"Well, maybe, but it's not very likely. I want to ask you, since the establishment of the City Ship Division in the Great Song Dynasty, has there ever been such a huge caravan? The clan of the Lao Mai family is not small in the big cannibals, they are trying to shake out all the family resources, at most ten boats come out, and more than forty big boats at once, I'm afraid their king will have to travel, right? Do you think the Great Food King is going to make a pilgrimage to the Great Song Dynasty? Or is it tributary? In the past two years, Hong Tao has had a lot of contact with the maritime merchants of the Southern Song Dynasty, and he also learned about some of the overseas trade of the Southern Song Dynasty from their mouths, especially the Pu family. At best, they came four or five ships a year, and at most ten, and they were diverted to the two ports of Guangzhou and Quanzhou, and there had never been any more cases.

"Sir thinks they are the sailor's boat? …… Did you go to attack the port of Kabaran? Wen Nan was finally persuaded by Hong Tao, because Hong Tao used the elimination method to eliminate the other ones with low probabilities, and the last one with a high probability was naturally close to the truth.

"It's hard to say, I'm just guessing, the distance is too far to see their banners clearly, maybe it's a big move of the human family or a big food prince's trip. It doesn't matter, let's just wait and see, friends come with good wine, enemies come with bows and arrows, I can catch them! "Hong Tao didn't pretend to be a prophet, he really couldn't be sure what this fleet was doing, but he had the patience to wait and watch, this is called strength! The strength of the hard Bangbang!

The port of Cabaran in March, like the port of Canton in October, is a good season to sail, at this time bring cotton, camphor, spices, precious stones and horses, all the way east through the Strait of Malacca, and then take advantage of the very trustworthy southeast trade winds, along the east coast of the Malay Peninsula and the coastline of Vietnam, you can run to the southern port of the Great Song Dynasty in one breath. Sell the ship's goods. After a few months of comfortable play in the prosperous Great Song Dynasty, in winter, the boat is filled with porcelain, silk, tea, and lacquerware, and it runs back with the north wind. Whoever can successfully complete this round-trip voyage will be enough for the whole family to live comfortably for several years, and will have the capital to make a big deal.

But since the port of Kabaran came the merchant ships of the Song people. The previous maritime model has been broken. The Great Food Merchants and the merchants of the Indian Peninsula no longer had to cross the ocean to exchange goods for the Great Song Kingdom, and every year the Song Dynasty ships sent the goods directly to the port of Kabalan, and they also needed a large number of local specialties to fill the cabin and bring them back to the Great Song Dynasty. The ocean-going trade, which originally required a lot of capital to be affordable, suddenly lowered the threshold a lot due to the presence of the port of Kabalan. As long as ordinary people are brave enough to gather a few loads of spices and cotton cloth, and a dozen people are crammed into a boat and wander along the coastline for more than half a month, they can also go to Kabalan Port to exchange those exquisite goods with the merchants of the Great Song Dynasty. And the Great Song merchants here have a very good appetite. More exchanges, less exchanges, big and small, no picking.

The most exciting thing is that there is a large market in the port of Kabalan, which is specially designed to provide exchange convenience for maritime merchants from all over the world. You don't have to wait for a specific season to go to sea, you can come anytime and anywhere you want, all year round. The Great Song maritime merchants set up warehouses and shops in this area, and also sent special guards to guard them, which made exchanges the norm. Although the profit is lower than the previous voyage, the number and batch increase exponentially. For most businessmen, it is not a loss, but it is more profitable. As long as you are diligent and can go to Cabalan Port to buy goods anytime and anywhere, and then spend ten days to bring them back to your own country to sell, you can still come next month, and the flow of funds in hand is fast. Transaction costs are reduced.

But there are happy people will have unhappy people, the total number of resources in the world is fixed, you eat more, there will definitely be people who eat less, this is the truth. Most people were happy. Then there would have to be a small number of people crying very sadly, and in this case, this small number of people are the great cannibals from the Red Sea basin. They were tribes living on the Arabian Peninsula and Egyptians on the southern shore of the Red Sea, but they were all a nation today, led by the Sultan, known in history as the Ayyubids.

The name of this dynasty may be a bit obscure, but its founder is famous, the hero of the Arabs, Saladin. It was also this dynasty that was mainly opposed to the Crusaders, and it was also the sultan of this dynasty who signed a peace agreement with Karl's cousin. It's just that since Saladin's death, the dynasty has been divided between his younger brother and several sons, and there has been infighting, but the strength is still not to be underestimated. Its current land area includes part of Libya and Sudan in North Africa, as well as all of Egypt, and the eastern side of the Arabian Peninsula is basically the territory of the Ayyubid Dynasty, such as Syria, all of Jordan, the eastern part of Saudi Arabia and part of Yemen, and the whole country believes in Islamic Sunni.

The Ayyubids also had many tribes, several of which were near the Red Sea and were governed by a tribal leader named Yusuf. They have had the habit of maritime trade since ancient times, and their footprints have not only traveled all over the Indian Peninsula and Southeast Asian islands, but also accounted for a large proportion of the Pu people in Guangzhou and Quanzhou, and they are one of the main forces connecting the Arabian Sea to the South China Sea. The Ayyubid Yusuf tribe was more aggressive and aggressive than other Arab tribes, and the long-term vision of the tribal leader had always regarded the route to the Great Song as his patent. Now that the merchants of the Southern Song Dynasty have actually pushed the trade point to his doorstep, it is not only a matter of touching his interests, but also digging his roots. What is the most comfortable way to buy and sell? Of course it's a monopoly, and it's broken by someone else, so are you angry or not?

Must be angry! What to do if you get angry? Of course it's called back, it's nothing negotiable. When Yusuf got the news that the fleet of Southern Song merchants had come to Kabalan again, he immediately began planning the expedition. The expeditionary force was supposed to set off two months ago, but due to a small problem on the Egyptian side, the two main forces could not meet on time, so the trip had to be delayed.

Yusuf's fleet was huge, forty-seven Arab galleys, half of which belonged to his family and the other half were borrowed from the tribal chiefs of Egypt. Not only did they borrow ships, but they also borrowed two armies that were famous in the Arab world. One was called the Mamluk cavalry, and the other was called the Mamluk axemen. Why do you have to wait for two months for these two troops, which add up to 500 men? The reason is very simple, these two troops are amazing! Compared to Yusuf's own tribal armies, these two armies were the equivalent of regular armies and guerrillas.

The word Mamluk means slave in Arabic, and these soldiers were indeed born as slaves, all of whom were captured from the Caucasus and the Black Sea coast, and some of them were Turkic. Because they were all nomads and good at cavalry and archery, a system of selecting slaves to join the army gradually formed, and was eventually determined by Saladin as a professional military system. These Mamluks relied on military exploits to break free from slavery status and become an aristocratic class. In this respect, the Mamluks are a bit like the Junker aristocracy in Germany, all of whom were born as professional soldiers.

Because he is a professional soldier, he is higher than the general army in terms of training and technical tactics, and his combat effectiveness is very strong, and he is one of the most famous cavalrymen in the world. In the battle to defend the Arab world, they defeated the Mongol cavalry many times, and even defeated the Mongol cavalry head-on with fewer enemies, thus protecting Egypt from the Mongol invasion, and they were one of the few troops that could fight the Mongol cavalry at that time. In the confrontation with the European Crusaders, the Mamluk heavy cavalry also showed a high fighting quality, and was an ace army of Saladin against the Crusaders head-on, fighting in the desert regions of North Africa, and the Mamluk cavalry was never defeated.

For such an army, Yusuf felt that it would be worth waiting for two more months, because his trip was not only to rob the cargo ships of the Southern Song merchants, but to take the port of Kabalan from the Song people and turn it into a bridgehead for his eastward expansion. At this point, he and Hong Tao thought of going together, and he was also one of the few leaders of this era who could regard the ocean as so important.

By the time Yusuf's fleet reached the port of Kabalan, the legendary Southern Song merchant ships were gone, more Arab merchant ships anchored in the harbor, and a galleon cruising outside the harbor, but it remained at a great distance. In Yusuf's eyes, it didn't matter which ship, as long as he kept the fleet formation relatively close, the big ship that was said to emit thunder and lightning would not be able to sneak attack. What made him most angry were the Arab compatriots in the harbor, who only a few boats escaped, and more of them stopped in front of the pier to block the landing of their own army. And their men are all ashore, and are preparing to resist with the Kabalans on the docks.

"These traitors to Allah! Actually stand with the enemy and attack! Tear them to shreds! Yusuf, who had a heavy army, did not intend to attack the small port directly at first, but he sent envoys ashore to persuade him to surrender, intending to take the town without bloodshed. The prosperity of this place was beyond his imagination, and he didn't want to destroy this prosperous place because of the war. But the damned Prince Taba didn't know what kind of ambitious leopard gall he ate, so he actually killed his envoy directly, and only sent back a human head, without saying a word. This made Yusuf very, very annoyed, and he did not even rest and did not rest, so he ordered his fleet to attack the port of Cabalan, and issued an order for the slaughter of the city. At the same time, he didn't forget the sneaky strange ship behind him, arranging the fleet into a multi-and-a-half arc, with the head rushing out and the tail rushing inside. If the boat dares to come closer, it can immediately speed up the boat with its oars and surround it. (To be continued.) )