The reason why Zhou Chenggong supported the independent groups of these peoples was not only because these peoples were close to Greek culture, the language they spoke was even regarded as a Greek dialect, and the official written language was even used in classical Greek, which was handed down from ancient Greece and became the official language and official document during the Eastern Roman Empire. Nor is it because these peoples follow the same religion as the Greeks, the Orthodox Church.

The only reason is that Zhou Chenggong wants to expand, through the expansion of the power of the Greek kingdom, this is a very difficult thing, Greece, a country with a small population, does not have the ability to confront the Ottoman Empire head-on, the War of Independence and the subsequent Austro-Greek War, all of which made Greece suffer huge losses, and did not take advantage of it on the battlefield, the Ottoman army in the Austro-Greek War even hit near Athens, if it were not for the collapse of the Ottoman Empire by the Manchu Qing and Egypt, Greece may even have been reduced to a province under the Ottoman Empire again.

Today's Greece, although the population is three times that of the independent period, is still a small country with a population of only 3 million, and the full-time working situation of the industrial population is difficult to organize and train regularly like the peasants, so before World War II, the reserve military service system has always been based on the peasants.

Greece, which was based on industry and commerce, was based on conscription, the standing army was kept at 100,000 men, and with the king as the commander, the local armed forces, including the Peloponnese, were completely wiped out and disbanded in the last war.

His own lack of strength and ambition to rebuild the Eastern Roman Empire made Zhou Chenggong choose another way, that is, to support the independent forces of Bulgaria and other countries. Due to the Greek immigration policy, different ethnic groups from various places were formed in the Athens region, and these ethnic groups gradually formed some independent communities due to differences in cultural backgrounds, such as Bulgarians, Bosnians, Albanians, and Romanians. Based on these immigrant communities, anti-government groups that could not gain a foothold in their home countries were formed here.

The Greek king financed these groups in the same way that Russia funded the Greek Friendship Society, for a purpose that was not pure.

Zhou Chenggong's funding, of course, is not a mess, he is picking those groups that meet his purpose, such as those Great Hellenists, Eastern Romanists, those with a Greater Greek identity are of course the best, and those ultra-nationalists who call for the rebuilding of the Eastern Roman Empire are also in line with Zhou Chenggong's requirements, because he also wants to rebuild the Eastern Roman Empire.

In the Eastern Roman Empire, although Greek culture was the official culture, Greek and Greek were the official languages and scripts, the core of the Eastern Roman Empire was in Istanbul, and the peninsula of Asia Minor was even more prosperous than Greece during the Eastern Roman Empire.

The Bulgarians migrated from the Volga region in the late Eastern Roman Empire and were later assimilated by Greek culture, so most Bulgarian ethnic groups did not agree with the Greek concept of nation, and what they wanted to restore was a large empire with Istanbul as the capital and unified all Orthodox peoples. and not directly incorporated into the Kingdom of Greece.

It is such a group that has now launched an uprising in Bulgaria. They have long wanted to mobilize, but there are serious problems such as insufficient manpower, insufficient funds, and lack of weapons and ammunition. They had turned to the Greek king, who occasionally discussed the rebuilding of the Eastern Roman Empire with the elite of their community, but the Greek king would give them a small amount of money to keep them afloat, but they did not have enough money to buy weapons and recruit men to start an uprising.

This time, the king relented, and not only provided them with weapons and equipment, but also provided them with a constant advisory group, and the members of the advisory group were all Greek officers composed of Bulgarian immigrants, and there was no communication problem.

The members of these groups, although they were all in Greece, were all kinds of problematic people who had escaped from the country, and there were also their members and organizations in the country, and with the secret help of the Greek army, they successfully crossed the Greek border, smuggled a large amount of weapons and ammunition into the Bulgarian region, and then armed their members, occupied the Ottoman cities on the Greek border, and then recruited troops and declared the establishment of the Bulgarian state.

One of the conditions for the Greek king's support for the Bulgarian independence group was that independent Bulgaria recognized him as king, and even reclaimed him as emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire after the re-establishment of the Eastern Roman Empire, and because of their reluctance to incorporate into Greece, Bulgaria would become part of the Eastern Roman Empire as a kingdom on an equal footing with Greece.

In this way, Zhou Chenggong received promises from them to honor him as king or emperor on the condition of funding various ethnic independence groups, and whether these promises could be fulfilled is not certain, but it was the most economical way for Greece to expand as a small country.

After the Bulgarian uprising, the leader of the uprising quickly announced the establishment of a kingdom in Bulgaria and invited the Greek king to be the king of Bulgaria, and then formally appealed to Greece for help. The routine was to instigate a Polish uprising with Prussia, and then Poland asked Prussia for help, and Prussia marched into Poland to expel the Russian army; Or later, the Russians instigated an uprising in Poland, and the Russian army entered Poland in the same way as Prussia fought for it. It's all rotten, but it works!

Zhou Chenggong did not immediately agree to become the Kingdom of Bulgaria, because Britain intervened, and the British consul immediately opposed the Greek king becoming the king of Bulgaria, asking Zhou Chenggong not to accept this invitation, and also asked Greece not to interfere in the rebellion of the Ottoman Empire.

At this time, the Ottoman army of more than 700,000 troops was still besieged in the Black Sea direction, and the British were trying to persuade Russia to let the Ottoman forces go, but Russia had insisted that the Ottoman forces surrender and the Ottoman Empire return the Crimean peninsula.

Under the repeated persuasion of the British, the Ottoman Empire had already decided to accept the fate of defeat and abandon the Crimean peninsula, but at this time the Russians suddenly disagreed and insisted that the Black Sea Ottoman army surrender, otherwise there would be no truce.

This change in attitude took place just after the visit of the Chinese crown prince to Russia, and a fool would not believe it if there was no inside story.

Now that the Bulgarians have suddenly revolted, and have openly invited the Greek king to enter Bulgaria and become the king of Bulgaria, if the Greek king, who is also the prince of China, did not participate in the conspiracy of China and Russia, the fool may believe it, but the British will never believe it.

Therefore, Britain immediately sent a note to the Greek government, saying that Britain would never accept the Greek king as the king of Bulgaria, nor did it want Greece to intervene in the Bulgarian rebellion.