If you hadn't kept making trouble, they would have had an heir by now!

Emperor Zhu Qizhen, who had trampled through the capital streets upon the bones of high officials, shrank his neck and obediently crawled down under the furious gaze of Zhu Zhanji, who had strung up the heads of the corrupt nobility all across the Jiangnan region.

His movements were quite agile, showing that he had not slacked off on physical training in the capital over the past few days.

Smack!

Without any hesitation, Xuande Emperor Zhu Zhanji landed a blow right on the fellow's head and reprimanded him, "How old are you, crawling up and down like this? What kind of behavior is that!"

Rubbing his head and grimacing, Zhu Qizhen stood silently next to Zhu Qiyu with a sullen expression.

"Brother, are you alright?" Zhu Qiyu asked in concern.

"Why don't you give it a try?" The Fortress Emperor grunted unhappily. But upon catching a death glare from the Xuande Emperor, he immediately rubbed his head and said no more.

Clearly, his biological father possessed a much more formidable martial virtue.

"I heard you just mention to Wang Zhi that you are going to the Songhua River Shipyard, Jianshen boy. Are you planning to make voyages to the Western Oceans?" Zhu Yuanzhang asked with a smiling expression.

"Yes, Grand Ancestor. This Maritime Silk Road began in the Qin and Han dynasties, flourished in the Song and Tang, and reached its zenith under the Great Ming. We must never allow civil officials to sever the maritime sovereignty of the Great Ming merely for their own selfish interests and commercial convenience," Zhu Jianshen replied with a serious nod.

The casual confiscation of several gentry and noble estates during this trip to Jiangnan had yielded over eighty million silver taels in wealth and assets. If they were to thoroughly plow the fields three feet deep, that figure would easily double.

Yet, the total amount of silver circulating among the common people of the Great Ming did not even reach such a sum. This clearly demonstrated the massive influx of silver from overseas and the extraordinary profitability of the voyages to the Western Oceans.

Zhu Yuanzhang obviously understood this as well. He nodded approvingly and said, "For the voyages to the Western Oceans, we must retake Old Port. Passing through Annam on the way, you might as well annex Annam while you're at it."

Annam?

Zhu Jianshen was momentarily stunned, but quickly remembered that Jiaozhi was formerly known as Annam. He cupped his hands and said, "Thank you, Grand Ancestor, for your grace!"

"Father, during my reign, Annam was renamed Jiaozhi," old Zhu Di chimed in with an explanation.

"Oh?" Zhu Yuanzhang raised an eyebrow.

In the second year of Hongwu, envoys from all nations came to pay court, and old Zhu was already bestowing titles upon vassal states. Annam was the first to offer tribute and submit as a vassal to the Ming dynasty. Seeing how well-behaved this little brother was, Zhu Yuanzhang was delighted and officially listed Annam in the ancestral instructions of the Great Ming as a country not to be campaigned against.

The primary reason was not that it could not be conquered, but rather that this tiny place was both poor and distant; administering it would only drain financial resources from the central treasury. Old Zhu was far too astute for that. While all nations came to court and could be listed as vassal states, if they actually wanted to be incorporated into the territory of the Great Ming, he would have no part of it.

Every single one of them was poor and remote. To be honest, it was not a matter of whether they could be conquered, but rather that old Zhu simply looked down upon them. Besides, the Hongwu era was unlike the Qing dynasty; high-yielding crops did not yet exist. Once they were made subjects of the Great Ming, the state could hardly let this bunch of skinny little monkeys starve to death, right?

They would still require shipments of grain from the interior—it was purely a losing business venture.

Goryeo, Annam, Champa, Java... they all squeezed their heads trying to enter the imperial domain. After all, with the heavens high and the emperor far away, they could blatantly beg their father for food, and being far away meant they had no fear of being overthrown. To them, it was entirely beneficial and harmless without a single drawback.

But for old Zhu, it was truly unmanageable. Without the profits from the Western Oceans, how could he possibly have the spare cash to look after this crowd of little monkeys?

Furthermore, these small nations were influenced by the cultures of successive Chinese dynasties, making palace intrigues and the usurpation of power by imperial in-laws a common occurrence. With such tiny patches of land constantly embroiled in petty drama, Zhu Yuanzhang had no desire to manage them; he preferred to let them make a fuss on their own.

As for changing Annam's name to Jiaozhi, that was Zhu Di's doing.

In the second year of Jianwen, while Zhu Di and Zhu Yunwen were locked in a fierce civil war, Annam's imperial in-law Ho Quy Ly—whose ancestors hailed from Zhejiang—overthrew the King of Annam and forced his own five-year-old grandson to abdicate the throne in his favor, acting in his capacity as the boy's maternal grandfather.

After Zhu Di ascended the throne, in April of the first year of Yongle, Annam sent tribute. Ho Quy Ly did not dare admit that he had usurped the throne, instead offering the respectful explanation that the Chen King had passed away and he was merely serving as regent temporarily.

The Kings of Annam bore the surname Chen, whereas he bore the surname Ho. With completely different surnames, could Zhu Di possibly fail to see that something was amiss?

However, in the first year of Yongle, Zhu Di had only just seized the imperial throne himself. The novelty had not yet worn off, and he was surrounded by pressing matters on all sides, leaving him with no time to deal with their petty domestic disputes.

In the second year of Yongle, a grandson of the former King of Annam named Chen Tianping fled from the Laos Pacification Commissioner's Office, arriving directly at the capital to weep and beg the Emperor to dispense justice. Only then did Zhu Di realize something had gone wrong in Annam.

Even then, Zhu Di had no intention of interfering.

Yet Ho Quy Ly simply refused to stop courting his own doom.

In August, envoys from the vassal state of Champa arrived to pay tribute, accusing the Annamese navy of invading Champa, forcibly distributing official court robes and seals, and demanding that Champa submit as a vassal just as the Ming did.

With that move, he had gone too far.

Zhu Di was furious, and the consequences were severe.

He immediately recalled regional naval commander Wang You, the Earl of Qingyuan, back to the capital. As the equivalent of the Ming dynasty's naval commander-in-chief, this was the clear prelude to military action.

In January of the third year of Yongle, Zhu Di dispatched imperial censor Li Qi to Annam to demand accountability, conveying the message: "Your prince is right here, and he has confessed everything; you had better figure out what to do."

Ho Quy Ly did not have the courage to refuse outright, so he could only claim that he was willing to welcome the king back to serve him.

Of course, these were merely polite words. Having gone through the immense trouble of usurping a throne, no one would willingly bring back a direct superior to wait upon.

What he failed to anticipate was that Zhu Di actually sent the person back. In March of the fourth year of Yongle, just as the young Prince Chen Tianping arrived in Annam, he was executed on the spot by Ho Quy Ly.

When the news reached the Ming court, Zhu Di was overjoyed. Although his father had designated Annam as a country not to be campaigned against, Zhu Di did not dare violate a single word of the imperial ancestral instructions; even if he wanted to fight, he needed a justifiable pretext.

A majestic Celestial Empire could never engage in such shameless tricks as having a traveler go missing within your borders; it was not that petty, sordid, despicable, or shameless.

Thus, he had to use the young prince's death to exploit the loophole in the policy against campaigning. To borrow a phrase from the Manchu rulers, sometimes dead people are more useful than living ones.

Seizing this opportunity, in July, two armies of the Yongle reign swept into Annam and conquered the entire territory in just one single year.

In the fifth year of Yongle, using the excuse that the King of Annam "had no descendants," and acting upon the proposals of his ministers rather reluctantly, Zhu Di renamed Annam as Jiaozhi, incorporating forty-seven prefectures, one hundred and fifty-seven counties, and a population of six million.

From that moment onward, Jiaozhi became an inseparable part of the Ming dynasty.

Zhu Yuanzhang patted him on the shoulder and chided with a smile, "If you hadn't stirred things up, boy, they would have had descendants."

Old Zhu Di chuckled heartily, clearly sensing his father's tone of approval.

During the Yongle reign, not only was Jiaozhi incorporated into the territory, but parts of Sumatra in Indonesia, Myanmar, Laos, and Thailand—the entirety of Southeast Asia—belonged to the Ming dynasty.

Therefore, our majestic Celestial Empire was never opposed to expansion; whenever the Emperor was the one making the decisions, expansion always followed.

Furthermore, not a single piece of territory was ever purchased—unlike those states across the ocean that acquired their land through buying.

Zhu Di's objective in expanding southward was extremely straightforward: to control maritime trade and maritime sovereignty. Every time Zheng Hai set sail, he led twenty-seven thousand men, all of whom were soldiers—effectively an armed merchant fleet. Such a massive multitude had to travel closely hugging the coastline.

And that unfortunate wretch of an Annam, if you looked at the map, was essentially nothing more than a coastline. Even without this specific incident, Zhu Di would have found some other pretext to attack them anyway.

Ever since that campaign, the conflict between the Emperor and the civil officials was sown. Zheng Hai's voyages to the Western Oceans were equivalent to a state-owned enterprise. When a fleet of over twenty thousand men entered the field as an absolute behemoth, it directly monopolized the market.

Private enterprises represented by the Jiangnan civil officials naturally could no longer turn a profit. Consequently, taking advantage of the youth and ignorance of that foolish boy Zhu Qizhen, the civil officials directly abandoned Jiaozhi and Old Port.

Their sole objective was to prevent the Emperor from ever launching voyages to the Western Oceans again.