In 831 AH, 1453 AH, after two years of siege, Mehmed II conquered Constantinople, Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI was killed in battle, the Eastern Roman Empire fell, the Ottoman Empire set its capital Istanbul, the Ottoman Empire at its peak spanned three continents of Europe, Asia and Africa, including the entire Balkan Peninsula, the Asia Peninsula, the entire Middle East and most of North Africa, reaching Morocco in the west, the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf in the east, the Austrian Empire and Romania in the north, and Sudan in the south. Controlled the entire passage from Western Europe to the East, and was a veritable great power. After the gradual decline of the 17th century, the territory of Tsarist Russia, Britain and France and other countries were encroached on, and in the late nineteenth century, the empire that once made the whole of Europe tremble has declined to the point that thanks to the help of the British, who did not see the Russian navy entering the Mediterranean, it was able to save the country from danger and preserve the existence of the country.

Led by Tsar Nicholas I, the European powers ridiculed the Ottoman Empire as the "sick man of Europe", and all countries were thinking about how to divide the richest possible inheritance when the "sick man" finally died.

The Ottoman Empire at the time of its death, like any declining empire in human history, had almost no industry to speak of except carpets, the rule of stupidity and superstition had corrupted Turkey for centuries, and the last sultans who ruled the Ottoman Empire were even more mired in extravagant corruption, living in lavish palaces that stretched for kilometers along the coast of Constantinople, surrounded by more than 3,000 concubines, eunuchs, court servants and courtiersThe huge court expenditures cost two million pounds a year, and the foreign debt of 200 million pounds, the magnificent pomp and circumstance of the Ottoman court, which no one in human history has ever surpassed except the Roman Empire, overeating, debauchery, laziness, torture and all kinds of perverted murders, all the evils are revealed to the world through the Ottoman sultans who are called "the shadows of the gods".

In the twentieth century, the founding monarchs of the Ottoman Empire, whose achievements and prestige made the whole of Europe and the world tremble under the iron hoof, have long since become a long-time bleak myth, and the scenes of the end of the empire that are constantly being staged here are not due to the will and determination of the "sick man" that the European powers that are completely determined to oppose each other cannot agree on the question of how to divide the legacy of the "sick man".

As an emerging country, although it had just achieved national liberation and the restoration of national rights, under the leadership of the emperor himself, China was full of interest in the "Greater Arabia" ruled by the Ottoman Empire, which was called the "Near East" by Europeans. The "Near East" has been a province of the Ottoman Turkish Empire for the past four hundred years. The Arabs who inhabited the region consisted mainly of the farming inhabitants of the two rivers of Iraq and the nomadic Bedouins of the deserts of the Arabian Peninsula. The Bedouins are scattered throughout the Arabian Peninsula as tribes, and there has been a constant clash and vendetta between tribes, and there has been no unified leader for hundreds of years.

From the third year of the empire, because of the secret intervention of the Imperial Intelligence Service in the coup d'état of the "Young Turks" in the Ottoman Empire, it was given many times financial support, after the success of the "Young Turks" coup, China received a rich reward - the right to sell goods in the Ottoman Empire and the most favored nation for trade, in the following years, hundreds of Chinese merchants penetrated into this country, although the treatment was average, but this was the first real "international market" opened up by Chinese goods, Chinese goods competed in the Ottoman Empire with the dominant British goods, French goods, and German goods, which were opening up markets.

Compared with these traditional industrial powers, China's commodities have their own characteristics and markets, and thousands of Chinese merchants in the "Near East" are like the Jin merchants who opened up Mongolian trade in the past, like ants in the deserts of the Near East and the "fertile crescent" to open up the market for Chinese goods, and in the past few years, the Arabs in the Near East have long been accustomed to the existence of Chinese merchants, and are also accustomed to the convenience they bring.

Of course, among these Chinese merchants, there are inevitably some Japanese businessmen, and even in the last two or three years, more and more Japanese businessmen have come to the Near East, and they have quickly filled this gap when Chinese retailers have become wholesalers. …,

On a sunny day on the Euphrates River, Moriten, who accompanied the village president, sailed toward the heart of Iraq with his usual calm, and the temperature was never too hot when the boat walked. During the day, like other passengers, they lie in the shade, often in the warm south breeze at night, and enjoy the rare refreshment on the water-soaked deck under the light of the stars.

But when the last port of Senteng and his party anchored, the white-hot town hung far between the blazing sky and its reflected mirage, which swept majestically across the wide lagoon. At that time, the Arabian heat stabbed Morito head-on like a drawn blade, a man who had just arrived in Arabia and had not adapted to the climate here, and the heat made him speechless. It was the time of noon, the sun at noon in the east, hypnotizing all the colors like moonlight. The whole world is left with nothing but sunlight and shadows, white houses and black recesses of the streets. Ahead, the light glow of the mist shimmered above the inner harbor; Behind, mile after mile of monotonous sand glare stretched to the edge of the hill in the mist formed by the heat in the distance.

The caravan of merchandise travelled through the palm groves that connected the scattered homes of Rabigg like a belt, and then into the starlit wilderness, along the prosaic desert. Bounded by the west coast of Arabia, this desert stretches for thousands of miles monotonously between the coast and the mountains along it. During the day, the low-lying plains are unbearably hot, and the perimeter of the road becomes a no-go zone due to lack of water. However, this is another road that must be taken, because the shady mountain road is too rugged for heavy livestock to pass from north to south.

After the monotonous delays and discussions of the day, the coolness of the night is unusually pleasant. Under the guidance of the guide, Sen Teng found that the president, who was also his direct supervisor, continued to move forward almost without saying a word along the way, and the camel walked silently on the soft and flat sand. As the camel caravan moved forward, looking at this desert, it was hard for him to imagine that such a poor place could bring hundreds of millions of yuan of market to China every year.

"There is a market of 200 million a year, but it is by no means suitable for life"

Thinking of the president's words, Sen Teng could only endure it like this, and walked for hours without change, unless the camel occasionally got stuck in the sand, and when he pulled it out hard, he suffered a small injury, and the saddle creaked. This phenomenon indicates that the soft plains have entered the foundation of quicksand, and there are some low bushes from time to time, so it is difficult to walk. The roots of the plant form small mounds in order to catch the soil around it, and the vortex created by the sea breeze digs some cavities in the middle of the void. In the darkness, the camel's footsteps seemed unsteady, and the sand under the starlight had some shadows, making the potholes on the ground difficult to see. Before midnight, finally, the camel caravan stopped, and Sen Teng hurriedly wrapped himself tightly in his robe, chose a piece of depression that just fit his body, and lay down in it and slept until dawn.

In the early morning, at the shouts of the guide Tafas, Morito jumped up from the sand with the president, and a few minutes later, the caravan staggered forward again. An hour later, it dawned when I climbed to the top of a low-necked strip that had been blown by wind and sand and almost submerged into volcanic rock. A small stream was inserted near the coast leading to the main volcanic rock field leading to the Hejaz, and the western edge of the flint rock field stretched to our right, making the coastal road where it is now, a narrow strip of rubble but not long. On both sides of the narrow strip, gray volcanic rock piles up on low shoulders.

In the morning sun, the caravan galloped steadily along the easily walkable path among the trees, towards a well, which they found after a few minutes. Next to the well are some ruined stone walls, which used to be thatched huts, and opposite them some shade shelters made of sycamore branches and leaves, in which several Bedouins sit. They didn't greet them, and Tafas turned his face and dropped his camel against the collapsed wall.

While the camel caravan rested, the village was sitting in the shade, while Mori and Abdullah, an employee of the trading company, were giving water to the camels and starting to fill their water bags with water. The well was old and wide, with a well-built stone enclosure and a manhole cover to cover the top. The well was only a few meters deep, and scaffolding was installed at the four corners of the well to make it easier for travelers like them to get water without rope. In this way, the person can go down to the surface of the water and fill the parchment water bag. …,

Because people threw a lot of stones into the well pit, half of the bottom of the well was blocked, and the water source was not too abundant. Abdullah rolled his long sleeves over his shoulders, rolled up his robe and tucked it behind the belt, and climbed up and down little by little, each time carrying a bag of water and pouring it into a stone slit prepared for the camels by the well. Each camel drinks about two or three bags of water at a time.

As the leader of this caraver, Shoichi Murauchi just sat quietly, originally as the president of the caravan, he didn't need to lead the caravan himself, but this time, he had a different mission, if it wasn't for the war, he wouldn't have taken this long way to avoid the Ottoman army.

Some of the Harbs came and drove a large herd of camels from the same litter, and began to give them water, and they sent one down to the well to fill it with large leather water bags, and then sang loudly and intermittently and passed it by hand. Seeing Sen Teng in the village, this guy who had just been sent was looking at these people with great interest, and the Arabs in the trading house were also looking at each other,

The villagers, who were familiar with the desert environment, knew why, for they were Musrah and the employees of their caravans were Beniselem, and in this desert there was no cessation of war between tribes, and the two tribes were only in a period of peaceful intercourse with each other, and could pass through each other's territory, which was the only and temporary way for the chiefs, although there was no basis for deep understanding.

While the village and Senten were both looking at the men, two more men sat on fat camels and ran towards them from the north. Both were young men, one of them wearing a precious cashmere robe and a headcloth embroidered with thick silk thread, and the other wearing a more modest white cotton coat with a red calico headcoat. They stopped at the well, and the richly dressed one slipped straight off the camel before it could kneel, and with great agility he threw the reins of his companion and said casually:

"Give it a drink, I'll go and rest for a while."

Then he walked casually, glanced at the two Orientals casually, and sat down against the wall on which the village leaned. He handed over a freshly rolled cigarette and licked it, saying:

"Are you from China?"

"Yes, sir"

The village replied politely.

"Japanese?"

There was a hint of contempt on the other party's face, Chinese different from the Japanese, it was manifested in the temperament they revealed, and there was a ...... in the Chinese temperament Well, the taste of the great powers, and then the man hinted that he was from Mecca, and that there was a well-known secret in Arabia that Japanese merchants could sell them everything as long as they had money, and therefore, for Japanese merchants, the tribes were quite welcome.

"My name is Ali? Ibn? Hussein"

The young Arab said this with a deep pride on his face, and it was clear that he was proud of his surname

However, as soon as he finished speaking, information about the Arab region immediately came to the minds of the village, and since the Young Turks came to power six years ago, they had imposed a Greater Turkish government at home, dissolved all non-Turkish political organizations, abolished the majority of Arab representatives in the Imperial Parliament, and this policy of the Young Turks caused the Arab nationalists to quickly part ways with them, and the Arab nationalists, mainly Syrian intellectuals, established the Young Arab Association. Some chieftains and dignitaries in other Arab provinces of the Ottoman Empire secretly formed the "Ahed", a military organization against the Turks, preparing to establish a completely independent Arab state by violent means.

And in the southern provinces of the Ottoman Empire, opposition to the Ottomans was centered in the Hejaz region, and the de facto ruler of the Hejaz region was the Grand Sharif of Mecca, Ali? Ibn? Hussein, the father of the man in front of him? Ibn? Ali, to whom he belonged to the Hashemite family, was a direct descendant of the Islamic prophet Muhammad and his daughter Fatima, and enjoyed great status and prestige in Mecca and the Hejaz region.

According to the information available now, Hussein maintained a seemingly detached relationship with the Turks, secretly had been secretly planning and organizing anti-Turkish activities, he tried to use the Hejaz to become independent, and unify the entire Arala region in order to restore the Arab Empire, and as early as half a year ago, he sent his second son Abdullah to Cairo to get in touch with the British Consul General in Egypt, Field Marshal Kitchener, Hussein tried to obtain funding from the British in order to launch an uprising in order to realize his desire for Arab revival, However, the British did not make any use of his proposal to start an uprising, and some Arabs at the time also feared that the uprising would lead to complete British and French control of the Arab region, and hoped to reach an agreement with the Turks to propose an Austro-Hungarian confederation state, which had allowed Turkey to maintain control of the Arabian Peninsula until now due to differences of opinion among the Arabs. …,

Just because the British weren't interested didn't mean that China wasn't interested, and although China had no intention of helping the Elder build an Arab empire, it was interested in helping the Arab region gain independence and thus gain privileges in the region, and that was his mission.

"Sang Pingzhi, I am Chinese"

As he stood up and saluted, the village said his name for the first time in front of the Arabs, and Ali noticed a change in the temperament of the Oriental in front of him.

"Chinese?"

Looking carefully at the sudden change of words of the Oriental who had previously thought he was Japanese, Ali became curious, although he had almost never left Arabia, but he knew that China was also a big country, and even for him, China was also the object of his father's study.

In his father's view, China and Arabia were very imaginary, both under foreign rule, but China quickly became a strong country after gaining independence, and in this respect China was an example worthy of any nation that wanted independence, and it was for this reason that his father considered whether he should go to China for a visit, but that was only an idea.

"Mr. San"

Ali nodded in response, then looked at his caravan laden with goods.

"Is Mr. Sang's caravan preparing for the Hejaz?".

"Yes, if Your Excellency can introduce Ling Zun, there is nothing more pleasing than this"

Although the Chinese and Japanese trading companies have been active in the Arab region for five years, they have never really penetrated into the heart of Arabia, and the Arabs also have a tradition of doing business, and in many areas, for security reasons, few Orientals have penetrated, and even this trip to the Hejaz is a risk, after all, China and the Ottoman Empire are now divided into two camps, although the two countries have not yet declared war.

"Now is the right time to go to the Hejaz, my father and I myself are very welcoming to the caravans, since last month, after the Turks declared war on Britain and France, a lot of merchants have evacuated Arabia, you know, the reason for the war, so, now the Hejaz needs a lot of goods......"

As he spoke, Ali looked at the camels again, as we all know, Japanese merchants are just "slaves" of Chinese merchants, the so-called Japanese merchants can get everything, but those goods are ultimately provided by Chinese merchants, can this Chinese merchant provide what his father needs? ……，