Mahmoud walked into the room with some fruits and said with a slight interest: "What the prince said is that this ghost place rarely makes people feel comfortable."

As the local military and political chief, Mahmoud bears an unshirkable responsibility in the Muscat Incident, but anyone with discerning eyes knows that this has little to do with him. After Pei Yuanqi and Zhao Mingdao broke through the city, they casually attached Muscat to the nearest imperial official - Penang. This is the origin of the disaster.

Penang is the direct jurisdiction of the Imperial Cabinet and belongs to an overseas province, while Mahmoud is an alien race. He has lived in the empire for only a few years and dare not extend his hands to the big merchants from Penang in administrative terms. Those merchants have a deep background in Penang, and any one of them can be overwhelmed. It is these merchants that directly led to the growth of Seyf's power.

More importantly, Muscat is a colony, while Penang is an overseas province. After being affiliated with Penang, it must be administered in accordance with imperial laws. The strict religious and ethnic policies have led to the resistance and turn against the local Omanis. But now, another identity of Mahmoud has allowed him to keep this position. He is the confidant of King Yu, and he has been since the beginning.

Li Junwei looked at Mahmood, and Mahmood quickly lowered his head and kept wiping his sweat. After a long time, Li Junwei patted Mahmood on the shoulder: "Forget it, no one will blame you, but now you have to make a choice. Either you stay and continue to serve as the local military and political chief, but you will be affiliated with the Empire's Overseas Affairs Department in the future. Or, follow me and I will do an errand for you in another suitable place. Do you know the difference?"

Mahmoud focused on the key points. If he stayed, he would have to participate in the trial of the treason case. After all, this is a colony. Although Penang is governed by the overseas provinces, it was classified as a colony from the beginning. In any colony of the empire, the colony chief was also a judicial officer. Although it was not necessarily the Supreme Court, major cases must be participated in. This time, the merchant group that borrowed money from the Omans and smuggled must end up with the end of the head. The empire's laws are relatively tolerant of economic crimes such as smuggling, but it has already involved treason, so it will be completely overthrown. The empire cannot exil to treason to even more unregulated areas, so there is only death penalty.

However, Mahmoud still didn't want to leave. He has been here for two years. Muscat has too many interests. Although leaving may not be a abandonment, it is safer to protect himself. He asked: "Prince, shouldn't the Ministry of Overseas Affairs lead the trial of the treason case?"

Li Junwei shook his head: "Maybe in the future, but this time it's not. The Ministry of Overseas Affairs has just been established, and they can't draw enough staff. Even if they can draw, they may not participate."

After the new cabinet of the Empire performed its duties, it adjusted its subordinate departments and courts, including the Immigration Bureau, Overseas Legal Affairs Office and other a series of institutions, and established a new department, the Ministry of Overseas Affairs, and the Deputy Prime Minister of the Cabinet also served as the head of this department. The main responsibility of the Ministry of Overseas Affairs is to manage the overseas colonies of the Empire.

Colonization was originally a very neutral word, and even had a positive meaning, but it became a derogatory term in later generations. In this era, the people under their rule had never seen Manchus at all. Instead, they were repeatedly threatened by the Thais in the process of making a living on new land. At that time, people hated the Thais too much for Manchus, and the colonists were collectively named for this group of foreign visitors, so the word colonization became a derogatory term. Therefore, the agency that manages the colonies cannot be called the Colonial Ministry, but can only be called the Overseas Affairs Ministry. Although the empire has a large number of colonies overseas, it is rarely called this in official documents.

The empire's overseas land is divided into overseas provinces, overseas territories, protectors and overseas consular areas. Among them, overseas provinces are completely under the administrative jurisdiction of the cabinet, such as Nanhua, Luzon, Australia, etc. Among these overseas provinces, the imperial people occupy an absolute majority of the population (statistically), and the indigenous ethnic groups generally surrender and return to their rule, and are completely governed in accordance with the laws of the empire.

Overseas territories are mainly managed by development companies such as America, Africa, Borneo, Kowloon, and India. They have a large number of imperial people, but they are at a disadvantage and mainly deal with local indigenous people. They are either surrounded by wolves and the land level is no longer possible, or there is no decent civilization around them, which can expand almost infinitely. However, in these places, economic colonization of surrounding forces is the main task, and these overseas territories are the main scope of the Ministry of Overseas Affairs.

Muscat belongs to the category of protectors, with only one country bordering. The original Muscat Sultanate has now been renamed the Sultanate of Oman and has completely surrendered to the empire and accepted the protection of the empire.

Overseas consular areas are gathering places for allies or empires in countries with diplomatic and trade relations. However, these places are completely under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and have no affiliation with the Ministry of Overseas Affairs.

A new government office like the Ministry of Overseas Affairs is a headquarters in Shenjing, and there will not be too many people, but more people are deploying overseas populations. Its responsibilities include supervision and adjustment, and it will cut its losses from the beginning. It will cause trouble in the future and will not be liked by others. Naturally, it will not be willing to offend people if it beats people to death at the beginning.

Mahmud finally chose to follow Li Junwei to leave. He neither wanted to offend the big merchants in Penang, nor did he live in Muscat because he was uneasy. As a foreigner, his governance policy was always suspected. Opposite to Muscat is Persia. As a Persian, not only did he not feel the warmth of his hometown, but he was labeled as a traitor. Although no one had the courage to assassinate him, various threatening letters were stuffed with a drawer.

Starting from business and protecting business with power is the only way for almost all merchants in this era. Mahmoud also chose this, but he chose the wrong place.

But Li Junwei did not leave immediately. He needed to re-establish the order in Muscat. This order included the locals, the surrounding forces, and especially the imperial merchants. The first thing was to reject the successor recommended by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He selected a group of capable personnel from the African development company to control the land, and colonial officials controlled the colony. This was the new tone that Li Junwei established for Muscat.

After the establishment of the new institution, the first thing was to publicly trial treason merchants, and more than 70 people were found guilty, fourteen of whom were killed, divided into two groups, half of whom were beheaded in Muscat and the other half were beheaded in Penang, and the meaning of shock was self-evident.

After dealing with these, he boarded the ship, but did not return to India, but went directly to Suez Port. The last time he was in Xijin, Pei Yuanqi suggested that he return to China through Suez, but was rejected by Li Junwei. This time he came to the west, immigration to the Suez area was also an important task, and the local security situation had also improved greatly.

Li Junwei was riding the Feiyun merchant ship, a ship affiliated to a Ceylon shipping company, and a tea transport ship. Ceylon is the largest tea producing site in the Indian Ocean region. The market not only includes the provinces of the South China Sea and provinces in the country. With the expansion of production in recent years, the Feiyun is one of the powerful tests, because it was a fly-scissor ship with a full load displacement of more than 1,400 tons ordered in Shenjing.

Although the empire's steam power has been broken through, and even two practical railways have been built, and there are also breakthroughs in the use of ship power, the steam-powered ships of this era are not suitable for ocean navigation. Not to mention, the power required by steam ships is coal, and there is no coal refueling station in overseas ports, and the maintenance of steam engines not to mention overseas ports. Therefore, steam ships are only used for inland shipping, traveling between Shenjing and Wuhan, and the newly opened marine routes are only from Shenjing to Qingdao and Tianjin.

There is no such restraint on the fly-scissor ships. The development of the fly-scissor ships in the empire is due to the development of tea trade. The empire is committed to cultivating the European tea market. The restriction is the slow transportation speed. It takes one year to travel from Shenjing to Europe. No matter what kind of tea goes, it is old tea, so naturally not many people like it. The fly-scissor ships have changed this situation. Tea ships shipped from Xiamen and Fuzhou Port can be reached in Guangzhou in three days, Shenjing in five days, Suzhou in fourteen days, Huacheng in fourteen days, Fujian and Zhejiang tea producing areas to Nanyang have promoted the development of fly-scissor ships.

The large-tonnage transoceanal clipper was developed by the promotion of two major companies, American Development Corporation and African Development Corporation. Now it has realized the plan to arrive in the Americas from Shenjing within 100 days. After the launch of the Feiyun, it also created a history. It took only 121 days to arrive from Penang to Lisbon, Portugal, and set a new record.

This year, the Feiyun has been improved in Penang, and the top priority is to install a steam engine. Of course, this steam engine is not responsible for providing navigational operation. It is a small steam engine, which is used for drainage and sailing operations. The number of sailors during the ocean sailing can be reduced by one-third. Because of its fast speed, during the Oman War, the Indian Ocean Fleet requisitioned the Feiyun and transported the first batch of marines. Now it is requisitioned again, sending Yu, who does not like sea life to Suez.

Although he was the prince of the empire, Li Junwei was very unaccustomed to life at sea because he had lived a good life since childhood. During the Western Expedition, he could live in the largest tent, live in the upper vent, stay away from the flock of cattle and sheep, and avoid the dirty things, but he couldn't hide anything on the boat. He had to endure the noise of sailors and endure the odor on the boat, and could not prevent those ugly scenes from entering his eyes.

Fortunately, the Feiyun was indeed very fast. Without staying in any port, it took only nine days to arrive at the port. To express his apology, Li Junwei rewarded the sailors on the ship two silver coins each and paid for washing clothes for all sailors at the port.

The reason is very simple. During the sailing process, Li Junwei ordered that he should not go to the dock or wash clothes, because there was really little fresh water on the ship, and there was a large water user with steam engines, so the fresh water for such short-distance sailing would be pitiful, so sailors would use urine to wash clothes like they were sailing across the ocean.

This scene also happened on a boat from India to Muscat. Li Junwei didn't want to see him again when he saw him once. The sailor would wash his clothes with sea water, soak it in his urine, stir it with his hands or feet to remove oil stains on his clothes, then wash it with sea water, and finally wash it with fresh water. He only saw him once. During that voyage, Li Junwei did not contact any sailors again.

The Port of Suez has developed to a very large scale. The Port of Suez, which had withered due to the decline of the Ottoman Navy, has now regained its vitality. The original smuggling has already made the port large, and now this port is fully opened to the empire, allowing the Port of Suez to rise in full swing.

Zhao Mingde served as the Consul General of the Empire in Suez. On the surface, he was an errand of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but now he is under the Ministry of Overseas Affairs. Even his military posts and ranks still exist in order to deal with wars at any time.

As it turns out, Zhao Mingde is a good man. In the past two years, he has opened the road to Port Said. Of course, Port Said is also a newly built port. It was built by Pashafazo, Egypt, using Jewish merchants. In this land passage, there are seven immigration points, each with underground reservoirs or wells, as well as stored food and grass. More importantly, Zhao Mingde has established a good relationship with the Bedouin people widely present in the local desert. In this Oman War, his ability to hire more than 1,000 Bedouin people to participate in the war is the best proof.

This trade route, called the Suez Channel, has been opened. Immigrants who arrived from Penang and Junfu can successfully board the ship at Port Said and go directly to the Xijin area. Of course, the Suez Channel is not only for the Empire, but can be used by any merchant permitted by the Ottoman Empire, so that some Ottoman merchants have intentionally avoided the difficult Mamluks and used the Suez Channel to go to Port Suez to participate in the trade with the Empire.

On the Suez Canal that the empire is thinking about, Zhao Mingde also made some breakthroughs. He not only dispatched a professional exploration team from the navy to explore the terrain in the name of traders, but also joined forces with Egypt's Pashafazo, several Mamlukbey and merchants from various countries to reach a new cooperation agreement. The essence of this agreement is to build a water diversion canal from the upper reaches of Cairo City, enter the desolate area between Suez and the Nile, and then pass north and south, communicating with Port Said and Port Suez respectively.
Chapter completed!