Chapter 5 Poor Selim

The sun is rising outside the window. Looking out from Topkapi Palace, a red sun is slowly jumping out of the water at the end of the Golden Horn.

Selim breathed in the fresh sea breeze and slowly got up from the bed.

"Paul, where is my breakfast?" The butler pushed the door open and entered. "Your Majesty, according to your instructions, the main dishes prepared by the royal kitchen today are beef noodles and meat pies, the dessert is baklava, and the cold drink is sorbet."

Although the financial situation of the empire has improved a lot under Selim's suggestion and Hamid's execution, the consumption of a war is still huge, so Selim slightly reduced the expenses of the court.

Of course, it cannot be reduced too much, otherwise the wise and powerful Sultan will feel dizzy and have difficulty working.

Selim comforted himself while enjoying breakfast.

However, jokes aside, fiscal revenue still needs to be increased in every possible way.

It is definitely not possible to learn from the great ancestor, the conqueror Mehmed II. The currency devaluation trick is played every day. The people are not fools. If they are provoked, they will really rebel.

As for the church, guess who will pay for Selim's war.

Selim stretched and muttered: "So, I still have to learn from the Guards and do some small business without capital."

Just as Selim was stunned, an old man pushed the door in. The visitor was Abraham, the leader of the Jewish Millet, one of the four major millets in the Ottoman Empire.

While Selim was complaining in his heart that the other party's name was always in the top 10 of Jewish names, he pulled the other party to sit next to him and asked with a smile.

"My dear Abraham, I wonder what you think about the proposal of the Jewish nation and the empire to jointly establish the Ottoman Royal Bank?"

Abraham naturally understood that the Sultan in front of him was not a good person. There might be fifty swordsmen ambushed in some corner. As long as Abraham dared to refuse, he would go to heaven immediately.

However, Abraham did not intend to refuse the Sultan.

Marx once commented that capitalists could sell the ropes to hang themselves to the proletariat for profit. This sentence is also very clever to describe the Jews.

Selim laughed in his heart while listening to Abraham's argument about the bank's equity and job distribution.

"Your Majesty, the empire's annual fiscal revenue is only 22 million taels of silver, and the Imperial Bank's reserve you require is as high as 40 million taels of silver.

Then we have to pay 20 million taels of silver. Do you think we can adjust our shares from 20% to 30%?"

Looking at Abraham in front of him with a sincere face, Selim remembered Prime Minister Bismarck who gave in to Rothschild in later generations, President Garfield who died at the hands of the Seligman family, Germany where a piece of bread cost 500,000 marks, and the bald man who knelt in front of the consortium.

Selim stood up, took Abraham to the window, and said with a smile: "Abraham, the Jewish community has had a hard time in recent years. Compared with you, Britain and France are more willing to let Christian merchants trade with them."

Abraham was immediately excited, thinking: "The Sultan must be willing to agree to our request, oh, praise God."

But the next moment Selim shattered his fantasy.

"Dear Abraham, look at the Golden Horn in front of you. Countless brigs pass here every day. Porters and merchants transport countless silver to the empire to exchange for the empire's goods.

But they will be distressed by different currencies and regretful because of insufficient money.

Imagine, my friend, if there is a bank that can exchange currency for them and provide loans, how much profit will be hidden in it. Isn't this enough to satisfy my Jewish friends?"

Selim's eyes turned cold and he turned to look at Abraham and said.

"Or, my dear Jewish friends, do you want to get the share that belongs to the Sultan?"

Abraham felt cold sweat all over his body, and he knelt down on the ground and hurriedly explained.

"Your Majesty, we have no such intention. You know that the Jews have been loyal to the empire and the Sultan since your ancestor, the Conqueror Mehmed II, and have no second thoughts, Your Majesty.

Selim smiled and helped Abraham up and said.

"Relax, Abraham, I have always seen your loyalty. How about this, except for the 50% that belongs to the government, the remaining shares will be divided equally by us?"

Abraham nodded hurriedly, as if he was afraid that the Sultan would go back on his word.

"As for the bank president, I will take on the position concurrently, and Abraham, you will be the vice president, and the specific business will be handed over to you.

I have only one request, the first issue of national debt is to be sold at the end of April to raise funds for the empire's war. "

Selim then gave instructions to Abraham, and then asked Paul to escort the future vice president of the Imperial Bank out of the palace.

He turned around and lay on the soft big bed, thinking about the subsequent arrangements. It was too tiring for him to be a sultan, giving instructions to people all day long.

He had to take care of politics, military affairs, and economy, as well as his pen pal diplomacy.

Selim couldn't help but start a beautiful fantasy about the future after the reform was completed. For example, like Suleiman the Magnificent, a letter would make the Pope let the Jews go.

Thinking of the Jews, Selim's mood became bad again. When a number of European countries were expelling these rats, if it weren't for the help of the Ottoman Empire, the Sephardic Jews would have seen God long ago.

But Abraham was still not tactful and dared to discuss the distribution of shares with him. Be careful that the Sultan will learn from Adolf one day and have a Crystal Night to remove oil. Selim thought with ill intentions.

Time passed quickly, and the examination for the officers of the Guards was about to be held. Selim was still somewhat looking forward to it, although the entire Guards were mainly engaged in slacking, doing business, and changing Sudan.

But there were also many ambitious people, such as Comrade Muhammad Ali, who was famous in Egypt in the future, was taken in by Selim in advance and sent to the Paris Army Academy.

And the young man worked very hard, and successfully graduated three years later. He returned to the Guards to do research while persuading other slackers to actively apply for the Paris Army Academy, contributing to the division within the Guards.

Yes, you read it right, the Guards can indeed split. After all, the Guards also need young blood.

As we all know, young people are the easiest to fool. By increasing rewards and promoting patriotism, the entire Guards eventually became reformists and conservatives.

Although the reformists are weak, the Sultan will take sides, and there are good comrades like Aladdin Pasha who actively seek progress.

Selim can say with certainty: "With the current organizational level of the Guards, let alone rebellion, they can't even do business better than others.

Even if Ali Pasha, the weakling, is really crazy, he is not worried about changing the Sultan at all. After all, the new army has an independent regiment stationed in Topkapi Palace.

Although the new army has a certain strength, Selim does not want to purge the Guards now. First, if the battle starts in Istanbul, how much money will Selim have to pay;

Second, these people are still useful. After all, the war is about to start, and Selim's hard-earned assets must be protected more. So the battlefield vanguard is It can only be handed over to the Guards who are loyal to the Sultan;

Third, the Guards are still very wealthy. If they don't go to war, how can Selim make money? Even if he incites Christian rebellion, he can't rob money. After all, it is quite easy for a part-time soldier to beat a group of civilians.

After confirming again that there is nothing to report today and he can retire, Selim took Paul to the naval port.

The "Great Selim" he ordered from Louis XVI has been trained by Hassan Pasha for a month. You know, the Sultan himself has not experienced it yet. What, you said Selim is over-boasting?

No, no, the Sultan is celebrating Another great sultan in the history of the empire - Selim I (the Cruel), the master of Mesopotamia, the nightmare of Persia, the conqueror of Egypt, and the sultan of the Ottoman Empire.

Selim approached the dock humming a little song with pride. The "Great Selim" was already waiting for him. Selim took a step and went directly to the side of the ship, and then stepped onto the deck.

The "Great Selim" uses the famous "Ocean" class keel, with a total length and width of 17.6m and a displacement of nearly 4,000 tons.

As for the armament, the bottom gun deck is equipped with 34 32-pound cannons, and the middle deck is equipped with 2 50-pound cannons and 32 32-pound cannon, 34 24-pound naval guns on the upper deck, 26 42-pound carronades on the forecastle deck, and a total of 1,280 people on the ship.

According to French warship designers, this ship may be the largest sailing warship in the world.

Selim was naturally very happy about this, after all, caliber is justice. The only drawback is that the cost of this warship is too expensive. One million and a half taels of silver made Selim feel heartbroken every time he thought about it.

Just as Selim was secretly sad, Hasan Pasha had come over.

Although the old Pasha was 84 years old, he still looked energetic.

"Your Majesty, are you ready? The first naval fleet of the empire, the flagship "Great Selim", the double-decker battleship "Ibrahim Pasha", "Koprulu", "Mustafa" and several warships, totaling 27 ships, are accompanying you on this trip. "

With Hassan Pasha's order, the warships set sail.

The "Great Selim" took the lead. Above the blue waves, the stars guarded the flagship. Hassan waved the flag, and the fleet immediately changed from a cruising formation to a combat formation. Then, all the ships fired at the same time, and 50-pound and 32-pound shells set off huge waves on the ocean.

This scene reminded Selim of his experience in Assassin's Creed - Black Flag in his previous life. He immediately got itchy and hurriedly called Hassan.

"Hassan Pasha, I want to try how to fire." Selim said, "No problem, your majesty. "Hassan immediately made room for Selim, and our Sultan aimed at the ocean and fired a shot.

Not long after, a scream came from the "Köprülü" next to him, and the cannonball fired by Selim passed by the side of the ship. Seeing this, Selim couldn't help but smile bitterly and said, "Well, it seems that I didn't shoot very accurately."

Because the financial information of the Ottoman Empire is really difficult to check, I will use silver here instead, and use the fiscal revenue of the Qing Dynasty as a comparison, because the fiscal revenue of the Ottoman Empire has always remained at half of the Qing Dynasty.