The night had already fallen, and Licinius had been summoned by the emperor to see Alexios, and when he entered the palace, he saw Alexios, who was buried in the desk, only showing only one head, and the quill sliding.

Licinius did not speak, he walked over to a candle that had been extinguished, refilled it with butter, and dispelled the dim shadows of the temple a little as the spark fell.

Gently walking to the emperor's side, Licinius also served some pastries, and the tempting aroma quickly wafted to Alexios's nose, and when he saw the figure standing on the side, he realized that someone had entered.

Alexios flipped through a page of parchment containing the latest report from Betak on plans for the reconstruction of Thessaloniki, which Alexios had reviewed and then wrote a few words encouraging Bertac to do it.

Bettak was doing well in Thessaloniki, helping Shishman build the Fourth Legion, relying on the original defenders of the city of Thessaloniki as the backbone, and then recruiting about 8,000 people from nearby areas, and a large army of 10,000 people has taken shape.

The Emperor is still more concerned about the formation of the new legion of the Defenders of Thessaloniki, if each legion has its own glorious history, this legion will have a true military spirit.

In the next document, Alexios instructed the royal treasurer to immediately send a sum of about 10,000 pieces of gold to Betak, which was not only sent by the emperor to Salonika to repair the city, but also to test Betarch as a person.

"Licinius, how long have you been here?" Noticing the presence of the eunuch, the emperor continued to review the documents and asked.

"Not long, Your Majesty."

"All the information you need about the Republic of San Marco is here!" As he spoke, Licinius handed over a thick stack of parchment.

Alexios had long been dissatisfied with Venice's covert funding of traitors within the empire, and the two sides had fought many wars over the Venetians' trading privileges in Constantinople while the emperor was still alive.

Ten years ago, Emperor Manuel expelled the Venetians, confiscated their property, restricted their privileges, and confiscated the Venetian shops, which directly triggered an armed confrontation between the two countries.

It was not until six years ago that the Eastern Roman Empire re-allowed the Venetians to return to Constantinople after balancing the power of the Italian republics, but Venice had been replaced by Genoese and Pisa.

The naval fleets of the Eastern Empire were now filled with Genoese sailors, but the Venetians still coveted the Aegean, the Eastern Mediterranean waterways, and the Black Sea waterway trade, which eventually led to the ultimate showdown between the two countries.

It wasn't until the Crusaders broke Constantinople and established the Latin Empire that this centuries-long grievance came to an end.

Alexios also had a headache for a while, Venice had been watching over the wealth of the empire, as he had always known, but he had not had much time to care about this enemy after he succeeded to the throne.

But it wasn't until he defeated Alexei Komnenos that Alexios discovered what role the Venetians had played in the turmoil of the empire for more than a year.

These guys, who are afraid that the world will not be chaotic, have been providing funds for the rebellion of Andronica and Alexei and others, and they have a huge fortune of up to 100,000 gold pieces!

"I'm really willing to spend money!"

Alexios looked at the information sent by Licinius, which recorded the imperial nobles and bureaucrats that Dandoro had come into contact with in those days, and all of them were involved in the rebellion.

Alexios saw that the end was really hot, he directly threw all the parchment on the table, and touched his forehead with his hand, he felt an incomparably headache, such an opponent who was out of his reach had been using tricks behind his back, and sooner or later one day he would be overshadowed.

"It's hard to prevent it!"

Alexios sighed at the Venetian obsession, but he couldn't think of a better way for a while.

Remember that in the past, when the Kingdom of Croatia was always biased towards the Empire, the Republic of Venice had to be deferential to the Empire due to the threat of the Empire's land advances.

But when the Kingdom of Croatia fell into the arms of Roman Catholicism, the Republic of Venice began to reveal its long-hidden true colors, claiming to be one of the successors of the Roman Empire.

Moreover, when the Eastern Empire was in trouble, he fell into trouble many times, forced the emperors of successive dynasties to sign harsh contracts, and encroached on the commercial interests belonging to the merchants of the Eastern Empire little by little, which undoubtedly moved the cheese of the empire.

As the empire's tax woes became increasingly visible, and later emperors had to swallow the bitter fruit of their ancestors, they finally realized that the Venetians were cutting the body of the empire with a soft knife stew.

Emperor Manuel made some efforts, from limiting the privileges of the Venetians in Constantinople to bringing in Genoese and Pisa to contain the increasingly powerful Republic of Venice, but the Venetians grew irrepressibly.

"It's no wonder that the Venetians and the Empire don't share a border, and it's really painful not to be able to pull out this nail!"

Licinius looked at the emperor's contemplative appearance, and stood silently without speaking until the emperor was heard talking to himself.

"Your Majesty, I heard that His Majesty Frederick the Redbeard is very unwilling to be defeated by the Northern Italian coalition organized by the Pope!"

Alexios turned his head to look at this slave of his own, and he didn't think that he still had such knowledge, yes, didn't his great-grandfather Alexios I use the same method back then!

Emperor Alexios I had nothing to do with the aggressive Normans, Robert Giscard and Bosimund.

At that time, the main forces of the Imperial army were lost in the Battle of Manzikert and the turmoil of the civil war that lasted for a decade, and they were powerless to fight the Normans, who were heavily armed and Catholic.

After successive defeats, the Emperor handed an olive branch to another emperor on the European continent, King Heinrich IV of Germany, the Emperor who had endured the humiliation of Canossa.

And the final result also proved that Alexios I was right, the Normans never had a chance to enter the Balkans again, so could he also follow his great-grandfather's example and hand an olive branch to Frederick the Redbeard!

"What you said woke me up, that's right!"

"Redbeard has always been obsessed with defeating Italy, he has no shortage of knights who are good at cavalry, what he lacks is loyal allies and a lot of gold!"

Alexios clapped his hands excitedly and laughed as the Lombard League gathered the forces of the northern Italian states to confront Redbeard.

However, he believed that if he could get more gold, the Redbeard would start a bigger war to try to conquer Italy and Rome.

"Licinius, yours has inspired me, and I now have a task for you!"