"The national capital! Brother Ka's cousin is not the emperor, no wonder Brother Ka will be captured by the big cannibals, and the city wall here is too low! Luo Youde looked around, listened to Hong Tao's explanation, shook his head and smashed his mouth, and looked down on this small coastal city.

"Actually, his cousin's country is very large, called the Holy Roman Empire, with a population of about 10 million, most of which is in the north, and this is just a small kingdom in it. His cousin was not only the emperor of the empire, but also the king of the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. How so? Their country is not the same as the Great Song Dynasty, it is composed of a small kingdom, and the emperor is chosen from these small kings, and whoever is chosen must be crowned by the head of their religion before he can become the emperor. However, these small kingdoms are not directly managed by the emperor, as long as people pay enough taxes, the emperor can't control it, at most he helps the emperor to send some troops during the war. Compared with the emperor of the Great Song Dynasty, his cousin's power is far behind. Hong Tao is not very familiar with the situation in medieval Europe, but he still understands much more than Luo Youde, anyway, he has nothing to do now, and he just picked up the ability to be a tour guide in the past, not only to Luo Youde, but also to increase the knowledge of the crew.

"Brother I understand, Brother Ka and his cousin implemented ancient rites, I think when the Zhou Dynasty was established, the emperor was elected by all the princes, and everyone had their own vassal states. Didn't there be an allusion to the princes of the Beacon Fire Theater, where the princes didn't bring their own soldiers to aid their emperor when they were fighting, and if they were not satisfied with the emperor, they simply didn't come, or brought soldiers to overthrow the emperor and choose someone else to do it. "Luo Youde understands China's history better than Hong Tao. He's also very good at association. This European state system introduced by Hong Tao. was deduced by him, and it directly became the model of the ancient Chinese princes.

"Brother Luo! It's a bit like that, but there's one thing we don't have on our side, and that's this church. Although they are not directly involved in the management of the country, their influence spreads to every corner of the country, and even the election of kings and emperors is influenced by the church. Hong Tao felt that Luo Youde's deduction made some sense, but it was not comprehensive. The pattern of the vassal states of ancient China was indeed similar to that of medieval Europe. But there is one important constituent unit missing, and that is the church.

"Well, to establish a country by teaching, this is a bit like the habit of Tianzhu country, ********." Luo Youde can also be regarded as a well-informed figure in this era, as long as Hong Tao is not too advanced, he generally has his own opinions.

"There is also a difference between the ********, and between their pope and the secular emperor, there is not only cooperation, but also struggle. I don't quite understand that. But it will soon be clear that since we are here. You can see with your eyes, think with your brain, and ask with your mouth. By the way, everyone remember, I will leave you with a task now, and when we return to the sea, each of you will give me a discourse on the political system of the European countries. Those above the first class sailor must be handed in, otherwise they will be dealt with as dereliction of duty! When it comes to the issue of the political system, Hong Tao is very touched, although he is not a king or an emperor, but in fact he is doing something like a king or even an emperor. In the end, what kind of political system is the most promising and suitable for the development of Jinhewan, he is also at a loss for the second monk. Since you can't think clearly, it's better to mobilize the masses to think together and brainstorm ideas. Everyone puts forward their own opinions, and there may be something worth learning from them.

Frederick II, which is a transliteration of Hong Kong and Macau, should be translated as Friedrich II according to Mandarin. This emperor has many names, and his full name is "King of Germany, King of the Two Sicilies, King of Jerusalem, His Majesty the Holy Roman Emperor." ”

So where is he the emperor? This question is very complicated to make clear, and you can use the Seven Kingdoms of the Warring States period as an analogy. This Friedrich II was the king of Qin, the king of Wei, and the king of Chu, and then these three countries formed an empire called Holy Rome, so he was the emperor of this empire.

In European history, kings and emperors are two concepts, as are kingdoms and empires. A kingdom is a fief, and a person can be the king of multiple kingdoms, but only the emperor of one empire. There were many kingdoms in medieval Europe, and under the kingdom there were principalities, candidate states, knightly domains, etc., all of which were hereditary and canonized. But the emperor must be crowned by the pope to be orthodox, which is considered authorized by God. In an empire, there can be N kingdoms and N principalities and candidate states.

Carl's cousin's family bloodline is very complicated, if you have to trace the roots, you can trace it all the way to Charlemagne, there are hundreds of years of history, I am afraid it will not be clear if you don't write tens of thousands of words, there is not much nonsense here, if you are interested, you can check it yourself. But the surname Hohensteffen has to be said twice, Hohensteffen is an honorific title, and Steffen is the real surname. The surname originated in the Swabian region of southwestern Germany and its name comes from a castle called Steffens. Karl and his cousin were born to the Duke of Swabia, and together with the Duchy of Saxony, Bavaria, and Lorraine, they were known as the Four Duchyes of Germany.

Friedrich II's mother, Constance, was the legal heir to the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, so he was able to inherit not only the German Kingdom of his father Henry VI but also the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies from an early age. During the Sixth Crusade, he and Sultan Kamil, the leader of A'rab, ended the crusade by means of peace talks, and easily brought back half of the holy city of Jerusalem. No matter how dissatisfied the pope and the European aristocracy were, he considered himself worthy of the king, and made himself king of Jerusalem without the pope crowning him.

The emperor was born in Sicily, grew up in Sicily, and was technically Italian. For the Kingdom of Germany, he did not like it, he did not adapt to it, and he did not care about it, and most of the time, he stayed in the Kingdom of Sicily, and even gave up the title of King of Germany to others. In his life, he only once in public claimed the title of Emperor of Germany, and the rest of the time he proclaimed himself King of Sicily, which shows how much he disliked the land of Germany.

Hong Tao probably knows more about this emperor than anyone else in some aspects, even more than the emperor himself. There is no way, there are many history books in later generations that have introduced this maverick emperor in detail, and Dante even called him the father of Italian poetry in the "Divine Comedy", the reason is not how great he is as an emperor, but how strange he is as an emperor, and it is almost incompatible with the social environment at that time. Hong Tao happened to have read this information, and he himself is a person who is not very compatible with society, which can also be regarded as gathering people by like. Sometimes Hong Tao even suspects that this Friedrich II may also be a time-traveler, and he does things very similar to the time-traveler.

He was a Christian who despised the Pope and had no enthusiasm for religion and doubted its correctness. He was excommunicated by the pope four times in his life, and when he was at the most stiff, he even led the army to directly capture the Papal States, which frightened the pope and trotted all the way to France, which is also the reason why many later popes were influenced by France. A multi-talented zoologist, philosopher, and poet, he spoke seven languages and was fluent in writing, including Hebrew, Greek, and Aʹra\Bo. The most interesting thing is that in the kingdom of the Two Sicilies he ruled, Greeks, Byzantines, Arabs, Normans, Franks, Italians, North Africans, Jews and Christians lived together and got along very well.

"Sir, I don't know if any other city in the Holy Roman Empire is more prosperous than here, but if they are all similar here, I am afraid that our goods will not be sold. Just now I looked at the clothes worn by Captain Karl's fellow countryman, as a royal businessman, he was a little shabby...... "Jiang Zhuyi's ability to do business is also innate, and after getting along with Hong Tao for a few months, she has raised her thinking mode to a level similar to Hong Tao, and she has begun to think about problems from afar.

"Mrs. Jiang said very much, this is a warship, and it didn't contain any goods, and I see that just those things in Cape Town Port have to go to several such cities to be sold. If there is a fleet of the Great Song Dynasty coming here from thousands of miles in the future, it may take a year or two to sell out just to sell the goods, which is not cost-effective! Luo Youde asked Jiang Zhuyi to say, and he also remembered his identity as a businessman, he knew better than Jiang Zhuyi, after all, he specialized in this.

"I don't know the specific situation, let's take a while, anyway, I don't plan to open up this route in the short term. But don't underestimate Europe either, it's not the most prosperous city, and you don't have to rely on goods to make money, sometimes it's faster and more convenient to make money directly. Don't worry, when have I ever traded at a loss? Let's not talk about it, Jiang Niangzi's perfumes, cosmetics, silverware, and clothes must be sold to them, and they have to be at a high price, at least to earn the cost of our voyage, otherwise I will blow them all up! Hong Tao was not sure what the situation was in Europe at this time, and he was not very familiar with the small city of Palermo. But he believes that this is by no means the essence of Europe, so he still has a positive attitude towards the business prospects, especially with the cannons below the deck as the backing, he feels that even if he pulls a boatload of dung, he must be able to sell it, and he must not lose money! (To be continued.) )