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Egypt's power has passed to the fifth monarch Ismail, and in the era of Ali, Egypt has reached the peak of glory, not only ruling the vast Arabar region, including the Alaper Peninsula, but also snatching the title of caliph from the Ottoman Empire, and committed to rebuilding the glory of the Alaper Empire.

However, after Ali, it continued to decline, and the government-run industrial system created in the Ali era, which maintained industrial production by extracting farmers, basically went bankrupt in the later part of the Ali era. Under the onslaught of the commodities of other industrial countries, mainly those of Europe, it is impossible for Egypt to give birth to its own industry. The inefficiency of the government-run industry is such that even the local people are not happy to use the government-run products. In the second generation of monarchs, the government-run factories were basically closed, leaving only a few strategic industries such as arsenals and shipyards, and factories such as cotton textile factories and quilt factories were either closed or sold.

Although China controls the Suez Canal, in fact, there is not much investment in Egypt, and there is not much import of goods, because it is too close to Europe, and the reason why France can form a capital advantage in Syria is because France is only separated by a Mediterranean Sea from here, and from China to Egypt, it has to pass through the South China Sea, which is larger than the Mediterranean, then the Indian Ocean, and then the Red Sea.

As a result, after the bankruptcy of the government-run industry, it was difficult for Egypt's industry to develop, and with the exception of a small number of primary processing industries such as spinning mills, Egypt was basically an agrarian country that was maintained by exporting agricultural products from the Nile Delta.

Fortunately, the Chinese-managed Suez Canal is becoming more and more efficient, bringing in tens of millions of pounds in profits every year, and according to the agreement, the Egyptian government can get a share of five million pounds. That's a very impressive figure, basically more than half of his income for an agrarian country like Egypt.

The European companies that manage the canal also enjoy a special status in Egypt.

However, Egypt still cannot get rid of the penetration and influence of Europe, France invests in Syria and other Middle East coastal areas, Britain directly invests in Egypt itself, France monopolizes the railway east of the Suez Canal, Britain monopolizes the railway west of the Suez Canal, Britain also penetrates from Egypt into the interior of Africa, develops minerals in Sudan, and monopolizes several copper mines; France, for its part, developed potash in Syria.

Due to the infiltration of Britain and France, and the fact that Egypt, although relying on European companies, is actually eyeing the Suez Canal and dreaming of taking it back, they actually intend to promote the balance between European power and Chinese power in Egypt.

As a result, in the hands of the fifth generation of Egyptian rulers, his ideas were very Westernized, very close to Europe, and openly declared, "My country will not exist in Africa forever, we are already part of Europe." We have to abandon the old ways and adopt a new system adapted to the conditions of society. ”

The reason why he is pro-European, on the one hand, is that the Ismael family itself is Albanian, is an indisputable European, on the other hand, he received a systematic education in Paris, so he is quite advocating those ideas of the French Revolution, a French Revolution, brought a huge ideological impact to the world, and its influence far exceeds their national strength, not to mention Egypt, that is, China, there are also a large number of elites infected by the spirit of the Great Revolution, which is still in the case of China's strong national strength, Egypt's national strength is weak, It is impossible for Egyptians to have any cultural self-confidence.

So after Ismail came to power, he made a lot of reforms, reformed the customs and postal systems, encouraged commerce, and established the sugar industry. Large-scale construction of public works, the construction of a city in imitation of Paris at the western end of the capital Cairo, the improvement of Alexandria, and the construction of railways on a large scale, Egypt and Sudan developed from the original state of no railways to the densest areas of railways in Africa.

It is very difficult to carry out construction on such a scale as an agricultural country, and Egypt's finances cannot support it at all, so Egypt's foreign debt is very large, and the scale of foreign capital is also very large. It can be said that these constructions are built on the basis of high debt and foreign capital.

Foreign capital is a good thing, but if it is used as a supplement to domestic capital, it is very good, it can bring new technologies, new management methods and ideas, but if foreign capital becomes dominant-level capital, it will be greatly disadvantaged, it will cause a large outflow of profits, and the country will become a colonial economy and continue to lose blood. In the late 19th century, a large country like Russia experienced rapid economic development under a large amount of foreign investment, but after the outbreak of the economic crisis, a large amount of foreign capital was withdrawn, which led to the outbreak of revolution in Russia.

Ismail has now been in power for a decade, and most of the reforms he can make have been carried out, even establishing an Egyptian parliament.

But he is far from his ideal state, and the different cultural and historical backgrounds have led to various problems. The large amount of foreign debt and foreign capital has seriously suppressed the accumulation of Egypt's own capital.

But it was too late to change, because Ismail found that Egypt was powerless to resist. It owes more than 300 million pounds of debt to Britain, France and China, and the debts of European companies are guaranteed by canal revenues, but the debts of Britain and France can only continue to mortgage minerals and other resources, and even customs are now controlled by British, French and European companies.

Unable to receive direct revenue from the canal's revenues, the proceeds were used to pay off debts, and tariffs were largely taken away by the three countries, which led to Ismail's exclusion of both European companies and Britain and France, economic difficulties, and the modernization of several generations of monarchs, and the xenophobia of Egypt's nascent nationalists was on the rise.

Demand for the recovery of the canal, the recovery of customs, the recovery of the railway, the recovery of minerals. At this time, Ismail was scared, and he thought about taking back these things, but if he did this, it was estimated that Egypt would be finished. The embarrassment of a backward country lies in this: if it does not develop, it will be a dead end, and if it develops, the contradictions will intensify. Unless you grit your teeth and rush to the camp of advanced countries in one go, one pause will be a catastrophe. Either because of development, igniting contradictions, society collapsed, plunged into a long period of insurrection and chaos, and most of the countries of Africa and the countries of Alaber later fell into such a predicament. Either after a pause, they can no longer accumulate strength and fall into long-term stagnation, as is the case in South American and Southeast Asian countries such as Argentina and the Philippines, which have been trapped in the middle-income trap for a long time.

Because Ismail did not dare to argue with the three major powers of the world at the same time, on the contrary, the national elite cultivated in his reforms began to be dissatisfied with him, attributing Egypt's poverty to Ismail's weakness.

The ideology of the Great Revolution was a double-edged sword, which inspired strong nationalism and was the driving force for reform, while at the same time, the overly strong national and patriotic sentiments lost their rationality and hurt others and themselves.

In recent years, Ismail has been able to suppress the national movement, becoming anxious about nationalist sentiments, and at the same time strengthening religious beliefs, hoping to unite all ethnic groups through a common spirit of Islam.

This situation was finally changed after the war between Germany and France. Just as during the First World War, China's national industry got a huge opportunity for development, after the outbreak of the German-French War, British and French goods could not continue to dump in the Egyptian market, and British and French capital could not continue to invade Egypt, and even began to retreat from Egypt, selling a large number of assets cheaply.

As a result, the Egyptian textile industry, which had been struggling to survive, got a respite, not only completely monopolized a market that had been monopolized by Britain and France in the past, but even because Britain and France were in the middle of the war, Egyptian products could be exported to Europe. For example, the spinning and textile industries based on Egyptian cotton, and the flour processing industry, which processed Egyptian wheat, began to flourish.

In fact, this is not only an opportunity unique to Egypt, but also for countries that have not participated in the war to enjoy the market space left by the withdrawal of European capital and goods. It's just that Egypt is close to the water, and with a certain foundation, it is developing extremely fast. After a year of war, Egypt quickly became the world's leading importer of machinery.

The rapid development of the economy, the financial has also been greatly improved, coupled with the war between Britain and France, the pound and the franc have depreciated sharply, and the debt denominated in pounds and francs has shrunk greatly, and the pound is quite stable for the time being, but the franc has entered the stage of printing money and injecting water, and in the international market, the value of the franc banknotes has depreciated sharply, and Egypt has taken advantage of the improved finances to purchase these cheap francs and repay a large amount of foreign debt.

At this rate, Egyptian financial advisers believe that Egypt is likely to pay off its French debt in two years and the British debt in three years.

However, Britain and France still hold a large number of fixed assets in the Egyptian Empire, such as railways, mines, and even ports, which will not shrink, and Britain and France are willing to sell these assets in the case of tight funds, but the problem is that Egypt cannot afford them.

The only ones who can provide financial support are European companies, but China has also entered the war, and the acquisition of these British and French assets by Egypt is equivalent to raising war funds for Britain and France.

As a result, the main railways and minerals remained in the hands of Britain and France.

Finally, after the crown prince approved the plan for advancing the sea and land developed by the sailors, the European company made such a proposal to Egypt, declared war on Britain and France, and then froze or even forcibly confiscated British and French assets.

To be honest, Egypt was very impressed, but Ismail did not immediately agree.

The Ali family was very cautious, which is why the Ali family was able to rise while the Ottoman Empire declined, because Ali was very good at compromising with the great powers. This is true of Ali, and the same is true of Ismail, who can say that Egypt is a European country.

It would be good if it could confiscate the assets of Britain and France by declaring war, but the war of the great powers is a game of lions, and Ismail knows that although Egypt has a huge territory and a large population by chance, it is only a weak fat sheep. In the hunting grounds where lions fight, the farther away they hide, the better.

The Ottoman Empire is a lesson in point!

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