Chapter 1644: Queen Mother and Earl Sailing on Land

The Ottoman Empire welcomed Representative Liu very much.

The Governor of Egypt warmly entertained Representative Liu and quickly reported to Istanbul. The Ottoman Sultan actually immediately invited him to the capital for a meeting.

So Liu Zhengqi took an Ottoman galley from Alexandria and arrived in Istanbul, located at the entrance of the Black Sea. In the majestic audience hall of the Burtopkapi Palace, he met with the Turkish Sultan and Murad I, as well as his mother, the most powerful woman in the world today - Queen Mother Nurbanu.

This legendary woman, who was honored as Nurbanu Sultan, was originally named Cecilia and was a proper Venetian noble lady.

Her father was the lord of Paros. In the war of 1537, the Ottomans captured Paros and took Cecilia to the palace in Istanbul, where she was renamed Nurbanu, which means "clever girl".

This beautiful and elegant 14-year-old girl soon became the favorite concubine of the previous Sultan, who was still a prince at the time. After the Sultan ascended the throne in 1566, she was made the Sultan's Queen and gave birth to the future Sultan Murad III.

However, due to her background, she did not get the power that a queen of the empire should have, and was always suppressed by her sister Mihrimah Sultan.

It was not until 1574, the second year of the Wanli reign of the Ming Dynasty, that the previous Sultan died. Nurbanu kept the death a secret and hid the body in an ice coffin for twelve days until her son Murad returned from abroad and successfully succeeded as Sultan.

Because of the tradition of the Turks, Nurbanu, who became the Queen Mother, became the regent of the empire. It was during her regency that the Ottoman Empire made a separate peace with Venice, and the Holy Alliance collapsed. The relationship between the Ottoman Empire and Europe eased.

Under the rule of this Queen Mother, whose blood flowed from Venetian merchants, the pace of Ottoman conquests slowed down, and the empire attached unprecedented importance to internal affairs and commercial interests.

Therefore, rebuilding the Mediterranean-Red Sea trade route was put on the agenda.

~~

A history book from another time and space says that the Ottoman Empire controlled the eastern Mediterranean and blocked the trade routes between the East and the West, forcing the Portuguese and Spanish to find new routes, thus starting the great voyages of discovery.

This statement is wrong. It is purely to treat the Ottomans as barbarians and flatter the Europeans. But even barbarians would not destroy their own rice bowl. Especially after controlling Egypt, the Ottomans did a lot of happy business with Venice and Genoa.

In fact, it was the two girdles of the Iberian Peninsula that were excluded from the East-West trade by the Mediterranean countries. They were anxious about not being able to get the fat meat, so they were eager to find a new route to China.

The Portuguese finally found it, bypassing Africa and traveling thousands of miles to the Indian Ocean. With their first-class navy, the Portuguese challenged the Ottoman hegemony in the Arabian Sea and broke their monopoly on trade with the East.

Of course, the arrogant Ottomans could not agree. But although they had an absolute advantage in military strength, naval warfare was not land warfare, and the generation gap was difficult to fill with numerical advantages. As a result, the Portuguese were invincible, and the Ottomans' position in the Indian Ocean soon became precarious.

Venice, Genoa, Greece and other commercial partners also sent fleets to support the Ottomans. They sailed the Calais warships to Alexandria, where they were dismantled by shipbuilders sent by Venice and then transported to Suez for reassembly. Helping pagans attack Catholic countries...

So faith means nothing, interests are the most important thing.

However, both the Calais warships in the Mediterranean and the Ottoman Arab sailing ships were seriously lacking in firepower. As a result, even though they had ten times the number of troops as the enemy, they were still defeated. The Portuguese completely deprived them of their hegemony over the Indian Ocean.

The Portuguese were in their prime at the time and their appetites were whetted. They not only wanted to control the Indian Ocean coast, they also wanted to control the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea and completely monopolize trade between the East and the West.

And they really achieved their goal. The two sides fought in the Indian Ocean for a hundred years, and there were dozens of fierce battles. Portugal blocked the Ottomans' sea route to the East with its insufficient military force.

It was precisely because they could no longer make money together that the Ottomans and Mediterranean countries fought each other in the following decades.

Queen Mother Nurbanu was determined to change all this, so that the Ottomans and her own country would no longer fight to the death, but would happily make small money together.

Now the Ottoman Asian navy could only defend the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea with all its might.

The low EQ version is that they were separated and blocked in these two bays by the Portuguese Indian fleet. They couldn't get out to sea at all...

Therefore, when a force that could defeat the Portuguese rose in the East, it would certainly attract the attention of the Ottomans. Especially since this force monopolized the Ming Dynasty's foreign trade. It was no surprise that the Ottoman Queen Mother treated Liu Zhengqi as a distinguished guest.

~~

After entertaining Representative Liu with the highest standards, Nurbanu tentatively asked whether the two sides could establish direct trade relations?

Liu Zhengqi followed Zhao Hao's instructions and said, "We firmly believe that mutually beneficial trade is the foundation of friendship. It is our honor to lay the foundation for friendship with your country!"

The Queen Mother was overjoyed when she heard this, as it was exactly what the Venetians wanted.

Because this set of rhetoric was tailor-made for her by Master Zhao. Unfortunately, although she is a widow, she is a bit old... She is already fifty this year. Otherwise, Master Zhao might have performed it himself.

Nurbanu then asked: "But what if someone tries to stop us from establishing friendship?"

"Then let's work together to remove it." Liu Zhengqi said as he read from the script: "How can two great empires be blocked by a small foreign country?"

"Great!" The Queen Mother clapped her hands excitedly and said, "What a hero!"

"In addition, large-scale projects are our group's specialty!" Liu Zhengqi said to the Queen Mother while the iron was hot: "Our group is willing to help your country dig a canal from the Mediterranean to the Red Sea!"

"Excellent!" The Empress Dowager became even more excited after listening to this. That night, she asked Lao Liu to stay in the palace and had a profound discussion with him all night.

Three days later, the palace issued an order to confer Liu Zhengqi the title of Count of Suez, ranking above ambassadors of various countries. As the favorite of the Queen Mother, Liu Yuanwai was the most popular person in the Ottoman Empire for a while, which was the fundamental reason why various pashas and governors competed to curry favor with him.

~~

Of course, when Liu Zhengqi was telling that person about this, he skipped the personal relationship between him and the Queen Mother and only talked about official business...

"So these three points have been agreed upon?" the man asked with a grin.

"The group has signed a trade agreement and military alliance with the Ottomans." Liu Zhengqi sighed, "But the Ottomans have some concerns about the third point, digging the canal."

"Why, do you think the young master is daydreaming?" asked that person.

"That's not the case. Young Master said that a canal was dug between the Mediterranean and the Red Sea two thousand years ago. It was improved and rebuilt intermittently over the next thousand years until it was completely abandoned seven hundred years ago. When we got ashore, we could still see many traces of the abandoned canal. And it is said that the Ottomans thought about reopening this canal decades ago."

Liu Zhengqi sighed again and said, "But the resistance is great. Many ministers are worried that once the canal is opened, it will cut off the land connection between West Asia and North Africa, causing the empire's already weak rule in North Africa to completely collapse. This worry is not unfounded. For example, in Egypt where I am stationed, the governor is nominally the highest military and political chief, but in fact, the former royal Mamluk clan still has the final say. The situation in Tunisia is similar."

"Is that so?" The man nodded and comforted him, "How can everything be as expected? Just do your best."

"But the young master is determined to get this canal." Liu Zhengqi smiled bitterly, "He said that the day this canal is opened is the day I, Old Liu, will return home. So I have to find a way to do it. Alas, maybe I won't be able to go back in this lifetime..."

No one knew how to comfort her. After a long while, he uttered four words:

"Good luck."

~~

The rest of the voyage was a pleasant one.

With the Ottoman Navy escorting them, neither the pirates in the Mediterranean nor the Venetian navy dared to attack them, and the journey was very peaceful.

When they stopped at ports in North Africa for replenishment and rest, they were warmly welcomed by the local princes and nobles without exception, which made the task force members very impressed with Representative Liu's communication skills. Little did they know that all this was earned by Mr. Liu with hundreds of millions of dollars.

As the saying goes, "making honey all day long requires physical and mental effort, but who knows the sweetness and bitterness of it?"

In October, the Mediterranean began to blow west winds, and the speed of the sailboat increased immediately. Finally, at the end of October, we arrived in Egypt.

Liu Zhengqi had even more face here, because the local Mamluk noble group wanted to dig a canal, not for shipping, but to separate it from the Ottoman mainland by land. So they worshipped Liu Zhengqi as their ancestor, and wanted to persuade him to bypass Istanbul and start the construction first without asking for permission later...

Therefore, they specially allowed these three foreign armed ships to enter the Nile River. The fleet went upstream and arrived at Cairo, the real center of the Arab world.

Then Liu Zhengqi boasted to Boyi, letting them see the miracle of Luluo - sailing on dry land.

The team members rested there for a month, and while waiting for the miracle to happen, they also went to see the Pyramids and the Sphinx.

When the team members saw the magnificent pyramids, which were exactly as described in the textbook compiled by the young master, they were excited and believed more and more that the Egyptians could create miracles.

But a month later, Liu Zhengqi's boast was exposed. Because when the Mamluks had recruited the laborers and the huge wood for the dry land boats was ready, the craftsmen realized a serious problem. These three sea boats had pointed bottoms, not the flat-bottomed boats in the Mediterranean. They were still dry land boats, and they would capsize as soon as the support was removed after landing...

Lao Liu had no choice but to discuss with them, why don't we switch. You can take the boat I left in the Red Sea and go back, and I can use these three boats...

This has the same effect as sailing on dry land, so the group suffers no losses and we can complete the mission, right?

(End of this chapter)