Li An is still very concerned about the affairs of Osman and Artik, with the help of these two people, he can achieve the goal of dividing the Arab world, if Mansour unifies the whole of Arabia, then it is definitely not a good thing for the Tang Empire, only a divided Arabia is the best Arabia.

Li Ang is very clear about the contradiction between Osman and Artik, he knows that these two guys can't pee in the same pot, and it is impossible to expect them to be in the same boat.

Fortunately, at present, their strength has increased many times, and they already have the ability to be independent, especially the 30,000 soldiers and horses under the command of the Ottomans are quite elite, and there is no strong enemy in the direction of Egypt at all, as long as the Ottomans are willing, they can easily sweep Egypt and realize their dream of establishing a country.

As for Mansour's elite troops, they must first defeat Artik's army and occupy the entire peninsula before it is possible to attack Egypt further afield.

Therefore, Ottoman is not afraid of someone attacking him at all, he wants to seize the time to occupy Egypt, and do a good job to consolidate his dominance, as for the fight against the Mansur group, that is the matter of Artik, he believes that with the support of the Tang Empire, Artik will definitely be able to repel the attack of the Mansur group and achieve the final victory.

This old guy sees the problem very thoroughly, he understands Li An's intentions very well, he knows that the Tang Empire does not want to see the unification of the Arab world, and wants to divide the Arab world, so it is natural to seek balance on all sides, and the Ottoman does not plan to unify Arabia, he knows that he does not have such a strong strength, and it is already very good to be the emperor in Egypt.

And Artik will not beg Osman to come and help him, Osman will leave when he is gone! It's not a big deal, if Mansur sends an elite army over, he will work hard to meet the enemy, anyway, in the name of Ibrahim, he has expanded his army a lot, has enough soldiers and horses, he is not afraid of anyone, in addition, the large number of advanced weapons provided to him by Ang Lee also provided him with great self-confidence, making him feel that he can fight against the Mansour group.

Li An looked at his heart and said: "Osman stayed on the peninsula and could still share the pressure for Artik, but now he is in a hurry to leave, so the pressure that Artik will face is much greater, I don't know if he can bear it." ”

The henchman said: "Li Shilang, there is another thing, there is a man named Ibrahim, fled from Khorasan, ran to Artik's army, was respected as a caliph by Artik and others, I heard that this person is the descendant of Ali, so the appeal is very great, now Artik is not what it used to be, there are 100,000 people under his command, and it will continue to increase, by the way, Artik has put forward more weapons orders to us, although he has expanded the army on a large scale, but the weapons are some unable to keep up, It has to be up to us. ”

Li An suddenly realized, nodded, and said: "I see, with the banner of Ibrahim, Artik has the conditions to gather people's hearts, no wonder Osman wants to leave, it turns out that Ibrahim has arrived in Artik's army, and now there is a good show, by the way, we must urge to speed up the production of military products, to meet Altic's demand for military supplies, if they can fight and lose, it would be great." ”

For Ang Lee, the greatest hope is that the Altic and Mansour cliques will weaken their strength at the same time, so that the Tang Empire can control them and make the Arab world never turn over.

The subordinates understood what Li An meant, and immediately went to the military industrial ship to arrange and recruit more workers to produce a larger number of weapons and equipment, of course, bows and arrows were still the main production targets, and the number of other military products was relatively small.

Li An's more concerned issue at the moment was to dispatch troops and horses north as soon as possible to occupy the Sinai Peninsula, which had already been negotiated with the Ottomans and Artik, which would be the land of the Tang Dynasty.

The reason why they have not been able to go before is because Osman and Artik have not completed their respective tasks, and it is not good for the Tang Dynasty to occupy the peninsula rashly, but now, the Ottoman is already on his way to Egypt, and Artik has also occupied the entire Arabian Peninsula, and it is time for the Tang Dynasty to occupy the Sinai Peninsula.

In addition, the purpose of the Tang Empire's occupation of this small peninsula is naturally to open up a canal connecting the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, so after occupying the peninsula, the biggest job is to carry out the excavation of the canal as soon as possible, so that this huge canal can be completed as soon as possible.

Of course, digging the canal is not an easy task, without a certain amount of time, and manpower and material resources will definitely not be possible, but the Tang Empire has time, as long as the funds and equipment are all in place, the canal can be excavated in a few years, so as to achieve the goal of connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean.

Li An can't leave Aden City for the time being, and there is a lot of work that he still needs to take charge of in person, so he can only send some advance troops and horses to the peninsula to explore the situation and make some basic preparations, such as determining the border line that the Tang Empire should have.

Because of the need to build the canal, the land near the west side of the peninsula needs to be divided more by the Tang Dynasty, so that after the construction of the canal is completed, the entire canal will belong to the Tang Empire, otherwise, if the Ottomans are allowed to get a piece of the pie, it will be a big loss.

The candidate for the advance team, Li An has already chosen, just let his brother Li Feiyu set off with a thousand soldiers and horses, in addition, some officials and technical personnel will also set off together, and the three military industrial ships will also leave Aden City, after all, Aden City is too far away from the city in the north of the peninsula, and it takes too long to transport weapons, and if it is directly transported in the northern part of the Red Sea, these newly produced weapons can be transported to Artik's army more quickly, thereby greatly increasing the combat effectiveness of Artik's army, Enabling it to stand up to the powerful Mansur Syndicate.

"Big brother, you're looking for me!"

Li Feiyu had just returned from the Keju arena, and his clothes were dressed more casually, of course, Li An didn't care about these and didn't feel that there was anything wrong.

"Huh! It's addictive to kicking and jujuing! Play this every day. ”

Ang Lee said with a smile.

"Big brother, we don't have anything to do in Aden City, so we're really idle and bored, so let's go to the game to play Keju."

Li Feiyu is really bored, but he feels comfortable playing ball.

Li An said with a smile: "I knew that you were idle and had nothing to do, and now I will give you a difficult task." ”

"Big brother, tell me what kind of mission it is, is it a war?"

Without waiting for Li An to finish speaking, Li Feiyu asked eagerly.

Li An smiled: "Why do you just want to fight!" It's not a mission to fight, it's for you to lead an advance team here, and the specific tasks are written down in a notebook. ”

As he spoke, he pointed to the Sinai Peninsula on the map.

"These places are all the territory of Datang? What if someone doesn't give it? Isn't it just time to start playing? ”

Li Feiyu still can't forget the war.

Li An said with a smile: "If someone dares to provoke the Tang Dynasty, of course they can fight, but if they can not do it, it is better not to do it, now that the north has been occupied by the Ottomans and Artik, the two of them will not be enemies of the Tang Dynasty, in this way, there should be no resistance, you just need to occupy the place I painted." ”

Li Feiyu glanced at the map, scratched his head and said: "Big brother, it's very easy for you to draw a line casually, but there are no lines on the land, if you occupy more or less, you can't rely on me." ”

"Don't worry, I won't let you go alone, someone is naturally responsible for studying the land, you only need to send troops to occupy it, and set up a sovereignty monument, there is no difficulty, if there are pirates and bandits who endanger the people, you can make your own decisions to exterminate them."

Li An said lightly.

Li Feiyu said with satisfaction: "Okay, since that's the case, then I'll go back and prepare, and I must set off as soon as possible to occupy all this large piece of land and turn it into the land of the Tang Dynasty." ”

After Li Feiyu left, Li An began to think about how to give the imperial court a twist in order to ask for more support, after all, the cost of digging the canal is very huge, and it is necessary to make the huge benefits that the Tang Dynasty can obtain after digging the canal clearly, only in this way can the officials of the imperial court understand the benefits of digging the canal, so as to go all out to show their support.

The benefits of digging the canal are obvious, first of all, after the canal is dug, the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea will be completely unimpeded, so that it will have an extremely important impact on maritime trade, will greatly promote the development of commerce, so that Datang's products can enter the European market more easily, and have great benefits for the expansion of trade.

Secondly, the opening of the canal requires a huge amount of money, but as long as the construction of the canal is completed and the merchant ships can pass smoothly, the construction cost can be recovered quickly, and the more merchant ships come and go, the more tolls need to be paid, and the faster the cost is recovered.

According to the current trend of commercial development, there will be more and more merchant ships in the future, so it is extremely cost-effective to invest in the canal.

These are all economic benefits, but the more important benefit than economic interests is political influence, if the Tang Empire can open this canal, then all the merchants who pass through this canal will understand that this is the convenience that the Tang Empire brings to them, so they worship the Tang Empire very much.

If you give this canal a resounding name, it can make people think of Datang, and the influence will be even more far-reaching.

The name of the canal that Li Ang initially thought of was the Datang Canal, and only this name was the most domineering name, which could well reflect the strong influence of the Tang Empire.

Li Ang is too clear about the benefits of digging a canal, so he can fully describe the benefits of digging a canal in detail, so that the imperial court finally agreed to invest their own resources.

However, after all, the excavation of the canal is a very huge project, in addition to the investment of funds, it also requires a lot of manpower and material resources, as well as a variety of advanced equipment.

In addition to the support from the Tang Dynasty, a large number of local manpower must be borrowed to make up for the lack of manpower, and all kinds of advanced river cutting tools can only be provided by the Tang Empire, and these need to be transported from the mainland.

Fortunately, along the construction of the state and county, a large number of various advanced equipment has been transported from the local area, Malacca, Anshizhou, Anzhu Prefecture and other places, there are a large number of Datang advanced machinery, and, through a steady stream of support, these places of various machinery, has a huge number to support their respective construction needs.

As long as Datang needs to build the canal, some of these machinery can be borrowed, and then transported from the mainland to replenish it, so as to speed up the progress of construction and allow the canal to be completed more quickly.

In order to connect the two sides of the canal, it is also necessary to build a large number of bridges on this canal, in addition to ordinary bridges that can be used for carriage and horses, but also to build high-specification railway bridges to meet the needs of future railway through the canal.

Although the railway will not lead to the canal for the time being, it will pass through sooner or later, and Li Ang has no doubt about this, so he needs to make some preparations in advance to avoid causing trouble in the future.

It took a lot of effort for Li An to finally write the fold, and as long as it was handed over to the imperial court, they would definitely agree to it.

"Come on, send this piece to the capital as soon as possible, there must be no mistakes, take the fastest route."

Li An ordered.

This so-called fastest route is to go to Anzhu City by sea, then ride a horse to the Tocharian area, and then take a train back to Chang'an City directly in Tocharo, as long as it is the fastest train, you can soon reach Chang'an City, and send the song to the hands of the imperial court.

Li An calculated, if the speed is fast enough, it will be able to reach Chang'an City in about ten days and half a month, and the imperial court needs to study it, and then issue a decree, but the time will definitely not be very long, it will only take about a few days, and when the holy decree comes, it is estimated that it will be about a month.

That is to say, Li An only needs to wait for at least a month to get a reply from the imperial court, as long as the imperial court can give a lot of support, the completion of the canal will be guaranteed, Li An believes that with the current financial resources of the Tang Empire, he will not care about the expenditure of digging the canal at all, compared to the benefits that can be obtained after digging the canal, this investment is really nothing, it is simply a big profit.

Ang Lee's side is still thinking about how to build canals and other facilities, and in the Khorasan region, Caliph al-Mansur, who has just taken office, is about to explode.

There are too many things that make him feel uneasy, first of all, Abdullah in the north also ascended to the caliph and made it clear that he wants to fight against him, and secondly, Artik and Osman in the south attacked him, not only annihilating his soldiers and horses, but also occupying the entire Arabian Peninsula, and the most fatal thing is that the influential Ibrahim actually fled, and soon arrived in Artik's army, and was supported by Artik as the new caliph, so that three caliphs in the Arab world took the throne at the same time.