Chapter 211 Arabian Sea Rim Economic Zone

As the westernmost region of the empire's strategy, the Arabian Rim as a whole received close attention from the imperial government. Since the destruction of the Chola Kingdom, this huge area has become the second gold rush area after Nanyang. Because of its vast reach and numerous commercial networks, this backyard, which had been creating wealth for the Arabs for hundreds of years, became fat in the eyes of the empire.

The Persian Gulf, which directly connects the Mediterranean countries, is a river of cash flowing with wealth. Even if you don't look at the oil and gas resources of the Middle East, a population resource alone has countless imperial oligarchs coveted. From the Imperial military base in Colombo to the west, to the newly established fishing village of Cape Guadafoy, a large number of Imperial merchant ships were active on various routes to compete with Arab merchant ships for market share.

In the first few years, the Arab merchant ships were able to rely on home field advantage to gain some advantage, but under the all-round competition of the Empire's advanced nautical technology tree, they were quickly crushed. Backward techniques such as astrology and primitive charts that had been weakened in the face of the Empire's high-scale bathymetric charts were almost antique.

Commercial competition is relentless, and the all-round leadership of the empire will naturally leave these Arab workers who eat by the sea unemployed and bankrupt. Large numbers of unemployed people have been forced to work as pirates and fishermen, and there are only two ways out for these poor people, who have no other livelihood skills than to be more skilled in boating and sailing.

The empire gave them only one thing, and that was to learn basic Chinese to serve as cannon fodder and mercenaries for the empire's expansion.

Distant seafaring destinations disappeared from the trade lists of the owners of all Arab merchant fleets. Every wealthy Arab merchant who was squeezed into a vicious circle was caught in a vicious circle by huddle on the coastal and inland sea routes and his brothers for the meager profits from the trade in local products.

The big ships, which could only survive through the profits of the lucrative cross-border trade and the long-distance trade, relied on the meagre offshore trade with meagre profits, and the meagre funds could not maintain the amazing gold-swallowing ship. The salaries of seafarers and captains were forced to fall to the point where they could barely make ends meet. Mass layoffs and abandoned ships are 'floating' in various ports.

Squeezing the Arabs through non-violent means is the foreign and trade policy of the empire. The Arabian Rim is on the verge of becoming an imperial lake. The west coast of India and the coast east of the Persian Gulf were under the de facto control of the empire, and the Arabian Peninsula, although not leased or monopolized, was almost semi-encircled. From Socotra Island to the southern shore of the Gulf of Aden. From Djibouti to Port Sudan, plus the Crusader-controlled Gulf of Aqaba and the coastline north of Thimphu, the peninsula has effectively fallen under imperial encirclement. As long as the people want to cross the peninsula, they can blockade the peninsula at any time, so that not a single stitch can reach Mecca and Medina.

The empire's frenzied dumping of industrial goods and grain also led to serious crises in various countries. The Seljuks and Fatima, the two largest countries in Islam, were almost all about to die. Most of the military expenditures of the two feudal states that did not achieve a high degree of centralization were borne by feudal lords large and small in various places. The Empire's nail planted in Jerusalem - the Solomonic group frantically smuggled arms and supplies into the Crusader states, and the armed Crusader warriors were undaunted in the face of the two powerful enemies of the Seljuk Fatima. After the fall of Aqaba, the Crusaders marched south. At one time, he captured Thimphu, an important town at the western outlet of the holy land of Mecca. Expansion to the east was highly valued by Maliksha.

At that time, the Travelers received a lot of preferential treatment because they saved the Seljuk monarch Marikshah, which prevented the Seljuks from falling into division and internal strife, and continued to strengthen the royal power through diplomacy and economic cooperation. Helped Malikshah centralize power, thus gaining a large number of privileges and leases in Seljuk. These places served as the best cover for smuggling supplies to the Seljuk enemy nations, and became important transit points for the Crusader army's supply sources. But the holders of the checks and balances were more active in selling arms and supplies to the more affluent Seljuks and Fatima, and became unscrupulous international arms dealers who ate their superiors and ate their families.

Under the fierce ideological clash of religions. The warring sides almost hit the dog's head. The arms and supplies exported by the Empire were equivalent to huge blowers and carburetors that added fuel to the fire. The scale of the war between the two sides was also much larger than in history. Not only was a large amount of advanced equipment and munitions used, but the number of personnel participating in the war also reached new highs. The source of these things undoubtedly comes from the lure of profits and wealth from a large amount of direct trade between the Middle East and China that has never been seen in history.

The Crusader states used almost all of their sucking strength in order to gain access to the sea for direct imperial trade, breaking through the Seljuk blockade on the land routes of eastern trade and the Fatimid naval blockade in the Red Sea.

Although the warring sides received a steady stream of blood transfusions and support from wealth and trade, the battlefield was like a flesh millstone, constantly depleting the war potential and resource potential of both sides. Many of the Jews of Solomon received a great deal of privilege, land, population, and wealth by operating the customs of the Crusader states, undertaking the right to package taxes, and underwriting war bonds. became the richest of the Western partners of the empire.

By the time the empire established Port Sudan in the southwestern part of the Red Sea, the Crusaders had completely captured Thimphu. And a direct route to Port Sudan was opened. With strong intervention from the Empire and the Seljuks, the Crusaders halted their offensive against Medina, which was under Fatimid control. An armistice agreement was signed for a period of three years.

Although a large number of soldiers and men came from far and wide under the influence of the popes and monastic clergy in search of an opportunity to ascend to heaven and live in the heavenly kingdom of Jerusalem on earth, the phrase "a thousand miles of war for money" is not wrong to describe the Crusader feudal lords.

The social contradictions in the entire Arab coastal region changed from a struggle between the two Islamic powers controlled by the Chinese Empire and the Crusader states. Many knights and low-ranking nobles were recognized by the Holy See in one battle after another, and became the high-ranking nobles of the newly conquered territories. Many of the new viscounts and barons were rewarded with fiefdoms ten times more profitable than their cold, damp homeland.

This income, much higher than the little rent in kind in the poor old home, was very attractive, and since the opening of the direct port, the Venetians and Genoese, who had a monopoly on Mediterranean shipping, were in a hurry. A hundred years later, the merchants who instigated the feudal lords of Western Europe to attack Constantinople, who also believed in God, felt the doom of the powerful competition in advance. A large number of low-ranking nobles and bankrupt peasants were transported to the Middle East by the European feudal lords to spread the glory of the lord. This was followed by the Eastern Mediterranean shipping group, founded by wealthy feudal lords and Jews, competing for trade markets in the Black, Aegean, and Eastern Mediterranean. A large number of Egyptian products were not shipped to Western Europe for consumption, but were consumed by the lords and the Eastern Roman Empire in the wealthy Near East.

The economy of the frightened Fatima was also stimulated by the huge export orders after the armistice and the direct trade of the empire, and a large number of cotton, timber, dates, honey, pulp and grain were exported to the new overseas territories and mainland of the empire, and for a time the idea of making money penetrated into the minds of all feudal lords.

By the time the Crusader states had expanded to 120,000 square kilometres, the United Kingdom was the equivalent of four later Palestinian areas.

The three parties signed a permanent armistice. As the eldest brother of the Crusader states, the Kingdom of Jerusalem formed the United Kingdom of Jerusalem, and the Earl of Solomon was upgraded to a princely state, and the other states were also upgraded to princely states, establishing an institutional system similar to that of the Holy Roman Empire in which the states ran for the king of the United Kingdom.

The Pope raised his hands in favor of a Christian state that looked like it was about to become a second cash cow as a nail in the Middle East, both as a counterweight to Islam's offensive in Europe and as a pawn to contain the Orthodox Church.

In order to completely control this huge Middle Eastern world of 30 million people, the empire changed its policy towards Ghaznavid, and not a single penny of investment was spent in these three countries. Instead, it was frantically developed to barter trade. Due to the possible lack of cash, the countries that have lost a large number of precious metals have almost been drained of their currency by the huge dumping of the Chinese Empire, and there is a situation where prices are almost ridiculously low, in order not to cause a large number of price fluctuations; And because the crude silver coins bearing the words of Allah, which the Arabs believed, were not recognized by the merchants of the empire, the system of using the imperial currency dragon dollar as the settlement currency was logically and successfully grafted into the economic system of these three countries.

The new international system in which the three countries accepted the peace plan proposed by the empire and permanently opened all holy places as the travel and pilgrimage of believers of the major religions was a sign of political leadership, and the unified use of the dragon yuan as the currency for international trade settlement and the three countries' participation in various economic and trade international organizations in the Greater China Co-Prosperity Circle were signs of economic leadership.

Of course, the military is the key. The Empire's steady arms exports also fell into explosive growth after the advent of peace.

Some people may wonder why the arms trade has increased dramatically after peace. Because the three countries received an astonishing number of orders, especially for the slave trade. Of the three kingdoms, Fatimid Egypt was the most active in arming armies in the west and south, and plundering Berbers and Ethiopian blacks in large numbers to the south and west. The Seljuks also continued to conquer and plunder small Orthodox states in Asia Minor and the Caucasus, and expanded to the north. Even the United Kingdom of Jerusalem, the smallest of the country, sent arms from the port of Haifa back to their respective overlords in case of a surprise attack by their peers.

The feudal lords of Britain, France, Germany, Italy and other places were crazy when they saw the lightweight steel full-body armor that only received a set of 20 gold coins. The cost of the arms race has plummeted, and so has the tide of violence caused by extremely low-cost arms begins.

In this way, all the forces along the Arabian Sea entered the layout of the traversal. (To be continued......)