"Not even the king!" Zhao Huang was the first to react, "In this way, Seleucus and India will be at odds with me." ”

"The Hundred Vehicles of India have rebelled, and none of the south of Kalinga is owned by the Indian royal court, so why is it at odds with me?" Xiong Jing asked rhetorically. "The Indian envoys urgently need the armor of our Chu State, and they need me to buy Indian rice to get gold and silver, otherwise how can we quell the rebellion? The Seleucid commercial tax was extremely heavy, and it was inevitable to buy my silk silk and sell it at a high price to the Mediterranean countries, and the sea boat entered the Mediterranean.

Now that all the seas and boats of all countries are sailing along the coast, a single gunboat can block the sea routes, and if they do not block the sea routes today to gain huge profits, they will have to send troops to India to grab the rice. How easy is it to ask about naval warfare and land warfare? ”

Silk is no matter how much it is a luxury, and with the number of armies of various countries, the potential sales of armor are less than 300,000 sets. Chu paper is even worse, books are the same as silk, they are things that can only be consumed by nobles, and they must also be nobles in the civilized world, tribal elders can wear silk, but they will not buy paper, so what can really make a profit for a long time is still spices.

Pepper, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg are the spices after the Middle Ages, and the most common spices of this era are frankincense, followed by myrrh, then pepper, then closed ginger, dried rosin, cinnamon, cinnamon.

Frankincense was produced in southern Arabia, later in the Yemeni generation; Myrrh is available in southern Arabia, but there are more in the Somali peninsula, and as the later Roman historian Pliny the Elder said, the quality of wild myrrh in Somalia is the highest. Pepper, like later generations, was only grown in Araba (present-day Kerala coast) on the west coast of India. Cinnamon and cinnamon were transported by Malays in canoes across the Indian Ocean from the South Sea to Somali ports, and at this time Sri Lanka had not yet introduced cinnamon and cinnamon.

The Alaba Coast is southwest of the Deccan Plateau occupied by the Baiyan, and control of this area has nothing to do with India; The Yemen region and the Somali Peninsula are all small city-states, not to mention the Chu army, as long as there are enough ships, thousands of soldiers from South Vietnam and Minyue can conquer and control. Once the Cape of Good Hope channel was opened, the spices could be transported across the continent to the Mediterranean.

An Indian pana is worth thirty-three yuan, and a drachma is worth forty-one yuan, and if one stone of rice is sold for one drachma in India, it will cost 54 million drachmas to feed the whole Chu country, that is, the annual trade profit should be 230,000 gold. It is difficult to build so many merchant ships on the East Asian continent alone and the manpower of wartime, but if you take into account the manpower and material resources of the Indian peninsula, it is not a difficult task.

Teak from India has been exported to Persia hundreds of years ago, and archaeological evidence suggests that teak from India has been found in the moon temples of Chaldea and Much, as well as in Nebuchadnezha's palace in Nineveh (the new Babylonian kingdom established after the fall of the Assyrian Empire, 6th and 7th centuries BC). It is not difficult to build as many cargo ships as possible to break up the Indian continent and use the gold and silver obtained from trade to dominate the manpower and material resources of the Indian continent.

After getting the latest information on overseas trade, Xiong Jing quickly came up with such an idea. He was not worried about Seleucus at all, he was worried about whether monopolizing the spice trade would make a huge profit of fifty-four million drachmas. In India, these profits were partly turned into merchant ships, and partly into rice, and then transported to the Chu state thousands of miles away.

Zhao Huang didn't know what Xiong Jing was trying to figure out in his heart, he was just worried that the state of Chu would fall into a two-front war. As an overseas intelligence provider, Wu Gou Chang reacted differently from him, and only said: "I think this matter is feasible." The south of the Red Sea Peninsula is a small country, and the east coast of Nanzhou is also the same, but the pepper producing area has Zheluo country, and there are tens of thousands of soldiers......"

"It's not difficult to do things in the kingdom of Zheluo." Xiong Jing said, "The pepper produced by Zheluo can be sold to our country, but Pandia ......"

Zheluo didn't have many ships, they were just local merchants, but there were many maritime merchants in Pandia, and if they moved the pepper, they would move everyone's money bags, and they would inevitably have to fight. The premise of monopolizing trade was the battle for trade routes, and the navigator da Gama, who opened the Portuguese-India route, sailed across the Indian Ocean with his fleet the following year after returning to Portugal, expelled the merchants of the Indian peninsula, and then set up a port in Goa.

Goa's location is very clever because pepper is grown entirely in the southern part of Goa, and the port here is a natural way to prevent pepper from being sold to the north. After the Battle of Diu, the Portuguese took complete control of the Indian Ocean.

The scale of the Battle of Diu was insignificant in the eyes of later generations, but this naval battle reversed the direction of the world's trade routes, so that the East and the West completely got rid of the unique geographical advantages of Western Asia since ancient times, and the spices of the East began to be transported to Europe by sea through the Cape of Good Hope.

"India's affairs are all in the hands of Ou Qing." Thinking of the Battle of Diu, Xiong Jing no longer cares about India, and India's warships that don't even have a collision angle are really vulnerable. "I don't think that Egypt should send an army against me."

The Battle of Diu was fought between Portugal and the Indian states of Venice, Egypt and Calicut on the other. Ptolemy of Egypt now controls the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, and the sale price of silk in the Eastern Mediterranean is estimated to have been taxed once by the Egyptians. If the spices are moved, the Ptolemaic cake of Egypt will be moved, and judging from the trend of the Egyptian navy once dominating the eastern Mediterranean, sending troops is inevitable.

Xiong Jing's analysis was naturally thought of, but he was not as sure as Xiong Jing. He said: "I have only heard that Egypt once hunted elephants in Nanzhou, and myrrh crossed the Red Sea Strait from the Cape of Nanzhou, entered the Nabataean Peninsula (Arabian Peninsula) and went north to the Nabataean ......."

The unhooked length depicts the trade route of spices, which is the land route. Xiong Jing asked, "How is the sea route?" ”

"There are boats in the Red Sea, but less than by land." No hook long way. "By land along the Red Sea to the north, there are deserts, but there are also oases."

"The Nabataeans also had to pass through the borders of Egypt to reach the Mediterranean." Xiong Jing said, "Business is the way of gold and silver circulation." To control the west of India and to the east of Nanzhou is to control the entire Red Ocean. Seleucus and Egypt are my enemies, not my friends. As soon as frankincense, myrrh, and cinnamon are brought into the Mediterranean without passing through the Nabataean Peninsula, and Indian pepper, ginger, and dried rosin are brought into Seleucid without passing through the Persian Gulf, the two countries will send troops against us.

Seleucus either sent troops to the west coast of India, or instigated others to send troops to the west coast of India. Even if Egypt does not send troops to the Red Sea, it should plunder our ships in the Eastern Mediterranean. Therefore, it is not surprising that three fleets are needed to guard the sea trade routes, one in India and the Persian Gulf, two in the Cape of Nanzhou and the Red Sea, and three in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea......"

The formation of gunboats is different from that of battleships. According to the tactics of artillery bombardment, the gunboats on the side of the enemy had to be engaged in a battle line to bombard the enemy ships. The undulating sea, and the galleons ramming at speeds of more than ten knots, resulted in a very low rate of hitting, and each gun had only one chance to fire, so five gunboats with sixty eighteen-pounder guns on each side had to be bombarded together.

Whether the firepower of the five gunboats was enough, there was no actual combat and test support; Whether a galley with a speed of ten knots will break through the bottom of the gunboat is also not supported by actual combat and experiments; In the end, there was no support for the attack of sixty eighteen-pounder guns to crush the galleys. All this is nothing more than speculation.

"Great King," Chang Jiang hurried in, whispering in Xiong Jing's ear. "Princess Qin."

"Oh. Qin Xiao ...... "The Qin army has entered Nanyang County, and the speed is so fast that all countries cannot respond, and at the same time as the Qin army entered South Korea, Xiong Jing received the news that Miqin returned to Chu, which is of course the last step of South Korea."

"Trade is about the search for the Mediterranean shipping lanes." Xiong Jing knew that Miqin should be in the Queen Mother's Ruoying Palace at this time. Monopolizing the spice trade is a big deal, and it is not something he can make clear in a few words now.

"Respectfully obeyed." Wu Gou replied solemnly, "Please sail to the south of Nanzhou at the end of this month." ”

"At the end of the month?" Xiong Jing groaned. The flying clipper ship is not suitable for a gunboat, but it also needs to be equipped with a few guns, and thinking that the six-pounder cannon for the construction of the mansion has been built, he nodded and said, "Yes." ”

"When it comes to fighting Seleucus, the king is asked to think twice." Zhao Huang continued to advise, "The thing of sulfur ......"

There were more than four tons of sulphur and about forty-five tons of gunpowder. Of course, this is still too little, this is only enough for an eighteen-pounder gun to fire more than 4,000 times, and only enough for a six-pounder gun to fire more than 12,000 times. If this figure had been used for battle, it would have been enough for sixty-eight shots of five gunboats to fire sixty-eight times, which was merely the consumption of one battle.

"There will be brimstone." Xiong Jing did not believe that the conflict with Seleucus would affect the supply of gunpowder, and even if the sulfur was not found in Yingzhou, the fleet would return home with enough sulfur before the fight. "Wait a minute, stand down."

"The ministers are leaving." The king obviously had something, Zhao Huang and the others retired with interest, and as soon as they left, Xiongjing went out of the main bed and went to Ruoying Palace. It is impossible that there are no palace maids in the palace, but Xiong Jing can't get close to women now, and the 'clan' beauties sent to him by King Wei are temporarily fostered in Ruoying Palace, so every time he goes out, two temple people run in front of the palace maids to disperse, and at the same time, the temple people will also tell Concubine Zhao, and Concubine Zhao will let all the women in the palace retreat.

I saw the temple people all the way but didn't see the palace maid, when Xiong Jing arrived at Ruoying Palace, Mi Qin had already cried with Concubine Zhao, and when she saw him coming, she wiped away her tears and got up, and Han Yi beside her was stunned.

"Does Jing'er want to save Zhao or do you want to kill Qin?" At night, after retiring everyone, Concubine Zhao asked her son.

Concubine Zhao obviously heard some rumors, Xiong Jing's face was difficult, and she only said: "Queen Mother, whether to save Zhao or not must be decided by the right dynasty, the child ......"

"You don't want your Xuan'er?" Concubine Zhao smiled and mentioned Mi Xuan. If the state of Chu chooses to go west to attack Qin, then Mi Xuan will not be able to take it back.

"What's the use of thinking?" Xiong Jing did not blame the queen mother for interfering in political affairs, Zhao was the queen mother's mother country, and the queen mother married into Chu to save Zhao, and her life remained the same. "If the dynasty decides to defeat the Qin ......"

"Yesterday Uncle Xiang said that I too." Concubine Zhao told who told her these things, "He said that Qin Ding couldn't save Zhao and wanted me to ......"

In order to go north, Xiang Yan even began to lobby the uninfluential queen mother, Xiong Jing said weakly: "The Chu State is not the Chu State of the Xiong family, but the Chu State of the surname Mi and the famous scholars. ”