"General Commander, this is a secret letter from General Qu of the Navy's Western Fleet." In recent years, the Anxi Corps has basically been stationed in the two provinces of Persia and Kangju, and this time for the Tang Dynasty to go to Egypt Province to dig canals, the Anxi Corps will concentrate all the most elite troops in the southern region. And at the end of February of the twelfth year of the Apocalypse, when the Great Food Empire was sent to receive the first batch of new ordered warships, the secret letter sent by Qu Chengxing from Wolong Port was also delivered to Zhang Sheng, who was in the military camp outside the Persian Governor's Palace.

"It seems that this Western Fleet General System can indeed be regarded as a rainy day." Zhang Sheng took the secret letter and glanced at it and said with a smile: "Ling Ming, you work harder, lead the people of the headquarters to immediately enter the port wharf, and assist the personnel of the Thorn Shi Mansion and the headquarters of the Ma Family Shipyard to closely monitor them, and don't let these big eaters come into contact with our people, especially the skilled workers of the shipyard." ”

"The general system means that the big cannibals will take advantage of the opportunity to receive the battleship and think carefully?" Pang Lingming was supposed to be stationed in Kangju to prevent the Great Food Empire from counterattacking after receiving the tens of thousands of Jerusalem treasures brought back by the Third Brigade of the Flying Eagle Brigade in Kangju Province, but after the signing of the Canal Treaty, Zhang Sheng transferred him to Persian Province to garrison the southern coastline, focusing on this Persian governorate. Therefore, after receiving the order, he immediately led his troops to urgently enter the city, and immediately took over the daily defense of the Persian Governorate with field troops after joining up with Song Lingxun, and sent elite troops to be stationed directly in the shipyard to carry out key deployment and control of key areas and strictly defend them. Although some of the workers were shocked by such a strict move, the shipyard management obviously expected it, so they quickly pacified the workers, and the shipyard began to enter the regular process again, and after the first batch of six warships were sailed out of the shipyard dock for sea trial outfitting, the entire shipyard immediately began to build the next batch of warships.

"These are the six new warships sold this time, and they are now hoisting their guns and installing batteries at the port dock." After Zhang Sheng arrived, Song Lingxun called him to stare at the docked warships on the dock trestle in the distance on the high tower of the shipyard and said with a smile: "What does the chief general think of these warships?" ”

"I don't know about the navy, but Lord Thorn Shi, you see that our navy only has two warships docked, which means that the navy really doesn't really take this mighty-looking wooden warship in its eyes." Zhang Sheng said with a smile, he was just guessing at the actions of the navy. But in fact, the Western Fleet really did not pay attention to these wooden warships. This kind of wooden battleship is actually the kind of wooden-hulled cruiser that Li Xuanqing made in later generations, although it is equipped with new power equipment, but all the power equipment of the warship exported this time is specially made by the Shenzhou Power Manufacturing Plant, and outsiders do not know that these boilers and steam engines are all passive, and there are no people who understand the mystery next to them, and outsiders cannot disassemble them at all. Once brute force is used, it will inevitably directly damage the key equipment, resulting in the entire steam engine and boiler being damaged in an instant, and becoming completely irreparable. It was Li Xuanqing who took out the concept of this counterfeit steam engine and boiler and was forced to manufacture it by the Shenzhou Power Manufacturing Factory, so that China dared to agree to sell new warships to the Great Food Empire. However, in order to take care of the face of the big cannibals, the Majia shipyard still installed steel plates at key positions in the hull to ensure the strength of the hull, making these warships with a tonnage of more than 700 tons look very powerful, at least much better than the first-generation ironclad ships like the Fuxing class.

The next day, a group of generals and sailors brought by the Great Food Empire began to board the battleship one after another, while explaining the operation procedures of the battleship with the crew and sailors transferred from the navy, and on the other hand, they were also instructed to familiarize themselves with the various attributes of the battleship.

The generals of the Great Food Empire and the sailors who had been transferred from the Great Food Empire were all smiling after coming into close contact with this new type of warship, and they were eager to drive these warships back for training the next day. After all, the Great Qin Empire in the north has now destroyed the last stronghold of the Gauls on the mainland, and the remaining Vikings are being attacked by the two sides of Da Shi and Kiev Russia. And their own family knows their own affairs, and their own navy itself is obtained from the captured green-clothed and food-hungry at all, and the green-clothed navy itself is not as good as the strong enemy in the north, the other side not only has a mature naval combat system, but the most important thing is that the other side has a lot of combat experience, and its own warship manufacturing level is far above its own. In the event of a war, the superior navy will inevitably attack first to defeat its own navy, and then cover the landing of the army in Egypt, thus cutting off the land passage of the Great Eclipse, so that the eastern and western territories will fall into a separate situation. Therefore, the navy of the Great Food Empire is extremely eager for naval warships, especially these new warships in front of them.

Qu Chengxing, who was far away in Wolong Port, naturally didn't know the ecstatic expression of the admiral of the Great Food Empire who was in the port of the Persian Governor's Mansion at this time, and he was taking a battleship and Li Shaozhou to Suez City. At this time, the whole line of the canal was started, and the number of troops guarding the road was seriously insufficient, counting the group that followed him was already the third batch, so that the number of marines on the entire Suez City side had reached the number of three, and if other affiliated armies were equipped, it was basically a battalion.

"Our construction progress is still a bit slow." Lin Yuantu didn't care about the affairs of the army at all, anyway, the Marine Corps itself knew how to deal with defense matters, and he was discussing the progress of construction with Xu Anmo and Ge Chengyuan, the head of Chang'an Construction Company. He was still not satisfied with the progress of the river construction, so he was thinking about how to speed it up.

"Vice Minister, this place is very different from China, even if we solve the water problem, but the temperature difference between day and night here is very large, the temperature is very hot during the day, and it will be extremely cold at night, and we can work for less than four hours a day. If the construction time is extended, those people will not be able to stand it at all. Xu Anmo was also a little helpless, he had tried his best, but not only Lin Yuantu, but even he himself was not satisfied with this progress. This is already the beginning of February, if you do the math, from the start of construction to now, more than a month has passed, the real completion is less than five miles long, a large amount of sand requires a large amount of labor and machinery and equipment to dig and then transport out, but also need countless cement concrete and steel for river fixation. According to the standards of the Grand Canal in China, the labor force required for such a wide river is simply not enough for 100,000 people.

"It's just that we can maintain a maximum of 100,000 people at present, and if there is more, not only will the consumption be too great, but the most important thing is that the manpower we bring is not enough, and the building materials transported by the logistics fleet will not be able to keep up." Ge Chengyuan smiled bitterly: "Vice minister, if you don't think so, after I finish repairing this bridge, I will immediately dispatch people to help dig the river." Although my people don't know how to build canals, they are familiar with concrete laying. It can relieve you of some of the stress. Ge Chengyuan's words gave the two of them another idea, after all, it is still too late for the construction of the road to be built after the canal is completed, as long as the river can be repaired to the Great Bitter Lake, then the sea ships can directly enter the Great Bitter Lake along the canal that has been repaired, and the logistics materials can directly reach the next construction site. At that time, the construction company will be able to build the attached building on land with some of the manpower.

"Yes, you two can coordinate this matter. I'll immediately find someone to trust the Great Food Empire, and let them find a way to provide about 30,000 people to come. In this way, if we can add another hour of construction time every day, the speed will be much faster. It is not a problem to repair seven or eight miles of rivers in at least one month. Lin Yuantu nodded and said: "As for the materials transported by logistics, you can rest assured, the speed of material transportation on the imperial side will only get faster and faster, not slow, and the navy has also assured me that Suez City will not only be used as a port base, but also will purchase a large number of trucks from China to help us transport." ”

"In that case, let's split up." Xu Anmo nodded, he was the person in charge of the river construction, so he immediately went to arrange it.

In this way, the three of them continued to negotiate and optimize the shortcomings encountered in the construction process, but under the sufficient food supply, there were no major casualties among the 100,000 people, and in the desert area, there must be a sufficient supply of water in addition to food. Before Lin Yuantu's decision, the marines stationed at the source of the Abrim River completely changed the original direction of the river in the following time, and the entire original river channel was blown up by these guys with explosives, forcing the entire river to flow towards the depression they had carved out, and then under the non-stop work of the high-powered pumping machine, the water was quickly pumped to the distance and supplied to the canal construction site along the long cement pipeline. In the following period, in view of the increasing water consumption on the canal side and the fact that one pumping machine could no longer pump all the water of the Abrim Dry River in time, the Marines changed the original one to two, so that the entire water supply was doubled at once and the canal construction site was completely stabilized. In order to meet the needs of these steam engines, the Marine Corps even formed a special team, brought in more than a dozen large trucks to transport coal, and equipped each water storage point with special technicians for daily maintenance. It was also the actions of the Marine Corps that allowed Lin Yuantu to increase the construction time because water could help cool down, so he was able to avoid the high temperature taking the lives of too many migrant workers. Moreover, after the Great Food Empire began to deliver coal to the construction site, Lin Yuantu even set up several large boilers directly on the front line to directly boil drinking water for disinfection in order to reduce unnecessary attrition.

After the Great Food Empire began to provide coal on a large scale, the transportation capacity freed up by the logistics fleet began to increase the transportation of materials, and this alone made Lin Yuantu not only not have a shortage of building materials after adding 30,000 new laborers.

As of the end of March, when the first Senate election was held within the Tang Empire, the canal had been built from Suez City to the north for fifteen miles, and the wide and deep river began to stabilize after the thick cement concrete was laid, and along the back of the river about fifteen miles long, there were countless laborers who hurried to work in the morning and evening, just for the sake of such a river channel to continue to extend northward, and then meet with the southernmost part of the Great Bitter Lake.

"Deputy Prime Minister, this is a summary list of materials sent by the Canal Logistics Department of Persian Province this month, and the quantity provided by my northwestern provinces is not bad with our statistics." Qu Chengmei originally planned to go out, but the official document of the Persian province that the deputy hurriedly sent also arrived.

"Didn't this luncheon meat already build a big factory over there in Broken Leaf City last month? The order was placed over there, and the grain procurement was transferred from the warehouse directly under the northwest line. Or let the grain processing factories in Khotan and Anxi increase their horsepower to produce non-staple foodstuffs, and then send them all to Persian Province. Qu Chengmei took the larger purchase list attached to the back of the list and said with a smile: "This is really rich and easy to do, this money is used for large purchases in the northwest provinces, and it has also greatly developed the economy in the northwest provinces." At least these non-staple food factories and those new factories of milk powder or something, haven't seven or eight of them been built? Give them everything that is on the order. If it is insufficient, it will be sent back to the cabinet for procurement from all parts of the Central Plains. ”

"What the deputy prime minister said is, I have heard that even if these factories do not produce the materials and commodities needed on the other side of the canal, they will be directly transported to Daqin and other places along the northern railway for sale." The deputy is a confidant who has followed Qu Chengmei for many years, and naturally knows that he has put in the efforts of the head of his family for economic development since he was transferred to the northwest, so he is also sincerely happy at this time.

"It looks like the canal won't be built in a year or two. And the Great Food Empire has already provided enough people to go to the construction site, so you immediately give an order to the Persian Province in the name of the Northwest Expedition, and withdraw half of the 200,000 prisoners of war who originally remained in Persia, and I will continue to build the Western Railway, since we can build it to Whitewater, then we can continue to repair it to the west to Chel, and go northwest to repair it directly to the Volga region. Qu Chengmei said with a smile: "It's really thanks to the Great Food Empire that it can recruit so many people, otherwise, if even the workers need to be drawn from the country, this business will really not be worth it." "In order to deal with the fact that the Great Food Empire could not transfer the people of the motherland, the Northwest Xingyuan was to transfer all the remaining more than 200,000 prisoners of war to Persian Province, and now there is no need, except for leaving 100,000 people in Persian Province to carry out large-scale factory and mine construction and production, the remaining Qu Chengmei plans to take advantage of this year's financial abundance to complete the unfinished Western Railway again.

"Deputy Prime Minister Qiqi, the Ansibu Embassy is asking about the upcoming selection of parliamentarians, ask if we want to give an opinion?" The deputy went and returned soon after Qu Chengmei's arrangement, and also brought back another news.

"Tell Wu Tianlai to make the political envoy, just say that this is the election of the Senate and the two political parties themselves, and we should not interfere with the Northwest Xingyuan and the Gebu political envoys and the yamen of other state capitals. Elections have rules for elections, and we cannot interfere. Qu Chengmei nodded and said, "In addition, tell the responsible persons of the two parties in the northwest that I will invite Wan Dashuai to celebrate them after their election." ”

"The Senate has been elected, and it seems that the emperor's layout in the country has taken another step." Qu Chengmei smiled slightly, stood up and looked out the window and said to herself: "The northwest side is about to change, but this time my Tang Empire has long been ready, and the footprints left by my predecessors are about to go further." ”