Ming Dynasty, capital, Forbidden City.

Zhu Yicheng was reading the letter he had just sent from Europe. The letter was written by Zhu Qingyan. Although the Ming Dynasty and Europe were thousands of miles apart and it was inconvenient to transmit news to each other, with the opening of the Ming Dynasty's sea route, the message transmission in recent years was much better than before. Even so, it would take more than two months to send the letter from Paris to Zhu Yicheng's hands.

Looking at the letter, Zhu Yicheng chuckled, especially when he saw Zhu Qingyan write in the letter that she actually became Louis XV's personal teacher and was assisting Louis XV in establishing the French civil servant assessment system based on the Ming Dynasty's imperial examination system, Zhu Yicheng's smile became even worse.

Even Zhu Yi, Chengdu did not expect that his daughter would do so many things in Paris. Zhu Qingyan made a big splash in Paris. Zhu Yicheng was not surprised. With Zhu Qingyan's personality, appearance and background, it is normal for him to shine in the backward Europe today. The key is that Zhu Qingyan actually became Louis XV's personal teacher, and also helped Louis XV bring the imperial examination system to Europe.

But this is good. Although France is powerful for the Ming Dynasty, in fact, France does not pose a great threat to the Ming Dynasty.

Compared with Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, and Britain, France is a traditional mainland country in Europe. Although after the opening of the Age of Discovery, France inevitably expanded overseas and gained many colonies in northern Africa, the New World and the Indian Ocean.

But compared to the former, France is still Europe at all. Unlike Britain, which has begun to rise, France's foreign expansion is not as aggressive as France's foreign expansion. For France, except for Africa and the New World opposite the Mediterranean, the rest of the colonies are optional, not as greedy as Britain.

This is a fundamental difference between marine countries and mainland countries. In addition, after the death of the Sun King Louis XIV, France's European hegemony was in danger, and the intensification of internal conflicts made France no longer have much energy to care about overseas, thus giving Britain the opportunity to rise.

In this world, the Ming Dynasty has grown into a powerful empire. The territory of the Ming Dynasty and the territory outside Shanghai were beyond the reach of any dynasty in Chinese history before. Even the territory during the Mongol Empire period, the Ming Dynasty may have won the present.

In the past two years, Zhu Yicheng has basically stopped the empire's expansion and began to lay a solid foundation and manage the country.

Taking advantage of the last chance that the world's territory had not been fully divided, Zhu Yi became the Ming Dynasty and captured tens of thousands of miles of overseas territory, and even her local territory exceeded that of the prosperous Tang Dynasty.

This is enough. If the Ming Dynasty continues, it may be indigestion. Moreover, the European countries have already taken great precautions for the rapid expansion of the Ming Dynasty. If the Ming Dynasty continues to expand, a full-scale war with the Western world will inevitably break out. Not to mention the outcome of the war, just the outbreak of the war will lead to the great Ming Dynasty consuming national strength, which will make many of Zhu Yicheng’s previous efforts in vain.

The Ming Dynasty's enemies in Europe were never France, nor was it the German states that were now a mess. It was not the Spanish, Portugal, the Netherlands, and the Ottoman Empire that once once glorious, spanned the Asian, European and African continents, which also could not pose a threat to the Ming Dynasty.

Zhu Yicheng was very clear-headed. For a long time in the future, there would be only two enemies of the Ming Dynasty, one was the rising Britain and the other was Russia in the north.

At present, the Northern War between the Ming Dynasty and Russia has ended, and the two sides have re-divided the northern border. During this war, the Ming Dynasty bit a piece of meat from Russia, and made Russia's efforts to advance east for a century to vain.

Although Russia was defeated on the surface, Zhu Yicheng knew that the defeat was because the Ming Dynasty chose the best time to start the war. If Peter had not died so coincidental, Zhu Yicheng would not have much confidence in the war in the north.

Although the Ming Dynasty beat Russia from a regional perspective and the elite military and equipment perspectives, it is important to know that Russia's war potential is extremely great, and Peter I was another hero. If Peter I was still there, the war would never end so easily. The expansion of the war between the Ming Dynasty and Russia is the inevitable result. Once the war is expanded, the scope and military strength of the war are extremely terrible. Faced with such a result, even Zhu Yicheng will be afraid of it.

Russia is weak now, and at least this situation will continue for decades. When Russia is stable within and a strong monarch appears, then Russia will never be willing to be in the failure of the Far East and is likely to make a comeback again.

From this point of view, Russia is a threat to the Ming Dynasty in the north and is also the biggest enemy of the Ming Dynasty in the future. Zhu Yicheng hopes to completely digest the northern territory in his own right, and at the same time make the Ming Dynasty further, so as to gain the upper hand in the future fight with Russia.

Apart from Russia, another potential opponent of another Western country is the United Kingdom.

Now Britain has officially risen, and the European war has allowed the British to win valuable time and opportunities. If the Ming Dynasty had not emerged, according to the direction of history, Britain has now begun to snatch colonies around the world. Then, decades later, Britain will become a veritable "Empire that never sets in the sun".

Unfortunately, due to the Ming Dynasty, Britain was not as crazy as it was before, but the rise of Britain was unstoppable.

In the New World, Britain rekindled a war against France. At present, New France is no match for New England at all. The New France colony, which was not prepared at all, retreated step by step under the attack of the British and lost a lot of territory.

In addition to the war on the New World, Britain's operations in the Indian Ocean were also top priority. In recent years, the British took advantage of the huge interests of trade with the Ming Dynasty and began to expel other European countries' forces in the Indian Ocean, intending to control the Indian Ocean alone and become the local hegemon.

By the way, there are also various small actions by the British against the Ming Dynasty, which fall into Zhu Yicheng's eyes.

On the surface, the Ming Dynasty and the United Kingdom have a good relationship, but in fact, the top leaders of the two countries know that there are endless filth and means in secret. If it weren't for the overall situation, Zhu Yicheng would have turned against the United Kingdom long ago.

The enemy of the enemy is a friend. Britain is called the European shit stick. France will always be unlucky under this shit stick.

It is precisely because of this that it is extremely beneficial to win over France in diplomatic and military terms, which is no different from Zhu Yicheng's previous win over the Ottoman Empire.
Chapter completed!