Chapter 892 Suzhou Canal Bijia Island is too small, one hundred and twenty-two kilometers away from Bijia Island is the Maldives Islands, and the arrival of the Ming army soon caused panic in the Maldivian royal family.As early as 1513, more than 100 years ago, when the Maldivian royal family was at odds over the succession to the throne, the Portuguese took the opportunity to intervene in favor of Kalu Mohammed on the throne and forced him to agree to the Portuguese colonizers to garrison the Malé garrison.Five years later, the Maldivians repelled the Portuguese and wiped out the Portuguese garrison in the Maldives until 1558, when the Portuguese landed in the Maldives again and established a small fortified trading post near Malé.King Ali VI converted to Christianity and became a Portuguese puppet.After years of guerrilla warfare under the leadership of the three Takurufanu brothers, by 1573 the Maldivians had expelled the Portuguese.The Portuguese were not reconciled to the defeat in the Maldives, and repeatedly regained their strength and attacked the Maldives, but at this time, there was a very powerful regent in the Maldives, Imadudin, who took advantage of the Wolmore Empire's involvement in the Maldives to lead India against Portugal.Later, in 1632, Imadudin overthrew the rule of Hassan IX and established himself as the Sultan of the Maldives, establishing the Udim dynasty.Now watching the Ming army appear on the sea surface of the Maldives, Imaduddin suddenly felt cold hands and feet, which is completely different from the original Portuguese war, the Portuguese invaded the Maldives at most, only nine warships, four or five hundred colonial troops.This time, there were as many as 1,000 warships that arrived in the Ming Dynasty, covering the sky and the sun, and there were Ming sail shadows everywhere.In addition to despair, it is still despairing.However, the Ming Navy did not officially dock in the Maldives, because it was too disappointed, and the tourism promotional pictures and videos in later generations blew the Maldives into the sky.However, watching the Maldives closely, Quan Xu was disappointed or disappointed.There were too many such islands along the way, and Jeon Xu was not interested in watching them, but the navy could not establish a future sea base, so they sent people to negotiate with the Maldivian royal family to buy thirteen adjacent coral islands northwest of Malé.These thirteen coral islands are not very large, even if they are not the largest, about 5.3 kilometers long, about 0.7 kilometers wide, and only three square kilometers in area, but this island is uninhabited, because there is no fresh water, but there is fresh water on smaller islands.The thirteen islands are less than ten square kilometers in total, and the Ming navy left a small force to be responsible for the construction, and the large force went directly to the port of Suez, that is, the port of Suzhou.On December 22, Quan Xu led an expeditionary force to the port of Suzhou, where he was greeted by the governor of North Africa, who greeted Quan Xu with as many as 20,000 civilians and troops, including eight or nine thousand merchants or common people, and the others were naval and army officers.In this era, being able to see the emperor is something worth bragging about for a lifetime.A major officer beside Liu Bingren sighed a little: "Our Ming Dynasty is not a battleship, why don't you allocate some warships to us in the non-Northern Fleet, if you give us forty-eight main battleships......"
"Don't even think about it!"
”Another regimental officer retorted: "Your Majesty's development strategy is to first be domestic and then abroad, besides, this broken place is also worth a little bit in the Nile Delta, and other places are either wastelands or deserts and Gobi Desert, and it is useless to occupy them!"
”"The two river basins are good!"
Liu Bingren looked at the voice of the voice that lowered his head and discussed: "Shut up!"
”All the soldiers hurriedly became serious."
Meet Your Majesty, Long live Your Majesty!""
Flat!"
Quan Xu's voice came out of the loudspeaker, which could ensure that more than 20,000 people could be reached.Jeon Wook was dressed in golden armor at this time and waved to the crowd.In fact, Jeon Wook wanted to wear an army uniform, but the Navy had an opinion.Yes, I had to compromise and wear Ming-style Mingguang armor directly, of course, this is also a kind of goods, and the plastic crafts of later generations are just painted gold.Don't look at this set of armor, it looks thick, in fact, it barely weighs ten catties.Quan Xu stepped off the battleship, and then followed Sun Chuanting to review, the navy and army, a total of six regiments of navy and army, held a small military parade on the dock of Suzhou Port.Subsequently, Quan Xu delivered a speech at the port, affirming the work achievements of the North African people, congratulating them on their achievements, and hoping that they would continue to work hard.The lunch meal was simply eaten in the Governor's Palace of North Africa, and Quan Xu stayed thirty miles northwest of Suzhou City, which is a simple version of the palace, which can also be said to have been originally built as a canal work headquarters.The original plan was to build a seven-entry courtyard, but because of the arrival of Quanxu, this engineering headquarters was temporarily transformed into Quanxu's Suzhou Palace.First of all, this is a small city, covering an area of more than 25 acres, of which the construction area is more than 7,000 square meters, the courtyard wall is made of rock cement, surrounded by a flat land, which can station tens of thousands of troops.The North African garrison is only responsible for the security of the perimeter, and the internal guard is the Royal Guard, which is the only army that is not subordinate to the General Staff and is only responsible for the protection of the whole Xu and the royal family.By the way, at this time, the crown prince Quanjing Liang, who served as the deputy commander of the first regiment of the first brigade of the Royal Guard, Jeon Wook was ready to take this system as a tradition.The commander of the second regiment is Quanjingyang, don't look at them as princes, they must also participate in military training, and they must also participate in the whole army competition.If the panorama is not qualified, he will be punished.Quanjing Yang has talent in this regard, only participated in more than half a year of military training, and Quanjing Yang basically reached the level of an excellent shooter in the army infantry.You must know that the standard for an excellent shooter is to hit the 300-meter target with five shots, and Quan Xu can't do this by himself.After Quan Xu arrived at the camp, he took a nap and began to familiarize himself with the process of the banquet in the evening, first of all, to understand the current stage of preparations, so far, the Ming army has occupied Damascus, through more than two months of war, the Ming army captured more than 70,000 Ottoman troops, these young men can be used as slaves, digging canals."
There's something I'd like to discuss with you!""
What?""
I want to go back to Venice!""
How do I get back?"
Helena said: "I want to go directly to Hanzhou Port from here, and take a boat to Venice from Hanzhou Port!"
”"Dinner at night before leaving?""
If I don't eat it, I don't want to stop for a moment!""
That's fine!"
Quan Xu asked Helena to prepare horses, including more than 100 of her entourage, and if she could ride a horse, she would ride a horse, and if she could not ride a horse, she would sit in a carriage.For Helena's urgency, Jeon Xu can also understand.Anyway, the next thing, Helena ginseng is no problem if she doesn't participate.Excavation of canals, in fact, there are no technical problems, especially for the Ming Dynasty, during this period of time the Ming Dynasty not only governed the Yellow River, the Huai River, but also the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River flood problems.As a later generation, the problem of the flooding of the Yellow River is actually due to the overexploitation of the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River, but in fact, these problems are not all the problems of the Chinese people, but because of the overdevelopment of the nomads in the grassland.The backward primitive nomadic way, especially the sheep breeding, like to eat grass roots very much, it is easy to eat the grassland into a desert, resulting in a large amount of water and land loss, thus causing the deterioration of the ecological environment of the Loess Plateau.Quanxu's means of governing this aspect are very simple and rude, and the same way as Sichuan Province deals with them, Gansu and Shaanxi Ming immigrants, especially the population of Shaanxi, the population of Shaanxi Province is now less than three million people, and the population of Gansu is even less, less than two million people.Moreover, the population of these places is not all the agricultural population, and the number of agricultural population in the Ming Dynasty continues to decrease, but the grain production continues to increase.First of all, because of the increase in meat production, the increase in the intake of oil, water and protein of the people, in the past, an adult man ate three liters of grain a day just to save his life, and heavy physical labor needed to eat more food, now ordinary people can eat three catties of grain a day.Through the management of local rivers and the training of a large number of advantageous water conservancy engineering personnel, more than 100,000 people came to North Africa and began to carry out work, topographic survey, and construction plan preparation.In the evening, the civil and military ministers of North Africa came to attend the banquet."
Boya (Sun Chuanting's character) came to North Africa, and she is still used to life, right?""
To be honest, I'm definitely not used to it!""
The empire wants to develop, and this is a very important part!"
Quan Xu took Sun Chuanting to the map, and drew a straight line directly from Suzhou Port: "From here to Suzhou Port, it is only three hundred and fifty miles, which is almost one-tenth of our Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal, as long as this river is opened, the distance from our Daming to Europe can be shortened by at least 20,000 miles!"
”"This, I'm afraid the technical difficulty is not low!""
That's right, our Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal is mainly for the passage of boats and flat-bottomed boats, as long as the water depth is more than one meter, you can barely pass, and it will not work here!"
Sun Chuanting thought for a while and said, "Then the largest transport ship in our Ming Dynasty is about 12 zhang 8 feet (about 30 meters) wide, so wouldn't it be necessary to dig at least 35 meters?"
”Quan Xu shook his head: "It's too narrow, you must know that a big ship of two or three thousand tons, if you don't pay attention to it, it will hit the embankment, I plan this canal, at least three hundred meters to be dug, and the water depth is at least ten meters!"
”"This, there's no need!""
It's actually necessary!"
Quan Xu looked at Sun Chuanting and said: "You know that we have planned to build a 5,000-ton ship in China, this kind of ironclad ship adopts two layers of iron-clad inside and outside, with wooden planks in the middle, with a total length of 46 zhang and a width of about 22 zhang, and the draft needs two zhang and nine feet!"
”"Such a big ship?""
Driven by a steam engine, the steam is getting bigger and bigger now!"
Quan Xu smiled bitterly: "You don't know, how crazy those craftsmen are!"
”Quanxu increased patent treatment, so Daming's scientific and technological development showed a blowout development, how many types of steel alloys and patents in later generations, Quanxu did not specifically check.But now there are more than 3,000 alloy patent certificates issued by the Ming Dynasty alone, and patents in machinery manufacturing are issued in units of 10,000 every year.Quan Xu sometimes unimaginable, although the Ming Dynasty did not succeed in developing a car, but someone successfully developed a steam engine car, and it is four-wheel drive, which can reach a speed of about 40 kilometers per hour.This steam car seems to be like a light truck in later generations, which can tow a four-wheeled trailer, and has completed the experiment from Beijing to Tianjin, attracting countless onlookers.Not only did the official shipyards of the imperial court begin to develop ironclad ships, but private shipyards also began to develop them, and a large number of machinery, the power of diesel engines is also getting higher and higher, and it is not impossible to transplant them to four-wheeled vehicles in the future.The large vehicle-ship diesel engine that Quanxu originally purchased from Weichai Power was also dismantled, and the only backwardness was that the power technology was still blank.It can be said unceremoniously that the current technical level of Daming steam engine is about to develop to the ceiling of the steam engine era, steam engine ball mill, steam roller, steam shield machine, steam crane, steam engine pump, steam lathe, boring machine, casting machine......
Many devices have never even been seen by Quan Xu, and they have been invented the same, and Quan Xu will not be surprised to invent an airplane one day.Therefore, digging a canal that can only pass small canal boats does not make any sense to Quanxu."
It's too technically difficult!"
Quan Xu said with a smile: "Professional things should be handed over to professional people to do, you just have to make requests, and leave the rest to the craftsmen to use their brains!"
”Quan Xu also participated in several technical meetings of engineers and technicians in Suzhou, where he was just an observer and let the craftsmen play.Xu Xixian, the general manager in charge of the canal project, proposed a construction plan.To put it simply, this construction plan is to draw a lattice.The whole river is divided into several grids, and each group of technicians, leading the craftsmen under their command, is responsible for the construction of the grid area, and at the same time, the soil dug out of the canal is directly tamped on the embankment.In the second half of December, we have entered the end of the year.No matter where it is, the people of Daming will prepare for their own festivals, and the most helpless thing for the people of Daming in North Africa is that there will be no snow in winter here.The only good thing is that it is hotter than Daming, and the cleaning and annual mortgage are provided, and the festival anger in the whole of North Africa is quite strong, and after the battle in October, there are 47,000 more free people in North Africa.They are no longer prisoners of re-education through labor, they are allocated their own land and houses, and they can live their own small lives with peace of mind.The streets are very rich in supplies, especially strawberries, mangoes, grapes, bananas, citrus, and dates, and there are obvious differences.In particular, there are many specialty fruits, such as custard and cactus.Quan Xu deliberately tasted it, sweet and sour, very refreshing.The point is, happy smiles on the faces of these people.Sanniang found some shallots, cut the beef, and chopped the shallots and beef filling very much, Quan Xu shook his head: "Dumplings without big meat fillings have no soul!"
”