Xinshun 1730

Chapter 90 Ten years of merit, one hundred years of merit

The cabin is air leaky.

After Liu Yu opened the door and came in, the cold air caused the flames in the fireplace to scream, like a wild will-o'-the-wisp from a cemetery meeting a Taoist priest's wooden sword.

Duke Qi followed closely behind, and the old Count Tolstoy was lying on the bed, covered with a fluffy and smooth fur.

After seeing Liu Yu, the old earl didn't even have the strength to greet him with the elegance of aristocrats. He just rolled his eyes, stretched out his finger, and signaled his attendants to take down the whining kettle on the fireplace and make two cups. Tea.

Before the tea was finished, there was a violent coughing that sounded like he wanted to tear his lungs out.

The red and white face is full of sweat, and the sweat is struggling to pass through the folds of the 82-year-old.

Every breath was like the tugging of an old bellows, a sound that must have been familiar to the blacksmiths in the camp, and it looked like it was going to die.

Liu Yuxin said that's it?Well, the one in my hand can be regarded as a treaty of equality, and that’s it for signing a treaty of equality?

No way, it seems like you are signing for the first time.Didn't you just sign with the Turks once before and lost the mouth of the Don River?It seems that you were also in charge of the project in Turkey at the time, right?
Thinking of the old man's great-grandson, Liu Yu thought to himself, maybe how Tolstoy will organize himself in the future.

Youdao is the country’s unfortunate poet family prosperity, realism literature has one stone, Luocha monopolizes five, Gallic chickens occupy three, and other countries share two. Liu Yu feels that he can be regarded as Russia in suffering and redemption for future generations Writers leave a story behind.Maybe Repin will be able to paint a famous painting in the future, Count Tolstoy's reply to the Chinese?
In the wild thoughts, Qi Guogong took the lead in greeting, and Liu Yu could only translate Qi Guogong's greeting.

As a courtesy, I couldn't wait to take out those few pieces of paper.

The old earl was neither surprised nor angry, he just blinked his eyes calmly, motioned Liu Yu to look over in front of him, and asked him to make a final confirmation.

Are there any omissions, are there any ambiguities?

The entourage and adjutants are nearby, but the old earl does not need their help.

Instead, let Liu Yu hold it in front of his eyes.

After confirming the Latin version for the last time, a hoarse voice uttered a word.

Someone understood the word, took out a light red candle, and approached the fireplace.Pull out a still burning stick from the fireplace and light the red candle.

The old arm stretched out tremblingly from the fur, and the seal ring, which represented his identity and imprint, tried to hang on the shriveled fingers like oak bark, trying not to fall off.

The guards brought whale oil, dipped some whale oil with a very fine brush, and brushed it on the ring with the seal engraved on it.

Tilt the candle to drip the melted wax onto the signature.

The old earl tried his best to stretch his hand forward, trying to imprint the seal on the melted wax before the wax solidified, but it was too late.

When it was stretched out, the wax solidified.

If it happened three times, Liu Yu couldn't wait.

Just as the wax dripped, he grabbed the old earl's wrist, turned it over vigorously, and pressed the ring on his finger heavily onto the melted wax.

A clear imprint appeared on the paper, next to the seal and signature of Duke Qi.

This almost barbaric behavior shocked the Russian guards known as barbarians.

The old earl looked at the clear wax marks, as if a fish out of the water was thrown into a pot where the water was not yet hot, showing its last strength.

Without accusing Liu Yu of being rude, he returned to the light and said another word to Liu Yu.

"Please hurry up. Thank you for your help."

This time the enunciation was very clear, but each word was weaker than the other, and it seemed that it was not good enough.

Liu Yu understood.

He reached out and snatched the candle from the attendant's hand, held it in his hand, and pulled off his sable fur to block the wind coming in from all directions, so that the flame of the candle would burn even more vigorously.

Repeating the action just now, feeling that the old earl's hand became more and more stiff, Liu Yu grabbed his hand and pressed candle marks on the remaining five sheets of paper.

After pressing the wax oil, the old man still squeezed out a little bit of energy and nodded to Liu Yu to express his gratitude.

Then the brown eyes turned slightly, staring at the paper in Liu Yu's hand, Liu Yu finally understood, and took the six pieces of paper to the old earl one by one.

The old man checked the seal carefully and carefully for the last time, exhausted his last strength to show his last stubbornness, turned his head away, and stopped looking at Liu Yu.

The old earl on the bed probably knew that he was at the last moment, and he didn't avoid Liu Yu through the excitement of returning to the light, or maybe he was afraid that there was not enough time, so he stretched out his fingers to a few pieces of paper on the table next to him.

There are only a few sheets of paper, and the words on them may be two or three pages together. The title is written on the first page.

Diplomatic Memoirs of Adrianople.

His last strength was not used for dying prayers, but for uttering the last words of his life.

"Please take it back to Petersburg."

Then, the arms hung down, the chest continued to collapse, and there was a slight sound of breathing in the throat.

"Uh……"

Liu Yu looked back at Qi Guogong, who was also looking at him.

The two stared at each other for a while, and took off their hats together.

The dead are the most important. Although the death of the old earl had nothing to do with them directly, they still caught up.

According to the etiquette of the country, three sticks of incense should be offered. Now that you are standing outside the border, you can go to the village and do as the Romans do.

He took off his hat, bowed, and slipped away quickly.

The guards did not stop him. It seemed that the old earl had already guessed that there would be such a scene and arranged it in advance.

It was not until he retreated into the boundary post that Duke Qi breathed a sigh of relief, wiped the sweat from his forehead, and felt lingering fear.

It was the first time Qi Guogong saw such a thing as forcing people to death during negotiations.

"Shou Chang, Shou Chang, you are really... hey, what should I say?"

Liu Yu was stunned and said, "Could it be that the Duke shouldn't have said that, fortunately, I made a decision, otherwise I wouldn't have had the chance to complete the contract?"

"That said, but..."

"Don't worry, Duke. The old man was sober all the time just now. There is no problem. Besides, when he was born, the Taizu had not yet died in Jiugong Mountain. People are born, old, sick, and dying. Seventy can be called a rare, and he is over 80. Besides Well, it's not the first time he has signed such a treaty. I'm thinking of everyone in Rakshasa."

"How to say?"

"He is going to die. Who is willing to come? Peter is dead. If Peter is alive, whoever is defeated will be fine. At worst, he will fight back in the future. With his prestige, no one dares to say anything. Now that Peter is dead, His wife is also dead, and the Rakshasa courtiers are busy with party disputes, who would come to this muddy water at this time? He is dead, and those in Petersburg may not be happy in time."

Qi Guogong shook his head slightly. Although the reasoning is so reasonable, it is the first time I have seen this kind of fact.

Returning to his tent, he carefully put the three pieces of paper into a wooden box and kept them carefully.

When the paper was put into the wooden box and the lid was closed, Liu Yu and Qi Guogong let out a sigh of relief at the same time.

It's finally over.

It was like a dream, the bottom line of the imperial court was Heilongjiang, but the two blackmailed the border northward for thousands of miles.

Now that the treaty has been signed, it is hard to go back on it.

"In this way, we only need to wait for the new special envoy from Luocha to come to Beijing together. For the rest of the boundary posts, we can leave someone here to deal with them."

Duke Qi stroked the box again, as if playing with a rare treasure.

After a long while, he said again: "Everything else in this treaty is good, but there is one thing I don't quite understand. Since it is a port, isn't it for collecting taxes? The tax rate is so low, how much money can it collect?"

The Duke of Qi didn't know about the emperor's internal coffers. Liu Yu didn't say anything, but just smiled and said, "Mr. Guo, how can there be two companies that sell the same thing, and instead of lowering their prices, they increase their prices? Tea, rhubarb, Russians Of course it cannot be produced, but in the future, the Russians may produce cotton cloth etc. Now that the tariff is low, the Russians in Siberia will inevitably use more Chinese cloth in the future.”

What does Russia have to sell to China?The guns in the Tula Armory are not enough for his own use. Liu Yu really can't think of anything that needs to be taxed by the Russians.

Qi Guogong still didn't quite understand this simple mercantilist tariff issue, so he asked, "How can the country benefit if the merchants benefit?"

"The country is not just a household government treasury. If we trade with Westerners in the future, raw silk, tea, etc. will naturally have to collect export taxes, and they will not be able to produce anyway."

"But other things cannot be taxed heavily, which needs to be treated differently. For example, porcelain, the chaos in the late Ming Dynasty, and the turmoil in the south of the Yangtze River. I am afraid that Japanese porcelain will take the opportunity to export to the West. It is necessary to choose how much tax to collect after investigation to make Japanese porcelain It is difficult to compete for the benefits of my court."

Liu Yu roughly explained, and then said: "Furthermore, if heavy taxes are imposed here, the Russians will not be able to benefit if they move to Europa. I'm afraid that the border port will be destroyed. Although the tax is less, the merchants are coming and going, and the population is stationed along the way. It is beneficial to the country. You can’t just count silver, if you only count silver, the north will lose money.”

Duke Qi pondered for a while, nodded and said: "Well, it makes sense. The disaster of shrinking borders can be learned from the past, and it can't just be counted as superficial money. But the first achievement seen by the court must be the achievement of expanding the soil. These Things, no one may care.”

Liu Yu shook his head and said, "In terms of 30 years, expanding the soil is the first achievement."

"In terms of a hundred years, I think it is still the first achievement to send envoys."

"If the military revolution is unfavorable and Western learning is not flourishing, even if you get the land at this time, how can you know that you can't lose it in a hundred years? So in this negotiation, what I care most about is the matter of sending envoys to each other. I also ask the Duke to help you when he returns to the court." My nephew facilitated this."

Duke Qi knew that this was what Liu Yu cared about all the time, and he had said something like "not enough to sell" before.

Now that the treaty has been signed and the work is done, Liu Yu has contributed a lot.Since there is such a request, Qi Guogong naturally agrees.

"Although I don't quite understand, I can trust you. Since you care so much, I will try my best to make it happen after I go back. Besides, there were Hu Renfang in Chang'an in the Tang Dynasty. Since I have a heart to compare with Tang Dynasty, it is not wrong to do this." No. You are weak and cannot bear it, so I will resist."

Liu Yu saluted solemnly, and Duke Qi also accepted it, a wordless contract was reached.

In the next two months, until the New Year, the Earl of Savoy, who had been negotiating with Russia, finally showed up again.

Sure enough, there was a big turmoil in Russia. Not only was Menshikov, who was in power before, taken down, but the little tsar even decided to move the capital from Petersburg to Moscow.

Qi Guogong has also spoken a lot about Luocha to Liu Yu these days, and he is very happy: Peter moved the capital because Yongle moved to the north, and Zhao Kuangyin wanted to move to Luoyang.Liu Shouchang has been worrying about the Rakshasa revolution, the prosperity of the country and the strengthening of the army, it is over!The little czar is only 11 years old, what does he know?The government must be controlled by the old party in Moscow, and the country will have no worries in the northern border for decades!
The Earl of Savoy did not mention the border treaty anymore. Instead, he sent the first official letter of credence after the signing of the two countries to the Duke of Qi: Tsar Peter II will hold a grand enthronement ceremony next year. He hopes that Dashun will fulfill the treaty and send envoys. The delegation went to Moscow to observe the ceremony.

And he will also lead a large mission and business group of 1500 people, follow Qi Guogong and Liu Yu, and go to the capital together to discuss trade details, envoys stationed and other issues.Before the smuggling accounted for 5% of Russia's total import and export trade, the tea and rhubarb trade must be resumed as soon as possible. It's on.

(End of this chapter)