Gauwengang's negotiations with the Spaniards on the eastern part of the Pampa Plain went back and forth for two or three days.

King Carlos and Prince Don Juan sent their men to negotiate for the next two days, except for the first day, probably because they were tired of this "boring war of words". But in any case, handing over professional things to professional people is indeed the basic quality of the superiors, and the people below have indeed completed the task well.

First, the Spaniards finally succeeded in forcing the easterners to agree to a clause that they could not cross the railway line to the west for a specified period of time, and this so-called "stipulated time" was tentatively set at twenty years. It was a victory for the Spaniards, who succeeded in keeping the western half of the Pampa Plain, with a mild climate, moderate precipitation, fertile soil, and flat terrain, away from the people of the east coast for twenty years.

Of course, this so-called "victory" is very sad, because they did not prevent the fall of the eastern half of the Pampa Plain, but finally agreed that the people of the east bank could go to these areas to operate various industries, including agriculture. Yes, that's right, it's not an exaggeration to use the word "fall", and Gain, both the Spaniards and the East Coasters, knew in their hearts that this was a de facto abandonment of the land east of the Salt Cloth Railway.

Imagine who could drive tens of thousands of East Coast peasants, merchants, craftsmen, mercenaries, and exiles away? They have cultivated land here, planted grain, fruits, and vegetables, grazed cattle and sheep, fished and kept bees, and the industry has formed a certain scale, and the East Coast government will send people to manage it either explicitly or covertly, and 10,000 percent will not leave! You are not stupid, you can still figure this out, and the region of Mesopotamia (i.e., the Transopathy) is a good example.

The Spaniards estimate that the people on the east coast are now promising to pay the Spanish side about 150,000 pesos a year in "royalties", and may pay a so-called tax of tens of thousands of pesos, which will kill 200,000 pesos a year. These expenses, to put it bluntly, are the appeasement expenses for the Spanish side, which shows that we people on the East Coast still have a bottom line and rules for doing things, and they will not come in vain. However, after ten or twenty years, I am afraid that the people on the east coast will take the opportunity to make trouble again, that is, to find a way to get the land east of the Yanbu Railway in black and white into the hands of the East Bank Republic, and give the Spaniards at most one or two million pesos in compensation.

But that's pretty good, too! Don't you see, the inheritance transfer war will the French rob more than a dozen wealthy towns such as Lille and Thierre in the South Netherlands, and can they give money? The Free City of Strasbourg and many nearby towns still exchanged half of Hispaniola Island for the sake of the face of the people on the east coast, but those cities in the South Netherlands that could provide a lot of taxes were taken directly and openly without giving a peso, and the allies of the United Provinces and their relatives Austria did not help Spain fight for the interests of Spain in this regard, so it is better to be an outsider on the east coast!

Moreover, the district of the Prosecutor's Court of Buenos Aires was nothing more than a temporary deserted place that had not been in many years, and which was of little benefit to the Kingdom of Spain. In fact, as long as several important cities including Buenos Aires, Rosario, and Santa Fe are kept, and the people on the east coast promise that Spanish ships can freely navigate the Paraná and La Plata rivers, then everything is easy to say, after all, La Plata's greatest significance to the Spanish kingdom is the backup route for silver ships.

Therefore, after thinking that they could get some money from the East Coast and at the same time ensure that Buenos Aires and other places would not be lost in a short time, considering the turmoil of the domestic situation and the heavy pressure from abroad, King Carlos and Prince Don Juan finally nodded to the East Coast people's request. At present, Gao Wengang has drawn up a text of the agreement with them, and intends to arrange a ship next month to send the text of the agreement and some other important diplomatic letters back to the mainland through a sail fast liaison ship, and submit it to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Executive Committee for review and approval.

After the Spanish affair, the East Coast Plenipotentiary Envoy to Europe, Gao Wengang, spent a few days exploring Madrid and the surrounding area, and then rode east, sailing in Barcelona and heading east to the Ottoman port of Smyrna, where he would stay for a long time to attend to some important business.

On April 28, 1679, the ship of Gao Wengang and others arrived at Smyrna, the largest port of the Ottoman Empire, and as soon as they arrived, they received a report from the head of the local trading post, and the Ottoman side asked them to rush to Moldavia as soon as possible, and the orthodox army was stationed there.

Originally, a person of Gao Wengang's status, even if he was the Grand Vidzi Koplulu of the Ottoman Empire, would have to be polite when he saw it, how could he not be summoned by a Qiu Ba who said so. Especially now that the Ottoman Empire has been at war for many years and money shortages have reappeared (the country has experienced many money shortages in the last five years, each time bringing great difficulties to trade), the people of the East Coast have been in a depression in this country, and there is not much incentive to move around. But who let Gao Wengang want to do something when he took office, and he didn't see the trading posts in Kaffa, Haji, and Burgas many times, so he finally planned to go north to the Black Sea.

On the way north to Moldavia, Gao Wengang also brought the ambassador to Istanbul, Marati, and asked them many questions along the way, mainly about the current situation in the Ottoman and the Black Sea.

"The Ottoman Empire's economy was on the verge of collapse." Marati has been working in the Ottomans for more than ten or twenty years, and as soon as he opened his mouth, Gawain was startled, and he only heard him say: "The expenditure of 200,000 troops is not a small amount, and it seems that only countries like France and the Ottomans with a population of more than 20 million or 30 million can afford to maintain it." Although the Ottomans have a population of 30 million, the industrial base is weak, the internal friction is also large, the government tax base is small, and the war with the Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian Cossacks has been waged for many years, and the consumption is huge, and now it has shown a very serious fatigue. ”

"Why haven't you ended up with Poland yet? Now the Russians have repeatedly increased their forces in eastern Ukraine, from 40,000 to 70,000, right? No matter how many Ottoman soldiers there are, they can't stand the situation of being attacked on their backs, what do you think? Gao Wengang was really a little helpless, before he left Istanbul for Amsterdam to take office, the Ottomans and Poland were fighting to the death, and after going there, I once heard that the war had subsided, but now why does it sound like it is not over yet?

"It has basically subsided, but the small war has never stopped, because the Ottomans not only occupy the Podolia region of Poland, but also control most of Western Ukraine, which were originally Polish territory, and no one will have to hurry, let alone an ambitious king like Sobiesky." Marati spread his hands and said helplessly: "Koprulu is too greedy, Portolia was captured by him in person, and the Poles also signed the land cession treaty, which is his important merit, so he can't let go no matter what." Doroshenko was also the one he strongly advocated to take in and named the Hetman of Western Ukraine, and now he is disheartened, and the capital of Western Ukraine is occupied by Samoilovich's people, so you can't sit idly by. So, you see, the Ottomans fought on two sides, at the same time with Poland and Russia in two directions, and the Cossacks in Western Ukraine were actually unstable and more hostile to the Ottomans, which can be seen from the fact that Khmelnitsky could not recruit anyone. ”

In other words, the Cossacks of Western Ukraine were also Christians in the end, and naturally they were extremely distrustful of the Ottomans. Although the situation is forced to be ruled by the Ottomans, there is not much collusion with Samoilovich in eastern Ukraine in private, and several battles have been directly waterproofed, as evidenced by the fact that its capital, Chijilin, was lost without a major war.

The Ottomans had no choice but to release Yuri Khmelnitsky (son of the leader of the Great Cossack Uprising) who was imprisoned by Doroshenko (son of Khmelnitsky the Elder), and then gave him some men and supplies, and gave him the title of "Little Rus and Duke of Ukraine", making him a puppet of Western Ukraine and recovering Chijilin.

But at present, it seems that the effect is still very limited, first of all, his appeal is not as strong as his father, and secondly, Western Ukraine has almost been beaten into white ground, with heavy losses, and even the temporary capital Nemirov City is in ruins. As a last resort, the Ottomans had to go into battle in person, drawing men and horses from the large army stationed in Moldavia to defend the Poles and moving east into Ukraine, and together with the men and horses of Khmelnitsky the Younger, besieging Samoilovich's Cossacks and Russian troops.

Throughout 1678 and 1679, the Ottoman army fought bitterly against the Russians, culminating in the previous year's recapture of Chijirin, which had been razed to the ground. In this war, Eastern Ukraine and the Russian army suffered heavy losses, but the losses of the Ottomans were not light at all, in the two-year-long tug-of-war war, the Ottoman Empire killed and wounded tens of thousands of soldiers, consumed countless money and materials, coupled with domestic economic difficulties, the lost equipment could not be purchased and replenished in time, and they could only try to produce their own products again, which was simply a vicious circle.

Moreover, although Samoilovich of eastern Ukraine was expelled from the West Bank, he has been constantly sending people to infiltrate the West Bank, and with the support of the Belt and Road Party, he has continued to easily capture one town after another, and then forcibly send the population to the east, destroying local city fortresses, fields and houses.

In contrast to this powerful Eastern Ukrainian chieftain, Khmelnitsky the Younger could only suppress the rebellions that broke out everywhere, except for constantly imposing heavy taxes on the few remaining people. Moreover, this feeling of exhaustion and the extremely depressed atmosphere also crushed the poor man's heart, and he became irritable, sensitive, suspicious and impulsive, not only suffered defeat in the war, but also beat and scolded and punished his subordinates at every turn, and as a result, the whole of Western Ukraine became more alienated, and almost every month the Cossack leader crossed the river with men and horses to the east to Samoilovich.

"In this way, Western Ukraine is now a papier-mâché house, which is maintained by the Ottoman garrison. Once they withdraw, they may not need Duke Romodanovsky's Russian troops to dispatch, and Samoilovich himself alone will probably be able to dominate both sides of the Dnieper. Gao Wengang patted his thigh and said with some suffocation.

Although he had a rough understanding of the current situation in Ukraine in some official documents, after a careful chat with Marati, he found that the situation was far more complicated and serious than he imagined. It can be said that now the Ottomans are really trapped in this big pit, at least partially, and they have been dragged here by forty or fifty thousand more elite men and horses all year round, and it is very difficult to do anything. You must know that although the Ottomans sent out 200,000 troops at every turn, at least more than half of them were made up, and these servant soldiers from the Arabian Peninsula, the Balkans, and the Caucasus had different thoughts.

Therefore, the Ottoman Empire could not really fight as many troops as imagined, and the whole country would not exceed 100,000 people, and half of them were trapped in Ukraine, and at the same time they had to face the pressure of the Poles, believing that if the Austrians had not signed a treaty with them and it had not expired, the coalition forces from Germany would have probably entered Serbia.

"We must help the Ottomans 'lighten the burden,'" Marati said, "that is, first let them stop the war with the Poles, withdraw the large troops stationed in Podolia and Moldavia, and then find a way to negotiate peace with the Russians, and each country will bind its own Cossacks in its own territory and secure its own borders." Speaking of which, these two countries have already signed a treaty and are at peace with each other, but Doroshenko and Samoilovich are so annoying that they actually leveraged the situation, so that Russia, Ottomans, and Crimea were all involved, and they fought for several years, what is this plan? Is the country unified? ”

"The war in Ukraine really has to be calmed down, otherwise our Black Sea trade will be completely ruined, although the current trade volume has fallen to a very pitiful level." Gao Wengang nodded, and said in an accentuated tone: "The Dnieper, the Don, and the Danube cannot be caught in endless wars!" ”