In 1629, Annan ended the Civil War in the country, and with it, he was given precious time for peaceful development, and in the next five years, he gradually repaired the wounds caused by the civil war that lasted for several years, and even increased his national power compared to before the war. Pen ~ fun ~ Ge www.biquge.info But the days of peace seem to have come to an end, and the war that Annan is facing this time is not the Champa state that has always been on the wrong path in the south, nor is it the remnants of the rebel party in the country, but the friction with the Lancang Kingdom west of the border because of territorial and trade differences.

The Lancang Kingdom, also known as the Nanzhang Kingdom, was later called Laos. This area was ruled by the Funan Kingdom from the 1st to the 7th centuries AD, and then belonged to the Chenla Kingdom until the mid-14th century, when King Faang established the Lancang Kingdom in Luang Prabang in 1353.

The territory of Lancang is bordered by Daming in the north, Chenla in the south, Annam and Siam on the east and west, and a small section of Myanmar in the northwest, making it a completely landlocked country. And the sad point is that the national strength of the surrounding countries is basically above it, and only the Zhenla country, which has gone downhill for two hundred years, is about the same level as it. In such an era, being beaten if you are backward is not a propaganda slogan, but a real reality, and the Lancang State, which has relatively weak national strength, has experienced a lot of foreign wars in the past 200 years or so, and has basically fought all over its neighboring countries. Although the result was less victory and more loss, it still maintained the national body in the end.

At present, the king of Lancang is the king of Pamengkou, who has just succeeded to the throne for less than two years, and this old man naturally has some plans to show his ambitions after coming up, he saw that the trade between the neighboring country Annam and the Haihan people is doing well, and China's strength has been significantly improved in just a few years. Naturally, he also wanted to draw a scoop with the gourd and open up a trade channel with Haihan, so that domestic resources could be exchanged for Haihan's money and weapons. But in order to achieve this goal, we must first overcome a huge problem, and that is the geographical environment in which Lancang is located.

If the Lancang Kingdom wants to trade with the Haihan, it must first open up a passage to the sea, and throughout the surrounding Lancang Kingdom, the nearest coastline is the eastern neighbor Annan, which is not even a hundred miles away from the shortest distance of the Lancang land, as long as there is a land passage leading to the seaside, the precious timber, minerals, medicinal materials, furs and other products in Lancang can be exported to the Haihan. Of course, this idea did not come after seeing the trade ability of the Haihan, in fact, the Lancang State has long wanted to get a passage to the sea, and for this reason, it has often clashed with Annan, which has a long and narrow terrain and a long coastline, in order to make a passage to the sea in the territory of Annam from west to east.

However, after King Pameng made this request to Thang Long Mansion, he was ruthlessly refused. The reason is also very simple, there are some unresolved grievances between the two countries, and Zheng Jie does not want this restless neighbor to take advantage of his own territory to do business. Even if he were willing, public opinion at home would not agree to such a decision that would be tantamount to betraying the country.

At the time of the Annam Civil War, the Lancang State was not idle, and secretly sent money and troops to aid the small southern court, and its exchange condition was that after the victory of the war in the south, it would obtain an exclusive port in Tonghai County, 300 miles north of Hue, which was the closest coast to the Lancang State. Of course, this plan eventually came to naught due to the defeat of the small southern court, but Zheng Jie, who learned the inside story after the war, wrote down the account and waited for the right time to settle the account with the Lancang State. Now that Lancang Guo actually took the initiative to make a request, didn't it just give Zheng Jie a chance to slap him in the face.

After the rejection of the Lancang Kingdom, he did not give up, and the king of Pameng Kou knew that it would be difficult to make Zheng Jie's mind change his mind, so he decided to find another way, such as trying to carve out a road to the coast directly in the middle of the territory of Annam by force. Of course, the consequences of this will certainly be intolerable to Annan, because this is tantamount to dividing Annan's territory into two again, artificially creating a situation of division between the north and the south. In recent years, there have been several frictions between the two countries along the border in the central region of Annam, but one side has never been able to ruthlessly launch a full-scale war, and the other side has not been willing to escalate the situation and affect the stability of the country, so a large-scale armed conflict has not broken out.

However, this kind of friction along the border has been intensifying since last year, and the Annanites have discovered that their opponents have begun to frequently send personnel across the border into the coastal area, which is clearly an intention to reconnoiter the terrain before the war. As a result, the court of Annam announced the closure of all border crossings with the Lancang State and the cessation of all personnel activities and trade. In this way, the Lancang State could still realize the trade with Haihan through the transshipment of Annam merchants, but it was all terminated.

Apparently not expecting to resolve this long-standing problem through negotiations and consultations, the Lancang kingdom's Pameng Kou King has mobilized troops to assemble on the western side of the border near Tonghai County in Annam, since the end of last year. And the unbearable Thang Long province also intends to solve this matter once and for all, and has also begun to mobilize troops locally.

Theoretically, the current Annan army no longer needs to hire the Haihan militia to directly intervene in the war, and their own strength is enough to deal with a foreign enemy like the Lancang State, but out of prudence, the Annan military still hopes to order a batch of arms in advance to cope with the attrition and losses that will occur in the war. Since Lancang is a landlocked country, and Annam's navy is not useful, almost all of the orders this time are mainly based on army equipment, especially the ammunition that was consumed very much in the war, and this time it accounted for nearly half of the amount.

"It seems that the Annan people will not be satisfied with defeating their opponents, they really plan to have a good fight with the Lancang Kingdom. After reviewing the order submitted by Zheng Zheng to Haihan Ordnance, Tao Donglai unabashedly expressed his opinion: "The amount of this time is much larger than the arms order they placed on us during the civil war!"

Wang Tom said: "The General Staff also analyzed the strength of the two sides, and believes that the Annan Army should be the obvious superior side, after all, from weapons and equipment to personnel training, we are involved in it, and there is no reason why we can't defeat a small country that is still in the era of cold weapons." However, this war is likely not to end in a short time, because the territory of Lancang State is almost all continuous mountainous areas, and the transportation construction situation is relatively backward, even if the Annan Army can enter Lancang State, the army's baggage supply transportation will face a great test. ”

A large number of officers have been trained by Haihan military advisers at the Tushan training base on the northern coast of Annam, and some of the senior officers have even studied at the Haihan Military Academy in Sanya. The weapons and equipment of its army are highly dependent on Haihan, and the muskets and artillery currently installed are basically all produced by Haihan, which can be called a loyal fan of Haihan.

However, this kind of army that relies on hot weapons has a relatively obvious drawback, that is, it is more limited by logistical supply, and as long as the ammunition supply is cut off, the combat effectiveness will plummet. The larger the proportion of thermal weapons, the more pronounced this trend becomes. In this regard, even their masters, the Haihan, did not have a very effective solution, and they could only rely on a large number of labor and animal power to transport and deliver supplies when fighting on land, and the operational efficiency was not much higher than that of the feudal army of the same era.

Therefore, Haihan's strategy of expanding outward has always been to choose the offshore area, and not to expand too much inland, because the military top brass is very clear that the performance of the Haihan militia army after being far away from the coastline is easily limited by logistical supplies, and a decline in combat effectiveness will be inevitable. The Annan army, which was under the command of Haihan, also had the same shortcomings, and after entering the inland mountainous areas, the two sides that were originally relatively strong and weak were likely to enter a state of tug-of-war, and it was precisely because of this that the General Staff made the judgment that the war would not end in a short time.

As an ally of Annan, Haihan will of course choose to support Annan when the war breaks out, but if the war lasts longer, it will not necessarily be bad news for Haihan. As soon as the cannon sounded, 10,000 taels of gold would at least make a lot of money from the arms sales order to Annam. Moreover, the example of the battle between the Annam army and the Lancang army in the inland mountains will also serve as a reference material for the Haihan military to revise its tactics in the future. After all, the Haihan militia army did not have much combat experience in entering the inland mountainous areas, and it seems that only after the Shilu mine riot in 1631, the militia army entered the Qiongzhong mountain area to quell the chaos, which was a small test of the militia army's combat ability in this regard.

Bai Kesi, who is in charge of the production of ordnance, said: "However, our foreign trade arms do not have so many stocks, so we can only sign an agreement with them to deliver them in batches, I don't know if the Annan people can accept it." ”

"I don't think the Annanites have the intention of picking and choosing, and for them, it's good that we don't cut off some of the orders, after all, they have never submitted enough arms orders before. Tao Donglai replied with a mocking smile.

Although Haihan and Annan are allies, for the sake of security and long-term control, they have always been very stuck in the export of arms and equipment, and many things are not something that the Annan people can buy with as much money as they want. The content of the military purchase order placed by Annan to Haihan can be bought ten out of ten to six achievements can be snickered. As for the delivery date, this is not a trading condition that the Annanites will care about.

"However, they bought a lot of arms this time, and if they didn't get involved with Lancang in the end, and this batch of arms flowed into their arsenal, then they probably won't receive any more orders from them in the next two or three years. There are still some doubts about whether this batch of arms will eventually come in handy in the war.

Haihan does not want the arms sold to become the buyer's inventory, only continuous consumption, the arms business can continue for a long time, and war is undoubtedly the best means to stimulate arms consumption, if Annan really fights a full-scale war with Lancang, then the supply of arms sold to Annan for two years at one time seems to be no problem.

"The General Staff believes that the possibility of war is very high, in addition to the old feud between the two countries, Annan's current willingness to expand outward is also very strong, but Champa and Zhenla in the south are not so easy to deal with, not to mention the Ming in the north, and the east is opposite to us across the sea, and only the Lancang State in the west can move. "In fact, I think they may have been waiting for Lancang to strike first for the past few years, so that they have enough reason to start a foreign war. ”

For these two neighboring countries, each of which is the only suitable opponent for war at this stage, war seems inevitable in such a delicate situation. And Haihan, the only one who has the ability to stop this war, can't find any reason to do it. On the contrary, in addition to being able to sell weapons to the participating countries, there are also other reasons for Haihan to look on coldly, or even secretly contribute to the trouble.

"Once the war broke out, the price of the immigration market would go down. Schneider, who had been listening silently, finally spoke: "Labor can create value for us in the long run, and it is more cost-effective than the arms trade with a hammer." Until now, we are still reaping the demographic dividend brought about by the civil war in Annam. ”

Hundreds of thousands of war refugees were displaced during the civil war in Annam, and Haihan seized the opportunity to take in a large number of refugees from Annam. Among the population currently ruled by the Haihan, the number of naturalized people of Annamite origin still occupies a considerable proportion. These naturalized citizens have been working for Haihan for several years in various industries, including factories, mines, armies, shipping, and plantations, and the value of the wealth they have created far exceeds the cost of bringing them in. It is from this that Haihan tastes the sweetness, and even today he still has a special interest in the areas where the war broke out, even if it is as far away as the Shandong Peninsula, and will try to transport local refugees back to their own territory for resettlement.

If war breaks out again on the Indochina Peninsula, which is close at hand, then I don't think it is clear that a large number of refugees will definitely appear in the warring areas, and whether it is Lancang or Annan, there will probably not be spare strength and heart to settle these refugees at that time. Haihan has accumulated a wealth of experience in handling and resettling refugees, and it will only be necessary to send a team to bring enough food supplies to the war zone, and organize the refugees to cross the sea to Hainan Island by boat.

As Schneider put it, the long-term benefits that the Haihan would gain from such migration would certainly be far greater than a one-shot arms trade. Although this may sound inhumane, it is thankful that the refugees can have hope of surviving in such troubled times, not to mention that their living standards may be much better than before when they arrive under the rule of Haihan, and it is not necessarily a bad thing to be uprooted. (To be continued.) )