Chapter 246 marches like the Strait of Gibraltar

At this time, Europe was in the prelude to great changes, the dark theocracy of the Middle Ages was eliminated in advance, and the shackles of various institutions and ideas that suppressed the people's pursuit of wealth were opened one after another. The fate of the Iberian Peninsula was very different from that of the other two peninsulas in Europe, with the Apennine Peninsula being unified by the Kingdom of Italy under Consilio and the Balkans largely falling into the hands of Eastern Rome (part of Romania had not yet been annexed to Eastern Rome and the military base of Port Salonica, which was leased to the Chinese Empire). It's a corner of the world that is hard to get to know in detail. At the beginning of the 5th century, powerful Gothic barbarians invaded the declining Roman Empire and established their kingdom in the Iberian Peninsula in 1260 CE, with Toledo as its capital. But the Goths did not contribute much to the development of Spanish civilization.

Visigothic rule lasted until 300 years later. At that time, 50,000 Muslim warriors crossed the Strait of Gibraltar and won the Battle of Guadalet with their scimitars against the Gothic warriors who had terrified the Romans. Four years later, the Arabs swept across the peninsula, and Spain was part of a vast Arab empire called the "State of Al-Andalus". In ancient China, it was called "green clothes and big food".

Abdullah III eventually turned Spain into an independent caliphate. Under his rule, Spain enjoyed an unprecedented cultural boom. Urban construction and the development of the commodity economy have made great progress, and even promoted the development of the whole of Europe. The Arabs brought with them the most advanced knowledge in medicine, mathematics, and astronomy, and left a deep mark on Spanish music, fine arts, literature, architecture, and more. The Alhambra is the pinnacle of Arabic art. Meantime. Arabic has also left many words in Spanish. The most important cities at the time were Valencia, Zaragoza, Seville and Córdoba. With half a million inhabitants and a huge library, Córdoba was the largest city and cultural center in Western Europe in the 10th century.

But this prosperity, which was a brief period of prosperity that was also regretted by the public, could not be a factor in the heavy bet, and the caliphate soon split into several small states. Although it is still subservient to the Caliphate of Córdoba, its power has decreased a lot. Only 3% of the Chinese Empire's investment in Europe flowed into Iberia at this time. Iberia, with its many kingdoms, is even more chaotic than any other European country. The frequency and number of wars were almost fifty times greater than those of the Crusaders after they entered the Middle East. After gaining a foothold in the northern half of the Iberian Peninsula, the Count of Barcelona, the Kingdom of Aragon, the Kingdom of Navarb, the Kingdom of Castile, the Kingdom of León, and the Count of Portugal were constantly engaged in tug-of-war with the territories of the Caliphate of Córdoba in the south.

If the Crusades brought Europe together to make a fortune in the Middle East, then Iberia, which had long been in chaos, was the southern crusade of several Christian kingdoms within the peninsula. In addition to the fact that there were no crosses embroidered on the costumes and flags, the wars of these small countries against the Muslim regimes in the south were the basis for the bold crusades of the feudal lords of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and other places.

The preferences of the Travelers for other countries are not influenced by religious factors or personal emotional factors at all, and are judged entirely by their use value and degree of manipulation of the Chinese Empire. This chaotic region is far less attractive to the capitalists than the resource-rich India and the cheap Europe north of the Mediterranean, but its geographical advantages and strategic value in holding the western outlet to the sea in the Mediterranean cannot be underestimated. At a time when the Suez Canal had not yet been built, it was one of Europe's most important trading hubs and a place of contention.

In order to have a say in the Strait of Gibraltar, long before the establishment of diplomatic relations with the Eastern Roman Empire. Diplomats and merchants of the Chinese Empire went to the palace of the emir, who ruled the strait, to secretly negotiate the lease of the port. In Ali. Guest. Yusuf was overwhelmed by the enemies in the north and south, and when he sent charcoal in the snow, he took advantage of the fire to rob, which has always been the long-cherished wish of Liu Xin, who was eager to buy the Alhambra.

However, when he learned that this palace had not yet appeared, he hurriedly urged Gao Jing of the design institute to come up with drawings of the Alhambra with obvious fusion of Western Gothic architecture and Islamic characteristics, and directly copied this famous palace.

Wang Xinyu's interest in the military base in the Strait of Gibraltar is also far greater than that in Socotra, and he directly stationed the third detachment of the West Sea Fleet in Ceuta. Help the Caliph hold on to Africa's last stronghold.

War always brought a lot of arms orders and tactical advances, and the Kingdom of Castile, as the leader of the Christian states of northern Iberia, naturally had to fight for the unification of the peninsula and the alliance with its neighbors to eliminate the ideologically hostile southern Muslim enemies, just like the Capetian family in France. 10,000 shields, 6,000 armor and 9,000 bows and arrows, as well as their ration of 30 feathered arrows, would have exhausted the country's treasury savings, and the small northern states that could not afford to pay for them would naturally not be favored by the capitalists and arms dealers. Naturally, the requests of these countries for the establishment of diplomatic relations were also ignored.

The much affluent Southern regime, shocked by the wealth of the Chinese Empire, agreed to grant the Empire's ships permanent and free navigation through the Strait of Gibraltar. The southern coastal waters and the right of way to those African lands that were originally their own have been fully opened. To curb the imminent rise of the Muwahid dynasty and the Christian states of the north. Murabit dynasty Ali. Guest. Yusuf had to agree to lease the few ports on the northern coast of Algeria in the south to the Chinese Empire. Sandwiched between Berbers and Arabs is the much-talked-about port of Gibraltar. In order to obtain the permanent ownership of this strategic place, the ambassador sent by the empire and the caliph in Granada after more than 50 days of negotiations, finally after playing most of the cards in their hands to get the ownership of this land, although the Mulabit dynasty nominally ruled more than 1 million square kilometers of land, but in fact the effective control of the area is the southern half of the Iberian Peninsula and a few strongholds on the coast of North Africa, and the vast interior of North Africa almost all fell into the hands of the emerging Muwahid dynasty. The stormy Murabit entered the countdown to demise decades ahead of schedule, which naturally has the credit of crossing the crowd.

The acquisition of the treasure of Gibraltar must not be turned into a military base. It's a terrible thing. The 6-square-kilometer peninsula simply makes no sense to be used for garrisons. It might as well be used as a window to show the economic and diplomatic power of the empire. There is no danger in the overseas enclaves of a sufficiently strong country, and there is naturally no need to garrison troops without an enemy. It's just a platform to assert the Empire's presence. It is impossible to establish this place as a trading center in the western Mediterranean, and its throughput capacity is limited, but it is appropriate to build it as a window of tourism that shows the highly developed civilization of the empire.

The day after the enclave was acquired, enough building materials were brought in to begin the renovation and expansion of the marina and the construction of hotels and casinos that already existed on the drawings. The wealthy and aristocracy of various countries will be proud to own property or experience in this land in the future. Gibraltar is even higher than the capitals and important ports of the Empire, as it will be the most important springboard and platform for the Empire's soft power export in Europe. The planned industries here are mainly hotel services, gaming (mainly horse racing), convention and exhibition industry, and financial industry (the special duty-free zone is similar to the Bahamas).

As long as this enclave becomes a free port, it will greatly weaken the traditional conservative ideology of Muslims in Northwest Africa and the Iberian Peninsula, and implant in the hearts and minds of people in these regions the ideas and desires of money worship and modern civilized life. After contrasting the backward barbarism of these regions with the advanced civilization of Gibraltar, the nomads and those feudal lords will take the initiative to pursue and work hard to get closer to the empire, and they will smoothly accept everything that the empire imports.

The nearby port of Ceuta and the armies of the leased territories of several ports were very effective in ensuring the maritime security and order of the land under the direct jurisdiction of the empire. Any armed forces that come close will be wiped out by warships patrolling the surrounding waters. The border between the Port of Gibraltar and the northern kingdom of Mulabit is also free and open. With the exception of a few checkpoints that inspect large quantities of goods, there are basically no defenses, and according to the terms of the agreement, once the enemy invades this border, the kingdom of Murabit is equivalent to the destruction of the country. The Empire would directly take over all lands (including nominal lands) of the existing Murabit Kingdom under the terms of the agreement. Therefore, the Murabit Kingdom will not take the initiative to provoke the overlord of the empire, but will also take the initiative to strictly guard near the border to prevent the flow of hostile personnel and dangerous goods into Gibraltar.

In addition to paying 80 gold coins a year (for a hundred years) to buy land, the empire also had to open its forty ports to trade with the Murabit kingdom (I don't know who took advantage), and borrowed 3 million dragon dollars per year at low interest rates to ensure the existing order and state in the Maghreb region (this is still a bit troublesome, after all, the opposition Muwahid dynasty also spent a lot of money, and this kind of provoking civil war in other countries is not undone). But it was the first time to mediate the civil war).

It's okay to talk about money, but it's not much. However, at this time, the empire had not yet established diplomatic relations with the Muwahid dynasty, so this clause was a neutral clause that did not help each other.

After resolving the legal worries, the construction of Gibraltar was in full swing. The construction of the Port of Gibraltar is planned to be divided into three phases, the first phase is the construction of port terminals, logistics and transportation facilities and roads throughout the port, the second phase is the construction of more than a dozen apartment complexes and residential buildings for permanent residents to support public facilities (civil municipal works such as water and sewerage and common ditches), and the third phase is the construction of various commercial office buildings, buildings and service industry functional buildings (museums, convention and exhibition centers, racetracks, casinos, high-end hotels, etc.) used to create huge wealth and tourism resources.

Since the traversal defines this place as a window to show the civilization and national strength of the empire, it is natural that it will not be like building a church in Europe, and a hundred-year project will be carried out as soon as it is done (not more than a hundred years of use, but a hundred years of construction time), but the use of black technology that European engineers could not dream of - all-steel prefabricated assembly.

In addition to laying the foundations, all the surface buildings used for the construction of the house were prefabricated cement and high-strength steel pieces brought from the port or from the empire proper, and the 'grandiose' spectacle was assembled like building blocks in a matter of days.

The first batch of migrant workers and local European building materials manufacturers who came to Gibraltar to participate in the construction vomited blood, a quay crane made of all-steel required 80 tons of fine steel, and a stadium cost 3,000 tons of steel bars and steel parts. These things are simply a spectacle that God has piled up with his money. The combined cost of all the churches in Europe may not be comparable to that of this port. The steel and concrete used in a 30-storey office building is more expensive than the building materials used in Berlin, which was designated by Lothair II as the capital of the Kingdom of Germany and is the fastest growing and most planned modern city in Europe.

The entire project took only four years, and it took only one year to build the surface building frame of the port, which can accommodate 150,000 people, after removing the time to lay the foundation, level the land, build the underground common ditch, renovate the interior of the building, and landscaping.

In the eyes of ordinary people in Europe, this is a miracle, a miracle created by a powerful civilization, a miracle even more shocking than God's destruction of Gomorrah. A French laborer who worked as a porter at a construction site wrote in his old memoirs that 'when he went there was a barren mountain, and when he left three years later it was a heavenly city'.

A building materials dealer who has been here several times also wrote a memoir: 'When I first went there, there was only a simple wharf, and when I went there for the second time after a year, it was already a huge construction site, and when I went there in the third year, I took my family's property there to buy real estate for the elderly. ’

The two official languages of the port are Chinese and Latin (English and French are still in their infancy, with limited vocabulary and too simple grammar to communicate smoothly with the Eastern Roman Empire, the largest European trading partner, Arabic has no market among the indigenous people, and most of the indigenous North Africans still speak Berber and other minor languages). Road signs and texts in various public places are both. In order to work and settle in the city, it is mandatory to pass the language test in advance, which makes all non-Chinese immigrants who come here hate. This has also trained many non-Chinese translators and teachers who rely on Chinese for food.

The Port of Gibraltar is also known as a paradise port in Europe, because it is a paradise for everyone, as long as you can enter it, you can enjoy the lowest prices and the highest salary in Europe. Countless merchants rushed to the port to get the latest and lowest prices for Oriental goods transported around South Africa, such as spices and pepper, which cost only one-tenth the price of Hamburg and one-fifth the price of silk in Rotterdam. The port quickly recouped its costs from re-exporting wholesale cargo, and ten years later began to pay off for all investors who invested in the construction of the port. (To be continued......)