On November 2, 1730, in the late autumn of London, the city of London experienced an uplifting rainfall and the recent invasion of a cold snap from the north, which caused the city's inhabitants to feel a complete chill. The fallen leaves on the streets and the moisture on the ground make people feel a different kind of desolation and loneliness. The grey sky and the fog in the distance add to the mystery. In such a city, people wear thick coats and scarves and hurry, and the pace of life has gradually entered the winter preparations.

The streets are lined with old buildings, all of which look crowded with roofs next to each other. Due to age, the building also began to crack and fade. But even so, these old buildings still exude a calm and solemn beauty.

In this corner of the city, there are also small parks with some tall oaks, maples, and elms. The leaves of these trees slowly turn yellow and red in the autumn breeze, giving a sense of warmth and romance. Sometimes, the sunlight shines through the gaps in the leaves, elongating the shadows of the trees and illuminating the entire park in a golden yellow.

When night falls, the city starts to get a little weird. The yellow light of the street lamps casts a faint glow through the corners of the streets, the leaves and the cracks of the windows, and the cold night adds a sense of oppression and fear. At this time, many people began to spend the long nights with the help of candles and gas lamps.

"Sir Nelson, the Navy's two newly commissioned steam warships will be handed over at the Thames Docks at nine o'clock tomorrow morning, and Admiral Ricken would like you to be there and give a speech to the officers and men of the Navy present." Neves Malcolm, secretary of the Royal Naval Commission of England, handed a letter of invitation to the chairman, Johan Nelson, Earl of Omante.

"How did these two steam warships perform during the half-year sea trials?" Count Omante opened the invitation and looked at it, then gently placed it on the table, and asked casually.

"According to the feedback of the Navy, these two steam warships have overcome many problems existing in the previous test ships, and in terms of reliability and stability, they are almost comparable to the steam warships in service in the Qi Navy."

"That's great!" A satisfied smile appeared on Count Omante's face, "Then in the next ten years, our Royal Navy can gradually eliminate the sail warships and turn them into steam warships." In this way, our Kingdom of England will become the second country in the world to be fully equipped with steam warships after the Qi Kingdom. ”

"Jazz ......" Neves Malcolm stopped talking.

"How?"

"Sir, does Admiral Rickon have a different view on the future of the Royal Navy?"

"Oh?" Earl O'Mounte looked at Neves Malcolm in surprise, "He has a ...... about the future construction of the Royal Navy Differing opinions? ”

"Yes, Sir."

"Tell me about it." The Earl of Aumante leaned gently back into the soft leather chair.

"General Rickon believes that the Royal Navy, in addition to equipping the necessary steam warships, will also invest a lot of money in research and construction...... Ironclad. ”

"Ironclad?" Earl Omante's eyes widened, "Does General Rickon know how difficult it is to develop an ironclad ship?" Does he know how much an ironclad ship costs? According to the information revealed by the people of Qi Guo, the construction cost of an ironclad ship exceeded 100,000 pounds! This money was enough to build two or three large battleships of the first rank. ”

"Sir, Admiral Rickon said that wooden warships were completely vulnerable to ironclad ships, and whether they were traditional sail warships or steam-powered sail warships, they had no chance of winning in the face of ironclad attacks. …… The Anglo-Qi War a few years ago fully illustrated all this. ”

"......" Earl Omante froze when he heard this.

Yes, a few years ago, the people of Qi successively mobilized several ironclad ships to come to Europe, and in several naval battles, these ironclad ships seemed to be the real overlords of the sea, and they were also an invincible existence, so that many Royal Navy sail warships had nothing to do on the battlefield, and they had almost no power to fight.

Dozens of inches of armor and huge caliber guns, no less than the speed and maneuverability of the steam sail battleship, in the course of the battle with the Royal Navy warship, like a heavy cavalry, bravely burst into a group of unprotected farmers, wantonly charged, harvested.

Oh God, it's not a fair contest at all.

"However, how can our kingdom's finances afford to develop and build ironclad ships?" Earl Omante smiled bitterly, "With the heavy debt burden, the huge amount of indemnity, the countless relief for unemployed workers, and the ongoing construction of domestic railways, ......, I think that in the short term, we may not have the financial resources to build a luxury ironclad ship." ”

"But, Jazz ......"

"I know that the generals of the Royal Navy are very unwilling to accept the outcome of the war two years ago, but we must admit that the gap in strength between us and the Qi State is very large, whether it is from the economic aspect or the military aspect, we cannot fight against the increasingly powerful Qi people." Count Omante interrupted Neves Malcolm to continue lobbying, "Even if we have mastered the technology of building ironclad ships, are we really capable of engaging in an arms race at sea with the Qi people?" Oh, that's unrealistic, and it will drag our kingdom of England into a state from which it will never be recovered. To put it pessimistically, even if we in England work hard for another 20 or 30 years, we may not have the strength to challenge the people of Qi. ”

"Therefore, I think that in this situation, as long as our Royal Navy maintains a sea force second only to Qi, it will be enough to protect the overseas interests of our Kingdom of England."

"Jazz ......"

"When our strength is not enough to knock down the enemy, we should rein in our edge, curb our ambitions, hibernate our strength, and wait for a suitable opportunity. Yes, we need to wait, wait for a long time, and maintain the strategic focus we deserve. ”

——

On November 2, 1730, two sailing ships flying the flag of Qi sailed into the port of Tangier, ready to load and unload their cargo there.

Both ships were owned by the Mediterranean Trading Company, and one ship was called "Qiyue", which was loaded with a large amount of cargo transferred from India and Hanzhou via the Suez Railway. There are tea, silk, porcelain, handicrafts, all kinds of hardware, machinery, equipment and other industrial manufactured products, as well as coffee, cocoa, palm oil and other South Sea tropical products, there are hundreds of kinds of goods, the price is expensive, the quantity is a lot, aimed at the local middle and upper class consumer groups, such as the Moroccan royal family, nobles, high-ranking officials and wealthy businessmen, and tribal leaders.

The second ship is called the "Qixing", and the cargo category is relatively simple, all of which are large commodities such as rails, steel plates, and locomotive parts. Its target customers are not Morocco, but Ireland, so it only stays here for a short time.

That's right, when the Kingdom of England was still bargaining with Qi on how to build its first domestic railway, the Kingdom of Ireland insisted on handing over the entire 240-kilometer-long railway line from Dublin to Cork to the Qi Railway Company before its rival, so as to accelerate the optimization and improvement of transportation and logistics facilities in the kingdom.

Of course, with the withered finances of the Kingdom of Ireland, it is impossible to come up with a large amount of money to build this railway, and the only way to transfer the land management rights and mining areas along the railway line to the Qi Railway Company, and after the railway is opened to traffic, its operation rights and most of the income rights naturally belong to the Qi people.

But the Kingdom of Ireland doesn't care, as a small country and a widow, in order to survive independently, it is too normal to sacrifice some domestic rights and interests and cede some interests.

At least, the people of Qi still put a lot of real money into the Kingdom of Ireland to carry out a vigorous construction, no matter what, it will play a due role in promoting the strength of Ireland.

Well, it's much better than the bone-sucking repression and merciless plundering of the English!

Tangier, generally Moroccans and Europeans will refer to this important port city on the south coast of the strait, while the Qi people like to call it Dehua Port.

Four years ago, Morocco's great Sudan Ismaili died of a serious illness and died in the palace of Baba Mansour, and the eldest prince Dahabi, with the secret help of the Qi state, successfully cut off the power of the black slave royal army, and executed several brothers who competed for the throne, and finally succeeded to the throne of Sudan.

In order to repay the Qi people, the new Moroccan Sultan, who was titled Ahmed I, in addition to sending a large number of armed "volunteers" to follow the Qi State to fight against the Kingdom of England, also leased all the land along the Mediterranean Sea from Tangier to Tianmen (now Ceuta) to the Qi State at the request of the Qi people, with a lease period of 99 years, so that the Qi people completely controlled the entire southern shore of the strait (the Strait of Gibraltar).

Coupled with the Kingdom of Spain, which had established a deep "friendship" with Qi as a result of its joint war against the British, it can be said that the western end of the Mediterranean Sea has been covered by Qi forces, posing a fatal threat to the entire Mediterranean coastal countries and regions.

Not to mention, at the eastern end of the Mediterranean, the Ottoman Empire and the Qi State have maintained a traditional friendly relationship for 70 years, almost as de facto allies, and because of the short-term manpower, the Qi people have tacitly seized many political, economic, military and other rights and interests in the Egyptian provinces, and are stuck on the other side of the Mediterranean.

During the Qi-British War, the Qi navy captured the island of Malta that had been stolen by the British, and subsequently used it as a key naval supply point in the Mediterranean. Although the two countries reached a peace agreement after the war, the Qi people did not withdraw from the island, and at the same time rejected the request of the Knights Hospitaller to return to the island, and grandly included Malta Island in the overseas colonial territory of Qi.

The island was devastated during the British invasion, not only was the wealth of the Knights Hospitaller looted, but also many of the island's villages and towns were ravaged by the impoverished and brutal soldiers of the Scottish Highlands, causing the islanders to flee by boat, heading for Sicily and the Papal lands.

After the Qi people occupied Malta, they imposed a period of strict military control, not only prohibiting the islanders from gathering in large groups, but also restricting Catholics from performing religious ceremonies such as worship and church prayers, in order to prevent these people from colluding with foreign countries and overthrowing the rule of the Qi people.

Against this backdrop, there has been another wave of large-scale exodus from the island's already small number of residents, leaving the entire island with a total of just over 2,000 residents in less than three years.

The island of Malta, located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, adjacent to Italy, less than 100 kilometers away from the Kingdom of Sicily and only more than 280 kilometers away from Tunisia, is an important transit point in Europe and Africa. In terms of military strategy, the island has always been a naval base and has become a battleground for soldiers, and is known as the "heart of the Mediterranean".

In order to control this strategic location, Qi not only built a large number of military facilities on the island, making it the most important naval base in the Mediterranean, but also spared no effort to carry out immigration activities to the island. Less than two years after the end of the Qi-Ying War, more than 1,800 immigrants from the mainland and the East became official residents of the island.

Previously, whether it was several overseas governors in Yinzhou, or the Chen State, which had just become a vassal, everything seemed so difficult in the process of development and immigration, and the increase in population and the accumulation of strength were also extremely slow.

Why?

This is all due to the fact that the government does not attach much importance to the various overseas territories!

Whether in the eyes of His Majesty the Emperor or under the macro planning of the cabinet government, the core interests of the Qi State lie in the South Sea, the mainland, and the Indian Ocean.

What is Yin Zhou?

What is Chenzhou worth mentioning?

With the strong national strength of the Qi State, as long as it is a place that the emperor and the cabinet attach importance to, it will definitely spare no effort to open up and build it.

The Ryukyu Islands, the Strait of Malacca, Ceylon, India, the Persian Gulf, the Red Sea, Egypt, Qianzhou (present-day South Africa), and the Pishan Islands (present-day Canary Islands), Shaohua Islands (present-day Cape Verde Islands), and Xiling Islands (present-day Azores) in the Atlantic Ocean have all received the attention and strong support of the Ministry of Overseas Colonial Affairs and the Ministry of Immigration.

For example, before the outbreak of the Qi-British War, there were only more than 1,500 Han Chinese immigrants in the Qishan Islands, which could not completely suppress the more than 10,000 Spaniards and Berbers on the island.

However, as the war progressed, the importance of the Pishan Islands suddenly became apparent, and the government and military attached great importance to it.

By the end of last year, the population of Qi immigrants in the entire archipelago had surged to more than 9,000, and the total population of the officers and men of the navy and army stationed there had exceeded 10,000.

As for Yinzhou, because it is too far away, it has no economic value - well, well, at least there are relatively high-value minerals such as gold, and there is no population and no market (compared to the denser population and huge market around the Indian Ocean, the market in the east coast of the Pacific Ocean is almost negligible), so it has not received much special attention from Qi State.

Under such circumstances, it was naturally impossible for the Qi government to waste its limited funds to carry out large-scale official immigration activities in Yinzhou.

As for Emperor Taizu's mention, the Yinzhou Continent is the emperor's capital and the chosen place, but now, not too many people believe it.

Dig for a gold mine, get some fur, cut down some trees, and open up endless arable land, then it won't become some so-called chosen place, right?

Except for a small number of river valleys and plains that can be suitable for colonization and immigration, the west coast of Yinzhou is all high mountains and mountains, and the continuous East Kunlun Mountains extend from Rinzhou to Xuanzhou Peninsula, with a depth of nearly 5,000 kilometers from north to south, and hundreds to thousands of kilometers from east to west.

There are large plains in the central part of Yinzhou, and there are several large rivers passing through, but the climate and environment are also harsh, from time to time there will be cold waves and strong winds, and worse, due to the geographical environment, there are often tornadoes in the central plains.

According to the expedition teams, the Indians in the central region of Yinzhou also had a hard time, and their agricultural cultivation was also a mess.

The east coast of Yinzhou, after more than 100 years of colonization and operation by English immigrants, seems to be thriving, the people are rich in silk, and the living standards of residents are much higher than those of England.

But that's all there is to it, given their level of development and the restrictive policies of the English government, the future is also limited.

Besides, even England, which has an industrial base, can hardly resist the blow of our country, so the future potential of the British colonial territories can surpass their home country?

After the Qi merchant ship "Qiyue" unloaded at Dehua Port, it began to load supplies.

Actually, there is nothing to buy in Morocco, but considering that you can't always return empty, right?

It's too wasteful of capacity, it's too uneconomical, and it's too dangerous for the ship to be empty, so you have to load something ballast.

So he could only pinch his nose and buy some local products, mainly grain, phosphate, lead, anthracite, leather, and Moroccan slaves, which were packed and shipped to Egypt for sale.

Egypt now has some leather processing plants, ore refineries, coal processing plants, etc., which can do some mineral sorting and processing.

In addition, as the area under cotton cultivation in Egypt has increased year by year, so has a growing food shortage, so there is a huge demand for cereals from Morocco and other countries in the Mediterranean.

As for the female slaves, it was naturally to meet the needs of many bachelors in the various overseas territories of the Qi State.

Well, in this world, all goods are in demand. Even if there is no demand, the people of Qi will try their best to create demand, and everything can be transformed into wealth.

(End of chapter)