The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 154 Battle of Suez

The Habsburgs and Russia were of course also interested in the Isthmus of Suez and wanted to control this key node connecting the trade routes between the East and the West.

At the same time, they are not very willing to see other major powers interfere in the affairs of the Mediterranean.

However, if there was an opportunity to seize Ottoman lands adjacent to the homeland, both countries would seize it without hesitation.

In any case, Britain and France were already interfering in Ottoman affairs, and the Ming Dynasty's seizure of the Suez Canal and Egypt would first harm the commercial interests of Britain and France.

At the same time, the Habsburgs and Russia were both to the north of the Ottoman Empire, and it was almost impossible to find an ally from the south to jointly attack the Ottoman Empire.

Now that the Ming Dynasty has taken the initiative to intervene and start attacking from the south, this can be said to be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and the two countries certainly cannot let it go.

Now there is a perfect excuse for the Ottoman vassal to plunder the people of His Royal Highness the Prince of Wu of the Ming Dynasty.

Now all you have to do is take action!

When faced with Zhu Jianxuan's envoys, the monarchs of the two countries expressed their willingness to send troops without hesitation.

Then they really started to deploy troops immediately.

The target is at least 100,000 ground forces.

The two countries were already preparing for a war against the Ottoman Empire, and now they were just bringing forward their war plans.

In the original history, the Habsburgs did not resolve the land exchange in Bavaria, and were also constrained by the unstable situation in the Southern Netherlands, and were never able to fully deal with the war against the Ottomans.

Now that the Habsburgs have thrown the Southern Netherlands to the Ming Dynasty and also controlled the Germans in the Bavaria region, they no longer need to consider anything else.

Instead, Joseph took the initiative to recruit soldiers from Bavaria and used Bavarian Germans as officers to manage other ethnic groups in the country.

The former conservative nobility of Bavaria resisted the annexation of the Habsburgs, but the radical nationalists were very happy.

A large number of Bavarian young people were very willing to join the imperial army and become imperial officers.

On the other hand, the intelligence personnel of the Ming Dynasty's Western Factory passed through Egypt in May of the 40th year of Xianning and sent the news to the Red Sea.

Now the Ming Wu Kingdom has built coaling stations in Ceylon, Zanzibar, Mombasa, Mogadishu and the Gulf of Aden.

Steam sailing ships can run freely within this range, and it only takes more than a month to travel from the Red Sea to Yingtian Prefecture or King Wu.

The messenger from the Western Factory found the Wu army in the Gulf of Aden and dispatched a steamship directly to Australia, delivering the news to Zhu Jianxuan in late June.

After Zhu Jianxuan finished reading the intelligence report, he began to ponder the internal logic of the whole matter:

"The matter of North African pirates is indeed not as simple as it seems..."

Zhu Jianxuan has reason to suspect that in the past, as soon as the United States gained independence, North African pirates immediately hijacked American merchant ships one after another and made huge demands on the United States. This was also instigated by certain vested interests behind the scenes.

Of course, the West Factory's investigation must continue, and they must try their best to find out those behind the scenes, but this will not affect their established action plan.

I have to make it clear to everyone, no matter who they are, no matter if they were instigated or not, no matter if they took the initiative or not.

As long as they serve as tools for others and become enemies of the Ming Dynasty, they must be mentally prepared to bear unlimited responsibility.

Zhu Jianxuan made up his mind and asked his secretary Duan Yucai to write a letter to the Ottoman Sultan in his name.

Demand that the Ottoman Empire release all the subjects of King Wu of the Ming Dynasty and the King of America.

At the same time, Tripoli Pasha and all criminals involved in the hijacking will be handed over to him for handling.

And the Ottoman Sultan promised that such a thing would never happen again.

Otherwise, I will send troops on January 1787, 1 to personally punish all those involved.

Zhu Jianxuan knew that the Ottoman Sultan would certainly not agree to his request, and he had no way of agreeing to it.

At this time, the Ottoman Sultan still had a certain degree of control over Egypt, but he had no control over Algeria, Tunisia and other places.

Zhu Jianxuan wanted to make it impossible for him to agree so that he could send troops to punish the enemy directly.

After Duan Yucai finished writing the letter, Zhu Jianxuan asked the officials of the Western Factory to send it to the Red Sea and find Arab merchants to deliver it to the Ottoman Sultan.

Two months later, at the end of August in the 40th year of Xianning, the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid I received an informal translation of a letter sent by a merchant.

After reading it, the Sultan felt that King Zhu Jianxuan was unreasonable.

The Sultan summoned his Grand Vizier, Koca Yusuf, for discussion. The Grand Vizier was equivalent to the Chief Minister or Prime Minister of other countries.

After reading the translated version of Zhu Jianxuan's letter, the Grand Vizier analyzed:
“It is impossible that the king does not know that the affairs of Tripoli are decided by the local Pasha, but now he deliberately comes to the Sultan to make demands, most likely to make an excuse.

"According to the news brought back by the merchants, the king of the Ming Dynasty is fighting against the Omanis and may have basically defeated the Omanis.

"It is not surprising that the king, who had gained a foothold on the Italian peninsula and controlled the entrances to the Indian Ocean and the Red Sea, had a desire for the Isthmus of Suez.

"So the North African pirate incident is just an excuse, an excuse we cannot possibly satisfy. His target should be Egypt."

Zhu Jianxuan’s goal is easy to see through, but even after seeing through it, people may not take it seriously, nor may they have a way to deal with it.

The Ottoman Sultan was not too surprised, nor did he take it too seriously:

"We just arranged for Ghazi Hassan to lead 50,000 troops to Egypt last year and regained control of the situation there. We don't need to worry about King Wu's greed."

The Grand Vizier considered it more comprehensively:
“Normally, the Ming mainland is extremely far away from Egypt. It takes them several months to come here, and they also need to consider the monsoon in the Indian Ocean.

"I heard that they have a kind of steam-powered ship that can sail without relying on wind and ocean currents, but it needs to be constantly supplied with coal.

“Coal and steam engines certainly affected the amount of cargo a ship could carry.

“The limit they can maintain in Africa and the Red Sea region is probably 50,000 troops.

“They may be proud of themselves because they defeated Oman, but Oman is not a country of the same level as us.

“The 50,000 troops Hassan Pasha left in Egypt should be enough to curb King Wu’s greed.

“However, the Ming fleet that regularly comes to the Mediterranean for trade may assist the United States in transporting troops.

“So we should strengthen our maritime defences a little bit in the eastern Mediterranean.

“There are also the Habsburgs and the Russians who might take advantage of the situation and attack our northern border.

“At the same time, the French and the British should also be informed.

“They probably don’t want to see Ming Dynasty controlling the Isthmus of Suez alone.

"If the war gets tense, they can come and mediate."

After listening to the Grand Vizier's advice, the Ottoman Sultan thought about it for a while and basically accepted it.

Arrange for the navy to strengthen patrols in the eastern Mediterranean.

The Ottoman Empire and Oman are indeed not countries of the same level. The Ottoman Empire was still one of the most powerful empires in this era.

Although it is no longer the powerful empire of Suleiman's time, the overall framework is still intact, and it is able to quickly organize tens of thousands of troops.

The mentality of the Ottoman rulers of this era was also much more confident than that of a hundred years later.

Like the Omanis, the Ottomans were not unaware of steamships, but they did not realize the extent of their impact on shipping until they experienced the actual threat themselves.

The journey that used to take half a year now only takes a month. In the past, it was difficult to travel to the area because of the monsoon and ocean currents, but now it only takes a steam engine to rush through.

The Ming capital is now Yingtian Prefecture. Fighting in the Red Sea, 14,000 kilometers away from the capital, is not much different in difficulty from fighting in Hainan and Shuntian Prefecture in the past.

Even the losses on the road may be less than before.

Moreover, the Wu State had already begun to produce armored rifles, which were breech-loading bolt-action rifles with copper shells and fixed bullets.

Facing opponents using smoothbore rifles, an era of suppression has already formed.
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Time slowly came to October of the 40th year of Xianning, and preparations for the Suez Campaign between the Ming Dynasty and the Wu Kingdom were gradually completed.

In accordance with the original agreement, the Duke of Min sent a third division to join the war.

The second rifle division was sent from the Wu Kingdom, and the Japanese army also completed a new round of reorganization.

The 40,000 Japanese in the first Japanese army participated in siege and security battles for more than two years, and had suffered continuous losses of nearly 10,000 people.

This year, the Wu Kingdom sent a second coach and recruited a second batch of 50,000 Japanese warriors and young men.

A total of 20,000 Ming coaches and officers, 30,000 Japanese veterans who had fought for more than two years, and 50,000 newly arrived Japanese recruits were reorganized into ten divisions of the Ming Wu Kingdom Japanese Legion.

Initial training was completed in Muscat, Mombasa and Zanzibar.

All Japanese veterans who are still alive received 100 acres of land in this reorganization, and officers received increased amounts of land according to the previous land distribution standards in the United States.

The land was concentrated in the African region south of Mombasa and the 10th Division of the Japanese Army was responsible for capturing black slaves to cultivate the land.

Due to the incorporation of a large number of new recruits, the Japanese Army's establishment doubled, and Liu Biao was promoted twice again and directly became the commander of the Sixth Division of the Japanese Army.

During this reorganization process, a large number of Japanese army veterans became low-level officers, the highest rank being Tian Yiming.

Tian Yiming, who had just turned fifteen, had been promoted twice to become a sixth-rank battalion commander because of his bravery in combat over the past two years.

At the same time, after more than a year of reclamation, Mombasa and Zanzibar also had large tracts of farmland, which could barely supply food for the combat troops.

Now all we need to do is transport weapons, ammunition and other military supplies from the mainland.

On November 1787, the 1th year of Xianning (January 1, in the Gregorian calendar), combat operations against the Suez region officially began.

The Ming Dynasty's Right Army Governor's Office Navy, Front Army Governor's Office Navy, Wu Kingdom Navy, and Min Kingdom Navy fleet jointly set out, first with 40,000 troops deep into the Red Sea.

The Ottoman garrison in Egypt was mainly focused on the Mediterranean Sea, and its defense in the Red Sea was very weak.

After Zhu Jianxuan's warning letter to the Sultan arrived, the Sultan reminded the local de facto governor, Elder Ismail, to strengthen the defense of the Red Sea.

But this doesn't really make sense.

Now that there is no Suez Canal, it is impossible for the Ottomans to transfer warships from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea.

A fortress on land cannot be built in just one or two months.

The Governor of Egypt only arranged more than 10,000 troops to be stationed on the land next to the Bay of Suez, and another 10,000 troops to be stationed in Alexandria.

The 30,000 main force troops temporarily remain in the capital Cairo.

When the Ming fleet entered the Red Sea, it directly sent four Beihe-type steel-structured warships as the vanguard, and opened fire directly when it encountered Ottoman warships.

The Ottomans only had a few small patrol ships and merchant ships in the Red Sea.

Faced with the new explosive bombs using picric acid as charge, these small boats really couldn't withstand a single shot and would be directly shattered into pieces.

These small boats did not cause any hindrance to the Ming fleet.

The Ming fleet hardly stopped along the way and rushed directly into the deepest part of the Red Sea.

The defenders in the Gulf of Suez were relatively vigilant, and the guards immediately sounded the alarm when they heard the sound of artillery fire on the sea.

The officers quickly gathered the soldiers and prepared to fight on the coast.

As a result, they soon discovered that dozens of Ming warships, with a total of hundreds of cannons, were bombarding the shore in turns.

Our infantry can now not get close to the coast at all.

The officers could only give orders to assemble at a slightly farther location, organize the battle line in advance, and prepare for a defensive battle.

As in previous landing battles, the Ming coalition relied on its superior naval artillery to suppress the enemy's ground forces and create conditions for the infantry to land.

When a sufficient number of riflemen came ashore and organized a line of troops, the battle had already entered the countdown to its end.

When the flintlock musket soldiers and the bolt-action rifled musket soldiers faced each other, they were literally lined up to be shot.

The Ming Dynasty's rifle division had accumulated experience in Oman and deliberately waited until the enemy's battle line was within 150 meters before opening fire.

In the era of line-up executions, the speed of death was actually not that fast when both sides were shooting at each other.

It is common to see extremely chaotic and brutal fighting that lasts for a long time, but in the end the casualties of soldiers on both sides are only a dozen percent.

But the situation is different now.

When the first line of Ottoman defenders in the Gulf of Suez was hit by the first round of fire, more than half of them fell on the spot.

The remaining ordinary people took a few more steps and more than half of them died again.

After two-thirds of the soldiers fell, the remaining surviving soldiers realized that their teammates were suddenly gone.

Then I felt an unprecedented fear.

The entire team collapsed in an instant.

But at this time, the distance between the two sides was only more than 100 meters, and the enemy on the opposite side continued to shoot.

Almost all of the fleeing soldiers fell to the ground before they were out of the effective range of the rifles.

The morale of the second Ottoman battle line collapsed completely when they saw that almost all of their comrades in front of them were wiped out.

"Oh my God!"

"How is this possible? This is impossible..."

"What horrible weapons did the Ming people use!"

"How could they all fall down?"

They were all nailed to the spot, not only did they not move forward, but they began to retreat instinctively.

At this time, the soldiers dared to stand in a row and shoot at each other. In the final analysis, they would not kill many people. If they could hold on, they would win.

But when the nominal execution line turned into a physical execution line, no one could muster the courage to move forward towards the enemy's guns.

At the same time, the Ming army on the opposite side launched a charge with a roar, and the Ottoman soldiers who were already retreating immediately dispersed.

Many soldiers instinctively looked at the officers, but the officers themselves ran away first.

It took the Ming landing force just over an hour to defeat the 10,000-strong army deployed by the Egyptian governor in the Gulf of Suez.

More than 2,000 people were killed on the spot, and more than 2,000 were killed in the chaotic pursuit. In the end, more than 3,000 people were captured, and more than 2,000 people escaped.

(End of this chapter)