Although the two countries have relatively low standards for the opening of the canal, the scale of the ceremony is very grand. Many European countries have sent representatives to witness this great moment, and reporters from major newspapers of the Empire flock to record historical moments with language, sketches and even photos.

The ceremony was arranged by Zhao Mingde, and one of the rituals is the most interesting.

At present, there are three major cities on the Suez Canal, one is the Port of Said, which exits to the north, and the other is the Suez Canal, which exits to the south. The third and latest city is the midway city in the middle of the canal, which is the junction of the canal, the railway and the water diversion canal, and it is also the headquarters of the Suez Canal Company.

In these three major cities, Zhao Mingde ordered people to erect a tall stone tablet with all the workers who sacrificed their lives for the opening of the Suez Canal. The canal opening ceremony was held in Port Said. Delegates from various countries and some press conferences took the first ship passing through the Suez Canal, the Sudan, and went to the Midway City and Port Suez, and presented garlands to the three stone tablets.

At the beginning, the Ottoman Vizier Hussein refused because he believed that the deaths were all slaves and people, and it was not worth bent over. However, Zhao Mingde and Dan Tai Yunfeng insisted that if the Ottoman did not go, the imperial representatives would also go, and representatives from the Netherlands, Venice and other countries also expressed their participation.

Hussein had to participate now because the Ottomans of this era looked down on Europe as a whole. Since Europeans did it, the Ottomans could not help but do it. He could not make the world think that the Ottomans were more barbaric than the Europeans.

However, Hussein soon discovered the difference. The stone tablets in Said Port were very tall, like a wall, full of names, with more than 4,000 people. These names were separated by country and ethnicity, and the Egyptians occupied the vast majority. In fact, these were not all Egyptians who died because of the canal.

These died directly on the canal construction site. Those who died on the way to the canal or back home were not included. In the early days of the project, the empire did not participate in the management, and the dead Egyptians had only a simple number and did not even have a name.

According to later statistics, more than 13,000 Egyptians died in the opening of the canal, which was also one of the main basis for Egypt to claim sovereignty over the Suez Canal after its independence and founding.

There are only more than 500 names on the monument in the Midway City, including nearly 200 Egyptians, and the main workers from the canals such as Bedouin, Han, Korean, Jing, Siamese, Burmese and other canals come to help.

More than half of these people died to protect the canal labor and property safety. The attackers were mainly Bedouin robbers and riot Egyptian rioters.

When the monument at the Port of Suez, there were only 117 laborers, most of which were Eastern ethnic groups, including the Han people, and a few Bedouin people were also members of the River Protection Team. Most of these people died due to diseases and engineering accidents.

Olive branches and various garlands that symbolize peace are piled up in front of the monument, expressing the world's gratitude to these victims.

Hussein, who was the representative of the Ottoman Empire, expressed his dissatisfaction with this. He believed that this was a conspiracy because there were few names of Ottomans other than the Egyptians on all monuments. Although this was a fact, Hussein believed that this monument should not be made at the beginning until the bronze statue of Hussein was unveiled in the central square of the riverbank garden in Port Suez, and his face looked a little better.

There are three bronze statues of this type. The Port of Said is from Pasha, Egypt, and now the Great Vizier Fazzo. He and King Yu Li Junwei promoted the opening of the canal, while the bronze statue of Li Junwei was erected in the city of Midway.

The Suez Canal has attracted many ships as soon as it was opened. At this time, the canal only has a one-way road, and many of the ships using the canal are sailing boats, which require steam tugs to provide power, so the efficiency of crossing the river is relatively low, and it takes forty hours to cross the river. However, the Sudan, as the first ship, did not take so long, so when the ceremony ended, it was already the evening of the next day, and the celebration banquet was held in the Suez Hotel.

"If your father-in-law knows that you are drinking to drown your sorrows, you will definitely be unlucky, Ali." At the cocktail party, Dan Tai Yunfeng walked to an Ottoman officer and took away his wine glass.

This officer named Ali is only in his early thirties, but he looks very smart. He is already a Bey at a young age. Ali wants to get the wine glass back, but he fails to succeed. He directly grabbed the wine bottle and poured it into his mouth. The wine bottle was also taken away by Dan Tai Yunfeng. Dan Tai Yunfeng said: "So many people, you will definitely cause trouble when you get drunk. Come on, let's find a quiet place and have a few drinks."

Dan Tai Yunfeng brought Ali to a room, and Ali threw himself on the sofa and said, "I am no longer the son-in-law of the Koplulu family."

"You are." Dan Tai Yunfeng said.

Ali was an Albanian. Like the Copruri family, he was once an officer of the Ottoman Imperial Guard. If the Empire had not intervened in the Ottoman situation, he would have been living a life of slaughter.

By the time Fazo was in power, he began to establish the Ottoman Army. The power of the Imperial Guard was suppressed. Ali did not choose to fight with his colleagues, but directly joined the subordinates of Koprulu, married a daughter of Hussein, and became the son-in-law of the Koprulu family. The Albanians and Koprulu in-laws were the only way for the Ottomans to be promoted in this era.

Later Ali gained trust. When Fazo was in Egypt as Pasha, he commanded a battalion of troops to be responsible for the security of the area between the city and Suez.

It was at that time that Ali had a deep friendship with the empire. It was not that he was so noble, but that compared to his colleagues, Ali was really good. Ali did things when he took money and clearly marked the price. The empire's biggest demand for him was to control the army in the military camp and not cause trouble.

Ali did it, his army rarely came out to cause trouble, but the ambitious young man hired several instructors from the empire to train his army in an orderly manner.

The friendship between Tan Tai Yunfeng and Ali was because of his wife. When his wife returned to China, Ali personally led people to follow the escorts. Although it was to make money, she really did her best. Since then, Tan Tai Yunfeng and Ali have a personal relationship. Even during the Egyptian riots, Fazor ordered Suez's army to engage in friction with the empire, Ali dealt with it very well.

After the two sides reached an agreement to dig the Suez Canal again, Ali left the Port of Suez and led his troops to Egypt to suppress the rebellion. At Hussein's gesture, Ali tricked most of the Mamluks into killing each other and successfully controlled most of the Egyptian areas. However, the rebellion did not stop, and foreign forces began to intervene to fund the Egyptian rebellion. Mamluk, who had partially retreated to Upper Egypt, also launched a counterattack. The Ottoman Empire had no choice but to compromise, and Ali became a scapegoat.

Originally, Ali, who thought he could become Egyptian Pasha or Sinai Pasha, was removed from his authority. A large part of the reason for this was that Ali's wife died, and the sons of Fazo and Hussein, the two Copluirs, became adults. Pasha of Egypt and Sinai, one was Fazo's son and the other was Hussein's son. Ali, the former son-in-law, could only be a scapegoat.

Ali once tried to resist, and the remaining guards in the Ottoman country once found him, hoping to launch a coup with the help of the empire and regain the dominance of the Ottoman, but was flatly rejected by Dan Tai Yunfeng and Pei Yuanqi.

The reason is very simple. Although the Kopruri family always creates various problems now, the relationship between the two countries is very good, and progress has been made in both canals and trade. On the contrary, when the Imperial Guards were in power, they ignored the empire.

But Ali also seized the opportunity. After confirming that the empire would not support it, Ali sold the Imperial Guards directly, made a contribution, and regained the title of Bey.

"Did you just invite me to drink? Why don't you ask two women to come? Aren't there many European women here? I'm sleepy, I want to sleep, hug the woman and sleep!" Ali drank a lot of alcohol, and his interest was already coming.

Tan Tai Yunfeng said: "Women can't do it, it delays us from talking about things."

"What else can we talk about? Can you make me a Pasha in Egypt?" Ali laughed.

"I do have such a plan." Dan Tai Yunfeng said calmly.

Ali's head was covered with cold sweat: "I'm not sleepy if you say this."

Ali ran into the bathroom, washed his face with cold water, and asked the waiter to remove all the wine in the room and bring hot tea. He said, "I'm so sorry. I wouldn't have drunk a sip of wine if I had known that I would talk about such an important thing."

Tan Tai Yunfeng said: "It doesn't matter, at least you are sober now."

Ali asked, “Is your country willing to support me in being Pasha in Egypt?”

Tan Tai Yunfeng said: "Bei, do you think we support you can do it?"

Ali pondered for a moment, but finally shook his head. After the last round of China-Austrian strategic negotiations, the original Ottoman Egyptian province became Egypt, and the two provinces of Sinai were located on the west bank of the canal. The city went to the north and south water diversion canal in the middle.

Obviously, the main interest of the Sinai province is in the Suez Canal and Railway, while the main interest of the Egyptian region is the high-quality long-length cotton produced on the Nile Delta.

After the Ottoman regained control of Egypt, he seized the fiefdom that originally belonged to Mamluk and granted to the Ottomans who supported the Kopruli family. These powerful people became new tax-bearers and fished out in Egypt, which further triggered resistance. However, with the rise of the textile industry in the Xijin area, the oppression of the Egyptian people slowed down because the Ottoman monopolized the production of cotton in Egypt with the national situation. Although they forced Egypt to grow cotton, they also knew that farmers must be given a certain amount of freedom to produce more cotton.

A large amount of cotton was purchased locally in Egypt at a low price and sold to the imperial textile factory at a high price. The profit generated became the profit of the Ottoman state finance and aristocrats. The low-priced grain produced in Southern Russia purchased from the Xijin area also made Egypt sufficient food and reduced Egypt's local resistance.

It can be said that Egypt is very stable now, and Alibey also thinks he doesn't have much chance.

"I don't think you can't expect too much now. The important thing is to have an army." Dan Tai Yunfeng said.

Ali nodded. He now agreed with this. Once upon a time, he also showed off in the Ottomans, but his troops were either Albanian Volunteers or the army loyal to Koplulu. When Koplulu abandoned him, he had no power to resist.

"Now Amin Pasha needs a general who can fight and help him stabilize the southern front, which is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for you." Dan Tai Yunfeng reminded.

Emin Pasha is Hussein's son, and now Egypt's Pasha. Emin is completely different from his father. He has almost no commendable abilities and is greedy for money and lust. However, Hussein's children are really not many. At present, although Emin is not worth nurturing, it can be used as a confidant.

Emin was particularly timid and did not dare to go to the battlefield. However, there were also rebels from the old Mamluk in the south of Egypt, who had been flirting with all European forces. Once they got the opportunity, the stable situation that Egypt finally got would be lost.

Ali said: "But it's hard for me to convince the two Viziers."

"No need to convince Hussein or Fazo, you just need to convince Amin." Tan Tai Yunfeng said. As he said, he rubbed his finger, obviously referring to money.

Ali widened his eyes: "Will your country provide help?"

"As long as the number is reasonable," said Dan Tai Yunfeng.

Ali fell into deep thought. Although he is now a member of the Koplulu family, the Koplulu family is divided into two factions: Fazor and Hussein. Fazor is good at politicians, but Hussein is more suitable for domestic economy and diplomacy. In the early days, the two brothers chose to cooperate in the face of threats from all parties.

When the two reached an agreement in the early years, Fazo and Hussein agreed that the two would serve as the Great Vizier alternately, but after so many years, Fazo has not given up this position. In the past, Hussein thought that Fazo was old and he still had a chance, but now it is different. Fazo's son Amar has made his mark in the Ottoman political arena.

The twenty-nine-year-old Amar has the experience of studying in Penang and is very good at dealing with the Chinese. He has the credit for his mission to China to persuade China to mediate the Ottomans to end the war with European countries. Now, Amar is Sinai Pasha, and it is Hussein's biggest threat.

"But I don't think Vizier will agree." Ali said hesitant for a long time.
Chapter completed!