Egil nodded, "Messenger, you are very good. Coupling is not about your eloquence, or your wisdom. What I say is your courage. What kind of office do you hold in Bavaria, what is the title, and if you want to serve in the Norman Empire, you will be given three times as much. How?"

The baron became an earl, and the territory and land increased threefold in an instant. And the other party is a Norman emperor, and it is almost impossible to deceive himself...... It's simply that.

For a moment, Wallenstein almost agreed. Eventually, however, the Bavarian envoy paused for a few seconds, and then the sharp nails of his right hand, which was tucked into his sleeve, squeezed the flesh of his palm, and it was only after a sharp pain that he came to his senses.

"Your Majesty is gracious.

It's a pity that the foreign minister has no blessings. Then Wallenstein lowered his head and said in a deep voice, "This is like an emperor." Just two sentences make people's hearts shake...... That Albert is a ...... in comparison," Wallenstein reluctantly stopped himself from thinking further: quietly waiting for Egil's next response.

"Oh, that's a shame. Unexpectedly, Egil just smiled playfully, and did not dwell on this issue again. Wallenstein looked up at the Norman Emperor with a mocking expression, knowing that he had probably been tricked. I couldn't help but smile bitterly twice. Taking a step back is no longer strong.

"Anyway, the position of the Duke of Badelia will probably not move. I'll leave the rest to someone else. ”

So, in the end, after an unequal negotiation, the two sides did not reach any agreement. During this time, the emissaries from the Papal States also tried to threaten Egil with the Broken Door. As a result, Egil said lightly: "Most of the Empire's offshore naval fleet has already been deployed on the island of Malta, right?" -- indeed, according to Marshal Carter's information from the flying pigeon a month earlier, the offshore fleet had landed on the island of Malta and had set up a temporary and rudimentary base on the great central island.

At the same time, Marshal Carter also reported that the island of Malta was a fortified harbor with many natural harbors and difficult to defend and difficult to attack, and that it could be designed and built as a fortified harbor if more investment was made. Forts, garrisoned by armies and navies, became the wedges and bases of the Empire in the Mediterranean. Lay the groundwork for the Empire's next step in taking control of the Mediterranean.

In fact, Egil thinks the same way. If the Baltic Circle's share of trade is a florin's gold coin, then the Mediterranean's share of trade is a whole piece of raw gold. Egil often fantasizes often. What a great occasion it would be if he could monopolize the trade of the entire Mediterranean as he had monopolized the Baltic trade. At that time, he couldn't say 20 million, even if it was 200 million, 2 billion, he would take it out......

Unfortunately, the Norman Empire dominated the north. The Mediterranean, on the other hand, is too far away. Although you can enter the Mediterranean Sea by taking the waterways of Eastern Europe or bypassing the Strait of Gibraltar. But it's still too far away. Norman merchants and merchant fleets often suffered from such trade. Not much profit.

It seems that an emperor like Egil, who is crazy about money, and looks at so much real money in the Mediterranean Sea and can't get his hands on it, the feeling is similar to that of an opium ghost watching others swallow clouds and spitting fog, but he can only pound the wall on one side. It almost drove His Majesty the Emperor crazy. This is why Egil gave an unusually harsh order: to have the entire offshore fleet circumnavigate most of Europe and then occupy the island of Malta.

Of course, in addition to a very good geographical base, it is not enough, and if Egil wants to have an advantage in the trade in the Mediterranean, he must have a base closer to the Mediterranean. Say, for example, the Crimean peninsula.

Egil's next goal was to unite the forces of Eastern Europe and take the Crimean peninsula. Even if war with the Eastern Romans broke out again because of this, he would not hesitate to do so. Or rather, it's better to drink the Eastern Roman Dead Knock again. Defeated them and directly gained privileges in and out of the Dardanelles. Otherwise, it would not be worth the effort of the trial to obtain an outlet to the Black Sea.

So, after the first day of reception, Egil pushed these troublesome guests to the Royal Counsellor to deal with Talelang, who was temporarily the Minister of Foreign Affairs. Egil demanded that the poor official "knock me out at least half a hundred thousand gold coins," and then he went headlong into the finance section and dealt with the abacus beads. ,

Eventually, Egil made the decision to raise taxes: the Öresund aqueduct, the mercantile tax, the toll tax, the turnover tax, and the seigniorage.

That's right, the most terrifying, the most inhumane, the most headache of the legend, and there is absolutely no way to evade taxes: seigniorage.

To put it bluntly, it is the mixing of other metals into the gold and silver coins and even copper plates that are issued. Originally, the gold coins issued during the Norman Kingdom were ninety percent gold, and the silver coins were eighty percent, and the copper plate was the steel plate, which was minted by the Noryan Royal Mint, and passed through the Hui countries and even became popular in various parts of Europe. When the Norman Empire was founded, the Imperial Gold Coin was reminted with the head of Egil on the obverse and the four-winged and three-clawed phoenix on the reverse. The obverse of the coin shows the head of Artoria, and the red dragon of Britain to the north. Copper plates are still copper plates.

It's just that the pattern looks better, and the embossing machine is getting more and more advanced. However, the gold content of the gold coin has dropped by 10%, and the silver coin is mixed with half of copper, and the copper plate is not a copper plate this time, but is mixed with 20% lead or iron. And although it may not seem obvious, these coins are actually a little smaller than before. However, the edges of the new coins are gear-shaped, so you can't really see them if you don't look closely...... Even, if it weren't for Aurora's fierce opposition, Egil would have wanted to introduce iron coins and mix them with copper coins.

"If you do that, your prestige will basically be lost. Moreover, people's morale will also decline, and at the same time, it will also cause vicious events such as inflation. Are you sure you're really going to do that?" Aurora asked Egil again after he had written a resolution such as "Levying a seigniorage."

"What kind of society do you think I come from? It was an outrageous era of seigniorage! The group of prisoners and immigrant Protestants in North America desperately printed waste paper, relying on their status as the world's currency to collect whole pounds, and the world's seigniorage was tongued! What is the world hegemon? This is the world hegemon!!

Eventually, Egil's taxes went up a lot. The monthly income rose from 500,000 to nearly 700,000. Of course, as a punishment, the price of each and the building also increased slightly. But it's all within acceptable limits. Although there were also a small number of people with keen senses who were aware of the changes in the currency of the Norman Empire. But the fact is that the embossing machine used to mint the coinage is now the only one without a semicolon, and the currency of the Norman Empire has depreciated a little, albeit a little, because of its beautifully printed and uniform portions. However, the circulation situation is still good.

Negotiations between the Norman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire eventually came to fruition. After Talleyrand's arguments, the Holy Roman Empire finally bowed its head, offering to pay 500,000 gold in war reparations and recognizing the Norman Empire's dominance over North Saxony. And after Egil's approval, Talleyrand also proposed the concession of the Norman review of the state. That is, the renunciation of Swabia occupied in the previous war, as well as the territory of North Germany. And renounce the continuation of revenge against the Hohenstaufens.

Henry Henry, the son of Frederick, was allowed to inherit the Duchy of Swabia under the Hohenstaufen family.

Of course, the Holy Roman Empire is not a rich country, and 500,000 gold coins must be put together by those dukes to make up enough work, and the Papal States acted as a guarantor and witness in this peace conference, and the annoying bishop did not forget to disgust Egil before leaving, and announced in public that the result of this peace conference was because of the Norman Emperor's reverence for the Holy See in the Catholic world, the Holy See was the ultimate emperor, and the referee and the ruler's tone of Egil almost tore the peace treaty directly and threw him in the face.

But in the end, Egil endured.

"In the future, when the special code is going to die or live, I will see that Lao Tzu will take care of you. Egil swore in his heart that he had decided to leave the European political circle for a while and concentrate on running an acre of land in Eastern Europe. When his strength was enough, he set up another Holy See, sent a navy to land in the Apennines, and destroyed Ya Ting.

In May 1004, the war between the Norman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire finally came to an end: a truce was concluded between the two sides, declaring that they would not take any form of hostility against each other for five years. At the same time, as a supplementary treaty, the commercial treaty between the Normans and the Holy Roman Empire was again changed, stipulating that Norman merchants in North Germany enjoyed preferential conditions such as exemption from tolls, low customs duties, low commercial taxes, and so on.

At the same time, the Norman Empire also opened its market to the Holy Roman Tribunal, and gave preferential tax treatment to the Holy Pony Empire. But in fact, the Norman Empire was sufficient for self-sufficiency in all sorts of ordinary goods, and in terms of prices it was cheaper than that of the Holy Roman Empire. And the Holy Roman Empire did not have any decent special products, so the trade between the two sides has always been dominated by the Norman Empire, in a surplus position.

However, judging from these small things, this peace treaty is relatively successful. Egir temporarily abandoned his plans to go south to Germany, and the states of the Holy Roman Empire were busy with their own affairs, and neither side had any intention of attacking the other again. At this point, the turmoil that had lasted for nearly two years finally came to an end. After a boil, the countries of the European continent once again fell into a stagnant silence......". ）