After not seeing His Majesty the Emperor for a long time, he seemed to become thinner, his sunken eye sockets looked like that of an over-drug patient, and the dark circles under his eyes were severe, and the restless Italy consumed most of the young Emperor's energy, but he was still obsessed with his ideals with great interest.

His Majesty Otto, following the example of the emperors of ancient Rome, dressed in purple robes, wearing a laurel wreath of the Palme d'Or, with a gold pin on his chest, and holding a scepter and Charlemagne's cross in his hands, ordered the nobles to call him the Emperor of Emperors, and to precede his own title, to which several Latin classical titles were added......

Roman, Italian, Saxon, etc......

The court etiquette copied the royal etiquette of Rome and Constantinople, and the court attendants and state officials were obedient to him in every way, flattering, prostrate and kissing the surface of his feet, as if playing with a naughty child.

It is a well-known secret that His Majesty wanted to reunite the Roman Empire with Rome as its capital, and although his mother was born in the purple palace of Eastern Rome, this does not explain why, unlike his father, the emperor was obsessed with the dream of building the Roman Empire.

He wanted to expand the power of the Roman people and establish a huge empire centered on Rome, so that the Roman people could be famous all over the world, and everyone would be bathed in the holy light of the heavenly dynasty and rule the world with God.

Such lofty enthusiasm and persistent aspirations, though unrealistic, were not lacking in sincerity, but they did not take into account his true homeland, Germany.

The nobles who witnessed this scene secretly complained one after another, and were unwilling to spill their blood on foreign lands, Germany was originally a similar federal state headed by the five principalities, and the emperor was not the only and indispensable place, so they all had bad intentions and watched the situation develop in silence.

Another reason for the emperor's emaciation was that his ideals of establishing a heavenly kingdom on earth did not receive a warm response from the Italian people, and even met with their armed rebellion, which caused him to be depressed in the loneliness of the high and widowed, and his confidence was hit again and again by the incomprehension of the world.

In fact, to be honest, I can understand Your Majesty's mood at the moment, as if you come to a new class, the old classmates in the original class see you as a traitor, and the classmates in the new class isolate and reject themselves who want to fit in, that feeling is very frustrating.

It is said that when the emperor was hunting in Tivoli Castle, he was besieged by a group of naked** local residents, who only wore a white cloth symbolizing faith around their waists, held knives and guns and whipped their own leather whips, chanted slogans, and with the cooperation of some powerful people with ulterior motives in the court, besieged the young emperor, claiming that they would not leave without understanding, which is quite a bit of the posture of protesters who are now popular in the West**.

At that time, only a few guards were followed by the emperor's side, and the large army was arranged in the camp in Engelsburg by mistake, and the situation was very critical for a while, and finally the emperor promised to apologize in public under the persuasion of Bishop Rebel, and not to hold the besiegers responsible, so that the castle of Tivoli was successfully lifted, so that the emperor and his party fled back to Rome in embarrassment.

But the Romans, instigated by the city's nobility, could not wait to launch another confrontation, and the Pope in the Vatican would certainly not be ignorant of this, and might even secretly acquiesce in and support the conspiracy of the nobles, hoping to pull back a political game and add some variables to the war of the Pope's successor.

When His Majesty Otto returned to the city, he found that the Roman gates were closed, the citizens refused to let him in, the streets were full of barricades and rebel camps, the houses were fortified, and the citizens were armed and ready to resist the heavy trebuchets for a long time, because the inhabitants of the neighboring castle of Tivoli were not punished, so they rose up even more brazenly against the hated Germans and their daydreaming emperor.

The citizens of Rome rushed to the imperial palace in the city, and the favored ministers of His Majesty who remained here finally revealed their essence of being worthless except for rhetoric, and there was an infighting between the two factions of the great enemy, who were currently at odds with each other, and the dead and wounded, and the courtiers who still had a breath were torn to pieces by the angry citizens and thrown out of the city to demonstrate to the emperor.

His Majesty Otto was disappointed, and the inhabitants of the Eternal City, who had hailed the coronation of the Emperor, had now rebelled and rejected their Emperor, and the palace on Mount Laventine was besieged for three days.

In order to get in touch with the troops stationed in Engels Castle, the helpless emperor sent scouts to break through the siege in succession, but failed, and the citizens who learned that the emperor was going to bring in troops to suppress the uprising became more and more angry.

In the end, the Archbishop of Rebel, who was trapped in the city, held a holy spear that symbolized reconciliation, and promised that the empire would no longer suppress the revolt of the citizens by force, and that he would not commit crimes by war and force, and His Majesty had no choice but to climb to the top of the church and shout to the citizens of Rome.

After the desperate plea and helpless appeal of His Majesty Otto, and at the same time a painful self-condemnation, the Romans, who had changed their attitude and expressed their obedience, burst into applause, organized a court in the presence of the emperor, seized the two scapegoats of the rebels, stripped them of their clothes and threw them in the square outside the palace.

His Majesty and his attendants walked out of the palace trembling to the cries of the citizens, stepping on the corpses of the unfortunate bastards, camping outside the city to rest, preparing to leave overnight, while the besieging citizens cheered and dispersed on their own, much to the disappointment of the nobles who planned behind the scenes, but in any case, the empire and the emperor completely lost their Roman city.

Before the emperor could breathe his breath, the inhabitants of the city of Seven Hills rose up again, and the flames of rebellion burned everywhere in Italy, and His Majesty Otto reluctantly ordered the army to build a wall outside the palace, and issued an urgent edict, calling on similar lords to lead troops to the king, but no one was willing to discuss state affairs with him anymore, only the Duke of Carinthia sent his vassals to Rome and rescued the emperor like a frightened bird.

Now His Majesty is emaciated by the sorrows of the state family, but fortunately, he has cultivated a fairly tough body after many years of war life, more or less better than his brother who stayed in the cold church of the Vatican.

According to reliable information, the Italian nobles gathered in the Vatican and the upper echelons of the Holy See are plotting to take advantage of the power vacuum of the emperor's return to China to support the enthronement of Bishop Gaiullius in advance, and they now have a more confident military guarantee.

Remember that hapless Duke of Normandy? When he learned that Nijmegen and Flanders had divided Friesland, he finally recognized the reality before him, and honestly led the crusaders south to Italy, and arrived in the seaside city at the same time that His Majesty had just left Rome, becoming the new umbrella that the rebels were desperately seeking.

"I'll be able to return to Berlin to the disappointment of many people, right?"

His Majesty the Emperor played with the cross in his hand, the holy relic he had taken from Charlemagne's mausoleum, and now carried it like a toy with a few fingers, and many of the nobles who knew its precious value were thrilled.

The Grand Duke of Swabia looked left and right, everyone was silent and pretended to be dumb, no one dared to answer His Majesty's words at this time, but the problem was that the situation could not be so cold, the old duke cleared his throat, deliberately made a lot of movement, and then replied cautiously: "Why do you say this, Your Majesty?" ”

The long period of betrayal and abandonment made His Majesty's temper even more perverse and elusive, and he threw the cross on the table fiercely, and shouted at all the nobles present:

"Don't take me for a fool! I know that behind the rebellion in Italy, there must be the shadow of some of you, you don't want Germany to invest too much energy in Italy, in your opinion, only one acre and three points of land at your doorstep is fundamental, every mouse is blind! ”

This time, even the Grand Duke of Swabia did not dare to speak, the atmosphere in the tent was like someone had been thrown into an ice cellar, and the temperature dropped to freezing point more and more, and I hid behind a few vassal counts of the Saxon family according to my title, and avoided any contact with the people of Upper Lorraine, and here I could just see the facial expressions of several high-ranking lords, and everyone's expressions were like eating flies.

"I knelt for a long time in front of the Emperor's body, and asked why after him, the Franks were like a plum blossom in full bloom, and every petal rushed to leave the stamen that cultivated its growth. The empire is divided into three parts, and they are inseparable from each other, and Germany, the last pride of the Franks, is divided into large and small forces, and everyone can only see their own immediate interests, and the yang and the yin are dismantled! ”

His Majesty Otto said that when he was excited, his sunken eye sockets reflected an abnormal glow, and he looked very frightening.

"Don't forget, maybe my imperial dream is unrealistic, but without Italy and Rome, the German Empire would be useless!"

His Majesty gasped fiercely, his eyes were as sharp as knives and swept over the densely packed crowd in front of him, and continued: "Fortunately, God willing, Charlemagne's spirit in heaven does not want the glory of the Franks to stop there, so I returned to Berlin unscathed, at least much healthier than my brother in the Vatican, the nobles of Rome and the upper echelons of the Vatican are plotting to support Bishop Gaiulius as the next pope, this is a naked betrayal, and it must not be tolerated, God testifies, the pope must be appointed by the emperor of the empire!" ”

When he said this, I clearly saw the shoulders of several big nobles trembling nervously, obviously frightened by the emperor's arrogant words, but they didn't dare to say anything under the pressure of anger, these nobles who were conspiring in the background were happy, as soon as they saw His Majesty himself, they trembled like monsters who had been beaten back to their original form, and there was no other way than to dedicate themselves more humbly to His Majesty, and several Grand Dukes here also had their own ghosts, and after all, they didn't dare to say something tearing on the table, they were waiting for the opportunity, And anyone with a discerning eye knows that now is not a good time.

(End of chapter)