My Daming New Empire

The reason for the voluntary policy is that the salaries of the left-behind sailors are increased by [-]%, and all food is contracted by the imperial court.They have served here as soldiers for three years, as long as they don't waste their money, they will become rich men when they return to Daming.

Of course, the imperial court would not lose money, apart from anything else, just relying on the treatment of venereal diseases for these European nobles, Daming could make a lot of money day by day.

Not to mention this trade trip, Daming made a lot of money.One trade can make a profit even after garrisoning troops for 50 years.

Of course, this was only because the first trade had such a huge profit, and Daming had made less than half of the gold and silver in Europe at once, and there would definitely be no such good thing next time.

But the trade is conducted every two or three years, and the profits are more than enough to maintain the garrison and development costs of the entire West.

From the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, it is actually very difficult for the [-] navy to drive away the [-] ships on the return journey. The personnel on each ship are only the minimum standard.

But for the entire fleet, all the people, all the gold and silver, and all the goods together are not as important as Zhu Zhanji.

At the beginning, Zhu Zhen, the chief of the navy, insisted that all the troops should follow Zhu Zhanji, but Zhu Zhanji suppressed him.

In addition to being afraid of troubles in the clan, Zhu Zhen is not good at commanding and arranging. Zhu Zhanji wants to stay by his side. He will arrange most of the civil servants, most of the servants of the trade delegation, ship repair craftsmen, and five thousand young troops. Follow the fleet.

These people add up to nearly [-], and on average, each ship can add [-] people.

Not to mention those small boats, even on a big boat, twenty more people are also a great help.

This is because Ming's ships have hard sails. If they have soft sails like those in the West, a ship will not be able to go without two to three hundred people.

There is no big master on the current fleet, everything is arranged by Zhu Zhen, and the typhoon season has not yet arrived, Zhu Zhanji is quite optimistic that they can reach the Red Sea safely

Arriving in Cairo from Alexandria, Zhu Zhanji and Faraj quickly reached an agreement on multiple cooperations between the Ming and Mamluk dynasties.

In addition to the garrison and trade, the biggest cooperation project is that the Ming Dynasty will provide money, and the Mamluks will provide personnel to jointly dig the canal from the Great Bitter Lake to Port Said, and dredge the ancient canal from the Great Bitter Lake to Suez.

Before BC, Egypt had already built a canal from the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea, but this canal mainly relied on the tributary of the Nile River to the Great Bitter Lake, and the section of the canal dug was only from the Great Bitter Lake to the Red Sea.

However, when digging a canal on the Gobi Desert, the most important thing is not the difficulty of the project, but the difficulty of maintenance, because the canal needs to be continuously dredged.

Any project can always achieve results as long as the people above speak out, and the same is true for the ancient Suez Canal.

With the change of dynasties in Egypt and the invasion of foreigners, this ancient canal was gradually abandoned.

Geometry was developed from ancient Egypt. They built the world's largest artificial miracle pyramid thousands of years ago. In fact, there is no shortage of talents in architecture and engineering.

In the history that Zhu Zhanji knew, that is, in the fifteenth century, decades later, Venice was ready to fund the construction of the Suez Canal.

It's just that their measurements were wrong, and Ottoman captured Constantinople, facing the pressure of destroying the country, so they gave up building the canal.

But in terms of technology, in fact, this era has been able to meet the construction of canals.

Before Zhu Zhanji arrived in Europe, he planned not to build the canal temporarily because he wanted to develop South Africa.

However, the plan did not change quickly. Da Ming successfully occupied Ceuta, bought the island of Crete, and built a trade center on Crete.

At this time, digging this canal can reduce the pressure on Ming Dynasty to station troops in Europe and expand its trade influence.

And thinking about it the other way around, Daming dug through the Suez Canal, and these countries in Europe knew about this passage, so they would no longer develop to the south, and Ming could emigrate in South Africa in an orderly manner.

Zhu Zhanji stayed in Cairo for nearly a month. He took his brothers and concubines to visit the Sphinx of this era and famous attractions such as the Pyramid of Khufu.

The delegation of more than 4 people brought strong consumption power to the Mamluks. At least during the period when the Ming soldiers arrived in the Mamluks, Faraj faced much less pressure.

Although the army of Ming Dynasty was not large, it included 3000 artillerymen and nearly 30 fully armed elite troops. It was a hard bone that even [-] Mamluks could not chew.

Now Faraji is also on Zhu Zhanji's side, and the tribes below dare not oppose them at all.

Not only that, Zhu Zhanji, based on the historical excavation costs of the mountain bumps, called out a plan that the development of the canal would cost about 15 taels of gold to 25 taels of gold, requiring more than 10 people to excavate for ten years.

As soon as the plan came out, there was a sensation all around the Mediterranean Sea.Zhu Zhanji and his party are now the gods of wealth of the entire Mamluk dynasty, and they are welcomed by everyone.

The Mamluk dynasty is still transitioning from slavery to feudalism, and the people need to serve corvee.In other words, the cost of manpower is free in Mamluks.

So who got the money?Of course, the king and the Elders of Ikta received the money.

Moreover, in order to dig the canal, Daming will also provide more than 20 pieces of iron, which will strengthen the strength of the local people.

From Cairo to the Great Bitter Lake, it was still arrived by Mamluk riverboat through the ancient canal, and then the Ming army started major construction in Suez, which is still a small town today.

There are more than [-] slave laborers who followed the Ming army to Suez. They will assist the Ming people to build three castles between Suez and the Great Bitter Lake.

The construction was completed from the winter of the 16th year of Yongle until June of the 17th year of Yongle. On this oasis with a length of more than 20 kilometers from north to south, three ancient Roman-style cities stood.

The three castles are all about ten kilometers apart, forming an irregular straight line, which can also be said to be a flat triangle, and they can look at each other hand and foot.

There are military camps, wells, and vast warehouses inside the castle. At the same time, each castle can accommodate 1 people, and the limit can accommodate 10 people.

But at this stage, the Ming Fleet can only leave a total of 1 people here to carry out infrastructure construction and cultivate farmland.

However, Daming has sufficient funds in his hands, whether it is the supply of food or slave labor, they are all contracted by the Mamluk Dynasty.

The life of the people at the bottom of the Mamluks is getting more and more difficult, but the people at the top are earning a lot of money.

This is still the beginning. When the Suez Canal was dug, 10,000+ people died for the canal in the [-]th century. In this era, the number of dead people will definitely not be less than in that era.

However, none of the dead were from Daming, so it was impossible to expect Zhu Zhanji to show mercy to them.

In July of the 17th year of Yongle, the Ming Fleet spent four months bypassing South Africa and returning to the Red Sea.

On the day they arrived, Shen Daier gave birth to a daughter for Zhu Zhanji.

On this day, Suez, which was hot and rainless, was drifting in heavy rain. In addition, his mother's surname was Shen, so Zhu Zhanji named him Zhu Yu.

Tens of thousands of soldiers were also very happy about the birth of this little princess, and there is nothing more joyful than the joy when the two armies meet.

Since they had gone through it once and followed the direction of the wind, the fleet did not encounter heavy wind and rain, and only lost a cargo ship carrying wool and returned smoothly.

However, they also brought back a piece of unfortunate news. At the estuary of the Congo River in later generations, the supply point set up by Ming Dynasty there was attacked by miasma and infectious diseases. More than 300 of the 200 people left behind died.

It is thanks to the old Taoist Zhonghezi that these people were kept, otherwise, I am afraid they would all die.

This change also made the morale of that supply point very low, Zhu Zhen simply canceled the supply point there and brought everyone back.

Zhu Zhanji had no objection to his decision. It was not until the end of the nineteenth century that people initially mastered the prevention of epidemics in tropical rainforest areas.

It was not until the middle of the twentieth century that the development of various vaccines such as penicillin gave people enough ability to resist viruses.

Zhu Zhanji wanted to conquer there hundreds of years in advance, which was a bit too optimistic.

He also agreed with Zhu Zhen's decision. Now that there is a route, canceling the supply point there will not have a big impact on Daming's layout.

The arrival of the fleet has boosted the spirits of nearly 1 Ming people, and even more than [-] engineers from various European countries are extremely excited. Everyone knows that the fleet is about to return.

The fleet was repaired for ten days, and the Mamluk slave laborers undertook the shipment task, allowing the naval soldiers to rest for ten days.