At the end of Qin, I became a son of the plane

Chapter 621: Daqinzhou, a land full of dry wood, and the difficult industrialization
The court minister Theodos thought about what else his country could mortgage and left the embassy in a hurry.

Zhang Pijiang shook his head as he watched the receding figure of the court minister Theodosius. If the Ptolemaic Kingdom had the determination to build a small industrial system, coupled with the level of their own construction, they might be able to catch up with the wave of industrialization.

Although the Ptolemaic Empire had various flaws, it has to be admitted that their construction level was very high. Whether it was the huge Egyptian pyramids, various statues, or their capital, Alexandria, they basically reached the pinnacle of their construction technology.

It's just that they didn't use these constructions properly. The huge pyramids were like the imperial mausoleums of the tyrannical Qin Dynasty. They cost hundreds of thousands of manpower and material resources, but in the end they were just used to bury a corpse. The vast territory of the Ptolemaic Kingdom was only developed to a limited extent along the Nile River. Even now, he knew that the royal family of the Ptolemaic Kingdom was an outsider, but he still found it difficult to understand the thoughts of the rulers of this country.

April 45, 4th year of the Han calendar. Suez Canal locks.

The morning sun was bright, the breeze was gentle, and the weather was neither too hot nor too cold. It was a rare good day in the Mediterranean. At this time, Suy was at the gate of the canal, with red flags flying, huge crowds of people, gongs and drums beating, and firecrackers blasting.

Ptolemy, Rome, Seleucid Empire, Carthage, Greece, Macedonia and other small countries also sent representatives to this place, and they looked at this huge canal with complicated expressions.

It took the Han Chinese 10 years to finally build the Suez Canal. From now on, Han Chinese merchant ships no longer have to go through New South Wales to enter the Mediterranean. Thinking that Han Chinese goods will flood into their country like a tide, these people even feel a chill in their hearts.

Ten years may not seem like a long time, but these people's attitude towards the canal has undergone a drastic change, from expectation to fear.

In this historical line, the countries in the Mediterranean region were passively involved in the Age of Discovery. The productivity of the Han Dynasty was too developed, and with the help of Xu Fan, the Han Dynasty's products almost surpassed those of the entire Mediterranean countries.

These Mediterranean countries were excited about the money they gained from the Age of Exploration, but along with the luxury goods of the Han Dynasty came the loss of a large amount of slaves and gold and silver, the continuous decline of the economy, the bankruptcy of a large number of handicrafts, the rebirth of internal conflicts, and the unrest of society.

Even though the Han Dynasty continued to purchase local agricultural products, various dyes, and minerals to try to balance the trade between the two sides, the powerful force of Han's industrialization still sucked these small Mediterranean countries 2 kilometers away to extremes.

Those republican countries are better off, as they have a larger ruling base and can still keep the situation under control to a certain extent. But those monarchical countries are in a miserable situation, as all the contradictions in the country are directed at those arrogant and licentious kings and nobles.

Even the aristocracy began to become dissatisfied. Although they could become comprador merchants and reap the biggest dividends of the Age of Discovery, their interests would also be damaged if the country continued to weaken, not to mention the internal unrest, which was also a huge threat to their safety. There were even some middle and low-level nobles whose class declined because of family bankruptcy during this era. Naturally, they directed all their dissatisfaction at the king and the nobles in power.

In addition, the words of the Han Dynasty's "Records of the Holy Words", "Mozi", "Mencius" and other Han Dynasty philosophers spread to these countries, causing violent ideological conflicts in these countries. It was a bit like the Enlightenment Movement 2000 years earlier. Knowing the advanced ideas of the Han Dynasty philosophers, they were particularly dissatisfied with the state of slavery in their own country, the king's dictatorship, the greed of the nobles, the turmoil and decline of the country, and pointed the source of all these contradictions to the king.

Therefore, the Mediterranean has been very turbulent in recent years. Slave uprisings, serf uprisings, and citizen uprisings have occurred one after another. The scale of each uprising has become larger and larger, and the scope of each uprising has become wider and wider. Without exception, the shadow of the "Book of the Holy Word" is behind all these uprisings.

The leaders of these rebels used this book to deceive the citizens. They used the contents of "The Word of God" as their ideology, established the Church of the Word of God, and instigated the citizens and serfs to rebel. What frightened these kings even more was that in just a few years, the Church of the Word of God had blossomed almost everywhere in their country, and the rebels could not be killed all.

To the extent that a large number of countries in the Mediterranean region now regard the "Records of the Holy Scriptures" as a banned book, prohibiting anyone from printing or copying the book, and even prohibiting anyone from discussing the contents of the "Records of the Holy Scriptures" in public.

If this ban was violated, ordinary people would be arrested and enslaved, and even nobles would be exiled.

However, the Mediterranean region was not yet in the ignorant Middle Ages, and kings and nobles still had the tradition of learning advanced cultural ideas.

But after they finished reading the "Record of the Holy Words", they cursed the emperor of the Han Dynasty almost every day. You Han people are spreading such a book that teaches people to rebel. The emperor of the Han Dynasty must have a problem with his brain.

Now the Han Dynasty's "Records of the Holy Words" and "Art of War", all the books of the various schools of thought, and even the Analects of Confucius are among the banned books. Book burning movements have been happening one after another in these countries, and the ban on news from the Han Dynasty has become increasingly strict, especially the various Han weekly newspapers. If the soldiers who search for them find them, they will kill them without hesitation.

There is no way to compare with the impact of various thoughts. The various deeds of the Han people recorded in the monthly reports have a greater impact on the thoughts of Mediterranean countries.

These newspapers often record that a farmer in the Han Dynasty can earn 4 yuan a year, achieving primary wealth, that studying in the Han Dynasty is free, that schools will provide clothes and food, that citizens of the Han Dynasty can get one yog of land as long as they reach adulthood, and that the elderly in the Han Dynasty also have pensions. All these mythical things have impacted the order of Mediterranean countries. As long as citizens read the things reported in the Han Dynasty monthly newspaper and compare the situation in their own country, most people will become Han experts, and % of people will be dissatisfied with the current situation in their country. A very small number of people will put this dissatisfaction into action, such as founding a Holy Word Church and leading the citizens' slaves to revolt.

John, invite Macedonia to die. Such irrelevant words,

In recent years, the kings in the Mediterranean region have been horrified to find that even the nobles, who were the core of their rule, have begun to rebel against them.

Under such circumstances, when they learned that the Suez Canal, which the Han people had spent ten years repairing, was opened, their mixed emotions were imaginable. They really wanted to block the canal again, and even wished that the Han people had never come to Daqinzhou.

Of course, Zhang Pijiang was unaware of the complex feelings of the envoys from the Mediterranean countries. He said excitedly: "I hereby announce that the Suez Canal is officially opened!"

As Zhang Pijiang finished speaking, the last section of the canal was dug, and the Mediterranean Sea quickly poured into the canal. A water dragon flowed slowly along the canal into the distance.

"Boom boom boom!" The big men's salutes continued to sound on both sides of the canal, cheering for the water dragon.

The soldiers of the Yanzhou Governor's Office and the Ptolemy Kingdom, which had been digging the canal for more than ten years, also applauded excitedly. This canal was the result of their labor and it was finally completed today.

Ptolemy's slaves were excitedly awaiting their new life, because the Yanzhou Governor's Office promised them that after the canal was built, their status would be upgraded to citizens, and they would be able to obtain a 100-acre piece of land in the Upper Peninsula and become land-owning self-cultivating farmers.

The freedmen of Ptolemy were a little sad, as their high-paying jobs would be over after today. Fortunately, after working for a few years, they had accumulated a lot of wealth, bought land, and even many families bought a few slaves and land, and lived the life of slave owners.

Among the applauding crowd, Liu Ruyi found Sobek and the group of students he had taught and said, "The Ptolemaic Empire has been a bit chaotic in recent years. You might as well stay in the Desert Peninsula. I will talk to the governor and leave you 100 acres of land. You will live on the Desert Peninsula in the future."

Sobek shook his head and said, "It has been six years since I left home. I miss my hometown, the river, and my parents. Thank you for your kindness, General. I have redeemed my family's land in my hometown. In the past few years, I have also learned advanced farming techniques under your teaching. My family will live better and better in the future. When I return home and settle down, I will come to see you, General."

However, half of them chose to stay. They planned to sell the land of Ptolemy and settle down under the rule of Yanzhou Governor's Office. After more than ten years of development, Yanzhou Governor's Office has become a rare paradise in the Mediterranean region.

There were fertile fields, cheap food, endless alfalfa pastures, herds of cattle and sheep, prosperous cities, bustling markets, and most importantly, low taxes, so they decided to bring their families here to settle down.

After the opening ceremony, Seleucid minister Demetrius found Zhang Pijiang and begged for mercy: "Ambassador Zhang, our country is willing to hand over the construction rights of the Damascus railway to the Han Dynasty, and is also willing to connect the railway with the Xiongnu Kingdom. We only ask that the Han Dynasty can lend us 500 million yuan to buy arms for our country."

The situation in the Seleucid Empire has not been very good in recent years. After the king rejected the Han Dynasty's proposal to build a railway network around the Mediterranean five years ago, the relationship between them and the Han Dynasty gradually became distant.

After Dmitri and his group of students returned to the Seleucid Empire, the Seleucid Empire began its own Han affairs movement, hiring students from Han farming families to plan the country's cotton cash crop gardens, establishing an industrial zone in Damascus, building steel mills, machinery plants, cement plants, mines, spinning mills, and weaving mills, and laying wooden tracks to connect major cities, thus ushering in the first industrial revolution of the Seleucid Empire.

But it is not so easy to start industrialization. The first step is to have the original accumulation of industrialization, which is used to purchase various machines from Dahan and hire technical personnel from Dahan at high salaries to come to the country to guide industrial production.

But this is exactly what the Seleucid Empire did not have. As a centuries-old country, and having been the overlord of the Mediterranean for a period of time, the Seleucid Empire should have had a certain amount of primitive accumulation. However, they encountered the rise of the Huns, and the country's already limited funds were exchanged for guns and cannons, and consumed by the military, which was a money-eating beast.

In order to start the primitive accumulation required for industrialization, the Seleucid Empire could only make its own farmers suffer.

Dmitry and his group of overseas students developed an industrialization development path in which industry would feed back agriculture based on what they had learned about the industrial development process of the Han Dynasty.

First, build steel mills and machinery factories, and use the agricultural tools produced by steel mills to promote agricultural development. The great development of agriculture will accumulate funds for industrialization and provide raw materials. In this way, the Han Dynasty can develop a complete industrial system in 40 years. They can also develop the Seleucid Empire into an industrialized country in 30 years.

Of course, the only price of this path is to make the country's farmers suffer first, and to collect taxes from them so that the country can obtain primitive accumulation.

But after the Seleucid Sinicization Movement began, they discovered that industrialization was not as simple as they had thought. The prices of the agricultural tools and steam engines produced by the Seleucid Empire, whether it was a steel mill or a machinery factory, were even higher than those of the Han Dynasty, which had to be transported 2 km to the Seleucid Empire. The rails manufactured by the steel mill were not only expensive, but also had poor key technology, which caused their country's trains to derail many times.

They angrily asked Dahan's technicians whether they had retained the technology?
As a result, these Han technicians said that the craftsmanship of the Seleucid craftsmen was too poor and they could only produce too few qualified products, which directly raised the price. Now they can only teach them while letting them accumulate experience.

Not to mention the various problems in heavy industry, even the profitable light industry has repeatedly encountered problems. Various functions were caused by deaths and injuries due to machines, which made these workers regard machines as murderous demons. Many craftsmen even directly damaged the steam engines they manufactured at high prices.

This forced them to use various methods to teach skilled workers, but after much difficulty they managed to weave their own cotton cloth. They then encountered market problems, as the cotton cloth of the Seleucid Empire could not compete with that of the Han Dynasty or the Xiongnu.

Poor quality and high price are synonymous with Seleucid cotton cloth. The king and nobles were unwilling to use their country's inferior cotton cloth, and the citizens and farmers of the Seleucid Empire also did not like this kind of inferior cloth.

Dmitri and other international students found helplessly that every step they took to start industrialization in the Seleucid Empire was not smooth, and every step was completely different from what they expected.

Just like the textile-based light industry, they had originally hoped to rely on these industries to accumulate funds for industrialization. Now, the funds they expected did not accumulate, but instead became a money-eating beast, constantly devouring the already limited treasury funds of the Seleucid Empire. The Shaofu not only did not make money, but became a money-loser.

What is more crucial is that the farmers of the Seleucid Empire have been exploited to the limit. The industrial support for agriculture that these international students had expected has not been realized. Instead, it is now a bit like a broken string. The farmers can no longer bear the high tax rates and have begun to secretly join the Church of the Holy Word and form associations to rebel.

Now, every day when Antiochus IV opened his eyes, he would see farmers in some area or citizens in some city rebelling. A peaceful country was now in flames.

Antiochus IV finally understood at this time that his relatives and overseas students were the Zhao Kuo, the armchair strategist in the history of the Han Dynasty.

Faced with a country with such intense internal conflicts, Antiochus IV decided to divert the internal conflicts to areas outside the country, that is, to open up the wild areas to the north. He had seen successful cases and felt that this was a relatively safe way to resolve domestic conflicts.

If we were to ask which countries in the entire Mediterranean region have been the most stable in recent years, the first choices would be Ptolemy, Carthage, and Rome.

The Ptolemaic State was the mistress of the Han Dynasty. It had the Yanzhou Governor's Office of the Han Dynasty and the huge Suez Canal project. Most of the Han Dynasty's interests in the Qinzhou went to the Ptolemaic State. Citizens who lost their land could also go to the Suez Canal to work and earn money. The period of economic expansion was always the period with the least internal conflicts. At least in the Ptolemaic State, serf uprisings and slave uprisings rarely broke out. The nobles of the Ptolemaic State were not worried about discussing the ideas transmitted from the Han Dynasty. Scholars from the entire Qinzhou now gathered in Alexandria, which has become the academic center of the entire Mediterranean.

The second is Carthage. The Carthaginians transited goods for the Han Dynasty. Their trading ships were not even limited to the Mediterranean region. A large number of ships flocked to the New World. In particular, the Carthaginians also dominated the slave trade and could earn billions of dollars from the Han Dynasty every year. The emergence of the Han Dynasty not only did not cause the Carthaginians to decline, but made them more prosperous.

During these ten years, the Carthaginians defeated the Celts, occupied the three Celtic Islands, and built new cities on the islands. The country's population once again exceeded two million, and the small countries in the Mediterranean region had begun to recognize Carthage's status as a great power.

Finally, there is the Roman Empire, which is also the one that Antiochus IV envied the most. In recent years, the Romans have produced another peerless hero, Claudius.

As an international student, Claudius's ability is ten or even a hundred times stronger than that of his relatives.

Five years ago, Claudius led two Roman legions over the Alps and invaded the territory of the Gauls. He won battles one after another and carried out three large-scale battles in Gaul, defeating an army of more than 100,000 Gauls. He beat the Gauls so hard that they cried for their parents and voluntarily admitted that they were relatives of the Romans. He was despised by the countries around the Mediterranean region.

This region still values ​​blood ties more. After being beaten badly by the Romans, they still say they are brothers with the Romans. This seems a bit like begging for mercy when they can't win.

Claudius expanded the Gauls' territory into three Roman provinces and called on all Roman citizens who had lost their land to open up land in these three new provinces.

Claudius stipulated that in these three new provinces, each citizen could obtain one juge of land. This regulation caused a sensation in the whole of Rome. You must know that the inheritance law of the Roman nobility stipulated that the minimum inheritance property standard for a noble was two juges. In other words, if the area of ​​this land doubled, it would be enough for a Roman citizen to become a noble.

A large number of Roman citizens followed Claudius to expand the territory of the Gauls, and countless landless citizens regained their property, which released the internal conflicts in Rome.

(End of this chapter)