The Imperial Age with the Resurgence of Han Style

Chapter 11
"Wow!……"

Armenian businessman Henrik Mkhita watched as the captured horse thieves, under the threat of bayonets, carried the corpses one after another and dumped them in the valley on the roadside, with various symptoms on their bodies and faces. It was a tragic situation, with dark red blood staining the ground. I felt my stomach was churning, and I immediately squatted on the ground and vomited violently.

Several armed caravan guards glanced at him with a mocking expression.

When these Persian merchants encountered horse thieves, their faces turned pale with fear. They even suggested that they offer some gold and silver to the horse thieves in order to have a chance to save their lives.

But the problem is that this caravan is mainly composed of Persian trading companies in our country. Among the goods escorted are a large number of precious porcelain, clocks, furs, perfumes, gold powder, pearls and other commodities that are intended to be sold to the Safavid royal family. A larger quantity of sucrose, spices, dyes, cotton fabrics (cotton cloth), steel materials, and copper materials were shipped, with the value of the goods reaching 50 million Hanzhou silver dollars. How could these "little thieves" be cheaped?
As a result, in a battle early this morning, our army officers and soldiers, oh, no, our trading company escort used the tactics of "attacking the carriage with fire" to defeat the horse thieves, killing and wounding 360 of the enemy, and captured more than 200, while the rest fled without a trace.Moreover, the good news is that more than 30 horses and more than [-] camels were seized in this battle, which can be regarded as making up for some battle losses.

However, these "robber thieves" are really poor. Except for a few leaders who have some residual wealth, the rest of them, whether they are dead or alive, can hardly find anything valuable for cleaning. The "guards" on the battlefield were so disappointed.

"Come on, have a drink."

At this time, Henrik Mhita vomited until only the acid water in his stomach was left. As soon as he stood up, he saw a kettle handed to him.

"All this does make people feel very uncomfortable watching it, but we have to thank those brave Qi guards who saved all of our lives. Oh, of course, including our extremely precious cargo. No. "?" English businessman Michael Henry said with a smile.

In addition to Persian, Henrik Mkhitar also knows a little bit of Turkic and Chinese, but is not very familiar with English. However, based on the same religious beliefs (Armenians believe in Christianity), he has some problems with the European in front of him. There is a natural sense of closeness.

"Thank God, we have been spared from looting and killing. The current state of the empire is too bad. There are such large-scale tribal armed forces intercepting the convoys of merchants like us. I don't know how those governors and garrisons manage local security. , if the great Shah learns of this, he will definitely punish them."

Michael Henry blinked. Although he didn't understand what the other party was saying, judging from the expression on his face, he might be thankful that he survived this fierce armed conflict, or that he was guarding the country. Express admiration for being brave and good at fighting.

"Oh, yes. The guards of Qi are very brave, and the fighting methods and processes are also full of Eastern wisdom." Michael Henry turned to look at the guards of Qi who were holding muskets, and looked thoughtful "But why do I feel that those guards look like a group of well-trained troops... If they are soldiers, then what are they doing in Isfahan?"

As a European, or to be precise, as an Englishman, Michael Henry's view of the country was very complicated, with mixed jealousy and disgust.

For unknown reasons, this powerful Indian Ocean overlord has never been very close to England, and sometimes even shows a strong hostility.They can maintain very friendly cooperative relations with the United Provinces, France, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Prussia and other countries, and can even get back on good terms with Spain, which they used to be a team with, but they just cannot maintain close relations with England. relation.

Qi seemed to deliberately keep a distance from England, always staring at them with a vigilant and scrutinizing gaze. In 1688, after William III of the Netherlands came to London, the English once thought that they could rely on the king's "face" to further deepen their cooperation with Qi. They even imagined that they could completely replace The Netherlands' status has become Qi's closest partner in the East.

However, the people of Qi simply ignored England's frequent flirtations and continued to cooperate with the Dutch East India Company, showing full steadfastness and loyalty.

All these years.When English merchant capital tried to open up Eastern trade, the people of Qi also set up various restrictions and obstacles, and sometimes even used force to obstruct them, to ensure that their tentacles were excluded from their sphere of influence and thus maintained their influence. trade monopoly.

Qi people can be found everywhere in Japan, Qin, the Malay Peninsula, the East Indies, and even Bangladesh and India. English merchants were suppressed and excluded, and in the end they could only succumb to the monopoly capital of Qi merchants and become their numerous One of the trading distributors, through re-export trade, eats their leftover scraps.

In Persia and the Ottomans, although Qi did not achieve an absolute monopoly, it still occupied a majority of the market share due to its relative dominance in the entire trading system.In time, with the decline of the Safavid dynasty in Persia, it is conceivable that the Qi people will definitely take the opportunity to control this important node connecting the trade between the East and the West, and completely turn the entire Persia into their economic colony.

In fact, Qi State has not only expanded aggressively in the Indian Ocean Rim, striving to consolidate and strengthen their maritime hegemony in the region, but they have also begun to set up locations in Europe in order to exert their influence.

The War of the League of Augsburg (the Grand Alliance War) broke out in 1688. In order to prevent Louis XIV from continuing to expand, countries such as the Netherlands, Spain, HRE, Sweden, Brandenburg, Saxony, Bavaria, and England, They joined forces one after another and launched a siege against France.

During the war, the Netherlands and England strongly invited Qi to join their anti-French alliance and jointly carry out military attacks on France.

You know, at this time, France not only had the largest army in Europe, but its naval strength also exceeded that of the United Kingdom and the Netherlands combined.Under this situation, France, with one enemy against many, not only did not lose at all, but also defeated the anti-French Allied Forces.Especially in the Battle of Beech Point in June 1690, the Anglo-Dutch fleet was defeated by the French fleet. The French army of 6 men was eagerly waiting to cross the channel and invade the English mainland to support the restoration of James II.At that time, there were only a very small number of troops in the British mainland, and the situation was very critical.

Although Qi is far away from the European continent and unable to send its army to fight, they have a powerful fleet that is no less powerful than the French Navy in size and combat effectiveness. South Africa, Morocco, Egypt, and South America have all deployed a large number of professional warships.As long as they can mobilize twenty or thirty ships into the Atlantic or the Mediterranean, it will be enough to change the balance of maritime power between the two sides and greatly ease the military pressure on the anti-French alliance.

However, no matter how Britain and the Netherlands tried to persuade them, Qi remained unmoved and stated that it had no intention of getting involved in the situation in Europe and would maintain a strict policy of neutrality.

But turning around, Qi State flirted with Louis XIV again, and signed a series of trade cooperation agreements with France on the condition of not participating in the anti-French alliance, becoming the second country after the Netherlands to fully enter the French market.

The nine-year war put a heavy economic burden on all participating countries. Everyone was tired of this fruitless bloody game, so they signed the Treaty of Ryswick with France in 1697, ending this fruitless war. Any winner's war.There was no winner, but compared to the participating countries in Europe, Qi, who was watching from the other side, took advantage of its neutral status during the war to continuously extend its trade tentacles to European countries and make business prosperous.The direct trade volume between Europe and the United States has expanded eight times compared to before the war, making it a huge war fortune and making a lot of money.

According to British estimates, the trade volume between Qi and Europe is likely to exceed 1000 million pounds, making Qi the most important trading partner of European countries.

If the War of the League of Augsburg allowed Qi's influence to be demonstrated in Europe for the first time, then the subsequent War of Spanish Succession expanded Qi's influence (power) in Europe and provided an absolutely perfect opportunity. Good opportunity.

Because, in this war, the people of Qi died personally.

The people of Qi declared war on Spain under the pretext of territorial disputes in the Americas, and then launched a massive attack on Spanish American territories.

In a very short period of time, Qing State, a vassal state established by Qi State in South America, sent troops to sweep across La Plata and seized the east bank area (i.e. the east bank of the Uruguay River and La Plata River, today (Uruguay area), the troops were directed towards Paraguay.

In North America, the Qi people easily annihilated the weak Spanish Pacific Squadron, controlled the entire Baja California area, and also took advantage of the situation to seize Coiba Island, the Pearl Islands, and Panama City on the Pacific side of the Isthmus of Panama. Cutting off Spanish American territory.

In addition, Qi State also joined forces with Morocco's Alawi dynasty to launch a campaign to capture the Canary Islands. In September 1703, after six months of hard fighting, the Spanish Governor of the Canary Islands was forced to surrender to the Qi State-Moroccan coalition forces, ending their ruled the area for 9 years.

Soon after, Qi State obtained ownership of four islands including Tenerife, La Gomera, La Palma, and El Hierro from the Moroccans at the cost of providing [-] Hanzhou silver dollars. , successfully secured an extremely critical maritime stronghold in the North Atlantic.

In 1704, the English navy captured Gibraltar, south of the Spanish mainland, directly threatening the Spanish mainland.However, the people of Qi did not want to concentrate on fighting France and Spain, but they were worried that England would control the strait, which would in turn affect their Red Sea-Mediterranean trade. They immediately responded tit-for-tat and leased Ceuta on the south side of the strait from Morocco as a naval base.

In July 1707, England and the HRE besieged the port of Toulon in southern France and once again invited Qi to send troops to assist. However, the Qi people refused to participate in the war on the pretext that the war in America was stalemate and could not free up much combat power. This made the English boss Not fast.

Spain's weak naval power alone could not pose a threat to the Chinese navy. In the war on land in the Americas, Spain had lost consecutive battles and had little power to fight back.Under such circumstances, how could a stalemate develop?
To put it bluntly, Qi's behavior was because he did not want to waste his own strength and fight for the Europeans.

By August 1712, the war had been going on for eleven years (due to Qi's participation in the war, the war process was one year shorter than the original time and space). Both sides were exhausted and unable to continue the fight.With France and Spain on one side and Britain, Qi, the Netherlands, Prussia, Savoy and Portugal on the other side, the Peace of Utrecht was signed, ending the war.

In July 1713, Spain signed the Treaty of Madrid separately with Qi. Qi obtained La Plata and the east coast area in South America. In North America, it obtained Baja California and the Isthmus of Panama. Qi returned Panama City. to Spain, but Coiba Island, the Pearl Islands on the Pacific side, and the Azuero Peninsula near the isthmus were ceded to Qi.

During the entire war, except for attacking Spain and seizing its large American territories, Qi never launched any military operations against France. Moreover, Qi also protected the weak French East India Company in the Indian Ocean and prohibited the British and Dutch The two East India Companies killed him and gained excellent popularity with the French.

After the war, when the European warring countries entered into reconstruction, the Qi people not only further expanded their trade markets in the Netherlands, Britain, Prussia, Portugal and other countries, they also unsurprisingly received a large number of orders for goods from the French. , timber, grain, oil, tea, steel, cotton textiles, leather goods, machinery and other commodities flooded into the French market, severely squeezing the market space that was once used by the Netherlands, Genoa, Venice and other countries.

Although the two huge-scale wars thwarted Louis XIV's desire for expansion and ended France's hegemony in Western Europe, it is undeniable that all participating countries, including England, the Netherlands, the HRE, etc., suffered great losses in strength and finances. On the verge of collapse.

The Netherlands, once the richest country in Europe, suffered huge losses in its maritime transportation industry and international commerce during the war. It was reduced from Europe's largest creditor country to Europe's third largest debtor country. Its powerful navy also suffered from insufficient military spending after the war. Crop fade.The national strength declined significantly, and it gradually retreated from the competition among European powers. Soon it was no longer included among the first-class powers in Europe (in 1719, the Netherlands refused to participate in the peace conference of the great powers).

Although Britain made a lot of profits through this war, it obtained a 30-year monopoly on the slave trade in Spanish American territories, as well as the occupation of the Spanish seaports of Gibraltar and Minorca, allowing the British navy to extend into the American Caribbean and The Mediterranean Sea, gaining partial sea control and trade rights in both areas.In addition, France also gave up its claim to the British colony of Hudson Bay in northern Canada and ceded Accademia and Newfoundland in eastern Canada to Britain.

But compared with the benefits obtained by Qi, the British could not help but feel a little jealous and angry.

In addition to seizing large swathes of Spanish American territory, Qi also secured several key maritime fortresses such as the Canary Islands and the southern coast of the Mediterranean, allowing the Qi navy to extend into the North Atlantic and the Mediterranean.At the same time, Qi also obtained free trade rights for Spanish American territories, thereby breaking Spain's trade blockade that had lasted for more than 100 years.

In this war, the French Navy was almost completely destroyed, the Spanish Navy was also severely damaged, and the Dutch Navy was also seriously weakened. As a result, the British Navy suddenly became the largest in Europe, but the more powerful Qi Navy took the opportunity to enter the Mediterranean. and the Atlantic Ocean, becoming one of the major forces influencing the situation in the entire region.

At this point, the English suddenly realized that Qi, which was also an island country, had become their potential biggest threat.Although they have not yet had the idea that "Europe is the Europe of Europeans", subconsciously, the intervention of a powerful foreign force in European geopolitics will inevitably bring some unpredictable risks to England.

Based on this background and trend of public opinion, in addition to trying to earn huge trade profits, those English merchants who went to the East for trade also wanted to break Qi's trade monopoly in the Indian Ocean region and expected Qi to fall into a huge war in a certain area. Amid the troubles, their dominant position in trade was shaken.

Therefore, when the English businessman Michael Henry saw that a group of trading company guards suspected to be Qi's regular army were about to go to Isfahan, he couldn't help but have other thoughts and thought about whether he could do something about it to let the people of Qi What about creating a rift with the Persians and intensifying their conflicts?
(End of this chapter)