After Louis XVI left, Zhu Jinsong couldn't help but sigh.
From the ambitious preparations to destroy the Ottoman Empire and hold all the oil barrels of this small planet in the hands of the Great Ming, to having to set up concession areas, Zhu Jinsong felt as if his heart had been trampled by a hundred thousand alpacas, a chaotic mess.
Plans never keep up with changes.
No one expected that George III would voluntarily transfer India to the Great Ming.
Even fewer could have imagined that Louis XVI would actually sell Louisiana to the Great Ming.
If the Ottoman Empire were to be taken, the territory owned by the Great Ming would be unprecedentedly vast. To effectively occupy these lands, the Great Ming would have to migrate people to these territories. To achieve effective occupation, the number of migrated people, if not one hundred million, would at least have to be tens of millions.
However, the crux of the problem was that the Great Ming already had a sparse population density across its vast territory. If tens of millions more people were migrated to these newly occupied lands, the result would be a further decrease in the population density of the Great Ming's homeland, while the population density of these newly occupied territories would also not be high.
Then there would be a whole series of chain reactions.
Should troops be stationed there? If stationed, how many? Should the number of troops in the Great Ming's homeland be reduced, or should new troops be recruited? If the number of troops in the Great Ming's homeland were reduced, would it pose a risk to the security of the Great Ming's homeland? If new troops were recruited, could the existing population of the Great Ming afford the sudden increase of hundreds of thousands of troops? Should the Ministry of Revenue's financial plans be adjusted? Should the Ministry of Works' engineering plans also be adjusted?
All these messy questions combined forced Zhu Jinsong to suspend the military plans against the Ottoman Empire.
It was precisely because of this that Zhu Jinsong came up with the idea of concessions, under the guise of speaking for Louis XVI and others. Louis XVI and others would feel that following the Great Ming, the big brother, would bring them benefits, and the Great Ming would also not lose any of its interests.
Of course, there might not be a lack of Zhu Jinsong's personal motives here, as some of the countries that had established concessions in the Central Plains at the time included several controlled by the Habsburg family.
As for the Ottoman Empire...
Zhu Jinsong couldn't help but complain sometimes – Qian Long, that old dog, should not have found Louis XVI as a pen pal, but rather should have found the Ottoman Sultan, Selim III, as a pen pal.
The Ottoman Empire existed from the early 14th century to the early 20th century, spanning over 600 years across the Ming and Qing dynasties. Its largest territory reached 5.5 million square kilometers, spanning across Asia, Africa, and Europe. It was once a powerful country on this small planet.
Unfortunately, the Ottoman Empire and the Great Qing were truly unfortunate brothers—
The Great Qing was established by Zhu Yuanzhang, who betrayed his lord, while the Ottoman Empire was split from the Sultanate of Rum, which was defeated by the Mongols during their third westward campaign;
The Great Qing was almost wiped out by Emperor Chenghua's sweep of the territory, and the Ottoman Empire was also nearly destroyed by Timur the Lame. Had Timur the Lame not had a whim to confront the Great Ming, the Ottoman Empire would have sung its swan song long ago;
The Great Qing was known as the Sick Man of East Asia, while the Ottoman Empire was famously known as the Sick Man of Europe;
The Great Qing was beaten by the great powers and forced to cede territory and pay reparations, and the Ottoman Empire was also dismembered by the great powers;
Before its demise, the Great Qing carried out the Self-Strengthening Movement, and during its decline, the Ottoman Empire also carried out a Europeanization Movement. Ottoman Sultan Selim III designed a package of reforms for the entire country, aligning diplomacy, education, taxation, and local administration with European standards;
Just as the Great Qing's Self-Strengthening Movement affected the interests of the Eight Banners nobles, the Ottoman Sultan Selim III's Europeanization Movement also affected the interests of the old Ottoman nobility and Janissaries.
As the saying goes, cutting off someone's path to wealth is like killing their parents, so Selim III's Europeanization Movement was doomed to failure. xxs1
Of course, the Ottoman Empire was not entirely as useless as the Great Qing.
As everyone knows, the twelve wise and virtuous emperors of the Great Qing were completely exaggerated by their house servants. In reality, they were a bunch of losers who ceded territory and paid reparations generation after generation. It was understandable that they couldn't defeat the great powers in their later years, but the problem was that in their early years, they couldn't even defeat Burma, and could even be attacked and occupied in U-Tsang by a small country like Nepal.
Compared to the Great Qing, the Ottoman sultans were very different.
Starting from the fourth Ottoman Sultan Bayezid I, the Ottoman sultans would immediately kill all their brothers after ascending to the throne to prevent them from usurping the throne. In 1444, the ninth year of the Zhengtong era of the Great Ming, the seventh Ottoman Sultan Murad II codified the act of killing one's siblings after ascending to the throne into law, naming it the "Fratricide Law."
Murad II's reasoning was: "Any of my sons whom Allah chooses as Sultan, and who kills his brothers for the sake of a better world order, is appropriate. To become the ruler of the Ottoman Empire, one must govern diligently, possess martial prowess, be ruthless towards enemies, and lead his subjects towards prosperity and abundance, deeply understanding the importance of the state's survival. Those who are weak and incompetent, who are good-for-nothing, cannot control great power and the future of the country. Only bloody slaughter can eliminate them."
Murad II did not just talk the talk; he walked the walk. After identifying the heir, Murad II indeed killed all his dozens of sons, including his daughters.
Subsequently, this law was recorded in "The Lawbook of Mehmed II," and subsequent sultans followed this as a basis, killing their brothers after their accession.
Of course, the "Fratricide Law" had a problem. Sultans had many wives, and with many wives came many sons, but there was only one position of Sultan.
Therefore, as soon as the old Sultan designated an heir, the other princes would live in constant fear. Many princes thought that since they would all die after the new Sultan ascended the throne, it would be better to find a way to kill him before his accession, and perhaps they would have a chance to survive.
Thus, by the time of the 9th Emperor Selim I, a new "Fratricide Law" emerged: not only must the new Sultan who ascended the throne execute all his brothers, but the old Sultan must also kill all the other princes after selecting one prince as heir.
Selim I, like Murad II, practiced this religiously. After ascending the throne, he first executed the "Fratricide Law" established by his grandfather Mehmed II, sending troops to hunt down the remaining male members of the royal family, killing his brother Korkud and five nephews.
Later, after Selim I selected his son Suleiman as his heir, he killed all his other biological sons, even executing his infant son who could not yet walk, killing more than 20 in total.
For this, Selim I also said: "One carpet is enough for two Sufis, but this world is too small to accommodate two Sultans!"
As the saying goes, if you're not ruthless, you can't stand firm. The Ottoman sultans were not only ruthless to their own lineage but even more so to the Ottoman Empire's nobility.
When the Ottoman Empire was just starting, it was an era full of powerful figures. During that era, there were fierce individuals like Zhu Yuanzhang and Timur, and powerful countries like the Great Ming, Northern Yuan, Byzantium, and the Seljuks.
To make the Ottoman Empire powerful, it had to be ruthless.
The sultans discovered that what truly caused the decline of the Mongol Golden Horde was not external enemies, but internal power struggles.
For this reason, the sultans not only had to kill their children but also restrict the rights of the nobility. They were not allowed to marry or have children, which was a regulation for the Ottoman Janissaries. Nobles were also not allowed to inherit their titles; whether they could inherit a title depended entirely on their merits.
It can be said that sultans who could stand out in such a brutal environment were far more reliable than the princes of the Great Qing. After all, it was a struggle where failure meant death, and no one dared to be careless. The generals of the Ottoman Empire were also more powerful and fierce than the nobles of the Great Qing's Eight Banners.
On the contrary, the princes of the Great Qing were rather mediocre. The so-called "struggle for succession among the nine princes" sounds impressive, but the losers did not necessarily die. Especially after the invention of the "posthumous decree" game, the princes of the Great Qing had even less need to struggle. All they had to do was to win the favor and approval of the previous slave chiefs.
As for the nobles of the Eight Banners, the phrase "iron rice bowls" says it all.
For instance, it's comical that the Great Qing was destroyed by slave chiefs and the Eight Banners, and the Ottoman Empire was almost similarly destroyed by sultans and Janissaries.
The Ottoman "Fratricide Edict" was only terminated in 1603, the thirty-first year of the Wanli era, when Ahmed I ascended the throne. It was precisely from this point onwards that the Ottoman Empire gradually began its decline and was later battered by the European powers like the Great Qing.
The ultimate fate of the Ottoman Empire was even more tragic than that of the Great Qing, as it was dismembered and never reassembled.
Because the Great Qing was like a backyard that European powers could exploit at will, the powers did not intend to destroy the Great Qing. Instead, they needed the Great Qing as an intermediary to extract benefits from the Central Plains. After all, there were so many treaties, and the powers were worried that changing the dynasty would affect the execution of those treaties.
The Ottoman Empire, however, was a thorn in the side that had to be eliminated. Firstly, the Ottoman Empire did not hold as much beneficial value for the powers, and secondly, its geographical location.
As a powerful empire spanning across Asia, Europe, and Africa, none of the European powers were willing to see a complete and powerful Ottoman Empire. Moreover, the Ottoman Empire constantly sought to expand into Europe and participated in European wars multiple times, leading to irreconcilable contradictions between the two sides.
The primary reason, of course, was faith. Those who understand, understand.
Of course, Zhu Jinsong did not care about the Ottoman Empire's religious issues, nor did he care how far its decline had progressed. He was simply coveting the Ottoman Empire's oil. However, due to the Great Ming's inability to practically occupy it, he opted for the concession strategy.
To put it bluntly, the Great Ming's overall strength had expanded to its peak, insufficient to support further expansion into the Ottoman Empire. It was better to use the concession strategy to extract Ottoman oil for the Great Ming's use.
After pondering for a while while sitting on his chair, Zhu Jinsong simply ordered that Zeng Cheng and a few other big shots be summoned.
When Zeng Cheng and others arrived at the palace, Zhu Jinsong spoke directly: "Louis XVI has been dealt with. It should be fine with George III, Paul I, and Jefferson."
"This means that apart from the enfeoffment of the Prince of Qin and the Prince of Jin sailing overseas, the Ottoman concessions are the next most important matter. Once the Ottoman concession issue is resolved, the only remaining issue will be the population of our Great Ming."
Upon hearing the words "population," the faces of Zeng Cheng, Liu Huaiwen, and other big shots all fell.
These four words were mentioned year after year, discussed month after month, and had almost become the most concerning and troublesome issue for the entire Great Ming court. The people were like leeks, to be harvested time and again, but the people were not leeks; they could not grow in batches.
At the very least, the growth cycle of the people was much slower than that of leeks. Without decades, the population could not develop at all.
Fortunately, in a few more years, the Great Ming would usher in its first population boom. Since the fiftieth year of Qianlong's reign in the Great Qing, the living conditions of the people in the Central Plains had seen a qualitative leap, and the birth rate had risen sharply. The Great Ming court had also vigorously encouraged childbirth in the following decade, and it had been over ten years now.
Calculated by the Great Ming Law, which states that one becomes an adult at eighteen, in a few more years, the number of households in the Great Ming would surge.
If the Great Ming court, led by Zhu Jinsong, was willing to be more patient and wait another thirty years, the population of the Great Ming might indeed experience a doubling in growth.
From a population of four hundred million to six hundred million, Zhu Jinsong would have enough confidence to stabilize the existing territories. If it grew from four hundred million to eight hundred million, Zhu Jinsong would have enough confidence to take over the entire Ottoman Empire.
If it could grow to over a billion...
Advancing into space might be a bit far-fetched, but Zhu Jinsong dared to rename this small planet "Pig Sty"!
This was because the people who had grown up since the fiftieth year of Qianlong had all grown up listening to "On a certain day in the forty-eighth year of Qianlong, His Majesty the Emperor passed by Little Xu Village..." and "Strong youth, strong Great Ming," and "Jiading, Jiangyin, Yangzhou," and had grown up watching one warship after another of the Great Ming being launched!