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The tiny country of Britain once controlled almost all the world's important sea routes and colonies that were nearly 200 times larger than its own mainland. The period of its control was so long and the impact was so far-reaching.
So, with Daqin's current strength, can't it do this
In terms of technology, the Qin Dynasty is already far ahead of the West. In terms of shipbuilding and weapons, it is also far ahead. Now the Military Equipment Bureau has produced muzzle-loading rifled cannons, which have a longer range and higher accuracy.
Moreover, a breech-loading rifled cannon is being developed, which has been successfully achieved after a huge investment of manpower and material resources.
More importantly, under the strong promotion of Emperor Qin Mu, mathematics, physics and chemistry have begun to become popular. With China's huge population base, the emergence of engineering talents will surely be unmatched by other countries, and natural science and technology will surely experience explosive development.
The prosperity of maritime trade accelerated the accumulation of capital, and the industrial revolution was bound to come quickly.
In addition, under the leadership of Qin Mu, the national awareness of maritime power is constantly strengthening. With strong national strength, it may not be difficult to dominate the world like Britain.
If we want to control maritime hegemony, Suez is a place that cannot be ignored.
Qin Mu's original plan was to force the Ottoman Empire to cede the Suez region through Li Ding's campaign, but now it seems that this is no longer possible.
From the words of this scholar, it can be seen that the Ottomans have seen the root cause of the empire's decline, and they have begun to strengthen naval construction in the Arabian Peninsula, which further proves that the words of this scholar have been recognized by the Ottoman high-level officials.
Although the Ottoman Empire and the Safavid Empire were both countries in the Islamic world, the strength of their navies was very different due to their different environments.
The Safavids' main enemies were the Ottoman Empire and the Uzbeks, with whom they had an on-again, off-again relationship with the Mughal Empire. These threats came from land, so the Safavids put all their energy into building up their army. The navy was very weak, and it was easy for the Qin Empire to bully the Safavid Empire.
The Ottoman Empire's capital, Istanbul, is located on the strait, and the entire southern coast of the Mediterranean is also its territory. All of these require a strong navy to resist attacks from the Christian world.
Therefore, the Ottoman Empire attached great importance to naval construction, and their navy was strong enough to compete with the navies of Spain and many European countries in the Mediterranean.
In the Red Sea region, they also maintained a relatively strong naval force, and once even reached the island of Sumatra in Southeast Asia to help the small Islamic countries on the island resist the invasion of Europeans.
However, before the Qin Dynasty's ocean-going fleet advanced into the Indian Ocean, the main naval force of the Ottoman Empire in the Indian Ocean was defeated by the Dutch, so they were relatively quiet in the Indian Ocean for the past year.
Now the Ottoman Empire understood that the Red Sea trade route was related to the rise and fall of the entire country. It would certainly not be easy to regain the trade route between the East and the West and expect them to give up Suez.
Moreover, if such a huge empire fully develops its navy, it will pose a great challenge to the Qin Dynasty in the Indian Ocean. This is of course something Qin Mu cannot tolerate.
The Suez region must be taken.
The question is how to take over the Suez region
Suez is too far from Daqin. As the saying goes, a lean camel is bigger than a horse. The Ottoman Empire is so huge and values this place so much. Even if the navy's warships go there and temporarily seize this area, the Ottomans will definitely fight to take it back. At that time, they will have to station troops on a large scale, and the war in the Suez area will continue.
In this way, the Qin Dynasty would spend a lot of energy and wealth in this place. Therefore, it is not a good idea to seize it by force through war.
The left assistant minister of the Ministry of War said: "Your Majesty. If our Great Qin sends troops to directly seize the Suez region by force, there will be many troubles and hidden worries. I have studied the Ottoman system. The Ottoman rule over such a vast territory mainly relies on the Timar system. This is a ruling system similar to feudal fiefdom.
The Ottoman Sultan awarded land to meritorious soldiers as compensation for their military service. Timar territories were usually divided into two types according to the amount of income:
Those with an annual income of less than 20,000 akches (small silver coins) were called Timars, and their lords were called Timarzhe; those with an annual income between 20,000 and 100,000 akches were called Zeamets, and their lords were called Zaims. Both were collectively called Sipahis, or feudal cavalry.
Their possession of the territory was conditional. In addition to being called upon to fight in wartime, they also had to provide a certain number of cavalrymen according to the income of their territory, usually one for every 3,000 to 5,000 akche. The horses, weapons, and food of the cavalrymen were all provided by the lord.
The lord usually lived in the manor. In addition to cultivating a certain amount of land, he also supervised the use of the land and the payment of rent and taxes by the peasants. The state exercised strict supervision over their manor. The lord should distribute most of the manor to the peasants for hereditary cultivation and should not confiscate it at will.
The land managed by the lord himself cannot exceed the peasants' share of land; except for a small and strictly stipulated small part of the estate, the estate cannot be inherited; the legality and amount of taxes levied by the lord are subject to the supervision of the qadi (judge).
These regulations not only restricted the unlimited expansion of the lords' land, making it possible for the state to frequently recover part of the land for redistribution, but also adjusted the relationship between the peasants and the feudal lords to a certain extent.
In the early days, the Ottoman Empire continued to expand abroad, and the lords mainly relied on spoils of war to make their fortunes, and did not regard real estate as the main source of income. They were usually limited to collecting rent and playing the role of political lords.
But now, with the gradual weakening of Ottoman power and the shrinking of its military capabilities, the Timari lords in various places can no longer live a rich life relying on spoils of war, but can only rely on taxes.
However, the amount of taxation was strictly monitored by the Grand Judge, and the prices in the Ottoman Empire continued to rise, and the cost of maintaining troops for the Timari lords increased dramatically, causing many lords to go bankrupt.
The Sultan had already stipulated that if any Timari lord failed to maintain an insufficient number of troops or to prepare sufficient food and fodder for three consecutive years, his fiefdom would be reclaimed. Many Sipahi cavalry lords could not continue to run their business and fled to the border to rebel. As a result, there were constant rebellions in the Ottoman Empire over the years.
If our dynasty can formulate some targeted strategies and support some Timari lords to rebel in the Suez region, and form one or two small countries in the future, with these small countries as barriers, after our dynasty seizes the Suez region, we will not have to worry about being repeatedly attacked by the Ottoman army. "
The Suez region is one of the areas that the Ottomans focus on controlling. Without the support of external forces, it would be difficult for the Sipahi cavalry lords who were forced to rebel to gain a foothold in this region.
It is worth mentioning that the Ottoman Empire was not the only cavalry that used cold weapons. Their history of using firearms was similar to that of Europeans. The seventh Ottoman monarch, Mehmed II (March 30, 1432-May 3, 1481), used artillery extensively in the war to conquer Byzantine Constantinople.
The cannon forged by Mehmed II was called the Urban Cannon. It was 9 meters long and had a caliber of 30 inches, enough to easily fit a big man into the barrel. The cannonball it fired weighed 680 kilograms and had a range of more than 1.6 kilometers.
Mehmed II built a total of fifty or sixty large and small cannons to attack Constantinople, and only then did he capture this European bridgehead.
At present, the Ottoman Empire’s firearms technology is not much worse than that of European countries, so it can use the power of one country to suppress most of Europe.
However, like most European countries, the Ottoman soldiers now used smoothbore muskets and smoothbore cannons, which were incomparable to the rifled muskets and rifled cannons used by the Qin army.
The Qin navy went to the Suez region to support the local Sipahi cavalry lords in their rebellion and to undermine the Ottoman Empire's rule in the Suez region. This idea was very much to Qin Mu's liking.
What the Qin Dynasty wanted was not to occupy a large amount of land in the local area, but to control this important passage.
It is very cost-effective to spend some money and let the local lords fight the Ottomans to the death!
Qin Mu thought for a while and said, "Let Hai Rufeng do this. If he does a good job, he will be rewarded. If he doesn't do a good job, he will no longer be the admiral of the ocean-going fleet."
He Liang, Di Zhongxing and others looked at each other. It seemed that the emperor was still brooding over the fact that Hai Rufeng was about to quit his job because of a woman!
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(To be continued…)
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