The reason why the eldest prince Ahmad Dahabi couldn't wait to usurp the throne when Sudan Ismaili was sick and bedridden was that he was old and worried that he would not ascend the throne again, and he was afraid that he would die in front of his father, so he would regret it for life.

Another important reason is that he has too many brothers, and the noble ministers of the court and the leaders of the black slave army will make countless choices according to their own best interests.

Then, this will be the most helpless and tragic ending for him. No matter which brother succeeds to the throne as the new Sudan, he will not want to see a "highly respected" and influential brother alive.

In Morocco's more than 1,000-year history, the current Sudan Ismaili is undoubtedly one of the most outstanding kings. He put an end to centuries of division and war in the country, established a powerful army of black slaves, recovered the territory occupied by European colonizers, and defended Morocco's territorial sovereignty.

Unlike the Moroccan Sudan of the past, Ismaili was not very interested in raiding at sea. Although Sultan himself could benefit greatly from supporting this venture, as Moroccan pirates were once the most important part of the Barbary pirates and had benefited greatly from piracy, he decided to reduce piracy in the hope of promoting Morocco's economic prosperity through normal trade and commerce, so that Morocco's business environment was safer and more relaxed than in the rest of the Maghreb region (i.e., northwestern Africa, including present-day Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria).

During this period, Morocco's foreign trade consisted mainly of two aspects, namely the trade of the Hala trade route and the trade of the Mediterranean.

The consolidation of the Ismaili led to a revival of the once-declining trade of the Sahara, and gold and salt became the main commodities exchanged between the north and the south. Caravans poured in from Timbuktu to Sutan's treasury from black areas, and the Moroccan dinar was highly sought-after in the European financial markets.

The Sudan also strongly encouraged the development of trade in the Mediterranean, but in order to monopolize more financial resources, it was stipulated that such trade could only be carried out in a few authorized ports.

In 1679, the Qi fleet arrived in Morocco and visited the Sudan Ismaili, which quickly established close diplomatic and economic relations between the two countries, and Morocco was included in the Red Sea-Mediterranean trade circle dominated by the Qi state.

A wide variety of Qi goods entered Morocco from Saré and Tetouan, from where the local Moors and Jews distributed them to Fez, Meknes, Marrakech, Taroudant, and other places, where they were distributed by their agents. The city of Fez was like a public warehouse for the whole of Berberia, a transit center for goods, and Menex became a trading center for grain, cotton, leather and beeswax.

The Qi people mainly exported textiles, tea, coffee, luxury goods, metal products, and some ordnance and weapons, while Morocco exported gold sand, indigo, ostrich feathers, dates, and some ivory.

In the earliest period, Ismaili set a tariff of 25% on all imports and exports, and later, after continuous negotiations and negotiations between Qi and the state, the tariff was finally reduced to between 8% and 10%. Prosperous foreign trade not only increased the revenue of the state treasury, but was also an important means of consolidating the central power and expanding the prestige of the Sutan—after all, maintaining a stable ruling order and encircling a large aristocratic and military bloc required a great deal of wealth.

In his foreign conquests and plunder, Ismaili not only scavenged a large amount of wealth for domestic construction and to satisfy his own extravagant life, but also developed a special hobby, that is, he liked to collect young and beautiful women.

In the past few decades, Ismaili's harem has accommodated hundreds of women, and there are more than 500 concubines with names recorded.

These concubines of Ismaili have all kinds of origins, all kinds of skin colors, and they are also from different nationalities, no matter what they are, he will not refuse to come. He and these more than 500 concubines had 525 sons and 342 daughters, a total of 867 children!

This astonishing number, throughout the history of the world, is unparalleled, can be the only one to breed offspring, as for whether there are latecomers, no one knows, but it is definitely unprecedented. Ismaili is also immensely proud of having so many offspring (and I guess even a man is proud of that).

Even so, the "energetic" Sultan was not satisfied, and in 1689 he appointed his favorite vassal Abdullah bin Aisha as an envoy to France, and in 1689 he expressed to Louis XIV his desire to marry his illegitimate daughter, the beautiful Princess Conti, while discussing the exchange and ransom of prisoners (mainly European civilians captured by the Barbary pirates).

Not surprisingly, this move caused a lot of laughter from the whole of Versailles, and was very rudely rejected by the Bourbons.

What are you kidding, not to mention the huge religious belief gap between the two sides, even the age gap between the two is also wide!

Your old man is over sixty-two years old, eleven years older than King Louis XIV, and the beautiful princess Conti, although she has only been widowed for a short time, is only twenty-three years old, how can she marry you a bad old man who is absurd and unscrupulous!

The eldest prince, Dahabi, had long been bored and impatient with his father's absurd behavior and his many siblings, and even more so with the deep suspicion of Su Dan.

Emperors like Ismaili became more suspicious as they got older, and they attached great importance to the money they had. Among his many sons, all those who embezzled (hidden) money were severely punished by him. More than a decade ago, a son named Muhammad had his hand and foot cut off for stealing a few pieces of fine oriental porcelain from the palace. There is also a son named Qi Dan, who was suffocated to death by him a few years ago just by touching a dozen gold coins from the palace collection.

Ismaili, however, was arrogant and lascivious, and spendthrift. During his reign, the stables in the palace were made of pure gold, and the kitchen utensils had to be made of pure gold, even the palace gates were made of pure gold.

When Ismaili heard the envoy to France describe the splendor and magnificence of the Palace of Versailles, he went so far as to build a Versailles of Morocco's own in Meknes. To this end, in addition to mobilizing more than 12,000 slaves, tens of thousands of civilians were also requisitioned, and construction projects were carried out on a large scale, which consumed great manpower and material resources.

A few months ago, because of this incident, Prince Dahabi tactfully admonished his father not to build such a extravagant and grand project in such a disregard for financial and people's resources, so as not to overconsume the national strength.

However, this move was immediately severely reprimanded by Ismaili, and he also suspected that his "accusation" against him had ulterior motives, intending to use his status as the eldest prince to invite the people to buy people's hearts and seek to usurp the throne of Sudan.

If it weren't for the efforts of many noble ministers, Ismaili would have killed this old son on the spot.

Although he spared Prince Dahabi's life, he ordered him to contribute 8,000 dinars of gold and send his family servants to the construction site of the "Palace of Versailles" under construction, and provide him with corresponding financial and manpower support.

This really doesn't make people live!

Last month, Prince Dahabi scraped together and made every effort to pay the amount of gold coins that Sultan had earmarked to the royal treasury. Before he could breathe a sigh of relief, he heard the news from the palace that Abaza, the commander of the black slave army, had slandered Su Dan that the eldest prince had raised so many gold coins in such a short period of time, and that he must have used his power and status as the eldest prince to embezzle a large amount of wealth from the treasury that should have belonged to His Majesty Su Dan.

Eventually, Abazar advised Sudan Ismaili to take the prince into custody and raid the prince's mansion so that more gold could be recovered.

Nima's, this is no way to live!

Over the years, Prince Dahabi has indeed used his status as a Xuanhe to accept and solicit a large amount of bribes, and at the same time, he has also used his power to intervene in the lucrative Saharan trade and Mediterranean trade, and has also accumulated a lot of wealth.

But if the gang of the black slave royal army were to slander him like this, instigated Su Dan to order him to be detained, and the mansion was raided, wouldn't it be to borrow a knife to kill people and force him to death!

Therefore, Prince Dahabi made up his mind to take advantage of his father's illness and bedridden to directly usurp the throne of Sudan, and then eradicate the black slave army.

It is a heinous heinous that a group of lowly slaves dare to murder their masters!

In the army, although the Mujahideen Corps is inclined to him, their combat power is not high, and they are scattered all over the country, and if they mobilize the followers of the True God Cult, they will inevitably alarm Su Dan and the black slave army, and they may be wiped out by them before they can cause trouble.

However, the royal army was different, except for three battalions of musketeers stationed at Rabat, the rest of the troops, including the most important artillery battalion, were concentrated in the capital city of Meknes. If you take it for yourself, you can definitely control the situation in the whole of Meknes.

As we all know, the new royal army was trained by the military instructors of the Qi State, and all the military equipment also came from the Qi State, and many of the officers also studied in Hanzhou, whether they were officers or soldiers, they were deeply influenced by the people of the Qi State.

If the Qi people were inclined to him, and exerted a little influence on this army, and gave the greatest support when seizing power by force, then the black slave royal army was not worth mentioning at all.

Coupled with such a powerful naval fleet stationed outside the port of Rabat, it will surely be able to deter many opponents in the country and ensure that he can successfully ascend to the throne of Sudan.

On June 14, at 3 a.m., the great Sudan Ismaili of the Alawite dynasty of Morocco fell seriously ill and died in the palace of Baba Mansour. The eldest prince Dahabi, supported by many court ministers and royal nobles, succeeded to the throne of Sudan and was given the title of Ahmed I.

At about 6 o'clock in the morning, the commander of the black slave army, Abaza, and several high-ranking generals were detained by the new Sudan, and then hanged in prison for only a few hours.

On 15 June, more than 5,000 black slaves rebelled at the Imperial Army garrison outside Meknes, but were crushed by the combined forces of the new royal army and the Mujahideen. The new army also used more than 10 artillery pieces to bomb the black slave army garrison into ruins, and then killed and wounded 2,300 black slave soldiers with continuous volley of guns, and the rest surrendered.

On June 18, Sudan Ahmed I dispatched more than 3,000 black slave troops to Tianmen, the territory of Qi, on a long-distance overland march to Tianmen, to cooperate with Qi to launch a counterattack against England.

(End of chapter)