Soon after Zhou Chenggong was successfully crowned king of Greece, he actually established contact with the Manchu Empire, and a secret agreement was reached a year later, Greece's biggest enemy must be the Ottoman Empire, so for his own safety, Zhou Chenggong has always regarded the Ottoman Empire as the biggest threat, and the secret agreement with the Manchu Empire is of course against the Ottoman Empire.

The Manchus promised to send troops to help the Ottoman Empire when it attacked Greece, in addition to hoping to establish close ties with the Chinese emperor through Zhou Chenggong's status as the eldest son of the Chinese emperor, attacking the Ottoman Empire would also be beneficial to the Manchu Empire. They occupied only half of the Lianghe Valley, and the Manchu Empire had already found that the Lianghe Valley was the most suitable area for agriculture in their territory, and occupying the entire Lianghe River basin was of strategic importance for their future.

It's just the system of international treaties reached at the Nanjing Peace Conference, and the Manchu Empire is powerless to fight against, but once this system is broken, they can attack the Ottoman Empire.

After the outbreak of the Sino-Tibetan War, after several months of preparation, the 200,000 Manchu Eight Banners Army entered the Ottoman Empire from behind and took the entire Lianghe River Valley. The Ottoman army was reforming, and the Manchu army did not stop reforming. As early as when Jiaqing was still in Ili, they learned the way to organize the armies and fight the whole of Europe by learning from Russia.

After the Crimean War, they found that there was still a big gap with the European armies, and continued to carry out reforms, introducing a lot of European military knowledge through the Black Sea region, and establishing their own military schools and military-industrial systems. To be honest, the current Manchu Empire is even much higher than the Ottoman Empire in terms of organizational power.

Because the burden on the Ottoman Empire is too heavy, complex ethnic issues, and religious issues make them like a classic car, which has been reforming and not being able to change well; The Manchus, on the other hand, were a new regime in a state of decay, and the Manchus had always had a very old experience in ruling the steppe peoples. Their dominance over the steppe peoples has always been comparable to that of Russia. Much smarter than the Ottoman Empire.

On the most troublesome religious issue, the two generations of kings of the Manchu Empire also learned from Qianlong a cruel but effective method, that is, the massacre of the Mongols, the subservient were organized into the Eight Banners, so that religion was completely subordinated to politics, and the disobedient were killed. As a result, through these methods, they successfully ruled the unruly steppe peoples and Persians in Central Asia, and organized them into the Eight Banners of the Hui and the Eight Banners of Persia, which, together with the Eight Banners of the Han Dynasty and the Eight Banners of Manchu and Mongolia, constituted the four cornerstones of the current Manchu Empire.

Of course, this system may not be absolutely stable, but compared to the Ottoman Empire, it is much more stable.

In recent years, the Manchu rule had declined slightly, because after the annexation of Persia, they had a long coastline, they could not organize the coastal population to trade, and slowly opened up to this, and now allowed a free merchant class in the territory. The Manchu government, which no longer had absolute control over commerce, was in fact less organized than it had been, and although its total wealth had increased, the government's ability to concentrate resources had weakened.

But they are still stronger than the Ottoman Empire, so over the years, they have been able to make the Ottoman Empire jealous but afraid to do anything to them with less than one-third of the population of the Ottoman Empire. Now it has directly entered the territory of the Ottoman Empire, hoping to seize the entire valley of the two rivers and give the country a grain producing area with good conditions.

The Ottoman Empire's defense in the two river valleys was not empty, on the contrary, heavy troops had been stationed here, but the number was only 30,000, and the deployment along the long Tigris River could not stop the key assault of the Manchu heavy troops. Soon they were between the two rivers, seizing land east of the Euphrates and up the river into the heart of the Ottoman Empire.

At the beginning of the war, the Greek embassy in South Africa began to form South African mercenaries, and a large number of slave repair teams received high military salaries and joined the Greek army, among which the officers were Chinese outlaws, black tribal leaders and tribal warriors, as well as European adventurers, most of the soldiers were local black soldiers, and more than half were slaves of those officers.

Such a mercenary force is considered ineffective in India, but it may be a lifesaver for Greece, which has no choice now. Moreover, the number of such troops was relatively large, recruiting 50,000 people.

Because the black mercenaries who had already proved to be extremely poor in military discipline in India and had a very bad influence would suffer a great deal of damage to Greece if they entered Greece to fight, Zhou Chenggong, who valued his reputation in Greece very much, did not plan to bring this mercenary back to Greece, but hoped that they could fight in other regions and fight in the Ottoman Empire itself.

To send this mercenary to fight in the Ottoman Empire, it means that Greece must land on the Ottoman Empire itself, and if Greece has this ability, it will not need to be defeated by the Ottoman Empire.

So Zhou Chenggong still needs to win over the alliance, an ally that can send mercenaries from South Africa to fight in the Ottoman Empire, geographically speaking, Egypt is almost a natural ally, they border with the Ottoman Empire by land, at this time the border between the two sides is drawn in the Syrian region of the Middle East, mercenaries can directly transit from Egyptian territory, and directly attack the Ottoman Empire itself.

However, the relationship between Greece and the Ali Dynasty ruled by Zhou Chenggong was relatively late, and the Ali Dynasty helped the Ottoman Empire to suppress the Greek Revolution.

It wasn't until Zhou Chenggong gained a firm foothold in Athens that he could take the initiative to get closer to Egypt despite the restrictions of public opinion.

This time the proximity was done through a European company threading a needle. European companies had a huge influence in Egypt and firmly controlled the operation of the Suez Canal. And the canal revenue is already the largest fiscal revenue in Egypt.

But the Ali Dynasty actually did not need Greece, even if they had a policy against the Ottoman Empire, but the strength of the Ali Dynasty alone had surpassed the Ottoman Empire. Therefore, even with the thread of European companies, it will be difficult to establish a relationship between Greece and Egypt. It wasn't until three years ago, after the Ali dynasty seized Syria from the Ottoman Empire, that Egypt began to follow Greece.

Ten years earlier, Ali had helped the Ottoman Empire suppress the Greek Revolution, and after the war had resulted in the collapse of the Egyptian navy due to the intervention of European powers, Ali demanded that the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II hand over Syria to him as compensation. Mahmud II refused.

This made Ali very dissatisfied, and after reorganizing the fleet and army, in 1831, Ali Pasha ordered his eldest son Ibrahim to lead an army to attack the Ottoman Empire and seize Syria and even Asia Minor. After six months of siege, the largest port in Syria, Acre, surrendered, and the whole of Syria was captured by Egypt. The Egyptian army continued its march towards Asia Minor, and in the Battle of Konya Ibrahim defeated the army personally led by the Ottoman Grand Viqi, opening the way to Istanbul.

Ali is a typical hero, that is, greedy and bold, but also cautious. Even though his army completely suppressed the reformed new Ottoman army, he continued to issue Ottoman currency in the territories he occupied, and used the name of Mahmud II in prayers, recognizing him as the co-ruler of the Muslim world as caliph and Egypt as a province under the Ottoman Empire.

The purpose of this was to depose the then Sultan Mahmud II and let the Sultan's son, Abdul Mejid, who was still an infant at the time, to replace him, so that Ali would take control of the Ottoman Empire.

This political tactic of trying to disguise the war as a civil war still attracted the intervention of European powers, and Russia, fearing that the emerging Egypt would be more difficult to deal with if it replaced the Ottoman Empire, began to provide military assistance to the Ottoman Empire. At the same time, he mediated the war between Egypt and the Ottoman Empire.

With the mediation of Russia, the two sides reached a peace agreement. The Ali dynasty failed to completely manipulate the power of the sultan by deposing Mahmud II. However, as compensation from Syria, the Ottomans had to appoint Ali's son Ibrahim as governor of Syria and recognize the Arab Peninsula as Egyptian territory.

The Ali dynasty is a very worthy object, as long as it can ally with the Ali dynasty, Greece is almost invincible, and it is a new army that imitates the establishment of the West, and the Egyptian army is obviously stronger than the Ottoman army. As long as Egypt entered the war and attacked Asia Minor from the direction of Syria, the Ottoman Empire was on its back, and it was almost impossible to have the energy to attack Greece.

The question is why the Ali dynasty wants to help Greece, and what benefits Greece can give them to ally with Greece. You must know that Egypt is not a Manchu Empire, it is not connected to China's territory, and it has no unforgettable fear of China, only that it is a country that is more powerful than a European power, and it does not dare to provoke it, nor will it kneel and lick.

Zhou Chenggong did enough to find out Ali's deep worries and desires, this person is obviously stronger than the Ottoman Empire, but he did not stand on his own, Zhou Chenggong thought at first that Ali was worried that breaking away from the Ottoman Empire would cause an attack by the Ottoman Empire, and later the strength shown by the Egyptian army let him know that this possibility did not exist; Zhou Chenggong also speculated whether he did not dare to break away from the Ottoman Empire, which had the name of caliphate, because he was worried about the religious forces in the country, but he found that Ali had a tighter control over the religious forces in Egypt than the Ottoman Empire. If the religious forces in Egypt were able to influence Ali's power, Ali would have to secede from the Ottoman Empire, because if not, the Ottoman Empire might use religious power to interfere with the Ali dynasty.

All evidence shows that Ali had in mind not just an Egypt, but the entire Ottoman Empire, and he wanted to be the successor of the entire Muslim world and become the next Ottoman Empire, so his goal was not to destroy an Ottoman Empire, but to replace this Ottoman Empire.

After figuring out this truth, Zhou Chenggong immediately did what he liked and offered to support Ali to become the caliph of the Muslim world!

But this statement alone is impossible for the extremely pragmatic Ali to accept, because a small Greece expressed support for Ali to become a caliph, just like during the Warring States period, the Dog Rong tribe ran to tell Qin that they were willing to support the king of Qin to replace Zhou Tianzi.

The King of Qin may have the strength and ambition to replace Zhou Tianzi, but he has to take into account the consequences, Dog Rong has nothing to do with Zhou Tianzi, and he does not have any ability to substantially help the Qin State, in this case, how could the King of Qin agree to cooperate with Dog Rong to deal with the Zhou Dynasty.

Therefore, it is natural that the Ali dynasty never agreed to cooperate with Greece, and at this time Zhou successfully recruited 50,000 mercenaries, and without the cooperation of Egypt, they could not even be transported to the territory of the Ottoman Empire to fight.