Reborn and become a Great Scientist

Chapter 314 53 An unpleasant meeting

I, Chen Beixuan, have been doing my best all my life, why do I need to explain it to you?

……

Ahem, sorry, I got the wrong script.

It should be that I, Chen Muwu, have never lied to anyone in my life.

I said that there is oil near the Mediterranean Sea, so there must be oil near the Mediterranean Sea. I definitely didn’t just point at the map and make up some random fake news just to deal with the bald man’s inquiry.

Europeans who uphold Eurocentric concepts may wonder after hearing Chen Muwu's answer: Where are the countries around the Mediterranean that are rich in oil?Why don't you know?
Italy is near the Mediterranean Sea, France is near the Mediterranean Sea, and Spain is also near the Mediterranean Sea. There is nothing wrong with this.

But the Mediterranean coast includes not only these great powers and these European countries that look very strong, but are actually almost useless.

Chen Muwu took advantage of Europeans' arrogance, which was why the two people across the table were confused.

They completely forgot that they were on opposite sides of the Mediterranean Sea and each had their own backyard garden.

France's is almost the entire northwest Africa, including Algeria, and Italy's corresponds to the Libya of Cardano, who once overestimated his capabilities and tried to single-handedly fight against the five major UN...good people.

Now this place is not called Libya, but Tripolitania and the colony of Cyrenaica.

This land was not obtained by Italy after decades of painstaking efforts to attack and occupy it like Britain and France, but it was snatched from Turkey, the "sick man of West Asia".

Although the Ottoman Empire once had great glory, occupying the three continents of Asia, Europe, and Africa. At its peak, it could compete with the European countries along the Mediterranean Sea. However, in modern times, the Ottoman Empire also declined rapidly like the Qing Dynasty, and its original territory was European powers chipped away piece by piece.

Although the country of Italy was unified late, after its national strength gradually became stronger, it also wondered whether it could carve out a piece of land of its own on the Mediterranean coast like the French next door.

In order to occupy Libya, Italy spent a lot of effort. They began to send Catholic missionaries to infiltrate there many years ago, and then provoked the Italian-Turkish War in 1911, relying on the victory of the war to force the Ottoman Turks to invade Switzerland. The Treaty of Lausanne was signed in Lausanne, officially placing the two lands of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica from the Ottomans into their own territory, known as Italian North Africa.

Especially the person sitting opposite Chen Muwu today. After he came to power, he made a lot of investment and development in this African colony. In order to facilitate management, he split Italian North Africa into two colonies, Italian North Africa. Nicosia and Italian Tripolitania.

Generally speaking, the great powers have three purposes in opening up colonies. One is to plunder resources. Due to the development of science and technology, the sovereign country needs a large amount of resources, but due to various reasons, the country cannot provide them in a short period of time, so they have to open up colonies and establish in the tropics. Plantations plundered cash crops such as sugar, tea, and tobacco, and carried out the slave trade.

Then the two industrial revolutions broke out. Although what Western countries needed changed from cane sugar and tobacco to industrial raw materials, such as cotton, wool, coal, iron, copper, tin and other metal ores, their barren homeland still could not provide them. They can continue to plunder the colonies of their respective countries, or purchase them from other countries.

The Industrial Revolution not only required a large amount of raw materials, but also brought more and even surplus industrial manufactured goods due to the development of productivity.

Because the European market is saturated, in order to consume all these finished products without causing a large accumulation in the country, they can only be transported to overseas markets for dumping. Therefore, the colony has ushered in its second role, that is, as a The country's trade outpost in other regions.

This was the original purpose of the various colonial concessions established by the great powers in China. They wanted to conduct trade with the closed-door Qing Dynasty, which is why there have been various wars and various unequal treaties in modern times.

After the opening of trade channels, these concessions took on the role of plundering resources from China.

The third role of the colony is what Italy has done in Libya.

Some countries have less land and more people. The two industrial revolutions not only brought about a domestic surplus of manufactured products, but also the country's ever-expanding population.

Therefore, for the sake of domestic stability, they had to seek other suitable places to live and immigrate. So the Dutch chose South Africa and became the Boers there, while I chose Brazil, South America, the Nasana Peninsula and the three eastern provinces. It even attempts to encroach on China.

Italy, with its long and narrow terrain and mountainous territory, also experienced rapid population growth after the country was unified, so they set their sights on Libya on the other side of the Mediterranean as their colonial goal.

After winning this colony from the Ottoman Turks, what the Italian government did was to move the local indigenous people from places suitable for survival along the coast to areas less suitable for survival inland, and then transported them across the Mediterranean from within the country. A large number of immigrants from the country came, occupying the land vacated by the indigenous people after being beaten, and building their own cities here, repairing ports, railways, various industries and basic living facilities. They are sincere. Italy regarded this place as its own country’s territory, and affectionately called this newly acquired land “Italy’s fourth coastline.”

The original occupation of Libya was just to solve the problem of overpopulation in the country. Who would have thought that the land under their feet actually contains the largest oil reserves in Africa?
However, Chen Muwu only pointed out that there are oil deposits near the Mediterranean Sea. He did not continue to tell the two people across the table where the oil was located.

If you say the three syllables "Libya", how can you guarantee that the bald man opposite will not abandon you and recruit a separate exploration team to find and develop it yourself?

Of course, even if Chen Muwu recruits experts from Italy to form a team to explore North Africa, there is no guarantee that the Italians will not pick the peaches in the end.

But in the second method, the autonomy is generally in your own hands, which is slightly better than the first method of simply reporting the place name.

Today's dinner party was generally considered to have achieved a good result, and the guests and hosts enjoyed themselves.

Chen Muwu said that he has some things to do recently, and after finishing this period, he will start preparing for the group departure and other related matters.It is estimated that by then, the cooperation treaty between the two parties will basically be signed.

After the dinner, Zhu Zhaoxin invited Chen Muwu, whom he had not seen for more than a year, to the embassy for a night talk by candlelight. The latter readily accepted and therefore did not return to the hotel where he and Hubble stayed together.

At the Prime Minister's residence in the Venice Palace, two other people attending the dinner were also discussing where the Mediterranean oil proposed by Dr. Chen was stored.

"Ji'an, do you think what the Chinese said is true or false? Does the Mediterranean really contain oil? If so, where is it hidden?"

The Prime Minister stared at the map of his country with some uncertainty. His eyes were always focused on the direction of Chen Muwu's finger, a place near Sicily in southern Italy.

Ciano's eyes have also been staring at this place: "Since Dr. Chen said it was the Mediterranean Sea, I think it may be in the sea near Sicily."

"Exploring oil from the sea? Why do I feel that this matter is a bit unrealistic?"

"Your Excellency, Prime Minister, in fact, the task of drilling for oil from the sea was already done by the Americans before this century." I think we can take advantage of the fact that the Chinese are still looking for his lawyer. First send an exploration team to try to find it alone in the waters near Sicily.

"Since he pointed out this sea area, there is no reason why he can find oil and we can't. How about we also cooperate with the Americans? After all, their oil extraction technology is the most advanced in the world."

The Prime Minister shook his head: "Americans only want to make money, and we may not be able to get much benefit from them. Let's try it ourselves first."

Chen Muwu's lingering warmth was still on the chair he was sitting in during the dinner, and the Italians began to think of stabbing their future partners in the back.

Chen Muwu, who had already gone to the Chinese Legation for tea, had no idea about this matter, but even if he knew, he would be more willing to see the Italians doing useless work at sea for a few months.

They searched the waters around Sicily but couldn't find oil, so wouldn't the only option left to them be cooperation with themselves?

He deliberately mentioned the Mediterranean and gave it an ambiguous location that could easily lead to misunderstanding, just to achieve such a result.

After dealing with the Italian Prime Minister Cheng Yaojin who came out of nowhere, Chen Muwu had only one task left on his trip to the Apennine Peninsula, which was to meet with Pope Pius XI in two days.

As an atheist, Chen Muwu is certainly not a Catholic. He accepted the invitation from the Papal State simply because he thought it would be interesting to visit the center of world Catholicism. Just as the Pope said in the telegram, he was already there. Como, just go south to Rome once and treat it as a publicly funded tour.

But Hubble is different. Although he is a "superior" who was invited by the Pope to come to Rome, he is an American after all and still has religious beliefs.

Being able to come to Rome to meet the Pope this time is considered to be one of the more important things in Hubble's European trip.

He happily crossed the border between Rome and the Papal States and arrived at the Vatican City.

However, a series of developments since then have always made Hubble feel that his hot face is hot but his butt is cold.

The Papal State was enthusiastic when inviting, but cold when receiving. The reason for these two completely different attitudes was, of course, because Chen Muwu had met with the Italian government first.

Do you really think that a religious leader who insists that "God created the entire world" will really have the time to discuss the origin of the universe with scientists?

The reason why he invited Chen Muwu and Hubble to come was because he took a fancy to his reputation in the scientific and journalistic circles, and wanted to ride on the popularity and let Dr. Chen speak for the Papal States whose territory had been occupied by Italy.

But this heretic betrayed him faster than anyone else. This Chen Muwu was indeed the darling of the news media. Within two days of coming to Rome, he had already been published twice in the largest newspaper in Italy, "Corriere della Sera", and once with Italy's Corriere della Sera. The powers-that-be shook hands cheerfully, and another time…

Look, what views did he express in the newspaper?
Is it possible that after coming to the Vatican, His Majesty the Pope should discuss with him whether God also created aliens when he created humans on the sixth day?

In the Vatican, Chen Muwu's waiting time was even longer than in the reception room of the Venice Palace two days ago.

It was not until the third hour of the moon that Pius XI, wearing a round melon hat, belatedly arrived, surrounded by various bishops in red and purple clothes.

They are all already poor, but they still have a lot of poverty.

Chen Muwu did not understand the etiquette required when meeting the Pope. In order to show respect for the scientist, the other party did not pay much attention to these things.

He only shook hands with the Pope, but Hubble, who was traveling with him, kissed the back of the Pope's hand according to the etiquette of a believer.

Pius XI was born in Milan. His native language was also Italian, and his second foreign language was Latin, which was commonly used in the church.

After they met, an English-speaking bishop was still in the middle to act as translator.

Everyone tacitly agreed not to mention anything about the Papal States, because it seemed that even if they did, it wouldn't be very convincing.

Chen Muwu had a cordial conversation with the Prime Minister of Italy just days ago, and today he justly supports the restoration of the Papal States. Who would believe it?
All the Holy See wants is to publish the news of today's meeting between the Pope, Chen Muwu and Hubble in newspapers, so that readers around the world can realize that the Pope is not an old stubborn who follows feudal tradition, but is also trying to accept the most advanced ideas of our time. It is enough to use scientific knowledge to build a more complete image of the Pope.

But if we have already met, we always have to chat for a few words.

"Dr. Chen, Your Majesty would like to ask you, since you said that our universe does not exist from beginning to end, but has a starting point. Then is there a possibility, just like what is recorded in "Genesis", that the entire universe Was the universe created by God? The starting point of the universe you mentioned is the moment when God created the world."

Chen Muwu shook his head straightforwardly. He must resolutely deny the other party's question and cannot let the magicians use him to make a fuss about this: "Since His Majesty mentioned the records in Genesis, I will also use the contents. Let me talk about this matter, - I am not a believer, I just learned some relevant knowledge in advance in order to meet with His Majesty, - It is said that God created the universe on the first day, and created it on the sixth day. Human, but in reality, let alone the sixth day, even if it is the sixth thousandth day, the 6th thousand day, or the No. 60 billion day, the earth may not exist in our universe, let alone the people living on the earth. People."

"Is there a possibility that this six is ​​a false finger?"

The person opposite was obviously unwilling to give up.

"With all due respect, China also has many classics handed down from ancient times, such as a book called "The Classic of Mountains and Seas". If you want to distort the interpretation, you can also draw a conclusion from that book. The Chinese The existence of America was known thousands of years ago.

"Personally, I think this book is nothing more than a collection of myths and the discovery of America is far-fetched.

“Let me give you another example from the Bible. If the Jews take the Bible and say that Palestine, which is now under British mandate, is the promised land of their ancestors, does that mean that this land should be handed over to the Jews? I really don’t agree with Europe’s current support for people like them.”

After hearing the bishop translate Chen Muwu's speech for him, Pius XI was helpless.

He himself can't even restore the glory of the Middle Ages and restore the Papal State. Who will care whether the Jews can regain their state?

(End of this chapter)