Chapter 203 Imperial Power

In order to maintain his rule in Anatolia, Peter brought over his helpers from Constanta.

"Your Highness"

"Oh, my dear Alexander, I hope you can bring me good news."

At this time, Alexander had become the financial director of Anatolia. This dilapidated businessman had delivered a satisfactory answer in his previous official career, so Peter transferred him here in the hope of planning Anatolia. Asia's economy.

Alexander did not disappoint him, and quickly formulated laws on industry, commerce, and trade in response to the situation in Anatolia. Protect local factories, encourage exports, reduce imports and increase tariff revenue by reducing taxes on textiles, leather and other industries. At the same time, it also supports high-end industries such as printing and dyeing and silk.

"Your Highness, if everything goes well, Anatolia's tariffs can be increased by 300,000 lei this year."

“The increase in income is not small.”

"Yes"

The economic crisis is temporarily resolved, and the next step is construction.

"Your Highness, the road from Chizikus to Smyrna has been planned. It is expected to take six months to complete."

Originally they thought that building the road would take a long time, but during the survey they discovered that the Roman and Nicaean empires had built von road systems, so they only needed to repair and reinforce the previous road system to create a new road.

As for the workers, they were taken by prisoners, and there were many prisoners during the war in Anatolia. Now is their time to shine.

Wallachia is working hard, and the Ottomans next door are naturally putting on a good show of brothers fighting against each other. Suleiman attacked Isa, Musa attacked Muhammad, and the whole of Anatolia was reduced to a pot of porridge.

Not only these four people, Trebizond also attacked after seeing this situation and recovered part of the Black Sea coast. The Mamluks supported Muhammad to prevent him from being destroyed by his brothers. Other large and small forces are also vying to expand their territory. On this small peninsula, a big fight is taking place.

In the Balkans, ties between Wallachia and Morea grew stronger. Whether it is trade, transportation or culture, they all develop together. Seeing that expansion had reached its limit, Theodore began to encourage cultural development.

Athens became a new cultural center. They used the culture of ancient Greece and Rome to oppose the theocracy and asceticism of Western Catholicism. Even the Orthodox are getting in on the act.

In order to show the difference between Orthodoxy and Catholicism, the church used Andrei to publicize the corruption of Catholicism and the incorruptibility of Orthodoxy. And try to minimize too much interference on people's lives, and at the same time cling tightly to the thigh of the Archduke of Wallachia. Only in this way can we not be attacked.

After the iconoclasm movement, the Eastern Church gradually obeyed the emperor's orders, while the Western Church established the Papal State with the help of Pepin. In the 12th century, the power of the Catholic Church reached its peak. The church was the tallest building in the city, the bishop held the power to interpret the Bible, and the pope was God's elected representative on earth. The church was like a moth, sucking a lot of money from the people every year to enrich itself. Although some people proposed reforms, they were suppressed by the popes in Rome and Avignon.

The Orthodox Church took advantage of the struggle for power between the two old men in the West to take root in Bohemia and Naples, and used them as a base for missionary work to the west. and spread among the general public.

Laszlo should be the first Western monarch to convert to Orthodoxy. After seeing the excessive interference of Catholicism in politics, he became fond of the Orthodox Church who quietly studied theology, literature and medicine, so he quietly converted in private. Be baptized. He attacked the Catholic Church and the Catholic nobility, and demanded the crown of Croatia, but Louis ignored him at all. Coupled with the instability of the domestic nobility, Laszlo turned inward and would not engage in foreign war for the time being.

The strange behavior in Naples made the Papal State uneasy. The Pope secretly bribed the nobles of Naples to assassinate Laszlo. After all, it was uneasy to keep such a bomb around. Especially after he adopted an Orthodox Christian, the Pope felt that he had reached some kind of agreement with Wallachia, and they were going to attack Rome. In this case, assassination became their only option.

In northern Europe, the Polish Orthodox Church and the Bohemian Orthodox Church began to spread the religion. Especially in Bohemia, an incorruptible church is more likely to be popular. The people at the bottom of society converted to Orthodoxy and opposed Catholicism, but the high-ranking nobles believed in Catholicism and suppressed Orthodoxy. Religious conflicts are plaguing the first elector of the HRE.

Contrasting the decline in the prestige of the Catholic Church was the strengthening of the authority of the Orthodox Church. After the death of Patriarch Antony IV of Constantinople last year, Basilius should have appointed the Patriarch, but the church directly sent people to Bukur Yesti to seek Wallachia’s opinion, which ultimately belonged to the Orthodox Church Bishop Theodosius became the Patriarch. He was also a pro-Wallachian, and the emperor also pinched his nose and recognized him.

After the Council, the Ecumenical Patriarchate began to be reestablished. The three Patriarchates of Antioch, Jerusalem, and Alexandria were reestablished in connection with the Fortress. There is a strong tendency to catch up with the Catholic Church.

Mircea also learned from the Roman Empire to create titles. He canonized Peter as Duke of Western Anatolia, Count of Smyrna, and Governor of all Anatolia. These provided legal principles and claims for the expansion of Wallachia.

At the same time, Mircea appointed Peter as the commander of the Anatolian army, truly fulfilling his promise on Asian soil. At the same time, the strength of the Boyar Council and local nobles continued to be weakened, and centralization was strengthened. Another centralized empire would soon emerge.

The centralization of Wallachia was greatly influenced by the Roman Empire. First of all, it was the unity of heaven and man in the Orthodox Church. As a faction of Christianity, the Orthodox Church has its own characteristics. For example, "it maintains the ancient and past orthodoxy, maintains the sacredness of faith, and it has its own uniqueness in preserving the tradition of faith"; from another perspective, the Orthodox Church has "more mysticism. There are more mysterious and intuitive ways here." This is in line with the imperial rule of Rome.

The second is the influence of the orientalization of the Roman Empire. Long before the division and split of the East and West Rome, the development of the eastern part of the Roman Empire had already had significant differences with the development of the western part of the Roman Empire. One of the important reasons for this significant difference is that the vast area of ​​the eastern part of the Roman Empire was originally the Hellenistic world. In addition to the spread of Greek culture, another important feature of the Hellenistic world is that it inherited the tradition of despotism and monarchy supremacy of the original Eastern countries, including the deification of the monarch and the personal worship of the monarch.

After Justinian, the empire became more and more orientalized, which was due to the need to consolidate the imperial power, including deifying the imperial power, giving court ceremonies a mystical color, and making the imperial power above everything else. The Principality of Kievan Rus, the Grand Duchy of Wallachia, and the Principality of Moscow accepted the orientalization of the Roman Empire while accepting Eastern Orthodoxy. It can be said that Wallachia was the successor and savior of the Eastern Roman Empire.