Chapter 1773 What is it like to be a neighbor with the Tang Empire?
The imperial military has always been very willing to expand its territory. If the expansion can bring significant benefits to the empire, then the military will be even more enthusiastic.
The Suez Canal area in Egypt obviously belongs to such a place.
In fact, it was rumored that the Suez Canal existed in this place in the 13th century BC. Later, during a certain period of time during the Roman Empire and the Saracen Empire, it was also briefly excavated and navigable.
However, the Suez Canal in ancient times was at most the level of a small ditch. It was roughly the same as the Great Lakes Canal currently built by the Tang Empire in the Americas. The water depth was only one or two meters or even shallower.
However, the canal that the empire wants to dig in Suez is intended to allow large-tonnage warships and merchant ships to navigate, and the navigation depth must be at least twelve meters.
Only at this depth can the latest battleships or large merchant ships of the Tang Dynasty be navigable!
At present, the latest battleship of the Tang Navy has a draft of almost nine meters when fully loaded. This is still the current draft of a battleship. If it is a larger battleship in the future, the draft will definitely be deeper. The water depth of ten meters is already close to
In front of you.
Considering future development, it is also necessary to leave a certain amount of excess water depth.
After all, we not only consider battleships, but also merchant ships. The draft of civilian merchant ships is also very deep. For example, the New Pacific, which is known as the most advanced, huge, and luxurious luxury liner in the contemporary era, has a draft that is not much less than that of a battleship!
At the same time, Imperial Oil Company is already preparing to build large oil tankers with larger tonnage, exceeding 10,000 tons, and the draft will not be shallow.
At the same time, several large domestic shipping companies are working hard to build larger ships. Even if there are currently only 10,000-ton ships, many shipping companies actually already have 15,000-ton ships.
There is even a reserve design plan for a large luxury liner of 20,000 tons.
Even if the development of warships is not taken into account, considering that the tonnage of ordinary transport ships is getting larger and larger, and the drafts are getting deeper and deeper, if the water depth of the Suez Canal is less than 12 meters, it will be difficult to meet future needs.
The empire is not willing to expand the depth of the canal that was finally dug and open to navigation for ten to twenty years.
Similarly, this situation not only occurs in the scheduled Suez Canal, the Imperial Navy is also considering digging a canal in Central America in order to shorten the voyage from the Pacific to the Atlantic and avoid crossing the dangerous Strait of Tierra del Fuego.
, this planned canal is estimated to have a minimum depth of twelve meters.
However, the reason why it is scheduled to be twelve meters instead of higher is because of the difficulty of construction and the geography. After all, when digging a canal, a depth of one meter will greatly increase the amount and difficulty of construction.
Of course, both the Suez Canal and the Panama Canal in Central America are still on paper plans.
Because neither of the above-mentioned places is in the hands of the empire, Egypt, where Suez is located, is now in the hands of the Ottomans, while Central America, where Panama is located, is in the hands of the Spanish.
However, people in the military have never been deterred by suffering, not to mention that this is not a difficulty, it is just Egypt and Panama.
The military has already reminded the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to use diplomatic means as much as possible to obtain the Panama region from Spain. Anyway, that poor place is of little use in Spanish hands, but it will be of great use to the empire.
If there is still hope to obtain Panama from Spain through diplomacy or purchase, then there is no hope for Egypt.
After all, Panama is worthless now and is not an important area, but Egypt is different. This place is still very good. The Ottomans fought many wars to occupy this place, so naturally they will not hand it over easily.
.
But the military will not give up easily. Recently, the navy has been trying to find trouble in Egypt, just to find a more suitable excuse to take action, whether it is through diplomacy or war, in short
It will swallow up Egypt.
Swallowing Egypt is not the goal. The military still doesn’t like this poor place. The main purpose of the military is to dig the Suez Canal and connect the Red, Black and Mediterranean Sea!
Once the canal is dug, the voyage will be greatly shortened, and Europe will be unable to escape the empire's grasp.
Just considering the war between the Tatars and the Ottomans, the empire is not willing to get too stalemate with the Ottomans. In recent years, the Tatars have been trying to win over the Ottomans to jointly fight against the Tang Dynasty's Western Expedition.
The Ottomans also accepted the goodwill of the Tatars.
Because since the Tang Empire occupied Central Asia, turned the entire Caspian Sea into imperial territorial waters, and occupied Baku through rogue methods, although Osman was very unhappy, he did not have the courage to resist, but he was definitely unhappy.
And it was also to prevent the empire from continuing to expand in the Caucasus.
In the early years, the Ottomans were worried about the Tatars entering the Caucasus, but now they are worried about the Tang Dynasty entering the Caucasus.
Faced with the goodwill of the Tatars, the Ottomans did not accept it on the surface, but in fact they accepted it.
In the past two years, they have not started large-scale wars with the Tatars in the Caucasus or even the Balkan Peninsula. Although the war is not over yet, they have stopped large-scale war actions. At most, they are just confrontations.
The empire is also aware of these changes. In addition to continuing to exert pressure on the Ottomans, the empire is not prepared to give the Ottomans too much stimulation in the near future.
At least, before occupying Eastern Europe, the empire has no intention of attacking the Caucasus.
Of course, there will definitely be fighting in the future, but not now!
Instead of attacking the Caucasus across the Caspian Sea, it would be better to kill the Mughals or Safavids nearby.
Well, that's right, these two traditional allies of the Tang Empire are now listed as future expansion goals by the empire's senior officials.
This is not a matter of hostility or preference. Who told them to be on the edge of the empire?
In the early years, the Koryo Peninsula, Fuso, the Tatars, and even the countries in the Nanyang Peninsula now have already proven what it is like to be an empire's neighbor!
The countries in the Southeast Asian Peninsula are doing better. The empire is preparing to help them relocate to Africa. Finally, there is no danger of national annihilation.
But even this was enough to make the remaining neighbors of the Tang Empire wary.
The Mughal dynasty and the Safi dynasty seem to be extremely hostile recently, but in fact both sides have a very tacit understanding. They are both developing armaments and regard the Tang Dynasty as their potential biggest enemy.
Even if they don't want to do it, they must do it.
Because they know very well that Datang will not give them peace!
Looking at the history of the Tang Dynasty in just over thirty years, it is a history of war and expansion.
If we zoom into the history of China over thousands of years, it is actually also a history of war and expansion.