Volume 3: Confrontation! The Run of Civilization Chapter 421 Yiprahin's Ambition
Just as the twins in Spain reached an agreement and decided to temporarily suspend the war, accumulate strength and then make a comeback, Richelieu came to Tbilisi again.
"Dear Pasha, the machine guns you provided to the Protestant coalition are truly a groundbreaking weapon. His Majesty Gustav inflicted heavy casualties on Spain in Lützen with less than one-third of the enemy's force!"
"Hehe, my friend, I heard that the Spaniards used the skirmish line tactics and succeeded in occupying the machine gunners' position after suffering huge casualties?"
"Skirmish line? This name is very accurate! His Majesty Gustav also applauded this new tactic, and he has not yet come up with an appropriate name. I didn't expect that you, Pasha, would accurately call out this new infantry formation from thousands of miles away. Uh..."
Richelieu, who had been talking about other things for a long time, finally lowered his head when he saw Ibrahim's playful smile. "Yes, after all, the Spaniards and their allies are more than three times the troops led by His Majesty Gustav, so we had no choice but to retreat under the desperate attacks of the other side regardless of casualties. But please rest assured, Pasha, before retreating, we blew up all the heavy machine guns that could not be withdrawn."
Well, I can actually imagine that the two Spanish travelers valued the smokeless gunpowder in the bullets rather than the machine gun itself. Forget it. Before I gave these things to you, I thought about the danger of technology outflow. But who made me still not earn enough money to develop heavy industry? If Sweden and many princes in northern Germany had not paid a large amount of gold and food in advance, my cash flow would have dried up before my arsenal could produce products.
But now it's good. Although the technology is likely to leak out, I have used the abundant funds and materials to build a gun factory in advance. Although the production capacity is still small, it is enough for me to do really big things in the next one or two years.
Although he was not feeling very heavy-hearted, after becoming independent, Iprahin, who had finally lost his immaturity, still pulled a long face and said to Richelieu, "My friend, because I firmly believe in our friendship, I gave you the epoch-making weapon that my own army did not even have. But you...ah...His Majesty Gustav is still a little too impatient. The situation that follows depends on what the Spaniards do. If they gather their army and attack again, I don't have to worry about anything. If they retreat temporarily, then the trouble will be really big."
"What do you mean, Pasha?"
"It's very simple. Based on the information your bird brought, I can roughly estimate the current scientific research and industrial capacity of the Spanish. As long as they get the bullets, they can quickly develop the corresponding machine guns and quickly equip them in large quantities. Therefore, if the machine gun technology is not leaked, they will once again launch a large-scale attack. If they are sure that they have mastered the machine gun technology, they will temporarily retreat and launch another large-scale attack after some troops have been re-equipped."
"Ah?! Pasha, if the latter situation occurs, what should we do?"
"I don't know what to do." He shrugged helplessly. "The biggest problem in Northern Europe is that there are too few people. Although the many Protestant princes in Northern Germany have temporarily united together, the contradictions between them are also very deep, so the strength of the Protestant coalition is unlikely to exceed 50,000. And after the other side has machine guns, the Protestant coalition will definitely not be able to withstand the counterattack of Spain."
"Pasha, I need more machine guns. And I also need some of the breech-loading guns you mentioned last time. For this, I am willing to return to Riga again and explain my strength to His Majesty Gustav so that he can raise more funds."
"Well, my friend, money is a minor matter. The key is production capacity. Besides, I may have to fight a war soon, and I will also need a large amount of arms."
"Ah? You want to fight? Who are your enemies? The Persians?"
"Hahaha, even if His Majesty Abbas wants to send troops, he will go to Iraq, not to me. My enemies come from within the Ottoman Empire, those damn Yugoslav bastards. They have seen the new wealth born in the Transcaucasus and can't wait to extend their greedy black hands here. Yesterday, I just received an order from the Topkasha Palace, asking me to end my term as Governor of the Transcaucasus and return to Istanbul to report on my work. I am not prepared to obey this order."
"Yes, Pasha, if you go back, I'm afraid you won't be able to leave again."
"Hey, I was originally planning to hold it back for a year or two. Now it seems like I really have to start early."
As mentioned above, the former Ottoman Sultans had a habit of selecting local Yugoslav children in the Balkan Peninsula, educating and training them from an early age, and these people would become the Sultan's personal soldiers when they grew up. In the early days of the Ottoman Empire, these personal soldiers fought bravely, and due to racial reasons, they could only rely on the Sultan himself. The Sultan used this personal soldier to effectively counter the threat of the Turkic nobles to the royal power. At this time, the Sultan's personal soldiers were a good thing for the Sultan himself and the centralization of the country.
However, over time, the size of the personal guards became larger and larger, and the interests involved became more and more. The personal guards themselves became an interest group, and this interest group controlled the military and administrative power of the empire - thus causing this group to change from being dependent on the Sultan to controlling the Sultan.
In 1617, Sultan Ahmed I, who sent Ibrahim, the time traveler, to Transcaucasus as the governor, died. The Kösem family, together with the leaders of the Sultan's personal guard, pushed Ahmed's younger brother, Mustafa, who had been imprisoned for thirteen years and had been proven to be an incompetent, to the throne of the Sultan, on the grounds that "the country should have a long-term monarch."
However, Mustafa was a moron and was completely unable to perform the duties of a sultan. So in 1618, the Hacidid family successfully persuaded the leader of the personal guards to launch a coup, purged the Kösem family, and imprisoned Mustafa again. They made Ahmed's son Osman the new sultan - this was Osman II, who was sighed by countless people in Turkish history.
The Sultan was only 14 years old when he succeeded to the throne, but thanks to the good education he received in his early years, he was a very talented and ambitious monarch. Soon after he succeeded to the throne, he took advantage of the opportunity when the Austrian Habsburg family was involved in the religious war and launched a war against Poland. Austria, Hungary and Poland-Lithuania were the three fences in Europe to resist the continued expansion of the Ottoman Empire. It was the right strategy to strike Poland with all his strength while Austria was unable to withdraw and Hungary's attention was diverted by the war in the west.
However, the Sultan's personal soldiers, who had transformed from elite warriors into corrupt bureaucrats, no longer wanted to fight - they only wanted to protect their vested interests and were unwilling to fight to the death on the battlefield. Therefore, under the obstruction of the Sultan's personal soldiers, this war, which had a great chance of winning, ended in shameful failure. The prestige of the new Sultan was severely damaged.
In the historical plane, it was after this incident that Osman II was completely disappointed with the Sultan's personal guards and turned to supporting Turkic military generals, wanting to eradicate the cancer of the Sultan's personal guards. But unfortunately, he was still a young man and acted too hastily. In the end, the leaders of the Sultan's personal guards discovered his abnormality and killed him in advance.
After his death, the Ottoman Empire was forced to stop its efforts to eradicate this cancer. Finally, the cancer itself slowly decayed and its leaders became so corrupt and depraved that they did not even have the courage to kill the king. Only then was it easily removed by the next Sultan (1826) - but by that time, the Ottoman Empire had fallen far behind Europe.
Now, the time traveler Ibrahim was aiming for this opportunity: in his original plan, if he could survive in Transcaucasia until 1622, and wait until the leaders of the Sultan's personal guards committed regicide, he would personally lead his army to Istanbul to "serve the king" and thus control the power of the country. But now, since the leaders of the Sultan's personal guards had set their sights on him first, he would join forces with Osman , to kill the group of the Sultan's personal guards - and thus become a powerful official of the Ottoman Empire!
After becoming the powerful official of this country, Ibrahim believed that he could still compete with the twins of Spain.
