New Shun 1730

The task of meeting the King of Kandy fell on Du Feng.

Given that he was basically the candidate for the Governor of Ceylon, he had to meet the king and establish a good relationship with him. This would lay a solid foundation for the future expansion of India.

As for the specific details of the negotiations, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would come forward to discuss them.

Although Kandy might be expected to pay tribute, considering the various messy political correctness of the Li government, not much work could be done, so it was better to let the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which did not have so many political correctness, do it.

The capture of Colombo Fort actually completely collapsed the Dutch system in India.

Jaffna was in the north, and the Dutch had several strongholds in the Indian subcontinent in the south. The capture of Colombo was equivalent to dividing all the Dutch strongholds in the entire Indian Ocean region.

Du Feng did not need to capture every fortress. Since the Dutch had chosen to surrender, they could just bring the people together.

This was not Europe. At worst, they could just run away or beg for food back home. This is the hatred between Ceylon and the Kandy Dynasty. If the Dutch do not surrender, they will die miserably.

The Kandy Dynasty believes in primitive Buddhism, which can organize religious groups and monks. It is not the kind of Buddhism that has been destroyed and reformed several times by the Celestial Empire.

When leaving Guangzhou, Liu Yu told Du Feng that even if he did not believe in Buddhism, he should pretend to believe in it and respect it in a formalistic way, especially when visiting Buddhist temples, he must not talk nonsense.

Anyway, the current king of the Kandy Kingdom also converted from Hinduism to Buddhism for the purpose of ruling.

If everyone does not believe, then just pretend to believe.

Dashun is now busy fighting with the Dutch and the British, and these two countries can be used as troublemakers.

If you really can't get it, you have to disgust Dashun, and it is likely to turn to support the Kandy Dynasty.

Moreover, Ceylon is not a very easy place to capture. In later generations, Ceylon was famous for the tea stolen by the British. This thing grows on high mountains. If you really want to attack the mountains, it is really not easy. Ceylon can also build reservoirs and irrigation canals. With such organizational capabilities, it is really difficult to fight.

The most critical point is that the monks and temples of the Kandy Dynasty own a lot of land.

If Dashun wants to levy taxes, develop, and immigrate, it must confiscate temple land and monk property. This is against the entire clergy class, and it will definitely fall into a "people's" war.

And if the land of temples and monks is not confiscated, why attack Kandy? What is the purpose?

Temples and monk property have always been tax-free. Does Dashun have to pay money to satisfy these monks?

Therefore, not only should peace be maintained, but if necessary, part of the Dutch "legacy" can be given back to the Kandy Dynasty. As long as Dashun is guaranteed to have an exclusive monopoly on the export of cinnamon, betel nuts and gems, it will be fine.

As long as three ports are controlled: Jaffna, Colombo, and Trincomalee, the rest of the place can be returned to the Kingdom of Kandy as a gesture of friendship.

The Dutch rule here made the nobles of the Kandy Dynasty very dissatisfied, because the Dutch abolished the caste system and banned virgin marriage, which seriously damaged the interests of the feudal nobles.

Dashun will certainly not reverse the course, but the policy will not change in the places occupied by the Dutch. That was also the "sin" of the Dutch before, and it has nothing to do with Dashun.

This point must be made clear to the people of the Kandy Dynasty: except for the three ports, the old system can continue. The old religion, the old caste system, the division of labor in the caste society, virgin marriage, etc., Dashun will not care.

Kandy is an attempt by Dashun to build a new tributary relationship.

An important material basis for the Ming Dynasty to operate Southeast Asia in the early period, or to call it the Celestial Empire in Southeast Asia, is to have a huge consumer market.

Without a huge consumer market, it is impossible to be the Celestial Empire.

Now, for Ceylon's specialty cinnamon, betel nut and gemstones, these three things, Dashun's consumer market is far behind that of Europe and India.

If Dashun wants to restore its original sphere of influence and new tributary relationship in Kandy and Southeast Asia, it must meet two conditions.

First, prove that it can drive away Westerners.

Second, Dashun can sell goods and will not reduce the original export scale of various countries.

Both are indispensable.

Otherwise, Dashun cannot eat so much cinnamon and betel nuts. Naturally, the Kingdom of Kandy will think about making friends with the British and let the British sell goods.

And this is also a focus of this negotiation in Kangti City. The advantage in military force has been proved, and the rest is the economic promise: Dashun has the ability to eat all your betel nuts and cinnamon.

The Celestial Empire that cannot bring benefits to the countries within the Celestial Empire system must be unstable. No matter which international system the Celestial Empire is in, it is the same.

Of course, the current Dashun is not able to eat so much cinnamon and betel nuts.

The Dutch have been monopolizing the market. If Dashun cannot achieve its goal in the negotiations with the Dutch East India Company, Dashun will really be unable to get out. The merchant fleet may be trapped east of Malacca forever, and Malacca will be the only port for trade.

In this negotiation, Liu Yu also persuaded the trading company on the Dashun side and made a big bet, asking the trading company to take over the Dutch this year and eat up all the cinnamon of the Kandy Dynasty.

If the bet is lost and the legacy of the Dutch East India Company cannot be taken over, it will have to pay a million taels of silver. In other words, Liu Yu's face is big enough. This is the first and last time that he directly interferes with the business decision of the trading company.

For various reasons, the team of envoys heading to Kandy City this time was very strange.

There are royal envoys, officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, business representatives from trading companies, people from the military, and most importantly, some monks.

Shortly after taking over Colombo Fort, Du Feng led the envoy towards the city of Kandy. He first sent two monks and a messenger to notify the Kingdom of Kandy.

…………

In the royal city of Kandy, the king learned about the war between Dashun and the Netherlands from many channels.

The court ministers were not surprised by this incident. Back then, the Portuguese attacked the Tamils, and the Dutch came to fight the Portuguese. There are even nobles now actively contacting the British, hoping that the British will fight the Dutch.

Although according to Liu Yu, the policies of the Kandy Dynasty were quite mindless and had no overall perspective. To be able to come here to fight halfway across the world and win the war, how strong is the country behind this? I actually thought about driving away the tiger and devouring the wolf, but I didn't even think about driving away the wolf. Wouldn't it be more uncomfortable if a fierce tiger came?

But they don't think so. They always feel that they can manipulate and exploit the conflicts between countries to achieve the independence of the kingdom.

Of course, there are still some people who are simply feudal nobles who are habitual traitors and make friends with foreigners to prepare for rebellion. If you don't sell your country, you can only become a petty feudal noble; if you sell your country, you may become a king. Even if you sell part of the country's interests, it is still better than being a petty feudal noble. These are both very profitable businesses.

Everyone has seen this kind of thing in the Kandy Dynasty.

It is not uncommon for foreign powers to fight on the coast. The Dutch, the Portuguese, the French, the British, were constantly at war.

Things are common, but some people called the Kandy Dynasty are surprised by the country that does this kind of thing today.

They were not familiar with Dashun at all. The last official exchange between China and Ceylon dates back to the Yongle period, when Zheng He went to the West.

Moreover, it was the time of civil strife in Ceylon and the new dynasty had not yet been truly established. After so many years, the impression was eventually lost.

It was not until a few years ago that a large number of Chinese slave laborers were transported to Ceylon by the Dutch that they began to have some understanding of Dashun.

Considering that there were too many traitors in the Kandy dynasty and that the feudal nobles were in cahoots with the Netherlands, France, Portugal, and the United Kingdom, Dashun did not send official personnel in advance in order to ensure the secrecy of the strategy.

But after all, many slave workers still chose to escape, and some of them fled to the mountains and came to the Kingdom of Kandy. This was considered to have some contact.

The people who work as slave workers are not very educated and don’t know much about their own country or the outside world. It is difficult for the Sinhalese people to know the true situation of Dashun from the mouths of these slave workers.

As for China, they only have a vague impression: it is large, populous, rich, rich in porcelain, silk and tea, and it seems, probably, should, and is almost Buddhist. Because the slave workers who escaped to Kandy would also go to worship when they saw a temple... Of course, it may be because there is no Taoist temple in Kandy, otherwise they would also go to worship.

Other than that, there is not much impression left. In particular, the Dutch were treacherous when they drove away the Portuguese but did not leave. Instead, they intensified their efforts, causing the Kandy dynasty to move inward and hide in the mountains. Much of their understanding of the outside world had to come through the Dutch. The Dutch, however, did not want to talk to them about Dashun.

Now Dashun suddenly sent a messenger, saying that the emperor's special envoy was coming, and some monks wanted to visit the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple. There were two monks who followed the messenger. Although the language communication was not smooth and they were heretics with Ceylon Buddhism, it was precisely because of the poor language communication that they won the initial favor of the Ceylonese people.

Because almost all of the legal religions in Dashun are demonic versions. Although they are both monks, their teachings are very different.

There is a very typical example of how chaotic the religion in Dashun is.

A certain Taoist priest revised and compiled Lu Dongbin's Taoist canon, transcribed and compiled all Lu Dongbin's works into a complete book.

A copy of the Taoist "Tai Shang's Edict to Perform the Mantra for Saving Tribulation and Proving the Tao Sutra" contains such a controversial original text, which can almost explain the state of Dashun religion clearly:

Jishou worships God, Yuanhe, and all directions. The gift of Taixu Immortal, Jishou pays homage to the true master. Great mercy, rescue the suffering. Om na 唎哰哓哆马周周, 唵唆哆哆哰偧嚨唷, 唵哩哎哎哆哆五月偷哧嚨。

The person who copied the book thought that the following paragraph was in Sanskrit. Although Taoism had nothing to do with Sanskrit, because the Chinese religion was too weird, the Taoist priest did not think there was anything wrong with Sanskrit appearing in the Taoist canon, so he changed this paragraph to " The transliteration of "Sanskrit" was copied word for word.

But in fact, this is not Sanskrit, but a Syrian transliteration of one of the scriptures of the Nestorian Christian sect who ran from Syria to the Tang Dynasty. The translation is "Praise, Christ ascends to the sky! Praise! The Holy Lord Protect this Jesus!"

In other words, an orthodox Taoist priest feels that it is very normal for Sanskrit to appear in the Taoist canon, and when he recites the "Tai Shang's Edict to Perform the Mantra for Saving Tribulation and Proving the Tao Sutra" when doing rituals for others, he is actually praising Jesus and asking Jesus for help.

If there really is a so-called heaven, if it can save the calamity and achieve enlightenment, it will be a ghost, and the five thunders will be enough.

This is true of Taoism, and Buddhism is also similar.

From this, it is conceivable that if the language is really the same, the monks from Dashun may have a counter-effect. Perhaps in the Southern and Northern Dynasties, or before the large-scale destruction of Buddhism, the monks in China and Ceylon must be similar. But now, it is hard to say whether heresy is more hateful than paganism.

However, it is just a form. The king was originally a Hindu, and he also had to pretend to worship Sakyamuni.

This form is very important.

King Rajsinghe of the Kandy Dynasty immediately developed a good impression of Dashun at first sight based on his needs. He believed in Buddhism, which was also a formalism. He didn't really care about the situation of Buddhism in Dashun.