Chapter 1872: Deadly Threat When Ibrahim Pasha asked the other party's population, he actually felt that he had lost his words.
As an envoy, he came with the goodwill of the Sultan, and it seemed very inappropriate to ask this abruptly.
Ye Chunqiu still maintained a calm look, smiled slightly, and said without hesitation: "The population registered today is two million.
As for the rest of the floating population, it is impossible to estimate. ” Ibrahim Pasha felt that there was a discrepancy in these words, after all, he was also a smart man, along the way, he had initially seen the prosperity of Qinglong, and estimated that the population of the other party should not be two million, but between three hundred and five million.
Of course, this is only a rough estimate, but since the other party said that the floating population cannot be estimated, but even if it is a population of five million, it is enough to make people gasp.
The population of the other side is only one-tenth of the population of the Ottoman Empire, but the output of steel is only 100 times that of the Ottoman Empire.
And the Ottomans were by no means an empire that neglected steel production, in fact, the Sultan's goal was to break through Vienna and enter the hinterland of the Francois continent, so the Ottoman Empire was preparing for war all the time.
And when it comes to war, it inevitably requires a lot of steel, swords need steel, artillery needs steel, and even muskets and artillery need steel.
In the Ottoman Empire, in addition to cavalry, there were also Sultan's personal soldiers who were specially equipped with muskets and artillery, and they were organized into the Sultan's personal regiment, the Experienced Sultan's personal regiment, the Guards Sultan's personal regiment, the Imperial Sultan's personal regiment, and so on, with a number of between 40,000 and 50,000.
The steel consumed by these musketeers alone had forced the Ottomans to tighten their belts and supplies, in addition to this, there were also a large number of cavalry and infantry.
The Turkmen cavalry had the deepest knowledge of steel, and they knew the role of steel in warfare, and when the Ottoman army captured the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire a hundred years ago, it had the most advanced army, armed with muskets and field cannons.
Although they were all relatively primitive firearms, the demand for firearms in the Ottoman Empire was even stronger, especially after the recent rise of Portugal and Spain, in order to compete for colonies in North Africa and win naval battles, a large number of artillery began to be installed on ships.
At this time, in the face of such a productive force in the country of Lu, Ibrahim Pasha was completely shocked.
Originally, one of the main purposes of this visit was to discuss with the other party about Persia, but in the next round of pleasantries, he no longer mentioned anything about the Persians, but asked about many things about the Lu country in a tentative tone.
And Ye Chunqiu seemed very patient, and took the trouble to answer Ibrahim Pasha's questions one by one, until it was getting dark, Ibrahim Pasha seemed to be unsatisfied with the arrangement to have dinner with Ye Chunqiu, and then went to the State Guesthouse of the Foreign Affairs Bureau to rest.
In the brightly lit state guesthouse, Ibrahim Pasha no longer had much to admire the beautiful decoration of this residence, he lay on the bed, but his eyes were open, his expression was complicated and unknown, and many doubts and thoughts passed through his mind, and this night, he could not sleep, and completely fell into deep thought.
Early the next morning, Ibrahim Pasha's face showed a little tiredness, but he couldn't wait to go out with his interpreter, and this time, instead of visiting the officials of the Lu State, he was visiting this Qinglong.
Ibrahim Pasha searched for a smelter, and then he had his interpreter negotiate with all he could, and finally entered the huge workshop.
With a strong sense of goodness, he saw the huge furnace, which towered into the sky, and the temperature it brought seemed to be able to smelt everything, and the ore entered it, and finally turned into molten iron flowing out, and countless craftsmen, in this steaming workshop, cooled the molten iron.
Ibrahim Pasha had to agree that this way of smelting can be described as extremely efficient, and this speed surprised Ibrahim Pasha again.
Because Ibrahim Pasha knew that in order to melt iron into molten iron, it would take extremely high temperatures, and all this seemed to be a common occurrence here.
From the smelter, to the steelworks, to the machine-building workshops everywhere, the hundreds of thousands of workshops in the region, the towering chimneys belching smoke, the sight of which made Ibrahim Pasha suddenly realize the origin of this huge steel production.
A steel-smelting process that Ibrahim Pasha has seen to this day, with a great deal of machinery, countless skilled craftsmen, and almost a thousand riches.
On top of that, he looked closely, and found that the steel here was obviously of different formulas, and that there were many kinds of steel, some suitable for the production of swords, some for muskets and artillery, some for forging mechanical parts, and some more suitable for rails.
Each type of steel has a completely different formula, and finally, different steels are transformed into a variety of different products.
Under the great shock, Ibrahim Pasha's initial idea was to learn.
Yes, he thought that this was a way to greatly increase the power of the Ottoman Empire, but soon, after being disappointed, only fear remained in his heart.
What he feared was that even if he was as powerful as the Ottoman Empire, he actually wanted to emulate, but he was afraid that it would be impossible.
There are too many advanced processes, from accelerants to blowers to the design of kilns, countless fine craftsmen have been cultivated, and of course, what is really terrifying is the countless gold and silver that have been put into it.
This is just a smelting workshop, the so-called industry of Lu is by no means as simple as a workshop, if you want to copy, even if it is just the simplest industrial chain, it is enough to consume the Ottoman treasury.
What's more, the real competitiveness of the other party is obviously not in this, but in its research institute.
It took half a month, Ibrahim Pasha traveled almost the entire Qinglong, from the bottom, he could clearly see that although the Ottoman Empire is called an empire, in fact, it is an alliance of nobles, this kind of loose alliance, it is impossible to gather financial resources to learn from Lu State.
After the sixteenth day, he took a quill and wrote a passage in his room: If you can't learn, then the threat to the Ottomans will be fatal, no, this is not the mortal threat of the Ottomans, but the whole world.
As a friend of the Sultan, a confidant of his confidants, Ibrahim Pasha frowned, and finally added: stop it aa2705221: