For Datang to make such an excessive request, the Great Food envoys naturally would not agree, but under the roof, they did not dare to be too tough, so they could only euphemistically say that the Great Food would never hand over the Suez Canal.

Li Shimin finally took a step back from the insistence of the Great Food Envoy, he believed that the geographical location of the Suez Canal was too important to be controlled by the Great Food family, so he proposed that several countries should jointly manage and share the benefits with each other, and this proposal was also firmly agreed by the Great Qi and Tianzhu envoys.

Originally, if it was only for economic interests, Da Shi would probably agree to Li Shimin's request, after all, although the Suez Canal is a golden waterway, they can't care about it in the face of life and death, let alone just give away part of the benefits.

However, the geographical location of the Suez Canal is too sensitive, it is just located between the Great Food Peninsula and Egypt, and it is not very far from the capital of the Great Food. So in the end, the envoys of the Great Food still withstood the huge pressure of the Three Kingdoms of the Tang Dynasty and still did not agree to Li Shimin's proposal.

This made Li Shimin very annoyed, and many generals of the Tang Dynasty also clamored for war, but in the end, the envoy sent by Li Su proposed a compromise plan, that is, let Dashi once again increase the opening of the Suez Canal, no matter what the conditions, they are not allowed to seize the merchant ships of the three Tang countries, and at the same time, they must also implement a tax reduction policy on the merchant ships of the three countries, and the tax will be reduced by more than half compared with the original.

Seeing that the whole Tang Dynasty was clamoring to start. The envoys of the Great Eclipse are also not having a good time, and now they see that the envoys of the Great Qi have proposed such a plan that does not touch their core interests. Naturally, they all raised their hands in favor, but Li Shimin made a gesture of disagreement at first. Later, it was Li Suhe, Li Zhen, and Li Yun who wrote a letter in their own hands, which made him 'reluctantly' agree to this plan.

So in this case, led by Datang, a total of four countries including Daqi, Tianzhu and Dashi participated, and finally signed a commercial contract called the "Suez Canal Trade Treaty", in which Dashi declared that it would never seize the merchant ships of Datang and other three countries without authorization, reduce or exempt the taxes of the merchant ships of the three countries, and also ensure the smooth flow of the Suez Canal.

And in order to supervise the implementation of this treaty by the Great Food. The treaty also stipulates that the three Tang countries will build a military port in Hafengjiao, and a joint force composed of the three Tang countries will be stationed for a long time.

As for the joint forces, although the envoys of the Great Food tried their best to resist, they could not withstand the pressure of the three countries in the end, and finally agreed, but they also succeeded in adding a time limit to this article. It is stipulated that if within twenty years, Da Shi has not violated the content of the treaty, then the three Tang countries must withdraw the joint forces of Hafengjiao.

The signing of the Suez Canal Trade Treaty ensured the smooth flow of the Suez Canal. At the same time, it has also greatly promoted the cultural and economic exchanges between the East and the West. However, these are not the most important, the key is that with the guarantee of this treaty, Li Ke finally has no worries. Begin to prepare in full force for access to the Mediterranean.

In the autumn of the twenty-fourth year of Zhenguan, after nearly a year of preparation. Li Ke himself recruited a total of 20,000 people in Shanghai and Suzhou who were willing to go with him to the Mediterranean. Li Shimin helped Li Ke gather 40,000 people in the Guanzhong area. In addition, there are 60,000 non-Han people, most of whom are Hu people from the northern grasslands, and a considerable number of people from the Western Regions. Together, it was enough for 100,000 yuan, and all of them were given to Li Ke.

In comparison, most of the Han people here in Li Su have just moved from the Central Plains, and they are very satisfied with their current life, so few people are willing to move again, and in the end, Li Su only recruited Han people in their early 20,000s. Li Su was very dissatisfied with this, but he had no choice, so he had to organize a lot of Hu people from Sanhan, Wazhou, and Ezo Island again, and finally there were 160,000 people together, and then 20,000 Han people, a total of 180,000 people.

The number of recruits from the three parties together has just reached 300,000, of which only 80,000 are Han Chinese, but because Li Shimin and Li Su arranged it very cleverly, the population of other ethnic groups is smaller than that of Han people, such as the Hu people, who have the largest number of Hu people except Han people, and the Hu people in the north and Ezo Hu people combined, which are only 60,000.

300,000 people seems to be a lot, at least more than when Li Zhen and Li Yun went to Tianzhu, the population is much larger, but Li Ke's situation is more special, the Mediterranean Sea he is going to is far away from the Central Plains, even if the sea traffic is developed now, but there are still very few Han people go there, which even Li Zhen and Li Yun's Tianzhu is stronger than his there, for example, now many Han people have gone to Tianzhu to settle down.

Therefore, in a short period of time, the population in Li Ke's hands will not grow much, and these 300,000 people will be all the capital for his future founding of the country, especially the number of Han people in it is not large, he not only has to use this limited population to rule a large amount of land, but also to prevent the forces of other ethnic groups from growing too fast, which is not conducive to his rule.

The problem of population can only be like this for the time being, after all, 300,000 people is already a lot, at least for Li Ke, he has a kind of unexpected surprise, originally according to his original estimate, the total population that can be recruited in the end can be 200,000, and even for the number of Han people, he also thinks that it is only 50,000 at most, but he did not expect that it is far beyond his goal now.

Just like Li Su said at the beginning, if there is a population, then the army is not a problem. Originally, there were 1,000 guards in Li Ke's mansion, and these people naturally had to follow him to the Mediterranean, and they would also become the backbone of the army in Li Ke's hands.

In addition, Li Shimin and Li Su also recruited a group of cadets from their respective military academies to join Li Ke's team, these cadets have received formal military education, and everyone has a lot of room for growth.

It is worth mentioning that the cadets in the two military academies are very enthusiastic about joining Li Ke's team, especially those young cadets. Although most of the cadets of the current military academy can become officers after graduation, for these young people, instead of staying in Datang and Daqi to start from middle and low-level officers step by step, it is better to follow Li Ke to the Mediterranean, at least on the battlefield over there, they can give full play to their military talents, and their promotions will be faster, of course, the premise is that you have real skills.

Young people have impulsive personalities, and they will not admit that they have no real skills, so the recruitment of the two military schools went very smoothly, and the number of people recruited in the end was much more than expected, not only some students who are close to graduation, but even some students who have just entered the school, although some are not very rational, but from this can also see the ambition of the Tang boys.

With the addition of these cadets and the original 1,000 guards as the backbone, the army in Li Ke's hands was finally set up, and the next step was to recruit soldiers among the people who were willing to move. Most of these people who are willing to relocate are people who are not willing to accept the status quo, especially young people, who have been mentally prepared to join the army from the moment they agree to relocate, after all, they also know that if they want to gain a foothold in a strange land, they must naturally have strong force.

It is precisely because of this that the recruitment work was also very smooth, and 300,000 people were quickly recruited into an army of 50,000 people, including 20,000 Han Chinese and 30,000 mixed troops of other ethnic groups. Moreover, in view of the problem that the number of this army was too small, Li Ke suggested that Li Ke build this army into an all-firearms unit, which would be mainly used for attacking, and as for the cold weapon troops to be used in the future, they could be filled by the nationalities of the conquered areas.

Regarding Li Su's suggestion, Li Ke finally agreed to this suggestion after careful consideration and discussion with Wang Fangyi and others. In recent years, the steel output of Datang and Daqi has been rising at a linear rate, coupled with the progress of technology, the manufacturing cost of firearms has dropped a lot, although the cost of 50,000 firearms troops is expensive, but Li Ke feels that it can still be afforded, not to mention that it doesn't matter if he has no money, he can temporarily borrow money from Li Su, and it is not too late to pay him back when he has money in the future.

In the following period, Li Ke's 50,000 troops were trained by military instructors provided by Li Su, and even officers such as Wang Fangyi had to learn the command of firearms units, and this training process lasted about a year.

However, in this year, Li Ke and other people who were willing to migrate were not idle, Li Ke provided them with a temporary habitable island in the South Seas, and Li Ke bought a large number of ships, most of them were taught by some invited seafarers, began to learn how to drive ships, and even Li Ke also arranged for a group of people to go to the shipyard for internship to learn shipbuilding technology.

The reason why the whole people learn to drive a boat, Li Ke is inspired by Li Su here, the development of sea trade has become an unstoppable trend, and it will bring huge trade benefits to your family, so Li Ke has decided that after gaining a firm foothold in the Mediterranean, he will be like Li Su, vigorously carry out marine trade, and strive to gather a lot of wealth in the shortest possible time, so that he has greater strength to expand around.

In this way, Li Ke's 300,000 people have spent a year in intense training, and the time has finally become ripe, in the winter of the twenty-fifth year of Zhenguan, Li Ke led an army of 50,000 people, quietly left the Great Qi Empire by boat, and finally passed through the Suez Canal smoothly under the banner of the Tang Dynasty, and came to the Mediterranean region for the second time. (To be continued......)