Bringing the Railway to Daming

Zhu Jihui, the eldest son of Zhu Gang, is nineteen years old this year. He not only studied in the Daihondo for several years, but also trained in the army for three or four years.

Although he was of average appearance, he was studious and hardworking, not afraid of hardship, and had a relatively stable and upright personality, so he was quite liked by Zhu Gang.

Therefore, after Zhu Gang established the State of Jin in Northeast Africa, he officially appointed Zhu Jihui as the crown prince, and now he keeps him in the royal court to assist him in handling state affairs and train him to become the second king of the State of Jin in the future.

Seeing that Zhu Jihui, who had already made some progress in cultivating his Qi, was so happy, Zhu Gang knew that the telegram from the capital must be of great importance.

After taking the translated telegram from Zhu Jihui and quickly reading it, Zhu Gang was also very happy.

"Great! Great! This is a rare opportunity for our Jin State. It's definitely a good thing!"

Zhu Jihui smiled and said, "Father, with the support of the court, we can not only build the canal as soon as possible, but we can also build a railway first, which will greatly facilitate transportation."

"Furthermore, Jin will become an important transit point on the maritime trade route between Ming and Europe. Even if we have to make concessions to the imperial court in terms of taxation, the relevant taxes will definitely not be a small amount."

"The most important thing is that when merchants from the east and the west pass through our Jin State, it will surely cause our commerce to prosper rapidly!"

Zhu Gang laughed and said, "Hahaha, you're right, that's exactly it!"

It turned out that this telegram not only talked about the Ming court's grand plan to bypass Timur, the Ottoman Empire and other countries to open up a new Maritime Silk Road, but also mentioned two small plans to aid the construction of Jin State.

The first plan was to start the "Dingxi Grand Canal" project that had been planned before Zhu Gang came here to establish a vassal state. Zhu Yuanzhang supported Zhu Gang in establishing a vassal state in Northeast Africa and also arranged a Xihai Guard on the east coast of the Mediterranean. One of the main reasons was that he saw the important role of the Suez Canal in transportation between the three continents of Asia, Africa and Europe in later generations.

Now that the Ming Dynasty has decided to open up a new Maritime Silk Road, the "Dingxi Grand Canal" project will naturally have to start.

However, although the Suez Canal in later generations is only more than 250 miles long, because the canal connects the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea, there is a water level difference, so a dam that is large enough and strong enough must be built at both ends of the canal.

It turned out that Zhu Yuanzhang was planning to leave this major project to Zhu Biao or Zhu Xiongying during their reign.

Now, in order to open up a new Maritime Silk Road, we have to do it first.

But such a large project will inevitably take a lot of time, maybe four or five years, or even seven or eight years.

During this period, if Ming Dynasty merchants relied on horse carriages to travel from the west coast of the Red Sea to the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea, not only would it be time-consuming, but the cargo capacity of the carriages and horses was not large enough.

So after discussing with the Grand Councilor and cabinet ministers, Zhu Yuanzhang decided to support the State of Jin in building a railway from Wangxiang Port (later Suez Port) to Jinyang (Cairo)!
It should be noted that before the kings went overseas to establish their fiefdoms, they all asked Zhu Yuanzhang for important technologies such as cement, steam engines, and railways. However, in order to maintain the ruling power of the Ming Dynasty court, Zhu Yuanzhang was temporarily unwilling to give them, and even did not allow the kings to develop them privately.

Now Zhu Yuanzhang actually wants to help Jin State build a railway. How can Zhu Gang not be happy?

Although the ownership of this railway will belong to the Ming Dynasty court within 30 years after its construction, the State of Jin can enjoy the convenience brought by the construction of the railway, and there are countless benefits.

As Zhu Gang laughed joyfully, Zhu Jihui said, "Father, in order to cooperate with the imperial court's plan, I'm afraid we have to give up our original plan to attack the Kingdom of Hafsids."

The Kingdom of Hafsids was later known as Tunisia, or Carthage during the Roman Empire. Today, in Northeast Africa, Hafsids is the only "big country" left around the State of Jin.

The others were either states with only a few cities or simply tribal systems, which were not worth mentioning to the State of Jin.

Of course, the most important thing is that the State of Jin now borders the Kingdom of Hafsid to the west. In addition to the later Tunisian territory, Hafsid also includes part of the later Algerian territory to the west and half of the northern coastal territory of Libya.

In addition, the Hafsid dynasty was established only a little over a hundred years ago, and the country is still quite strong. Given the stability of the overall environment in North Africa at this time, if nothing unexpected happens, the Hafsid dynasty can survive for another one or two hundred years.

As the saying goes, "I won't allow others to snore beside my bed."

Zhu Gang was ambitious to establish a large Jin State in North Africa and the Mediterranean region, so he naturally had to deal with the powerful neighbor to the west before marching to Europe.

After hearing what Zhu Jihui said, Zhu Gang said, "Why should we let it go? Since we must cooperate with the court to open up a new Maritime Silk Road and open up the Mediterranean shipping route to Southern and Western Europe, then we must fight the Kingdom of Hafsids even more - and we must fight until it is destroyed!"

"In addition, the Kingdom of Hafsids occupied the central part of the southern Mediterranean coast of North Africa, and together with Aragon, Sicily, Naples, and Marin controlled the western Mediterranean."

"So, only by conquering the Kingdom of Hafsid can we gain a foothold on land and access the western Mediterranean. Do you understand?"

Zhu Jihui had a full understanding of his own abilities and was able to correct his mistakes. After carefully considering Zhu Gang's analysis of the situation around the western Mediterranean, he realized that what Zhu Gang said was indeed reasonable.

Then he said, "I didn't fully grasp the situation in the Mediterranean. I've learned my lesson."

But then he frowned again and said, "But Hafs is a big country after all. According to the intelligence shared by the Guards of Light, it has a population of over one million and a military of nearly 100,000. I'm afraid it will be difficult to defeat."

Although the territory of Jin looked quite large on maps, larger than several provinces of the Ming Dynasty, a significant portion of it was tropical desert or grassland, resulting in a registered population of only a little over one million. Therefore, although Zhu Gang had initially planned to train an army of 100,000, he was forced to halt the expansion when the Jin vassal army actually grew to over 80,000 due to various reasons.

If these more than 80,000 Jin troops were all immigrant garrison troops, equipped with good cloth armor and firearms such as muskets and tiger squat cannons, they would have no problem defeating the Kingdom of Hafsids.

But in fact, the twelve guards organized by the State of Jin and nearly 70,000 local garrison troops were still equipped with traditional cold weapons. At most, their armor used cloth armor similar to that of the Ming Dynasty today, and their swords and spears were sharper and tougher.

Zhu Jihui was a steady person, so in his opinion, the Jin army did not have any particular advantage over the army of the Hafsid Kingdom. The other side also had the advantage of terrain and people, so it would be difficult for the Jin State to destroy the Hafsid Kingdom.

Seeing Zhu Jihui's worry, Zhu Gang laughed and said, "We don't have to destroy Hafs in one battle. We can fight them this year and win a few games in a row to weaken their national strength."

"By next year, our Jin State will be even stronger, and aid from the imperial court will have arrived. We can even ask the Western Sea Commandery to send troops to assist us, and then we can destroy Hafs!"

It turned out that the telegram also mentioned another thing, that is, the court upgraded Xihaiwei to Xihaidusi starting from this month.

In addition to recruiting some qualified local people to train as local garrison troops, the imperial court will also dispatch another guard of Han garrison troops here to consolidate the foundation of the Xihai Dusi.

The garrison troops sent by the imperial court must be equipped with firearms such as matchlock guns and tiger squat cannons. Their weapons and armor will also be more sophisticated, and their combat effectiveness is definitely not comparable to that of the local garrison troops.

With such strong support, Zhu Gang was naturally confident in destroying Hafs.

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In October of the 1392th year of Hongwu ( AD), King Jin Zhu Gang personally led a force of more than soldiers and horses by land and sea, claiming to have , to launch a surprise attack on Tripoli, an important city on the eastern coast of the Kingdom of Hafsid.

In just half a day, they captured Tripoli and occupied the city.

However, because Tripoli is a major city in North Africa, the Jin army failed to block the news, so the news of the city's capture reached Tunis, the capital of the Hafsid Kingdom, a few days later.

Tunisia is an ancient city with thousands of years of history. As early as the ninth century BC, the Phoenicians established the famous city of Carthage here, and used the city as the capital to establish the Carthaginian Empire, which had a love-hate relationship with the Roman Empire.

After Carthage was conquered by Rome, it became the second largest city of Rome and the huge Colosseum was built in the city.

In the seventh century AD, the Arabs defeated the Byzantine Empire, occupied the city, renamed it Kairouan, and built the famous Great Mosque of Kairouan in the city.

Later, with the decline of the Arab Empire, its control over this place weakened. The Berbers established the Kingdom of Hafsid more than a hundred years ago, and also made this city their capital, changing its name to Tunisia.

As the "ancient capital of several dynasties" in North Africa and the southern coast of the Mediterranean, today's Tunis is not only a very tall city, but also very prosperous, with a population of more than 200,000 in the city and its suburbs.

The Hafs Palace, built in such an ancient capital, is naturally extremely luxurious.

However, King Gib Faris of Hafs, who lived in this palace, had his gray brows furrowed tightly, with a look of shock and confusion on his face.

"You said that the Jin army took only half a day to capture Tripoli? How is that possible?!"

Tripoli was once the capital of the Nubian Kingdom and was also one of the top five cities on the Mediterranean coast of North Africa. There were tens of thousands of defenders in the city. It was difficult for Djibouti to accept the fact that it was captured by the Jin army in half a day.

Standing below was a senior military officer who had escaped from Tripoli, looking very embarrassed.

Every time he mentioned the State of Jin and the Jin Army, he couldn't help but shudder.

"Your Majesty, the people of Jin are all devils from the far east, and they are driven by the scourge of God."

"They also have strange gunpowder weapons that can fire stone, iron, and explosive bullets like a catapult, but their range is ten times that of a normal catapult, and their power is enormous."

"The Jin army launched dozens of artillery shells, causing heavy casualties among our soldiers. Many were also frightened out of their wits. We couldn't defend the city at all."

Gibb's eyebrows were curled up.

He found it difficult to imagine what the gunpowder weapons described by the officer looked like, so he asked, "How many troops did the State of Jin send?"

"I'm not sure, but judging by the number of warships they sent, there are at least 50,000 people, maybe even more!"

"Furthermore, not only do they possess powerful gunpowder weapons, but their soldiers were also extremely brave and fierce when attacking the city, as if they were not afraid of death. We have done our best to hold out for half a day, Your Majesty."

This officer actually didn't know the number of Jin troops. To avoid being held responsible for the loss of the city, he naturally exaggerated the number of Jin troops and their combat effectiveness. (End of this chapter)