The Rise of the European Emperor

The news of the alliance between Egypt and Persia was quickly conveyed back by Gutz through carrier pigeons. Gutz's carrier pigeons flew to Italy, and then the intelligence station of the North Sea State in Italy sent the information back to the mainland with carrier pigeons.

After receiving the information, Marin was half happy and half depressed. Why are you depressed? Because the Egyptians competed with him for the horses of Persia!

It is true that there are many Persian horses, but the demand from Egypt is very large. There are tens of thousands of Mamluk cavalry, and there is a great demand for horses. With the large purchases of the Egyptians, it is difficult for Marin to buy the Persian war horses at a low price, and it will cost a lot of money.

Of course, this price must be much cheaper than the price of European war horses. You know, the price of a good European knight war horse is as high as 100 gold coins. This price is really too expensive. So, it's good to be a knight. Not to mention the martial arts of knights, but to prepare horses and weapons and armor, ordinary people have no conditions. There must be a manor as the backing to support a knight.

Right now, Marin can buy a large number of war horses from the Crimean Khanate. However, the Eastern European Mongolian horses (similar to the later Don horses) of the Crimean Khanate were slightly smaller. Moreover, apart from the advantages of the Mongolian horse's super endurance and ability to endure hardships, other advantages are not outstanding.

But the Persian horse is different, although the later generations of Persian horses are not very famous, it is because the religious Persia has cut off contact with the outside world, resulting in their war horse breeds not being taken seriously.

In fact, Persian horses are not only mixed with a large number of Arabian horse bloodlines, but also mixed with Central Asian sweathorse bloodlines. In terms of pedigree, although the Persian horse is a bit mixed, it is very good.

And this kind of mixed-blood horse with mixed blood, although it is also a medium-sized horse, is larger than the Eastern European Mongolian horse. Moreover, from the advantages of Arabian horses, they are faster than Eastern European Mongolian horses. After all, the Mongolian horse series has never been good at speed, only good at endurance.

For Marin, the best horse choice is actually the Arabian horse. However, the climatic conditions of pure Arabian horses are very harsh, and there are deserts everywhere, which is very unsuitable for livestock to survive. Therefore, the number has been stagnant. Even if Marin wanted to buy it, he didn't have that many.

Therefore, he could only settle for the next best thing and buy a large number of mixed Persian horses produced in Persia with more Arabian horse blood. Even the Mawarima, a specialty of India, has many Arabian bloodlines. Because the people in northwestern India are basically the Green Cult conquerors from Persia and Afghanistan. When they conquered India, they also brought the blood of Arabian horses to India.

Originally, Marin had every chance to desperately lower the price. After all, no one bought Persian war horses in the past. But with the addition of Egypt, an agricultural powerhouse, it will be tricky. There are Egyptians making samples there, so Marin will not be able to lower the price. At least, you can't bid lower than the Egyptians...

But Marin couldn't say anything,

Because the Egyptian army is strong, Marin can only be happy. After all, it would be bad if Turkey annexed Egypt, which has developed agriculture.

Regardless of Egypt, the Nile River basin can be used for agriculture, and other areas are deserts. But the land in the Nile River Basin is fertile and sunny. In later generations, Egypt relied on the agricultural areas of the Nile River Basin to feed more than 100 million people, which is very scary. Of course, that's Egypt's overpopulation. However, under normal circumstances, it is not a problem for the agricultural areas of Egypt's Nile Valley to feed tens of millions of people. Now, the population of Egypt is only about 4.5 million, which is far from reaching the upper limit. What's more, the Egyptian Mamluk dynasty also controlled Syria, a traditional agricultural area in the Middle East.

It is precisely because of the annexation of a large number of agricultural areas in Egypt that Turkey in the original history opened the era of terror with hundreds of thousands of explosive troops. There is no agricultural area in Egypt, and with the little grain produced by the half-baked European farmers in the Balkans, Turkey dispatched at most a hundred thousand people. No matter how much it is, it will not be able to support it.

What's more, Egypt also controls Mecca in the Hejaz region on the east coast of the Red Sea, and also controls the Caliph, the supreme leader of the Green Church. If Egypt is finished, Turkey will not only be able to control Mecca, the holy city of the Green Church, but also win the caliphate and become the undisputed leader of the Green Church. Originally, in history, after conquering Cairo, the Turkish Sultan snatched away the title of Caliph and became the leader of the Green Cult world.

How much of an impact does this have? In later generations, Turkey has been reduced to a hanging silk, and it still thinks it is the world leader of Green Cult. They even supported the terrorist forces in Eastern China, pretending to be the boss of the Green Sect. And their theoretical basis is that the Turkish Sultan has been the Caliph for hundreds of years. Therefore, they believe that the Green Christians all over the world should listen to the chicken...

Therefore, Marin is not willing to Turkey to occupy Egypt and the Hejaz area where Mecca is located. If Turkey really came to Egypt, Marin even planned to send troops directly to rescue Egypt. Of course, this is when Egypt itself is in danger. If only Syria was lost, Marin would not bother to care. I almost forgot that Marin still had the title of "Duke of Egypt" of the Byzantine Empire on his head...

It's just that Egypt and the North Sea country are too far apart, and Marin really can't take care of it. Otherwise, he wants to win this area with developed agriculture and important geographical location.

...

Gutz's letter not only mentioned the alliance between Egypt and Persia, but also mentioned the development of the Suez Canal.

At the beginning, in order to regain the right to trade spices in India, at the suggestion of Marin, the Venetians teamed up with the Mamluk dynasty of Egypt to start the excavation of the Suez Canal in the Sinai Peninsula.

But how difficult is it to dig a canal for large ships without construction machinery? Although the Sui Dynasty dug a Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal that shocked the world, it lost the hearts of the people and drained the finances. Then, this Grand Canal benefited the Tang Dynasty and created the prosperity of the later Tang and Song Dynasties.

In short, in this era when digging canals is purely manual, the process of digging canals is definitely not beautiful, but full of blood and cruelty...

As far as Marin knows, the Suez Canal was paid for by the Venetians, and the Egyptian Mamluk dynasty dispatched manpower to dig a canal regardless of casualties.

At present, about 100 kilometers of the 190-kilometer-long Suez Canal have been dug through. However, in order to dig the river, 100,000 laborers have died in Egypt. On average, the number of deaths per kilometer is as high as thousands, which is higher than that during the excavation in the 19th century.

And because the death rate is too high, the Egyptian people have been very resistant to participating in canal digging. There were even armed riots in some places to prevent the recruitment of minzhuang to dig canals. Therefore, the excavation work of the Egyptian canal has been forced to suspend for the time being.

According to Gutz, the Egyptian Mamluk dynasty was also devastated by this. If one is not done well, it may detonate a popular uprising.

Marin didn't want to see Egypt give Turkey a chance to take advantage of Egypt because of civil strife. After thinking about it, Marin finally decided to help the Mamluk dynasty of Egypt with an idea...

What idea? Start a war to catch foreigners to dig canals...

The Egyptians themselves refused to die, so they directly dispatched the Mamluk cavalry to plunder the population around Egypt, and captured the strong men to dig the canal.

For example, although the Tripoli area in the west, which is later known as Libya, has a small population, if you send cavalry to sweep it, you can still capture tens of thousands of strong men and come back. Moreover, it can also take the opportunity to annex the place. Among other things, there is no problem in getting more war horses. After all, this place once belonged to the Arab Empire, and there were many Arabian horses. Although the local tribes also have cavalry, they are bound to be vulnerable to the powerful Mamluk cavalry...

If there are not enough people, you can also send troops to the Kingdom of Fingji in the south to arrest people! The Kingdom of Finji is located in the later Republic of Sudan, which belongs to the black country. The characteristic of black people is that they can give birth, so the population must be large. Moreover, the Sudan region is located in the middle reaches of the Nile River, with favorable natural conditions, and the population must be much larger than that of Libya. After all, Libya is just a dry and barren land, and the Egyptians don't even bother to take it...