The effect of sugar-coated cannonballs, Sun Xiangfu has verified it a few years ago when he was on the Tubo Plateau, it is applicable to people of almost any race, people with normal thoughts, will hope that they can eat well, dress well, so the Tang Dynasty people who can bring people these enjoyments are still very popular in Byzantine folk.

If Heraclius had conducted a round of opinion polls in Byzantium, he would have found that at least more than three or four percent of the country's total population had a strong desire to be incorporated into the Tang Dynasty, accounting for almost all the poor classes.

In addition, there are two or three percent of people who are not opposed to merging into the Tang Dynasty, they belong to the middle class who have faith, but their beliefs are not firm, in the Tang Dynasty, they will not be like now, they need to pay a lot of harsh taxes and miscellaneous taxes, and they will not be threatened by the invasion of the big cannibals, but the religion they believe in is not recognized by the government, and they want to rely on their current status in the church to seek any benefits, it is impossible, each has its own good.

The last two or three remaining adults, in addition to the powerful who were tied to the Byzantine Empire because of their own interests, were some fanatical religious believers.

The emperors of the Byzantine Empire, who can also be called the pope, were regarded by the local people as messengers sent by God, and until the fall of the Byzantine Empire in history, they were always in a state of a religious regime, and such a religious system had a set of methods for controlling the believers, which was difficult to completely destroy.

After being incorporated into the Tang Dynasty, their religion may continue to exist, but their status will be the same as the monks and Taoist priests in the current Tang Dynasty, no different from ordinary people, and they are also subject to various supervision by the imperial court in all directions, which is inconsistent with their interests.

However, even in the future after the progress of civilization, it is impossible for a country to achieve 100% conversion of its citizens, let alone now.

Therefore, what Sun Xiangfu has to do is to let the majority of the people turn their hearts to Datang, as much as possible, reduce the number of people who resist Datang, as long as some of those who are wavering in the middle layer are pulled over, forming a trend of more than half of the people's hearts towards Datang, plus some external stimuli, then the probability of success will be greatly increased.

In Constantinople, in Heraclius's palace, the song and dance of hormonal secretion are being staged.

Over the years, the envoys of the Tang Dynasty and Byzantium have actually come and gone very frequently, but they are generally officials of the Ministry of Rites below the fifth grade, like Sun Xiangfu, who is from the second grade, and the top officials who have a super high reputation in the country have never come.

The person who can accompany a top official like him to a banquet is, of course, also the top official of the Byzantine Empire, the chief deacon Ivan, the first to communicate with Sun Xiangfu alone in fluent Chinese.

"Ambassador Sun, we have prepared a place for you to give lectures in accordance with the request of the Datang Rite Department earlier, I don't know, when will you be able to preach agricultural knowledge in our country?"

The status of the chief deacon in Byzantium is equivalent to that of the prime minister, who is in charge of national politics, but its position of power is even greater than that of the left servant of the Tang Dynasty.

Because, there is no Zhongshu, Men, and other ordinary affairs in the political hall to limit or distribute his power, and sometimes, he can even be in charge of the army, almost the plenipotentiary spokesman of Heraclius in the political arena.

And the reason why Heraclius trusted him so much was not only because he was loyal enough to Heraclius, but also because of his talent. There is hardly anyone else in the country who can match it.

Sun Xiangfu never thought that foreigners were stupid, so he didn't plan to play with Ivan, so he said directly, "As long as someone from your side comes to listen, I can start at any time." ”

It's the first time Ivan, a diplomatic ambassador who is so talkative to Datang, has already prepared a bunch of conditions in his heart that can be promised to Sun Xiangfu for personal benefits, but he can't say anything.

In his interactions with Datang over the years, he has also figured out some routines.

For example, the Tang Dynasty did not strictly prohibit the outflow of things, they spent some money, in fact, they can get it, as for the channel to get it, it may be through the purchase of the market at a high price, or it may be obtained by bribing officials.

The tens of thousands of copies of the "Sun's Agricultural Dictionary" were obtained by bribing the management of the printing house.

However, they thought that they had taken a big advantage in this matter, but in fact, they took the initiative to step into the trap of Datang.

The profession of espionage, the Central Plains Dynasty as early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, has been more systematically divided and trained, "The Art of War" spies are divided into "countryside", "inside", "anti-room", "dead" and "life" five categories, now, the Tang Dynasty's spy leader Qu Tuquan, but in the territory of the Byzantine Empire! He used almost all of these kinds of spies.

In Datang itself, there will be more secret spies that serve Li Shimin's strategic intentions, and their task is to make the target country unconsciously follow the direction Li Shimin wants.

Therefore, what is Ivan's mind, when the mission has not yet docked, Sun Xiangfu has roughly understood, no matter how big his brain is and how careful his mind is, he will not be able to find any loopholes in a person who really wants to solve some problems for the Byzantine Empire.

"Don't you have any conditions? Do you want to sell us the seeds produced in Datang at a high price after we have learned your knowledge of agriculture? Ivan spoke tentatively again.

Sun Xiangfu shook his head and said, "I brought more than a hundred boats of seeds for various crops, which is enough to plant millions of acres of fertile land on your side, and these seeds are also gifts from His Majesty the Emperor to you."

After that, if you still want more seeds, you can order them from Datang merchants, and I believe that as long as you add a little profit to the cost price, they will sell these things to you.

Moreover, not only food seeds, but also restrictions on the sale of you in the future, except for the most high-end military equipment, we will lift all the restrictions on your sales, and if you want, I can sign an agreement with you on behalf of the imperial court now. ”

"Even the Tang Army's standard equipment has lifted restrictions on us?" Ivan felt that happiness had come a little too suddenly, and said in a tone of disbelief.

Sun Xiangfu nodded and said, "That's right! All the industries in our country want to make money from you, armor, bows and arrows, bed crossbows, chariots, are all made by the workers of the major arsenals, and they also need to make money to feed a large family, so what reason do we have to restrict you from buying? ”

Sun Xiangfu said that we need to make money so bluntly, but it made Ivan's face twitch for a while.

If according to his personal opinion, they should now completely block trade with Datang and stop the outflow of cash from their own country, so that although they will be poorer in the short term, they can still barely support it, as long as it takes more than ten or twenty years to expand domestic output, it may not be impossible to return to the heyday of national strength more than ten years ago.

However, Heraclius and some powerful forces in Byzantium would not agree, they felt that the Cold War was a Cold War, and defense was a defense, and business still had to be done.

If they completely cut off business contacts with Datang, they will even become bored with this banquet tonight, because many of the things used for the banquet are produced in Datang.

Of course, the more practical situation is that they all have some benefits in these good things.

Arms procurement, this is a decoy that the Byzantine Empire cannot resist.

Because, they have the strong enemy of big food. Therefore, although Ivan still had doubts in his heart, he chose to remain silent about the matter for the first time, and later, he would discuss the decision with Heraclius.

After thinking of changing the direction of the topic, Ivan said, "But I still don't think that in order to reach an arms sales agreement for us, you should pass on to us the foundation of your country's strength, agricultural knowledge, because, even if you don't spread this knowledge to us, as long as you say that you sell those controlled items, we will pay for it." ”

Sun Xiangfu seemed to have heard a big joke, and snorted and said, "Pay to buy it?" Do you have the money to buy it? It seems that the tens of millions of dollars you still owe us have been paid off by the shares of some overseas exploration and investment companies purchased by His Majesty Heraclius in our country, and the interest is being repaid! ”

Speaking of this, Ivan's face was embarrassed, as the chief deacon, he knew too well how clean the treasury of the Byzantine Empire was, money was constantly flowing out, and the magnates were knocking out the bones of the people in order to enjoy and obtain benefits, even if the taxes were repeatedly raised, the taxes they could collect were getting less and less.

Moreover, the people's resistance to tax collectors has grown, and even some core believers of the church have begun to leave the church to find a new way out because of the difficult life.

However, after all the vassal states that served as a buffer were swallowed up by the Great Eater, or were annexed by the Tang Dynasty, the expenditure they needed to invest in military spending became larger and larger, and they were able to survive until now because the foundation of the Byzantine Empire was very thick, with a population base of more than 40 million people as support.

But this situation can't last long, because it is the status quo of the Byzantine Empire that cannot make ends meet, and the envoy of the Tang Dynasty in front of him seems to know everything about the internal affairs of the Byzantine Empire.

Seeing that Ivan was silent, Sun Xiangfu smiled again, "So, we have to make you rich, so that our things can be sold." ”

"Let's make it rich?"

This logic, Ivan hasn't figured it out for a while, since Datang wants to get benefits, it's good if he can't do it himself, why bother?

He didn't know that the purpose of the Tang Dynasty was to deliberately raise a fat pig in front of the wolf of Dashi, and he was already about to switch from squeezing the gold reserves of the Byzantine Empire to squeezing the labor force of the Byzantine Empire.