"Bniface of Montferrat?"

"It's me, Your Majesty!"

"Great Supreme, I am honored to meet you!"

The aristocratic knights of Italy tried to show their gentlemanly demeanor, and even when invited by the Roman emperor, he had to maintain his dignity, and the pride of the ancient Roman nobility had not yet faded from the blood of the Italians. Ｘ

"I heard you're a ranger?"

"This is slander, Your Majesty!"

"I just fulfilled my obligations as a knight at the right time!"

"Fighting for Righteousness Against Injustice and Evil?"

"Yes, Your Majesty the Emperor!"

"This is the Knight's Ring I uphold!"

Alexios stood up and smiled at the somewhat helpless Western knight.

"I've long wanted to see the bravery of Western knights, if you have time, why don't you stay in Constantinople and be my sword instructor?"

Although the Italian knight hesitated for a moment, he quickly agreed that this was a rare opportunity to communicate with the Supreme of the Eastern Empire.

The future of knights is not to find their own monarch, swear allegiance, put on armor, and return to heaven!

Alexios stared at Berniface, but his heart was turbulent under his plain face.

The man on the other side will play an indispensable role in the collapse of the empire in the last days.

Monteferrat Huberniface, one of the commanders of the Fourth Crusade and founder of the Kingdom of Thessaloniki.

With this ambitious military aristocrat buried in a foreign land, his series of legendary titles and glorious deeds were buried by the dust of history.

This Italian aristocratic knight, together with Enrique Dandollo, the viceroy of Venice, and Alexios Anglos the Younger (Alexios IV) led and completed the war to destroy the Eastern Roman Empire.

The glorious imperial capital of Constantinople was knocked to the dust, and the ancient empire, which had lasted for thousands of years, could no longer recover.

The beginning of the war began with the tragic death of Saladin, the lord of Egypt.

The once-powerful Ayyubid dynasty of Egypt fell into civil strife, and the sultan's sons competed with each other for the throne, in a vain attempt to recreate the prosperity of his father's time, but were successfully defeated by his uncle Adil.

Pope Innocent III saw this as an opportune time to seize Egypt and support the Crusader states, so he called on the feudal lords of Western Europe to participate in the Fourth Crusade.

At the instigation of the Pope, the most powerful lords of the continent gathered one after another, and gathered 5,000 regular knights of fanatical faith, as well as 20,000 infantry, 10,000 knightly squires, and miscellaneous personnel, and the total number of troops was as high as 40,000.

Geoffreyville Hardouin, the first of the medieval chivalric epics, wrote about it in his book.

"No Christian has ever seen such a majestic fleet!"

"The whole harbor was crowded with sailboats, galleys, flat-bottomed boats, ......"

"Ahh

"What a pity to think of the knights who didn't come!"

"With such a great army, Christ's army could have destroyed the infidels in one fell swoop!"

In light of the tragic fate of the Second and Third Crusaders, this time the leaders of the Crusaders knew full well that they had to be reliably supplied at sea.

Both Pisa and Genoa were keen to make high profits from the Oriental trade, and both countries lacked the organizational capacity to assemble large groups of ships in a short period of time.

The Pope and the lords turned their attention to the Venetians, and only with the help of the most powerful Republic fleet in the Eastern Mediterranean could the Crusaders roam the seas and fulfill the long-cherished wish of the Frankish knights to destroy the infidels.

But the shrewd Venetians, after some calculations, unceremoniously made an offer as impressive as the strength of the Crusaders, a freight that directly stunned the Crusader commanders.

Sky-high price!

Fifty galleys, seventy galleys, two hundred and forty sailing ships, one hundred and twenty flat-bottomed landing ships, and 30,000 sailors and marines.

And that's not all, there were 30,000 plus 41,000 men for a total of 70,000 men and 5,000 horses, and the cost for one year alone was 85,000 silver marks.

The Pope and the emissaries of the Order were dumbfounded by the astronomical price.

At that time, the whole of Western Europe may have been twisted dry like a rag, and I am afraid that there would be no cash of 85,000 marks to pay.

In fact, the "entire budget" of the expeditionary force at that time was only 50,000 marks.

It is no wonder that King Lionheart thought of selling London, the capital of the Kingdom of England.

The valiant and invincible king was also discouraged, describing his predicament this way: "If anyone can make an offer, I will sell it at once!" ”

It was not the pagan swords that held back the advance of the crusaders, but the terrible mountain-like military spending.

The commanders of the crusaders were in a situation from which they could not extricate themselves, they lacked ships for transport and had to turn to the Republic of Venice for help.

But the cunning governor of the republic had a problem for them, and the knights found themselves unable to even pay the fare!

Enrico Dandolo, a blind man who, according to historians, was over eighty years old at the time, but his shrewdness and command skills were beyond the reach of the Crusader generals.

Under these circumstances, any unreasonable demands of Dandolo were justified, and the Crusader knights were effectively forced to submit to the Doge of Venice at his disposal.

It was at this time that Berniface of Montferrat threw himself into the arms of the governor along with Alexios Angelos the Younger, who had lost his succession to the throne.

The trio manipulated the fate of tens of thousands of crusaders, turning warriors who were supposed to be victorious against the infidels into puppets in the hands of conspirators.

The Doge of Venice summed it up after the war: "Conscience is what only the passive side can say, and the dominant side does not care about conscience!" ”

Another mastermind of the war, Alexios the Younger, was overthrown by the rebellious Byzantine nobility and populace not long after the storming of Constantinople.

The traitor's head was cut off, and his elderly blind father, Isaac, was thrown back into prison.

As for the Italian nobleman who used to be a wanderer, Montferrat Huberniface established his own kingdom in Thessaloniki, the second largest city in Greece, and wore the crown he longed for.

The man's original purpose was difficult to trace, but his final actions dealt a heavy blow to the Empire, leaving Rome without a slump until Nicaea was restored to exile and Constantinople was unable to recover from the war.

"Then I need your advice from today onwards!"

"Your Excellency Instructor Berniface!"

The Italians were sincerely happy, and it was better to serve the Supreme of the Eastern Empire than to return home to face the Redbeard's soldiers.

"I'm happy to serve you, Your Majesty!" r