continuously send in immigrants to actually control the local areas, thereby changing the local mainstream cultural system.

This will of course harm the interests of the local ruling class.

There must be people who are unwilling to completely lose their status, and there must be people who cannot accept the culture and laws of the Ming Dynasty.

The Arab civilization group originating from the desert area is naturally more resilient than residents of other regions and is more difficult to be completely conquered.

There will most likely be rebellions by conservatives and fanatics in the future, and we will probably have to fight several security battles.

This is something that has to be done.

After the Governor of Zanzibar surrendered, Liu Biao's troops entered the city one after another, first taking over the government offices and military institutions.

Disarm all local soldiers and take over the original local government institutions.

It took the Ming Wu Kingdom's Japanese army ten days to basically control Zanzibar's original residential areas.

Finally, 10,000 troops were left behind to farm and guard the area, waiting for the arrival of immigrants.

The other soldiers boarded the ship again, some went to another large island in the Zanzibar area, and some landed on the opposite African continent.

Begin to conquer and occupy the settlements in these areas, whether originally Omani or local indigenous.

In the future, the entire East African coastline should be under the complete control of the Ming Dynasty.

There are basically no organized troops in these places, and they basically will not slow down the advance of the Ming Dynasty Japanese Army.
-
When Liu Biao's army captured Zanzibar, another main force also arrived in the Mombasa area.

Mombasa and the surrounding mainland lands still nominally belong to Oman.

But the actual ruler of the area is the Mazrui, one of the main tribes in the tribal alliance of Oman, and their tribal leader also calls himself Sultan.

When Oman itself was plunged into civil strife, the Mazrui family of Mombasa became de facto independent.

The defenders of Mombasa were luckier than those of Zanzibar. They released their warships when the Ming navy approached.

So a medium-sized naval battle first broke out between the two sides.

The army of a Mazrui tribe certainly cannot be compared with a military governor's office of the Ming Dynasty.

Although there are hundreds of warships in total, according to the statistics of the Ming Navy, there are only three that can be considered battleships.

There are only about 30 ships that can be considered as level 4 to 6 auxiliary warships, that is, ships that can be incorporated into the large fleet.

The remaining ones could not be considered as proper warships in the Ming Dynasty.

There was no suspense in this naval battle. Relying on the large size, large number and abundant artillery of its warships, the Ming Dynasty defeated the Mombasa fleet in one attack.

Then they rushed into the port of Mombasa and began the landing battle.

The rest of the story is similar to the battle height in Zanzibar.

The battleships used suppressive fire to allow the infantry to land on the beach, and then used more new artillery to blow up the castle on the shore of Mombasa.

Finally the infantry launched a charge and captured the castle.

It’s just that the city and port of Mombasa are larger than those of Zanzibar, so the battle and occupation took longer.

After the war, the Ming commander also left behind 10,000 troops to guard the port of Mombasa, open up wasteland and cultivate land, and wait for immigrants from the mainland.

Part of the other troops moved north along the coastline, defeating and occupying the settlements on the coastline.

Another part went out to sea again and occupied Socotra Island, the easternmost island in Africa, which is the entrance to the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden.

This series of combat operations was basically completed in the autumn of the 39th year of Xianning.

Oman's strongholds in East Africa were wiped out, and the entire eastern African coastline north of the Falkland Islands fell into the control of the Ming Dynasty's Wu State garrison.

The next step was to cross the Gulf of Aden, land on the Arabian Peninsula in Asia, and begin the conquest of Oman.

Completely wipe out all Omani forces in the Indian Ocean, and then launch operations in the Red Sea and Egypt.

But at this very moment, a fleet of steamships arrived from the Wu Kingdom, bringing orders from His Majesty the King of Wu of the Ming Dynasty.

It requested the fleets of the Right Army Commandery and the Front Army Commandery of the Ming Dynasty, the navy fleet of the Red Sea Operation of the Ming Dynasty Wu Kingdom, and the Japanese Legion of the Ming Dynasty Wu Kingdom to temporarily suspend their attacks on Oman.

They were repairing and cultivating land at several important strongholds on the east coast of Africa, awaiting further orders.

(End of this chapter)