Chapter 1139: Western Colonizers Are the Worst!

Prince Ali of the Sulu Sultanate and Prince Muerding of the Brunei Sultanate, who had come with him, were both stunned. What was the Great Ming Emperor trying to do? Why was he sending a religious leader to their countries?

The Sulu Sultanate and the Brunei Sultanate were both Islamic states, founded upon religion, and a religious leader was equivalent to a deputy king!

Zhu Cilang looked at Ali of Sulu and asked with a smile, "Prince Ali, what do you think of Our decree?"

A decree!

This was a decree from the Great Emperor of the Celestial Dynasty!

"Your Majesty," Prince Ali said, cold sweat beading on his forehead, "I—I am only a prince, a very minor prince."

"Only a minor one?" Zhu Cilang frowned. "Are you not the heir to the throne?"

Prince Ali shook his head. Truly not! He had an elder brother!

Zhu Cilang smiled. "You nodded! Then you are now the crown prince of the Sulu Sultanate!"

Did I really nod? Prince Ali's mouth fell open, completely bewildered.

"Prince, why do you not give thanks for this grace?" Kong Yinzheng suddenly bellowed.

Prince Ali came to his senses as if waking from a dream and hurriedly knelt and kowtowed. "Your subject Ali kowtows in gratitude for the Great Emperor's heavenly grace!"

Zhu Cilang smiled. "Then regarding the matter of An Zizhen serving as religious leader..."

Ali said, "Your Majesty, as long as I become crown prince, I will certainly be able to bring this about!"

"Good, good!" Zhu Cilang said with a laugh. "We can see you are a ruler of promise. Once you become crown prince, you will surely accomplish great things! Ali, tell Us—what is the most urgent undertaking in the Southern Seas right now?"

"Your Majesty, the most urgent thing is of course driving out the Dutch!" Prince Ali said through gritted teeth.

Zhu Cilang then looked at Prince Muerding of Brunei, who also nodded forcefully. "Yes! The Dutch are utterly hateful! They commit every evil and leave us no way to live!"

The Dutch—Western colonizers! How could they not be hateful? They must be driven out. This is an anti-colonialist struggle!

"Is that so?" Zhu Cilang frowned. "But We have heard that in the Southern Seas there are still many sultans who willingly follow the Dutch. Is there truth to this?"

"There is!" Prince Ali said. "The Sultan of Johor, the Sultan of Perak, the Sultan of Pattani, the Sultan of Aceh, and the sultans on the island of Java—they have all betrayed their people and Allah and sided with the Dutch!"

"They even betrayed Allah?" Zhu Cilang shook his head repeatedly. "Could they have been coerced?"

Prince Muerding of Brunei clenched his fists. "If they were coerced, then now is the time for them to stand up and lead their people against the Dutch! If they dare not stand up, then they are traitors!"

Zhu Cilang nodded and said, "We have heard that Islam has a system of holy war that can be launched by a grand religious leader. An Zizhen, have you heard of it?"

An Zizhen was taken aback and stood there frozen.

He truly did not know.

"You have spoken of it!" Zhu Cilang nodded again. "In that case, when you reach the Southern Seas, go and rouse the peoples and sultans of Johor, Perak, Pattani, Aceh, Java, and the other places oppressed by the Dutch. Let everyone attack the Dutch East India Company together. The Dutch must be driven from the Southern Seas!"

"This subject—this subject obeys the decree!" An Zizhen did not know how to rouse so many people, but he knew he must obey the Emperor's words.

"Your Majesty," Prince Ali said, his blood already boiling as he leapt to his feet, "will the Celestial Dynasty send troops?"

"Discourtesy!" a eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial barked from the side. Ali hurriedly knelt again, but his dark face remained fixed on Emperor Zhu, full of expectation.

Zhu Cilang said, "Allah helps only those who help themselves! If the sultans of the Southern Seas and their people are willing to save themselves, then they will certainly receive help. But the precondition is that they must show the resolve and courage to save themselves."

Prince Muerding of Brunei asked, "Your Majesty, what if they do not have such resolve and courage?"

They probably do not. The Dutch are so ferocious—who would dare oppose them? Brunei and Sulu were already fierce enough, yet they could only barely hold their ground and did not dare strike first.

Zhu Cilang looked at the two princes and asked, "Then do you, Brunei and Sulu, have the resolve?"

We do not either! How could we possibly have such resolve? We have not gone mad!

Prince Ali and Prince Muerding both did not know how to answer.

In truth, Zhu Cilang was deliberately making things difficult for them. He knew full well how much weight Brunei and Sulu could pull. Among the Islamic states of this era, the only one that could fight was the Ottoman Empire—and even the Ottoman Empire did not rely on its own Muslim subjects to fight, but on the Janissary corps.

And who were the men of the Janissary corps? They were warriors rigorously trained from boys gathered from the Christian lands under Ottoman rule!

And the status of these men—at least until they left the Janissary corps—was that of slaves!

Such slave soldiers were the military backbone of the Islamic states after their rise. Perhaps these states did not need slave soldiers in the early stages of their rise, but after rising they had to rely on them. The Ghulam guards, the Mamluk guards, and the Janissary corps were all of this nature.

And Islamic states that had nowhere to buy slave soldiers, or could not afford them, or could not obtain high-quality slave soldiers, were inevitably weak militarily.

Yet Islam also took great care of its believers and did not permit believers to be made slaves.

Therefore, after the warlike peoples of Central Asia—the Turks, Uyghurs, Kipchaks, and others—all converted to Islam, most powerful Islamic states lost their source of slave soldiers. Originally everyone had bought boys from that region to train, but now there was nowhere left to buy them. So when those states encountered Western colonizers, they all collapsed!

Fortunately, the Ottoman Empire was relatively tolerant in matters of religion. If they had forcibly imposed Islam on Greece, Transylvania, Hungary, and those other places from the start, then no matter how hard old Köprülü tried, he could never have revived the Ottoman Empire.

And the Ottoman Empire's supply of slave soldiers was extremely precious—it was impossible for them to supply Brunei and Sulu!

Moreover, Brunei and Sulu were desperately poor and could not afford slave soldiers at all. They could only rely on their own not-very-capable Muslim noble warriors to fight. How could they possibly defeat the Dutch?

But even if they could not win, they still had to fight! If Brunei and Sulu did not want to fight, then why had they sent such a large delegation to Yingtian Prefecture? To amuse the great Emperor Zhu?

"Our Sulu Sultanate has the resolve!"

"Our Brunei Sultanate has the resolve too!"

Prince Muerding and Prince Ali both declared their resolve.

"Then that settles it!" Zhu Cilang said with a smile. "We know the Dutch are formidable fighters, and your two countries have limited strength and cannot defeat them. But We have already made arrangements. You need only obey the commands of the imperial commissioner We send, and you will certainly be able to stir up the Southern Seas. When the time comes, the Dutch will be worn down dealing with one crisis after another, and the Celestial Dynasty will send troops when the Dutch are exhausted."

Emperor Zhu had not said he would send troops to fight the Dutch. Those feudal rulers who followed the Dutch colonizers and sold out the interests of their own working people deserved to be struck down just the same!

If these people had not willingly served as running dogs, could the Western colonizers have gained a foothold in Southeast Asia? How many Dutch were there in Batavia, after all? A few thousand at most. If the local feudal princes had all stood up and led the masses in struggle to the end, the Dutch would have been driven out long ago.

Zhu Cilang continued, "And We will not let your two countries labor in vain. Once the matter is accomplished, there will certainly be rich rewards. Sulu is small in territory and population; We can take it upon Ourselves to give you a larger domain. We shall reward you with the Riau territory under the Johor Sultanate!

As for Brunei—We can move you to the rich and prosperous land of Java!"

The Johor Sultanate's territory straddled the Strait of Malacca. Its holdings on the Malay Peninsula were called Johor, and its holdings on the island of Sumatra were called Riau. What Zhu Cilang was promising Sulu was Riau on Sumatra—far richer than the island of Sulu.

As for the island of Java—it was even more prosperous. It was the most fertile land among all the islands of the Southern Seas, with grain yields frighteningly high!

Both princes grew excited. It seemed that following the Celestial Dynasty did have a future after all!

(End of Chapter)