Upon hearing this, Manuel felt his vision dim and nearly exploded in front of Gracio.
However, thinking about the Autocratic State's current trade situation, he had no choice but to swallow his anger, adopt a gentle tone and attitude, and patiently negotiate with the Venetian envoy using reason and persuasion.
The attitude of this orthodox monarch was also within Gracio's calculations.
Although the Senate and he himself preferred the 'nine-to-one' split of Genoese privileges, they both knew that under normal circumstances, this would be impossible to allow.
Under the opponent's constant demands, Gracio finally presented the bottom line his direct superior, the Black Sea Consul, had set before his departure: "Seventy-thirty, we get seventy and you get thirty.
This is the order of the Doge; if it's less, please allow us to annul the mutual defense alliance we just made."
After repeated probing and confirming the other party's firm stance, Manuel had no choice but to agree to this distribution plan.
What could he do? Faced with the merchant republic's bottom line, he could only choose to agree to them.
One must know that currently, whether it's the merchants of Bosporus or the private traders patronized by the Gavras Family, to put it bluntly, they were all piggybacking on the trade routes dominated by Venice.
For this reason alone, he had no reason to refuse Venice's bottom line.
Moreover, there were even more pressing reasons, such as the imminent Genoese threat.
"Damn profiteers," after seeing off the Venetian, Manuel uncharacteristically holed up in his room, cursing in his past life's mother tongue, "'If the sun is wise, it comes from the east and west, Fema is a fool, like a mournful sorrow...'
One day, he would package these Latin bloodsuckers and throw them back to their own hometowns.
After these urgent matters were discussed, this group of Venetian envoys did not delay long in Trabzon, but boarded a ship on the morning of the third day after arriving in Pontus, quickly returning to Tana to report to the Consul, so that this diplomatic achievement, which concerned the future situation in the Black Sea, could be relayed back to their homeland from Tana as soon as possible.
For a short period afterward, Bosporus's Asia Minor territory maintained a rare tranquility.
Later, Venetian warships, occasionally anchored in their ports, while patrolling the actions of hostile merchant republics, also served to combat Turk pirates in the Black Sea, barely salvaging some of Venice's reputation in Trabzon.
As the Pontus region finally settled down, by early March, Manuel's suggestions and replies to his family in his hometown of Tauris had all arrived in Bangkok Pu.
"By the Holy Mother, I wondered why there was no reply for so long; turns out he went to the Anatolian interior to recruit Armenians."
After reading her husband's personal letter, Barbara, as regent, sat in the usual council chamber of the Bangup Palace, laughing with some difficulty.
After a rare moment of laughter, she quickly noticed the potential Genoese threat Manuel mentioned in his letter.
After some thought, Her Highness the Regent quickly became alert, calling her personal maids, Amber and Laila, asking the former to temporarily look after little Justiana for her, and the latter to prepare to accompany her to retrieve the records of Genoese fleets from Tauris since the beginning of the year, to try and determine whether her husband's concerns were unfounded or based on fact.
After they left on her orders, Barbara quickly turned to another major issue: the farmer-soldier problem.
Although she personally strongly agreed with her husband's plan to upgrade military households from "farmers with some land" to "small landowners and minor lords," the young wife believed that she was merely his regent left in Eastern Europe, and before her Caesar husband returned to Tauris, she should not and did not have the authority to initiate these changes.
Aside from these uninteresting but important military and political affairs and his self-justification in the letter, Manuel also assured his wife that once Pontus was stable, he would return to Bangkok Pu promptly.
"I hope so, Holy Mother bless."
Barbara still trusted her husband's promise.
It was precisely for this reason that she, uncharacteristically, sincerely prayed before the icon, hoping that her husband would not encounter any further complications so that he could resolve these troubles and return as soon as possible.
However, unfortunately, while she was sincerely praying for him, Manuel, dressed in formal attire, sat with a solemn expression in the Imperial Palace of Trabzon, perusing a military report from the western border.
After reading it, he shook his head somewhat helplessly, "Although I absolutely don't want to say this, it seems what's meant to come will always come."
The content of this report was not complex; it essentially stated that the Bosporus garrison stationed in the Giresun area had been attacked by a small group of Turk tribesmen.
In the late Middle Ages, unorganized Turk tribesmen attacking settled residents was a common occurrence in Asia Minor.
Logically, this skirmish should not have been worth reporting.
But after repelling them in a difficult battle, the officers of this unit, through interrogating prisoners, unexpectedly learned that these Turks claimed to have the support of the Janik Beylik, and even produced tokens granted by the Bey to confirm this, using them to threaten the soldiers not to act rashly.
The soldiers were indeed intimidated by them and immediately reported this potentially significant intelligence without daring to delay.
Although his contact with these Turk Beys of Asia Minor was still limited, Manuel quickly discerned its general authenticity.
While not 100% certain, he would still bet that this was the work of the Janik Turks.
For no other reason than the sheer audacity of these Turk tribesmen, which spoke volumes.
Recalling the earlier suspicion that the exiled Alexander was in contact with the Genoese, preparing to act against him, Caesar's nerves tightened.
"This is most likely a test, a test of the western border defenses."
This was his view of the border conflict.
Thinking of this, he immediately regained his composure, called for servants and attendants, and ordered them to immediately notify his generals to prepare for a military meeting to discuss how to deal with another war that was very likely to come.
After most of them had left to carry out their orders, he seemed to remember something else, sat back down, and began writing a letter to this border unit: "Witnessed by the great and glorious Three Saints... without a doubt, what these Turks say is true... as a reward, I shall grant you land and the power to become farmer-soldiers.
If you refuse for any reason, you shall also be granted one hundred ducats.
As for these barbaric and lawless Turks, no tolerance is necessary; except for the leaders who are to be escorted into the city, the rest, who are insignificant, may be executed or enslaved at your discretion."