In the 28th year of Chongzhen, that is, in the early spring of 1655, immigrants from the Ming Dynasty began to land on the Arabian Peninsula continuously. Of course, most people landed in Suez City.

Originally, although the Ming Dynasty occupied this place, the population was still dominated by people from the Middle East. However, with the arrival of a large number of immigrants, the proportion of the population began to reverse.

In Suez City, shipyards, cement factories, steam engine factories, machinery factories, train manufacturing bureaus and other factories, as well as government offices with various functions, such as the Army General Office, Navy General Office, Governor's Office, Military Affairs Bureau, Maritime Bureau, Jinyiwei, East Factory, Censorate, etc., all of them rose up, and construction sites were everywhere. With a busy look, it was impossible to tell that the place had just experienced war and had changed its owner.

Also, the planned Suez Canal is also being excavated at the same time.

The terrain of Suez is different. There are three shallow and water-filled depressions, namely Lake Manzhara, Lake Timsah, and Lake Bird. Although the latter is of different sizes, it forms a continuous body of water.

This area along with the Mediterranean and Red Sea, also known as the Suez Isthmus, is composed of marine sediments, coarse sand, gravel accumulated during earlier rainfall, alluvial soil of the Nile (especially in the north) and sand blown by the wind. It does not require so-called mountain openings, but it has very good excavation conditions innately.

Therefore, the rulers of this land had thought of digging a canal to communicate with the Mediterranean and the Red Sea. The earliest history of excavation may be as far as the 12th Dynasty of Egypt.

In order to conduct direct trade through land punts, Pharaoh Sinuselt III ordered the excavation of a canal in the "east-west direction" connecting the Red Sea and the Nile. Some evidence shows that the existence of this canal lasted at least until the period of Ramses II in the 13th century BC, and the canal was subsequently abandoned.

According to the book "History" by Greek historian Herodotus, Necho II began its reexamination work around 600 BC, but it was not completed.

Later, the Suez Canal was reacquired by Ptolemy II around 250 BC. It was continuously improved, destroyed and rebuilt in the following thousand years until it was finally abandoned by Mansour, a Caliph of the Abbasid Dynasty of the Arab Empire in the 8th century AD.

Afterwards, the Suez Canal was dug and opened intermittently, and was opened twice for a long time during the Roman period of King Trajan in 117 BC and Omar Ibn Khatab in 640 AD.

From this we can see that it is not difficult to dig this canal in the Ming Dynasty.

At the beginning, prisoners of war captured from various places were excavated by purely human.

On the south side, that is, the city of Suez, are mainly prisoners of the Arabian Peninsula, that is, the Oman Empire and other tribes; on the Mediterranean, are prisoners of the Ottoman Empire, who were jailed by the Ming army and excavated from both north and south at the same time.

After the steam engine factory was completed and the steam engine was started to be produced, it was designed by Duke Xingguo, an excavator powered by steam engines in China, further accelerated the process of the canal.

In short, the entire Suez Canal area is full of grand and special operations.

……………………

Nanjing, the mainland of the Ming Dynasty, is holding an imperial meeting.

So far, Du Yinxi, who has served as the chief minister of the Chongzhen Dynasty for the longest time, is reporting on the latest situation in the Middle East, including the details of the World War I in Baghdad, the excavation of the Suez Canal, etc.

After saying that, Emperor Chongzhen said with some regret: "What a pity, the breech guns that Mr. Hunted out to invent. You can hit them by pulling the bolt!

"..." When those ministers heard this, they couldn't help but be speechless. Isn't it better to win this?

When Zhang Mingwei, who was sitting in the lower head, heard this, he immediately smiled and said, "Your Majesty, there are opportunities. Europeans will not just surrender to my Ming Dynasty."

Speaking of this, he paused and said in a very confident tone: "Now that the Ottoman Empire has been defeated by our Ming Dynasty, I believe that a single European country would not dare to be enemies with our Ming Dynasty anymore. However, from many aspects, it can be inferred that Europeans would not simply surrender. Therefore, I estimate that Europeans will definitely unite and many countries will be enemies with our Ming Dynasty. By then, let them taste the taste of breech guns!"

"Okay, okay, okay!" Emperor Chongzhen immediately clapped and praised him. He liked the feeling of crushing the enemy and was very proud. It seemed that he wanted to vent his aggrievances in his previous life in the next life.

After hearing this, Zuo Du Censor Zuo Maodi said with a little concern: "If the entire European country unites to become enemies with our Ming Dynasty, we will not be able to send enough troops in such a long way, will there be any problem?"

After hearing this, Du Yinxi nodded and said, "Weichen has seen the new breech gun. Compared with the previous front-mounted smoothbore gun, it is indeed much more powerful. However, if the Europeans fought on the back and forth, they would have a life-loss charge, especially the cavalry charge, they would probably suffer heavy losses, right?"

I have to say that they are not complacent and are relatively cautious in their attitude.

The reason for this is also related to their impression of Western barbarians.

All along, Western barbarians came to the Ming Dynasty, including the Folangji people, the Portuguese, the Red barbarians, the Dutch people, etc. As long as the red-haired and blue-eyed Western barbarians were more powerful. Before the rise of Xingguo Duke, the Ming Dynasty's firearms had to be purchased from the Western barbarians or imitated them.

Therefore, in their impression, Western Yi has always been relatively powerful.

Although the Ottoman Empire was also powerful and even dominated European countries to fight. However, the people on the Ming Dynasty had very little impression of the Ottomans. No matter how powerful they were, they did not have an intuitive impression of the Western Barbarians.

Nowadays, one of the worst possible is that if European countries unite, or even all European countries unite, this strength will definitely be very strong.

The imperial government army is at an absolute disadvantage in terms of military strength. The difference between breech guns and front-loaded guns may not be able to win! Just like the cavalry mentioned by Du Yinxi, it can make up for the gap in muskets to a certain extent.

Hearing this, Emperor Chongzhen couldn't help but turn his head to look at Zhang Mingwei and asked with anticipation: "What's wrong with the firearm that the sir said that can make nomadic peoples good at singing and dancing?"

In later generations, Zhang Mingwei collected a lot of electronic materials due to writing reasons, part of which was later technology. Of course, there must be some of the military technology, and all of them exist on his mobile phone.

After his mobile phone was powered on again, in order to avoid any damage or other problems, Zhang Mingwei started reading all the information on the phone as soon as he turned on the phone. With the side effects brought by time travel and the ability to remember all the information on the phone, he had already remembered all the information on the phone.

One of the contents is about the ordnance. Of course, Zhang Mingwei mentioned this matter to Emperor Chongzhen, and skipped the original historical steps and did not use the hand-cranked Gatling machine gun, but directly fired the Maxim heavy machine gun.

This machine gun will not appear until the mid-to-late 19th century. The biggest reason is actually the bullet problem, or it can be said to be the problem of gunpowder.

The initial black gunpowder had residue after burning, and the barrel had to be cleaned before it could be reloaded, which restricted the automatic loading and firing. The invention of smokeless gunpowder solved this problem.

In original history, bullets also began to evolve from paper-shelled bullets, and it took a very long time to be considered as a common bullet in later generations.

On this plane, the Ming Dynasty can skip these evolutionary steps and directly launch the final version of ordinary metal bullets.

If it were before the Chongzhen Dynasty, even if it could make metal bullets, it would probably not have the financial resources. However, today's Ming Dynasty would not have the problem of this money.

Under Zhang Mingwei's butterfly effect, the Ming Dynasty's technical and financial resources accumulated in all aspects were enough, and metal bullets were born under the leadership of Zhang Mingwei.

In this way, there will be a breech gun. With a breech gun, the machine gun will naturally be natural. The Maxim heavy machine gun that Zhang Mingwei is interested in was actually invented in the era of black gunpowder, but because of the problem of black gunpowder, it is not powerful until the invention of smokeless gunpowder, which is considered to have become the overlord on the battlefield.

Now, Zhang Mingwei is leading the inventing the Maxim heavy machine gun. However, the matter about this huge killer is still top secret, and no one except the person involved knows it.

Although it was not invented at this time, Emperor Chongzhen had seen the heroic posture of the Maxim heavy machine gun in the documentary. Therefore, when he heard that Du Yinxi was worried about the European cavalry, he immediately thought of the Maxim heavy machine gun.

At this time, when Zhang Mingwei heard Emperor Chongzhen’s question, he immediately replied with a smile: “Your Majesty, the prototype has been hand-made. It is estimated that it will be assembled in the next two days. Once the test is passed, you can start to consider mass production!”

When Emperor Chongzhen heard this, he immediately laughed and said, "Sir, I am really relieved to do things. When will the prototype function be tested? I want to witness it myself!"

Hearing their conversation, Du Yinxi and others couldn't help but be very curious about this prototype. Based on their understanding of Emperor Chongzhen and Duke Xingguo, it is certain that it is definitely another amazing invention.

So, Du Yinxi immediately asked: "Your Majesty, can I follow you?"

Of course, the others immediately followed suit and asked to watch.

Emperor Chongzhen himself did not make any decision on this matter, but just turned to look at Zhang Mingwei.
Chapter completed!