In the hall, all eyes were on Tsusha, who was standing in the chief position, and people were speculating about what she would say next to surprise her.

As she looked around, she could feel the stares coming one after another, which made her a little nervous.

In the past, she never imagined that one day she would stand in front of such a group of people, and still face them with such an attitude.

Tsusha imagined her future, which should be beautiful and simple, a noble husband from the same illustrious background as her, and then give birth to several lovely children.

If her husband had been tolerant or flirtatious, he might have allowed her to keep the sumptuous suit of armor, and perhaps let her put it on after the door was closed, but more likely he would have thought it was nonsense, and forbade her to dangle it in front of her.

Not surprisingly, she could also imagine where she would be buried in the future, and it must have belonged to the cemetery behind her husband's family church, which was the final fate of almost all aristocratic women.

It all seemed so natural that even Tsusha herself thought it should be like this.

But the appearance of one person changed all that completely.

It was the man who made her the countess of Cosenza, and it was the same person who told her a lot of things she had never thought about before.

He may be her brother, or maybe he is nothing, but Josa feels that he can do much better than he thinks, to prove that she is important, and for her own sake.

Thinking of Alexander, Josa suddenly felt that although he was facing these people, there was nothing to be nervous about, because compared to the ones Alexander had to face, these people in Taranto were too unworthy of mention.

"The merchants of Taranto think that the city is yours, and you need the inhabitants of this place to buy your goods, so you crowd out business rivals elsewhere," said Jossa looking at Alvaniot opposite, who had heard of the Jew for a long time. The 'Fellows' of the Office were not only sent to mingle with the locals all day long, or to get a few shopping orders from them, but when Alexander wanted to send people from Cosenza or Naples, even the Count of Mordillo immediately thought of using these people as his eyes and ears, and learned about Taranto from these merchants, so that he believed that he would eventually win, "But I will tell you now that you have seen that the Venetians are preparing for a possible war, Soon everyone will find that the prices of all kinds of goods are rising, because the wars have made the routes unsafe, the individual merchant ships will be looted, and even large fleets will be increased by the need for armed protection, and our trade zone can make an agreement with the Venetian fleet, because our cheap goods can give them more supplies, and you, at a much greater cost than we will have to pay to do so, and you will face higher tariffs than usual. ”

"Why?" Avan Lyot interrupted Josha's words, and after a few steps earlier, his demeanor was no longer the only respect that he could maintain before, but his eyes were fixed on him: "We will pay a reasonable duty wherever we go, and no one has the right to raise the tax at will, and I am not sure that people elsewhere will agree to this treacherous plan, because that would make many merchants reluctant to enter that city, just like Naples, Do the Neapolitans want to see their city depressed because there are no merchants willing to be angry, so Miss Countess, please don't intimidate us with such empty words. ”

Alvaniot shouted discontentedly, and at the same time he kept shaking his arm at the people around him, hoping to get their attention: "Listen, listen to what this noble lady is going to do, she is threatening to encourage people elsewhere to raise the tariffs on us, but unfortunately this is a joke, no one is stupid enough to offend all the merchants for the sake of such a little extra tax." ”

"What if not all merchants," Zhisa said as she looked at Alvaniot, and she noticed the anger in the Jews' eyes, which made her believe that she might have really succeeded in provoking this man, "It's just Taranto, we're going to expose all Taranto merchants to extra high tariffs, while merchants elsewhere have the opportunity to make more profits at a lower cost, do you think those ports will care if they don't have merchants from your place, let alone even if they face high tariffs, Unless you insist on not selling your goods elsewhere, you will have to pay the price of confronting us. ”

"This is blackmail," Alvaniot took a step forward in anger, and the people around him immediately whispered to him not to be impulsive, while the Jews no longer looked at Zhissa, but at Count Horseen, "my lord, you should now stand up for the interests of Taranto, for all the merchants who have been loyal to you in Taranto, I don't need me to remind you that you should also know what this trade zone means to you, I think you must not want to see what happens to you the noble lords of the Hanseatic League." ”

People suddenly let out a low cry because of Alvaniot's words, and many people looked at Alvaniot in surprise at first, they didn't expect that the Jews would directly throw out such a topic that was taboo for all businessmen at this time, and they didn't expect that Alvaniot would simply stand on the opposite side of the real opposite of Zhisa so unabashedly.

Count Horsen was also gloomy by the words of the Jews, and at this moment he even wanted to stand up and applaud the words of the Jews.

As Alvaniot said, there is a deep taboo against the Count of this free trade zone, and this taboo is not for nothing.

More than a century ago, when the Hanseatic League was at its peak, the Hanseatic League not only exerted various influences on the cities where the merchants of the alliance were located, but even controlled the choice of future heirs by many large and small vassal states, the most memorable and jaw-dropping of which was the result of a war between them and the Kingdom of Denmark, in which these merchants not only forced the Danish king to pay them a large amount of indemnity, but even had to sign a humiliating treaty agreeing to the alliance to choose a crown prince for the future Kingdom of Denmark.

Of course, Hawson didn't want to see this happen to Taranto, and he didn't want to be robbed of power before he was fully old, so he preferred to let a Jew disrupt his banquet to make Modillo understand that Taranto wasn't as easy to deal with as he thought.

"Then what do I ask the Lord Count of Naples to do?" Sure enough, then Alvriott began to question Josha, in fact, when he received that the Earl had specially sent someone to invite him to the dinner, he knew what kind of role he should play, and now he only needed to play this role well, "I think your uncle must have hoped that you would convince our Count to agree to these threatening conditions, but if that's all you say will happen next, I don't think you can convince us, because we all know that this will not completely defeat us, Our merchants may face high tariffs in the places you mentioned, but you can't get all places to treat us like this, and as far as I know, the Mediterranean is a paradise for all merchants, and unless you can turn all the ports into your so-called free trade zones, the Mediterranean is big enough and profitable enough for all of us, so we don't have to join your threatening agreement. ”

"I think you misunderstood, it's not a threat," Josha shook her head slightly, hearing someone's sneer because of her explanation, Josha was not angry, she turned slightly and smiled at the earl sitting on the side, and then looked at Alvaniot and said slowly, "If you refuse our proposal, then in addition to the high tariffs I mentioned, you will soon find those cities near Taranto, Mariyer, Tokatona, Even the merchants of Barry and Antotic, who are close at hand, will suddenly get enough help, and they will soon get enough bargains, and they will find that Taranto is not with us, so the goods in the market are much more expensive than anywhere else, and then there will be a large influx of merchants into the city, and they will squeeze out your merchants at prices much lower than the local ones, and you will not even earn half a florin a day. And once this influx has begun, no one can stop it, not even we can stop the desire for wealth, these foreign merchants will completely defeat you Taranto, a large number of local merchants will face bankruptcy, and your merchant ships elsewhere will face high customs duties, and in the end all of you will have nothing. ”

Speaking of this, Jisha looked at the Jews who were staring at her and nodded lightly, "So that was not a threat just now, and now I tell you that this is a threat." ”

After saying that, Ji Sha turned her head and smiled at Huo Sen again, but at this time, the smile of this seemingly innocent girl could not make the count have any reverie, and he even felt that this smile looked a little hateful.

The hall was so quiet that even the servants who had been hurrying around noticed that something was wrong, and either walked cautiously or simply stopped and hid in the corner.

Everyone was silent, and they looked together at the Countess, who had sat down and was a little thirsty and drinking softly from her glass, and no one denied that the Countess still looked innocent, but people now knew what a terrible face she had beneath her innocent appearance.

This is not the fierceness of those noble ladies, nor the majesty of the queen, this is still not a girl with a seemingly shy smile, and there is not even a formal marriage contract so far.

But this was the noble lady who brought only a few unreliable-looking retinues, and at this time made all the nobles and merchants of Taranto feel uneasy and even frightened.

Count Horseen's face was gloomy, and he looked at his son, who was sitting on the other side, with an equally ugly look.

Elliott had mentioned the count's cleverness more than once, but the count didn't really care too much, or even if he did, he still thought it was his son's exaggeration.

He even thought that perhaps Elliott had taken a heart for the young and beautiful countess, and he couldn't help but admire her.

Now, the Count knew he was wrong, or maybe Elliot hadn't fully explained how terrible the girl was.

Who taught her all these things?

Count of Naples Mordillo?

So what is Modillo going to do?

The Count thought so, and then noticed the dull atmosphere in the hall.

He immediately picked up his glass from the table and stood up, and shouted loudly in the expectant gaze of everyone: "God bless Taranto, God bless the people of Taranto." ”

This implied that the call for the end of the banquet made everyone stunned for a moment, and then they couldn't help but respond as if relieved: "God willing!" ”

Listening to the people one after another, and even the tone of the voice with some catharsis in response, Jisha couldn't help frowning slightly, she knew that this was actually Count Hawsen's counterattack to her, but also a demonstration in disguise, it was obvious that the Count had been dissatisfied with her attitude just now, and by letting the banquet come to an abrupt end, the Count was undoubtedly telling her that he was still in charge of Taranto.

She stood up, bowed slightly to the Count, and then walked with light steps towards the outside of the hall under the gaze of everyone, and at this moment no one looked at her as a simple countess, and there was a faint fear in everyone's eyes.

"Friend, I think you should hurry up," Massimo said to Matthews Tiego, who looked strangely beside him, "I know what you're thinking, but don't worry, I won't hurt you, and don't you think that with such a countess as a backer, your business will definitely get better and better?" ”

Matthews Tiego nodded blankly, he knew that he didn't need Massimo's urging and he had to follow, after all, in the eyes of the Taranto, he, a foreigner from Bariari, was clearly in the same league as these Neapolitans.

And in these chaotic times, it's not that hard to make a guy who everyone hates disappear.

Norik Barbarig did not leave with Josa, and he stayed behind under the pretext that he wanted to follow his commander.

According to Massimo's guess, the Venetian was actually frightened by Josha, and it was clear that the gap between this countess and his previous assumption was a little too great.

As he walked down the steps of the Aragonese castle, Massimo laughed from time to time at the thought of the embarrassment of the Taranto, and the more he laughed, the more he laughed, the more he became more proud, until he came to the open space in front of the castle gate, and watched as he was about to board the carriage, when he was interrupted by an unexpected voice.

"Mademoiselle de Cosenza from Naples?"

A woman's voice came from the darkness, and the attendants immediately became vigilant, carefully keeping the Shosha behind them, until they saw a woman emerge from the shadows of a house.

In the moonlight, Josa noticed that the woman was looking at her with a curious look, and just as she was about to ask, the woman had already spoken again: "Then you must know another Neapolitan, his name is Cambrai, Alexandre Juliant Gombray." ”