Caesar was noncommittal to William's suggestion, but acquiesced in his suggestion, and then he would abandon the fight for Rome and turn his attention to the Byzantine crown and Constantinople.

As for the Pope and Hildebrand's party Caesar, who was temporarily living in the annex, he did not want to receive him yet, but he had no intention of expelling them, and these two were always a rare good card for him to get benefits from William.

To be honest, Caesar is understandable to do this, most of Western Europe has been owned by William, including Britain, France, Northern Italy and other places, and most of the Christian countries in Spain are also their allies.

On the other hand, the Byzantine Empire was in a period of great chaos, with ten emperors and eight dynasties in just over thirty years, starting with Constantine VIII of the Macedonian dynasty in 1028.

On average, the Byzantine Empire will change dynasties in about three years, and with such frequent dynastic changes, where does the Byzantine Empire's army still have combat effectiveness? What's more, the armies formed by the hypocritical Greeks had no combat effectiveness in the first place, and they mainly relied on mercenaries from the Norse Greeks, and now even this relatively powerful mercenary army was almost dismantled in the dynastic change.

Caesar actually had a deep understanding of the situation in the Byzantine Empire, because the Ottville family had also been a Norman mercenary under the Byzantine Emperor thirty years earlier, and later rebelled to expel the Byzantine Empire's power in southern Italy, which established the Duchy of Apulia, the prototype of the Kingdom of Sicily.

As far as he knew, the emperor of the Byzantine Empire at this time was Constantine X of the family of Ducas, who were not previously well-known, and whose ancestors were probably generals of the Roman Empire, from Anatolia, of Armenian descent, and whose family name Ducasse came from the Latin word "dux", which means "general" or "governor".

Constantine X came to power in a military coup d'état, leading his troops into Constantinople and deposing Emperor Isaac of the Komnenos and thus ascending to the throne.

When he came to power, he immediately abolished many of Isaac I's reforms, and his younger brother, the Grand General John Komnenos, was dismissed, and then appointed his younger brother John Ducasse as the Imperial Caesar, and gave large sums of money and many privileges to the church and dignitaries who supported his cause.

Constantine X squandered too much money, greatly weakened the country, and at the same time sold official titles and extorted tyranny, causing dissatisfaction among the people. As a result of the inability of the armed forces to receive due financial and material support, their armaments have been weakened and their combat strength has weakened.

In order to pay for the military expenses of the Foreign Legion, he continued to pay heavy taxes in the Empire, hired many mercenaries, and many Imperial troops on the front line were also disbanded by him, which simply made a mess of the Empire, and many military nobles felt very unhappy about this.

It was during the reign of Constantine X that the Byzantine Empire lost the last land in southern Italy, the General Bari.

The years of the reign of Constantine X can be said to have been unsmooth, the north was first invaded by nomadic peoples such as the Hungarians and Cumans, and a large territory was conquered for it, and the Seljuk Turks, who rose strongly in the east, launched an invasion of Byzantine Anatolia, and the Byzantine vassal Armenian kingdom completely fell, which completely opened the door to Anatolia and plunged the eastern part of the empire into an extremely serious crisis.

In Greece and other places in the western part of the empire, the Normans from Sicily were also extremely restless, and they often invaded Epirus and Greece in the western part of the empire in droves.

The Seljuk invasion in the east and the constant harassment of the Normans put the empire in the predicament of being attacked from both sides, fighting the Turks at one time, the Normans at one time, and the mercenary rebellion at the other.

"All it takes is a major defeat for Byzantium, the old empire, to completely collapse." This is Caesar's assessment of the Greek state, which prides itself on the Roman Empire.

There is no doubt that the Byzantine Empire was definitely a fat and juicy meat compared to the Norman Empire, which was in the prime of its war, and he only had to wait patiently for the moment to wait for a major defeat on the Anatolian battlefield in the east or Bulgaria in the north, and the empire would be in flames of rebellion, and then it would be time for him to Caesar march into Constantinople and emulate William and be crowned emperor.

Caesar couldn't help but laugh at the thought of the subtlety, but before that, he had to get William's military and financial support.

He knew very well that William was a master who did not see a rabbit and did not scatter an eagle, and if there was no benefit or concern, the other party would be happy to watch his jokes from the sidelines, so the former Pope Nicholas and Hildebrand became a bargaining chip in his hand to ask William for favors.

"Tancred, my nephew." Caesar greeted Tancred beside him.

"Uncle, nephew here." A tall, handsome-looking young aristocratic general stepped forward from below, kneeling on one knee.

"Tancred, you take people to guard the annex where His Majesty the Pope and His Excellency the Grand Sect reside, and you can't let them go wrong." Caesar smiled with relief and raised his hand to command.

"Yes, uncle."

Looking at the departing Tancred, Caesar felt indescribable relief in his heart, among his several sons and nephews, his sister Emma's son Tancred was the best and most distinguished among them, at the age of fifteen he was made a baron in the army, and then played well in the Italian War of Independence, and then in the later war to capture the general of Bari, the raid on the Sicilian Saracens and the war against the invasion of the Murabit dynasty, At a young age, he was canonized as Count of Messina.

However, even though he was in a high position at a young age, Tanfred still respectfully adhered to the courtesy of a king, followed him at all times, and obeyed him at all times. Therefore, he prefers his nephew Tancrede more than his sons who are not interested.

Of course, for Caesar's son, Bohemond, Tancred was a nuisance like someone else's child.