Fox of France

After Victor finished speaking, Bishop Torres also bowed to Ben Harden Pasha. Considering that the other party is a pagan, it is said that words such as "May God be with you" were omitted from his greeting. Regardless of the fact that Bishop Torres was talking about "evil heretics" and "venomous snakes spitting out letters" when talking with Victor, he was still very polite when facing real people.

But Ben Harden Pasha would definitely rather that he not be so polite, and he would not want him to come to him at this time. This was not only because he disturbed his interest, but also because the envoy of the Holy See came so quickly, which made many of his arrangements too late.

But at this time, he still had to put on a very enthusiastic look and said to Bishop Torres: "Welcome, Bishop Torres. We have been looking forward to your arrival for a long time."

After exchanging pleasantries, everyone sat down and the maid brought coffee. Ben Harden Pasha then asked: "Consul Treville, Bishop Torres, you must have some business to visit late at night, right?"

Victor smiled and said, "Pasha, we agreed last time that as soon as the Pope's representative arrives here, we can start the screening of slaves. So we are here to discuss with Pasha and see When will this work officially begin?"

In this regard, Ben Harden Pasha naturally wanted to delay as much as possible. He first excused that Bishop Torres had been working so hard and needed to take a good rest first; then he said that he was not fully prepared yet. In short, for one reason or another, the screening work needs to be postponed a little longer. It will definitely not work tomorrow, and it will be too late the day after tomorrow. Even after a week, it is still too much.

After hearing this, Victor immediately said in a very relaxed tone: The French fleet has been performing missions at sea for too long and consumed a lot of coal and shells every day. Now, the coal and shells on the warships are running out. I'm afraid it will soon be necessary to return to Toulon for water and coal.

If at this time, the French fleet suddenly withdraws halfway, then the siege of Tunisia will naturally be delayed. Now that the battle is halfway through, every day it is delayed, the empire will have to spend a lot of money. Compared with this expenditure, the value of a few Christian slaves is insignificant.

But Ben Harden Pasha is not the kind of person who will be easily bluffed by others. Although he knew that Admiral Treville, the commander of the French Navy, was the uncle of the Consul Treville in front of him, but he didn't think the French would go to war for such a small matter, let alone, what happened like that The interests of the empire are lost, but the easy concession on the matter of identifying Christian slaves is the loss of one's own interests. Compared with one's own interests, the interests of the empire, no matter how great, are nothing?

What's more, if the war continues, it will also damage the national interests of France, although the damage to French interests is not as great as the damage to the interests of the Turkish Empire. Moreover, Ben Harden believes that under normal circumstances, France will never allow a situation where the interests of the country are seriously damaged for the sake of small personal interests. Otherwise, France would not have become the most powerful country in Europe. What's more, the Treville consul in front of him is only Treville after all, not Bonaparte.

So Ben Harden said quite strongly that he fully understands the needs of the French fleet and hopes that the French fleet can return to the battlefield as soon as possible after completing the task of adding coal and ammunition.

Seeing Ben Harden Pasha say this, Victor had nothing to do with him for a while, but Bishop Torres said: "Honorable Pasha, apart from the matter of starting the screening as soon as possible, I have one more thing to trouble Pasha. summer."

"Bishop, if you have anything to say, just ask. You know, our Turkish Empire has always been very generous in religion, and we are very happy to make requests from people of the Bible come true."

The so-called "People of the Book" refer to Jews and Christians. Relatively speaking, at least in this era, compared with Christian ruled areas, the True God religion is indeed very lenient to the "people of the Bible".

"Since there are so many believers of God who want to settle here, of course they need a church." Bishop Torres said, "I hope to buy a piece of land from Pasha to build the church."

"Hasn't the land for the church been allocated to you?" Ben Harden Pasha asked.

"Ah, honorable Pasha, the thing is this, there is a problem with that piece of land, its location is too close to the harbor, it is too noisy, so I hope to buy another piece of land from you for the construction of the church. "

Ben Harden Pasha froze for a moment, then laughed: "Bishop, didn't you sell that piece of land to Consul Treville?"

In the original plan, the land assigned to the Holy See to build the church was quite close to the pier. In terms of value, it was probably one of the higher places in the entire city. Sell ​​this land to others, and then use the money to build churches in other places with lower land prices, and you can probably make a fortune.

Regarding this speculation, Bishop Torres did not admit it, but he did not deny it either. Instead, he said with a smile: "In addition, how big is the church and how much land should be bought, which has a lot to do with the number of believers. Therefore, I still hope to start the identification of believers as soon as possible."

Ben Harden Pasha had fully understood what the other party meant at this time, he thought: "I must stand firm, this heretic is trying to corrupt me. I must stand firm, and must not agree easily, unless he can get Offer a real, exciting price.”

So the negotiation quickly changed from discussing when to start slave screening, to where to buy a piece of land, how big a piece of land to buy, and how much the unit price is. Ben Harden Pasha also asked someone to bring a map, and everyone discussed it on the map. In the end, Bishop Torres and Ben Harden Pasha negotiated a sale of a piece of land in the city at an apparently premium price.

After the discussion on buying and buying, the attitudes among the three people suddenly improved a lot. Even Ben Harden Pasha felt that although these two guys disturbed his normal life, if they disturbed him every time, they would end up If such a result could be formed, he would be very willing to be disturbed a few more times.

"Dear Pasha," Bishop Torres said again, "about the selection of slaves..."

"Ah," Ben Harden Pasha said with a smile, "Although this matter is a bit troublesome, it will definitely satisfy you, bishop, if you leave it to me. Well, it's too late to start tomorrow. I think it will start the day after tomorrow." , what do you think..."

After discussing everything, Victor bid farewell to Bishop Torres and left.

On the carriage going back, Victor said to Bishop Torres with a sincere heart: "My lord bishop, I really learned a lot from you today."

"Ah, it's nothing. Those heretics are not gentlemen in the first place, so when we talk to them, we can only talk about interests." Bishop Torres smiled, "Also, Mr. Consul, I don't know if you are willing to pay for the original site of the church. What kind of quotation should I give? Well, it must be slightly higher than the price I negotiated with that heathen just now, because I don’t have any money in my hand to pay the price of that piece of land.”

To be honest, buying the original location of the church at a slightly higher price than the new location of the church they negotiated just now is definitely worthwhile economically.

"But bishop, I don't have that much money." Victor said.

"Ah, that's not a problem. Our Holy See also has a bank, which can lend you money. I can guarantee a favorable interest rate..."