Chapter 346 Alexios V

The winter of 1200 was not easy.

Everything is so solemn that even Christmas cannot wash away the little bit of sadness.

In the fourth century, the church set the birthday of Brother Tian as December 12, which was the winter solstice in Rome.

It also happens to be nine months after the Feast of the Annunciation.

Well, the Feast of the Annunciation happens to fall on the Roman spring equinox, which is March 3th.

As in previous years, Christians in Constantinople observed the Christmas fast from November 11th to December 15th.

During these days, meat and dairy products are usually prohibited and the diet is mainly vegetarian, but fish is an exception, which can be eaten on certain days of the week.

Of course, the Christmas fast in 1200 was, in a sense, practiced by the citizens of the city.

They were just like Moses, Elijah, and Brother Tian, ​​who had difficulty in getting enough food in the wilderness.

For the poor citizens, life in Constantinople was already miserable and torturous, and now it was besieged by the Crusaders, it was even more painful.

Eat fish? Where can we eat fish now?

Even rye was running low, and if Alexios V had not been in charge, a large-scale famine would have spread throughout Constantinople long ago.

Back a few months earlier, in August, the Crusaders besieged Constantinople and launched several tentative attacks.

Not long after Alexios III arrived at the battlefield, he fled from Constantinople in a hurry, which made the citizens of the city lose confidence in resistance. They supported Alexios III’s younger brother, former emperor Isaac II, and then accepted Alexios IV as co-emperor in negotiations.

In order to satisfy the appetite of the Crusaders, Alexios IV plundered the city on a large scale, even melting the holy images into gold and silver ingots.

As a result, Alexios IV’s throne was naturally unstable. In order to wipe out the root of the problem, he led a crusade to try to pursue his uncle Alexios III.

As soon as Alexios IV left the house, protests against the Crusaders broke out in the city.

Because Constantinople has had close economic ties with Europe for a long time, there are also a large number of European immigrants. They are called Latins because they use the Latin alphabet.

The Latins, or Westerners, who lived in the city’s settlements were attacked by the citizens of Constantinople.

In retaliation, the Crusaders outside the city broke into the city, looted a mosque, and were met with strong resistance from the citizens of Constantinople and the Muslim community.

During the subsequent retreat, the Crusaders set fire to the city in order to protect themselves.

The fire burned for three days and three nights, burning down one-sixth of the ordinary civilian urban area and leaving about one-third of the people homeless.

At this time, the number of Constantinople citizens was still between 400,000 and 500,000. In other words, more than 100,000 citizens were living on the streets.

On the one hand, Constantine’s will to resist has indeed declined, and on the other hand, it is also reflected in the decline in stability within the city.

Then, two months ago, the citizens of Constantinople launched a rebellion. During this rebellion, the Imperial Senate, the church and the citizen groups elected Nicholas Canabos as the emperor of the empire, thus seeking to overthrow the rule of Alexios IV.

Even though Nicholas was unwilling to be crowned, Alexios IV and his son were frightened. After locking themselves in the palace, they entrusted another man called Alexios Doukas, known as “the Gloomy One”, to go outside the city to seek resources for the Crusaders.

Alexios the Gloomy had begun to gain a certain reputation in previous operations for his fierce resistance to the Latins.

When Alexios IV and his son encountered a crisis, he did not choose to follow the arrangements, but bribed the Varangian Guard and arrested the emperor with the support of the Varangian Guard.

As a result, Isaac Angelos, who had been in power for ten years and overthrew the Komnenos dynasty, died of exhaustion due to fear.

As for Alexios IV Angelos, who summoned the Crusaders to Constantinople, he was hanged in prison.

As for Nicholas Canabos, who was nominated by the Senate, when he faced Alexios the Gloomy, he was dragged out of Hagia Sophia, arrested, and executed.

Stepping on the bones and blood of three emperors, Alexios the Gloomy became Alexios V of the Eastern Roman Empire. He took over the scepter symbolizing imperial power from Patriarch Constantine and declared himself the orthodox monarch of the Romans.

For a moment, Constantinople seemed to have welcomed a powerful ruler.

He was full of Byzantine conspiracy in his bones, and he was arrogant and domineering. He even had Eudokia, the daughter of Alexius III, as his mistress.

But is it really so?

In December, the temperature in Constantinople did not drop below 12°, so there was no snowfall like in Trebizond.

But the cold wind still blew through the doorposts of the Blachen Palace from time to time and blew on Alexius’ face.

His face was shrouded in an indelible gloom. Even without seeing his eyes, Eudokia, who was walking beside him with light steps, could feel the depression in his face.

Coming to Alexius who was looking through the account book, Eudokia put a cloak on him, hoping that he would not catch a cold.

The candlelight was lit in the dead of night, shining on the strings of numbers, leaving a deep impression on Alexius.

“Be careful, don’t hurt yourself. The Romans still need you to stand there in good health. You are the emperor of the empire.”

When she said this, Eudokia meant it sincerely.

Alexios V was tall, thin, and strong, with slightly curly black hair and a thin face. He was young and strong. During the previous chaos, the various conspiracies he displayed were all based on the essence of his predecessors.

The more critical the moment, the more we need a ruthless person to stand up and support the sky of Rome.

But Alexius just snorted coldly.

“Does the Empire really still exist?”

“I am not even the master of this city.”

“The Empire ceased to be an Empire when Alexios Komnenos came to the throne.”

Eudokia didn’t quite understand what Alexios meant, and Alexios was too lazy to explain more.

Before the Komnenian dynasty, the empire was the empire and the line of emperors was the line of emperors.

As an imperial position, no matter who holds the position for whatever reason, there is always a bureaucratic system that can make it run normally.

If the changes of dynasties in the Celestial Empire were almost always accompanied by large-scale civil wars, then the changes of dynasties in the Byzantine Empire were basically due to court conspiracies.

However, the changes of dynasties caused by court conspiracies were not enough to change the overall structure of the empire.

In other words, before the Komnenian dynasty, even if there was a dog sitting on the throne, it would not lead to major changes and decline of the empire in a short period of time.

But the Komnenos dynasty was different. Alexios, who saved the empire, successfully turned the empire into the private property of the aristocratic alliance he represented.

Alexios Komnenos, in a sense, truly established a dynasty under a single family.

In this process, the vast majority of people in the empire, either actively or passively, became slaves of a certain family.

At a certain period, it even became Komnenos = Eastern Rome.

In the early days, Alexios I was able to mediate the problems of the empire with administrative orders, but as time went on, the problems became more and more serious. This was even more so during the reign of Manuel, when it could be said that the private property of the Komnenos family supported the operation of the empire.

Even after Amanuel’s death, the empire quickly lost actual control over Thessaly, Peloponnese, Asia Minor, Pontus and other places.

Then, the Komnenos dynasty was overthrown and the Angelos dynasty came to power, but the political landscape did not change fundamentally.

Even because the Angelos family held far less land than the Komnenos family, the land they actually controlled outside of Constantinople was only from Thessalonica to Chalcedon.

The empire’s finances were completely ruined. During this period, Isaac II even had to rely on hiring pirates to plunder merchant ships in order to live his life as an emperor.

Is an emperor who cannot rule the empire really an emperor?

Alexios V might not have seen it clearly before, but when he climbed to this position, he finally understood why no reinforcements had arrived in Constantinople for such a long time.

It was no longer the empire that owned the nobility, but the nobility that owned the empire.

Those nobles who owned the empire had also abandoned this place.

Why should they sacrifice their own interests and take advantage of others?
“Angelos, Komnenos, Doukas, Paleologos, Brienne…”

In the light of the candle, Alexios read out one surname after another. These surnames represented mountains that pressed down on Constantinople out of thin air.

Not only did these families own vast estates locally, but even in Constantinople, they controlled enormous wealth that was unimaginable to ordinary people.

When Alexios IV plundered the entire city, he did not dare to look at those families at all, which was why he could not raise enough money to pay the Crusaders.

“Eudocia.”

“what happened?”

“Before I declare war on the Crusaders, I will declare war on the masters of this city.”

Eudokia understood what Alexios meant, and her original grace and pride could no longer be maintained.

As a descendant of the old royal family and the mistress of the new tyrant, she would either witness the birth of the empire or be buried with it.

……

On Christmas Day, the citizens of Constantinople not only thanked Jesus for his coming to the world, but also prayed to Jesus to protect their emperor and bring him victory in all battles.

Because of Alexios V, a month ago, they were organized into militia guards, who rushed into the mansions of nobles and officials and stole food and property.

The emperor is on their side, what great news!
As a result, many of them did not have to starve to death in the past few days, and they could often get a lot of rewards.

But are things really that good?

of course not.

In the eyes of ordinary citizens of Constantinople, Alexios V was good in every way except for one thing.

He always loses the battle!

Alexios V personally led his troops to ambush the Crusaders’ rear guard, but they were defeated and their military flags and statues of the Virgin Mary were seized.

In this era, the empire’s icon worship has become an inevitable trend that is difficult to reverse.

The loss of the holy statues and military flags was almost equivalent to saying that the Celestial Emperor’s imperial seal had been stolen by the barbarians.

Even though Alexios V managed to survive, he also lost many of his most loyal soldiers.

Several subsequent attacks also had little effect.

Faced with the invincible force of the Crusaders, Alexios V was helpless.

It seems that the martial virtues that the Romans used to conquer the world had completely lost their connection with Constantinople in the 1200 years.

“If you ask me, we should just surrender. This fight will never end!”

On this winter day, several homeless sans-culottes wandering the streets squatted on the street corners, eating bread distributed by Alexios V and talking about various topics.

In the middle of them was a lit fire to keep them warm.

“That’s right! I can’t win in a fight, and I don’t want to make peace. I can’t even get the materials to repair my house.”

“No matter what, life has to go on. We can’t keep fighting till the end of time!”

Romanus listened to what the people around him said and spat secretly.

Rome, after all, has lost its former arrogance, and now only a broken body is left, barely surviving.

Apart from hearing their breathing, Romanus felt that they were no different from dead people, without souls or vitality.

If you can’t win, then just stop fighting?

Since there is nothing left to lose, do you not care about continuing to lose?

Is hatred something that can be put aside at will?
When he thought of his wife and children who had died in the Latin fire, Romanus’ chest burned with fire, eager to erupt.

Even though several months had passed, he still hadn’t extinguished the fire in his heart.

Staring at the fire, Romanus couldn’t help but stand up and punched the guys who were eating royal food and talking about surrender.

In fact, he had not eaten enough, so he did not swing his fist with much force, barely making the man stagger.

It was at this time that these sans-culottes expressed shock and incomprehension at Romanus’ actions.

The sound of fighting was heard from the direction of the Petria Gate not far away.

And from the sound, it seemed to be gradually approaching from a distance. The Petria Gate was breached!
Romanus could understand it, and naturally the others around him could understand it as well.

When they realized the crisis was coming and thought of all the failures in the past, these people put down the bread in their hands and subconsciously ran away in the direction of the Petria Gate.

Only Romanus was still standing here. He looked ferocious for a while and pulled out a burning piece of fire from the fire beside him.

Going upstream in the tide of the crowd, he saw Alexios V, who was mobilizing citizens not far away, hoping that someone would stand up to resist.

But it was all in vain.

Only Romanus rushed forward with fire in hand, but was discovered by an unknown Norman knight, who stabbed him with a sword. Before he could react, his carotid artery was cut.

Blood splattered on Lao Gao and extinguished the fire in his hands.

(End of this chapter)