On August 10, 1731, at noon, in the middle of the endless desert, a long procession of pack horses slowly moved forward, the sand and dust billowed and the sun shone brightly, making all the surrounding scenes a little blurry and illusory, making it difficult to see the road ahead.

The horses were panting, snorting, and their steps were unusually heavy, obviously intolerant of the harsh environment of the desert. Only the numerous camels, as if accustomed to all this, marched slowly but surely with a steady pace, the rustle of sand under their feet.

The temperature in the desert is extremely high, making people feel the scorching breath, and the sweat of the people is quickly evaporated. The caravan wore wide hats and covered their faces with soft scarves to protect their skin from the dust and sun. In addition to carrying a large amount of goods on both sides of the pack horse, they also carried a large amount of air-dried food and water in case of emergency.

There were more than thirty wagons in the middle of the caravan, all of which were piled high with goods, so that the wheels passed and left two deep ruts in the desert.

Ibrahim Khan took out the kettle, poured two mouthfuls into his mouth, raised his head, squinted slightly, looked at the glare of the sun, and let out a low curse in his mouth.

Yes, he regretted taking people to India with this camel caravan at this time to meet the senior foreign affairs attaché of Qi in India.

At best, it was like in Persia, by exerting influence on the local ruling class in order to gain political and commercial gains.

The former capital of the Kharat Khanate was Khuzdar, and although it was located in the center of the khanate, it was deep in the mountains and inaccessible, so twenty years ago, following the advice of the Qi people, the capital was moved to Kida.

Although Ibrahim Khan has been living in the isolated hinterland, he has been able to learn some news and rumours from the outside world from different sources.

Qi did not share a border with India, did not have an overwhelming population advantage, and given the huge differences in race, religion and culture, how could they possibly occupy the whole of India?

After sleeping hard for a day and a night, he took a brief tour of the capital of the Khanate with an attitude of scrutiny.

Ibrahim Khan was very disappointed by this, even though he promised the Qi people on behalf of Nadir that after the overthrow of the Safavid dynasty, all the commercial and political benefits that the Qi people had previously obtained would not be affected in the slightest, and even more benefits would be given to them. However, the Qi people still did not change their position and firmly supported the Safavid dynasty.

The Khanate, founded by the Baluchis, was now a protectorate of the Qi people, and all internal, diplomatic, and military affairs were largely controlled by the Qi people. It is said that even the establishment of the heir of the Khanate must be approved and agreed by the Qi people before they can "legitimately" continue to rule the country.

In desperation, Ibrahim Khan could only discuss cooperation with the Qi people, hoping to obtain financial assistance and weapons assistance from them in order to gradually develop and strengthen his own strength.

In order for his brother to gain the support of the Qi people, Ibrahim Khan immediately expressed his willingness to represent Nadir and personally rushed to Surat to meet with senior Qi officials.

In addition, the caravans of merchants who passed back and forth also brought them many strange things from the outside world and much-needed food, which also improved their backward and closed social state to some extent.

Not to mention, there is still a powerful Qi State standing behind the Safavid Dynasty, which makes people feel jealous.

Therefore, although some people later suggested to the Khan that they should pay attention to grain production and reduce the cotton planting area accordingly, so as to ensure the food self-sufficiency of the Khanate, the entire Khanate did not think so, and still obeyed the agricultural guidance of the Qi people, and took advantage of the rich sunshine environment in the region to continuously expand the cotton planting area.

A few years ago, the Gilzai of Qi and the Kharat Khanate against Kandahar must have demonstrated their might as they passed through this area and taught them a lesson.

Although Nadir occupies almost the entire Khorasan region and includes the Herat region of Afghanistan in his sphere of influence, he has a very large territory, a rich population, and a powerful army of more than 50,000 people.

The city of Keddah is also rich in copper, sulfur, marble and other mineral resources, and the royal family, nobles, and some merchants from the Qi State have invested in the construction of mines in the area, using the cheap local labor, mining on a large scale, and then shipped to Sukkur, or sold in the Mughal Empire, or sailed to coastal ports through the Indus River, and sold overseas.

Along the way, Ibrahim Khan was surprised to find that the tribal forces entrenched in the oases along the way seemed to be selling the face of the people. Not only did they not have any trouble, but they would actively provide the necessary food and water supplements for their camel caravan, and they were extremely polite to the Qi people in the caravan.

Eight years ago, the Qi people quickly defeated the Gilzai who were ravaging the entire Persian Empire in a devastating manner, showing super combat power, which made all the local separatist forces silent, and did not dare to easily plunder their edge.

At present, Nadir seems to be gaining momentum, conquering all the local forces and tribal forces in the surrounding area, and bringing them all together to form a military and interest community, and then defending himself against the Safavids.

In addition to minerals, the Qalat Khanate, under the guidance of Qi's economic advisers, cultivated cotton on a large scale in the territory to meet the growing demand for cotton textile raw materials in the country.

You can't say that just because Qi defeated the Mughal Empire twice and defeated the Maratha Empire, it achieved de facto control over India?

The long journey was difficult, but also extremely tedious and boring, after leaving Kandahar, all the way south, passing through the long yellow sand and gravel Gobi, the fierce sun, the strong wind, the occasional rolling of flying sand and rocks, as if the whole caravan was in hell.

Since you can't bring benefits to everyone, why should those factions and tribal forces with different intentions continue to follow suit?

Are you handsome and charismatic by virtue of your Nadir abundance?

Therefore, Nadir is very desperate to get support and help from outside forces to break his isolation.

What made Ibrahim Khan even more jealous was that the city was extremely prosperous in commerce, and there were seven or eight large bazaars and wholesale markets in the small urban area, and the variety of goods was also very varied, attracting countless merchants, and the scale of transactions was extremely amazing, compared with the withered commercial atmosphere of the Khorasan region, it was simply incomparable.

After more than 20 years of development and construction, a number of modern industries such as grain processing factories, canning factories, distilleries, sulfur refining and processing plants, and brick and tile factories invested by Qi people have been built in the city, bringing an epoch-making civilization to this isolated and ancient land.

Eight years ago, after the Qi-Qrat Khanate coalition broke through Kandahar and expelled the Gilzai forces, it opened up the trade and circulation channels between Balochistan and Afghanistan, promoted the prosperity of trade in the city of Kidah, and brought a steady stream of trade and tax revenue to the Kharat Khanate.

If the Qi people die to protect the Safavid Dynasty, where will Nadir have a chance to sweep Persia, enter Isfahan, and achieve his great cause.

But his own family knows his own affairs, and as the core figure in the Nadir military group, Ibrahim Khan knows his biggest weakness, that is, his roots are not deep, and he has not won the hearts of the people, and the slightest setback will lead to the collapse of this loose and cohesive military group.

Otherwise, with the fierce folk customs and unruly character of the Afghan region, how can they please the people of Qi like this?

Sandwiched between the two major forces of Kandahar Persians and the Kharat Khanate, and the land is poor and barren, how can they dare to compete with the people of Qi.

Without the support of the external economy and the object of continued foreign plunder, the Nadir military group will soon disintegrate and dissolve, and it will no longer be able to maintain its rule over the Khorasan region.

In this area, there are the colonial territories of the Qi people, as well as the Mughal Empire, the Maratha Empire, the Mysore Kingdom, the Cochin Kingdom and other regional powers. But if it was said that the Qi people had complete control over the entire Indian region, he thought it was unlikely.

After another day of walking through the territory of the Kharat Khanate, we arrived at the capital of the Khanate, Kida (the city of Quetta in Pakistan), a new city located in the valley of the river.

After all, against the entire Safavid Empire in a small corner, Nadir was not absolutely sure that he would be able to achieve the final victory, both financially and militarily.

However, the increase in the area of cotton cultivation is bound to greatly squeeze the domestic grain production space. In addition, the arid climate of the entire Balochistan region, with high evaporation and insufficient water sources, also severely limited the agricultural development of the Kharat Khanate, resulting in a perennial shortage of food.

I don't know why these ignorant and barbaric Baloch people are so deferential to Qi and are willing to become a group of "sheep" enclosed in the fence by Qi people.

The words of the Qi people hinted at a hint of warning, hoping that Nadir would not launch a military attack on the central government of the empire in an attempt to overthrow the Safavid dynasty, otherwise the Qi would intervene as necessary.

The Qi people also helped build an improvised road to Sukkur, which formed a combined water and land transport with the Indus River, which could directly reach the coastal ports, greatly increasing the speed of the flow of goods in the khanate.

Although this arduous journey was only a short distance of more than 200 kilometers, it still took more than half a month, and just when Ibrahim Khan felt desperate, the whole caravan finally entered the territory of the Kharat Khanate.

I still remember that more than ten years ago, the entire Kharat Khanate suffered from severe drought for several consecutive years, and there was almost no harvest in the farmland. However, with the help of the Qi state, a large amount of wheat and rice was transferred from the Punjab region, which prevented hundreds of thousands of people of the khanate from a large-scale famine.

Ten days ago, during the talks between Ibrahim Khan and the special diplomatic envoy of the Qi State in Kandahar, although the other party showed strong interest in the cooperation between the two sides, he also clearly reaffirmed his existing support for the Safavid dynasty of Persia.

Of course, there is an ancient tradition of local tribes not harming the merchants, but the biggest reason is probably that they are subdued by the force of the Qi people.

After working hard to grow food, how can there be more money from growing cotton as a cash crop!

Besides, the neighboring grain-producing areas such as Punjab and Sindh are all within the influence of Qi, so how much grain do you want, even if you entrust Qi merchants to transport it, why worry about not having food to eat in the country?

Ibrahim Khan was arranged by the Qi people to stay in the city of Kida for three days to relieve the hardships and fatigue he experienced after crossing the desert.

However, thanks to the commercial network built by Qi in India, the Kharat Khanate was able to obtain an adequate supply of food without fear of famine.

The entire Indian subcontinent is home to hundreds of millions of people and is rich in produce, and has long been rumored to be a place where "countless gold and jewels flow".

However, the Nadir military clique barely maintained the cohesion and combat effectiveness of the entire military clique by deterring the territory and tribes by force, then squeezing the people and merchants to the limit to obtain a steady stream of financial resources, then encircling the army through full salaries and rewards, and finally subduing various internal and external contradictions by force.

In addition to implementing and finalizing the above issues, he also wanted to make a field trip to India to see if the Qi people were really so powerful that they had brought this vast and rich region under their actual control, as the outside world had claimed.

The population of the city is not very large, about forty or fifty thousand, which is far worse than that of Mashhad. However, the planning and construction of the whole city is much stronger, very neat and orderly, and it is thought to be from the handwriting of the people of Qi.

The Qi people showed great interest in their desire to get in touch with the Qi people and carry out in-depth cooperation between the two sides, and asked them to send several representatives to Surat for a detailed exchange.

Of course, with the support of the Qi state, the Qalat Khanate also achieved rapid and steady development, and the territory under its rule was limited to a narrow section along the Hubu River from the independence of the Mughal Empire more than 60 years ago, and rapidly expanded to the entire Balochistan region, not only encroaching on a large number of territories that originally belonged to the Mughal Empire, but also extending westward to the Sistan border of the Persian Safavid Empire, becoming a pivotal and very influential "great power" in the region.

However, for this kind of puppet khanate with no independent power, Ibrahim Khan does not look down on it very much, everything must follow the orders of the Qi people, and if you want to make some major decisions, you have to look at the eyes of the Qi people, and it is very aggrieved to think about it.

It can be seen that the city is deeply influenced by the Qi people, in addition to a large number of traditional True God Religious buildings, there are also many oriental classical buildings, which should be the residences of Qi officials and merchants, or the official institutions of the Qi people, adding a bit of exotic style to the whole city.

In this way, it is necessary to wage wars and plunder more wealth in order to continue to boost the morale and combat effectiveness of the army, and to maintain fragile internal alliances in order to consolidate its rule.

According to the itinerary of the Qi people, after they set out from Kandahar, they will cross the vast desert Gobi, and then cross the lofty mountains of the Kharat Khanate, and come to the banks of the Indus River, and then take a boat down the river to arrive at Jinmen, where the Xizhou Governor's Mansion is located, where they will rest for a few days, and then take a boat again by sea to the final destination Surat, where they will meet with senior officials of Qi.

Unexpectedly, such a barren and backward Baloch kingdom has made the appearance of their entire khanate change with each passing day because of the Qi people.

If this goes to the territory directly controlled and managed by the Qi people, I don't know what the situation will be?

For a while, Ibrahim Khan was full of anticipation for the rest of his trip.

(End of chapter)