In the world in 1885, no one considered the Sultan of East Africa to belong to the Ottoman Empire. From Sudan's borders with Egypt and French East Africa to the south, millions of square kilometers of land are covered with Chinese flags. The 14 counties of East Africa are truly controlled by China, and one of the most important ports in this vast land is Port Sudan.

Port Sudan, on the western side of the Red Sea, is a completely artificially opened port. When China opened up this wild land, the whole world thought the Chinese were crazy. There is no water source, no arable land, only the reddish-yellow rocks characteristic of both sides of the Red Sea. Such a large piece of barren land cannot see any value when it is carved out.

In recent years, explosions have not been heard much in Port Sudan, the stage of using gunpowder to open mountains and blow up rocks has passed, and the period of construction has begun. Port Sudan is located on a slope with several irrigation stations set up on a cliff a little further from the port area. The waters of the Red Sea are pumped high up the cliffs from several clean sources. It is a comprehensive treatment plant covering an area of nearly a dozen square kilometers.

Port Sudan has an average annual temperature of 29 degrees Celsius and a maximum temperature of 50 degrees Celsius, and the Chinese side has made full use of this natural endowment. High temperatures and high salts are extremely corrosive to metal parts, and China has made full use of gravity, corrosion-resistant glass, ceramics, and local rocks in the Red Sea. After nearly 10 years of hard work, the whole integrated treatment plant cleverly combines the collection of dried salt and distilled water. More than 4,000 tons of distilled water a day can probably meet the basic needs of the port.

But that's not all, these integrated treatment plants also offer a better quality product. Xiao Bailang is a native of Zigong, Sichuan, and his ancestral industry is boiling salt. After the liberation of Sichuan, the government blew up the piles, and large ships from the sea directly carried a large amount of extremely cheap salt up the river, and Sichuan's salt industry was wiped out in a very short time. Xiao Bailang did not resent the government because of this, and after the liberation, life was better everywhere, and Zigong was no exception.

He directed the black workers to pour a large amount of alfalfa and soybean juice into the pre-treated brine, and before long, a layer of foam floated on the solar-heated brine. This is the trick of Zigong salt production, which uses the protein in the legume plant to react chemically with calcium and magnesium plasma to separate it from the brine. Alfalfa in Sudan is extremely cheap, and it is one thing to sell forage for pasture, but it is another thing to use it yourself. After several years of experimentation, Xiao Bailang made full use of alfalfa, a plant with a high protein content, and used it with local soybeans, which greatly reduced the cost of salt production.

Mechanically operated, these more delicate brines flow into the next heating bath by gravity. After several tanks and processes, the final concentrated brine enters the final crystallization process. Black people in North and South Sudan were able to do the harder, slightly more technical work, including collecting salt, by black workers from Tanzania and Mozambique.

Xiao Bailang is an admirer of His Majesty Wei Ze, not only because of the policies promoted by His Majesty Wei Ze, but also because without His Majesty Wei Ze, Xiao Bailang would not have been able to go to junior high school and enter a technical school no matter what. For example, in the use of workers, the black people of Tanzania and Mozambique are docile and obedient, and as long as supervision is in place, they are willing to work honestly. In this regard, the Sultan, who is also black, is not the same. Letting those guys into the factory is no longer a tragedy, but a nightmare.

Xiao Bailang has encountered local black workers who pee on a pool of salt water out of God knows what kind of thoughts and impulses. Chinese come here to earn money, just like Xiao Bailang, the workshop director, earns 670,000 a year, and like other workshop directors, he has long remitted 300,000 yuan back to China. Sudan's salt works produce the famous "Poseidon" brand of refined salt throughout the Indian Ocean region and even in the entire Mediterranean. Although there is no "consciousness" of taking the factory as his home, the director of Xiao Bailang's workshop will never allow such a bastard.

The black worker was immediately arrested and given twenty sticks in front of the other workers. After emphasizing discipline to the other workers, the man was sent back to the tribe to raise cattle. Since then, in the factory's regulations, there is "no peeing on the salt pond, violators will be given twenty strokes and expelled!" ".

This is not the case with these black people from Tanzania and Mozambique, who knows how the local authorities got them here, and they all arrived with fear when they first arrived. However, after training and communication, they can also successfully undertake the work of qualified strong men. In the past few years, the smarter ones in this gang can even speak extremely broken Chinese, and their salaries have reached as much as 500.

At the end of each month, Xiao Bailang, the director of the workshop, thought that he would return to China next month no matter what, but when he got the check in his hand, he looked at the four-digit check number with the mantissa of three zeros. He sighed, thinking that he still had to earn another month while he was young. In the country, you can't get such a salary anyway. God knows how the whites, blacks, and Indians in the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean are so stupid, and the salt produced is not comparable to the "Poseidon" brand salt. China's Zigong salt boiling technology has an indescribably delicate harmony with the local seawater and soybeans and alfalfa, and the salt is not only fine, but also salty and mellow, and extremely inexpensive. Even if we can't talk about making money every day and making money at night, compared with China, the technicians of China's salt farms have also received a huge share of the local income.

Salt and distilled water are just the beginning of the whole of Port Sudan, and the distilled water enters the port area along the water pipeline. In addition to being sold, table salt is also used for meat curing in slaughterhouses. Alfalfa in the Nile Valley raises a large number of cattle, cowhides, tendons, horns, hooves, and stones found in cattle suffering from stone disease after "dissection". In addition to the beef is eaten locally, the rest is transported to the Mediterranean region by frozen ships for sale.

Frozen beef is already considered "fresh beef", and in addition to selling it at a high price in the Mediterranean, there is no way to store it for a long time. Among the food of the common people, the "Solomon" brand barrel corned beef has been stored for a long time and tastes delicious. In particular, under the gimmick of "Pleven Fortress Offerings", it is quite good to sell in the cities of the countries around the Mediterranean.

Thanks to the blessing of the 10th Russo-Turkish War, the Pleven Fortress is famous in the military circles of various European countries. The city's residents, who saw the war as a stimulus, also learned through the newspapers that the Ottoman army held out for two years against ten. In the opinion of the European people, the canned beef for this fortress should naturally be excellent. What's more, these barrels of corned beef do taste good, last a long time, and are very inexpensive.

In this era of economic downturn, very cheap meat is very marketable, and European countries on the northern shore of the Mediterranean try to impose high tariffs on this beef. As a result, transcontinental and transnational smuggling syndicates specializing in smuggling "Solomon" brand corned beef have emerged. That's what I eat.

The Industrial Age was an era of counterfeiting, but at this time, the African Governor Bi Qingshan, the "Lord", was in a very wonderful state of understanding. In the era of agriculture, there was also a lot of emphasis on brand and craftsmanship. Although the starting point is different from the focus on intellectual property at a certain stage of industrial development, the form is quite the same. In particular, Bi Qingshan and everyone in the upper echelons of Africa rely on brands for a large part of their millions of wealth, so Sudan's beef really has its own characteristics. The taste is good, the price is low, and even the counterfeiters are beaten to the ground.

The corned beef even made its way to Russia through the Black Sea, for example, on the tables of the Russian front-line command on April 4, when the "Solomon" brand corned beef was the main ingredient.

Russian generals are eating Salomon corned beef, and the generals of the Ottoman front command are also eating Salomon corned beef. In addition, there are canned products such as yellow peaches, oranges, and lychees from China on the table of the Ottoman Empire. There is even a cider vinegar drink produced in the northwestern and western regions provinces of China.

Although China's navy is in a very advantageous position in the Indian Ocean, it is not the Chinese military that really intervenes in the war, but China's industrial products. A considerable part of the artillery, rifles, and bullets of the Ottoman Empire came from China. The railways used by the Ottoid Empire to transport troops, weapons, medicines, and logistical supplies were also built by China. Their uniforms, food, and even cigarettes are also made in China. In the northern part of Mozambique, Chinese tobacco farmers have carved out plantations, and the tobacco is mellow and sweet. Even the Ottomans, who had a deep hookah habit, were very fond of it. Not to mention the daily necessities such as cool oil and wind oil essence used in refreshing and releasing mosquito bites. From generals to soldiers, they all carry it in their pockets.

Everything made in China is not expensive.

China had not shown interest in using force for several years, so both the Ottoman Empire and Russia considered the possibility of a Chinese military presence at a very low stage in the campaign. The idea of Russia was to completely block the communication of Azerbaijan with the Ottoman Empire, preferably to continue southward. Since there is no means to conquer the Pleven fortress for the time being, Russia is still discussing sending troops in Europe. In fact, Russia had a plan to raid the Danube region and send a surprise army to raid the Balkan Pass. But the Russians got the news that the Ottoman Marshal, the Ottoman 61 Nuri Pasha, known as the "Iron Wall Nuri", did not go to the Caucasian front, but personally went to the European region to strengthen the defenses.

The Russians, naturally, were relieved that this old adversary, whom Russia feared, did not appear on the Caucasian front. However, the "Iron Wall Nuri" is located in the European region, and the possibility of Russia wanting to stage a two-front attack has also been reduced to almost zero.

Eating dishes made with Chinese ingredients, both Russia and the Ottoman Empire were plotting how to achieve their strategic goals.