After a long and careful conversation with Mustafa Davizi Zai, Gao Wengang finally figured out why they wanted money, and at the same time gained a deeper understanding of the current difficult situation of this vast empire.

Gawain had just learned that the Ottoman Empire's former financial and tax areas had been greatly damaged because of the enemy's rapid advance: Hungary was under rapid attack from the headquarters of the Austrian army, and the Ottoman Empire knew the urgency here, and did everything possible to send the best generals and the most capable troops to participate in the defense, but it still had little effect, and land was lost every day; Serbia has been attacked by the German coalition forces, and the military town of Belgrade has fallen due to unexpected factors, although the recapture of the German army is currently being organized, and the German coalition forces with complex components have also been looted, but after all, the whole region is rotten and cannot provide any source for the imperial treasury; The previously rich Dalmatian coast, the coastal waters of Greece, Albania and other places were pinched by the Venetian navy and army, although they stopped one after another in the middle of last year, but the bad effects have been done, commercial activities can not be resumed in a short time, and these Venetians have also pinned down a large number of Ottoman troops, which has greatly increased the financial expenditure and consumption of these regions.

All in all, the finances of the Ottoman Empire, which was already fragile before the war, after the nightmare defeat under the city of Vienna, many of the original fiscal and tax areas are now mired in the war, and the revenue has plummeted, coupled with the tax evasion caused by the fluctuation of people's hearts, it is understandable that the government revenue has plummeted.

Government revenues have fallen dramatically, while spending has increased dramatically. At present, the Austrians received aid from Poland, Malta, the Papal States, and some Italian and German states, and had a large army and adequate funds, and it was time to make a great advance. Moreover, it is said that Polish envoys are also active in Moscow, and they seem to be intent on reaching a compromise with the Russians on the Ukrainian issue in order to attract the Russian Empire to join in and launch a fatal blow against the Turks - it is strange why the Poles have such a big grudge against the Ottomans, which should be the ties that have been formed in places like Podolia and Ukraine.

As a result, the Ottoman Empire was even more strained. It seems that in the future they will have to fight against the main forces of Poland and Russia in Ukraine, the main elite of Austria in Hungary, the combined forces of German and Italian princes in Serbia and Bosnia, and the Venetians off the coast of Dalmatia, Albania and Greece - well, this line of challenge is really a blessing to the people on the east coast, otherwise more than 50,000 men and horses will be pinned down, to say the least.

Adding up several battlefields, Farsher Mustafa Davizi gave a vague figure: 20-250,000 Ottoman troops have been fighting against the above forces all year round, and once the Russians join in, it will need to expand the army to 300,000 to be able to resist, which is simply dead!

In fact, in the past, the Ottoman Empire would not have needed to mobilize so many men. But who caused the most elite and capable men to lose a lot of money when they were under the city of Vienna? Moreover, the army of Ghanishari and the army of Spasi were also a little disobedient, and the local army was very dissatisfied because of the serious arrears of military salaries, and riots and mutinies occurred one after another—when the soldiers of an army need to pay enough to carry out the orders of their superiors, it is easy to imagine how much they still have to fight the war.

"The Empire's finances are unhealthy to such an extent?" After a long talk with Mustapha Daviqi, who was well aware of the situation, Gao Wengang was also shocked: "Many areas with heavy fiscal and taxation are caught in the war, and even in the areas that are not caught in the war, because of the large amount of manpower, materials, and money, economic activities have been greatly restricted, the production capacity of materials and grain has declined, and the trade activity has dropped to a terrible minimum level, and the degree of economic difficulty is really unprecedented." No wonder, no wonder! ”

In fact, in the last 30 years, the Ottoman Empire has gradually been unable to defeat the countries of Central and Western Europe, except for the West taking the lead in military reform, stripping away the backward armies of the Middle Ages little by little, there are no other factors, such as finance? How can it be!

In fact, it was the reforms carried out in the economic sphere in Western Europe that preceded the military reforms! The increasing activity of the bourgeoisie has brought about the extreme development of the commodity economy, which in turn has directly or indirectly promoted the development of the productive forces. Coupled with the huge profits brought by overseas colonization and trade activities, these have undoubtedly gradually enriched the economic strength of Western and Central European countries.

Take the Austrian and Ottoman armies, the same troops, what the Ottomans looked like thirty years ago, are almost the same now, except for some elite troops who threw away their old muskets and replaced them with cheap and good East Coast guns, there is little progress in the rest of the world. And what about the Austrians? In the past few decades, it has really made great progress, not to mention anything else, it can be seen from the fact that the armor rate of the troops has increased several times, and the quantity and cost of armor production have made rapid progress, what kind of advantage should this be in the war? In this way, it can also be pushed to the production of other weapons and military materials, Austria's productivity is improving day by day, the army has been fully trained with the French for many years, and there are not so many miscellaneous things inside, if you can't win, it will be a ghost - the Ottoman Empire, that is, it thinks it is very strong, but now it has been beaten by others and revealed its original form, how sad!

In terms of the organization and construction of the modern army, the Ottoman Empire was also a mess. Taking logistical supply as an example, the Austrians have fully studied the French military station system, and the supply and distribution of logistical materials have been carried out in an orderly manner, and a complete system has been formed. And what about the Turks? It's still completely medieval, and it also carries a strong grassland legacy of food to the enemy, which was not fatal in the past, but has become more and more deadly in the last two decades! When you go out on the expedition, you only bring part of the grain and grass, then after entering the enemy's territory, you will inevitably divide your troops to plunder and fight the grass valley, which will delay your own march speed and expose your own position, and second, it will also give the enemy army more and less, and concentrate the main force to eat the soldiers and horses you have divided, which is quite a big disadvantage.

Unfortunately, the Ottoman army is still in this medieval style, not professional at all, not advanced at all, and the army building is a mess. Of course, their military system may also be related to the country's finances, taxation and social productive forces, their productive forces are too backward, their domestic transportation, storage, and distribution capacity is not strong enough, and the scale of the army dispatched is still so large that it can easily reach 200,000 or 300,000 people, and it is certainly impossible to prepare all the materials on their own, and a large part of the shortfall must be solved by plundering in the enemy's territory, such as this time.

In short, at this age, the war has become more and more inclined to compete with the whole, and the advantage of the Ottoman Empire's large size is getting smaller and smaller, and the situation will only become more and more tense. Countless villages and towns have been caught in the flames of war, tens of thousands of people have fled into exile, and the rear has vigorously requisitioned strong men and money and food, and the old and weak women and children left behind cannot afford the heavy agricultural and animal husbandry work, and the production of food and materials has dropped sharply. The shortage of money and food has caused prices to soar in the cities, the front line is undersupplied, and the soldiers who have fled and have nothing loot in the countryside, continuing to sabotage the already small agricultural and animal husbandry production activities, and the government's revenues are dwindling day by day. As a last resort, they began to pass on heavier taxes to others, which caused more people to go bankrupt and flee, and the whole country was thrown into chaos. The government has been able to deal with all of this passively, arresting all sorts of criminals, rioters, or tax rebels and deporting them to Crete or Cyprus, but doing little to sort out the mess in the country, and even adding fuel to the fire.

Now, all strata of the country, from the common people at the bottom, to the middle landlords, merchants, to the top officials, nobles, and high-ranking clergy, are extremely disappointed with this incompetent and mediocre government. The Ghani Shari Legion, which has always had the tradition of deposing the monarchy, was ready to move, and the forces of all parties were colluding in private, and the undercurrent was surging, and the whole country fell into a strange state of "stiffness" from top to bottom - fortunately, some patriotic generals or lords were still desperately resisting the attack of the enemy army, and the military discipline of the Austrians was really not good, otherwise the huge Ottoman Empire would have been torn apart and collapsed.

"Yes, that's right, the situation has reached the most urgent point, and we have nothing to do." "If we want to take the initiative to intervene in the situation and make it develop for the better, we must inject a large amount of money in a short period of time to relieve the huge burden of military expenditures on the front and the rear so that local production can resume as soon as possible," Fasher Mustafa said. Otherwise, if we are dragged by the enemy for a few years, I am afraid that we will not lose on the battlefield, but the rear will be on fire, and then we will lose too unjustly. ”

Of course, Mustafa Davizi's words may be a slight exaggeration, because if you really want to be serious, it is not that the Ottomans, a country with a vast territory of millions of square kilometers, are not incapable of coping with the difficult situation in front of them. If the situation is really on the verge of no return, they can also make a big move, which is to depose those responsible for this situation – even Sultan Mehmed IV has been deposed by the coalition of his ministers – and then execute himself and a group of his henchmen, and confiscate the family property, which can greatly alleviate the financial situation.

In other words, unlike modern states with stable incomes such as the East Coast, a large part of the income of a feudal state such as Ottoman Turkey was achieved by "fines", that is, the confiscation of the property and slaves of the guilty to supplement the state treasury. This part of the share is definitely not small, from the number of Ottoman officials and their families who are exiled to New Huaxia Island or the east coast mainland every year, you can definitely surprise the country if it is really ruthless, after all, the genes of the steppe blood are deeply rooted in their culture.

Of course, everyone knows how dangerous this kind of thing is to do this kind of family extermination. In particular, you are still in control of a large part of the military power, the regime and even the Sultan himself, even if everyone has reached a tacit agreement in private, but the difficulty of this "operation" is still very high, and if you are not careful, it will cause huge disasters and put the country in a more dangerous situation.

Because of this, Mustafa Davizi's first choice was to borrow money from the East Coasters. He is the current titular steward of the entire empire, and who would want to risk an internal purge unless absolutely necessary (although he has historically done so), and think that the country is not chaotic enough at the moment?

But his sudden request also caught Gao Wengang off guard and was difficult to deal with. He originally estimated that the defeat of the Ottoman Empire at the front line should be difficult at present, but after such an in-depth understanding, he found that he, an "outsider", really did not know enough about the country, and underestimated the bad situation that the country was currently facing.

"Two million ducats is a huge burden for any country, and it is really too difficult for His Excellency Davizi to come up with it now." Gao Wengang said with a wry smile. Of course, there is another layer of meaning that he did not make clear, that is, loans all require collateral, and what are the Ottomans going to use as collateral?

With such a precarious situation of the Ottoman Empire, even if it survives the current hurdle, it is believed that for a long time to come, it will still face the possibility of wars in Ukraine, Moldavia, Transylvania, Hungary, Serbia, Bosnia and other regions (in fact, it is almost inevitable), and the vast majority of the country's labor, wealth and energy will be consumed in the above regions. In such a situation, what do they use to pay back? I'm afraid that it will not end up as a bad debt, and it will be a bad debt with an astonishing amount of two million ducats, a responsibility that no one can afford! Therefore, if the Ottoman Empire wanted to obtain this loan, let's assume that the East Coast government was willing to do so, it would have to come up with sufficient collateral, and there was no other possibility.

Therefore, he quickly mentioned it to Farsher Mustafa Davizi, and said that the amount of two million ducats was too large, and that the East Bank Republic, although rich, could only bear a small part of it, and that the rest would have to be found by an international banking syndicate—of course, the East Bank was willing to take the lead in helping the Ottoman Empire obtain loans on more favorable terms, after all, with their channels, it would be difficult.

Mustafa Davizi was of course aware of this, and he was also well aware of the Ottoman Empire's limited ability to repay the loans, so he threw out the Suez Canal and the railway project as collateral. He also said that it would allow goods from the East Coast to penetrate more deeply into the Ottoman market and gain "special advantages over goods from other countries," as well as greater autonomy in the Black Sea region, such as with regard to the Crimean Khanate.

To be honest, these conditions are very coveted by the people of the East Coast, and they are also unattainable by them in the past, but it is really difficult to estimate the true value of these things. For example, the people on the east bank do not want to build the Suez Canal at this stage, and they just want to upgrade the current wood-clad railway into light rail, which is completely sufficient. For another example, to gain greater autonomy in the Crimean Khanate, are you sure that it was not the Ottoman Empire that saw that the situation was critical and that Russia was in danger of ending at any time and pulled people to fill the hole? It's a bit interesting to gain an advantage in the commodity market, but this doesn't see any benefits in the short term, and who knows what the future will be in the long term?

What really interested the people on the East Coast was to "take over" the Ottoman Empire's economic and military reforms, sending advisers and scholars to help the old country reform its backward political, military, and economic systems in order to achieve a national transformation. In this process, the economic interests are undoubtedly extremely large, and they will be extremely strong, but I don't know whether the Ottomans agreed or not.

Of course, no matter what, Gao Wengang will truthfully report what happened here to the local government, and the executive committee will decide on it, because it is obviously beyond his authority. But before that, it seems that he can also help the Ottoman Empire pull some small loans to help the Ottoman Empire rescue emergencies, or persuade acquaintances of Italian merchants to come to the Ottoman Empire to trade, so as to replenish the country with all kinds of urgently needed supplies.