Steam Daming: Stop calling me to supervise the country

Chapter 310 Ancient Canal

When Li Xian learned that he had been deceived, he was furious. He finally realized that what he sees may be false, and it cannot be true.

The censor of the Ming Dynasty was famous for daring to say anything, so he was furious and strode towards Zhu Zhanqian, but he suffered a heavy blow to the back of the neck as soon as he arrived, and lost consciousness instantly.

Zhu Zhanqian said with some headaches: "Stay here and have a good rest. If it weren't for seeing that he is still a straight minister, I wouldn't be interested in intrigue with him."

When a scholar meets a soldier, there is no reason to explain.

When the fleet entered the Red Sea, Zhu Zhanqian ordered everyone to be vigilant, and now they are ready to dock. This is Suez, the end of the Red Sea, with a simple port.

To the west is Egypt, to the east is the Arabian Peninsula, but these places now belong to the Ottoman Empire.

According to history, this should be the Mamluk Sultanate.

The owner of the Mamluk Sultanate now has even larger land in Egypt. There are many emirates on the Arabian Peninsula to the east, the Timurid Empire to the east, and the Ottoman Empire to the northeast along the Mediterranean coast.

But according to the information given by the Timurid Empire, it seems that the rise of the Ottoman Empire has been advanced.

The Ottomans were originally a small Turkic tribe. They first lived in Central Asia and then moved to Asia Minor, where they flourished day by day.Since the elimination of the Byzantine Empire in the middle of the fifteenth century, the Ottoman Empire has settled in Constantinople as its capital and considered itself the successor of the Eastern Roman Empire.

In history, the Ottoman Empire had to rise decades later, but now the Ottoman Empire is rising along the Mediterranean coast. Because of the Mongolian Empire, the Ottoman Empire also had firearms, and they were not bad. In theory, they were comparable to Mongolia a few years ago.

The large-scale development of firearms also gave a strong impetus to the prosperity of the Ottoman Empire.

They have not occupied the Byzantine Empire now, but they took the lead in developing towards the Mediterranean coast, and are currently at war with the Byzantine Empire. It seems that the Ottoman Empire, which lies across Europe, Asia and Africa, is about to arrive ahead of schedule.

The full name of the Ottoman Empire is the Ottoman Turkish Empire, which is the romantic Turkey of Turkey.

Who can find Turkey romantic?

Both sides of Suez are the territories of the Ottoman Empire, so it is necessary to have a good communication with them.

This communication is divided into friendly communication and not so friendly communication.

When the huge fleet arrived near Suez, all the surrounding Ottomans became nervous. Although they had seen ships from Ming Dynasty or Nanyang over the years, they had never seen so many such ferocious steel fleets.

The trade in the Red Sea is not busy, because the value of maritime trade is not enough, and the Mediterranean Sea has a lot of shipping.

Although Zhu Zhanqian left part of the fleet in Kochi Port, the South China Sea Fleet is still very large, with more than [-] soldiers.

Suez is not a small city either. The Ottomans gathered all the forces they could muster together, always waiting for the arrival of this steel fleet.

Zhu Zhanqian sent someone who could speak the language here to disembark first to communicate, and let the person on the other side who can decide things come out first.

After some communication, the translator came so that Zhu Zhanqian could disembark.

At this time, the military strength in Suez could not pose a threat to Zhu Zhanqian at all. The population in this city was insufficient, and the military strength was even more insufficient.

According to the communication, they said that they sent messengers to Cairo, the nearest big city, about Zhu Zhanqian’s desire to buy the Suez port, so that the big shots over there would rush over. Now they can’t make a decision by themselves for the time being.

Zhu Zhanqian still wants to use the one he bought, at least it will be faster and more convenient, and it is also for future plans.

They need to maintain the operation of a canal, and this canal is in other people's country. They can either coexist peacefully, or they can only occupy it by force. any problems.

Seeing that the port of Suez is not big, Zhu Zhanqian simply let the army go straight down and occupy the place first. According to what he said the Ottoman Empire knew, it was theoretically impossible for this empire to sell its own land, otherwise it would not be able to become the future. There is a huge empire between Europe, Asia and Africa, so he is ready to fight and it will be a protracted war.

After getting off the boat, I started looking around.

I found an elder in the city, a character similar to the village elder of Ming Dynasty, and obtained a map of his home at the cost of a small ingot of gold, and he himself explained to Zhu Zhanyan and his party Regarding the situation in Suez, including the Suez Canal that Zhu Zhanqian is most concerned about.

The history of excavation may go as far as the No.12 Dynasty of Egypt. In order to conduct direct trade through land flat-bottomed boats, Pharaoh Senusert III ordered the excavation of an "east-west" canal connecting the Red Sea and the Nile.

The old man said that the existence of this canal lasted at least until the time of Ramses II in the 13th century BC, and then the canal was abandoned.

It was continuously improved, destroyed, and rebuilt over the next 1000 years, until it was finally abandoned in the 8th century AD for the Abbasid Caliph al-Mansour of the Arab Empire.

According to the elder, the Suez Canal existed a long time ago and has been in operation for a long time.

Of course, the ancient canal is somewhat different from the modern Suez Canal that traverses the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea known by Zhu Zhanqian. The main direction is to connect the Nile River and the Red Sea in the east-west direction.

But the Nile River eventually flows into the Mediterranean Sea. If this ancient canal is still there, it can also allow its own ships to enter the Mediterranean Sea directly from the Red Sea.

This is a very good signal for the Ming army.

Of course, the ancient canal must not be able to operate now, and it is difficult to verify things that are too long ago. The route and scope of the ancient canal are just the old man's dictation, which has been passed down from generation to generation.

This place is not like the long history of Chinese culture. The texts unearthed thousands of years ago can still be read and interpreted. The county annals of various places have recorded all the major events.

Holding the map given by the old man, Zhu Zhanqian roughly saw the trajectory of the modern Suez Canal. It is very simple to find the place with the shortest straight-line distance first, and then see how many lakes emerge from this connection. In this case, as long as the lakes are connected The workload required for engineering will be reduced.

Lake Manzala, Lake Timsach, Big Bitter Lake, and Little Bitter Lake are near the connection line, connecting the four lakes, even if most of the canals have been dug, and then if the rules of the ancient canal can be found, dredging again , the amount of work is reduced again.

It's just that the old man's map didn't indicate the height and direction of the terrain, so he could only conduct a field survey.

Among the people Zhu Zhanqian stayed here this time were water conservancy experts from Daming. Of course, Daming does not have any special water conservancy courses now, but officials or township heads who are more experienced in water management and other matters will serve as his expert group.

At this time, a guard came to report: "His Royal Highness, our people said that they found traces of the ancient canal at the port."

"Oh?" Zhu Zhanqian didn't expect the good news to come so soon.

I rushed over immediately, and only after reading it did I realize why the good news came so quickly.

Where there is no river, there is a section of river that resembles the mouth of a river. Although it has been silted up, many people in the city know that this is the remains of the ancient canal, and according to their dictation, after the Ottomans occupied this place, Visited here.

Zhu Zhanqian frowned slightly. If the people of the Ottoman Empire also wanted to open the canal, then it would be even more impossible for the other party to sell the canal channel to themselves.

As for the reasons why the canal has not been developed yet, one is that the rising Ottoman Empire has occupied these places in the past two years, or it is normal for this matter to be placed in the back row in its national strategy.

The second is that the canal requires huge financial and material resources. The Ottoman Empire is in the middle of a war, and it is impossible to allocate so much financial and material resources.

Either way, as long as they wanted to develop the canal, war seemed inevitable.

The remains of the ancient canal were only a short section of a few hundred meters, and then everyone took out the map they got from the old man and walked all the way to the lake in the north, surveying the soil quality along the way.

It seems that because this section of the ancient canal was blocked by siltation, it has not been too long to be abandoned, so evidence of the existence of the ancient canal can be seen occasionally in some places along the way.

In fact, this is also the case. After the canal was dug in the past, the ancient canal was dredged in many eras, especially the section where Suez reached the nearest lake. Even after the entire canal was abandoned, it became Suez to transport business to the inner lake. of the river.

In the end, because of the perennial wars and other things, the commerce and trade were blocked, and it was abandoned in the end, so there are still obvious canal remains in some places.

Walking all the way to the north, you will come to a lake. This is the small bitter lake. It is almost a straight line connecting the ruins of the ancient canal with the port of Suez. The distance is less than 70 miles. It runs north-south, and the path is very clear. up.

After the small bitter lake is the big bitter lake. These two lakes can serve as intermediate nodes for shipping, and can park a large number of warships, and then continue to dig north from the big bitter lake.

"Your Highness, although the channel of the ancient canal is not clear enough, it should be possible to re-excavate according to the original route of the ruins, and the difficulty of excavation will be relatively low." The expert team came to this conclusion after investigation.

Zhu Zhan shook his head and said: "The route of the ancient canal is no problem, but the channel of the canal we want to dig is much wider than the original ancient canal. We must ensure the passage of our steam warships, and we must ensure the passage of the steam mothership." count."

Everyone was shocked when they heard about the steam mothership. To pass through such a giant, the steam mothership would have to be at least twice as wide as the original ancient canal, which would greatly increase the difficulty and workload of the project.

The expert group frowns, they have never done such a big project, how many people are needed.

"A guard of 300 people is with you. You go to measure the route, width, and depth of the canal as soon as possible, determine the workload, and then tell me how many people are needed and how long it will take."

Although it was difficult, the expert group still took orders one after another.

The survey work started immediately, and the person next to him asked: "Your Highness, I haven't communicated with the Ottoman Empire yet. Is it too dangerous to start survey work now?"

"It's not a big place, so there should be no problem."

On the sixth day when Zhu Zhanqian came to Suez, the Ottomans from Cairo came.

The Ottoman Empire adopted a monarchy, and the power of the Sultan followed the principle of hereditary succession of the Ottoman family.The Sultan of Istanbul stood above his subjects, acting as their ruler and protector, and the object of their loyalty.The sultan was regarded as a shepherd, and the subjects called raia were the flock that obeyed the sultan.

Although it cannot be regarded as slavery, its system controls its subjects more strictly than that of Daming.

The military system of the Ottoman Empire is also different from that of the Ming Dynasty, because the Ottoman Empire has many ethnic groups, and each region has its own history. Many places have just been included in it. It has a complex system of recruitment and fiefdoms.

The vassal army of the vassal state played an irreplaceable role in the conquest of Ostan Turkey. Now the owner of Cairo is the prince of Osman, but he is also the owner of the fiefdom in this area, similar to the prince of Ming Dynasty, but his authority is higher than that of the vassal Wang Gao.

The person in power in Cairo was Sehalim III, an aristocrat who was good at fighting. It was he who conquered Egypt and parts of the Arabian Peninsula and became a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire.

At this time, he led [-] well-equipped troops towards Suez.

When he learned that a steel fleet from the East had landed in Suez, he was extremely angry, how could there be inexplicable Orientals to seize his land.

Even if the envoy told him about the steel fleet and its well-equipped equipment, he didn't pay attention to it.

As a powerful figure who has conquered a large area of ​​the country, he thinks very highly of himself, which is also a common problem of generals who are good at fighting.

Immediately order soldiers and set off with the army, set off with the army he is proud of.

Someone said to him: "The Eastern Empire is far stronger than the Timurid Empire."

He said that although the Timurid Empire was strong, we had also fought against them, winning and losing each other. Under his hands, we won more battles.

Someone said to him: "The empire in the east has a fleet made of steel."

He said that the Iron Fleet is exaggerating, and these cowardly people will only disturb our army's morale.

When Sehalim III arrived at the outskirts of Suez City with his army, Ming's army had already been ready for battle, and the soldiers did not dare to relax their vigilance. After all, the opponent was a regular army and a mixed formation of mixed troops and slaves during the battle with Kochi Port. completely different.

Sehalim III's army watched the steel fleet moored in the port from a distance, and the steel warships still driving on the sea, only to realize that the report was not a lie, and that the other party really had steel warships.

It's just that he wondered if this steel battleship was just pasted with a layer of iron to fool people. He didn't believe that the distant Eastern Empire could actually manufacture such a terrifying war machine.

Sehalim III also had a heartbeat, and sent someone to contact the Daming people first, but it was absolutely impossible for him to sell his land. According to his character, if the other party didn't leave, then he could only fight one battle. He is not afraid of anyone.

Isn't it just some warships?You can't drive to the shore, as long as my army fights with you on the ground, the final competition is whose sword is faster, whose horse is stronger, and whose soldiers are better at fighting.

The envoy came to the city of Suez and said arrogantly to the Ming army: "Exit the scope of Suez and compensate the people of Suez with gold. Let this matter be over, otherwise the great Sehalim III will behead your heads with his own hands. "

(End of this chapter)