I want to be emperor

953 Threat
Facing the strong threat from the Chu people, the people of the Ottoman Empire were angry at first, and then panicked.

Agree to the request of the Chu people?This is not a trivial matter. It is a matter of leasing a few small ports in remote places. It is about ceding a huge amount of land on the entire northern coast of the Black Sea. More importantly, it is necessary to open the Black Sea Strait to allow the Chu people to pass freely.

Giving up the land on the northern shore of the Black Sea is still barely negotiable. The indigenous countries these days are not as stubborn about territory as they were after the proliferation of nationalism in later generations. Territory is a kind of commodity that can be exchanged for many indigenous countries.

Among many feudal countries in Europe, the sale, exchange, and donation of territory to each other were very common, and the most common one was territorial changes tied to marriage.

How did the Habsburg family rise?Isn't it just by marriage?

When many kings and nobles married their daughters, they sometimes let their daughters marry off with a fief.

Not to mention the frequent war changes caused by wars.

Therefore, territorial changes during this period of the seventeenth century were actually very frequent, and sometimes they were not even considered a loss of power and humiliation of the country. As long as the conditions were decent, it was not a big problem for people to directly sell the territory to you.

The same is true for the Ottomans. Although the land on the northern shore of the Black Sea is also important, they would rather give up these lands if there is a huge conflict or even war with the Chu people, leading to a crisis of national annihilation.

After all, strictly speaking, these lands belong to the Crimean Khanate. Although the Crimean Khanate is a vassal state of the Ottoman Empire, it is not their own direct territory after all. There is a difference between the two.

However, the land of the vassal country is easy to negotiate, but the Black Sea Strait is not so easy to agree to.

For the Ottomans, the Black Sea Strait was their own inland river... Opening the Strait was tantamount to opening up the territory, allowing Chu people to pass freely.

More importantly, this poses a great threat to the security of the Ottomans themselves. The capital of the Ottomans is Constantinople on the coast of the strait.

This allows the Chu people's warships to freely enter the strait, which means that the Chu people are allowed to put their naval guns on their foreheads... If something happens in the future, the Chu people's naval guns can directly bombard Constantinople. fort.

How can this be endured!

Therefore, the Ottomans maintained a resolute opposition to the opening of the strait... because in their view, this thing was more dangerous than directly opening the market.

Opening up the market would, at best, turn it into a dumping ground and a supplier of industrial raw materials, but opening up the strait would mean completely handing over life into the hands of the Chu people.

Therefore, after the Ottomans had a fierce internal debate, the recalcitrant faction finally took the leading opinion... Of course, even the recalcitrant faction among the Ottomans did not say that they would not agree to the Chu people, but that they could do something in other aspects. Appropriate concessions must be made, but the bottom line must be preserved in terms of military access rights.

For example, they believe that territorial issues in the northern Black Sea and even some territories north of the Caucasus Mountains are negotiable.

Regarding the passage of the Black Sea Strait, civilian ships of the Chu Empire that pose no security threat can pass, but warships absolutely cannot...

In short, they don’t want the Chu people’s naval guns to hit their foreheads!
But the Chu people who received the reply were actually not satisfied... I am willing to talk to you Ottomans. That has already given you face, and you actually refused?
The right of military passage through the Black Sea Strait is related to the overall grain production plan of the Chu Empire in Eastern Europe. After all, if the Chu Empire does not place a few warships on the Black Sea, how can it maintain the security and interests of the Chu Empire on the Black Sea coast of Eastern Europe?
Besides, the earth is so big, but there is really no sea area that the Chu Empire Navy cannot go to!
The Black Sea is no exception!

Since the other party refused, the Mediterranean fleet sent by the European Expeditionary Force of the Great Chu Empire was too lazy to continue with the Ottomans... According to the Chu people's years of experience in overseas expansion, any indigenous country with some strength will not shed tears without seeing the coffin. I always feel that I have a large population, a large army, and a strong fighting capacity. Even if I cannot defeat the Chu people, I can still pose a sufficient threat to the Chu people, and then force the Chu people to negotiate with them.

This was true for the previous Kingdom of Sweden, Poland, Lithuania, Russia and many other countries.

Faced with such overestimating indigenous countries, the Chu people will simply support their domestic opposition and engage in secession and civil war in these indigenous countries. Sometimes they will simply send troops to kill the opponent. Get down.

As for pure threats and negotiations, most of the time they are useless...

Therefore, after the negotiations failed, the Mediterranean Fleet directly launched a plan to land on the Gallipoli Peninsula.

Because this time the Mediterranean fleet came to the Ottomans to find trouble, they had already prepared for a large-scale landing operation, otherwise they would not have directly brought thousands of troops. Therefore, the landing plan did not require the mobilization of additional troops and supplies, and was directly covered by the warships. Just log in.

Before the land forces landed, a cruiser from the Mediterranean Fleet of the Dachu Empire, along with two frigates, four offshore patrol ships, and three shallow-water gunboats set off first to establish a safe area on the sea and prepare to head to the entrance of the strait. Prepare to bombard the forts established by the Ottomans at the entrance to the strait.

The Black Sea Strait is so important that it is naturally impossible for the Ottomans to leave it undefended. In fact, this place has always been a key defense area for the Ottomans. Fortresses and infantry garrisoning are built at the entrance of the strait.

Of course, with the performance of Ottoman artillery these days, it is actually impossible to completely block the strait by relying on the fort at the entrance of the strait. It can only be said that the effect is better than nothing, but it cannot stop the Chu navy from entering.

The reason why the Chu Navy wanted to bombard the fort at the entrance to the sea first was to avoid subsequent trouble... Although this fort poses no actual threat, having such a fort nearby is always a threat. If the opposite side fires a cannonball, luck will come. The explosion directly hit the Chu warship, and with good luck, he killed some Chu sailors and destroyed the superstructure?
In order to avoid subsequent trouble, the Chu army planned to blow up the fort into rubble first.

After blowing this inlet fort into ruins, we can then consider entering the southern strait of the Black Sea Strait, that is, the Dardanelles Strait.

The Black Sea Strait is divided into three parts, the Bosporus Strait in the north, the Sea of ​​Marmara, a small inland sea in the middle, and the Dardanelles Strait in the south.

The entrance to the Dardanelles Strait near the Aegean Sea was also the frontier for the Ottomans to guard against foreign invasion from the sea. They built a fort here. In addition to their self-produced smoothbore cannons, they also deployed more than a dozen imported from Chu. 155mm front-mounted iron smoothbore gun.

However, the width of this section of the strait is 4000 meters wide. At the same time, the effective range of smoothbore guns these days is not very good, so it is difficult to completely block such a wide strait.

Even if the Ottomans were stationed at the entrance of the strait and imported a large-caliber 150 32mm caliber iron-cast front-loading smoothbore gun from the Chu people, which was roughly equivalent to a Western-style [-]-pound artillery, this heavy artillery in the front-loading smoothbore era could not block the strait. Entrance.

Although the maximum range of the gun is claimed to be 4000 meters... the actual effective range is far less. When deployed on the ground to attack fixed targets, the effective range of firing solid shells is only about 500 meters. If it is farther, the accuracy will be lower. It fell rapidly, and at the same time, the kinetic energy of the artillery shell could not be guaranteed.

Moreover, the 155mm smoothbore cannon imported from Chu State equipped by the Ottomans can only fire solid shells or homemade inferior grenades.

Let’s not talk about solid bullets, the Ottomans themselves can make this stuff, but as for grenades, the Chu people never export grenades, even grenades with primitive wooden fuses, the Chu people never export...

Because grenades are a relatively big threat to the Chu people themselves, and they also have a relatively high technical content, so there is no need to worry about the cheap and easy-to-use grenades made by the natives themselves.

The spherical early grenades and primitive fuzes were not difficult to make. The wooden holders were better made by the natives, but the prefabricated fragments of the shells were not something that the natives could handle. It was no problem to make a very small number by hand, but if you want Mass production is out of the question.

As for artillery shells, there is no difference between being able to mass-produce them and not being able to do so!
The indigenous people cannot produce prefabricated fragmentation shells, so they can only produce ordinary iron cast shells. After the grenade explodes, it will at most explode into several large fragments, and cannot form large and small fragments. The lethality is very limited. Specifically You can refer to the Weiyuan General Cannon of the Qing Dynasty.

This thing is a small mortar, and it fires early matchlock fuse grenades...

As for its power, it was actually just okay for use in the seventeenth century, not considered backward. The European mortars of the same period were just like this at best.

It is easier to use against enemies with weak other firearms, but if the opponent also has powerful firearms, then it is basically useless in field combat and can only be used to attack fixed targets.Therefore, the contemporary European natives can actually make mortars and grenades, but their technology is too poor, and the grenades they make are not a threat to the Chu army... So a very interesting situation will arise. The weapons of the Chu Empire In the export business, selling mortars but not cannon shells... makes many natives quite speechless. If you don't sell cannon shells, what do I need your mortars for?

Launch homemade grenades made by the indigenous people?The natives are not mentally ill...the earth-made grenade is not worthy of the extremely expensive Chu-made mortar. You can just use your own earth-made mortar.

Therefore, the people of Chu sell mortars but not grenades, which is also very strange.

On the other hand, solid artillery shells are supplied all over the world in various specifications. Coupled with export smoothbore cannons of various specifications, its top export models can basically reach the peak level of the smoothbore cannon era.

For example, the 155mm smoothbore cannons exported by the Dachu Empire are generally made of iron. However, if customers request it, they can afford a high price and can also cast them in bronze. The performance of bronze smoothbore cannons is better than that of iron cannons. .

In fact, in theory, there are good alloy steel smoothbore cannons with better performance, but to be honest, the Chu people themselves have never made this thing... After all, the performance of early steel products was not good. Although the Chu army began to use steel to make weapons long ago , such as the 23-year-old flash cap percussion gun. The barrel of this thing is actually made of early steel, but its performance is very poor and it cannot draw rifling.

When the barrels made of alloy steel with better performance were developed, people in the Chu State were already using them to make steel rifled cannons, so there was no such thing as a high-performance steel smoothbore cannon in the weapons industry of the Chu State.

Even if it can be done, I won't go out of its way to export it.

Because the Chu Empire basically did not export high-performance steel weapons, the main reason was to prevent the indigenous people from rifling these steel weapons through subsequent processing and improvement.

For example, if a front-loading smoothbore gun is made of high-quality steel pipe materials, the barrel can be subsequently improved and rifled directly to become a front-loading rifled gun, which will pose a great threat to the Chu army.

Don’t think that the indigenous people can’t process the rifling of steel barrels. This is because they are not strong enough. They can’t secretly get some equipment embargoed by Chu State... Even if it’s something like a steam engine, many indigenous countries actually have more or less I got some, as well as some small processing equipment. Maybe there is a set of Chu State embargoed equipment capable of rifling piled up in a secret corner of some indigenous country.

It's just that the quantity of these equipment they obtained secretly was too small, and there was basically no subsequent maintenance, parts supply, and lack of corresponding technical personnel for maintenance and even operation, so it played little role.

But there are always risks when these situations arise, so the Chu people simply banned the export of steel weapons to prevent the indigenous people from obtaining steel weapons on a large scale and modifying them.

For some civilian machinery and equipment that are not strictly controlled, if these indigenous countries make great efforts and spend a lot of money on the black market, they can still get some secretly from some Chu businessmen who are desperate for money or their lives. Some materials can also be obtained by a small number. arrive.

If we can get some Chu people's steel muskets, it would be possible to rifling them into a front-loading rifled gun, or even opening a hole to make a breech-loading rifled gun.

But again, the amount is too small and it won’t have any effect!
Rather than worrying about this, it is better to worry about these indigenous countries obtaining small batches of Chu breech-loading rifled weapons through various channels... Don't be surprised, there are indeed some Chu breech-loading rifled weapons that have been distributed to the indigenous people through some illegal channels. In the hands of civilians, such as rifled pistols, rifled shotguns and even single-shot breech-loading rifles are lost in the hands of indigenous people.

Not to mention civilian firearms, even a small number of standard firearms appear on the black market and are obtained by the indigenous people.

For a Chu empire with global expansion, global immigration, and business, it is actually difficult to avoid the outflow of firearms. Every day, a large number of caravans carrying various breech-loaded rifled firearms, and even individuals, enter the indigenous-controlled areas... …You can’t just let people go to indigenous-controlled areas to do business and explore without bringing weapons, right?Otherwise, it will be your fault if you get fucked to death by the toast?

Therefore, it is normal for firearms to leak out, and what the Chu Empire wants to control is not the leakage of these few weapons. After all, these individual weapons are of little use in practice.

Is it possible that you still expect to hold off the invasion of the Chu people with dozens or hundreds of breech-loading rifles?
What the Dachu Empire wants to control is the export of large-scale steel rifled weapons, including steel smoothbore weapons that can be modified with external rifled weapons.

It is even more senseless for the natives to rely on these small amounts of smuggled equipment and materials or finished products to directly imitate the rifled weapons of the Chu State.

If you want to imitate the modern industrial products of the Chu Empire, such as rifled guns, you can either import a whole production line and various raw materials, and then give you complete design drawings and production process technology, and then let Chu The Chinese teach you how to do it step by step, and it is not without hope that it will take ten or eight years to get it done.

Just like in the original time and space, when many agricultural countries began to develop industry, they slowly learned through many methods such as importing equipment, sending overseas students to learn technology, obtaining technology authorization, and then established their own industrial systems.

If we cannot obtain large quantities of equipment, technical drawings, and technical guidance from technical personnel, our own education system cannot cultivate these advanced technical personnel.

It is impossible to simply imitate something from the people of Chu... If you don't even know what iron and carbon elements are, and you don't even know the basic composition of steel, how can you produce steel?Without steel and various equipment, it is just a castle in the air.

Therefore, the Great Chu Empire adopted extensive technology export restrictions. For example, steam engines, regardless of their performance or age, were all products restricted for export.

At the same time, various types of mechanical processing equipment, such as general lathes and boring machines, are also subject to export restrictions regardless of their performance.

Then there are advanced materials, such as quite a lot of steel materials of various specifications, especially advanced materials that can be used to make various equipment and weapons, and their exports are restricted.

At the same time, the Chu people do not accept any foreign students... and have no interest in spreading culture in colonial or indigenous countries. It is actually very difficult for the indigenous people to learn the advanced modern knowledge of the Chu country.

Most industrial equipment is not only prohibited from being exported to the indigenous people, but is not even allowed to enter the colonies under the control of the Chu Empire itself (the Chu State established administrative agencies to rule, but the majority of the population is part of the overseas territories of the indigenous people), and extremely special sensitive industries , not even in overseas directly administered territories.

For example, the construction of various factories in the Dachu Empire requires approval procedures. You can't just build a factory directly if you want to go to overseas territories.

For example, the control of the defense industry is very strict. From the beginning to the end, only government capital can operate it. It used to be the top five arms companies, but it is still the top five arms companies now.

At the same time, the research institutes and factories of the five major weapons companies are basically located in the hinterland of the country, especially in the eighteen provinces of Guan Nei, and a small number are in western and Central Asia.

But in overseas areas, even the overseas territories directly under the jurisdiction of the Americas do not have any arsenal for the time being.

The five major arms companies do not go over to set up factories, and other capital, even local official capital in the Americas, cannot engage in the defense industry. This fundamentally and directly prevents the large-scale development of the defense industry in overseas territories, which then leads to various problems. .

This is also to prepare for future changes in the situation... For example, one day in the future, a rebellion breaks out in a directly administered territory overseas. However, without the support of the defense industry, it will be nothing more than duckweed in the water. When the local stocks of weapons and ammunition are used up, especially ammunition After that, you can only fight with the suppressing army with swords and sticks.

The more an army uses advanced weapons, the more it relies on logistics and the industrial system.

This is true for the defense industry, but there are also restrictions in some other sensitive industries.

Overseas territories are okay, as long as they are not too sensitive, you can basically invest in them, but colonies are not so good... Even setting up a textile factory with backward technology is not easy. It requires a very complicated approval process, and often reports will be reported in the end. In the imperial study room, a high-ranking official at the level of the Minister of Counselor needs to personally make the decision... The factories that can be approved to be built in the colonies often have special characteristics, and are basically limited to the field of resource department-level processing.

Simple industries such as spinning mills, food processing, and wood processing.

Moreover, the factories in these overseas colonies can only be invested and built by Chu people, and only Chu people can work in them... Aboriginal people are not allowed to get involved.

(End of this chapter)