1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 3699

Although what Li Yuande said was just a joke, the group of pirates who attacked the Hai Han fleet yesterday must have committed many evil deeds in the past, such as selling captured sailors and crew members as slaves. Now they are unlucky and have hit a wall. It is what they deserve to die under the guns of Hai Han.

Qian Tiandun visited the local governor as usual and promoted the weapons and equipment produced in Haihan. However, the governor of Aden obviously did not have much authority in this regard and only said that the matter needed to be consulted with Constantinople first.

Although this response was similar to that of Galar in Basra, Aden was located 4,000 miles south of Basra, and it was a remote place within a remote place for the Ottoman Empire. The governors here would report their demands and wait for Constantinople's approval, which would take longer than Basra.

However, Qian Tiandun had not had high expectations for this. According to what he saw at the port and when entering the city, the level of armaments in the port of Aden could only be considered mediocre, far inferior to that of Basra. This also showed that the military budget of the local garrison should be quite limited.

The few warships from the cold weapon era docked in the port can only roam around within a hundred miles or so. It is no wonder that pirates in the Gulf of Aden are so rampant.

But the archon's residence was built magnificently, like a palace. I guess a lot of the funds that should have been allocated to the army were turned into beautiful glazed tiles on the roof of the residence. Even if the bigwigs in Constantinople agreed to let Aden spend money to purchase arms, this budget might not be enough to exchange for guns and warships made in Hai Han.

The Portuguese came to Aden much earlier than Hai Han, so there are actually quite a few businesses run by the Portuguese here.

However, as far as Qian Tiandun knew, the area actually controlled by Portugal was the African coast on the south side of the Gulf of Aden, where some small colonial settlements were built.

However, there was no large port with excellent conditions like the Port of Aden in the local area, and the trade atmosphere was not ideal, so some Portuguese merchants still preferred to settle down in the prosperous Port of Aden.

After staying in the port of Aden for three days, Qian Tiandun had basically understood the situation there, so he led his troops to the next destination.

Qian Tiandun selected two exploration targets in the Gulf of Aden, one was the Port of Aden, and the other was located somewhere on the African coast, 500 miles west of the Port of Aden.

The second place Qian Tiandun chose for his investigation was the port of Djibouti in the future. The port conditions here were not as good as those of Aden, but the location was quite good. It was located at the westernmost end of the Gulf of Aden, only 200 miles away from the Bab el-Mandeb Strait in the north, and also controlled the key waterway in and out of the Red Sea.

Moreover, Djibouti has another advantage that is relatively favorable to Hai Han, that is, the local area is still an unowned land. It is neither under the jurisdiction of a sovereign country nor occupied and developed by foreign colonial forces.

This place was not supposed to be developed until several hundred years later, and because of the opening of stationing rights, it has become the first choice for major military powers in the world to establish military bases in the Gulf of Aden.

However, when the Hai Han fleet arrived here, the area near the coast was still a desert, and there was almost no human habitation to be seen at a glance.

After the vanguard of the special operations division landed, they immediately sent out cavalry to conduct reconnaissance in the surrounding area of ​​more than ten miles. As Qian Tiandun expected, no one was found living there.

There may have been some indigenous people here before, but the few houses have been abandoned for a long time, and it seems that they moved away for some reason at least many years ago.

"Sir, is there something strange about this place that caused the local people to abandon their homes and move away en masse?"

Hearing Dong Shangyi's doubts, Qian Tiandun gave a reasonable explanation: "The reason why the natives here are gone may be because the slave traders were too ruthless in this area, and those who were not captured had to leave here to protect themselves." Dong Shangyi suddenly realized: "I forgot about this... Your Excellency is wise!"

Compared to the sandy Arabian Peninsula on the other side of the Gulf of Aden, the natural environment of the East African coast is much more comfortable. The area where Djibouti is located is an alluvial plain formed by the estuaries of several rivers. Although it is not as lush as the Mesopotamian Plain, it still has a lot of vegetation, and there are even large tracts of forests near the rivers.

For the Han people, who have been farming for generations, as long as there is water and land, it means that the place can be reclaimed and cultivated, and produce grain to be self-sufficient. Having land and grain is the most basic requirement for many people who are willing to emigrate overseas.

So even though this place looks like an undeveloped barren land, people are more optimistic about it than the Fubo Port which was previously selected by Qian Tiandun himself.

After all, the oasis area of ​​Fubo Port is extremely limited. Even if some farmland can be reclaimed in the future, the output cannot feed too many people, and most of them still have to rely on external supplies. It won't take too long for this place to achieve self-sufficiency in food, and the difficulty of development and construction will be correspondingly smaller.

Of course, the problems faced in developing this place are actually the same as those in the early days of other overseas colonies, that is, there is not enough population base to provide the required labor force, and it is necessary to rely on introducing immigrants from outside.

Although Qian Tiandun has never been very enthusiastic about the influx and naturalization of immigrants from other races, this place is far away from the mainland of Hai Han. Even if there are mountains of gold and silver, it is unlikely to attract a large number of domestic immigrants in a short period of time.

Therefore, for this place, the more realistic source of population is probably the slave market in the Port of Aden and surrounding areas.

Although the area that the special warfare division surveyed nearby was large, the only place that was truly suitable for building a port was actually a small peninsula that stretched northward into the Gulf of Aden. This peninsula curled westward, forming a natural shelter, which was not as good as the harbor of Aden Port, but it was rare in the area near the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

After a brief two-day survey, Qian Tiandun had basically delineated the future port, military camp and urban area, but the subsequent development and construction might take several years to achieve.

Previously in Fubo Port, Qian Tiandun only left an engineering company and a small number of combat troops, but in this newly selected settlement, he appointed one of his battalion commanders as the person in charge of the place.

This means that this place will have greater autonomy and more manpower, which shows that Qian Tiandun has high hopes for the development prospects here.

Just as he had done in Fubo Port, Qian Tiandun also held a simple groundbreaking ceremony for the project and ordered people to engrave a stone tablet to record Hai Han’s deeds here.

As for the name of this new port, Qian Tiandun had already prepared it and named it "Zhenhai Port".

"Zhenhai Port? What a good name!" Dong Shangyi shook his head and commented: "Zhenhai Fubo, echoing each other from afar, just right to control the Arabian Peninsula in the middle, your Excellency is really far-sighted!"

Li Yuande also responded: "Three hundred miles north of here is the Red Sea. The so-called Zhenhai should mean to pacify the Red Sea! Sir, it seems that we are going to the Red Sea next, right?"

Qian Tiandun smiled and nodded, "That's right."