On December 1, 1684, while Liao Xiaoyao, chairman of the local executive committee, and Leonardo Morosini, the ambassador of Venice, were discussing the situation in the eastern Mediterranean, Gao Wengang, the plenipotentiary envoy to Europe on the east coast of Europe, was also discussing with another Morosini about the current war.

He met with Alberto Morosini in the port of Split, one of the naval bases of the Republic of Venetian. This ancient city from the Roman Empire has been around for more than a thousand years and has become almost one of the symbols of Venetian rule in Dalmatia.

"Thanks, Alberto, the coffee tastes good, is it from New Huaxia Island?" Gao Wengang picked up a porcelain cup with fragrant coffee and asked with a smile.

"Unfortunately, no. The owner of Rose Cafe prefers Jamaican coffee because he thinks it tastes more unique, but if we can get more people to invest in coffee plantations on New Huaxia Island, then maybe they will have a better reason to buy New Huaxia coffee, right? Alberto Morosini also sat down opposite Gao Wengang with a cup of coffee and said, "Oh, by the way, the cup is from Patagonia, the quality is good, and the price is cheap." ”

Gao Wengang laughed when he heard this, but didn't say anything. Patagonia is the main porcelain producing area on the east coast because of its rich porcelain clay. Many years ago, the East Coast government established a rudimentary porcelain production industry in this desolate and barren land through the descendants of many former Song dynasty porcelain kiln potters captured in Shandong. At that time, the quality of Patagonian porcelain was crude, so it was used in the east coast and to train some talents, and so on.

Fortunately, the people on the east coast successfully extended their power to the south of the Yangtze River, and in the process of helping Shunguo to capture Jiangxi, they collected a lot of porcelain firing talents. In addition, in the later period, some talents from Jingdezhen were successively dug up with high salaries to teach skills in Ningbo, although these people are not high-level talents, but they are enough to greatly improve the level of porcelain firing on the east coast. These people, one after another, were sent back to their homeland to join the burgeoning porcelain firing industry above the Patagonian plateau, and gradually supported two large state-owned factories and a number of small private workshops.

The progress of the porcelain industry on the East Coast naturally led to exports. First of all, the vast overseas colonies on the east coast created demand, especially the most populous island of New China, and they began to import a large number of porcelain of various colors from the mainland to replace the porcelain imported from Persia, but this was mainly the low-end market, and the high-end was still monopolized by Chinese goods. Later, the Dutch East India Company brought Patagonian porcelain into the European market, and although it was still unable to compete with the Chinese goods, it was not a big problem to encroach on the low-end market and compete with European porcelain. So, now you can see that in the port of Split in the Republic of Venesia, you can also see the figure of porcelain from the east coast, perhaps because its price is relatively affordable.

"Patagonian porcelain, like the vast majority of goods produced on the East Coast, is of high quality, cheap, practical, and worth having." Gao Wengang said with a smile: "I hope that next time I can see coffee from the East Coast here." As you said, this requires your own involvement in the first place. Investing in a tropical cash crop plantation on New Huaxia Island is an investment for the future, and have you thought about it? ”

"Yes, a lot of people are interested in this, and everyone has seen that the Gena, Tuscany, and Lombards have made a fortune by investing in plantations, so they want to follow their example." Alberto Morosini did not shy away from the current state of Venice, but he continued: "But there are also those who insist that now is the best opportunity to strike at the Ottoman Empire, a century-old enemy, and that if you miss this time, you may not have a next time." Therefore, they were eager to intensify their efforts against the Turks, and even if they did not work, to push the front forward a little more, such as to obtain a permanent territory in Greece. ”

"But this is unacceptable to the Ottomans." Gao Wengang reminded.

"Yes, that's right, so we insisted on a truce. But now there is a small question as to where the border between our two sides is drawn. At this point, we don't want to back down too much, because we don't think we're in a bad situation at the moment, are we? Alberto Morosini said.

His words made Gao Wengang fall into thought. Obviously, even if the Venetians had the desire to negotiate peace with the Ottoman Empire, it was impossible to sign an armistice treaty casually, and the conditions that should be mentioned must still be mentioned, otherwise it would be impossible to convince all strata of the government and the opposition in the country. Therefore, this time the Ottomans must have to cut some meat, otherwise they will certainly not be able to satisfy the Venetians - they can stop their advance now, and of course they can resume the offensive posture at the sound of an order, which is very unfavorable to the Ottomans and must be avoided.

According to Gao Wengang's many communications with the Venetians a while ago, he basically knew the psychological bottom line of these people, that is, Venice demanded at least all of the Cyclades (Naxos is the most developed and populous island at present), part of the Sporades Islands and most of Dalmatia to be owned by them - some of the above lands were under the control of the Venetians before the war, some were occupied by the Venetians after the outbreak of the war, and some are still under the control of the Turks - in return, They would give up their coveting of many parts of the Greek mainland, and at the same time forgive the Turks from war reparations, allowing them to concentrate on moving north to fight the Austrians on both the Hungarian and Serbian fronts.

In fact, this condition is much better than when it was first discussed. At that time, the Venetians even demanded Crete and the islands of Cyprus, and also had some ideas about the Morea region, which could hardly be accepted by the Turks. To this end, Gao Wengang engaged in difficult negotiations with them, and finally forced them to make a promise that they would lower their demands. But this time, it seems that their demands are still very demanding, especially those islands in the Aegean Sea, which are almost entrenched on the doorstep of the Ottoman Empire, and it is difficult to say whether the Ottomans will agree.

Of course, the Venetians also have reason to want these islands, because this time they are their "homeland", that is, they have lost in the long war with the Turks in the last two hundred years, and it is normal for them to want to return to these areas now. What's more, these islands have fertile soil and abundant sunshine, rich in olive oil, wine, seedless raisins, figs, citrus, barley, any of which are relatively in-demand commodities, which are indeed very attractive to the Venetians, who have always valued commerce, not to mention that the geographical location here is important, controlling many shipping routes, and there are some fishery resources nearby.

"Listen to me, Alberto." After talking back and forth with them so many times, Gao Wengang's patience was almost exhausted, and he tried his best to be patient, carefully considered his words, and said: "I strongly advise you to ask for more territory in the Dalmatian region, even if you swallow it all, but try to minimize the claim to sovereignty over the islands in the White Sea, because it is too sensitive here for the Ottomans to agree." Do you remember that war thirty years ago? Your navy easily routed the main Ottoman fleet near the Naxos pirates, and then headed north, blockading Istanbul and even deep into the Black Sea, sending the Turks' capital with food prices skyrocketing. The Turks are not fools, they will not tolerate the island on their doorstep being controlled by the enemy - well, at least a potential enemy - . Dalmatia, on the other hand, was a little further from the core territory of the Ottoman Empire, on the edge of their control, and was not unacceptable to be ceded. And a lot of the inhabitants here are Catholics, not Orthodox, which is better for you, isn't it? ”

As soon as Gawain said this, Alberto Morosini was also a little hesitant. Because he's right, the islands where the Ottomans have been fighting for the Venetians for the past two hundred years? Why? It's not because the location is critical, but also because the products are rich enough! If the Venetians want it, don't the Ottomans want it? If we continue to fight like this, when will we be able to truly reach peace? This will undoubtedly be a disservice to the people of the East Coast and run counter to the current national development strategy.

In this way, it seems that the only way to compensate for the loss is to take more land in Dalmatia! This is actually a very crucial place, since the founding of the Republic of Venesia has not given up its expansion in this direction, and has occupied a lot of land until it is challenged by strong opponents such as the Ottoman Turks. Now that the people of the East Coast are willing to take the initiative and help them get more land here, it sounds good. Therefore, whatever the opinions of the above, Morosini felt it necessary to communicate with Gawain about the territorial claims of Dalmatia, and in the future, if the Council of Governors changed course and agreed to expand in Dalmatia at the expense of giving up the archipelagos, he would not be unable to say anything.

Gawain had just been talking with Morosini about Dalmatia for a whole day, and the retinues on both sides even brought several large hand-drawn maps, on which they crossed and divided the territory, which is ironic enough to say that this practice of carrying the map of the original owner to open the territory may indeed be a bit anachronistic.

In the end, it was finally agreed that the Republic of Venesia could retain the territory of Dalmatia, which had been under the actual control of the Ottoman Turkish Empire during the war (before the date of negotiations), in addition to the Dalmatian lands and towns that had been acquired before the war. In addition, in order to compensate for the sacrifices made by the Venetian Republic, the rest of the Dalmatian territories that had belonged to the Ottoman Empire were also returned to the Venetian Republic, that is, the Turks completely withdrew from the Dalmatian coast, so that the Venetians were able to connect this coast with the mainland of northern Italy, which is also very good.

Of course, the Ottomans would also return the Venetian people, supplies, ships, and property they had seized during the war, and I believe that at a time when the Ottoman Empire was facing a great crisis, they would not be so unwise as to let these small profits fall short of negotiations.

Gawain just estimated that this should be the bare minimum that the Venetians could accept. After all, they also have the main war faction in their country, and they have fought countless wars with the Ottoman Empire for two hundred years, and the people's impression of the Turks is also quite bad, so it is already very good to prevent them from taking advantage of the situation to seize the Greek region, and it is already the efforts of the people on the east coast.

The next day, Alberto Morosini returned to Venice on a special light sailing ship, while Gawain Gang was also carried by a merchant ship that had been waiting for a long time, flying the flag of the Republic of China on the east coast of China, and went down the Adriatic Sea all the way to Istanbul, the capital of the Ottoman Empire, and he wanted to talk to Sultan Mehmed IV about the current situation.

Their old rivals, the Austrians, were menacing, and they themselves dispatched about 50,000 men, the Poles followed by more than 30,000 men, and the German coalition army of more than 40,000 people, totaling more than 100,000 soldiers and horses. These men marched in two directions, all the way east, to the cities of Buda and Pest (two cities connected together) in the heart of Hungary, which were the elite infantry of the Austrian headquarters and the Polish cavalry, which were formidable. All the way to the south, attacking the old land of the Principality of Serbia, this is part of the Austrian army with a large number of German princes' coalition army, military discipline is not good, but luckily, even took the unexpected opportunity of the explosion of the powder magazine to capture the Serbian town of Belgrade, but they are now covering the Venetians on the flank, and the Ottomans re-transferred soldiers and gunpowder from the rear, and considering the local people's disgust with these locust armies, it is difficult to say what the future will be.

Overall, however, the Ottoman Empire was in a difficult situation. The commander of the army was executed, the new general was unable to control the situation for a while, and the front was in chaos; The Sultan fled back to the capital, Istanbul, and was slandered by the ministers and imams of the government and the opposition, and many of them talked about his incompetence and mediocrity in private, so much so that he lost so many troops and lost so many cities. In short, this country is really very dangerous now, and what they need most now is a chance to breathe, but the enemy just doesn't give them a chance to breathe, just blindly pursues and fights.

On January 20, 1685, Gao Wengang finally met the Sultan and the new Grand Viqi of the Empire, Zad Fasher Mustafa, also from the Koprulu family, and the younger brother of the executed predecessor Vizikala Mustafa, both of whom looked haggard and frowned, as if they were having a hard time.

Sultan Muhammad IV only greeted him politely, then entrusted everything to Fasher Mustafa Daviqi and returned to his harem to recuperate, and it seems that this defeat had dealt a great blow to his confidence.

Mustapha Davizi, from the Koprulu family, looked even more ugly than the Sultan, his brother was executed for the defeat because he was the commander of the army besieging Vienna, and he faced a lot of messes after taking office, not only military, but also political and economic. Therefore, after seeing the arrival of the East Bankers in Istanbul, Mustafa Davizi was really like a savior, and as soon as Sultan Mehmed IV left, he immediately said: "High envoy, it is a pleasure to see your arrival, in fact I have sent someone to the embassy to find Mr. Marati before, but he cannot make decisions on many things, so he must wait until you come to talk about it." So, now I will say it again, can your country provide a sum of money as quickly as possible? Well, the amount cannot be less than two million ducats, that is, five million East Coast silver dollars, which is very important and almost related to the success or failure of the empire. No matter what channel we have, as long as we have funds, it doesn't matter if the interest rate is high, how about it? ”

Hearing Mustafa Davizi say this, Gao Wengang was also taken aback. Although the Ottoman Empire has always been suffering from a shortage of money, how can it barely support it, but since returning from the defeat of Vienna, why did it suddenly make such a scene? That's an exaggeration, isn't it? Moreover, this will be, where will you go to get money for these Turks?