Volume 3: Confrontation! The Run of Civilization Chapter 463 How Can I Help You
After deciding the development direction of the ironclad ships with his ministers, Zhu Youdong had dinner and dealt with some other matters, and it was around ten o'clock in the evening.
"Founderization"
"Your Majesty, please give your orders."
"Is there anything else important?"
"Uh..." Fang Zhenghua took out the booklet in his arms and flipped through it. "Your Majesty, Xu Xianchun, the Jinyiwei Tongzhi stationed in Yangguang Prefecture, has returned. He asked to see Your Majesty last night, but I blocked his way because Your Majesty was already asleep at that time. What about now?"
"Xu Xianchun?" Zhu Youdong patted his head. "I think I saw him today at the beach in the daytime. But there were too many people around, so I didn't react for a while. Well, he is the kind of person who will not return without reporting unless it is a big deal. Call him here quickly."
"As you wish."
After a while, Xu Xianchun, led by Fang Zhenghua, entered Zhu Youdong's temporary residence in Tianjin Port. After the greetings between the emperor and his subjects, Xu Xianchun immediately spoke: "Your Majesty, I came back without reporting in advance this time, mainly because I received a letter in Yangon Port. According to the person who brought the letter , it was a handwritten letter from Ibrahim Sokoly, the Prime Minister of the Ottoman Empire. The person who brought the letter said that only you can open this letter. So, I had no choice but to bring the person who brought the letter with me."
Zhu Youdong, who was also a time traveler, certainly had some sense of Ibrahim's ascent to the summit. In fact, due to the time difference, it was night in Beijing when the system responded. Zhu Youdong was in the process of creating life at that time, which almost caused him to die young...
After getting his permission, Fang Zhenghua brought in Yipulahin's envoy as well.
"Your Majesty, the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, I am Sipasi Abdul Wahid from the Ottoman Empire. The Grand Vizier of my country asked me to pay my respects to you and present a letter from him."
"Huh? The envoy can speak Chinese?"
"I'm ashamed to say that although I'm a Sipasi, I was actually a businessman in my early years. I traveled between Basra and Singapore all year round. My main business was to buy silk and then ship it to the empire for sale. I've been dealing with Chinese merchants for a long time, so I naturally learned some Chinese."
"Well, as far as I know, Sipasi is a knight class of the Ottoman Empire, and you are just a businessman..."
"Your Majesty , the Emperor of the Great Ming Dynasty is indeed as omniscient as our Grand Vizier said. Even though he is thousands of miles away, he is so familiar with and understands our country. Your Majesty, when our Grand Vizier was the governor of the Mesopotamian region, I provided some assistance with the military supplies he needed, so he kindly granted me the title of Sipasi and a certain amount of land."
"Hahaha, I understand. The envoy has come from afar and must have worked hard. We will arrange the formal meeting when we return to Beijing. Now, please let me read the handwritten letter from your country's Grand Vizier."
Although it was said "Let me have a look", in reality, it was impossible for this letter to be delivered directly to Zhu Youdong - he was also very cautious: God knows what kind of professional talent the other party is? What if a genius puts a bomb or poison in the letter?
So, after Fang Zhenghua instructed his eunuch to carefully open the new envelope, Zhu Youdong put on thick gloves before beginning to read Yiprahin's letter.
The entire letter was written in English, which was a bit difficult to read because of the handwriting. The letter was very long and contained a lot of professional terms, so Zhu Youdong had a hard time reading it. By the time he finished reading, the clock in the study had already passed twelve o'clock.
Apart from the courtesy greetings, Ibrahim's letter is roughly divided into four parts.
First, it introduced the current situation in Europe to Zhu Youdong in detail. Since the Ming Dynasty had not yet really extended its intelligence tentacles into Europe, the information in this letter was very important for Zhu Youdong to understand Europe.
The second is the current situation of the Ottoman Empire. In it, Ibrahim boasted about his bumpy road that was different from other time travelers. But Zhu Youdong quickly extracted the key point from it: In short, this Ottoman time traveler had just come to power, and he was a powerful official. Not only was his foundation very unstable, but he was also about to face a major challenge from the European Union.
With the foreshadowing of the first two parts, the content of the third part naturally comes out: I, Yiprasin, need your help! At present, the Thai guy has been killed by you, the Japanese guy has been driven away by you, and the Indian guy has not yet made any progress. At present, only you can give me real help.
What kind of help do I need? Ibrahim said that Suez is still a canyon, so your navy cannot come. However, you can send your fleet to escort your merchant ships to transport a large amount of money, food and medicine for me, and then transport them to Musa Port in the Sinai Peninsula. I will urgently build a railway there and then transport your gifts to the Mediterranean.
As for why he wanted to help, Yi Praxin did not elaborate, and Zhu Youdong had nothing to think about: this was actually Yi Praxin's greatest respect for Zhu Youdong - as long as the time traveler had an IQ, he would understand what to do at this moment.
Of course, in the fourth part, Yiprahin also clearly said: I don't want the things for nothing. According to my understanding over the years, your profession before crossing over might be a doctor or pharmacist. I studied materials before crossing over. So, if you can help me, I will provide you with the formula of smokeless gunpowder, as well as the formula of several commonly used artillery steels and ship steels in later generations. Of course, I don't know how far you have climbed the technology tree over there. If you have all these things, I can answer some questions about materials from your scientists, and I promise to tell you everything I know.
What moved Zhu Youdong the most was the end of the letter. Yi Praxin said, if you are really worried about losing all your money, you can send a minister you trust to serve as my attendant. When I really can't resist the twins, your minister can kill me and get my Tianji Star talent - this is a good thing to stimulate business development and increase the loyalty of merchants!
After reading the letter, Zhu Youdong waved his hand to let everyone go out, and then fell into deep thought.
Although Ibrahim's letter deliberately exaggerated the instability within the European Union, Zhu Youdong had been at the top of the Ming Dynasty for many years and could see the truth between the lines: after the establishment of the European Union, the Spanish twins had completely gained the upper hand, and the Ottoman situation was precarious...
Give Ottoman a blood transfusion so that Ibrahim can resist the European Union longer, so that the Ming Dynasty can have more time to cultivate its internal strength.
In fact, although the Emperor Tianqi is now in power, that is because he controls the army and has the entire Southeast Asia to ease domestic conflicts. In addition, he is not moving too fast. So the domestic situation seems to be stable at the moment. But in fact, the Ming Dynasty still has a lot of lessons to learn, especially for such an old empire. To fully mobilize the national strength, there are many things to do and it takes a long time. The Emperor of the Ming Dynasty said that East Asia was unified, but in fact, the Philippines, as a colony of Spain, was so conspicuous that it was placed there. Why didn't he move? Across the river in Yangon State is another Spanish colony, Thanlyin. Why didn't he move? Isn't it because he wants to do things well at home first?
Therefore, supporting the Ottomans against the Twins is an easy choice. The problem is how to support them and how much to support them?
As a time traveler, Zhu Youdong had a lot of dealings with the Star-Moon Church in China before he traveled through time. Although the Middle East is in chaos in the 21st century, and some guys have done things that are outrageous to both humans and gods, it must be admitted that at least in the 17th century, the Star-Moon Church was an advanced religion that was far more advanced and reasonable than Hinduism, and the civilization it created was not inferior to Christian civilization and Confucian civilization.
The problem with this religion is that it is divided into Sunni and Shia.
As a minority, Shiites believe that although the prophet is no longer with us, the Quran and other scriptures can be explained to us by living teachers, and we just need to follow them. Who is the teacher? Of course, it is the Grand Ayatollah, the manifestation of Allah .
What about the Sunnis? They are the majority and conservatives. They are stubborn about classics and are fundamentalists. For example, the Prophet Muhammad once said that borrowing is the beginning of depravity. This statement was correct in the seventh century: at that time, when an Arab borrowed money from a wealthy businessman, it was often the beginning of his family slowly becoming slaves because of usury. But in the 21st century, there are still a few Star and Crescent believers who stubbornly insist on the original meaning of this statement, believing that all bank owners should be killed. This is wrong.
In short, in the later period of this religion, Shia was more likely to produce political strongmen, and Sunni was more likely to produce extremists. In fact, the extremists in later generations were almost all from a few or even a certain sect within Sunni.
At this time , the Ottoman Empire was Sunni.
Therefore, it is necessary to help the Ottoman time traveler to resist the European twins and buy time for the development and reform of the Ming Dynasty. However, this kind of help must be measured: it is okay to keep Ibrahim alive, but it would be bad if he really gained a foothold.
The key is that it is difficult to find the right degree.
After thinking for a while, Zhu Youdong felt tired and fell asleep on the chair.
Fang Zhenghua, who had been paying close attention to the movements in the room, hurried into the room and helped Zhu Youdong find a nearby room to sleep.
After finishing all this, he came out and bowed to Xu Xianchun apologetically: "Master, if you have anything to say, let's talk about it tomorrow."
