"Is this the legendary Huaxia Empire?"

"No, this is just the entry point for the third-level territory of the Empire, strictly a colony of the Empire, not the mainland. The guide said to the blond-haired ghost animal of Gregory from Germany.

"This was the Suez Canal Special Zone (which later became Gibraltar), the closest territory of the empire to the European world. Since 1957 in the Chinese calendar, the Solomon Kingdom signed a treaty with the Suez Isthmus as the national border, in order to ensure peace and the military expenditure of the two countries will not be dragged down by the finances, the absolute superiority of the Chinese Empire has acted as a mediator, and the two countries have set aside 30 kilometers of land on the east and west sides of the national boundary of the isthmus to the empire as a mediation thank you.

The two countries were in fact separated from the territory of the Chinese Empire in this sensitive area, so there was no need for the two countries bordering the Chinese Empire to prepare for each other's invasion all day long. It is impossible for an empire with absolute superiority and military superiority to undermine its own credibility and tolerate the passage of other countries' armies through its territory. Then it is practically impossible for the armies of the two countries to meet on this isthmus.

As for the border between the Arabian Peninsula and the Solo-Egyptian border, there is also the help of the Saracen Kingdom and the existence of port leases to maintain a dynamic military balance of power, so that foreigners must first reach the Indian Ocean through the Eastern Mediterranean, the Suez Isthmus, the Red Sea (because it is a demilitarized zone, there are no warships and armed forces), the Bab el-Mandeb Strait, and the Gulf of Aden.

Solomon's navy and Egypt's navy are a joke, all of them small sampan-class coastal patrol boats. The only function is to guard against smuggling and smuggling.

The efforts of the Imperial Navy and the Merchant Captains weeded the route of piracy and all discord in its vicinity, turning the pirate-infested dangerous sea route into a golden shipping route that undermined the traditional Egyptian overland commercial route from Yemen to the Solomons. It has also greatly increased the scale of trade in the entire region. (The safety of maritime transport naturally made land transportation unadvantageous, and Egypt's tax authorities could not intercept passing merchant ships on the sea to set up checkpoints to collect taxes, and the two cities of Mecca and Medina, where business travel was greatly reduced, were hit hard and had to rely on the annual pilgrims to support their prosperity.) Because of the low freight rates by sea, the prices of various goods fell sharply, and the regional trade market with a large increase in consumption developed rapidly) Europe reached the port of Sede by sea, and transferred passengers and goods to Suez in the isthmus. It then sails directly to destinations in the Indian Ocean.

Although this model is more costly and trouble-free than the whole camel ride in the past, the impact on the Red Sea is very far-reaching. First of all, the route is very busy. It is a hub for transportation throughout Europe (excluding the non-coastal areas of Northern and Eastern Europe) and the Mediterranean coast, the Indian Ocean coast and even the Pacific coast, with a large number of sea vessels plying between the ports of Suez, Jeddah, Sudan, Djibouti and Aden. Increasingly, traditional Islamic merchants transporting beef and mutton and their dairy products, frankincense, myrrh, flavors, gum arabic, coffee, dates, mineral salt, coral, leather and their products, cotton, camel hair and wool, as well as the textiles, embroidery, printing and dyeing of these fibers, are increasingly being transformed into new commercial capitalists involved in international trade. Naturally, the profits of trade in the calm waters of the Red Sea are not as profitable as those of relatives who trade in commodities and luxury goods from Europe or the shores of the Indian Ocean.

Since the Tang Dynasty, when Arab giants opened up the Basra-Quanzhou route to China, the world's most lucrative route has always been this route flowing with gold and silver. The profits from trade between Chinese tea (green gold), silk (white gold), porcelain (as precious as jade ware), Arab and African ivory, frankincense, coral, slaves (Kunlunnu), and precious stones, gold, silver, pearls, spices, sandalwood, mahogany, pepper, rhinoceros horn, and rare animal skins sustained the Arab people's conquest of half the world (the Old World) from the land of projectiles. A steady stream of trade taxes supported the caliph's splendid palaces and harems, tens of thousands of bureaucratic salaries, and the expenses needed to rule the largest of its domains (more than 13 million square kilometers at its peak).

When Solomon's kingdom came along, everything changed. A large number of competitors have appeared on routes that could make money lying down. Most of them were exotic ships under the banner of pagans. These new models of clippers quickly took advantage of the profits of the merchant fleet of the Arabian sail paddle hybrid dhow, which was the main vessel. From the port of Aqaba, which was captured and rebuilt by the Kingdom of Solomon, to Quanzhou, the farthest port touched by Arabia. Everywhere there are flying clippers under the banner of the Chinese Empire. Loaded with hundreds of cheap consumer goods and swords and iron tools from the Far East, they crushed all the Arab ocean-going fleets. Freight rates are half that of the Arab cargo fleet, and the slowest ones save 25% of the time, and the fastest ones can even save 75% of the time. In the past, we could only travel twice a year by the monsoon, but now there are regular flights every month. In just a few years, almost all the big shipowners and shipping giants have changed careers to become compradors and wholesalers in China.

Although it lost the huge profits of cross-border trade, the profits obtained by selling a wide variety of high-quality and low-cost imported goods of the Chinese Empire were not worse than the former. The mainstream import catalogues of tea, silk, and porcelain were quickly replaced by picturesque chintz, sturdy and durable steel utensils for life and production, and a very popular variety of building materials (glass, cement, wood, hollow insulated bricks).

Is there a short-lived, unsustainable mass dumping behind a boom? Of course not, the merchants of the Chinese Empire, lured by the guiding investment of the Guanzhong, reinvested the money they earned in the development of various industries in these Islamic areas. At the same time, slaves were bought from these regions (foreigners were not protected by imperial law). However, laborers who have entered the empire for a certain number of years automatically obtain the status of naturalized citizens, which is another matter) to sell to the mines, plantations, and factories in various regions of the empire where labor is scarce to balance the trade import and export deficit. The tour guide didn't dry his mouth after speaking, and handed over a guide manual.

The Arab world is so vast. Half of Africa. Half of Asia and half of Europe were places where imperial merchants made their fortunes, and these places were at least carefully cultivated and exploited by the civilized Arab peoples, with a minimum of purchasing power and a population density sufficient to sustain the simple reproduction of the small peasant economy. Compared to Europe, these territories belonging to Allah are obviously much richer than those of Christ the Elder. Of course, this is one of the main factors that the empire looks at this region, and another factor is that the literacy rate here is much higher than that of other regions and countries.

Human resources are the king of all resources, this is the consensus of all the merchants who go out in the empire, and it is easier to deal with a literate businessman than an illiterate aborigine and it is easy to form a stable relationship. The illiterate natives were easy to deceive, but they were unable to build a foundation. Unlike Muslims who grew up reading Allah's teachings, Christians are mostly illiterate, and of course this illiteracy is defined simply as they do not speak Latin or read, and at most they can only speak in the native dialect of each country. No written or reading skills. The more advanced monks and clergy were only able to speak in their own language and official documents. Compared to the 3 per cent literacy rate in the Arab world, where the script has been unified, Europe's literacy rate of 0.2 per cent is of little value. There was no unity in coins and weights and measures, and European countries had to sign a bunch of agreements with the empire, and then adopted the empire's weights and measures and helped to establish a unified currency.

Although the Seljuk dinars, the Ghaznavid gold Ghaznids, the Saracend rials, and the Fatimid Egyptian dinar were earlier modified by the Empire's pro-Chinese aristocracy to be machine-minted and difficult to counterfeit, their European counterparts were not vegetarians. Under the guidance of Marco Polo. The Jewish family, which replaced the Medici family in establishing a modern bank, the royal family under the control of King Consilio of Italy was far more talented in issuing currency than the Medici family. The gold coin Florin he designed and minted imitated the size, recipe, and weight of the Empire's gold coin, and was basically the same as the Imperial gold coin except for the difference in pattern and text. There are no silver mines in Italy. It had to establish a two-level composite standard of gold and copper, and the Florin and Italian copper circles were also circulated throughout Europe for a time.

Since the establishment of the Jerusalem-based Bank for International Settlements, most of the countries of the Old Continent have concentrated their import and export gold and silver flows here. After signing the integrated free trade agreement and joining the empire-led international trade organization, the merchants of various countries did not have to move money around, as long as the bills of exchange paid for import and export were exchanged for the currency of their own countries, and then the banks of various countries went to the Bank for International Settlements to settle the settlements, and then the total trade import and export volume of each country was reversed, and the gold and silver coins of each country were transported to the banks of various countries again.

This move greatly reduces the cross-border flow of gold and silver, and reduces the trade risks and costs of various countries. Soon a large number of non-deposit and loan bankers for exchange and discounting came out, and of course the most numerous were Chinese and Jews.

The port city of Suez has also been transformed into a bustling port with thousands of sails. Although the strip of land, which became an overseas enclave of the Empire, had one of the most valuable avenues connecting the Mediterranean and the Red Sea per unit length, the volume could not be compared to the direct traffic of ships.

At a time when the region's annual freight demand has not reached 3 million tons, it is not cost-effective to build a canal, but beyond this inflection point, it is attractive to operate a canal with a huge freight volume. The cost of land transportation per ton of cargo is 200 times that of sea transportation, and the cost of land transportation is very unattractive when passing through the Isthmus of Suez, if you count the transshipment cost of unloading from sea to rail and the loading and unloading fee of embarking at Port Said.

The construction of a canal through the Isthmus of Suez to open up the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea became a very lucrative new project, and the original horse-drawn railway did not need to be demolished, but could also be used to transfer some equipment and water needed to build the canal. Even after the canal is completed, the railway could serve as an intermediate link between the Fatima, Egyptian, and Solomon rail networks.

Gregory is actually an international student studying architecture in China, and one of his distant uncles is a beneficiary of international settlements, and it is also a good investment for him to sponsor Gregory to study abroad.

His destination was not those far-flung top universities in the empire itself, but the University of Borneo in Brunei, located in the South Seas. The university specialized in training civil engineering, mining, large-scale engineering management, and agriculture and forestry for the empire and its allies.

When he got off the railcar and came to the bustling Suez Docks, he mistakenly thought that this place was the Empire itself. It is several times more prosperous than the port of Hamburg, the most prosperous port in his homeland, with almost countless ships docked, and the hot dock porters are carrying sacks and boxes around conveyor belts and rail cars leading to warehouses and transfer carriage stations, which is a hundred times more efficient than the backward way of Hamburg. (To be continued......)