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Chapter 1270 Russian Nobles
An hour later, all the conversations of the Prince of Orange and his party in the North Hall were neatly laid out on the imperial desk. This was a masterpiece of the Royal Advisory Office. In each courtyard of the North and South Halls, there were buildings with partition walls, usually the main hall and study.

There are copper pipes in the partition wall leading to several secret corners of the room for collecting sound. With the help of the copper pipes, the staff of the Advisory Office can listen to normal conversations in the room. Whether useful or not, they will be recorded and then handed over to the superiors for further screening and filing. It can be regarded as the most primitive eavesdropping equipment.

This was of course Hong Tao's idea, and only he could think of such a shameless and despicable method. But the actual effect is really great. People in this era did not have the concept of anti-eavesdropping. When envoys from various countries talked about confidential topics, they only thought that it was safe to send the staff near the house away, but they didn't know that the walls really had ears.

"Golitsyn family... go ask the ambassador of the Ministry of Rites in Moscow if he is still in Beijing. If he is, ask him to come immediately. If not, ask who knows more about the Russian Empire and ask him to come to the palace. I have something important to ask. Also, ask Wang Datou to come to the palace immediately and bring the personnel information of the Russian Empire."

After reading the wiretap records, Hong Tao was not surprised. It is said that those who come here are not kind. If there is no special request, the Prince of Orange would not abandon the affairs of the Republic and travel across the ocean to Beijing. You have to know that maritime transportation in this era is not very safe, and the leaders will not touch it easily unless it is absolutely necessary.

But the situation regarding Russia is still rather vague. After drawing the boundary between the two countries and receiving a considerable amount of aid, Mikhail I has turned his attention to the west and south in recent years.

While busy dealing with border issues with Sweden and the Polish Federation, they are using the aid money to build the Great Wall in the south. It is reported that the progress is not slow and it will be basically completed by the end of next year, which will play a significant role in defending against the Crimean Khanate's northern invasion.

Yes, it is the Great Wall. When negotiating the demarcation line with the Tsar’s representatives, they did not haggle over every day. When there was progress, Hong Tao would show goodwill and invite the other party’s representatives to the palace to have a chat, so as to learn more about the current situation in Russia.

The topic of the Crimean Khanate came up during the conversation. The Tsar's representative complained that Russia's military deployment was mainly in the west and north, all used to defend against Sweden and the Polish-Lithuanian Federation, while the south was relatively empty and could not effectively defend against the Khanate's cavalry raids.

Although the Crimean Khanate would not invade the north on a large scale, it would come several times every year, destroying many villages and taking away many people each time. This would become a big trouble over time.

In order to prevent nomadic peoples from frequently moving north, the Tsar began to build continuous fortresses between the Dnieper River and the Don River, connecting them with earth walls and stakes. It was basically a simplified version of the Great Wall.

The project started in the middle of the 16th century and took nearly a hundred years to complete, but only 200 kilometers of it were completed. The core fortress was in Tula, which could only block one passage to the north, and was powerless to the remaining two. The main reason was that the country was too poor and had a small population, so it was a bit difficult to afford the construction.

When Hong Tao heard this, he thought that we were good at this. We could just copy the way we dealt with the Mongols in the past without any changes. So he proposed a complete set of defense measures to the Tsar's representative, and even asked the Imperial Household Department to find the blueprints of the fortress built outside the Great Wall and give them away for free.

The Tsar's representative also knew something about military affairs. He was very grateful for the gift and recognized it very much. He planned to return it and present it to the Tsar to see if he could scrape together some resources to build another Ming-style fortress in Izyum to test the effect.

Adhering to the principle of sending Buddha to the west, Hong Tao took on the construction costs of Izyum Fortress with a stroke of his pen. Not only did he provide money, but he also provided people. A team of more than 200 people was specially dispatched from the Ministry of Construction to go to Russia to guide its construction.

In addition, a sum of money would be taken out from the tax revenue of goods exported to Russia every year as a special fund, which would be managed by the ambassador of the Ministry of Rites in Moscow and would be used to subsidize the Tsar to continue building the Southern Great Wall. Why send money and people to flatter the Tsar? If you think that Hong Tao intends to use money to bribe the Tsar and even the officials of the Russian Empire to make them allies of the Ming Empire, you are totally wrong.

In international relations, Hong Tao is a hawk among hawks. He only recognizes strength and value, never considers friendship, and never believes that two countries can be friendly or hostile to each other for a long time. The relationship between the two countries depends entirely on the rise and fall of their respective strengths and changes in the overall environment.

As the saying goes, one does not get up early without seeking profit. He did this just to allow the power of the Ming Empire to have a deeper impact on Russian society, and by the way, to allow spies to move around in more places in Russia.

The Tsar’s representative and the Tsar may have thought that this was a huge sum of money, but in the eyes of the Ming Emperor, it was just loose change in the treasury, and it was worth it as long as it could achieve the goal.

In fact, this small amount of money was really worth it. After seeing the real gold and silver, the Tsar immediately sent his right-hand man, the Grand Councilor, to be the envoy. The two sides had a full exchange of views on trade, security, and the international situation, and made a certain degree of progress.

For example, in terms of opening up the northern trade route, the Tsar's representatives showed a very positive attitude. Currently, the negotiations are still ongoing, and the initial plan is to use Tyumen as a transit point, with the Ming caravans delivering the goods, and then Russian merchants transporting them to various places.

However, this trade route must pass through the Kazakh Khanate. The specific distribution of benefits and responsibilities must be decided by representatives of the three parties sitting together to discuss.

Now suddenly the Golitsyn family has emerged and can influence the Tsar's political inclinations, which will have a great impact on the future diplomatic direction of the Ming Empire. Regardless of whether Mayor Cornelis is telling the truth or not, it is necessary to pay attention to it.

"Your Majesty, this is the information you requested. Do you want the students to recite it?"

The one who arrived the fastest was Wang Datou. It was the Spring Festival holiday and he happened to be in Beijing. After receiving Wang Chengen's call, he immediately went to the consultant's office to get the relevant information and quickly came to the Palace of Tranquil Longevity.

Ever since he was detained by the Ottoman Grand Vizier, he knew that his life was likely to be lost. With the Emperor's usual style, he would not start a war without sufficient benefits. And the value he could create seemed to be not enough for the Ming army's expedition.

As for surrendering to the Ottomans, that was even more impossible. He could provide a lot of intelligence, but it was just intelligence, which was useless before the Ottomans launched a large-scale eastern expedition, and the Ottomans obviously would not do that. For a useless big spy who also participated in inciting rebellion, torture and death were inevitable.

(End of this chapter)