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On May 23, 1679, Gawaingang and his party, who had docked at the port of Kajibey (present-day Odessa), arrived at a camp on the left bank of the Dniester River, escorted by a detachment of Spasi cavalry, where Kara Mustafa Aga was waiting for him.

Transnistria has now become a large camp, stationed in the tens of thousands of people, including the world-famous Ganishari Legion, the Spassy Legion, as well as ordinary Ottoman soldiers, and of course a lot of servant soldiers from all over the country: Serbs, Hungarians, Albanians, Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Romanians, Greeks, Arabs, Caucasians, Tatars, etc. All the peoples of the Balkans or Asia Minor imaginable.

These people do not understand the language, have different equipment, and have very different levels of training, and even many middle and high-ranking officers are confused about how many people they have under their hands. The Ottomans also lacked a good coordination mechanism, and the command was simple and crude, which seemed to be possible in the past, but now that the war is becoming more and more sophisticated, it seems to be a little out of fashion.

Of course, we can't ignore the fierce ethnic and religious contradictions in this huge army, Christian soldiers and Muslim soldiers don't like each other, and there are also contradictions among Christians who believe in Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity, not to mention the various sects whose internal contradictions among Muslims are already very sharp.

These hodgepodge soldiers can fight a tailwind battle at best, and in the event of adversity, God knows what will happen! For example, during the Chinese Liberation War in later generations, the bloody drama of the chairman of the committee who did not save him when he saw death was simply commonplace in the 200,000 troops of the Ottoman Empire. Dream on!

Therefore, when the Ottomans were fighting, what they could really trust was the army they brought out. As for the servant army, it takes a certain amount of skill to use it, it is barely enough to be cannon fodder, it is quite qualified to be an occupation army, and it is very good at waving the flag and shouting, but you must remember that you can't be entrusted with important tasks, such as guarding important nodes on the supply line, serving as the main force in combat, etc., it is likely to suffer.

Kara Mustafa Aga is a veteran of the march for many years, and he knows very well what the virtues of the various parts of the army under his command are, so his garrison deployment is actually very interesting, that is, with the Ganishari army as the core, the periphery is the ordinary army of the Ottoman Empire, and the periphery is the servant army from all over the country, and the garrison is strictly divided, and pickets are assigned to patrol around, for fear that these people will clash and hurt the peace. As for the Spasy Corps and the Crimean Tatar cavalry, they were maneuvering on the periphery that was conducive to departure, and they were assigned to command some men and horses sent by the Egyptian Lake Horse Mluks.

Kara Mustafa was a typical Ottoman soldier, rude, arrogant, and informal, which made Gao Wengang, who had never liked Qiu Ba very much, feel a little disliked. However, after all, Mustafa was a nobleman from the Koplulu family, and his education level was naturally not as low as those junior officers, so when talking to Gao Wengang, he still restrained a lot of wild and rude postures, and slightly became like a nobleman.

It was only when he arrived at the port of Kajibeyi that Gawain had just received an urgent report from a merchant (who was actually an agent of the General Directorate of National Intelligence) who had opened a wholesale commodity company there, and that Fasher Ahmed Kopluluda Viqi, who was currently in office, was seriously ill and looked like he could not recover. As the adopted son of the Koprulu family, Carla Mustafa Koprulu, who has been leading the army for many years, is likely to be chosen as one of the heirs of the Grand Vizi.

This important information suddenly changed Gao Wengang's preset attitude, making him more polite when facing Carla Mustafaagha, and at the same time, he also felt in his heart that he had come to the right place on his trip north to Moldavia, and it was a good thing to contact a possible candidate for the Great Viqi in advance. Of course, he still doesn't understand why the adopted son of the Koplulu family like Mustafa can be listed as the heir, and he seems to be not low-ranked, is it because his ability to lead troops to fight is valued by the family bosses? It seems that this is the only way to explain.

Carla Mustafa invited a lot of officers to a banquet, and at this banquet, the infidels were allowed to drink openly, and it was clear that the religious tolerance of the Ottoman Empire was still very high (according to the grapevine, the Sultan himself was even addicted to alcohol, and sure enough, the rules and precepts were for the lower classes), at least much better than the Catholic guys who would burn you at the stake or fight the Thirty Years' War if they didn't agree with each other. However, Gao Wengang did not choose wine like the Greek and Serbian generals, he drank coffee, a drink that was sometimes banned and sometimes lifted in the Ottoman Empire.

"Friends from the New World, do you see our situation in Poland and Ukraine? The soldiers lacked good weapons to fight the enemy, so that there were many unnecessary casualties. Why don't you help us, it's been a long time since a ship full of weapons and military resources has arrived in the Black Sea, I think it's not good. In the middle of the banquet, Carla Mustafa Agar suddenly asked Gao Wengang.

And with his question, many generals around him also turned their attention to it, especially the officers of the second-line army, who were used to using tents, ammunition packs, kettles, shovels, sapper shovels, sabers, spears, muskets and even artillery from the east coast, and now they suddenly stopped these things, and replaced them with some Ottoman self-produced substitutes, and both in quality and quantity are unsatisfactory (the only benefit is to reduce the loss of precious metals), how can this satisfy them?

If nothing else, the sabers exported by the people on the east coast are quite good in durability and sharpness, and have always been widely loved by the cavalry brethren. But now, because the country has no money, it can only reduce imports (equipped with Spacy's troops) and replace them with low-quality scimitars of self-produced products, and call it "return to tradition", which is not fooling!

"This is because your country still has a large number of unpaid payments for weapons and military funds, and the earliest of them have been in arrears for four years, which has had a very bad impact on China's military industrial enterprises, and they have also encountered great difficulties in their operations. In fact, of course, we understand your country's thirst for our high-quality military resources, but with all due respect, it is very difficult for us to continue to deliver the goods when the arrears accumulated of more than 400,000 yuan have not been paid. Gao Wengang replied: "Our military industrial enterprises also have their own troubles, and they cannot overcome these financial difficulties. ”

In fact, what he said was already more tactful, as far as the two large domestic military manufacturing enterprises are concerned, their factory leaders have already spoken, and in the future, the Ottoman Empire will buy military funds, in addition to the down payment, the rest of the installment payment needs to find a businessman or bank guarantee with sufficient reputation, otherwise they would rather not do business in this country, so as not to let their business fall into trouble.

Of course, there is no doubt that this kind of thing was said on this occasion, and Gao Wengang also knew the extent of the financial difficulties of the Ottoman Empire today (the economies of France, Venice, and the United Provinces, which were important export objects in the past, were also in recession), and he was afraid that he could no longer purchase the East Coast equipment in large quantities as in the past, which can be seen from the fact that they have returned to the previous self-production system.

Kara Mustafa is also a member of the Koprulu family, and has some understanding of the current predicament of the empire. Therefore, when I heard Gao Wengang's "financial difficulties", I suddenly became a little irritable. He stood up and walked around behind the desk, and after a long moment he said, "If we give you some of the loot to dispose of, will you ......?"

"Venerable Aga, you can't feed 200,000 troops with war." Gao Wengang reminded.

And this did not surprise Kara Mustafa a little irritated, and only listened to him say: "Don't you need a population? Ukrainian? Poles? Even the Russians, no problem. My army can be given to you, and all you have to do is continue to provide us with military supplies, just as you have provided to Beckchisara. ”

"Taking into account the population policy in the country, the financial situation of our trading posts in your country, and the constraints of shipping capacity, it is not possible for us to introduce the above-mentioned laborers without restrictions. These are fixed amounts, as it may change the demographic structure of our country. Gao Wengang continued to answer unhurriedly.

This answer really made Kara Mustafa a little angry, he had already contacted Li Qing, the envoy of the East Coasters. That cunning fellow, even if he disagrees with you, will be very tactful, and rarely refuses the demands of the Grand Viqi or the Sultan head-on. But this Gao Wengang is really, how to say it, he speaks directly and toughly, which makes people feel stiff! That is, the people of the East Coast dared to do this, and Mustafa Agar felt that if the Grand Duke of Moldavia stood in front of him and said such things, he would probably have been beaten and driven out!

"We have great difficulties in Ukraine, the Russians are demanding a border on the Dnieper and do not hesitate to resort to war for this. Moreover, now the Austrians in Habsburg are also persecuting the Hungarians who have accepted the protection of the Sultan, which risks triggering a new war. We need to stock up on war materials in advance to deal with the possibility of war breaking out at any time, so you must help us and cooperate with us. Kara Mustafa raised her voice, and her face changed significantly, and it seemed that if Gawain didn't know how to agree, he would anger the nobleman who was likely to be chosen by the Sultan as the Grand Vizi.

Gao Wen just groaned in his heart as soon as he heard it. Not for the unreasonable demands of Mustafa Agha, but for hearing that the Austrians and Turks were at risk of a full-scale war in Hungary. He didn't know if there was a French element to blame for it (which is not unlikely, given the current closeness of Ottoman and French relations), but the French certainly had a good reason to do so, so the people on the east coast had to be prepared for three wars in the Ottoman Empire at the same time.

And if the Ottomans did do that, would the East Coasters want to intervene? If Gain didn't come up with real money to support it, the Ottomans who operated on the third line would probably collapse (even if they did support the Ottomans with blood, it was very likely), and they would probably not get any commercial benefits! In the final analysis, it is in the best interests of the Ottoman Empire to maintain a stable and peaceful state, not to go around and pretend to force the treasury to the bottom, and to provide the East Coast Republic of China with a relatively stable market and a source of slave cannon fodder.

Based on this consideration, once the Ottomans really went to war with the Russians, Austrians and Poles at the same time, the East Bank really had no choice but to invest in blood in order not to let the capital, business networks and other interests that they had previously operated in the East Bank go to waste, and there was nothing else to do! Of course, the best situation is to find a way to persuade the Ottomans to conclude a peace treaty with Russia, to clear up the mess in Ukraine, to solve their worries, and then to figure out how to face the threat of Poland and Austria.

It is impossible for the Ottoman Empire to return the southeastern territories ceded by Poland, and then Poland's enmity cannot be resolved. In the same way, the Ottoman Empire will not give up its ambitions against Hungary, so the war with Austria is inevitable, not to mention that the truce of the peace treaty concluded between the two countries is about to expire, and it is estimated that the Sultan of Istanbul also has this idea in his heart, that is, once he is ready, he will immediately attack and swallow Hungary into his stomach.

Gawain was not sure whether the Ottomans were right or wrong. He only believed from a military point of view that the current Ottoman Empire had no advantage in front of the Austrians. Although the number of Austrian troops is not large, tens of thousands of elites can still be scraped together, and they have accumulated a lot of experience in many encounters with the French army, and their combat effectiveness is not weak at all.

Now, with the threat of Poland's flank, Gao Wengang only hoped that if the Turks really wanted to march into Hungary, it would be better to accept it as soon as it was good, and not to fall in love with war, otherwise it might encounter an unpredictable crisis. Of course, it would have been better if the French had been able to contain the Austrians on the Western Front at the same time, although that would probably have been a luxury.

Thinking of this, Gao Wengang probably already knew how to respond to Kara Mustafa Agar, and at the same time, he also planned to write a diplomatic email to send back to his homeland as soon as possible, and report in detail to Li Qing, the executive committee member in charge of foreign affairs and trade, how to adjust the policy towards the Ottoman Empire in the next stage, which he thought was very crucial. 89

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