I want to be emperor

Chapter 952 Panic in the Ottoman Empire
As the Russians expected, they could not defend Tsaritsyn at all. When the main force of the Chu Empire Army’s No. 18 Division, under the cover of the Navy’s West Sea Fleet, marched north along the Volga River to Tsaritsyn. , despite the strong resistance of the Russians in Tsaritsyn.

But under the absolute strength gap, the Russian resistance is doomed to be in vain, and they are even unable to cause much actual damage to the Chu army.

Just like the previous Battle of Astrakhan, the Battle of Tsaritsyn did not really last long. The Russian army only lasted five days before being completely defeated.

In addition to the more than 2 peripheral cavalry of the more than 5000 Russian troops in Tsaritsin, who successfully broke through and retreated, the remaining more than 5000 troops were encircled and annihilated by the Chu army, suffering heavy casualties. Those who survived and were captured were also thrown in. POW camp.

Later, these prisoners of war will be used to build the land passage between the Volga River and the Don River.

When attacking Tsaritsyn, the Chu army had already sent more than a thousand troops westward to the Don River, and conducted a detailed survey of the [-]-[-] kilometer long land passage between the Volga River and the Don River.

It was concluded that the terrain of this area was flat, and the original roads were barely adequate, and could carry a large number of Chu army's main baggage four-wheel transport carriages.

At the same time, a short-distance military railway, about fifty kilometers long, can also be built on the basis of this land channel for temporary use to transfer and transport materials between the Volga River and the Don River.

At the same time, it was also proposed that in the future, the original local river channels and lakes and reservoirs could be used to build a canal to directly connect the river transportation of the Volga River and the Don River. However, the construction of the canal was too difficult and the amount of work was too large, so it was only proposed. It’s just an idea.

If you really want to build a canal, it will take many years... During the Soviet Union, it took a full four or five years to build this canal. And this was the Soviet Union that was established in the 50s and had powerful technology. As well as construction capabilities, there are a large number of construction machinery in the early stage.

If today's Chu people want to build a canal here, but there are no construction machines to use, and the main construction needs to rely on manpower, then the amount of the project will be too large, even if it is built by force regardless of the lives of prisoners of war and free laborers, however It is estimated that it will take more than ten years.

Therefore, the Volga-Don Canal is only a future construction concept. As for now, horse-drawn carriages will be used for emergency military transportation in the short term.

After the situation stabilizes slightly and the railway engineering personnel from the rear arrive, the Chu army plans to build a short-distance military railway here to connect the Volga River to the Don River.

For the Chu Empire, building railways was much easier than building canals.

Railway construction is actually very simple... If you are building a railway in a plain area, the amount of work is not large. It is probably to prepare a flat foundation, then lay gravel, then put sleepers, and then lay the rails On top of the sleepers...this section of railway is basically completed.

Even if you encounter rivers and valleys, as long as it is not too exaggerated, it will not be a big problem, because the bridge technology of the Chu Empire has been relatively perfect. Cement and steel are usually used to construct bridge piers, and a steel bridge body is laid on top. Generally speaking, it is dozens of Meters, hundreds of meters of bridges are not a big problem... Well, the premise is that the navigation capacity of large-tonnage ships is not required, and a clear navigation height of tens of meters needs to be left.

If it is necessary to maintain the navigation capacity of large-tonnage ships, then the difficulty of building bridges on the river will suddenly increase by several orders of magnitude, and the costs will pile up to a very scary level.

The bridge industry in the Dachu Empire has been struggling for 30 to [-] years, but the Jinling Yangtze River Bridge still remains in words, just because it needs to maintain navigation capabilities... The same situation exists with the Huangpu River Bridge.

However, according to feedback from the bridge industry, designers have proposed a new design plan for the Huangpu River, so they want to use a suspension bridge to build the Huangpu River Bridge to meet the extremely demanding navigation requirements put forward by the shipping industry. Clear height and channel width issues.

But new problems have also arisen. This thing also has very high technical requirements for bridge design and steel materials... To put it bluntly, it is not possible to hang such a huge and heavy bridge just by getting some steel bars.

The structural design and steel cable materials have extremely stringent requirements, and many people in the bridge industry also have certain doubts about the plan itself.

It's just that the shipping industry has expressed appreciation for this plan... Anyway, they don't care about other things, as long as they leave enough navigation height and channel width, as for the rest, you can do whatever you like.

Once the Huangpu River Bridge is built, it will also mean a breakthrough in the technology of large steel cable bridges, and other urgent bridges such as the Jinling Yangtze River Bridge can be put on the agenda.

From this perspective, in fact, the bridge technology of the Dachu Empire has achieved sufficient development, otherwise it would not dare to mess with the Huangpu River Bridge.

For an ordinary bridge, there would be basically no technical difficulty for the contemporary Chu Empire. It was just a matter of cost.

The Da Chu Empire built so many railways, and many kinds of railway bridges were built in the process... It can be said that the bridge technology of the Da Chu Empire was promoted by railway construction.

The railway lines that crisscrossed the land of China and the massive number of railway bridges required directly promoted the rapid development of bridge technology, which in turn led to the development of railway construction technology in the Chu Empire. The two could be said to complement each other.

In this way, it would not be difficult for the Chu army to build a military railway that was only a few dozen kilometers long between the Volga River and the Don River.

You don’t even need to think too much about investment, because this is a purely military railway, at least that’s the current plan. The construction personnel will be mainly engineers, plus coolies composed of prisoners of war, and the Railway Corporation Technicians will be deployed there to provide technical support, and equipment such as sleepers, rails, and locomotives will be prepared.

In the future, this military-standard temporary railway will be further upgraded and transformed, and then become part of the West-Road Railway.

For now, let’s use military railways as standards to deal with emergencies.

Otherwise, it is not impossible to transport by horse-drawn carriage, but it is still too slow and costly.

The Chu army consumes too much materials. It has to transport materials over a long distance and for a long time. If it has been transported by horse-drawn carriages, the transportation cost will be very high.

Therefore, we can use river transport as much as possible, and we can use railways if we can.

The engineers of the Chu army built military railways, while the Chu army on the front line continued to launch an offensive towards Russia. The No. 60 Fifth Division reinforced by the rear continued north towards the Volga River, heading all the way towards Kazan and other areas. Going north also meant that the Chu army bypassed the inaccessible Ural Mountains, and even threatened to surround tens of thousands of Russian troops stationed at several strategic nodes in the Ural Mountains.

The other route is the No. 18 Division. In addition to leaving some troops in Tsaritsin, the main force is to fight to the Don River Basin and capture the middle and lower reaches of the Don River. It plans to fight all the way to the mouth of the Don River to prepare for the European Expeditionary Force of the Great Chu Empire. Get in touch with the Mediterranean Fleet here.

During this period, the European Expeditionary Force, in order to cooperate with the main force of the Chu army on the eastern front to launch an offensive, had also begun to mobilize some troops for combat. The troops were divided into two groups and landed all the way through the Baltic Sea. The planned landing area was in later Russia. The most important place for people is St. Petersburg, the outlet of the Baltic Sea. Of course, this place is just a small island now and there is no city.

At the same time, one thing to note is that the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, including the area around St. Petersburg and southern Estonia, is currently part of the Kingdom of Sweden.

The reason why the Chu army was able to land here is also related to the changes in the situation in the Kingdom of Sweden in the past two years.

In the 40th year of Chengshun, the Kingdom of Sweden underwent changes under the instigation of the Chu people, and a civil war broke out. The Chu army supported the rebels in launching a civil war. The civil war between them is still ongoing.

The area controlled by the rebels supported by the Chu army was the eastern region of the Kingdom of Sweden, including later Finland, Estonia, Latvia and other regions.

Looking at the situation of their civil war, there is a high probability that the Kingdom of Sweden will be divided into two. This is also in line with the policy of the Chu State in Europe, which is not to allow the emergence of relatively powerful indigenous countries and to divide the big countries... France and the United Kingdom are both segmented against this background.

Even Spain is showing signs of splitting. On the surface, the Chu army supports the existing Spanish royal family, but they also feel that Spain is too big now and is not in the interests of the Chu Empire, so they secretly provoke the western Mediterranean coast of Spain and other areas. The aristocratic rulers rebelled... Now the local war is about to break out.

If nothing else happens, Spain will be split into two or three countries again in a few years.

Like the current Kingdom of Sweden, the eastern region became de facto independent and formed the new Kingdom of Finland.

The Kingdom of Finland was supported by the Chu people themselves. It was a puppet state of the Chu Empire. It faced the Chu army's intention to land in the St. Petersburg area and launch a war against the Russians.

The senior officials of the Kingdom of Finland said that there is no need to engage in such troublesome military operations, and the bitter cold land will be given directly to you Chu people.

At the same time, he expressed his willingness to participate in the war with the Russians...

Regarding the opinions of the new Kingdom of Finland, the people of Chu naturally did not delay, but accepted them.

As a result, the easternmost coastal area of ​​the Baltic Sea has officially become an overseas colony of the Great Chu Empire. The Chu army will also land here and use this place as an advance base to move towards the hinterland of southern Russia, which is Moscow. March direction.

At the same time, the Kingdom of Finland will also send a certain number of troops to join the war.

However, the northern line is located in a high latitude area, and the basic transportation facilities are backward. It is a bitter and cold place. It is unrealistic for the Chu army to launch a large-scale military operation here. If they want to prey on the enemy, they will not find anyone. You can grab food...

Therefore, the European military operations against Russia are mainly to put pressure on the Ottoman Empire in the Mediterranean direction. On the one hand, they force the Ottoman Empire to open the Black Sea Strait, allowing the Chu army to smoothly pass through this strait and enter the Black Sea area; on the other hand, they force the Ottoman Empire to The Empire relinquished control of the mouth of the Don River.

Yes, the small area at the mouth of the Don River is actually still under the control of the Ottomans... In the contemporary northern coast of the Black Sea, there is also a small country where the Mongols established the Crimean Khanate. This was the earliest It was a small khanate under the flag of the Golden Horde of the Mongol Empire and later became a vassal of the Ottoman Empire.

After the complete demise of the Golden Horde, the Crimean Khanate claimed to be its own in the early days, and later became the de facto successor of the Golden Horde... and many khanates that split from the Golden Horde, such as the Siberian Khanate , after the Kazakh Khanate was successively destroyed by Russia or the Chu State, the Crimean Khanate really became the de facto sole successor of the Golden Horde.

Of course, the Chu people don't care much about these things. What they care about is that the mouth of the Don River is still controlled by the Crimean Khanate and is actually controlled by the Ottomans.

The Azov Fortress here had been controlled by the Ottomans for a long time. The Cossacks who were incorporated by the Russians decades ago once captured this city. However, the Russians were afraid of a large-scale war with the Ottomans and gave up reinforcing the Cossacks. In the end, the Cossacks were captured. The Ottoman siege failed miserably.

The Ottomans reoccupied the area, built a new fortress, and stationed a large number of troops. They still firmly guarded the Don River estuary area.

In other words, in the preliminary plan of the Eastern European strategy of the Great Chu Empire, the strategic target of the Rostov region, the Azov Fortress in its core city, was not in the hands of the Russians, but in the hands of the Crimean Khanate. Well, in the hands of the Ottomans to be more precise.

However, in view of these situations, the senior generals of the Chu people and even the combat staff did not care too much... Whatever the Chu people liked, no matter whether it belonged to the Russians or the Ottomans, the Chu Empire would take it.

What must be made clear here is that the Eastern European grain development plan formulated by the Great Chu Empire was never aimed at Russia alone, but in fact was aimed at all countries on the Eastern European plains!
Just like when the Chu Empire formulated the plan for European trade freedom, it was never aimed at a specific country, but all countries in Europe!
The same is true for the grain production plan in Eastern Europe. What the Chu people want is the entire Eastern Europe, and they want to take the fertile southern Eastern Europe, especially the Black Sea coast, as a directly administered territory for large-scale development in order to obtain a super granary.

Any indigenous country that blocks this road will be the enemy of the Chu people.The same is true for Russia, the Ottoman Empire, and even Poland and Lithuania are no exception... The Chu people's grain development plan for Eastern Europe included the middle and lower reaches of the Dnieper River... probably the Ukrainian region in later generations.

In this area, a considerable part, mainly the Black Sea coastal areas, are currently under the control of the Ottoman Empire. If you want to win these places, you will naturally have to confront the Ottoman Empire.

Of course, at present, the empire has no intention of starting a large-scale war with the Ottoman Empire... After all, food has to be eaten bite by bite, and it is easy to hold on if you eat too fast.

Therefore, whether it is the Ottoman Empire or the Persian Empire, in fact, the senior officials of the empire have not said that they are too eager to launch a large-scale war against them, and then completely conquer them and turn them into colonies. Instead, they plan to use a more gentle approach for the time being.

Just like the previous Indian peninsula, the Chu people used their strong military deterrence to force the Mughal Empire to sign various contracts step by step, and then fully liberalized the market. Finally, today they have completely reduced the economy of the Chu Empire. To your colony.

Regarding the Ottoman and Persian regions, the Dachu Empire also planned to take this path, taking its time, and eventually forming a colony similar to that of the Indian Peninsula.

Under such circumstances, the empire's senior officials have no idea of ​​​​an all-out war with the Ottoman Empire for the time being. Instead, they plan to cut the flesh with a dull knife through military threats, intimidation, etc.

Today's northern Black Sea and northeastern coast areas (a plain area north of the Caucasus Mountains) are the first blunt knife extended by the Chu Empire to the Ottoman Empire.

Although this cut was painful for the Ottoman Empire, it was not fatal.

But once it succeeds, there will be a second time after the first time... It will be a matter of time before the Ottoman Empire becomes a colony of Chu.

If they fail to succeed through diplomatic means, then the Chu people will not mind beating the Ottomans to the ground... Anyway, the No. 18 Division has already reached the lower Don River area, and the proposed Rostov area is controlled by the Ottomans. The Azov region is about to be determined, and in the future we will continue to capture all the areas along the northern coast of the Black Sea, including many areas controlled by the Ottomans, Poland, Lithuania, and the Russians.

Any enemy standing in front of the No. 18 Division will be ruthlessly destroyed.

Against this background, the Mediterranean Fleet of the European Expeditionary Force also crossed the Mediterranean Sea and then came to the Aegean Sea... This fleet also carried a battalion of Marine Corps and a regiment of mixed army troops.

The meaning is obvious. If the Ottomans understand and agree to the conditions of the Chu people, then the matter will be over.

If the Ottomans do not agree, then the Chu people will launch a landing operation on the spot, land directly on the Gallipoli Peninsula, seize and control the Dardanelles Strait from land, and then the warships of the Chu Empire can smoothly pass through this The strait enters the Sea of ​​Marmara...and then the Chu Empire warships bombard Constantinople.

By that time, it will not be enough to cede the northern coastal areas of the Black Sea. The Chu people will definitely have more demands, such as Egypt, the peninsula, etc., and necessary war reparations are also indispensable.

For the time being, the Chu people have no interest in dismembering the Ottoman Empire directly. Instead, they plan to solve Europe first, and then turn around to solve the Ottoman and Persia.

But now the European problems have almost been solved. Everything is going smoothly. It is not a big problem to directly change the strategic direction and attack the Ottomans.

In any case, like Russia, the Ottomans, after encountering such a monster as the Chu Empire, could not avoid the fate of eventually becoming a colony and even being divided and annexed. The difference was just sooner or later.

On May 42, Chengshun [-], the Mediterranean Fleet under the Atlantic Fleet of the Great Chu Empire, which departed from the base of Cadiz in Spain and passed through Malta Island for rest and replenishment, arrived in the Aegean Sea, despite the strong resistance of the Ottomans. They objected and forcibly landed on Gokce Island.

This island was occupied by the Ottomans in the late fifteenth century. However, the contemporary Aegean Sea actually belongs to the Ottomans' inland sea, so the Ottomans did not pay much attention to this island. Therefore, the Chu army's landing was not attacked. Too much resistance.

After initial resistance, more than 1000 Ottoman troops on the island surrendered simply.

This event quickly triggered panic in the Ottoman direction... After the Ottomans on the nearby Gallipoli Peninsula learned of the news, they immediately rushed the news to Constantinople.

The Chu people are coming, why don't you be afraid...

Especially now that the Ottomans have also received news that the Chu people are at war with the Russians. Russia has lost a lot of land and lost a lot of soldiers. Even Astrakhan has been lost.

In this regard, the Ottomans are also paying close attention to the developments in this area... Due to the limited sources of information in this direction and the slow transmission of information, the Ottomans at this time actually do not know about the Russian inspections. Lijin was also finished, and all the Chu people had entered the Don River Basin.

Well, in fact, the Chu people's Mediterranean fleet doesn't know how the army and navy in Eastern Europe are doing. After all, there is an Ottoman Empire in the middle, and the exchange of information is blocked.

Even if there is no blockage, it is difficult to quickly obtain relevant information from such a long distance.

The European Expeditionary Force only dispatched the Mediterranean fleet and landing troops to carry out scheduled combat missions according to the planned plan according to the previously received plan notification.

However, they are not worried about the military defeat of the army in Eastern Europe and the West Sea Fleet. These days, no indigenous country can resist the army and navy attack of the Chu Empire head-on!
not a single one!

Not the Russians, not the Ottomans!
This landing on Gokce Island is a typical example. The Chu army only dispatched a Marine Corps battalion that landed in the early stage, and without much fighting, they wiped out more than 1000 Ottoman garrison.

After taking Gokce Island, the expeditionary force officially sent envoys to the Gallipoli Peninsula to find the Ottomans. They just found an excuse and said that the Ottomans had offended the great Chu Empire, and now the Great Chu Empire came to seek justice. , if you Ottomans know better, let go of the Black Sea Strait and remove all the forts along the coast so that our fleet can enter the Black Sea.

And the bad land in the north of the Black Sea originally belonged to the Crimeans, and the founders of the Crimean Khanate were descendants of the Mongols... Now the Mongols have long surrendered to China. This is the legacy of the Mongols' past. The Crimean Khanate is naturally also a legacy of our Chu Empire!

I have let you manage it for hundreds of years, and now it is time to return it.

In short, it was just random talk, and the reasons were all found by the envoys themselves... because the superiors did not give the negotiating envoys any excuses or reasons for the war, and the higher-ups were actually too lazy to find excuses.

So the envoy made up an excuse, and then forced the Ottoman Empire to voluntarily abandon the Crimean Khanate area and open the Black Sea Strait.

After hearing the Chu people's envoys talking nonsense, the Ottomans were also stunned... They had seen shameless people, but they had never seen such shameless people.

The Crimean Khanate is in Eastern Europe... it has nothing to do with your Chinese Empire in the Far East!
You still talk about the Mongols... As a group, the Mongols are almost wiped out by you Chu people... In the early years, the Chu Empire regained Monan. After Monan and later Mongolia were recovered, these three major branches All the Mongolians in the system were completely integrated and annexed by the huge population base of the Chu Empire, and became a part of the contemporary Chu people.

In the Great Chu Empire, there is no such thing as being Mongolian anymore... If you tell those descendants of nomadic peoples who have changed their surnames and adopted different clothes and fully intermarryed that they are Mongolian, they will immediately fall out with you: I I am a descendant of the Yanhuang people, an orthodox branch of the Han people. How dare you say that I am a Mongolian barbarian...be careful what I do to you!

Whether you believe it or not, they themselves believe it anyway... Besides, after 30 to [-] years of intermarriage, the Chu people have been engaged in migration, and the former nomads have been gradually relocated and dispersed to various provinces in the Guan for farming and work, and the border areas have been Some people migrated to the grasslands to engage in breeding and grazing.

Therefore, the contemporary Chu people are actually no Mongolians who have retained their nomadic customs.

The people who breed and herd on the grasslands today... are all Han Chinese who have migrated from the northern provinces in the past few decades, and they do not engage in nomadic herding, but mainly engage in planting, breeding and grazing.

Now that the Chu people are involved and the Mongols are involved, it would be particularly speechless to say that the Crimean Khanate was the lost land of the Chu Empire.

The conscience of heaven and earth, the Ottomans have been in charge of the Crimean Khanate for more than 200 years. In the early [-]th century, just a few decades after the establishment of the Crimean Khanate, the Ottoman Khanate actually controlled the Crimean Khanate. Yahan became a vassal of the Sultan.

Now the Chu people came over and said that this was originally a vassal state of their Chu people. Isn’t this nonsense?

Telling lies with open eyes is more reliable than this.

But even though they knew clearly that the Chu envoy was talking nonsense, the Ottomans did not dare to directly refuse the many conditions proposed by the Chu people.

why?
Spain, France, the United Kingdom, the Kingdom of Sweden, Poland, Lithuania, and Russia are all learning from the past. These European countries have rejected the market opening agreement of the Chu Empire and insisted on engaging in armed confrontation. As a result, each of them has ended badly. .

Spain has completely become a colony of the Chu people, and that's not all, there are signs of further division.

Britain and France were even worse, split into multiple small countries.

The Kingdom of Sweden and Poland and Lithuania both had civil wars due to the instigation of the Chu people, which led to division. The Kingdom of Sweden split from east to west, and a Kingdom of Finland emerged. Rebellion also occurred in the northern part of Poland and Lithuania, and a Kingdom of Lithuania emerged.

Russia was unwilling to directly become a colony when facing Chu, but instead launched an armed confrontation. Now Astrakhan is finished, and the Volga River Basin is estimated to be finished. It is only a matter of time before Moscow is captured by the Chu army.

In a word, the outcome of fighting against the Chu Empire would be very tragic!

If you surrender honestly, you will just become a colony, but if you want to fight with armed force, you will end up splitting and subjugating the country in a minute.

Under such circumstances, even the Ottoman Empire, which had always been confident in the past and boasted that it could fight against the entire Europe, had to deal with the series of conditions proposed by the Chu people very carefully.

outright rejection?

That's purely courting death!

The senior officials of the Ottoman Empire are not that stupid, so some people in the senior officials of the Ottoman Empire advocate negotiations, and they can continue to maintain good relations with the Chu Empire by appropriately ceding some interests.

Yes, good relationships!
The relationship between the Da Chu Empire and the Ottoman Empire was actually okay before this. The two sides did a lot of business, but the Ottoman Empire still wanted to maintain the past situation.

(End of this chapter)