George, who has worked at the European Hotel in Ceuta for many years, has met many dignitaries of the empire. After all, Ceuta was not only a military outpost of the Tang Empire in Europe, but also the most important trade transit station.
Almost all trade between Datang and Europe was transited through Ceuta.
Large ships from the mainland of the Tang Dynasty or other overseas territories of the Tang Dynasty will dock in Ceuta to unload cargo and passengers after traveling across the ocean. This is not only because the local area is an important overseas territory of the Tang Dynasty, but also because it is currently the largest overseas territory of the Tang Dynasty.
In Europe and North Africa, there is only one port that can berth 10,000 tons and provide loading and unloading services for 10,000 tons cargo ships.
As for other ports, especially those small ports in indigenous countries, they do not have such complete port facilities.
After these goods and passengers arrive in Ceuta, they will be transported to various ports in Europe and North Africa by Tang steam ships of small and medium tonnage, including indigenous sailboats.
Such Ceuta naturally became the first place for people from the Tang Dynasty to immigrate, trade, and do business in Europe, including many powerful people.
As the first high-end hotel in Ceuta, the Hotel Europe has become the first choice hotel for these dignitaries and wealthy businessmen. Over the past many years, George has worked at the Hotel Europe and provided services to many powerful people in the empire.
So this time before the opening of the Egyptian branch of the European Hotel, he received the imperial negotiation delegation. George also made the arrangements properly and put forward the same high requirements for his subordinates as always: decent!
He wants the European Hotel Egypt branch to maintain the same service quality as the Ceuta main store, which is very important for the European Hotel to establish a high-end brand.
The European Hotel served as the hotel for the imperial negotiating delegation and the venue for subsequent talks. George also knew some of the contents of this negotiation.
The main issue in this negotiation between the Tang Empire and the Ottoman Kingdom was to resolve the issue of navigation security in the Black Sea Strait.
The key point to note is not a navigation issue, but a navigation safety issue!
In addition to the navigation issue in the Black Sea Strait, there will also be negotiations on a number of other issues, mainly the transaction issues in the three regions of Algeria, Tunisia, and Tripoli in North Africa, the issue of the Tang Empire's assistance to the Ottoman Kingdom to resist the Tatar Kingdom, and the commercial issues between the two sides.
Conduct consultations.
These issues are very important to the Ottoman Kingdom, especially the issue of navigation security in the Black Sea Strait.
The Tang Dynasty attaches great importance to the safety of navigation in the Black Sea Strait, because it is related to the strategic passage of the Tang Dynasty's ships to the Mediterranean Sea, the Black Sea, and the Caspian Sea after passing through the Don River, the Don River Canal, and the Volga River.
The Don River Canal was officially opened last year. Although the scale of the excavation is relatively small and it can currently only allow navigation of inland river vessels of less than 1,000 tons, it still solves the navigation problem of the Caspian Sea and the Black Sea, making Datang's military mobilization and material transportation more efficient.
For convenience.
At the same time, the Eastern European Railway of the Tang Empire has been built this year to the city of Rostov on the Don River. This place is the westernmost end of the Eastern European Railway and is also an important forward strategic transfer station for the Tang Army in Eastern Europe.
Starting from this city, you can directly enter the Black Sea by boat and travel to various places along the Black Sea coast. After passing through the Black Sea Strait, you can directly enter the Mediterranean Sea.
In this way, the Tang Empire paid so much attention to the navigation safety issue in the Black Sea Strait!
The focus is not on navigation, but on safety. Under the current circumstances, if Datang's ships want to pass through this strait, they can do so without hesitation, but no one is stopping them.
However, Datang is still worried. If it does not personally control such an important strait, how can it guarantee the safety of navigation?
Therefore, the Tang Dynasty found the Ottoman Kingdom and negotiated on this issue!
To put it bluntly, Datang wanted to capture both sides of the Taiwan Strait and station troops there!
Naturally, the Ottoman Kingdom is unwilling. This place is the core area of the Ottoman Kingdom's rule. Their capital, Istanbul, is on the west bank of the strait. If the Tang Dynasty wants to control both sides of the strait, is it possible that they have to give up the capital to you?
ah!
However, even if it was unwilling, the Ottoman Kingdom did not dare to refuse this negotiation.
How should I put it? The Tang Empire is negotiating with you in a good manner, which is enough to give you face. This is why the Datang Empire has adopted a contraction strategy in recent years, and the trend of buying is worse than fighting is rampant. If it were replaced by the past
, the Tang Dynasty is just talking to you, and the warships will just sail over and bombard them, and the troops will land and garrison. As for the natives, what you say and think, the Tang Dynasty people don't care.
Therefore, the Tang Dynasty people said that they wanted to negotiate on the security issue of the Black Sea Strait, and the Ottoman Kingdom had to come even if it did not want to. If it did not come, it would offend the Tang Dynasty people, and they would directly bombard the Ottoman royal palace...
A palace that was destroyed by an "accidental bombing" a few years ago is still in ruins. The royal family wants to rebuild it, but the royal family's pockets are empty and they have invested some money in military expenditures. How can they have money to repair the palace?
So now there are still ruins in the Ottoman palace, reminding the Ottoman dignitaries not to mess with the Tang Dynasty people!
In addition to the key issue of Black Sea navigation safety, several other issues are also quite important, but these issues are, to put it bluntly, just a matter of money and transactions.
The Tang Empire's assistance to the Ottoman Kingdom in various types of ordnance and supplies was the core of this deal!
The Ottoman Kingdom recently fought a war with the Golden Kingdom of Tatar. Its elite troops, the Royal Guards, which were fully equipped with Tang weapons, achieved brilliant results, but the casualties were relatively high. The most important thing was the equipment and ammunition losses. The Ottoman royal family
There is an urgent need for a large number of weapons and ammunition to rearm the Royal Guards to deal with the threat from the Tatar Kingdom, and also to deal with domestic rebels.
In the past two years, the Ottoman Kingdom has been unstable internally. Several groups of rebels have appeared. The equipment of these rebels is not bad, and many of them are equipped with Tang weapons, which has brought great pressure to the royal family.
The Ottoman royal family wanted to rebuild or even expand the size of the Guards, trying to expand the current number of more than 10,000 people to 50,000 people, but they did not have enough money!
They searched through various methods, but it was still not enough!
The weapons and equipment of the Tang Dynasty are easy to use, but in one word: expensive!
What if the money is not enough?
Seller bottom!
Therefore, the territories of the three North African regions were put on the table.
In the conscience of heaven and earth, the Tang Empire has never thought of purchasing the three lands in North Africa!
The world is so big, and there are so many places. The people of the Tang Dynasty have a very strong appetite for territory, and they don't want just any bad land. For example, large areas of Europe now are not wanted by the Tang Dynasty even if they are given to the Tang Dynasty.
These three places in North Africa are not good places either. To be honest, the people of the Tang Dynasty really looked down upon them.