The Province of Egypt is directly under the jurisdiction of the Red Sea Affairs Office of the Tang Empire. The area of the Province of Egypt is very large. It is not limited to the lower Nile plain, but generally includes the area of Egypt during the rule of the Ottoman Empire.
However, it is worth noting that the Suez Canal Zone is not included in the Egyptian Province.
In order to dig the canal and subsequent maintenance and management of the canal, the Tang Empire separated the entire canal and the area within dozens of kilometers on both sides of the bank, and established the Suez Canal Military District. Such overseas military districts have always been under the direct jurisdiction of the empire.
of.
Its nature is similar to that of the Ceylon Military District, the Panama Canal Military District, and the Danish Islands Military District. Although immigrants live and work normally, it is also a military base.
The excavation of the Suez Canal has been going on for several years. Hundreds of thousands of people are working on it. The Tang Empire even transported a large amount of excavation machinery, building materials and other large quantities of materials from the mainland and other regions. It can be said that the investment is very huge.
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With such a huge investment, the excavation work of the canal went very smoothly, and it is estimated that the excavation time will be two years shorter than the original estimate.
According to the original construction plan, the entire project should have lasted about ten years.
However, when the project time was estimated before, it was based on the technical level at the time and the number of construction workers, which was about 100,000.
But in fact, Datang's science and technology has developed rapidly in recent years, especially the invention of the gasoline engine, which has led to the emergence of a series of heavy-duty engineering machinery such as gasoline excavators, gasoline bulldozers, and gasoline trucks. Songjiang Heavy Machinery Company's various heavy-duty
Construction machinery has successively appeared in several major super projects at home and abroad.
Whether it is the Panama Canal or the Suez Canal, or domestic super projects such as the Yellow River Diversion Project and the Yangtze River Management Project, these advanced heavy machinery have been used one after another.
The application of these heavy machinery makes the construction progress faster.
The application of mechanical equipment is only one aspect. Another key point is that the investment, construction and subsequent operator of the Suez Canal, the Suez Canal Company, which is wholly owned by the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises of the Tang Dynasty, is in order to enable rapid navigation and to collect tolls as soon as possible.
To reduce costs as much as possible, a subcontracting system was adopted.
The Suez Canal itself is responsible for part of the project. This section involves the cooperation of local Datang construction companies, using mechanical equipment and Datang technical personnel, mainly responsible for projects with relatively high technical content.
In addition, some projects with low technical content are subcontracted to multiple labor service companies, not only African labor service companies and Indian labor service companies.
We have also cooperated with labor service companies in indigenous countries such as the Ottoman Kingdom and the Kingdom of Spain.
After those labor service companies underwrite the project, in order to keep up with the progress and save costs, they do not hire workers seriously, and usually adopt a compulsory free employment system.
Well, what, if they don’t adopt a free employment system, with the little money given by the Suez Canal Company, they will have to die...
The number of construction workers on the entire canal reached more than 300,000 at one time. Normally, it is basically maintained at around 200,000. Almost all construction workers are employees of major labor service companies. As for the Tang Dynasty, there are not many people.
, they are all mechanical operation and maintenance personnel and other types of technical and managerial personnel, supporting thousands of people.
It is worth noting that almost every year major labor companies need to add a lot of free labor to the canal project. Otherwise, no one will dig the canal...
The construction workers of the canal come from all over the world, including indigenous people from Africa, indigenous people from West Asia, indigenous European people, and indigenous people from India.
However, these canal companies no matter where these labor companies use indigenous people for construction, the project has been subcontracted anyway, and it is their business how these labor companies complete it.
The work of these labor service companies is excellent and efficient. In the past few years, they have frequently completed projects ahead of schedule, shortening the construction time of the Suez Canal.
The official construction of the canal started in the 39th year of Xuanping. It was previously estimated that it would be completed in the 49th year of Xuanping. However, now the Suez Canal Company is very optimistic and announced that the canal is expected to be completed around the 46th year of Xuanping.
Can be initially navigable.
It is now forty-three years since the founding of the People's Republic of China, which means that the canal will be open to navigation in three years.
Once the canal is opened to navigation, it will have a significant impact on the Egyptian region and even the entire European region. Imperial warships or civilian ships will not have to go around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa to go to Europe, but can enter Europe directly through the Red Sea-Suez Canal-Mediterranean Sea.
Based on this, the Tang Navy has already planned to build a new military base in Port Alexandria, Egypt. In the future, the main base of the Tang Empire’s military power in the Mediterranean will not be Ceuta, but will
It's Alex Port.
The military has reasons for planning this way.
Although Ceuta is in an important position, it is still a bit barren. It would be good to serve as a pure military base, but the potential is too small, there are not many immigrants, and this poor place cannot even be self-sufficient in food...
But Alex Port is different. Backed by the large granary of the lower Nile River plain, the Tang Empire will plan to immigrate at least hundreds of thousands of people here, and the number of people from the Tang Dynasty who will live here in the future is probably millions.
With millions of people to rely on, Alex Port will receive sufficient support as a military base.
The military plans to move the empire's military strategic center in Europe from Ceuta to Port Alexandria. This also shows the potential of the Egyptian region.
Others can naturally see that although there are currently only about 100,000 Tang people in Egypt Province and the Canal Zone, the potential for future development is huge, at least much greater than that of Ceuta.
The management of the European Hotel has also seen this and is planning to invest in the construction of a new hotel in Alexandria, the capital of Egypt Province.
The current main population distribution of the Tang Empire in Egypt Province is centered around the Port of Alexandria.
George took his newlywed wife Li Linna and more than a dozen colleagues and their families on a steam liner across the Mediterranean Sea and arrived at Alex Port. While George was still at the port, he saw a building on the edge of the port that had been completed.
Tall buildings.
That was the Egyptian branch of the Hotel Europe, where he would work from now on.
After landing, George discovered that although the development time of Port Alegre was only a few years, which was far less than that of Ceuta, the area of the city was already larger than that of Ceuta, but the population in the city was relatively small.