Dominate the Country

There have been many abdication ceremonies in Chinese history, but the previous ones were somewhat different from Chen Han's. In addition, Chen Ding also showed a little unwillingness to make it particularly grand.

The abdication ceremony was too grand and too arrogant. Chen Ding felt that it would make people think that he was too impatient, which was not good. Therefore, this abdication ceremony should be low-key this time. Regardless of whether it is really low-key among the people, the official government should at least be low-key. Only envoys from each vassal country are allowed to come to watch the ceremony, instead of all the monarchs who can come as originally agreed.

Therefore, the ceremony that was reported to Chen Ming was quite simple. On the day of the ceremony, the emperor led the prince and the civil and military ministers of the court to the Ancestral Temple to pay homage, and then he was enshrined in the throne of the Heavenly Palace. He personally awarded the prince the jade hat passed down from the country. The prince knelt to accept it and issued an edict announcing the change of Yuan Dynasty. Then there is a series of ceremonies for the emperor's enthronement, including the memorial ceremony at the Imperial Ancestral Temple and the altar of sacrifice, going to the southern suburbs to offer sacrifices to heaven and earth, and then changing into auspicious clothes at the temple of heaven, accepting congratulations from officials and envoys, etc.

The cabinet was still a little nervous when it handed over the memorial, fearing that Chen Ming would show dissatisfaction. As a result, Chen Ming didn't say anything, but instead asked about the next year's era name.

This is the rule in China. When an emperor changes, the reign name will be changed. If the reign name of Chengtian is really extended to one hundred or two hundred years, that would be a bad rule.

Dozens of envoys, large and small, have arrived in Nanjing, from Europe to America, from Africa to Tianfang, and more envoys will arrive in the next month. The number of foreign envoys who congratulated Chen Ding when he ascended the throne this time will be a new world record and will far exceed the previous one.

…

Villeret was riding a brand-new motor sailing ship, leading a French fleet that had just docked in Ceylon. This fleet is not very powerful, but it attracted the attention of countless eyes from the moment it appeared at the Colombo dock.

French envoy Villers has enjoyed this kind of attention many times along the way, but this time the pride surging in his heart is undoubtedly stronger, because this is Ceylon and the territory of the Chinese.

In fact, the information about the New France motor-sailboat had been sent to Nanjing a long time ago, but for many Chinese people, it was still sensational news that Europeans had built a motor-sailboat that could travel long distances.

Viller's attendants quickly found the Chinese customs officers at the port. Colombo is now the largest city and port in Ceylon. Its scale exceeded Trincomalee, a port on the west coast of Ceylon, more than ten years ago. , that was the military and political center of Chen Han's rule in Ceylon.

As special envoys of France, Villers and his entourage, who nominally visited the ceremony and met with the Communist Party of China, were naturally welcomed by Chen Han and Colombo officials. The French fleet stayed in Colombo for five full days, and the supplies needed by the fleet were replenished. The people on board and on board waited until they had enough rest before setting off again.

But in these five days, Villeret's mood went through a huge ups and downs from pride to heaviness, as if he was on a super exciting roller coaster.

Villers returned to France in 1807, having spent fifteen years on a plantation in Reunion. However, these fifteen years of hard work did not make Villers compromise with the Revolutionary Party. Villers, who returned to France, was still incompatible with the ideas of the Revolutionary Party. In just fifteen years, the Revolutionary Party has also changed. The lower-class citizens and farmers who took on the task of being the main force of the revolution have left the revolution. They worship the "results of the revolution" Napoleon's government just like the French people worship the Sun King. It's just its power, not the idea.

So in 1813, when Napoleon was in a bad situation, Villers did not hesitate to join the secret royalist group-the Knights of the Faith. However, the outcome of the war disappointed Viller, who had great political revenge. It's just that what was lost was gained in the east. Although the royal party's dream of restoration was shattered, Villers also had the support of political power. This support became even more obvious after the union of Britain and France and the softening of relations between the Napoleonic conquests and the royalists.

Villers achieved little in France for six or seven years, but with the support of political power, he became mayor of Toulouse in the second half of 1814. Toulouse is a large city in southwestern France. On the banks of the Garonne River, between the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. It is the capital of the Haute-Garonne department and the Midi-Pyrenees region in France.

In the second half of this year, Villeret became the representative of the Royalist Party in the Paris Parliament, and was promoted to the position of special envoy. He led the French fleet and France's first sailing machine that could cross the ocean to China. Repair relations between China and France.

Although on the surface his mission was to watch the ceremony, that was only on the surface. In fact, Napoleon needed to restore cooperative relations with China, even though his army was fighting bloody battles with the Chinese defense forces and vassal armies in North America.

From the Mediterranean to Egypt, from Egypt to Persia, the motor-driven sailing ship New France earned Villeret countless envious looks. Even though the Ottomans have been able to produce motor sailboats for a long time, there is still a big difference between the motor sailboats wandering in the Mediterranean and the motor sailboats wandering in the sea. The level of Persian sailing ships was almost the same as that of the Ottomans.

Although France's steamship manufacturing level is still far behind that of China and cannot be said to be higher than that of Britain, France is still one of the few 'powerful countries' in the world, isn't it? This still breaks China's monopoly on large ocean-going sailing ships, doesn't it?

Even after crossing the North Indian Ocean and landing directly in Colombo, Villers still enjoyed the surprised looks of the people here. How should I put it? There are many, many Chinese here, much more than in Suez.

Then on the second day after arriving in Ceylon, Villers got off the ship accompanied by his attendants and tour guides.

As an ideal and ambitious politician, Villers is very concerned about the situation in China, and he is unwilling to let go of even a little bit. Ceylon is a colony of the Chinese. Going east from here is China's territory.

As a Frenchman who knows the history of China's expansion very well, Villers certainly will not miss the opportunity to observe Ceylon. Comparing Ceylon, Malacca, Singapore, Annan and other places equally, observing their economic, agricultural and social conditions, we can have a clear understanding of China's "rule". And comparing the social development of these places with the social development of China, haha, there are more things to see.

Perhaps other diplomats don't need to work as hard as Villers, because the French government's diplomatic department has a large amount of information, and they have collected a lot of details over the years. It's a pity that Villers belongs to the royalist party. People have come to this point. If Villers can still conceal his "political inclinations", Napoleon's rule in France would have been overthrown countless times.

Villers needs to be self-reliant to a large extent. Even if the Ministry of Foreign Affairs gives him some intelligence about China, Villers needs to make efforts to analyze it in many aspects. Because what he got is more of a big number, many details are fragmented. This makes Villers very dissatisfied. Even if China and France have cut off official contact for so many years, France can't have only some such intelligence. But now the French government is shrouded in the shadow of Talleyrand. This revolutionary priest who has just returned to Napoleon's camp is very repulsive to the royalists. Because Talleyrand wants to use the royalists to prove his innocence to Napoleon-I Talleyrand have no connection with the royalists.

Accompanied by his attendants and guides, Villers first took a tour of Colombo and gained a lot.

In Colombo, the Chinese and the local natives get along quite well. As a Chinese-dominated city, Colombo's current urban layout is completely different from its original scale.

Ceylon became a colony of the Western world in the 16th century, but the southern land here is fertile and moist, and the population is large. The main ethnic group, the Sinhalese, now has more than two million. Over the years, Chen Han's ruling methods on Ceylon were not as sharp as those in the Nanyang region, because this place is considered a window to the outside world, and too sharp methods will have negative effects. Just to prevent the number of Sinhalese from continuing to expand, this has achieved the initial goal.

Time is a great magician. Under Chen Han's rule, the traces imposed by Europeans on this island were quickly erased, and replaced by Chinese-style buildings. Being in it, except for the natives everywhere, you are just like in the Central Plains.

"Mr. Chen, this place is completely different from Europe. Even Suez is only somewhat similar." Villers could feel the strong influence of Chen Han here, and he said to his guide.

The tour guide named Chen was from the customs in Colombo. He smiled when he heard it, "Haha, Suez is the territory of the Ottomans after all. And here, it is our territory." The words were not subtle at all, but they were absolutely the truth.

Although the customs and taxes of the Suez Canal are in the hands of the Chinese, no Chinese would think that the canal belongs to China. There are also voices in China that are slandering this matter. The importance of the Suez Canal is unquestionable, and most of the construction funds of this canal were paid by China, but the ownership belongs to the Ottomans. This few people can't understand.

This canal with great economic benefits and military value just flew away from China? They don't care if Istanbul will agree to develop the canal if the Ottomans don't get the ownership of the Suez Canal. They don't care about this.

Villers had received naval training in his early years, served in the East Indies, and fought with the British in the Indian Ocean. It's not that he had never seen exotic customs. But his footsteps were more limited to the Western world. The Caribbean and America at the time, that was the Western world, wasn't it? Then he stayed in Reunion for fifteen years. Villers had seen many Orientals, but he had never seen Oriental buildings and Oriental cities with rich colors.

It was not the first time for him to leave Europe, but it was the first time in the true sense that he walked out of the Western world and came to a place outside the world of monotheism. The customs of the Arabian world could not make him nostalgic, but the Chinese style contained in it made his heart beat wildly. Those ports were not Chinese. They belonged to China's Port Sudan and Port Aden. Villers did not stop at them. After setting sail from the Port of Suez, he went directly through the entire Red Sea.

When passing by Port Sudan and Port Aden, he just looked at them from afar, but found that although there were some high-rise buildings with simple lines and a sense of geometry on the outskirts of these cities, what attracted his eyes more were some religious buildings with domes and pointed roofs, as well as many European-style buildings. The style was almost the same as the Arabian Port he had experienced before.

Then he docked at a Persian port. The style of the Persian port was no different from what he saw in Alexandria. The traditional Tianfang architecture and the mixture of European and Chinese styles were only seen for the first time when he arrived in Colombo. Oriental architecture is the dominant style.

This is because the local culture of Ceylon is too weak.

Although this place had the rise of civilization a long time ago, there have been many faults in the past, especially the two hundred years since the arrival of Europeans. It has been a two hundred years of regression. Therefore, Chinese-style architecture dominates Colombo, and official personnel sent by China do not need to worry about the protests of local indigenous people. Unlike places like Port Sudan and Port of Aden, the local indigenous people are not as law-abiding as the Sinhalese. In a place where faith is strong, Chen Han must give three points of face.

And as an open port city, there are many properties bought by European businessmen there. No matter which country those Europeans are from, as long as they do not violate the laws of Chen Han, they can take root there after purchasing the properties. This also makes Port Sudan and Aden Port more complex in style.

Colombo is different. The faith and cultural factors here are weak, especially after monotheism and Western culture were completely eliminated. The arrival of Chen Han has poured a lot of Chinese culture and elements into this place, not to mention anything else but the belief here. In later generations, Sri Lanka was the world of Theravada Buddhism, just like Myanmar, Annan, Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand. But now there are a large number of people here who believe in Mahayana Buddhism, or Han Buddhism. Therefore, the locals had no intention of protesting against Chen Han. Therefore, Colombo was not only dotted with Chinese-style buildings, but was also managed 100% according to Chinese rules. The whole city is not only clean, but also quite harmonious.

In a rapidly revitalizing port city, the residents are either Chinese or merchants, the latter coming from different places. These people will not change the architectural style of their shops.

Needless to say, the Chinese account for more than 80% of the commercial share in Colombo and can be said to be the leading force in commerce. Of course, some of the remaining merchants also have rich families, but these people are very sensible. They know that the laws of Chen and Han are relatively equal, and the standards for foreigners seem to be a bit heavier, and there is a bit of 'discrimination', but that 'a bit' They are completely affordable.

This is a relatively fair society.

The character of the Chinese also means that they will not look up to the sky as soon as they gain power. They are mostly gentle and polite towards foreigners, at least they will not discriminate and exploit them as openly as the white people. But the same thing is that you have to have a certain awareness yourself.

Is there any use in transforming one’s nest into something with ethnic characteristics? That will only remind the surrounding Chinese people and the owner of this city that you are just an outsider. The final result may not be gradual isolation, but it will always make people feel that you are an outsider and it will be difficult to integrate into Colombo society...

Why bother?

Thinking about the Chinese who went to Nanyang and those who went to Europe and America to seek life after the two crows in the original time and space, they probably thought the same way. In a society where outsiders dominate, it is not good to be too 'other'.

Even those small people in China are making great strides in Sinicization, aren't they?