The ambitious Raymond quickly met the Emperor of Song under the arrangement of Wang Yue, and even received rewards from His Majesty the Emperor.

In fact, he also brought a lot of gifts.

The most important gift among them is of course the main companions of the Crusaders at this time.

War horse.

However, Wang Yue actually doesn't know what kind of variety it is.

At this time, the origin of the European cavalry's iconic Andalusian horse was actually under the control of the Moors. The Friesian horse, the main partner of another type of knight, was actually from Germany, but as the partners of the Teutonic knights, they participated in the crusades. But at this time the Teutonic knights were still early. They were the third crusade, and the earliest Teutonic knights had to last half a century, and the current crusades were the French...

Or people from that part of modern France.

Franks, Normans, Anjou, Toulouse...

Who said the Normans were French? Be careful that the King of England got angry...

What French?

Who is French?

Your whole family is French!

He has always been sensitive to this problem.

Even the Brittans did not think they were French, nor were they. The descendants of these Viking pirates would not think they were French. Although they were indeed vassals of the French king, the vassals were just giving face.

In short, the core of the crusaders at this time were this place, plus Flanders, as well as a bunch of poor people in Italy, excluding nobles, fanatics, or a group of slags squeezed out by crowded Europe. The current Jerusalem royal family was actually from lords of Lower Lorraine in modern northern France, but they were subordinates of Emperor Shenluo, and they had nothing to do with the French king, and Emperor Shenluo wanted to drive them away.

So Emperor Shenluo supported them to join the Crusades, and then in exchange for them to give Lower Lorraine to those he liked by Emperor Shenluo, and they received the throne of Jerusalem.

In fact, it is equivalent to being squeezed out.

Now Lorraine has fallen into the hands of the Duke of Limburg, the Emperor Shenluo likes.

And so was the Antioch Principality, another important crusader.

Its founder, Bosimmond I, was the son of the Duke of Cabria in southern Italy, but his uncle, King Sicily and his brother jointly excluded him and gave him a tiny Taranto as an earl. Because his uncle was strong, he was sure that he could not defeat him, and he did not want to be killed by his uncle one day, so he had to join the crusade. His uncle happily supported him to go to the east, and eventually he established the Antioch Principal in Syria. His uncle finally annexed his father's territory as he wished and established the Kingdom of Sicily.

There is also a country of Tripolib.

This was founded by Raymond IV, Earl of Toulouse, and was not excluded at first.

This guy was ambitious to fight eastward, leaving his son to stay, and then besieged Tripoli and died in battle. His nephew captured Tripoli as the lord, but unexpectedly, his son-in-law, Duke Aquitaine, saw that the old thing was dead and nothing was scary, so he happily confiscated his house. His son had to run to the east and rely on Baldwin I to help drive away Tripoli inherited by his nephew.

As for Edsar, he was originally from Baldwin I.

He was the younger brother of Duke Godfrey, and he had no inheritance rights, so he followed his brother to find opportunities.

Baldwin II sent a total of twenty war horses to the Emperor of the Song Dynasty, and together with the purchase of merchant ships, a total of fifty war horses, and in the end, only five arrived alive.

"It's really not easy!"

Wang Yue looked at the five horses in front of him and sighed.

"Prime Minister, three horses and two stallions, but their horses are actually not better than sweat-blooded horses, especially those with thick and tall figures, which do look majestic, but the forage consumes a lot, and the size of the body will not last long. If you really go deep into the grassland to fight, you may not be able to hold on by eating grass, and it is suitable for fighting in small places."

Gao Jie said.

After Prime Minister Wang was reorganized, the Grand Governor's Office was in charge of the army, and the Grand Governor's Office was a separate cavalry director. He was the current cavalry director, in charge of national cavalry training and military horse cultivation. At this time, military horse farms had already been set up in Xuanda, Xi, Ming, Hebei and other places. As for the original messy official horse farms that basically raised sheep, there were originally some official horse farms in the Song Dynasty, both around Kaifeng and Daming.

They just raise sheep!

"You must know that we are actually not short of war horses, and we really have to rely on our own horses for long-distance battles. As for these..."

Wang Yue stroked the two tall and stout war horses in front of him and said.

Although I lost a lot along the way, the thick skeletons of these two horses still look like it.

However, he really didn't know what kind of horse it was. Raymond just said that it was called a horse, which was ridden by the Flanders Knights. It was mainly produced in the forest of Flanders. It should be in the Ardennes area. It was thick and solid. Although it was not as exaggerated as the Sharma, its shoulder height had to be close to 1.7 meters.

It is taller than a sweat horse.

A sweat-blooded horse is actually a medium-sized war horse.

Now that I have lost a lot of weight, I look quite slim. If I feed it well, eat it and gain weight, I will probably become fat. At first glance, I am very strong and capable of heavy work. It is a pity that I have such a good body and don’t pull a cart.

"Let the next merchant ship tell Baldwin II that if they can get me more horses, I can consider selling them cannons, a horse like this for a big gun plus twenty shells. If they can get horses bigger than these, I can consider selling them better firearms, such as grenades, shoulder-mounted rocket launchers, or even ten thousand enemies, and by the way, let the merchant ship bring a ten thousand enemies over to demonstrate."

Wang Yue told the attendant behind him.

"King, the mortality rate is too high, so you have to find a way to reduce it, otherwise such a trade will be useless after all."

Yang An reminded him.

Five of them survived by fifty horses, such a trade would definitely be of no use.

Of course, it is still possible to introduce the species. After all, Emperor Wu of Han used force to expeditions.

Compared with such costs, the current mortality rate of 90% of the shipping is still not worth mentioning. Originally, the merchant ships in the Song Dynasty returned there with empty ships, but there was nothing to load there, just took the gold and silver ships of trade and then went to Nanyang to load spices.

"That's because the road has been delayed for too long. We need new styles of fast ships, which are as fast as centipede ships, but do not need man-made paddles, and do not need special wind protection. We can snatch wind and sail and can return from Aqaba in the shortest time."

Wang Yue said.

He needs a North American schooner.

The first North American schooner to arrive in Guangzhou set sail from New York, with a total round trip of less than fifteen months, including four months in Guangzhou.

Of course, the empty ship will definitely be fast when you go back.

But even so, it took only five months to sail from New York to Java Island with full cargo.

This voyage is more than twice as high as from Aqaba to Guangzhou. In other words, this kind of merchant ship is only two and a half months full of cargo from Aqaba to Guangzhou, but in fact, the merchant ship transporting war horses will definitely not be fully loaded. This can almost shorten the voyage to two months, which is enough to ensure that the mortality rate of war horses is reduced to a tolerable ratio. Such transportation is acceptable even if half of it dies.

Moreover, the next trade to Aqaba will definitely be blocked by the Dashi merchants along the way.

This is a snatch of their jobs.

It is very likely that the Egyptian navy would join the interception. They had naval forces and could fight the Venetian navy. The Crusaders were able to continuously send to Jerusalem because the Venetian navy defeated the Egyptian Fatima navy in the decisive battle at sea. Although it was on the Mediterranean Sea, it was nothing more than a shipbuilding process to the Red Sea.

So this route can only be smuggling.

The Song Dynasty would not recognize that the Song Dynasty's legal merchant ships sailed to Aqaba and traded with the Crusaders.

Egypt must agree with this, too.

Otherwise, everyone would have broken up. The Song Dynasty would expel all the Dashi merchants and prohibit the vassal states along the way from being kept. The Ming Navy and the Zhuluo Navy will attack Aden together, and even establish a base in Aden to protect the Dashi merchants. If Egypt also agrees that these are smuggled, and even if they are caught, they must be handed over to the Dashi merchants, then everyone will continue to be confused.

In fact, it is difficult for them to intercept. The entrance to the Bay of Aqaba is deserted on both sides, so it is difficult to station a fleet. Although there is a resort holy site of Sharm El Sheikh, it is an unmanned land at this time, and there is no surface water, and there is actually no groundwater. Even if the water used in modern times, it is a joke to establish naval bases in this city in this era. All the Egyptians could do was send warships to patrol the Red Sea, but patrolling was useless because these schooners were too fast, even surpassing the oar-rolling battleships.

The extreme speed that centipede ships can obtain by consuming human engines is actually only a pitiful seven knots, and the sprint speed is not a cruise speed, and the cruise speed is only four knots, while North American schooners can easily exceed ten knots. In fact, these ghosts could only wave at sea in the early steamship era. At least during the Civil War in the United States, the steamships could not play with them, otherwise a lot of pirates from various countries, or to be nice to say, private captains love this thing to death.

Of course, smugglers like it too.

When I was a crow, American "tobacco businessmen" relied on this to tease me, the Qingshui Master.

Then these high-speed schooners continued to carry cargo into Aqaba.

Sold to the Crusaders.

Carry back a ship of war horses from them.

Of course, if the Egyptians think this is unfair, then the Song Dynasty can also sell them weapons and buy war horses from them. Anyway, the Arabian horses there are also very good. In fact, Arabian horses are the most suitable for war horses. They are of medium size. Although they are not majestic, they are enough. The key is that they do not need to be carefully raised. Although they are worse than Mongolian horses, they can also ride deep into the grasslands. European horses really can't do this job. These tall and big horses are suitable for their small castles and counties, and the terrain in Europe does not require them to continue to advance for three days and five hundred miles.

Three days and five hundred miles!

From Paris to Lorraine...

The Earl of Champagne raised his hand and said, although you are the king, you cannot fly over my head!

Then the current group of princes in the Shenluo system said that we are also innocent, and Emperor Shenluo was even more angry. At this time, Lorraine was still his vassal!

Poor, this is the French king. His direct territory is not enough for cavalry to attack for three days.

But these heavy horses are the best horse-drawing materials, and they are all good materials for pulling carts. You should know that Wang Yue's most important construction project next is a road that runs across the country. He has designed a three-dimensional and three-dimensional national highway system for this empire.

National Highway No. 1 starts from Liaoyang, passes eastward through the Liaoxi Corridor, then goes south to Yanshan, and continues southward through Yanshan to Kaifeng, and then continues from Kaifeng to Haozhou and finally arrive at Chuzhou. In this way, the maximum transportation between north and south can be ensured in winter. However, this road has two branches in Yanshan, one is to the northward to Daning, the capital of Xiguo. Of course, the level of this road is definitely much lower, and the other is from Xuanhua and then to Zhangjiakou.

In addition, it has to continue to cross the Yangtze River south and finally reach Guangzhou.

National Highway No. 2 goes south from Datong to Taiyuan, passes through Shangdang Basin, exits from Tianjing Pass through Zezhou, walks from Heyang floating bridge to Luoyang, and then turns to Xiangyang. Finally, the road ends in Jiangling, and there are branches to northern Shaanxi and Chang'an in Taiyuan.

The northern section of National Highway No. 3 is Qinzhi Road, which passes through Chang'an and then heads south into Sichuan.

This is vertical.

The National Highway No. 1, of course, started from the end of the Qin straight road, which belonged to Yunneizhou, the Liao Kingdom. However, because the Emperor of the Great Liao had decided to stolen the country, it would soon become the Song Dynasty. However, in order to take care of the feelings of the Liao people, the Liao Kingdom was still established. The Emperor of the Great Liao Kingdom was demoted to the King of Liao, but with the King of Wei and the Prime Minister of Liao, he was in charge of the military and political affairs of the Liao Kingdom, the King of Liao only needed to be happy in the Song Dynasty. The King of Wei was already preparing to build a new city there, because this new city was the starting point of two national highways, so it was called Baotou.

Then from Baotou to the east, pass through Datong, Xuanhua, and Zhangjiakou to the grassland and turn to Daning, then head north to the capital of Liao Kingdom, Linhuang, and then from Linhuang to the capital of Ming Kingdom, Liaoyang, connecting the three capitals.

Heng No. 2 is simple, starting from Xining and going east to Haizhou.

Hengnu. 3 is relatively complicated and is also the most difficult. It can almost be said to be a arduous project...

Because Wang Yue had to start from Chengdu to the east, across the central Sichuan to Gongzhou, that is, Chongqing, and then cross the Yangtze River from Gongzhou to enter the mountains and ridges in the east of Sichuan. Finally, he passed by Bozhou, Juzhou, Guiyang, and Yuanzhou continued to go east to Changsha, and the rest was from Changsha to east to Zhejiang.

Absolutely arduous project.

Not only is it difficult to build a road, but more importantly, it is a large area of ​​toast territory in the middle.
Chapter completed!