Although most of the time, the people of the Tang Dynasty paid attention to benevolence, righteousness and morality, and they rarely personally launched wars against the natives.
But wherever they went, war broke out among the local indigenous people.
Moreover, before the Tang diplomats went, the local indigenous people used to be on good terms with each other. However, as soon as the Tang people came, a war would break out. Everyone is not stupid. Even if they don't know the truth of the matter, they can know it with a little guessing.
The war instigated by the Tang Dynasty people.
In response, a diplomat from the Tang Dynasty said: Don't accuse people unjustly. We just took a look around. The natives are so barbaric that they insist on fighting. What can we do?
Even if we are selling ordnance, we are just connecting and building a bridge, and those who do this are arms trading companies.
Besides, the arms trade is a normal trade. The arms dealers of the Tang Dynasty were also concerned about the needs of the natives and came all the way to sell weapons to help them improve their national defense capabilities. This is a great and selfless international aid spirit, okay?
Also, Datang pursued a free trade policy!
I can sell weapons to whomever I want!
Regardless of whether it was Buddha, God, or other demons and monsters, none of them could stop the freedom of trade of the merchants of the Tang Dynasty, let alone the mere indigenous people.
Well, the Import and Export Council is the exception!
If the Import and Export Committee says it can't be exported, it can't be exported. There is no need to discuss it. If you have any objections, go reason with the cabinet, the army and navy!
For the sake of world peace, the diplomats of the Tang Dynasty have been active in the Mughal Dynasty and the Safi Dynasty in the past two years. It is estimated that they will fight against each other before long.
But these naturally have nothing to do with Zuo Chengsheng and the others. They only focus on the current Caspian Sea trade.
It has been two months since Zuo Chengsheng came to Curry. Before that, he had been waiting on the sidelines, making connections, and waiting for opportunities.
Now, the opportunity finally came. He had already found out that the government was organizing a small fleet to go to Baku controlled by the Ottomans.
Of course, the people from the government were not going there for trade. The people from the government were preparing to establish more direct connections with the Ottomans directly through the Caspian Sea.
It is said that the military will also send people there.
These have little to do with him. What he cares about is that although the official fleet is small, with only two ships, and the ships are not big, in addition to carrying official personnel, they will definitely have rich tonnage.
This is his chance.
For this reason, he acted quickly, and before others could react, he ran directly to the state government office and said that he wanted to take a free ship to Baku for trade. New Bayi Chinese website first published
Although the government acted and was not too interested in ordinary people, there was no reason to refuse. Anyway, the cabin of the ship was empty, so I rented the cabin to him directly.
After the matter was finalized, several other businessmen came to their senses. After this swarm of people searched, except for a few people who were able to get cabins, the others could only fail and return.
After all, there are only two ships in the fleet, and one of them is a navy ship. Navy ships cannot carry other people, and government ships are not large, so they can carry only a limited number of people and goods.
After finalizing the ship, Zuo Chengsheng purchased the goods directly. Since it was his first time to go to Baku to deal with the Ottomans, in order to avoid risks, he brought many types of goods, each in small quantities.
Silk, porcelain, tea, and cloth were all available, and he even got a set of export-style plate armor.
A few days later, he boarded the Shengyuan with all the goods he had spent on it. This ship was not an ocean-going ship, but an offshore river ship with a relatively shallow draft.
The tonnage is not large, just over 200 tons. Many people can tell that this ship is similar to the ships that the Empire used on rivers such as the Yangtze River.
Because the Shengyuan was not big, apart from officials and government supplies, there were not many merchants accompanying it. There were only four people, including Zuo Chengsheng, and the total cargo they carried was only about a hundred tons.
Next to the Shengyuan is the Navy's A627 river gunboat.
The Tang Navy's inland river and offshore ships were generally named with numerical numbers. Otherwise, it would be too troublesome to name them one by one with place names or other special meanings.
The size of the Tang Dynasty's navy's offshore and inland river vessels was very large.
The A-627 gunboat is a typical inland river gunboat. It is the latest A-6 gunboat model. It is only suitable for navigation on inland rivers and lakes. Its standard displacement is two hundred tons and its main gun is one gun.
The 120mm breech-loading gun is deployed on the front deck, and the secondary battery is two 75mm breech-loading cannon.
It is not easy to equip a small 200-ton machine with a 120mm breech-loading cannon and two 75mm breech-loading cannons.
The powerful firepower also results in the ship's performance in other aspects being mediocre. Its protection can basically only rely on the steel hull. In terms of power, it can only maintain a maximum speed of eight knots, and its endurance is average. It is only pitiful.
A range of two thousand kilometers.
And because the draft is relatively shallow and there are a lot of armaments, in order to ensure balance, the freeboard is very low, and the superstructure is relatively tall. The wind and wave resistance is naturally not good, and it is not suitable for sailing at sea.
However, the three series of inland river gunboats of the Tang Empire, A, B and C, also sailed on the sea, and they all sailed on inland rivers and lakes, so there was no problem.
As the twenty-seventh steam breech-loaded inland river gunboat in service with the Navy, the A627 was initially built at the Jinling Shipyard and then dismantled. After the major parts were transported to Kuli by train,
Assembled at Curry Shipyard.
Otherwise, relying on the current technical capabilities and equipment of the Curry Shipyard, there is no way to directly build warships, even just a two-hundred-ton river gunboat.
After being reassembled in Curry, gunboat No. A627 entered service in the West Sea Fleet of the Tang Navy and became the flagship of the fleet.
The West Sea Fleet is also the latest fleet established by the Tang Navy. Its mission is to control the West Sea and the Volga River Basin, provide logistical supplies for the Western Expedition, ensure the safety of inland river transportation, and provide artillery support for the army when necessary.
In addition to the A627, there are two inland river gunboats of only a few dozen tons built by Kuli Shipyard.
Although the number is small, the combat effectiveness is impressive. Previously, the West Sea Fleet, with the gunboat No. 627 as the core, crossed the West Sea with two other gunboats, arrived at the northwest coast of the West Sea, and attacked the Tatars deployed at the mouth of the Volga River.
Some ships.
If Astrakhan, which is controlled by the Tatars, is still dozens of kilometers away from the seaside, separated by a large floodplain, and the river mouth is relatively small, and the Tatars also deployed forts to blockade it with artillery,
It is estimated that the West Sea Fleet of the Tang Navy had gone all the way along the Volga River to bombard Astrakhan.
Although there are only a few gunboats, the fact that these gunboats are steel steam gunboats and equipped with breech-loaded guns is enough to make the West Sea Fleet of the Tang Navy invincible in the Caspian Sea.
Of course, the reason why the enemy cannot defeat this kind of invincibility does not mean that the West Sea Fleet controls the West Sea. New 81 Chinese website is updated the fastest on the computer:/
The West Sea, as people in the Tang Dynasty call it, and the Caspian Sea as the people in Europe call it, are very large. After preliminary surveys, the Navy of the Tang Dynasty determined that the area of this inland saltwater sea is probably 380,000 square kilometers, and the total coastline is at least 6,000 to 7,000 square kilometers.
Kilometers, such a long coastline, it is impossible for the few ships of the West Sea Fleet to completely control it.
It was impossible to control the West Sea by patrolling, so the Tang Navy's West Sea Fleet adopted a simpler method to control the West Sea, which was to directly block the Tatars' Volga River outlet and kill their ships.
But the Tatars are not stupid either. They will flee into the Volga River and rely on the artillery on the shore to resist.
In this regard, the Tang Navy's West Sea Fleet is not in a hurry. Anyway, the empire's senior officials have no plans to launch a large-scale western expedition for a while. The West Sea Fleet will continue to add ships for a long time in the future.
In order to increase the strength of the West Sea Fleet, and taking into account the small population and extremely poor shipbuilding capabilities of Kuli, the Navy has begun to directly dismantle the small-tonnage inland river vessels from the central and eastern regions and transport them over by train.
When the West Sea Fleet has more ships, it will be impossible for the Tatars to stop the West Sea Fleet from entering the Volga River.
But these are all things in the future. The West Sea Fleet now only has a few ships, with a total tonnage of only more than 400 tons, and a total of only a few hundred officers and soldiers.
In order to escort the diplomats to Baku, they had to mobilize half of their main force!
The A627, with a tonnage of 200 tons, already occupies half of the tonnage of the West Sea Fleet!
Although the West Sea is vast and a saltwater lake, its ecology is very similar to that of the ocean, but as an inland lake it is generally very calm.
The Shengyuan that Zuo Chengsheng and the others were riding was originally a shallow-water inland river vessel, so its seaworthiness was naturally not very good. However, when traveling across the West China Sea, it was very stable. Although this was due to the clear weather, no wind or rain.
great relationship.
After traveling smoothly across half of the West Sea, they finally arrived in Baku, one of the most important cities on the coast of the West Sea.
When this small fleet of only two ships arrived at the port of Baku, it instantly caused a sensation among the local Ottomans.
Well, in fact, there are not many local Ottomans at all. The locals are actually the original Baku people. The real Ottomans actually only have an army of several hundred people, plus dozens of officials and family members.
.
As for ordinary Ottomans, what are they doing here if they have nothing to do?
Standing on the bow of the ship, Zuo Chengsheng looked at the Baku Port in front of him and couldn't help but show disappointment. This place was different from what he expected.
He had heard before that Baku was an important city in the Caucasus region, but now it seems that it probably only has a population of a few thousand, and its size is about the same as a small fishing village on the eastern coast of the empire.
Can you sell these things in such a poor place?
Zuo Chengsheng's doubts were also those of Hu Qinyuan on the same ship. Is this poor place worth taking over for the empire?