The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 792 The Imperial Graveyard is Rich in Gold and Silver

In the Taishang Qinghui Palace, Mo Zibu did not rush to leave Guangzhou, but instead planned to spend this year's New Year's Day in Guangzhou.

Of course, at this time, New Year's Day had not yet given way to January 1st of the Gregorian calendar; it still referred to the first day of the first month of the Chinese Lunar New Year, which later became the Spring Festival.

Hurried footsteps sounded, and soon after, Chen Lian, the Duke of Yue, who was originally the Prime Minister of the Southern Seas Envoy, wearing a python robe, entered the Imperial Study in the South Pavilion, escorted by a palace attendant.

The moment Chen Lian saw Mo Zibu, he knelt down with a thud. After kneeling and kowtowing three times, he raised his head and his eyes were already glistening with tears.

He hadn't seen the emperor for six years, and he could finally leave Southeast Asia and return to the Central Plains to enjoy his new life.

"Your Majesty, I am incapable of fulfilling the important task entrusted to me. I have troubled Your Majesty to risk appointing the Duke of Guangxin. I am guilty!"

Mo Zibu suddenly realized why Chen Lian's eyes were filled with tears; it was because of Lin Tong's reinstatement.

Yes, in Chen Lian's view, employing Lin Tong would definitely come at a high price.

Lin Tong's appointment was due to his incompetence; he was unable to share the emperor's burdens and continue to guard the South Seas, which were about to undergo a second major transformation.

"Get up, get up, you're a grown man crying like this." Mo Zibu said with a look of disgust, telling Chen Lian to get up quickly.

"Using Lin Tong won't cause the sky to fall. Even if things get a little difficult, can it compare to when we first raised our army?"

This is truly an old brother. He's been with us since the beginning of the uprising. Several times, when Mo Zibu faced great dangers despite his limited resources, Chen Lian was always by his side and provided significant assistance.

Moreover, given Chen Lian's administrative abilities, the fact that he didn't manage to make a significant impact on Mo Zibu in Southeast Asia, but instead managed to sabotage everything, is already an exceptional achievement. What is there to blame him for?

"What are your thoughts on being a prime minister in Southeast Asia for ten years?"

After offering Chen Lian a seat, Mo Zibu had the eunuchs serve a table of various snacks and two pots of wine, and the two of them enjoyed a small drink in the South Pavilion Imperial Study.

Upon hearing this, Chen Lian took a sip of wine and said without thinking, "Your Majesty, our Great Yu Kingdom is too big. In the eyes of the people of Nanyang, Guangzhou is already the northernmost place they can reach. Everything north of Guangzhou is the north."

Especially for the second generation born and raised in Southeast Asia, the area north of Guangzhou is no different from foreign countries in their minds. As for the Northeast and Anxi, they are practically legendary, non-existent places.

The distance between them caused some anxiety about their identity. In addition, due to their mixed bloodlines, many people were ashamed to say that they were from Taiping or Jiaqing, and often only mentioned where their parents or grandparents came from.

This has led to a situation where people from Taiping are not close to each other and do not even consider each other to be from the same place. Instead, they are closer to people from neighboring provinces who are all Teochew or Chia Ying.

At the same time, this closeness greatly weakened the government's ability to govern. When many people got into trouble, they didn't go to the government at all, but instead went to their fellow villagers and clansmen to reason with them.

The officials before the Nanyang Envoy were either losers from Tangshan or were just waiting in Nanyang to coast through life and then return to Tangshan when their time came.

They don't want to manage it, and often they can't manage it either. Even the few who are truly dedicated are swept up by the tide and can't get things done.

Therefore, most of the time, the officials of the Nanyang Envoyage, even those up to the prefect level, were essentially clay idols. They only cared about completing the imperial court's tax collection tasks, never left the city, and ignored everything else.

Mo Zibu understood; this was Chen Lian's defense of his policies.

Ordinary people do not recognize the government, but only their fellow villagers and clans. The vassals, both large and small, do not recognize the government either. They only obey the Court of Imperial Clan Affairs. In case of any issues, they will generally resolve them in the Republican Parliament of Southeast Asia.

Although Chen Lian appears to be the Prime Minister of the Nanyang Envoy, in the hearts of the various vassals, his status is certainly not as high as that of the Chief Elder of the Nanyang Envoy's Republican Council. If he weren't Yuan Cong, probably very few people would pay him any attention.

"When I was in Southeast Asia, all I could control were the Southeast Asian Navy, the Outer Southeast Asian Navy, and the Beijing Garrison stationed there. So every word and action I took had to rely on the military for support, and it was really difficult to achieve anything in terms of civil administration."

Chen Lian gave a final summary, and Mo Zibu nodded in agreement. His old brother was only somewhat powerless when he was in charge of a region because of his humble background and lack of education.

But if you don't let him go into politics, he's quite capable. At least he knows how to control the military, stabilize the situation, and prevent the overall framework of Southeast Asia from collapsing and keep it running.

As for his governance style, which resembles that of a mafia boss, it seems to be the best solution he could find out of desperation.

In any case, the people who are internally recognized are not the government but their clans and local friends, and most officials are just going through the motions anyway, so it's better to stick to the old-fashioned code of brotherhood.

Of course, this is also due to Chen Lian's lack of ability.

Because this situation is unlikely to be the case in all of Southeast Asia. At least, the situation was different in Singapore and Malaysia, where the major clans had largely integrated and were more mutually identifiable as people from Singapore and Malaysia.

"Ah Lian, I intend to enfeoff my sons as kings, ordering them to govern the Southeast Asia, and to establish the Three Guards of the Princes with the elite troops of the local garrisons. What do you think?"

Mo Zibu asked slowly. This idea had been lingering in Mo Zibu's mind for a long time. As soon as Lin Tong took office, he immediately wrote a memorial to him, also suggesting that his sons be enfeoffed to govern various regions.

But Mo Zibu wasn't quite sure either, so he took this opportunity to ask Chen Lian for his opinion.

"I think it's acceptable." Chen Lian thought for a moment and nodded.

"Your Majesty knows that you are generally reluctant to grant your sons high titles, for fear that our dynasty will repeat the situation of the Ming Dynasty, where millions of members of the imperial family exhausted the nation's tax revenue."

However, our dynasty is different from the Ming dynasty. Our land and annual revenue have increased by more than three times. We can enfeoff our sons without confining them to the central plains. This will not only avoid wasting money and grain, but will also stabilize various regions.

"I am not knowledgeable in governing a country, but from the perspective of a rural landlord, it is far more reassuring to have my son manage the family business than to leave the manager and employees in charge entirely."

This theory is indeed crude, but it can't be said to be without merit.

Mo Zibu pondered for a long time. In the present day, if something happens in Anxi, it usually takes at least five months to get back to the two capitals. If something happens in Nanyang, it will take at least three months, not to mention the Greater and Lesser Zhanzhou and Beihezhou, which all take years.

In this situation, not to mention rebellion, the governance of officials alone cannot be guaranteed, because if you cannot quickly supervise officials, they will dare to do anything.

For example, the Chaoshan group's slave trade scandal that shocked the government and the public six years ago.

One Junbo, one Junzi, three Junnan, and more than sixty officials below the Governor of Xinglong were affected.

Over a period of four years, they transported more than 500,000 slaves from India to Southeast Asia, of whom tens of thousands were killed.

It took the imperial court four years to receive news of such a horrific and heinous incident.

Three years ago, Mo Shanmin, the vice president of Fuxing Company in Southeast Asia, corrupted the entire Southeast Asian branch of Fuxing Company.

They monopolized the four ports of Singapore, Jambi, Semarang, and Pontianak, controlling tens of thousands of dockworkers, with the amount involved exceeding 15 million silver dollars.

In the end, if it weren't for their dispute over the spoils and someone revealing the truth, Mo Zibu might still be unaware of this.

In addition, the provincial governor of Jiaqing colluded with the Spanish in Manila to have a large silver-laden sailing ship from Mexico dock in Jiaqing Province, creating the illusion that the silver-laden ship had been destroyed by a storm, thereby raising the price of silver and making a huge profit.

There was also Ye Xianji, a Hakka who served as the Taiping Admiral. He privately enslaved over a thousand soldiers to cultivate land for his own family, amassing a total of over 800,000 mu of land, which he then sold to others at inflated prices for profit. Other officials at various levels colluded with local powerful families to extort, blackmail, and even openly robbed ordinary people of their land, gold, and silver. Such incidents were rampant, resulting in more than a dozen people being imprisoned or beheaded every year.

It can be said that the Nanyang Envoyage was a poor place in the administration of the Great Yu Dynasty. Many officials were either unwilling to go south or, once they did, they began to engage in rampant corruption.

If the various schools of thought could suppress the local situation, these issues could be discovered quickly, without having to wait until they erupted and shocked the entire nation.

In addition, sending his sons to various provinces as princes not only allowed them to intervene in local government affairs, but also gave the local people a sense of belonging.

Of course, most importantly, Mo Zibu realized that if he did not appoint his sons to oversee the region now, by the time he passed away, his sons would not have shown such great kindness to the people and officials of Southeast Asia, and he would probably not be able to take up the post even if he wanted to.

As for the model, we'll use the Ming Dynasty model.

The princes were enfeoffed in various provinces, each controlling a portion of the directly owned farmland of their respective princely residences. They used the Three Guards Army as their basic military force and controlled the troops of their respective provinces during wartime.

In addition, they could command the vassal states of the province and indirectly intervene in and influence the province's political affairs by utilizing civil officials such as those in the vassal kingdoms.

When Chen Lian saw that Mo Zibu remained silent for a long time, he assumed that Mo Zibu was worried that after the princes were enfeoffed, he might be instigated to have rebellious intentions.

He glanced at the emperor's serious expression, gritted his teeth, and said to Mo Zibu, "Your Majesty, rest assured, our Great Yu Dynasty is prosperous and has frequent trade. It is no longer the Ming or Qing Dynasty of the past."

Today, most goods from Southeast Asia are sold to mainland China, and more than half of the goods shipped from ports in mainland China go directly to Southeast Asia.

With such close ties, if someone were to cause trouble, not only civil and military officials, but even ordinary people engaged in trade would never agree to it.

Furthermore, as long as the imperial court controls the navy, no matter where in the South China Sea, nothing can cause trouble.

“Ah Lian, you’re right. I was overthinking it. I will seriously consider this matter.” Of course, Mo Zibu wouldn’t say that what he was considering was not what Chen Lian was worried about at all.

People are speaking out against being accused of sowing discord between father and son, so we certainly can't dampen their enthusiasm.

Of course, this is still just an idea at the moment. It will take at least two or three years to implement it, and it will be accompanied by adjustments to the internal government.

For Mo Zibu and for the Great Yu Dynasty, once everything is on track, the power of the inner court has become too great.

Moreover, there is another hidden danger: in the course of more than 20 years of continuous evolution, Fuxing Company has begun to become part of the inner court.

Two years ago, Mo Zibu had his second son, Mo Zhouxu, secretly have someone calculate that the Fuxing Company, which was involved in mining, smelting, banking, minting, shipping, education, planting, and even most of the responsibilities of the central bank, had become a terrifying monster with assets exceeding 600 million silver dollars and annual net profit exceeding 20 million silver dollars, equivalent to one-eighth of the country's annual revenue.

This allowed Mo Zibu to control a large amount of resources through the Fuxing Company, enabling him to build businesses in various industries entirely according to his own wishes.

However, a huge interest group emerged from the Fuxing Company and began to interfere in all aspects of the inner court.

As things stand, Mo Zibu is still able to control this monster, after all, the four supervisory agencies—the Embroidered Uniform Guard, the Audit Department of the Hanlin Academy of the Inner Court, the Supervision Department of the Fuxing Company, and the Economic Supervision Department of the Censorate of the Outer Court—are still operating normally.

These four independent economic monitoring systems can basically ensure that Mo Zibu can investigate whatever he wants.

But will Asen still be able to control Fosun in the future? The best fate for such a massive behemoth is to become a state-owned enterprise, but who can accomplish this task?
Therefore, Mo Zibu also wanted to take advantage of this opportunity of political reform to make certain adjustments to the inner court and the Fuxing Company, and try and fail step by step.

While Mo Zibu was racking his brains over political reforms and the affairs of Southeast Asia, his eldest son, Da Laosen, whom he was most worried about, was enjoying the glory of victory on the vast land of Anxi.

. . . .

Outside Kabul, laborers chanted "Heave-ho!" as they hauled massive cannons up the mountain, while Afghans on the city walls fired down in despair.

Before long, several laborers who were actually Afghans but were forced to do hard labor by the sword were beaten to death with screams, the sounds of which were extremely eerie.

But the other laborers dared not stop, because the lead bullets fired from the city wall might only kill them, but the Han Chinese behind them could kill them without a doubt.

Kabul is located in the Kabul River Valley. The city is surrounded by mountains on three sides, with the entrance on the steep western side. To attack this entrance, it is necessary to move positions on the steep hillsides, which is very troublesome.

At the same time, the Kabul River runs through the middle of the city, dividing Kabul into two cities, which allows them to support each other like Xiangyang and Fancheng in the Southern Song Dynasty, making them extremely difficult to be besieged.

As expected of a major city controlling the Hindu Kush Mountains, Kabul truly deserves the descriptions of being impregnable and easy to defend.

Therefore, starting from the end of the year before last, Crown Prince Da Laosen mobilized more than 20,000 soldiers from the four provinces of Anxi to begin besieging the city.

The fighting continued intermittently until this year. After nearly three years of siege, all resistance forces around Kabul were finally eliminated, and the city was completely surrounded.

Before the Durrani Dynasty soldiers firing downwards on the city wall could even cheer, the troops of Mao Xiangxin, the governor of Shun'an and Anji, sneaked over and fired a mortar, sending the guys on the city wall flying into the air.

Subsequently, more than a hundred An Fan, the sixth brother of Mo Zibu and soon to be enfeoffed as King An, also followed and sneaked over. They cooperated with the Shun An soldiers and quickly wiped out the enemies who dared to show their faces on the city wall.

After no one dared to show their faces again, the laborers were finally able to push the 36-pound cannon, weighing several thousand kilograms, slowly to the designated location.

At four o'clock in the afternoon, the sound of a mournful cry of the Hutubai echoed through Kabul. Then, as if in response, the roar of huge cannons rang out. Thirty-six-pound cannons mounted on earthen walls more than ten meters high fired shells weighing dozens of kilograms.

The immense kinetic energy instantly blasted down a four- to five-meter-wide section of Kabul's western city wall, sending dust flying and making the fall of the city inevitable.

"Attack!" Xia Fan's heir, Li Xingtai, roared, drew his longsword and swung it forward. More than a thousand elite soldiers, who were already prepared, wearing armor and carrying longbows, revolvers, and longswords, immediately rushed in and began street fighting.

Once these elite troops have established themselves, the remaining 10,000 soldiers will follow up and completely eliminate the remaining forces of the Durrani dynasty within the city.

"Your Majesty, are we really not going to take this city? I think Afghanistan is quite nice. Wouldn't it be a shame to just retreat like this?"

Beiting Admiral Yang Fang asked the Crown Prince, Da Laosen, "According to the original plan, after taking Kabul and transporting away the Durrani Dynasty treasure worth hundreds of millions of silver dollars, the army will withdraw from Kabul and even Afghanistan, leaving this place to the puppet supported by Da Yu."

The big boss laughed heartily, showing no covetousness for the land.

"The local people are fierce and brave, the mountains are high and the valleys are deep, the roads are rugged and the transportation is inconvenient."

It takes us half a year to transport artillery from Kangju (Samarkand), and we lose thousands of laborers.

A shi (a unit of dry measure) of grain transported from Kangju may have less than one-tenth of its original quantity remaining by the time it reaches the destination.

Such a place is a waste of money and supplies, and a pointless loss of our warriors' lives. What's the point of occupying it? We'll just take the money and leave!

Although Asen didn't know anything about the Imperial Graveyard, he knew that the current strength of the four provinces of Anxi was insufficient to conquer it.

Moreover, since the Great Yu Dynasty had no intention of controlling India, what use was Afghanistan to them?

(End of this chapter)