I, Chen Beixuan, have been acting all my life, so why do I need to explain it to you?

……

Ahem, I'm sorry, I got the wrong script.

It should be that I, Chen Muwu, have acted all my life and never lied to others.

I said that there is oil near the Mediterranean, then there must be oil near the Mediterranean, and I definitely did not point to the map and casually fabricate false news for the sake of perfunctory inquiries from the bald head on the other side.

Europeans who uphold the Eurocentric concept are likely to wonder after listening to Chen Muwu's answer, where are the countries around the Mediterranean Sea rich in oil? Why don't you know?

Italy is near the Mediterranean, France is near the Mediterranean, Spain is near the Mediterranean, and there is nothing wrong with that.

But the Mediterranean coast includes not only these great powers and the seemingly strong, but in fact almost meaningless European countries.

Chen Muwu took advantage of the pride and arrogance of Europeans, so he made the two people on the other side of the table scratch their heads.

They have completely forgotten that they are on the other side of the Mediterranean, and each has a piece of their own country's backyard.

France is the whole of Northwest Africa, including Algeria, and Italy is the same one who once tried to stand up to the United Nations five on its own...... The good man of Cardazzo in Libya.

Now this place is not called Libya, but Tripolitania and the Cyrenaica colony.

This land was not acquired by Italy after dozens of centuries of painstaking invasion and occupation like Britain and France, but was snatched from Turkey, the "sick man of West Asia".

Although the Ottoman Empire once had unlimited scenery, its territory occupied three continents of Asia, Europe and Africa, and it was able to wrestle with European countries along the Mediterranean Sea in its heyday, but since entering modern times, the Ottomans have also declined rapidly like the Qing Dynasty, and the original territory has been encroached upon by European powers piece by piece.

Although Italy was a late unification, after its national strength gradually increased, it wondered if it could carve out a piece of land of its own on the Mediterranean coast like the French next door.

In order to occupy Libya, Italy took a lot of effort, they began to send Catholic missionaries to infiltrate there many years ago, and then provoked the Italo-Turkish War in 1911, relying on the victory of the war to force the Ottoman Turkey to sign the "Lausanne Treaty" in Lausanne, Switzerland, officially the two lands of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica from the Ottomans into their territory, called Italian North Africa.

Especially the one sitting opposite Chen Muwu today, after he came to power, he made a lot of investment and development in this African colony, and in order to facilitate management, he split Italian North Africa into two colonies, Italian Cyrenaica and Italian Tripolitania.

Generally speaking, the great powers have three purposes for opening up colonies, one is resource plunder, because of the development of science and technology, the suzerainty needs a lot of resources, but for various reasons, the country cannot provide it for a period of time, so it is necessary to open up colonies, establish plantations in the tropics, plunder cash crops such as sugar, tea and tobacco, and carry out slave trade incidentally.

Then the two industrial revolutions broke out, and although the things needed by Western countries changed from sugar and tobacco to industrial raw materials, cotton, wool, coal, iron, copper, tin and other metal ores, their barren homeland still could not provide it, and they could only continue to plunder from their colonies in their respective countries, or buy from other countries.

The Industrial Revolution not only required a large amount of raw materials, but also brought more or even a surplus of manufactured goods because of the development of productive forces.

Because the European market was saturated, in order to be able to consume all these manufactured goods and not cause a large accumulation in their own countries, they had to be shipped to overseas markets for dumping, so the colonies had their second role, that is, as an outpost of their own trade in other regions.

This was the initial purpose of the various colonial concessions established by the great powers in China, which was to trade with the Qing Dynasty, which was closed off from the rest of the country, so there were various wars and various unequal treaties in modern times.

It was only after the opening of trade that these concessions took on the role of plundering resources from China.

And the third role of the colonies was what Italy had done in Libya.

In some countries, where there are fewer people and more people, the two industrial revolutions have brought not only a surplus of manufactured goods at home, but also a growing population in the country.

Therefore, in order to stabilize the country, they had to find other suitable places to live and immigrate, so the Dutch chose South Africa and became the Boers there, while they chose Brazil in South America, as well as the noisy peninsula and the three eastern provinces, and even tried to encroach on China.

Italy, with its long and narrow terrain and mountainous territory, also ushered in a rapid population growth after the reunification of the country, so they set their colonial targets on Libya on the other side of the Mediterranean.

After winning this colony from the Ottoman Turks, what the Italian government did was to move the indigenous people from the coastal areas suitable for living to the less suitable areas of the interior, and then from the country across the Mediterranean, bringing in a large number of native immigrants, occupying the land vacated by the natives, and building their own cities here, building ports, railways, and all kinds of industries and basic living facilities. They genuinely regard this as their own territory, and affectionately call this newly acquired land "the fourth coastline of Italy".

When Libya was occupied, it was just to solve the problem of overpopulation in the country, who would have thought that the land under their feet actually contained the largest oil reserves in the whole of Africa?

However, Chen Muwu only pointed out the existence of oil deposits near the Mediterranean, and he did not continue to tell the two people on the other side of the table where the oil was located.

If the three syllables of "Libya" are spoken, how can you guarantee that the bald head on the other side will not abandon himself and pull an exploration team alone to find and develop it by himself?

Of course, even if Chen Muwu finds someone to form a team with experts from Italy, he can't guarantee that he won't be picked by the Italians in the end.

But in the second way, the autonomy is still in your own hands, which is a little stronger than the first method of directly and stupidly reporting the name of the place.

Today's dinner, in general, has achieved a good result, and the guests and hosts are happy.

Chen Muwu said that he still has some things recently, and when he is busy with this paragraph, he will start to prepare for the departure of the group and other related matters. It is estimated that by that time, the cooperation treaty between the two sides will basically be signed.

After the dinner, Zhu Zhaoxin invited Chen Muwu, who had not been seen for more than a year, to the legation for a candle night talk, and the latter gladly accepted, so he did not return to the hotel where he and Hubble stayed together.

At the Prime Minister's residence in the Palazzo Venice, two other people at the dinner were also discussing where the Mediterranean oil proposed by Dr. Chen was stored.

"Ji'an, what you said this Chinese person said, is it true or false, is there really oil in the Mediterranean? If so, where exactly are they hiding? ”

His Excellency the Prime Minister stared at the map of his country with some uncertainty, and his gaze was always focused on the direction of Chen Muwu's finger, a place near Sicily in southern Italy.

Ziano's eyes were also fixed on this place: "Since Dr. Chen said that it is the Mediterranean, I think it may be in this sea near Sicily." ”

"Prospecting for oil from the sea? Why do I think this seems unrealistic? ”

"Your Excellency, in fact, the work of drilling wells from the sea to extract oil was done by the Americans long before this century.

"I think we can send a team to try to find it on our own in the waters off Sicily while the Chinese are still looking for his lawyer.

"Since he pointed out this sea, there is no reason why he can find oil, we can't find it. Or do we also work with the Americans? After all, their oil extraction technology is now the most developed in the world. ”

The Prime Minister shook his head: "Americans only want to make money, and we may not get much benefit from them." Let's try it out for ourselves. ”

There was still Chen Muwu's residual warmth on the chair he sat on at the dinner, and the Italian began to backstab his future partner.

Chen Muwu, who had already arrived at the Chinese Legation for tea, had no idea about it, but even if he did, he would have preferred to see the Italians work at sea for months without a hitch.

They searched the waters around Sicily and couldn't find oil, so wasn't there only one option left to cooperate with themselves?

He deliberately said the Mediterranean, and gave an ambiguous place that was easy to misunderstand, just to have such a result.

After dealing with the Italian Prime Minister, Chen Muwu's trip to the Apennine Peninsula has only one task left, that is, to meet Pope Pius XI two days later.

As an atheist, Chen Muwu is certainly not a Catholic, and he accepted the invitation of the Papal States because he found it very interesting to go to the center of the world Catholicism, just like the Pope said in the telegram, he went to Como, and simply went south to Rome once, as if it was a publicly-funded tour.

But Hubble is different, although he is a "head" invited by the Pope to Chen Muwu to Rome, but after all, he is an American and still has religious beliefs.

Being able to come to Rome to meet with the Pope this time was one of the more important events in Hubble's European journey.

He happily crossed the border between Rome and the Papal States and arrived in Vatican City.

But a series of developments after this always made Hubble feel that his hot face was sticking to his cold ass.

The reason for the warm invitation and the cold reception of the Papal States is, of course, because Chen Muwu met with the Italian government first.

You don't really think that a religious leader who insists that "God created the whole world" will really have the time to discuss with scientists what the origin of the universe is?

The reason why he invited Chen Muwu and Hubble to come was because he liked his fame in the scientific and journalistic circles, and wanted to take advantage of the popularity and let Dr. Chen speak for the Papal States, which had been invaded by Italy.

But this heretic betrayed faster than anyone else, this Chen Muwu really deserved to be the darling of the news media, and in the two days he came to Rome, he had already appeared twice in Italy's largest newspaper, Corriere della Sera, once with the Italian authorities to shake hands happily, and the other time ......

You see, what opinion did he publish in the newspapers?

Could it be that after coming to the Vatican, I asked His Majesty the Pope to discuss with him whether God created humans on the sixth day at the same time?

At the Vatican, Chen Muwu's wait was even longer than in the reception room of the Palazzo Venice two days ago.

It wasn't until the third pole of the moon that Pius XI, with a round melon hat, was belatedly surrounded by various bishops dressed in red and purple.

Obviously, they are already ruined, but they are still a lot of poor and exquisite.

Chen Muwu was completely ignorant of the etiquette required to meet the Pope, and in order to show respect for scientists, the other party did not pay much attention to these things.

He only shook hands with the Pope, but Hubble, who was traveling with him, kissed the back of the Pope's hand according to the etiquette of a believer.

Pius XI was born in Milan, his mother tongue was Italian, and his second foreign language was Latin, which is widely spoken in the Church.

When they met, an English-speaking bishop was still in the middle to act as an interpreter.

Everyone tacitly did not mention anything about the Papal States, because it seemed that even if they did, it would not be very convincing.

Chen Muwu had a cordial conversation with the Italian Prime Minister just before yesterday, and today he supports the restoration of the Papal States with righteous words.

All the Holy See wants is to publish in the newspaper the news of today's meeting between the Pope and Chen Muwu and Hubble, so that readers all over the world can realize that the Pope is not an old stubborn man who follows the feudal tradition, but is also trying to accept the most advanced scientific knowledge of our time and establish a fuller image of the Pope.

But we've already met, so we always have to talk a few words.

"Dr. Chen, Your Majesty would like to ask you about the fact that since you said that our universe does not exist from beginning to end, but has a starting point. Is it possible, then, that the entire universe was created by God, as recorded in the book of Genesis? What you call the beginning of the universe is the moment when God created the world. ”

Chen Muwu shook his head very uprightly, he must resolutely deny the other party's problem, and can't let the gods use themselves to make a big fuss in this regard: "Since Your Majesty mentioned the record in the Book of Genesis, then I will also use the content to talk about this matter,—— I am not a believer, just to be able to meet Your Majesty, and I learned some relevant knowledge in advance,—— it says that God created the universe on the first day and created man on the sixth day, but in reality, let alone the sixth day, even if it is the sixth thousand days, In the sixth, sixth, and sixth, the earth may not exist in our universe, let alone the people who live on it. ”

"Is there a possibility that this six is a virtual finger?"

The person on the other side was obviously not giving up.

"With all due respect, we also have a lot of classics that have been handed down from ancient times, such as a book called "The Classic of Mountains and Seas", if you want to distort the interpretation, you can also draw a conclusion from that book, the Chinese people knew about the existence of America thousands of years ago.

"From my personal point of view, I think this book is nothing more than a collection of mythological stories, and the discovery of America is also purely far-fetched.

"Let me give you another example from the Bible: If the Jews were to take the Bible and say that Palestine, now under British trusteeship, was the promised land of their ancestors, would it not be possible to give it up to the Jews? I really don't agree with the people who support them in Europe right now. ”

Hearing that the bishop had translated Chen Muwu's speech for him, Pius XI was very helpless.

He himself could not even restore the glory of the Middle Ages and restore the Papal States, so who would care if the Jews were restored or not?

(End of chapter)