The expedition fleet of the Great Chu Empire swept across the west coast of Africa and fought all the way to southern Morocco, forcefully occupying Tarfaya. After the news gradually spread to European countries, it brought extremely strong panic to European countries.
Yes, it’s panic!
Although a long time ago, even twenty years ago, many people in European countries already knew that a super powerful empire had emerged in the Eastern world: the Great Chu Empire.
The Dutch and Portuguese continued to fail in the east, coupled with the fact that the relationship between the Chu Empire and the Spaniards was still okay at that time, large-scale trade was carried out with the Philippines as a transit.
Therefore, through these three countries, information about the Chu Empire was continuously transmitted back to Europe.
Some people are worried and panicked about it, while others are dismissive, thinking that the Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish are bragging...
But most people are still indifferent: because the Chu Empire is too far away from Europe, if you go all the way by sea, starting from the Guangzhou Port of the Chu Empire, you need to pass through the Strait of Malacca, cross the Indian Ocean, and then detour around the Cape of Good Hope in Africa before you can enter. Atlantic Ocean, and all the way north along the west coast of Africa before finally reaching Europe.
In this route, if a sailboat is used, in order to ensure that it can only take the offshore route, from Guangzhou to the port of Cadiz in the south of Spain, the total mileage will be about 30,000 kilometers.
Even if you ignore dissatisfaction all the way, sail at full speed, and sail in the appropriate season, using a high-speed sailing clipper ship built by the Dachu Empire, the whole journey will take three months!
Three months, this is the ultimate speed in the age of sailing.
For normal navigation, this time will be extended to four months or even five months.
If instead of using a high-speed sailing ship like a clipper ship, but an old sailing ship like a galleon, the voyage would be extended to more than half a year or even more than a year.
In the eyes of many Europeans, it often takes more than half a year or even a year to travel from Europe to the Chu Empire... This distance is enough for them to ignore the threat of the Chu Empire.
However, as time passed, the Chu Empire gradually expanded externally, first controlling the Southeast Asia, then controlling India, and finally forcefully occupying the east coast of Africa.
In the process, they also forcibly blocked the Cape of Good Hope in South Africa. Except for a few licensed ships engaged in special industries, all ships not from the Chu Empire were prohibited from passing through.
Especially ships carrying large amounts of cargo are not allowed to pass.
And a trading port was established in Cape Town facing the entire Europe and, by the way, the east coast of America.
In this way, the European region's understanding of the Chu Empire will go further. The situation of many Chu Empires will be passed to the vast European region with the crews traveling between Cape Town and Europe.
And the more you know, the greater your fear!
It does not use sails, it can move forward by just smoking, and it is also a super ship made of steel.
A large-caliber naval gun capable of delivering fatal strikes to enemies from thousands of meters away.
A more advanced flash cap percussion gun with a firing rate close to 100%.
After this information was gradually learned by Europeans, well, mainly the upper echelons of Europe and the maritime community that had a lot of foreign exchanges, it caused a huge shock to the European region.
This period was also the peak period when European countries generally established monopoly trading companies. Almost every country had a company that monopolized trade with Cape Town.
The names of these trading companies are also highly similar. They either continue to use the word East India, or use the new African Company, and some use the Eastern Company.
According to the statistics of the Dachu Empire itself, in the thirty-five years since Chengshun, more than 130 trading companies from Europe have come to trade. Behind these trading companies are either authorized by the kingdom, or some possessors. Large territories, lords such as principalities and princes with actual independent status.
As for ordinary merchants... To be honest, there are not many. In these days, if you want to trade across the west coast of Africa and the Chu Empire, it is impossible to do it without the support of the country.
Even if you transport the goods back, you won't be able to sell them... Because almost all European countries have monopolized the trade of Chu goods. The kings, dukes, marquis and other lords, as well as the big nobles want to monopolize the Chu goods in their respective jurisdictions. Domestic commodity trade, thereby accounting for high profits.
This monopoly was the fundamental reason that caused strong dissatisfaction with the Chu Empire and ultimately promoted the European free trade plan.
Although the Da Chu Empire makes a lot of money from wholesale in Cape Town... But if it can transport the goods directly to European countries and then sell them to those agents, it will definitely make more money.
Moreover, the shipment volume of goods will also be greater, which will have a greater impact on domestic employment.
Of course, this is just an introduction. In fact, the Chu Empire, or to be precise, the business people in the Chu Empire, want to turn Europe into a second India: a dumping ground for industrial products with a huge population!
The current monopoly trade does not meet the interests of the Chu Empire.
After understanding the domestic interests of the Chu Empire, we can understand the strategic goal of the European Expeditionary Force of the Chu Empire: to open the European market!
In simpler terms, the Chu people came just for better business, not for territorial expansion or revenge.
However, people in Europe don’t know yet what the Chu Empire thinks!
Therefore, after the Europeans saw the Chu Empire coming with great fanfare, the top leaders of many countries fell into a panic.
Especially the Portuguese and Spain who know the Chu people well and are relatively close to the Chu European Expeditionary Force.
It is worth mentioning that the Portuguese had officially separated from Spanish control a few years ago and regained their independent status in legal terms.
So now there is no longer the United Kingdom of Spain and the Portuguese, the two have been re-divided into independent states.
Both of these countries were colonial powers in the past one or two hundred years, with overseas territories spread all over the world, and the Dutch only caught up from behind.
However, most of the Spanish overseas colonies are concentrated in the Americas. Although they also acquired the Philippines colony in Asia before, they did not have any conflicts with the Chu Empire in the early overseas expansion stage of the Chu Empire. The scale of trade is even quite large.
The Spanish's global trade fleet was also established during this period.
It was not until the two parties later negotiated that the Spanish sold the Philippines as a whole to the Chu Empire in exchange for a license to trade at Jinshan Port in North America.
Although the Da Chu Empire also had a series of colonial conflicts in North America and Spain. The Da Chu Empire even occupied the Baja California Peninsula and occupied a considerable amount of nearby areas, but these things did not greatly affect the two countries. country relations.
In other words, the Da Chu Empire is not expanding fast enough in North America. It is currently focusing on expanding and digesting the western and central regions of North America. It has not yet had time to enter the southern part of North America, which is the Mexican region. Therefore, there is no relationship between the two countries. There are too many fundamental contradictions.
Therefore, the current relationship between the two countries is actually just okay... The "reasonable" relationship means that the Chu people have no time to fight the Spaniards for the time being.
As for trade between the two sides, the Chu Empire has always welcomed doing business with anyone, including the Russians, Dutch, Portuguese, and British. No matter what the fighting is ahead, as long as you come to do business, the people of Chu will welcome you.
War is war, business is business, Chu people have always made a clear distinction... Anyway, continuing to do business will not affect the war, and you have to continue doing business after the war is over.
The Spanish had a good relationship with the Chu Empire, and no formal war broke out between the two sides. As for some colonial conflicts in North America, it was nothing...
Therefore, the Spanish quickly sent envoys to Tarfaya in southern Morocco, mainly to test the purpose of this large-scale operation of the Dachu Empire.
Want to retaliate?
Or do you want to expand your territory?
A war of such a large scale must have a purpose...
When the Spanish envoy came over, they did not act foolishly like the Moroccans and sent someone who did not understand the language. Instead, they sent a translator who knew Chu language to accompany them!
Otherwise, the Spanish envoy is likely to follow in the footsteps of the Moroccan envoy: directly use the Chu people as targets to practice marksmanship.
Because of the presence of translators, the commander of Chu's European Expeditionary Force in Tarfaya knew the goal of the Spanish trip, and then gave them an answer: "We are here just to do business this time!"
And considering the barely acceptable relationship between the two countries, the commander of the Chu State rarely explained why he wanted to go on a mass killing spree on the west coast of Africa in the face of the Spaniards' doubts, and pushed people along the west coast of Africa indiscriminately. The colonies of all European countries were wiped out in one fell swoop.
"It's not for any reason, and it's not an act of war. We just want a few available ports to build supply bases, and at the same time ensure the safety of the route to the north..."
"There are too many pirates on the west coast of Africa. In order to ensure the safety of the West African route, we need to eliminate the pirates here!"
In the conscience of heaven and earth, the commander of the Chu Kingdom told the truth... The Chu Kingdom's European expedition fleet swept all the way north, really just to obtain supply ports and clear the shipping lanes.
It's just that the Spanish envoy was silent for a while after hearing this... He felt why the colonial officials in Mexico always said that the Chu people were overbearing and unreasonable.
This can't be described as overbearing, but rather arrogant... In other words, they don't treat the Europeans as human beings.
You said that you want the Chu people to sweep across Europe for reasons such as retaliation or expansion of territory. The Spaniards can actually accept it... After all, it is a normal reason.
But you Chu people simply occupied the colonies of several European countries in Africa just for a few supply ports and to clear shipping routes... To be honest, it's a bit nonsense.
If you want a port, just ask. They Europeans are not unreasonable people. You Chu people ask for it. Those Portuguese and Dutch people will give it to you in minutes... There is no need to rob it.
After the silence, the Spanish envoy returned to the topic of business, saying that the Spaniards now maintain good trade relations with the Chu people.
Their Spanish Oriental Company sends a large fleet of ships to Cape Town for trade every year.
However, the Chu commander said that it was not enough... far from enough. They hoped that Spain would fully open the market, allow free entry of goods from the Chu Empire, abolish the trade monopoly, and allow other agents to handle Chu goods.
The most important thing is that tariffs must be reduced to a reasonable range. What is a reasonable range? In principle, the import tariffs on all goods cannot exceed 5%, and the tax rate for some categories cannot exceed 1% or even be exempted.
As soon as he heard about the full opening of the market and the restriction of tariffs, no matter how stupid the Spanish envoy was, he still knew why the Chu people sent an expeditionary force to kill them with great fanfare.
The comprehensive opening of the market means that Chu people's products can unscrupulously impact related industries in Spain.
For example, the most basic textile industry...whether it is cotton spinning or wool spinning, as long as the market is opened up to let Chu textile products come in, and there are no tariff restrictions.
They had already anticipated what would happen: Spain's local handmade textile industry would go bankrupt overnight, and countless craftsmen would lose their jobs.
Although a large number of Chu textiles have appeared in the Spanish market, due to monopoly trade and targeted high tariffs, these Chu textiles are positioned as high-end products in Spain.
Although it has also impacted part of the Spanish handmade textile industry, it still leaves room for the middle and low-end survival of the Spanish handmade textile industry.
If this is completely relaxed...especially if there are no restrictions on tariffs, the high cost performance of the Chu Empire's textiles will be able to defeat all the handmade textile industries in Spain in minutes.
Just like the Southeast Asian countries in the past and India now!
And what is the situation in Nanyang now? All the countries in Nanyang no longer exist...let alone the political power, there are not even a few people left.
Now only in the Bengal area in northeast India, there are still a total of one to two million Southeast Asian remnants.
And what about India?
It's not much better. The various handicraft industries in India that compete with Chu products are almost completely bankrupt. The famous Indian handmade cotton spinning industry in the past has long disappeared, but the cotton output is getting bigger year by year. .
The Great Chu Empire controlled many colonies in India and also controlled many puppet princes, and promoted more profitable economic crops on a large scale in these colonies and puppet areas.
Among them, cotton accounts for the largest proportion.
Today's India has become the cotton field of the Chu Empire!
No matter how you think about it, you can know that once the market is fully liberalized and tariffs are restricted, Spain will suffer great losses.
Of course, some people may not think so, such as those who are in the Chu country commodity business... They must be very happy, and the more they buy, the more they earn.
The Spanish envoy went back worriedly, and soon the Portuguese and Dutch came over... The Chu people didn't hide it, and they didn't bother to deceive them... Anyway, this is the request of the Chu country, you have to agree to it , you have to agree even if you don’t agree.
Otherwise, don’t blame Chu State for not having a good eye for guns and cannons!
Chu people have always been so confident and domineering when acting overseas.
The panic and worries of the Europeans did not affect the actions of the Chu European Expeditionary Force... No matter what the Europeans thought or did... the Chu people actually didn't bother to pay attention and just carried out various actions on their own.
The first to bear the brunt is Morocco!
Chu's vanguard troops first captured Tarfaya, but were not satisfied with this small southern port... The climate here is not good, and it is too far from the center of Europe, so it is not suitable for a truly large port. The base can only be used as an ordinary supply port.
Therefore, the European Expeditionary Force quickly began operations again. A new fleet crossed Tarfaya and went directly north. Finally, it came to the Strait of Gibraltar and wandered around. It was found that Tangier, a small city south of Gibraltar and close to the Atlantic side, was quite good. Not bad.
The main reason is that the climate is very good, even in the summer it is not too hot, only about 20 degrees, and in winter it is not too cold, and the climate is relatively mild all year round.
The geographical location is also very good, just guarding the Strait of Gibraltar. Any small fleet stationed here can directly block the entire strait completely, without having to use large ocean-going warships to perform strategic blockade tasks like Cape Town.
Here, any offshore ship with a few hundred tons can completely block the Strait of Gibraltar. This maritime traffic artery is completely controlled by the Chu State.
At the same time, as a trade transfer station, goods can be transported smoothly to all parts of Europe through here. Going north, you can reach Spain, Portugal, France, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, and further north, Denmark, Germany, Sweden and other Nordic regions... and even Go into the Baltics and do business with the Russians.
Going east, you can enter the Mediterranean and a bunch of messy countries such as Spain, France, the Italian Peninsula, and the Balkans along the Mediterranean to do business. Going further east, you can also contact and do business with the Ottoman Empire.
The climate is very suitable for living, and the location is also very good.
The commander of this squadron of the European Expeditionary Force immediately decided not to bother and settle down here first.
As for whether we are really sure to build a large-scale base here in the future, or whether we will choose another place, that is a matter for the future.
Ever since... Colonel Fang Yucheng, the commander of this squadron, simply and even arbitrarily made the decision to send troops to land.
As for what the locals think?
Sorry, Colonel Fang Yucheng didn't think about it at all!
Even when he sent troops to land, he didn't even know that this place was currently controlled by the Spanish... About ten years ago, the Spanish took this city from the Portuguese.
As for Colonel Fang Yucheng, he just felt that this place belonged to the same place as the Kingdom of Morocco, and he thought this place belonged to Morocco.
From sending troops to land to taking over the city, Fang Yucheng didn't even send anyone to the city to ask who owned this place...
It's not that Fang Yucheng is stupid, nor is he arrogant...but there is actually no difference between asking and not asking. The Chu people will not fight just because this place belongs to the Moroccans, but not to the Spanish.
In the eyes of Chu people, there is no difference between Spaniards and Moroccans.
The most important thing is the place that the Great Chu Empire is interested in... No matter who it was before, it must belong to the Great Chu Empire in the end!
Tangier is no exception!
