On July 1, 1688, in the Ottoman Black Sea coastal city of Trabzon, the east coast ambassador to the Ottomans, Marati, was on his last business trip. (6) Eight (6) Eight (6) Read (6) Book, .□.≠o

According to the local order, he is about to leave the Ottoman Empire, where he has worked for many years, and return to the east coast with his family to become the head of the Black Sea Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Calculating the time, the new ambassador who came to replace him will arrive in a little more than a month, and he will be in the final settlement of work with the other party and leave this vast and vast country completely.

"Why is the new version of the dinar not very widely circulated in the market? Why have I been shopping for a long time, but I haven't seen many businesses using it? Wu Yifei, the commander of the Haji garrison, who was wandering the streets of Trabzon and leading two hundred soldiers of the garrison to escort a new batch of silver dinars to Trabzon {by the way, helped the Ottomans take away a large amount of military supplies and send them to the mouth of the Don River} hesitated a little before asking Marat a question after a long time.

"It should be the reason why bad money drives out good money. The gold and silver coins minted by the Turks are so poor that they don't want to keep them in their hands. Especially after we sent five batches of three million dinars to Istanbul, Burgas, Thessaloniki, Athens, and Smyrna, their original currency, the golden heptogenar, fell so much that almost no one wanted to hold it. On the contrary, because the coinage of the dinar was in our own hands, the Ottomans could not shoddy it and put it on the market, so the currency system was exceptionally strong and loved by many. Now, not only the Ottomans liked to hold this currency, but also the Venetians, Genasians, Dutch, and English who came to do business, and I estimate that the new dinar has flowed out of the country, mainly the foreign merchants who have been doing business with the Ottomans for many years, and they will hold the currency of the Ottoman Empire to facilitate their exchanges. Marati gave his entourage a few dinars and asked him to go to the street to buy some food, and then said to Wu Yifei helplessly: "Commander Wu, the 500,000 dinars you sent this time are afraid that it will not be long before they disappear into the vast Anatolian plateau and will never be circulated in the market again." Five million dinars is really nothing for a large country with a population of more than 30 million, too little. ”

"If it's not enough, let the Ottomans come to us again. They brought in the tattered silver coins that had been collected, and we recycled them proportionally, minted them into new dinars, and put them on the market. The rotten currency of golden Geng should have been withdrawn from the market a long time ago. Wu Yifei took a sip when he heard the words and said.

"It's not that easy." Marati shook his head and said, "Now that there are years of war, various countries are eager to issue more bad coins with poor quality." Not to mention the Ottomans, how much have countries like France and Spain depreciated their currencies over the years? The government's revenues are rising, but they are actually looting the people. Moreover, there is a limit to this kind of looting, and these countries are already living in difficulty because of the continuous war, and now they are issuing a large number of currencies with different colors, and the economic order is afraid to collapse. ”

Yes, in these years, the consumption of war is really too great, compared to the Middle Ages, I don't know how many times. Modern warfare could support several people in the Middle Ages, when only rations and few salaries were required. Not to mention the large consumption of war materials, which was incomparable to before, so many countries were a little unbearable, and had to issue bad money of poor quality on a large scale, looting their own people and foreign merchants holding their own currencies to fill the growing financial hole.

The finances of the Ottoman Empire were even worse than those of France. Many parts of the country have been ravaged by war, and their own tax collection efficiency is low, so after the indiscriminate issuance of currency has no obvious effect, it can only get a respite through foreign loans. Otherwise, they would resort to the last resort, which was to return to tradition, not pay the soldiers, but rations and military supplies, and then acquiesce to the plundering of the land, whether it was their own land or that of the enemy, which was also the traditional way for the Turkic soldiers to receive their salaries.

However, the side effects of this method of raising military salaries with a strong steppe legacy are also quite large, and the Ottoman Turkish Empire, which has established a feudal dynasty for more than 200 years, is absolutely unwilling to do so unless it is absolutely necessary. Otherwise, do you think the hat of the caliph on the head of Muhammad Sultan is still firmly worn?

Fortunately, after careful consideration, the people of the East Coast decided to obtain a loan from the Genas, which was then minted into a dinar and then relented to the Turks to help them solve their immediate needs. Of course, the five million dinars were certainly not enough, and the East Coasters had now obtained preliminary permission from some Amsterdam merchants, including the Dutch East India Company, and a new Dutch loan was about to be issued, and then the East Coasters could mint a new batch of money to lend to the Turks and put it on the market to save their precarious economic order.

"But seriously, the Ottoman Empire has been fighting for years in the north and west, and now it's time for it to end, right? I have heard that they have repeatedly approached French allies and asked them to send troops on the Western Front to contain the Austrians, and it is said that there is a good chance of success. Also, didn't the Ukrainian side just win the war? The Russians were defeated, and the pressure in the north was greatly reduced, so Amen could also devote more energy to the western front. I don't dare to say that the Austrians should be pushed back, at least they should maintain the current situation and wait for the opportunity to sign a ceasefire agreement, right? Wu Yifei looked at the bustling flow of people on the streets of Trabzon, and said with emotion: "A good life is the king, and you don't get anything in the end, thanks to panic." ”

"I also hope that they can end the war as soon as possible, so that our loans will not go down the drain. Moreover, when the war is over, the economy can develop better, and the commercial advantage we have obtained through loans can be better played. It is in our national interest to maintain a relatively weak but not collapsed Ottoman Empire. Marati said as he looked at the place that could be called his second home.

The war of the Ottoman Empire was so tragic that not only did it kill and wound countless soldiers, but also the land fell on a large scale, and the Christian lords in the country were even more popular, and it can be said that the foundation of the entire empire has been shaken. Now they desperately needed a precious respite for the opportunity to reorganize the political, economic, and military order in their country, even if for the time being to cede part of the country to the Austrians.

For this reason, they have strongly urged the Kingdom of France, which has traditionally enjoyed friendly and cooperative relations, to quickly send troops into the Rhine Valley of the Holy Roman Empire, and force the Austrians to move their main army westward (in fact, they have already transferred many troops back) to relieve them of pressure.

"The French are ready to move, the Turks still have a chance. This war was originally instigated and instigated by the French who lacked morality, otherwise the Ottomans might not have attacked Vienna in the short term, so the French had the obligation to help the Ottoman Empire wipe their butts. Let's see what they will do, with Louis XIV's great success and face-loving personality, it is quite possible. I hope that the Ottomans will eventually be able to keep Hungary and parts of the Dalmatian coast, and that the Principality of Moldavia will better be able to hold on, hopefully. Marati concluded.

Wu Yifei was also speechless, he could only shake his head slightly, as if he was worried about the fate of the Ottoman Empire, and at the same time worried about his own fate, after all, the leased land of Haji County also had many interests in the Ottomans. He once hoped that Lieutenant Colonel Mao Jun's Black Sea detachment would move to Hungary after withdrawing from the Don River valley to help the Ottoman Empire share some of the pressure, but now it seems impossible. It was impossible for Lieutenant Colonel Mao's troops to go to Hungary, let alone the Dalmatian coast, which was a relatively secondary battlefield (where some of the allied forces of the German princes were attacking), and the most likely place for them to go was to return to the barracks in Viana do Fiend, Portugal, and wait for the next possible military action.

It is said that they had co-opted a number of nomads and Cossacks in the Don valley, numbering about 2,000 people, and were bargaining with the plenipotentiary envoy Gawain Gang, intending to have him allocate a special fund to feed this force and bring it to Viana Fort. They are worried that there may be a series of military operations in the future, so they need to gather troops in advance, but they don't know what Gao Wengang will think about this matter. You know, he doesn't have a very good impression of the army, and he has always been disgusted with this kind of behavior that may greatly increase expenses.

However, Lieutenant Colonel Mao Jun's reason is also very strong, that is, they have a real need to intervene in the situation in the Netherlands. In the future, if William III succeeded in taking control of London, and then used the resources at his disposal to claim control of the United Provinces, the republicans alone might be a little weak. At this time, if the people on the east coast can intervene in time and help stabilize the situation with the backbone of the republican faction led by Van Boiningen, then things may not be able to change.

Moreover, Lieutenant Colonel Mao Jun did not forget to damage the navy, pointing out that with their words alone, it would not even be possible to completely blockade the North Sea and cut off the connection between London and Amsterdam. At the critical moment, once the Republicans passed a resolution in the Hague Parliament to expel William III from the United Provinces, they still had to rely on their East Coast Army to protect them, and the naval warships could not climb ashore.

Gao Wengang is believed to be in a difficult situation now, and he is a little undecided. He wanted to intervene in the United Provinces to ensure that William III did not become a Dutch-England co-ruler, but at the same time he did not want to make things too big and affect all aspects, including commercial interests. All in all, it is indecisive, and to put it mildly, it is to do big things and spare yourself. In contrast, in this regard, it is still a soldier to be more decisive, and to shoot when it is time to shoot, instead of suffering from gains and losses like someone high, calculating and calculating, and finally the bamboo basket is empty.

Although Marati spent most of the year in the Ottoman Empire, he also knew something about it. He had read classified diplomatic documents and knew that the navy was moving its main warships north to the Cape Verde Islands and Portugal, and was ready for battle at any time. He estimated that in the future, if William III really served as both consul of the United Provinces and king of England, then these warships would go north from Portugal and enter the waters of the North Sea, cutting off the connection between England and the United Provinces. The gamble of the East Coasters was that the capitalists of England were not well bound up with the interests of William III, and were unwilling to fight the East Coasters at sea for the sake of his position in the United Provinces. In addition, they also bet that the republicans could create a strong public opinion in the Netherlands, soften the position of the Dutch navy, and keep them from being enemies of the East Coasters, so as to achieve the ultimate goal.

All in all, this is a "chiluo" naked interference. For the people of the East Coast really did not want to see the combination of Dutch commercial capital and English industrial capital, but at the slightest opportunity, they would do their best to prevent such a thing from happening, and they did not hesitate to send a large number of naval warships for this purpose.

Of course, if neither England nor the United Provinces are affected, and their navies unite to fight a naval battle with the East Coast in the North Sea, then I am afraid that the East Coast will have to weigh whether to fight this war or not. But whatever the plans for the future, it seems that this is the right time to take advantage of the stability of the situation in the Black Sea and return to Portugal to be fully prepared.