Nan Ming Sun Never Sets

Chapter 417 Daming's Sri Lanka

Gazai and Lambrent finally landed on the land of Colombo. I don't know whether it is a blessing or a disaster.

In the previous attack, the Ming Navy bombarded the castle of Colombo, but the artillery fire also spread to this emerging port city, and some residential buildings and facilities were destroyed.However, this is not the cause of the greatest damage to Colombo. The biggest source is that the Dutch defenders set fire to Colombo when they were desperate, resulting in the destruction of a large number of urban areas.

But fortunately, the damage to the port terminal is limited and does not affect the use, so after the Ming army ships berthed, the use of the terminal was quickly resumed.

The Dutch still tried to resist in Colombo, but the cannons on Colombo did not cause any trouble to the Ming Navy at all, and the improved 155mm naval guns equipped on the two Ninghai-class sailing warships killed the Colombo Castle in a few hits. The wall collapsed.

The Ming Navy had discovered before that a large part of its actual combat was used for shooting across the shore, and it was all against strong castles.Therefore, the naval arsenal provided the navy with two main types of ammunition, one type of high-explosive ammunition, which is used for shelling under normal circumstances, which is similar to that of the army. Explosive bombs can easily shatter their hulls; the other is armor-piercing explosive bombs, which are mainly used to hit city walls, and occasionally used to bomb ships.

The Dutch defenders lost their defensive advantage and could only resist sporadically in the city of Colombo. However, the big brothers of the Marine Corps mounted heavy machine guns and carried grenades, and the Dutch defenders did not resist for long.

The governor of Dutch Ceylon, Adrian Rusas, had no choice but to surrender to the Ming army.

This battle can be said to have shocked the Dutch again. Although the Dutch defenders have heard many times how powerful the Ming army is, they lost Taiwan and Java, but these Dutch defenders in Sri Lanka are still not satisfied. clearly.The most shocking thing was the local Sinhalese. After the Dutch replaced Portugal and began to rule Sri Lanka, the Sinhalese were very submissive to the Dutch.Before the Portuguese exploited and oppressed too much, the Dutch can actually do a little construction.The strength of the Dutch also impressed the Sinhalese.The remaining kingdoms of Sri Lanka were unable to deal with the Dutch, and the Sinhalese thought that the Dutch were too strong.

But when I saw him today, the Dutchman was picked up like a grandson, and he was swallowed up like a storm in one afternoon.So the Sinhalese in the city showed great respect when facing the new conqueror.

Because Ga Zai had been in Sri Lanka for a long time and was familiar with the local area, he was recruited by Luo Zhao as a consultant of some kind.

"...Captain Luo, in this poor place of Ceylon, people must be divided. Some people are noble, while others are lowly."

Luo Zhao nodded and said, "I understand. I have gathered relevant knowledge before coming here. Although Ceylon is a Buddhist area, there are castes like India."

The caste system in Sri Lanka is not like the Brahman-Kshatriya-Vasya-Shudra system in India. Because of the weakening of Buddhism and the influence of colonization, the caste system in Sri Lanka is more like the division of occupations based on ethnic groups. A certain caste can only do this kind of thing.For example, Govigama, who are engaged in farming, and Karava, who are engaged in fishing, have a relatively higher status than the farming castes.

According to the order, Luo Zhao will be stationed in Sri Lanka for 18 months, and then he will be rotated to the mainland. The navy will inevitably participate in the local management of Sri Lanka.If there is a lack of administrative officials in the initial stage, basically the officers of the navy will take over when they are caught.

Luo Zhao took Ga Zai to meet the commander of the Marine Corps, the head of the Sri Lanka task force, and Lieutenant Colonel Qi Zhongshi.Qi Zhongshi will serve as the acting chief executive of Sri Lanka until the real Sri Lankan consolation envoy is dispatched.

When Qi Zhong saw Luo Zhao, he smiled and said, "Old Luo, it's just in time to come. We have a Dutch treasury here, which is better than expected. The Dutch left about 5 to [-] taels worth of gold here." silver currency."

When Gazai heard that there was so much money, he also called him cute in his heart, and he said again: "This leader, in fact, the real value of Hongmaofan is their goods. There are many Dutch warehouses in Colombo and even Galle in the south. , A lot of goods from India and Southeast Asia are transshipped here, and these things are also worth a lot of money. In addition, there are many merchant ships in Colombo."

Luo Zhao introduced Ga Zai to Qi Zhongshi, and then said: "We don't have much use for merchant ships. If the Portuguese or the British want to buy them, we can sell them."

Qi Zhongshi nodded and said with a smile: "It's okay. Anyway, how much money we got in Sri Lanka is directly invested here. There is no need to hand it back. The emperor supports us in the construction of the Department of Propaganda. Sri Lanka has an excellent geographical location. The key point of the Indian Ocean, holding this place and developing economy and trade will be of great benefit to the expansion of my business and economic influence in India."

The most powerful thing about military officers in the Ming Dynasty is that they talk about politics. As long as they talk about politics, they need to understand economics, so many officers are still very good.The military officers who can be appointed as the acting chief executive must be recognized by the headquarters in order to win this task, because in all fairness, whoever is sent to carry out any military activities must win.

Luo Zhao asked again: "What do you think of the inland Kandy Kingdom?"

Qi Zhongshi replied directly: "Ask them to surrender to Daming, and if they make trouble, then we will flatten them."

Ga Zai couldn't help but said: "The Dutch sent troops to attack the Kingdom of Kandy three times, but they all failed."

Qi Zhong said arrogantly: "Brother, you have seen it before, our Daming Marine Corps is like playing against the Dutch. If the Dutch can't deal with it, it doesn't mean we can't."

Ga Zai praised: "Da Ming Wang Shi Tianwei."

Qi Zhongshi said to Luo Zhao: "The State-owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission of the Government Council has already made a decision to establish Tianzhu Company in Singapore, which will mainly operate the trade from our Daming to the Indian Ocean region. Start to open up the Indian market. At that time, all our affairs in Sri Lanka will revolve around the layout of Tianzhu Company. Of course, Sri Lanka also needs to have some industries to maintain the healthy operation of the local economy. I am going to wait for the war to subside. Let the soldiers go down to the surrounding villages and start agricultural cooperation."

Luo Zhao reminded him: "We are not as powerful as Wu Min. Our people can't even speak Sinhala. Isn't it too radical to engage in agricultural cooperatives?"

"No, this is a Buddhist area, and the obedience will be better. We develop industries and let the people here share the benefits of following Daming's development, so that we will have stability. Anyway, take your time, step by step, we will fight It’s just that big, and if it’s placed here, no one will mess around, right?”

(End of this chapter)