In the tropics, the most suitable armor for soldiers was rattan armor. No matter iron armor or leather armor, they were too heavy and stuffy, especially iron armor, which would be particularly hot after being exposed to the sun. If soldiers wore iron armor to fight, as long as the battle dragged on for a while, they would lose their combat effectiveness. No one could stand the high temperature of iron armor. The situation of leather armor was a little better, but it was difficult to change the stuffy characteristics. Leather armor had almost no air permeability. Compared with iron armor, it lacked the ability to absorb heat on the surface, so it was still not suitable for use in the tropics. The armor suitable for use in the tropics had always been rattan armor, which was relatively breathable and cool, and its defensive ability was not too bad. It could be said that it was perfect.
Before entering the Pyu Kingdom, Ang Lee's troops had immediately changed their armor from the better synthetic leather armor to rattan armor with better air permeability. Of course, these rattan armors had also been improved. Not only did their defensive ability greatly improve, but their comfort also improved a lot. When wearing them, the soldiers would not feel stuffy at all, nor would they feel that they could not move freely. It was understandable that their defensive ability was a little worse, as it was enough to protect the head and the torso. It was very difficult to balance the two aspects of comfort and defense, so there had to be a trade-off. It was obviously impossible to balance both. Fighting in the tropics, the most important thing was to display the ability to attack. Defense could be left to shields. When encountering enemies with strong crossbows, using shields to form a shield wall could solve the problem of defense, so there was no need to pursue high quality armor.
As the pirates in the Black Dragon Sea area had not been completely eliminated, Ang Lee would not stay in Tianguang Port for too long. After a few days, Ang Lee would leave Tianguang Port and go to the Black Dragon Sea area to continue attacking the last group of pirates, so as to take over the Black Dragon Sea area in one fell swoop and incorporate this sea area into the territory of the Tang Empire. Although this sea area was still some distance away from the main route of the Maritime Silk Road, if it was occupied by pirates for a long time, it would be very unfavorable for the safety of the Maritime Silk Road. For the absolute safety of the Maritime Silk Road, it was necessary to take over this sea area completely. Moreover, this sea area had a large population and a good economic output. As long as the output could offset the consumption of the Tang Empire's troops, it was completely possible to take over this sea area.
Generally, the reason why an empire would give up some border territories was because of the great financial pressure. The border of an empire could be understood as the financial balance of the empire. When the overall financial balance was in a deficit, the collapse of the empire would not be far away. In order to maintain the financial balance, the ruler of the empire had to give up those border territories. Similarly, when an empire's financial balance was sufficient, the ruler would think about occupying the surrounding territories in order to expand the territory of the empire. This way, the neighboring small countries would prostrate themselves in front of the ruler, making the ruler become an eternal emperor and immortalize his name in the history.
Of course, whether or not an empire's border territories were in a deficit depended on the time and effort spent on management. Perhaps when a dynasty had just expanded a piece of territory, the land was barren and often had rebellious factions. Bandits were also rampant, and there were very few residents. In terms of finances, the losses would be quite severe. However, as long as the imperial court could endure these losses and continue to invest, through the efforts of several generations of emperors, the rebellious factions in the border regions would be eliminated. The number of residents would gradually increase, and most of the bandits would be eliminated. The land would become less barren, and as such, the empire's finances would be in a profitable phase. Once the region was in a profitable phase, the territory would be completely stabilized. In the future, even if this dynasty perished and the next dynasty conquered the world, this region would be unified and would become the territory of the next dynasty. Following this, the next dynasty would continue to operate the new border regions at a loss and turn them into profitable regions, gradually expanding the empire's territory. After many dynasties, the new dynasty's territory would become larger and larger, and it would become more and more competitive.
All in all, no piece of territory was redundant. Whether or not a piece of territory could bring profits to an empire depended on how well the empire managed it. If it was managed well, it would be profitable, but if it wasn't, it would be a loss. It was just that because of the geographical conditions and other factors, it was quite difficult to manage a border region well. This required the efforts of several generations of emperors. The Hua Xia Dynasty's territory became larger and larger. How could the Xia Shang Dynasty's territory be as vast as Great Qin's? The Han Dynasty's territory was clearly greater than the Qin Dynasty's, and the Tang Dynasty's territory was even greater. This was the effect of the various emperors' disdain for expansion. Without generations of empire expansion, there wouldn't be as large a territory as the Hua Xia Dynasty.
How to manage a border region and how to make a profit depended on many factors. If the residents resisted fiercely and bandits robbed everywhere, the residents of the region would be unable to make a living. If these problems weren't solved, the region would inevitably suffer losses. Even if these problems were solved, there would still be transportation problems. The transportation conditions in border regions were quite poor, and it was difficult for the Imperial Court's resources to be transported over. This made the development of the border region quite difficult, and the residents weren't willing to live in the border regions. In fact, they even felt that the border regions were barbarians and that the residents living in the border regions were all barbarians. This made the losses even worse.
At this time, in the Tang Dynasty, due to Ang Lee's invention of the railway transportation system, the transportation of resources had become much more convenient. As a result, the economic development of the border regions was bound to develop in a good direction, and the economic development would get better and better. When the economy of a region developed well, the Imperial Court would inevitably receive more tax revenue. This tax revenue was likely to exceed the Imperial Court's investment in the region, thus turning the region into a profitable territory. For the ruler of the Tang Dynasty, any profitable territory was very valuable. The Imperial Court had no reason to give up a profitable territory. For the sake of national security, the Imperial Court could often tolerate the existence of a loss-making territory and firmly control it in its hands, not to mention a territory that could bring a lot of profits to the Imperial Court.
In recent years, the Tang Empire had expanded a lot of territory. Many of the territories that were originally at a loss had become profitable because of the smooth railway. Many of the newly expanded territories were also profitable. Of course, there were also some that were at a loss. The situation in some areas was worse. In the areas where the terrain was too remote, even if there were railways, it was difficult to guarantee that they would not lose money. However, as long as they worked hard, they would be profitable sooner or later. This was obvious.
For example, after the imperial court of the Tang Dynasty destroyed Tibet, it occupied a large territory of Tibet, thus greatly expanding the territory of the Tang Empire. But when it first occupied Tibet, the imperial court of the Tang Dynasty suffered a large financial loss. Later, with the large investment and continuous operation of the imperial court, the financial loss of Tibet decreased. Although the financial loss of Tibet was still in a state of loss, Ang Lee believed that in a few decades, Tibet would inevitably be able to turn its losses into profits and become a new profitable area of the Tang Empire. As long as it was managed well, all the regions would become profitable in the future. The territory of the Tang Empire would definitely not just maintain its current size. Continuing to expand was an inevitable choice. In addition, as long as America and Australia developed well, they could also bring huge benefits to the Tang Dynasty. At present, due to the high cost of shipping, America and Australia did not have much profit, but the development of these two regions could be balanced and were no longer in a loss-making area. As long as they continued to develop, they would inevitably be able to make large-scale profits. The scale of their profits in the future might even account for a large part of the profit scale of the Tang Dynasty. After all, the size of America and Australia was obvious. With such a large area, their resource reserves were bound to be extremely high. In the future, they could become the raw material base for the development of the Tang Empire and provide sufficient raw materials for the development of the Tang Empire.
Of course, if he wanted to develop America and Australia well, the construction of a huge fleet was indispensable. America and Australia were too far away from the Tang Dynasty. As long as a huge fleet was maintained, it would be more effective to link these two regions with the Tang Dynasty. If there were not enough ships, these two regions would not have a close connection with the Tang Dynasty, and there would be a possibility for them to become independent in the future. Ang Lee naturally did not want this to happen. Therefore, in recent years, the shipbuilding industry of the Tang Dynasty had developed very rapidly. Various types of ocean-going ships were launched in the ports of the Tang Dynasty like dumplings. Most of these ships were built to connect America and Australia. Of course, some of them were built to meet the needs of the sea silk road. In short, with the development of maritime trade, the demand for ocean-going ships would be higher and higher. Those super-large ships could withstand higher winds and waves and were very suitable for ocean-going voyages, while small ships could not adapt to ocean-going voyages.
In order to develop America and Australia, Ang Lee had designed a variety of super-large ships. These ships were as high as 300 to 500 meters in length and were very large in size. As long as they did not encounter a super strong hurricane on the sea, there would be no problem. Of course, if they ran into a reef or something, there would be no solution. Any large ship was very afraid of reefs. If they ran into a reef, no matter how big the ship was, it would be doomed.
At this time, Ang Lee was selling a large number of goods seized from the pirates in Tianguang Port. After that, Ang Lee would go to the Black Dragon Islands to continue to wipe out the last group of pirates. After that, he would occupy this sea area and station the soldiers of the Tang Dynasty in the islands all year round to achieve the occupation of this area.
In order not to increase the imperial court's responsibility, when Ang Lee made this decision, he first considered the issue of industrial development. It would be better to develop an industry that could support the soldiers and officials stationed in the islands and not let the imperial court bear the additional cost of the soldiers stationed there. It would be even better if he could even make some profits.
The most common way to develop an industry on an island was shipbuilding and fishing. However, there were a large number of fishermen in the Black Dragon Islands who were engaged in fishing. The competition was too fierce, and there was also Giant Wood Island who was involved in shipbuilding. This seemed to be competing with Giant Wood Island for business, so naturally, it was not suitable.
For this reason, Ang Lee felt that he should develop a deep processing industry of fish products, which was to produce products that ordinary fishermen could not produce, so as to avoid vicious competition with the surrounding fishermen. For deep processing of fish products, the simplest was canned fish. This product had already been produced in the Tang Dynasty, but the backward overseas did not have this technology yet. Ang Lee could develop this industry in the Black Dragon Islands. This would not only generate profits to support the soldiers stationed on the islands, but also solve the problem of the sales of the nearby fishermen's catch, so that the nearby fishermen could sell their catch more easily. Of course, in addition to canned fish, he could also produce fish oil, ornamental fish products, and other kinds of fish products.
In addition to the deep processing industry of fish products, the Black Dragon Islands could also develop a feed industry. Useless waste such as fish bones and fish bones could be ground into nutritious fish feed. These fish feed could be sold or used for breeding.
In addition, although there were many fishermen in the Black Dragon Islands, they generally only fished nearby and didn't breed fish. Except for the Black Tiger Island's pirates, there was nothing else. This was obviously a good industry. The scale of fish breeding on the Black Tiger Islands was too small. Moreover, the fish bred were too messy and didn't conform to the business model. In the future, the breeding of precious fish must be precious fish. Ordinary fish were too cheap and could be easily caught in the sea. Naturally, there was no value in breeding them. On the other hand, the number of precious fish was relatively rare and could be bred at critical times. Breeding marine fish also required techniques. The local fishermen weren't clear about these techniques, but Ang Lee was clearly very clear. Therefore, it was completely appropriate to develop the breeding of precious marine fish in the Black Dragon Islands.
Of course, these breeding tasks didn't require additional manpower and could be directly handed over to the soldiers stationed there. These soldiers stationed in the Black Dragon Islands not only had to be responsible for guarding here and being responsible for the safety here, but they also had to undertake a certain amount of production tasks. This was equivalent to farming. There was nothing wrong with letting the soldiers be responsible for farming. The soldiers themselves needed to undergo regular training, and the work itself was a type of training. It could also be said that it could be said to be killing two birds with one stone. Since ancient times, the soldiers stationed at the borders weren't specially trained. Many of them were responsible for planting and breeding. There was no other way. The financial pressure of the imperial court was too great. They could only let each soldier share some of the burden. The more the burden was shared by the soldiers, the less pressure the imperial court would have to bear. It was completely feasible to let the soldiers stationed at the Black Dragon Islands be stationed there while engaging in production.
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