Istanbul, August 25, 1646.

For Nasukh. Zade. Hussein Pasha said that the people of the East Coast were destined to be entangled with him. In his early years, when he was still serving as a Syrian Pasha in Aleppo, he was invited by his friends Pasha of the Navy and Pasha of Egypt to start a business with the people of the East Coast. In the beginning, their business was mainly limited to the field of arms, and then gradually expanded to all kinds of textiles, dyed leather goods, hardware products, metal utensils, etc., and the scale of the business was also getting bigger and bigger, and everyone also took the opportunity to make a fortune.

Last year, the scale of business between the two sides climbed to a new level. Nasukhpasha was one of the discerning Easterners who bought slave girls from the Crimean Khanate on the behalf of a merchant group with many powerful Ottoman officials standing behind them. The business was so large that he was able to get a share of more than 20,000 East Coast dollars a year, which provided a large amount of money for his family's investments in the newly occupied areas of the imperial Caucasus.

Nasukh Pasha made an appointment with Mr. Mo San, the diplomatic envoy plenipotentiary of the East Coast Republic of China, in his private café. Just now, the manservant had already informed him that Mr. Mo San had arrived downstairs and was about to go upstairs to meet the Venerable Pasha. In reverie, there was a creak of wooden stairs, and the furious Mo San had already entered the quiet room of the café.

"Coffee again?" Mo San shook his head with a smile, took off his hat and handed it to the manservant, and then sat down very casually opposite Nasukhpasha, rummaged through his leather briefcase, and found a paper document from it.

Nasukh Pasha sat quietly across from Mo San, staring at the man with brown eyes looking at what the man was messing with. He and Mo San are already very acquainted, and one of his sons is even learning Chinese with Mo San. Mo San also often gave him some precious gifts from the East. The relationship between the two parties is very harmonious.

"Dear friends. You already know what I'm here for, right? Mo San looked at Wen Jiàn and said, "If nothing else, the battleship Bayezid will be officially completed by the end of October 1646, well, there are still two months left before completion." Your envoy to our country has sent back a confirmation message, and your sailors are already on their way, so it is time for us to talk about something else. ”

The two graceful maids offered fragrant coffee, and Nasukh Pasha closed his eyes and took a sip. Then he said: "Of course, this is a sign of the further deepening of relations between our two countries. There is no doubt that the commercial terms promised by our country will be fulfilled one by one. ”

"It's great that your country has chosen you as a negotiator." Mo San smiled, then handed the text in his hand to Nasukh Pasha and explained: "This is the memorandum of terms and conditions I wrote about the cooperation between your two countries, you can see if there are any problems." If that is all right, we can now have an informal, principled consultation on these articles. As for the specifics, I'll leave it to the formal talks between the two sides. ”

Nasukh Pasha nodded, did not speak again, and then looked at the text written in Spanish to himself. He saw it quickly. It didn't take long to finish reading both pages.

"Why did the treaty ports become five?" Nasukhpasha frowned and said, "Smyrna, Thessaloniki, Burgas, and Suez are the ports we have planned for your merchants to trade. Preferential tax rates are available for transactions within the port. But why is your country now proposing to include the port of Kaffa in the list of treaty ports? I need an explanation. ”

"The explanation is that our country also wants to do business with the Crimean Khanate, which has a great future." Mo San said bluntly, as if the person sitting in front of him was not a foreign negotiating envoy, but his neighbor and friend.

"But that's the Jew's sphere of influence, and they're not going to allow anyone else to take it away from them." Nasukh Pasha also said unabashedly: "Those Jews are not simple, and behind them stands the Queen Mother Kosam Sultan. This kind of naked robbery of other people's business will cause others to rebound. ”

"We are just selling arms to those Crimea, flintlock rifles, flintlock pistols, bombs, sabers, armor, spears, artillery, etc., so that they can better plunder slaves for everyone. As far as I know, the scope of arms and the business of the Jewish merchants do not coincide, or the overlap is not high, and it will not cause much backlash. ”

"Well, since you think so, it doesn't matter to me, so have you figured out who will take care of this business?"

"Of course, the business is still to take care of old friends, and the Azov Chamber of Commerce (that is, the Chamber of Commerce in which Nasukh Pasha has a stake) has accumulated a lot of experience and contacts when running the slave girl business, so if you don't bother the two masters, you can also leave it to them."

"I'm relieved that you think so." Nasukhpasha, who looked at Mo San, suddenly smiled, "I'm afraid that you suddenly can't think about it and want to do this business alone." I don't care, but the guards and the palace eunuchs who are involved in the Azov Chamber of Commerce will not be so generous, and now that they are pulled, they are not afraid that those Jewish merchants will make trouble again. Moreover, isn't it just to add a port of Kaffa as a treaty port, although it is nominally the territory of the Crimean Khanate, but the problem is not big, we can call the shots. ”

"The second question is, is there a problem that His Majesty Ibrahim has preliminarily decided that the road from Istanbul to Adriatic (Edirne) must start by June in the first half of next year?"

"No problem. We have stockpiled a large number of construction materials in Xinhua Port, and the brick kiln factory and cement factory there are also working day and night, so we will not delay these things. Mo San immediately replied skillfully.

Construction materials exported to the Ottoman Empire were mainly cement, which was used for the construction of high-grade roads and road drainage facilities. This mainly depends on the production of major local cement kilns, as for the cement plant in Xinhua Port, the current output is still very limited. Moreover, the air humidity there is too great, and the cement produced is easy to get wet, so the export of cement and other building materials to the Ottoman Empire is mainly local, supplemented by New China.

"You should also be ready for the expansion of the port of Smyrna and the port of Suez. In addition, there is also the horse-drawn track of the Kaffa iron mine, all of which will start within the year, and I don't want to delay the construction due to the lack of building materials, which will be very displeasing to my majesty. The engineering and technical personnel who will guide the construction of the above facilities, the supporting construction tools, the dock machine and 50 heavy freight wagons will also arrive at the site by the end of next year. ”

In addition to the construction of a high-grade war-ready road, the East Coasters were awarded contracts to provide construction materials, construction tools and technical services for the upcoming expansion of the ports of Smyrna and Suez, as well as the upcoming construction of the Kaffa Iron Ore Railway, from the mine to the wharf. These projects require a large number of cement, bricks, hardwood, iron components, asphalt, tar and other materials, which have a huge role in stimulating the industrial development of the East Coast Republic of China, and can promote many industries to expand production capacity and enter a period of rapid development. In addition, the East Coasters will send a large number of experienced engineers and technicians to various construction sites in the Ottoman Empire to guide the local construction teams in the construction of various facilities, of course, for a fee.

The total value of these contracts is close to 1.3 million yuan (including technical service costs), which will be completed within five years, and it is conservatively estimated that it will bring more than 100,000 yuan of profits to the country every year, and will greatly promote the development of related industries in China. The Ottomans will also pay the cost according to the construction period agreed by the two parties, and all the costs will be paid within two years after completion, and if there are maintenance, expansion, and additional equipment in the future, they will also be given priority to purchase from the East Coast Republic of China.

This package is staggering, both in terms of gross profit and profit margins. The profit margin is conservatively estimated to be more than 50%, and the reason for this high is mainly due to the low cost of large-scale industrial production by the East Coasters, and the fact that iron ore, limestone, and logs, which are used as raw materials, are not included in the cost. The so-called costs of the East Coast people actually only include wages, production and maintenance costs, and transportation costs, so their profit margins are relatively high.

After Nasukh Pasha said this, he saw that Mo San had no doubts, so he nodded, and then said lightly: "Then it's no problem, the specific construction details, payment method and time of each project will be left to his subordinates to discuss in detail, so we don't have to worry too much about it." Well, the battleship also has to be delivered as much as possible. You are also well informed, and you should know that our navy has suffered many losses in skirmishes with the Venetian fleet recently, and has sunk several warships by the Venetians. Two of the ships purchased from you have also been sunk and one burned, and the only remaining one is currently docked in the harbor of Burgas in case of a Cossack attack, and we are in dire need of a powerful ship like the Bayezid against the Venetians. Otherwise, I suspect that the Venetians will soon blockade the Dardanelles again, which will be very disadvantageous to us. ”

Mo San nodded silently when he heard this. But then he thought about what Christendom would think of the battleship Bayezid when it sailed back to the Aegean Sea. Will they stop it? If so, the battleship Bayezid may be in big trouble when it passes through the Strait of Gibraltar, and will the Kingdom of Spain, which claims to be the guardian of the Catholic world, ban it? Will the Eastern Fleet, which escorted the battleship Bayezid, also be treated unfairly?

If things do get bigger, will the Ottoman Empire also be drawn into a possible war between the East Coast and Spain? (To be continued......)