1627 Rise of the South China Sea

Chapter 3779

Rui believed that Hai Han should be well aware that its approach of assisting the Xihu tribe in establishing a nation would never be recognized by the Ottoman Empire. After all, the Ottoman Empire was the original overlord of the Xihu tribe, and Hai Han was just a latecomer that suddenly appeared in the Persian Gulf.

If Hai Han, while trying to win over the Xihu tribe, also invited the Ottoman Empire to send officials to watch the ceremony at Fubo Port, that would be an impulsive and tactless act. Rui felt that Hai Han should not make such a low-level mistake.

His guess was indeed correct to some extent, but not completely. Qian Tiandun did not inform the Ottoman Empire of the founding of the Xihu Kingdom, but this was not because he was afraid of offending the other party, but because Xihu took the initiative to ask for it.

The Shihu's request was simple: they needed more time to prepare for the response. The Ottoman Empire would punish the Shihu sooner or later, but it was best not to rush to provoke this powerful opponent.

As for Portugal, the Xihu tribe has not yet regarded it as an opponent, let alone been on guard against it.

From Qian Tiandun's perspective, Portugal was a much greater threat than the Ottomans. After all, the Portuguese-occupied Hormuz Island was only 200 miles away from Fubo Port, while the Ottoman armed forces were at the other end of the Persian Gulf, ten times farther away than Hormuz Island.

Although the Ottoman Empire's military strength is far superior to that of Portugal, if it wants to attack Fubo Port or the Xihu Kingdom, traveling long distances by land is obviously not a good option. Only taking the sea route is slightly more convenient, but naval warfare is Hai Han's forte. Even if one or two armed fleets come, the special warfare division can easily deal with it.

What's more, when Qian Tiandun visited Basra last year, he had already specially scouted the Ottoman Empire's naval forces deployed at the western end of the Persian Gulf. It can only be said that they are good for deterring nearby Arab tribes, but there is no need to worry about Hai Han.

Regarding this point, Shi Diwen also expressed some of his attitude in his speech at today's ceremony.

He called the newly established Hijrah State "one of the important forces in maintaining regional peace and stability", and did not include the Ottoman Empire, which was not present, among the countries listed subsequently.

This can be interpreted as Hai Han considering the Ottoman Empire as an unstable factor, or it can be considered as supporting the Hijrah Empire, which broke away from Ottoman rule. But no matter which reason it is, Hai Han obviously did not regard the Ottoman Empire as an object that must be feared.

If Rui knew that Hai Han regarded him as a greater threat than the Ottoman Empire, he would not be proud of it, but would still feel a chill on his back.

After several bigwigs finished their speeches, the highlight of today's ceremony began, a simple military parade.

The troops on parade included those from Hai Han and Xihu. The Hai Han side naturally included the elite of the Special Operations Division and the East China Sea Fleet, but the biggest highlight today was not the Hai Han army, but the Xihu army which had just completed recruit training.

Although the Xihu armed forces had only been trained for a few months, they were still divided into navy and army according to Hai Han's suggestion. In today's military parade, there were four marching formations: navy, army infantry, artillery, and cavalry.

As the navy has no warships available, it can only borrow the ships of the special warfare division for training for the time being. These Arab sailors are still trainee sailors of the fleet under the special warfare division.

However, the two second-hand exploration-class warships ordered by the Special Warfare Division are currently being refurbished at the Xingdao Shipyard and are expected to be delivered to the Xihu Kingdom within this year.

Time was short, and there was no time to customize the uniforms. The Xihu sailors in the marching formation still wore traditional turbans and robes, but wore a blue armband on their sleeves to indicate their naval identity. The sailors carried rifles on their shoulders, marched in neat steps to the beat of the drums, and slowly passed in front of the rostrum, accepting the cheers of the onlookers.

Following closely behind were the infantry troops, who had received more drill training than other arms and were the most orderly of the marching formations.

The third artillery unit to appear had only a few dozen people, but the six field guns that accompanied them were extremely powerful weapons.

Of course, with their current level of training, they are not yet able to operate these artillery pieces. A separate artillery array was arranged at the parade purely for the sake of visual effect.

The last one to march was the cavalry phalanx, which was also the most skilled traditional military unit of the Arabs. At this stage, they did not need to receive any more training in horsemanship or learn complicated cavalry tactics, but only needed to practice how to load ammunition and fire on horseback.

The size of the Xihu Kingdom's parade troops was not large. The four branches of the military's phalanxes combined only had a few thousand people.

However, those who are familiar with Hai Han’s military system should be able to find from this brief military parade that the armed forces of the Xihu Kingdom already bear the imprint of Hai Han. It’s just that the Arab soldiers are wearing traditional costumes, which does not look as obvious as the auxiliary troops of other countries.

The armies of North Korea, Annan and other countries have all gone through the same stage and are familiar with the current state of the Hijra Army. The officers watching the ceremony were also commenting and evaluating the training level of the Hijra Army.

Naturally, the people who felt uneasy about this were the Portuguese.

Before Rui came, he did not regard the Hiju as a threat. In his view, the Arab tribal armed forces were just a group of low-level warriors without even armor. Their only strength was a high proportion of cavalry and strong mobility. They had no advantage over the Portuguese army that was already equipped with firearms.

However, the new army of the Xihu Kingdom has obviously broken away from the traditional tribal armed forces and has adopted firearms like the Portuguese army.

Although Rui could not judge for the time being whether this was a real training result or Hai Han just arranged for these Arabs to carry guns for show, but based on the results of the formation training displayed in the military parade alone, Rui understood that the strength of the Xihu Army was probably above that of other tribal armed forces in the surrounding areas.

As long as they can enforce discipline and master the application tactics of combat formations, the firearms troops will be able to crush the traditional cold weapon troops. What's more, the Xihu army even has field artillery in its formation.

Rui could already imagine that those tribes that were preparing to cause trouble for Xihu under his instigation would probably hit a wall next.

The ceremony today did not invite other tribes around Xihu to participate, which shows that Xihu is not completely defenseless. Rui even boldly speculated that Xihu may have regarded the surrounding tribes as opponents. After all, it costs a lot of money to train these firearms troops, and after they are formed, they must take action to be valuable.

But even so, he did not intend to warn those tribes, because only in this way could he test the true strength of the Xihu Army and the attitude of Hai Han.