Just because Xiao Mingqian did not interfere much with the empire's military affairs does not mean that the empire no longer has a strong desire for expansion. In fact, after Xiao Mingqian loosened his grip on the industrial and commercial classes of the empire, the empire expanded faster and faster.
In 1863, the empire officially declared war on Iran on the grounds of harboring Sun Xin's group of pirates. On the day after the declaration of war, a fleet numbered as many as 80 warships, including two ironclads. Appeared on the coast of the Persian Gulf.
This was a naval battle that was almost a massacre. Although Sun Xin had worked very hard to improve his strength and increased the number of his warships to more than 230 in the past few years, he was still completely defeated.
A total of nearly 800 warships of various types by Sun Xin and Iran were sunk, and the result they achieved was only the sinking of six old-fashioned warships of the Chinese Empire, and the casualties were minimal.
After this battle, Sun Xin's strength was completely defeated, and Sun Xin himself committed suicide. As for Iran, with its naval power completely wiped out and nearly 60,000 casualties, it completely lost its ability to protect the Persian Gulf coast.
This time, the Chinese Empire did not retreat. Instead, it established a naval base in Karachi and relied on advanced ordnance to continuously expand colonies into the interior of Iran.
In the Western Region, it took the Chinese Empire's army ten years to completely conquer the Central Asian region of later generations, and continuously drove the population in this region westward. Finally arrived in the northwest territory of Iran twelve years later.
Although Iran¡¯s terrain is complex and land supplies to the northwest are difficult, Iran was still strangled by land and sea and persisted for less than eight years before completely subjugating the country.
The Chinese Empire is different from other colonial countries. Due to demographic and geographical reasons, other countries have difficulty controlling Central Asia and can only rely on local puppets.
"The Chinese Empire was different. In 1865, the country's population had exceeded 200 million. At the same time, there are also areas like Japan that require large-scale emigration of people. Therefore, fifty years later, the racial structure of Central Asia has completely changed, with yellow people accounting for the absolute majority.
In other words, due to the strong population advantage, Central Asia has been firmly controlled by the Chinese Empire.
But that¡¯s where the massive expansion on the Asian continent ends. After all, the natural conditions in Central Asia are still very harsh, and when railways first appeared, the cost of military operations was still too high.
The most important thing is that with the display of the power of the Chinese Empire's guns and artillery, the whole world has realized that the era of cold weapons has completely passed.
In 1868, the Kingdom of Spain, which had the most frequent contact with the Chinese Empire, first appeared in the new muskets made of mercury. Then in the following ten years, the new muskets were slowly popularized throughout Europe.
This once triggered a storm of strict investigation of spies at the time, and even the Spanish princess that Xiao Ming brought in was questioned.
However, it was eventually discovered that this was not a leak, but the rapid development of chemistry in the Chinese Empire, which at the same time led to the development of chemistry throughout the world.
Europeans are not ignorant aborigines. When science and technology developed rapidly, they naturally started the development of modern science and technology in Europe.
Not only muskets, but Europe is slowly catching up in many aspects, such as electricity.
In 1863, Xiao Mingqian finally built the first hydroelectric power station in Taiwan, lighting up the palace and government buildings for the first time. Less than a month later, Taipei University of Technology invented the steam locomotive.
Since then, the Chinese Empire has entered the era of electrification, and subsequently electric and steam locomotives have rapidly become popular in the Chinese Empire. Various inventions continue to appear, such as telephones, telegraphs and so on.
Under such circumstances, Europeans are not deaf fools, nor are they rotten scholars unwilling to accept foreign things, so how can they turn a blind eye. The industrialization of Europe also began rapidly under the leadership of the Chinese Empire.
Under this situation, when the Chinese Empire's army attacked the Ottoman Empire, Europe already had the strength to resist the Chinese Empire.
Although the impact of the Mongols in Central Asia has caused great turmoil in Eastern Europe in recent years, it is also because of this that the European army has grown up amid the war.
Under the pressure of the Chinese Empire, the Holy Roman Empire began, and European countries quickly reached an agreement that they could not allow the Chinese Empire to attack further west.
So new guns and artillery were constantly sold to the Ottoman Empire, so that the Ottoman Empire could block the Chinese Empire.
? Basically, they succeeded. The next two yearsIn 20 years, although the Chinese Empire turned the Ottoman Empire into a semi-colonial country, occupied a large number of colonies in Africa, and even controlled Egypt, it has never been able to invade the European powers.
The same is true in the West, and the same is true in the Americas.
In 1863, when the Chinese Empire¡¯s ocean-going fleet arrived on the west coast of North America, the Europeans also began to develop the North American continent.
The two sides entered the North American continent from two directions, and finally collided in the Mississippi River Basin.
Since both sides came from afar and both had new muskets, it was difficult to drive the other side out at once.
And the Indians in this time and space are not that miserable. Outsiders from two directions are wooing them at the same time, making the situation of the Indians much better than in the original history.
Finally, a hundred years later, an Indian empire was established in the central and southern regions of North America. Moreover, neither the Chinese Empire nor the Europeans could do anything to this Indian Empire.
In this way, the North American continent first staged a struggle for hegemony between two heroes, and then staged the Romance of the Three Kingdoms. In the end, the black people who were transported to the Americas as slaves also established a black republic under the instigation of the Chinese Empire. So much so that four countries appeared on the North American continent.
? Among them, the Chinese Empire occupies the western and northern areas, and reaches the five western parts in the east. The countries established by Europeans in North America occupied the northeast, and later occupied northeastern Canada and the eastern United States.
Native Indians occupy the central and southern regions, while black people occupy more than one million square kilometers of territory along the Caribbean coast. This situation has continued.
It can be said that although the overall strength of Europe is incomparable to that of the Chinese Empire, with the cooperation of various factors, they have basically blocked the Chinese Empire, so that the strength of the Chinese Empire has never penetrated into the northern Atlantic region.
Even the southern Atlantic region is always under competition from both sides.
Of course, under the influence of the Chinese Empire, the political landscape of Europe has also undergone tremendous changes. First of all, the British Empire completely disappeared. After the revolution broke out on the small island, it has been in a state of division, eventually forming two relatively stable countries, Scotland and England.
It took a hundred years for the Netherlands to truly break away from Spanish rule. Most of Germany has been ruled by the Kingdom of Austria. A united Germany never emerged.
France was better for a while, but it has never been able to get rid of the shadow of Spain, so that it can only be regarded as the second, or even the third or fourth in Europe at best.