Chapter 3688
The deal with the Khalid family was a good start for the arms trade on this trip to the Persian Gulf. There were no sharp conflicts between these Arab tribes and Portugal, so Qian Tiandun did not have to have the same scruples about selling various weapons to them as he did with Persia.
Five hundred guns and four cannons are only an inconspicuous fraction of the number of arms exported by Haihan every year. However, Qian Tiandun knows very well that the arms sales potential in the Middle East is huge and will not be inferior at all. in East Asia.
There are as many as eighty tribes and families, large and small, in the Arabian Peninsula. As long as some of them start purchasing the advanced weapons produced by Haihan, there will soon be followers. Once the Khalid family, the first to take advantage of it, tastes the benefits, there will be no need to worry about a lack of buyers in the future.
That's why Qian Tiandun took the initiative to provide personnel training services to the Khalid family, allowing the Khalid family to select a group of young soldiers to go to the special operations division base in Phuket for three months of combat training.
Based on past experience, Qian Tiandun can be sure that these Arabs who have been tempered in the Haihan Army will not only have a military quality that greatly exceeds that of their colleagues, but are also likely to become supporters of Haihan's military power. Among them, perhaps There will be outstanding people who will become the commanders of the Khalid family in the future.
Similar plots have been played out countless times in East Asian countries over the past thirty years. Among the mid-level and senior generals in charge of military power in various East Asian countries today, there are indeed many who have studied at Haihan Military Academy. It has become the norm in many countries in East Asia to imitate the Haihan military system and install Haihan weapons.
The Khalid family is obviously not an honest person. They showed great enthusiasm for the plan proposed by Qian Tiandun. They completed the selection of personnel on the second day of the meeting and hoped to make these young people Immediately join the Haihan fleet and act with them.
Whether the Khalid family wants to deal with other surrounding tribes or is still resistant to Ottoman rule, it does not matter to Haihan for the time being. What is important is to first establish a cooperative relationship and open up channels for arms sales.
Qian Tiandun hoped that the other party could invest more resources in military cooperation, and he could also take advantage of this opportunity to let these Arabs see the strength of the Haihan Fleet, so he readily agreed to the other party's request and let the personnel selected by the other party be divided. They were divided into several groups and deployed to each warship in the fleet.
This kind of personnel training is also familiar to the special warfare division. Every year, personnel from other units in the Haihan Army come to the special warfare division for further study. Therefore, the special operations division also has some temporary positions specially set up for this purpose to accommodate these short-term trainees.
Although the Arabs have different languages and cultures, as long as they learn to follow orders and prohibitions in the Haihan army, everything else is a minor problem. After a few months, these military cadets will naturally change their appearance and transform from Arab warriors into qualified soldiers.
Although everything seemed to be going very smoothly, Qian Tiandun still had a hidden worry in his heart. So far, the fleet has traveled half of the Persian Gulf, but as the nominal ruler of the Arabian Peninsula, the Ottoman Empire has not yet sent officials to contact the fleet.
The Ottoman Empire has a huge territory, and the speed of information transmission may be relatively slow, but it is not so slow that it has always turned a blind eye to the Haihan fleet coming from afar.
Takahashi Minami has another opinion on this: "Looking at the map, the Ottoman Kingdom is located between the three continents of Europe, Asia and Africa, connecting the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. It is the place where the four wars are mentioned in the military book. Maybe we are here During this period of time in the Persian Gulf, the Ottoman Empire was at war with a neighboring country and had no time to pay attention to our arrival. ”
Qian Tiandun nodded slightly when he heard the words and said: "What you said makes sense, but it would be a pity if we didn't make contact with the Ottoman state when we came so far. If the officials of the Ottoman state didn't take the initiative to show up, then it would be a shame. We can only find it ourselves.”
Gao Qiao Nan said: "What do you mean, sir?" Qian Tiandun said: "More than two hundred miles north of the Gulf of Kuwait, there is a big city on the Lianghe Plain. It is an area directly ruled by the Ottoman state. There should be a real ’s official offices and senior officials.”
The big city Qian Tiandun mentioned was Basra, a famous city in the Middle East.
In the Persian Gulf region, Basra can be regarded as a truly traditional city. It was built thousands of years ago. It is located at the intersection of the Euphrates River and the Tigrass River. It is one of the oldest water transport ports in the Middle East.
Of course, just like other areas in the Persian Gulf, Basra once belonged to the Portuguese sphere of influence. The Ottomans did not annex this area until the end of the last century, driving the Portuguese back to the eastern Persian Gulf.
However, at the beginning of this century, the Persian state rose rapidly under the leadership of Abbas I, and even took away most of the Mesopotamia from the Ottoman state.
In order to preserve Basra, an important channel into the sea, the Ottomans even cooperated with their former rival Portugal to fight the expeditionary Persian army in the city of Basra.
In September 1624, a coalition of Ottoman and Portuguese forces defeated the invading Persian army. In return, the Ottoman state granted Portuguese merchants various privileges in Basra, and this treatment continues to this day.
But visiting Basra is not an easy goal. Although the straight-line distance between Basra and the coastline is only two hundred miles, the navigation conditions are not ideal. Most of the rivers are only a few dozen feet wide. It is extremely difficult for a large ship to turn around on such a river. Therefore, Only then will Kuwait Port become the main maritime trade port in the region.
If you want to go to Basra by water, it is impossible to let the entire fleet enter the inland waterway, and you can only take smaller warships.
Qian Tiandun finally selected two exploration-class warships and two comprehensive supply ships carrying various commodities to form a small fleet and go to Basra. The remaining troops, led by Takahashi Minami, continued to be stationed in Kuwait Port as support.
The Khalid family once again played a role at this time. Among the personnel selected to be trained in the Haihan Army, there are people who can act as guides. Moreover, there are also Khalid family properties in Basra, and they can arrange various things after arrival. Chores.
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After completing the preparations, Qian Tiandun quickly embarked on the journey and arrived at the mouth of the sea where the two rivers converged that day.
Going upstream from here, seeing the stretches of green on both sides of the river, Qian Tiandun couldn't help but marvel at the unique natural environment here.
It is precisely because of this rare environment that the Mesopotamia Plain has always been an area that neighboring countries have repeatedly competed for in history, and it will continue to do so for a long time in the future.
Qian Tiandun still remembered that in the time and space before he traveled, the river he was on was the border between Iraq and Iran - until hundreds of years later, the Persians still failed to realize their long-cherished wish to occupy the plains of the two rivers.