New Shun 1730

Ten elephants are really not worth much. In the past, the Portuguese wanted to continue to maintain the trade in Macau, and they also caught lions from Mozambique and sent them to the capital.

Eastern countries prefer various rare and exotic animals, which is actually not much different from sending jewelry and porcelain in European courts.

Du Feng carefully considered the words of the official of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and understood it in his heart. It seems that the king of the Lion Country is also a man who knows the times.

"The court means that Nanyang, including Ceylon, should be in accordance with the status of the Western Regions during the Tang Dynasty. Outside the military town, the surrounding small countries all respect the Celestial Empire, and Han merchants are not restricted from entering and leaving."

"Rather than the policies of Korea, Ryukyu and other places, I think this matter can be agreed to."

After a brief discussion with the people around him, everyone felt that this matter was no big deal. As for how to define this matter after returning to the court, it has nothing to do with them. It mainly depends on the attitude of the emperor.

If the emperor wants to continue to implement the expansion policy, he will find various reasons to approve the gift of elephants. Even if the Lion Country "does not know etiquette" and does not follow the regular tribute process, it seems like Dashun is groveling and giving gifts to others, as long as the emperor approves, it will not cause much trouble.

But if there is a new emperor in the future, or if the emperor is ready to deal with these expansionists and practicalists, this matter will be a big deal. You can easily find a reason, at least it must be a serious crime of demotion: actually taking the initiative to give gifts to a small country? Where is the face of the Celestial Empire?

Du Feng didn't think so much, he seemed to be looking forward to his achievements and being awarded a title of nobility.

With firm beliefs in your heart, you can clearly know what you can do and what you can't do.

Fighting India and achieving Liu Yu's strategic conception may really make you a title of nobility.

The relationship with the Lion Country is strained, and three or five thousand soldiers are controlled by the Lion Country's civil uprising and noble harassment. Don't even think about being a nobility, you may even have to be executed.

After thinking for a while, knowing that the people sent by the Privy Council had a better understanding of the intelligence around Nanyang, he asked: "What price can be bought from Annan's elephants?"

"My Lord, it's hard to say the price. But our intelligence shows that an elephant raised in Annan needs 20 people to take care of it. Ten people are paid one string of money and one square meter of rice per month, and another ten people are paid one square meter of rice per month. If they are raised from childhood, it will be calculated as 20 years. Just the labor cost is equivalent to raising a company of soldiers for a year. Ten elephants can get 10,000 or 20,000 taels of silver?"

The price is not expensive, mainly because this thing not only has to be alive, but also has to be domesticated from childhood. It can't be like the lions that the Portuguese transported from Mozambique to the capital, which are purely wild and caged.

As for how much Ceylon cinnamon is worth, Du Feng certainly doesn't know.

But he knows how much it costs to raise a soldier and how much it costs to maintain a bastion.

The Dutch stationed 2,500 troops in Ceylon and had seven fortresses. In order to stabilize food production, one or two thousand Tamil slaves who grew rice were transported here every year.

Obviously, the profit of the cinnamon trade was indeed amazing. Not to mention anything else, just the 2,500 garrisons, plus the food, drink, and military pay for a year, would also cost 100,000 taels of silver.

If we can have a good relationship with the Lion Country and don't let the Lion Country harass the Dashun garrison from time to time, we can easily save tens of thousands of taels a year, not the money for these ten elephants.

So Du Feng asked the translator to tell Rajsinghe's confidant, saying only: "We are willing to send back 10 elephants every year as a rental fee. I will go to Kandy soon to meet His Majesty the King. You can go back and inform him."

After the confidant confirmed Du Feng's intention, he said goodbye and hurried back to Kandy City.

"They are willing to offer 10 elephants every year."

Although the translator of Dashun clearly said "return", Rajsinghe's confidant said "offer".

However, this is not the Qin and Han Dynasty, China's reputation can still make Yelang arrogant. Even if Rajsinghe doesn't know much about China, he knows that it is absolutely impossible to use the word "offer".

When the Dutch deal with them, they kneel down when they meet the king. Because the Dutch are willing to do anything to do business, and in Japan, the head of the trading house also goes to the court every year to report.

But although the Netherlands is strong, it is not well-known after all; although China has no official exchanges with Ceylon since Yongle, it is well-known.

Rajsinghe smiled at the translation of this word without saying a word, and was quite satisfied with this response in his heart.

Ten elephants don't make much money, what's important is an attitude and an explanation to the country.

Now it seems that Dashun is different from the Portuguese and the Dutch, and is more in line with the national moral system of the Kingdom of Kandy. Otherwise, being able to drive the Dutch away and not being afraid of the Kingdom of Kandy was enough to show goodwill.

"In that case, prepare the most honorable etiquette. Let the Chinese envoys ride elephants into the city and parade the streets."

Riding elephants into the city was the highest etiquette of the Kingdom of Kandy. Elephants had a very high and special status in the Buddhist circle. Compared with the culture of the Celestial Empire, it was no problem to call it a white crane, not to mention a dragon and a phoenix.

After the order was passed down, there was also a "deification" propaganda at the same time.

The people of the Kandy Dynasty had a certain cohesion.

This cohesion came from Ceylon's tradition of water control since ancient times. Because of the alternation of rainy and dry seasons, Ceylon was considered a relatively organized country in the Indian region.

It also came from the impact of foreign culture, especially the impact of religion.

This foreign religion has given the Sinhalese a vague sense of "who I am and who I am not".

Buddhism has taken root since the time of the Hundred Schools of Thought such as Mencius, Mozi, and Yang Zhu. Ashoka's son and daughter came to preach in person.

Not only is the only and real tooth of Sakyamuni enshrined here, but it is also said that branches were broken from the Bodhi tree and planted in Ceylon. The Bodhi trees in front of various temples in Ceylon are said to be descendants of that Bodhi tree.

This strong religious background can be roughly compared to Confucianism in the Celestial Empire. It is really something that is immersed in the bones.

Under this background, the promotion of this deification has become simple.

The people of Kangti City all know that Europeans are bad.

When the Europeans first landed, they knew nothing about them.

When the Portuguese first landed, the impression of the Ceylonese people on these Europeans was no different from the initial impression of the Indians on Europeans.

"Some people with strange skin colors landed in Kote. They wore iron clothes and iron hats. They ate white stones and drank red blood in big gulps. Their weapons were like thunder, which could even knock down Mount Sumeru."

This original impression was neither good nor bad, and there was no special feeling.

Later, the Portuguese forced conversions and other things, which naturally triggered a counterattack from Buddhism. The monk class was a pen holder, and they certainly would not say a good word about pagans.

But the most critical, or the most fundamental factor, was the change in the economic foundation and economic structure.

Ceylon has a tradition of building water conservancy. On this island with alternating rainy and dry seasons, there would be no developed agriculture without water conservancy facilities.

The caste system, the village community system, and the small peasant economy were the original economic foundation of Ceylon.

However, the Portuguese, and later the Dutch, were not interested in rice. What they were interested in was spices.

The basis of the existence of the Kingdom of Ceylon was a self-sufficient small peasant economy.

The Ceylon that Europeans wanted was a standard colonial economic system that mainly produced various cash crops.

As for building water conservancy, digging reservoirs, ensuring irrigation, and managing water and keeping people safe... Sorry, Europeans are not interested. There is no need for water conservancy facilities to rub cinnamon and dry pepper.

From the beginning of the Portuguese rule to the present, the original economy of Ceylon has been visibly destroyed.

It would be fine if the Europeans did not care, but all the feudal nobles were doing business with the Europeans. There was no big business to do originally, which was the standard medieval self-sufficiency model, and water conservancy facilities had to be built in their own territories.

When the Europeans came, these feudal nobles were more willing to ask the people to rub cinnamon and plant pepper in exchange for money, arms, and firearms...

In the past two hundred years, a large number of farmlands have been abandoned, reservoirs have been abandoned, water conservancy facilities have been in disrepair, and a large number of coastal plains in the southwest have been lost...

All these factors have led to a big step backward in the level of civilization in Ceylon.

How far has it retreated?

When Xie Xuan's Northern Army resisted the Five Barbarians' Rebellion and the Chinese gentry migrated south, the monk Faxian went to Ceylon. In his "The Biography of Faxian, a Taoist, Traveling West from Chang'an to India", he said that Ceylon had good water conservancy facilities and a stable rice planting industry.

But at the end of the Dutch rule and when the British seized Ceylon, the inland areas of Ceylon actually degenerated into "slash-and-burn farming", so that in order to grow tea, Britain had to issue the infamous "Timber Odinance", that is, the "Sri Lanka Forestry Act", prohibiting slash-and-burn farming and burning land for farming.

The impact and changes created by the colonists are by no means as simple as killing a few people and changing some beliefs.

It is a complete collapse of the entire economic system.

A country that had large-scale water conservancy facilities just after the Three Kingdoms period, and more than a thousand years later, became a slash-and-burn farming. This degree of regression is terrifying, and it is simply unimaginable in China.

The impact on the people is of course huge and can be felt personally.

The collapse of the agricultural base almost led to the tragedy of the Bengal famine; the original trade with India was controlled by Europeans, forcing the Sinhalese to learn to weave and spin again, which they could originally exchange for betel nuts; a large number of refugees who were unwilling to convert came to the mountainous areas, lost water conservancy facilities and irrigation ditches, and had to choose the slash-and-burn method...

They did not understand what the economic core of all this was, but they intuitively felt that life was regressing. And all of this can be intuitively understood as coming from "those who landed in Kotte many years ago, eating white stones, drinking blood, and whose weapons were like thunder that could shake down Mount Sumeru."

And now, a new group of people has arrived.

These people are the Europeans who were driven away.

These people are also said to come from a Buddhist country.

And this time is shortly after their king from South India converted from Hinduism to Buddhism.

Is this just a coincidence?