Fox of France

Just as Joseph offered Polina the conditions, Sultan Selim III of Turkey also summoned the French envoy Saint-Meran again.

But this time, Sultan Selim III did not meet Saint-Meran in the resplendent Topkapi Palace. He invited Saint-Meran to hunt in a royal estate in the suburbs.

Sultan Selim III rode a snow-white Arabian horse, followed by Saint-Meran on a bay-red Arabian horse.

"Mr. Saint-Meran, these days, you are living in my country well." Sultan Selim III stopped on a hill with some bushes, and asked Saint-Meran with a smile .

"Your Majesty, I am very grateful for your hospitality." Saint-Meran put his right hand on his chest and bowed slightly on the horse.

"Ah, that's good." Sultan Selim III jumped off his horse and handed the reins to a guard who was following him.

Saint-Méran also jumped off his horse, and a guard followed and took his horse away.

"Mr. Saint-Meran, let's go over there for a walk." Sultan Selim III pointed to a piece of grass over there. There are several flat stones in there.

"Yes, Your Majesty, if you wish," said Saint-Méran.

Sultan Selim III walked over there, followed by Saint-Meran and another Turkish officer.

Sultan Selim III stopped beside a large bluestone, tapped the bluestone lightly with a whip in his hand, then turned around and said to Saint-Meran, "Mr. Saint-Meran, let me introduce to you, this It is my most loyal general, my grand vizier, Arendar Mustafa Pasha. Well, he has something he doesn't quite understand about what you mentioned last time, and he needs to ask you for clarification .”

"I am willing to accept consultation from His Majesty and Your Excellency the Grand Vizier." Saint-Méran replied.

"We heard that after this Olympics, your country will become an empire?" Arundar Mustafa Pasha asked.

"This legend is inaccurate," replied Saint-Méran. "Our country will always be a republic, there is no doubt about it. Of course, I have also heard that the Holy See intends to entrust the crown of Western Rome to the first emperor of our country." Your Excellency is in charge, but this is the crown of the Romans, not the crown of France. France is a republic, and the leader of France is still the first consul."

"It's just that the First Consul is also the Roman Emperor?" Arendar Mustafa Pasha asked again.

"Your Excellency Grand Vizier, it is inconvenient for me to have too many guesses about things that haven't happened yet." Saint-Méran replied.

Sultan Selim III and Arendar Mustafa Pasha looked at each other, and they knew that this guess was probably correct.

"Then how many troops does your country's first ruler plan to invest to help us regain the country?" Arundar Mustafa Pasha asked.

"Recover the land?" Saint-Meran couldn't help but sneered in his heart. To be honest, although the Barbary countries all had Turkish signs and claimed to be Turkish pashas, ​​the land they ruled was really not Turkey. People beat it down. It was originally brought down by Hayreddin with his pirate brothers, but it was just for the convenience of getting supplies, so it was linked to the name of the Ottoman Turkish Company. down.

"Your Majesty, Your Excellency the Grand Vizier, our country will mainly use its naval power. As for how much to use, it depends on the needs of your country. As far as our country is concerned, it costs money to use the fleet. If you can use one less, you can save one." Money..." Saint-Méran said.

Saint-Méran's words already had an obvious meaning of bargaining. That means, if you Turks are very powerful, then we will contribute less and share the spoils in the future, no, when it is time to divide the accounts, we will share less. If you are not strong enough to deal with those pirates and need more tactical guidance from us, then when the time comes to share the spoils, we will share more.

So the three of them got together and had a discussion on the principle of dividing the spoils. In the end, everyone finally reached a consensus on the most critical issues.

"First of all, our French army went to North Africa to fight in order to overthrow tyranny and achieve freedom and peace. Therefore, slavery in the Barbary countries must be abolished. All slaves, whether white or black, Christian or green Christians, all will be free."

"This is fine." Arendar Mustafa Pasha nodded. Although these slaves are actually very valuable, these slaves are not his. Considering the efforts of the French, this request is not too much. Besides, most of the slaves of the Barbary countries, especially Christian slaves, were plundered by them in pirate activities over the past few hundred years.

"Are you going to take these slaves back to France?" Sultan Selim III asked.

"After they are free, they are free people. But they need French passports to go to France. Some of them, we will send them to America, and the other part, mainly those Green Christians, I think it is more convenient for you to take care of them ’” Saint-Méran replied.

One of the above arrangements for these slaves is that there should be no heretics.

This arrangement also satisfied the Turks. After all, getting one more person, even if it was a free man, would mean one more person who could collect taxes, right? It's a pity that the remaining ones are Green Christians. If Christians are good, they can receive more taxes.

In fact, because the Islamic law stipulates that Green Christians have a lot of tax benefits, the Turkish Empire is actually not particularly enthusiastic about converting pagans in the conquered areas to Green Christianity, because every pagan goes the right way, The empire has one less tax.

"In addition, regarding the lease of the port, the construction of railways and the development of mines..."

North Africa is rich in mineral resources, with a large amount of oil and natural gas, (these two are not used for the time being) and a lot of shale oil reserves (which will not be used in the foreseeable time), and a large amount of phosphate rock Stone, which can be used to make fertilizer, as well as copper ore and iron ore. Although the scale of the iron mines here is small, the quality of the ore is much better than those in the local area, and of course it is still not as good as those in Northern Europe.

While Saint-Méran was negotiating with the Turks, in her villa, Polina was also negotiating with her new love, Berton. Because of the time difference, it is already sunny in the morning in Istanbul, and it is just the early morning in Paris.

Polina poked her hair up Berdon's nose to wake him up, and the two of them did some exercise together. Then Polina leaned against the head of the bed, took out a pipe, lit it with a lighter, and began to think about life habitually. And because of the strenuous exercise, Beier Dong, who was a little tired again, lay down beside her, covered her abdomen with one hand, and dozed off again.

"Hey, wake up." Polina kicked Bellon lightly.

"Ah? What's the matter?"

"I have an important matter to inform you." Polina exhaled a round smoke ring, and then said.