"Your Majesty, haven't you made a decision yet?"

Lin Dong, the minister of the Ming Dynasty to the Ottoman Empire, bowed slightly to Ahmet III with a reserved smile and asked. Pen | fun | pavilion www. ｂｉｑｕｇｅ。 ｉｎｆｏ

Just as he was saying this, a series of dull explosions suddenly came from outside, and at the same time, a slight tremor of the ground also reached his feet, and in the blue sky behind him, a stream of gunpowder smoke slowly rose, which was the sound of the Ming army starting to shell, but this was only a warning, as for whether to start the real bombardment, it depends on what choice Ahmet III makes.

At this time, His Majesty the Emperor seemed to have suddenly aged by more than ten years, although he was not yet fifty years old this year, but he already had gray hair.

It's pure melancholy.

Pity the original history of the Ottoman Empire at this time should be regarded as a prosperous era, because he likes tulips, so it is called the era of tulips, he used a series of Europeanized reforms to make this empire begin to modernize, but now he is just a humiliating emperor who is bullied to the doorstep, not to mention the king of the dead country, it looks not so far away, he really wants to ask Lord Zhen why is this? Is it because his faith is not religious enough? Or has the lord abandoned his people? Why did the infidels run rampant with Kafiel?

"Your Majesty, are you listening to me?"

Lin Dong continued to smile and asked.

"Your Excellency, you must first stop the shelling."

Ahmed III said.

"Your Majesty, it is very difficult for me to do this, you must know that I am just an ordinary diplomat, and the Admiral of the Mediterranean Fleet is a vice admiral and an earl, how can I have the authority to order him to do anything? And I belong to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to the Cabinet, but even the Prime Minister does not have the right to directly command the army, that must go through the General Staff, which is under the direct command of His Majesty the Emperor. Therefore, I need to report to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and then Lord Shangshu will report to the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister will go to the Holy Request, and then give an order to the Admiral of the Mediterranean Fleet through the General Staff. ”

Lin Dong said very sincerely.

"Your Excellency, we cannot agree to any of your terms while you are still bombarding our capital."

Yusuf said.

"No, no, you have to say yes."

Lin Dong said.

A group of Ottoman ministers and generals near him immediately drew their swords in a rage, cursing and cursing, obviously annoyed by his arrogant attitude, but Lin Dong ignored it, and still looked at Ahmet III with his very diplomatic smile.

"Accurate!"

Ahmet III gritted his teeth and squeezed out a word, then got up and left with a blushing face.

"Then, Your Excellency the Grand Vizier, please sign this indemnity agreement, and our fleet will remain in the Sea of Marmara for the time being until your country has fulfilled its agreement, and we will temporarily take over control of the Dardanelles until your country has fulfilled the agreement."

Immediately afterwards, Lin Dong took out a long-drawn agreement and handed it to Yusuf, and said in the latter's eyes like breathing fire.

Yusuf gritted his teeth and began to sign.

But then he stopped.

"What does that mean?"

He said, pointing to the extra one.

"Leased land, the main reason for this tragedy this time is that your country does not protect our citizens enough, in order to avoid such a thing in the future, we need to set up a separate lease in Istanbul for our merchants to live in, on this leased land, our people are self-governing, your country has no right to administer it, of course we will pay a certain amount of rent, and we have the right to station the necessary number of troops in the concession in case of accidents, and our warships have the right of free navigation in the straits."

Lin Dong explained kindly.

"Your Excellency the Grand Vizier, don't worry, we won't have too many troops, at most one battalion."

Then he added.

Yusuf snorted coldly, signed his name heavily, and the rest was handed over to Ahmet III for sealing, in fact, in his opinion, this is not a big deal, at this time, even if the Ming army let them cut the land, they can only nod and agree, after all, if they don't agree to the capital, they will let the people flatten, and besides, they haven't cut it, but it's just a concession, it doesn't matter, the only thing to worry about is that the Ming army is based on this, but just a battalion of garrisons is not worth mentioning, In fact, he himself didn't like those Ming merchants to infiltrate everywhere, and it would be better to set aside a separate residential area for them.

In this way, Daming obtained the first concession abroad, although there had been similar things before, but in the real sense of the concession, this is still the first one.

Of course, the Ming fleet had to stay in Istanbul until the Ottomans paid the 50 million dragon dollars, which was not a small amount, equivalent to 150 tons of gold, even though the Ottoman Empire had always been known for being rich, and after being sucked blood for so many years, it was not easy to take out so much at once.

Anyway, if they don't pay for it, the Ming army won't leave, and those Ming soldiers who are tired of playing in Egypt are now looking forward to the Ottoman girl!

And right now.

Paris.

"Freedom, democracy!"

In front of Notre-Dame, Voltaire raised his arms and chanted on a makeshift platform.

"We want to be free!"

Thousands of college students and civilians around him shouted the same cry, their shouts echoing through the sky, all with excited red on their faces, waving their arms like a surging wave, and more people were converging in the nearby streets, like a whirlpool, the size of the crowd was gradually growing, and even the women were joining in. Now this situation has been seen everywhere in Paris, the call for freedom, equality and democracy is becoming more and more deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, and because of the Estates-General, the elites gathered from the provinces to the city are the most important driving force behind this, Philip V gave the nobles what they wanted, and gave the clergy what they wanted, but the plebeian representatives were kicked aside, and the provincial representatives who were not willing to admit defeat were desperately trying to inspire the people, hoping to get what they deserved from Philip V.

But it didn't help.

Philip V didn't bother with these guys, and he knew very well that those councillors were also capable of playing tricks, and when his father was kicked out of the council hall with a horsewhip, he didn't see anyone dare to resist.

He was enjoying his good life at the Palace of Versailles, because he had reached a compromise with the French aristocracy and appointed Prince Condé as Prime Minister. A financial wizard like Lao amassed wealth for him, and he owned two first-class European powers and tens of millions of square kilometers of colonies, and his father's extravagance developed to the point of peaking. These days, the Palace of Versailles has a variety of banquets every day, not to mention the wine pond and meat forest, those nobles dressed up in a beautiful garden and splendid palace, singing, dancing, laughing and laughing, they don't care about the outside things, those ** noisy is a fart, the pigs in the pigsty often hum a few times together, there is no need to pay attention to it.

In their opinion, they can go on singing and dancing like this forever.

Their world is so wonderful!

"But how miserable our world is!"

A ragged pauper rushed to the stage, waving his arms and yelling in grief.

"This is what we eat!"

He held up a black loaf of bread with an unknown number of complex ingredients in his hand, and slammed it on the stage as he roared, and then the thing actually crashed into a stone with a sound and it didn't break, which shows how strong it takes to eat it.

"We're wearing this!"

Then he grabbed his clothes and yelled.

The stacks of coarse cloth had been washed and rotten, and with a little exertion, they were directly torn into rags.

"Why is that?"

He roared angrily.

"Aristocrats have been nobles for generations, and poor ghosts have been poor ghosts for generations! We are all the same people, why are we born unequal? We worked as cattle and horses in the farmland, we worked in the factory and the slaves in the Ming factory for eighteen hours a day, and we died like mud on the battlefield, but in exchange for only food and clothing.

Why is that?

We are not cattle and horses, we are people like them.

We want equality!

We want to be free!

We want our rights, we want the natural rights of each and every one of us! ”

He roared.

"We want natural rights!"

Then the listeners roared excitedly.

"A group of guts bandits, if they have the ability, they go to the Palace of Versailles, just to quarrel here, there is a use in arguing, they want rights, they want freedom, they want equality, just by shouting slogans? Take out some courage to stain the country with blood! Pie doesn't fall from the sky! Our freedom and equality have been bought with the blood of millions of Tartars, and our rights have not been shouted by slogans. ”

Not far from them, on a four-wheeled carriage drawn by four white Antalusian horses, a middle-aged man of yellow race said disdainfully.

"Baron, they don't have the guts, they will tremble before the gates of Versailles."

A white girl beside him said with a smile.

"Of course, if they had such guts, His Majesty would have trembled."

The man said with a smile.

At the same time, his hand stroked the girl's pin lightly, and gestured to her with his eyes, and the latter immediately showed a shyness on his face, and then pushed him and said coquettishly: "Don't make trouble, John. Mr. Law is still waiting for us! ”

"Then let him wait!"

The man said disdainfully.

But he still urged the coachman, and then the luxurious carriage encrusted with jewels set off and drove along the old stone streets of Paris, while there was a muffled wheezing sound from the car, and the body was shaking on the high-quality spring chassis, and after ten minutes, with a somewhat high-pitched scream, it finally stabilized, and by this time the carriage had reached a rather imposing Gothic building, and after a while, the man held the still flushed girl, Together, with elegant smiles, they stepped out of the carriage with a warm welcome from a group of white men.

"Your Excellency, welcome!"

A white man bowed to the yellow man.

"Mr. Lao, you are so polite!"

Han Guang, general manager of Société Géribas Bank, baron of the Ming Empire, and director of Daming Industrial Bank, smiled and said to the French Minister of Finance, the famous financial wizard, the owner of the Mississippi company, and the president of the Bank of France, John Law.

"Your Excellency, it is a contemptible honor to have you here."

John Law said with a smile.

Han Guang came to buy shares of the Mississippi Company, and the original history is different, this in the history of world finance, left a deep memory of the company, because of the interference of the historical process, until now appeared, the cause is the gold mines in the upper reaches of the Colorado River, the Mississippi Company has been with the help of the Ming expedition, found a gold mine and two silver mines, although the environment is harsh, the development is relatively difficult, and the attack of the Indians has not solved the security problem.

But it's already possible to circle money.

Under the hype of various ways, it is being glorified into a magical land full of gold and silver, where gold can be harvested with a casual shovel, and a frenzy of investment is being set off in France, and the Mississippi Company has been authorized to monopolize it, and even the French East India Company is going to merge into this company to complete the monopoly.

Of course, this is not a simple speculation, but a set of combo punches.

With the support of the gold and silver mines in the upper reaches of the Colorado River, Philip V authorized John Law to establish the Bank of France, and then issued paper money to the outside world, and at the same time John Law used the right to issue money to search for gold and silver in the country, and these gold and silver became Philip V's financial support, and the Mississippi Company was responsible for collecting paper money, to put it bluntly, they were empty gloves white wolf, using a gold and silver mine that has not yet been developed, and is not even sure whether it can be developed as a gimmick, attracting private capital to collect paper money, and receiving gold and silver to the Bank of France for Philip V to squander.

But this is not a pure hoax.

The gold and silver mines are all real, and France will definitely be able to seize them, which means that there will definitely be gold and silver, but ......

It's just ahead of schedule.

And that's the most important thing.

John Law now needs a gimmick that can strengthen the confidence of investors, after all, it is not so easy to get private capital to take out gold and silver coins, and his goal is to let the most wealthy Ming people buy at this time, in the Ming financial institutions in Paris, the Industrial Bank is the boss, this bank acts as an agent for one-third of the French and Ming trade settlements, if the Industrial Bank can buy a large amount of Mississippi company shares, then those rich French people will not hesitate.

In order to be able to take down Han Guang, he even used the beauty trick, sent a famous beauty in the Parisian social circle to Han Guang's bed, plus a bunch of jewels and antiques, plus a small manor, and finally invited the God of Wealth to his office.

Of course, he didn't know that there were more than just gold and silver coins in the pockets of this God of Wealth.

And knives.