Carl XII found a good entry point to work smoothly with the Empire.

In Europe, the Empire had two opponents, one was Tsarist Russia, which was close to him. The Empire did not want this country to be strong, and the other was the European power France. The Empire hoped to balance its influence.

It was also to prevent the nobles supported by these two countries from becoming kings of Poland that the empire chose to support Augustus, a guy with more fame than strength.

Originally, Augustus was one of the two most powerful competitors, but with the empire's semi-public support and default support for its use of force for the throne, Augustus was the most powerful competitor.

Augustus may launch a war with Sweden after seizing the throne, and the empire will not object to this. But the problem is that Augustus may form an alliance with Tsarist Russia, which is unacceptable to the empire.

Obviously, it is very difficult to not only want Augustus to seize the Polish throne, be friendly with the empire, but not allow it to form an alliance with Tsarist Russia. To do this, it is not just a diplomatic action, but it requires increased investment, such as military threats or even direct participation in the war, but this is contrary to the empire's strategy of limited investment.

But this is true between countries. There are no eternal friends, only eternal interests.

The Empire regarded Tsarist Russia as its opponent, but when the Ottoman interrupted the Empire's Suez Canal Plan, Li Junwei provided military assistance to Tsarist Russia without hesitation, inducing it to go south to attack the Ottoman, and helping Peter consolidate the imperial power.

France was the empire's largest competitor in Europe, but when there was a chance to cut off the British bourgeois process, the empire cooperated with France without hesitation and assisted it in establishing a fleet of steam-powered ships, defeated the British Navy, and landed on the British mainland.

Compared to Augustus' alliance with Tsarist Russia, the empire was more worried that this country would be controlled by Tsarist Russia or France. After all, Augustus' alliance with Tsarist Russia was also to deal with Sweden, not the empire.

"This is a good entry point, but how to solve the problem?" Dan Tai Yunfeng spread his hands and expressed helplessness.

Carl XII and August were both cousins ​​and knew each other well. In fact, the inevitability of the war between the Poly Federation and Sweden was largely because Augustus himself, who had considerable ambitions, wanted to completely own the Poly Federation, establish a hereditary regime, combine the Poly Federation and Saxony into one, and the best way to establish prestige was to win the war.

But if a weaker or weaker nobleman serves as the king, there will be no hidden danger. But the problem is that a weak king is easily influenced by Peter, Louis XIV and Habsburg, which is also harmful to the Empire's interests in the Polish Federation.

There is no perfect situation in the diplomatic field, there are only choices and compromises.

"Is there any better candidate in Sweden to win Augustus? If so, we can support him another person." Tan Tai Yunfeng said that the support for Augustus is not too great at present, mainly in terms of attitude, and policies can be adjusted at any time.

Jiang Xianyun was silent for a moment and shook his head gently. Sweden did propose several candidates, but it was when Carl XI was alive, but that was beneficial to Sweden, and it was not as good as Augustus in terms of benefiting the empire.

Although the empire is willing to support Sweden in fighting Tsarist Russia and does not want Poland to form an alliance with Tsarist Russia, the only way is to stop the war, but the problem is that the empire will not do so.

In this era, war is the best way to open a country's door. The empire has a huge scale, massive resources and advanced technology. Both sides of the war hope that the empire will stand on their own side, or at least not invest in the hostile camp. As long as the empire provides weapons and equipment to one side of the war, the other side must also purchase it. The result is that both sides of the war must open the domestic market to the empire and start trade.

In the era of peace, in order to protect the interests of domestic powerful countries, participating countries will restrict their imports of some goods and protect their own industries. However, once the war begins, these restrictions will be lifted.

"But, King Carl and his important officials proposed an idea, which was to establish an alliance that could fight against the enemy." Jiang Xianyun said that in order to avoid the misunderstanding of Dan Tai Yunfeng, he took the initiative to say: "Of course, I have already stated to them about the empire's strategic attitude, so they are not tough on the empire's joining the alliance."

This is not ten years ago. Through various wars of all sizes, such as the Great Alliance War, the Russian-Turkey War, and other major European countries have figured out the empire's strategy.

The empire never joined the war too early, and only when it remained neutral can it be eaten.

When European countries are fighting, the empire has almost no territorial demands. The main demands are strategic balance and economic and trade demands, which makes the empire not easily ending.

The alliance that Sweden wants to establish is the Netherlands, but Sweden believes that this is not enough. He wants to win two important allies, one is the Ottoman Empire, where both sides can deal with Tsarist Russia and Poland together, and the other is Britain. These two countries, one has little contact with Sweden, and the other has only ended the war with the empire. If you want to bring them into the alliance, you still need to support the empire.

"King Carl is please rest assured of this. Whether Britain and the Ottomans participate in the war is entirely their freedom." Dan Tai Yunfeng said.

The British civil war has just stopped and has not ended yet, so I will definitely not join the war easily. The Ottoman has also entered the recovery period and should also be cautious in entering a state of war.

In the next half month, Dan Tai Yunfeng met with Carl XII in Stockholm four times. Each time, Carl would surprise Dan Tai Yunfeng.

First, he decided to purchase military equipment including rifled guns and rear-mounted artillery, and secondly, to sign some economic and trade cooperation, and all of which were made by Jiang Xianyun. Jiang Xianyun had been in Sweden for four years. He knew King Carl and this country very well. He knew what Sweden could give and what the empire wanted. All the results were after the secret agreement obtained from the last meeting.

During this talk, Carl XII came up with a condition that the empire could not refuse, that is Iceland. As long as the empire supports Sweden to win the war and defend the country, Sweden will help the empire gain Iceland.

At this time, Iceland belonged to the Kingdom of Denmark and Norway, but it was regarded as a colony. The Danish king never regarded the Icelanders as his own people, and wanted to exploit and exploit them. Any natural disasters or plague diseases such as volcanic eruptions will greatly reduce the population on Iceland. At this time, the population of Iceland was only more than 30,000.

The Empire once showed some interest in Iceland, which was related to the Empire's strategy, which was to obtain land as close to Europe as possible. Ceuta, Malta and the Cape Verde Islands were all evidence, but these territories were all south, and the Empire hoped that it could own land in the northwest of Europe. Iceland naturally became the best choice. Although the climate is harsh, its population is relatively small and not far from the United Kingdom.

However, the King of Denmark had no intention of cooperation, and Denmark had a very poor relationship with the Empire. Take the East India Company as an example. Now the East India Company in the United Kingdom and the Netherlands have been banned. Although Sweden, France and other countries still retain the East India Company, the monopoly is only bound to certain luxury goods, such as spices, and the route monopoly no longer exists. Only Denmark is exceptional, it refuses all imperial merchants to enter domestic trade. All the import of Eastern goods can only be passed through the East India Company, which controls the Baltic Sea and the North Sea straits, but is unwilling to provide services to the Empire's merchant ships.

King Carl promised that if a war broke out with Denmark and could defeat Denmark, he would ask him to ced Iceland and then sell the island to the empire.

This is really the itchy flesh of the empire. You can also imagine that Jiang Xianyun has found a way to cooperate for his friends.

Sweden is not without conditions. Their condition is that the relationship between the empire and Denmark must be maintained before the end of the war.

The reason is also obvious. This is true in Europe now. Once it faces life and death, almost all countries will choose to get closer to the empire. If you want to get help, whether it is advanced military equipment or massive loans, it is closely related to the survival of the king.

Sweden does not want to see this scene. Although in terms of military strategy, Carl and his important officials kept Jiang Xianyun away, anyone with discerning eyes knew that once a war broke out, Sweden's first target was Denmark. Because Denmark is the only one among all countries that have a navy, and it also controls the Sond Strait between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea. Once Denmark guards the strait, it means that Sweden's exchanges with all allies and friendly countries ended. Sweden lost half by relying solely on its own strength.

Of course, the actual situation is even more radical than what Jiang Xianyun and others thought. Sweden's top leaders have decided that as long as Sweden is dragged into the war, whether Denmark is the party involved in the war, Sweden must take the initiative and ensure that it can enter and exit the Baltic Sea freely in order to cope with the challenges of other countries.

Carl lived in military camps and military academies since childhood and participated in the cooperation between his father and the empire. He had seen the standard guns and guns of the Imperial Army and advanced equipment of the navy. Compared with the weapons commonly equipped in Europe, it was revolutionary. Now, the Denmark's navy and army are not as good as Sweden, but once the situation is tense and Denmark cooperates with the empire, the quick victory strategy formulated by Sweden collapsed.

In addition to the condition of Iceland, Sweden also gave other conditions, that is, the trade issue between the empire and Denmark, which Sweden will also help solve in the war.

After careful consideration, Tan Tai Yunfeng finally signed a secret agreement with Carl XII, which made him determined that the Dutch attitude, and Sweden had reached an agreement with the Netherlands before this.

After Dan Tai Yunfeng took care of Sweden, he immediately took a boat and detoured most of Europe to Port Said, where the opening ceremony of the Suez Canal was already under preparation.

This is a relatively low-standard ceremony. Among the people attending the imperial side, the highest-standard envoy to Europe was Dan Tai Yunfeng, the general manager of the Suez Canal Project, Zhao Mingde. The Ottoman Empire was not particularly high in specifications, with only one Vizier, Egypt and Pasha from the two provinces of Sinai.

This is because this is not the scheduled opening ceremony of the Suez Canal.

You should know that according to the agreement reached between the Empire and the Ottoman Empire, the Suez Canal should be 14 meters deep and can pass through a canal of 35,000 tons of ships. However, the reality now is that it is only nine meters deep and can only ensure that 6,000 tons of ships pass. Of course, this has already made most ships in this era available for use.

There are two reasons for this situation.

One is the pressure from the international community. In addition to the joint cooperation between the Empire and the Ottomans, the most important reason for the launch of the Suez Canal Plan is that European powers are all trapped in war and have no time to take care of overseas. But now it is different. The Great Alliance War ends, and Tsarist Russia and the Ottomans have also ceased to fight. The peace in Europe has made more and more countries want to get involved in the Suez Canal.

The Ottoman intended to do this. The more countries participated, the more muddy the water became, the more profitable the Ottoman would be. However, the empire was unwilling to share the Suez Canal with other countries, so it was directed by the opening of the Suez Canal. The opening of the canal means the official operation of the Suez Canal Company. Apart from purchasing stocks in the financial market, it would not be able to get involved in this canal.

The second reason is the shareholders of the Suez Canal.

At the beginning, the two countries agreed that the Suez Canal was completely owned by the two governments, and the specific equity allocation depends on the contributions made by the two countries, but it was soon impossible. The Ottoman Empire had no money to build the canal for years and could only force Egyptian workers to build the canal at a very low price. Not only did it fail to achieve its goal, it caused the Egyptian people to revolt, which once stopped the canal, but on the contrary increased the cost of opening the canal.

Therefore, the two countries began to sell stocks abroad, splitting Suez Canal shares into 400,000 shares for sale.

By the time the canal was opened, the Ottoman government only owned 17% of the canal stock, which was invested with the land on both sides of the canal. The imperial government owned 25%, making it the largest shareholder of the canal. The remaining stocks were sold to a very small number of merchants from a few countries such as China, the Ottomans and Venice, Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands and Genoa. Except for the two countries that can freely purchase stocks, the rest were reviewed by the Ottoman Empire.
Chapter completed!