In 1846, a group of French had taken the lead in forming the Suez Isthmus Society (French: Société d'études de l'Isthme de Suez) and invited British and Austrian railway engineers to study the feasibility of the Suez Canal with the assistance of the Frenchman Louis Maurice Adolf, chief engineer of the Egyptian Ministry of Public Works.

The results of the study showed that there was no difference in sea level between the Mediterranean Sea and the Red Sea, which was the basis for the excavation of Suez In 1855, Ferdinand convened thirteen experts from seven countries to establish the International Commission for the Penetration of the Suez Isthmus (I).

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g of the isthmus of Suez) to study the previous Suez Canal scheme by Louis Maurice Adolf and give the best route for the canal.

After several trips to Egypt to investigate all aspects of the canal, the commissioners unanimously approved a report in December 1856 containing a detailed plan for the Suez Canal.

Two years later, Ferdinand founded the Suez Canal Company (Compag) on the basis of a charter granted to him by the Khedive of Egypt

i.e. de Suez) to preside over the excavation of the canal, which is open to ships of all countries, and was responsible for operating the canal for 99 years (counting from the date of its opening).

On September 25 of the following year, Ferdinand personally waved the first pickaxe at the northern starting point of the Suez Canal, the future Port Said, symbolizing the official start of the Suez Canal.

At a time when the construction of the Suez Canal was in full swing, there were still doubts about its viability, so the shares issued by the Suez Canal Company initially sold very poorly internationally, especially in the United Kingdom, Austria and Russia, and almost no people bought the shares.

But then, with the help of the French branch of the Rothschild, the Suez Canal shares were successfully marketed in France, and the shares issued in France were quickly sold

Still, Britain, which has long opposed the excavation of the Suez Canal, doubted that the Suez Canal would be profitable, saying: "We have the right to question whether the canal's plan is profitable, because the Suez Canal requires high annual maintenance costs."

And in any case, the Suez Canal will never be able to navigate large ships. "Obviously, the facts of many years later slapped the British in the face.

It is not enough to dig the canal with sufficient funds and advanced science and technology, and the Suez Canal is a large project that requires a lot of labor to carry out the work.

To this end, Ferdinand alone drew up the rules for the work of the Suez Canal Company, and on behalf of France, made a request to Egypt for the conscription, which was signed by the Egyptian Khedif Mohammed Said Pasha.

As a result, France was able to use Egypt's vast quantities of cheap labor during the canal construction, and more than four million Egyptian peasants were forced to leave their farmlands behind to work in the desert of the Isthmus of Suez.

All the Egyptian peasants sent to conscription were first gathered at al-Zaqāzīq (in the eastern part of the Nile Delta) to be examined, and those who were small were spared, while the able-bodied young were to suffer, and they were selected and each given a bag with some dry bread and water, which was their entire ration for the next four days.

They were then roped one by one and walked for four days to the construction site of the Suez Canal, where they replaced the previous group of farmers who had been working for a month. Without such a shift plan, the Egyptian peasants digging the canal would have died of exhaustion.

Working Egyptian migrant workers receive an unequal amount of bread every day, depending on their age, but other than that, they rarely receive anything else to eat, no clothes or shoes to change, and some so-called "misbehaving" people receive nothing.

Their daily wages are pitifully small, ranging from a dime a day to a triangular amount at most, while child laborers under the age of 12 are paid even less a dime a day.

According to the work regulations established by the Suez Canal Company, absenteeism must not only be severely punished, but also deducted according to the bad conditions of absenteeism, such as one yuan and five dimes a day for those who run away from the construction site, which is worth ten days' wages.

Not only is the salary on the construction site small, the management is strict, and the working environment is very harsh.

The Suez Canal Company has canceled its previous promise to dig a channel for workers to supply drinking water, leaving tens of thousands of workers dying of thirst in the heat-simmering desert.

The company also failed to fulfill its promise to provide Egyptian workers with advanced equipment, and a large number of workers relied on a pickaxe and a bucket to carry out their work, which was time-consuming and labor-intensive. The company also did not provide safety for the construction, and during the excavation of the canal, there were frequent accidents, and Egyptian workers were often buried alive by quicksand.

Although there were hospitals and emergency centers on site, the company ordered medical facilities to serve only foreign workers and employees, and the rampant epidemic of diseases such as conjunctivitis, tuberculosis, smallpox, hepatitis and pneumonia on the site left many sick and injured Egyptian workers unable to seek medical treatment and eventually died.

In the summer of 1865, cholera was epidemic on the construction site, and a large number of workers vomited and diarrhea to death. The sanitary conditions on the canal site were so terrible that it became a living hell.

Paradoxically, on June 19, 1865, the French government also awarded the Chief Physician of the Suez Canal Company the Knight's Medal of Honor for his contribution to protecting Egyptian workers from death threats

By the time the canal was completed in 1869, a staggering 120,000 Egyptian workers had died from hunger, thirst, epidemics, and accidents, many of whose bodies were unclaimed or unrecognizable, and ended up hastily buried in the desert or thrown into the canal.

As France's opponent, Britain has always opposed the excavation of the Suez Canal, fearing that its position as the supremacy of maritime trade will be shaken by the opening of the canal, so the British government has done everything in its power to obstruct the French from diplomatic, political and military aspects.

As the canal was dug by forced labor in the first few years, the British condemned France's forced labor of Egyptian peasants, but the French did not respond.

The Egyptian Khedif Mohammed Said Pasha was also indifferent to the lives of his people, and in December 1861 he personally inspected the Suez Canal construction site and recruited 20,000 Egyptian peasants to speed up the excavation of the canal.

The reluctant British took advantage of the discontent of the Egyptians, who were forced to work, to supply weapons to the canal workers through the Bedouin tribes and sea routes around the canal, inciting them to riot.

In 1862, Egyptian workers, who had long been dissatisfied with their working conditions, went on strike and refused to dig the canal under poor working conditions, while many workers took advantage of the chaos to escape, and some simply took up arms to fight the Suez Canal Company that had oppressed them for so long.

The once-embattled Suez Canal Company had to turn to the Egyptian and French governments for help to end the strike and suppress the riots.

Even the Egyptian Khedive condemned France for forcing the Egyptian people to work, so the Suez Canal Company had to announce the end of forced labor and no longer force Egyptian farmers to dig the canal.

Since then, the progress of the canal project has slowed down, but the construction is still in an orderly manner, and the British, who are still not giving up, have repeatedly found fault and put pressure on the newly enthroned Egyptian Khedive Ismaili Pasha to stop the French digging the canal.

As a result, the owner of the Suez Canal Company, Ferdinand Dreseb, had to use his connections to invite his cousin, Eugénie de Montirou, the Empress of France

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Tijo) sent the wind to her husband, Emperor Napoleon III, so that the Emperor himself intervened to mediate the dispute.

Relying on such a strong backstage, Ferdinand kept the canal.

On November 17, 1869, after ten years of construction, the Suez Canal was finally opened in its entirety, and the Egyptian Khedif Ismaili Pasha personally presided over the opening ceremony held in Port Said on the same day.

And invited European princes and nobles, including the French Empress Eugenie, to attend the scene, and people from all over Egypt also came to see the grand occasion.

Amid the salute of the Egyptian troops on both sides of the canal, the yacht "L'Aigle" (L'Aigle), the official representative of France, took the lead in passing through the Suez Canal from north to south, and France's many years of operation finally succeeded.

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On May 1, 1877, the city hall of Medellín (to be renamed Chang'an).

Donghua negotiators: Li Song (industrial and commercial finance), Liu Yun (foreign affairs), Li Xiang (infrastructure)

French negotiators: Reseb (Director of Engineering for the Suez Canal), Godan (engineer).

Reseb spoke first: "The Panama Canal Authority is headed by a board of directors. The Board of Directors consists of 11 directors. The Chairman of the Board of Directors has the ministerial status in charge of the affairs of the Canal and is selected and appointed by the President of the Republic. Of the directors, one is appointed by the legislative branch of the government, and the remaining nine are appointed by the President with the consent of the Cabinet. The appointment of directors is subject to the approval of an absolute majority of the Legislative Assembly, in particular the President of Colombia.

But we have to have six directors in France, and I have a lot of experience in the construction of the Suez Canal, and I am the executive director of the canal operating company. ”

Li Song said softly to Liu Yun: "It seems that they think that Colombia is still dominated by the white regime, and they have no idea that our military power has long overwhelmed the white government army, and we can reorganize the government in minutes." ”

Liu Yun: "The French, they are so arrogant and arrogant, and they have not been taught to be a man by the Germans in the east, which is understandable!" ”

Li Xiang said to Rebus: "The Panama Railway was built by the Irish and the Chinese, and the Americans also recognized the ability of our Chinese. So the canal company is 51% in Donghua, 20% in Colombia, 29% in yours, and if you refuse, then we go to the Germans and the Portuguese. ”

Godan: "The project still needs to cross the Culebra Mountains, and you have to build sluices and dams, you can't do it, right?" ”

Li Song: "Where are you lagging behind in the steam excavator?" And do you have a dynamite bag? How do you prevent mudslides? How to prevent disease in tropical rainforests? What should I do if there is a flash flood during construction? ”

Liu Yun: "By the way, so many laborers died in the Suez Canal in Egypt, have you bought insurance every month?" ”

Resebe: "These are just minor issues, we French have experience!" ”

Li Song: "Is the solution to bribe government officials?" Or do you falsely declare your funds and issue shares in Europe and the United States? Oh, have you paid back the money of the French people? Is it ready to have been sold to the British. ”

Reseb was horrified: "What do you all know? ”

Liu Yun: "In 1875, foreign debt forced the Pasha (Said Pasha's successor) to sell his stake in the canal to the British. Right? ”

Godan: "Greedy Brits deserve hell!" ”

Li Song: "To sum up, for the Suez Canal, you French broke your heart, 120,000 Egyptians sacrificed their lives, and then, in 1875, the British won the fruits of victory. ”

Li Xiang: "To tell the truth, we just saw that the British and Americans were unhappy before we agreed to cooperate with you French, otherwise we have hundreds of thousands of laborers, hundreds of thousands of vanguard troops, plus our advanced construction machinery and system plan, why bother you!" ”

Liu Yun: "I express my sincerity, our Panama Canal sand table model will let you visit, so that you can see what is a great power project, infrastructure madness!" ”