Alberto Morosini had just finished his journey on Zakynthos and was planning to set off to return to Venice, but was disrupted by a sudden ship.

The ship was sailing from the Ottoman Empire. Because the flag of the East Coast Republic of China was flying, several Venetian galloping warships stationed in the port went up to inspect and confirm it, and then placed it in the port. After more than ten years of in-depth cooperation with the East Coast Republic of China, the interests of the Republic of Venetian have relied heavily on agents of East Coast goods and their many investments in New China Island.

In Europe, they were very cooperative with various policies on the East Coast, such as mixing up with the feudal estate owners of the Crimean Khanate on the northern coast of the Black Sea, etc. At the same time, they also gave many East Coast citizens who went to Venice to do business and do business with dignity, which was considered a friendly country on the East Coast. Therefore, after confirming that this brigged sailboat named "Venetian" was a diplomatic ship of the East Coast Republic, they immediately introduced it into the port and berthed in a dedicated berth.

As a business commissioner sent to nearby parliament of the Republic of Venetian Republic, Alberto Morosini originally supervised the cargo transportation of several state-owned farms on the island. These farms belong to the Venetian Fengyu Office and produce the famous olive oil and seedless raisins on Zakynthos. They are very popular goods in Venice, and can also make a lot of profits if they resold them to other countries. From this perspective, you can understand why the Venetians are so persistent about some islands near the coast of the Ottoman Empire: I can't beat you on land, so I can take advantage of your navy to colonize some corners or small islands and obtain some benefits. The problem is not too big, right?

Of course, the Ottoman Empire did not want the islands at its doorstep to be occupied by the Venetians, so they tried to retake them for many years, but the navy was not strong enough and ended in failure. Furthermore, the fierce Crete War lasted for more than 20 years. The Ottoman Empire lost about 400,000 people, including coastal residents, and had just ended less than a generation. Many people still remembered this freshly and were chilling. Whether it was the upper sultans of the empire, the Great Vizis, or the grassroots Agas, they treated these islands occupied by the Venetians very cautiously, and did not try to send troops to retake them like Crete. It was obvious that they were also afraid of the outbreak of another Crete war. Like the Ottomans, they could not bear the 24-year tragic tug-of-war.

Therefore, under such circumstances, these Venetian islands were preserved tenaciously and seemed to remain for a long time. The troubles of the Ottoman Empire are quite large!

This time, the person who came to Zakynthos on the "Venetian" sailing ship was not the planned stationmaster of the Thessalonika merchant station, but Gao Wengang, the plenipotentiary of the East Coast to Europe. After realizing that he could not see any of the Sultan or the Great Vizi, Gao decisively changed his mind and left this important Greek port city. He took a small boat affiliated with the Thessalonika merchant station to go south to Zakynthos to see if he could see the real power figure in Venice. His luck was obviously quite good. Here he met Alberto Morosini, who had dealt with the East Coast people many times and was currently in a high position in Venice, a famous family whose ancestors were the consuls of the Republic of Venice.

Morosini came out to receive Gao Wengang as soon as possible. In a private manor on the island, Zakynthos Island is not only the farm of Fengyu Office, but in fact, the manor belonging to Venetian officials belongs to most. Alberto Morosini first smiled and said that Gao Wengang was lucky and met himself, otherwise he would not know what to do.

Gao Wengang was not in much mood to talk and laugh. He directly said that if he could meet Morosini, he would always meet someone in charge of anything else. Anyway, as long as he could send a message, he would change the subject and said directly to Morosini: "This is a diplomatic letter I wrote to your consul. Please help bring it back and hand it over. Of course, you can read this letter now, and I also hope that you will give some suggestions. If it is reasonable, I will modify and re-copy one on the spot."

Alberto Morosini curled his smile when he heard this, took the letter from Gao Wengang skeptically. After reading it roughly, his face immediately turned extremely pale. He stood up suddenly and walked around the room for several rounds before he said to Gao Wengang excitedly: "Sir Special Envoy, what you handed to me is really a big trouble. As a partner who has been working for many years, I won't hide it from you anymore. Yes, that's right, the Chinese government is winging.

In response to the Austrian Kingdom, the plan to attack the Ottoman coastal areas has been officially implemented. Our actions are understandable, because the Ottomans are always releasing malice to us, and we must fight for our own living space. This is such a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, so we plan to send troops, advance along the sea and land, attack the southern coast of the Ottoman Empire, and wait for an opportunity to restore some of the land that was seized by the Ottomans back then."

"Is your government sure that the Ottomans will fail?" Gao Wengang was still quite keen and immediately grabbed the other party's words and asked.

"Yes, we are not afraid to admit this." Unexpectedly, Alberto Morosini nodded generously, admitted Gao Wengang's statement, and continued: "Compared with the Special Envoy, you also know the situation in Vienna. It seems that the Ottoman army is besieging this city, but in fact? Is the situation really as critical as the siege of Vienna? First of all, it is winter now. More than a hundred years ago, the Ottoman Empire besieged Vienna in the winter, but it failed miserably. There will be no big change now; secondly, the Pope had announced the Holy Alliance before, calling on the princes of the Catholic world such as Germany, Italy, Poland to send reinforcements, and those without soldiers would also donate money and materials to hire people.

Invite mercenaries with rich war experience to Austria in sequence. This time, even the French Kingdom, the other end of the Dusheng Alliance, was in a state of turmoil. Some nobles and soldiers went to Austria as individuals to fight the pagans to death. Again, there were too many Ottoman enemies, and they offended Poland, Austria, Russia and even Persia, and they were attacked from all sides. At the favorable opportunity of their country, I don’t believe these people would not do anything. Even Russia, which had signed a 20-year truce with the Ottomans, would have to make some small moves secretly, which was quite fatal. Finally, the current Ottomans are still the former Ottomans, and are the Guards still the former Guards?"

Morosini's last sentence really grasped the key point. The Guards (i.e., the Ghanisari Legion) fell and their combat effectiveness was no longer effective. This was the key to the Ottoman Empire's besiege of Vienna for a long time! Once upon a time, the Ghanisari Legion was synonymous with bravery and loyalty. In addition to being wiped out when fighting against the Mongolian Timur Legion (Sultan Valjezed was captured, and his Serbian queen was forced to dance naked in front of the Mongols, and the Ottoman Empire was also divided into four...), at the rest, it was always a tiger and wolf army that scared the Central and European Christ World.

But even the most powerful legion would fall. In the early years, the Sultan stipulated that the soldiers of the Guards were not allowed to get married or have beards. Adults were tempered with war skills, and learned religious knowledge and Turkish traditional culture, and had strong combat effectiveness. However, because the guards officers and soldiers could enter the palace to become officials, their power gradually increased and they became a political force. Therefore, the Sudan was forced to agree that the guards officers and soldiers could get married and have beards, allowing their descendants to join the Guards. Therefore, the scale of the legion expanded repeatedly and created a new class in the Ottoman Empire, namely the Ghanishari Guards class.

By now, the Guards have become an unignorable privileged class. In recent decades, Sudan and previous Daweizi have been trying to remediate this legion, but sometimes they succeed and sometimes fail. Even if they succeed, they only stirred up internal conflicts within the Guards, causing one group of people to defeat another (many of the failed people went into exile to New China and the East Coast, and the East Coast people are still quite clear about these things...), making them temporarily obedient, but the overall Guards have always stood firm, which is a headache.

Since he has become a political privileged class, his combat effectiveness will naturally not be maintained, and it will become inevitable to gradually decline. Of course, it is not without officers trying to re-enhance the combat effectiveness of the Ghanishari Legion. The East Coast people have also helped a lot, such as sending officers to explain the latest war ideas to them, selling a large amount of weapons and military funds, etc., but all of them have little effect. After all, the Great Ottoman has its own national conditions, and the East Coast people do not even keep their beards, so why should I give me a lecture?

Alberto Morosini was very clear about the Ottoman Empire. He had been studying for many years and knew not less than Gao Wengang. Therefore, this made it difficult for him to answer. Finally, he could only sigh helplessly and said, "You are right. The Ottoman Empire is in chaos, and the literature and martial arts are playing, but he still thinks he is powerful. He is immersed in the mist of the east and west battles more than a hundred years ago without any rivals. Now, Alberto, I have no other requests. I just hope that you can bring my diplomatic letter back and hand it over to the consul as soon as possible. I don't want the Republic of Venetian to appear in this war. Of course, we will give some benefits to it. Everything is in this letter."

In fact, strictly speaking, Gao Wengang's letter was used to wipe the Ottoman Empire's aftermath. He no longer had much hope for the empire to win in Vienna. All he hoped was Sultan Muhammad IV not to blindly control the remote control, Mustafadavici should not lose all the chips in his hands and lose too much military strength. Otherwise, how can he defend other places? How can the Christian lords in China be shocked?

In addition, through the influence of the east coast, the warriors of Venice, Russia will brake urgently (when the latter may be more difficult), and do not participate in the attack of the fallen dog. Of course, he understands the hatred of the Ottoman countries such as Venice and Russia. If the latter is not discussed, the former is really scared this time: the 200,000 Ottoman army advanced along the Danube and attacked Vienna. Once successful, it would be natural whether it was going north to enter the hinterland of Germany or south to attack the Italian Peninsula. And once it was about to invade the Italian Peninsula, wouldn’t the Republic of Venice, which had a large tract in northern Italy, bear the brunt? This is a danger of destruction!

If you want Venice and the Ottomans to fight in the Eastern Mediterranean in the past, it is all for the competition for some islands or small pieces of coastal land. It is good to win, but if you lose, you will not lose the country. But if the Ottoman Empire seized Vienna, it would be a real sky for Venice. Therefore, it is reasonable that they should do something: Taking advantage of the great opportunity of the emptiness of the Ottoman Empire, dispatching naval and some army to attack the coastal areas of the Ottoman Empire is the best way! This will not encounter great difficulties, but will also capture population and property. Wouldn't it be wonderful!

But the people of the East Coast are worried about the Venetians doing this! Because their fleet is strong and the Ottoman Navy is too bad, the Venetians can even block Istanbul, which will undoubtedly cause great chaos to the empire. People and materials from Anatolia, the Arabian Peninsula, North Africa and other places cannot be transported to the Rumili area in the west in time, which will affect the potential of the Ottoman Empire, causing them to suffer from severe losses that may occur in a series of subsequent battles.

In order to convince the Venetians to do so, Gao Wengang intends to give them some additional benefits: such as giving them more share of commodity agents, exporting them sensitive machinery or tools, allowing them to invest more land in New China Island, and competing the Crimean Khanate to cooperate with them in deeper cooperation, etc.

But Gao Wengang was not sure whether these additional benefits were enough to convince the Venetians to let the Ottomans go at this time. He was not sure because in his opinion, these benefits were good, but they were still insignificant compared to the survival of the country. However, he still wanted to try it out as much as possible, and try to use the Ottoman Empire's defeat, decline, and Austria's long-term rise to the forefront, to convince the Venetian consuls not to weaken the Ottoman Empire too much! After all, the Ottoman tiger wants to eat people, and there is no reason Austria's tiger does not eat people. Isn't the best way to let the two tigers bite each other and cause both losses?
Chapter completed!