However, at this time, Agnes, the little sunfish sitting next to Gawain, suddenly lifted her silk shoes and stomped on Gawain under the table, swallowing the second half of his sentence, "If Zezes doesn't submit again, I will use a cannon to collapse the walls of Thessaloniki". Pen ~ fun ~ pavilion www.biquge.info

The gray-haired girl rarely kept her composure, and quickly gave Gawain a look, and Gawain also suddenly understood, so she slowly changed her tone and said to the secret envoy, "But if General Zezes can hand over the city and army as soon as possible, of course I am willing to give him the honor that matches it." I agreed to form a new brigade with the old unit of General Cezes as the core, and to give him the rank of Imperial Caesar, but I could not grant it immediately, because the title now belonged to His Highness Myaulinus, and it was necessary to consult with him. ”

"Or, it can be ruled by the Supreme Baselius and Baselisa, and let the general and the Ducasse family marry." Agnes added on the side.

The envoy apparently pleased with this arrangement, and Gawain gave him an edict in purple ink and gold to show the sanctity of this arrangement, and promised to "send at once a hundred captains and tax collectors to count the amount of taxes to be paid in all Thessaloniki and around Thessalonica, and if it is a million tasso, it will give the general Zezes an additional sum of 200,000 per year, and if it is 1,500,000, it will be 300,000, and he will not break his word." (The Eastern Roman Empire was so rich that even in the 13th century, when Western historians recorded its taxes, Corfu alone estimated the annual tax at 1,200,000 gold coins, while Cyprus was more than 2 million, which is undoubtedly exaggerated, since the Lionheart sold Cyprus for 100,000 Byzantian gold coins)"

After such an atmospheric arrangement, the envoy left satisfied.

Afterwards, Gawain and his staff revisited the map table before realizing that Agnes' reminder was justified.

The whole of Thessalonica is a flat peninsula, with several narrow islands jutting out in the shape of a palm, the city of Thessaloniki is at the finger and index finger positions, and the monasteries of the Holy Mountain of Athos are at the little finger position.

This holy mountain is said to have been encountered by the Virgin Mary when drifting by boat, and then designated as the "holy peak" by the Virgin, to the medieval Eastern Roman royal family supported by the monasteries sprung up on the island, about 20 places, many monasteries are close to the mountains and the sea, multi-layered construction, majestic and magnificent, in history Macedonia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Epirus and even Italy many priests will come to study, famous.

In addition, the Holy Mountain was also blessed with many lands and money from the secular aristocracy, which was common in the Middle Ages (as was the Seleucian Hospital of Gawain), and although it lived on a small island, it was still rich and rivaled. The Holy Mountain also did business of its own: it set up bazaars on the islands and sold the surplus of candles, timber, and oil from various raids in exchange for a great deal of wealth.

But the island of the Sacred Mountain also had a fatal weakness, it was geographically sandwiched between Thessalonica, the northern islands of the Aegean and Constantinople, and once the eastern powers occupied most of Thessalonica, its only access to outside help was the Aegean Sea, but the sea was not at peace: there are many historical accounts of the monasteries on the Holy Mountain being looted by pirates and declining.

Now Agnes admonished Gawain and temporarily agreed to General Zezes's request, and when the army entered Thessaloniki, it would be equivalent to cutting off all relations between the Holy Mountain and the mainland, and then besiege it, and Mastas would not surrender.

Sure enough, after the secret envoy returned, Cezes, who saw the golden edict, was very happy, he was originally related to the Komnenos family, and now if he could let his other son marry the daughter of the Ducasse family, his position in the empire would be completely secure!

Two days later, the city of Thessaloniki opened its gates to the new emperor's army without any resistance.

The city has always been the second largest city in the empire after Constantinople, with beautiful straight coastal walls, many buildings, fountains, hippodromes, large squares, monuments and countless churches just like the imperial capital. Its history is full of glory, but also humiliation and disaster, and when the frenzy of Slavic invasion broke out five hundred years ago, it was the only "lighthouse" that the entire region held out; But then the fanatical and murderous Crescentists conquered it from the sea two hundred years ago, and there were 22,000 men and women who were taken captive and enslaved.

But it was not long before the reign of Komnenos that it was revived and remained prosperous and prosperous.

In Gawain's model of Thessaloniki, it is more like an upside-down map of the United States—east and west and south by the sea, with straight walls, and a corner jutting out from the northeast side of the mountain, as in Florida in the United States, where the Acropolis fortress is located.

The Red Hand Brigade marched directly through the Acropolis gates.

The Guardian Brigade and the Gawain Guard entered through the avenue to the east of the city.

One of Cezes' subordinate soldiers waited at the Acropolis Castle and was ordered to surrender the defenses.

The other soldiers, dressed in robes and armed with weapons, stood in the square in front of the "Cathedral of St. Dimitri" (who was the patron of the city).

When Gawain's majestic team arrived, the soldiers were also shocked by the Emperor's elite soldiers, and they instinctively sheathed their swords and lowered their spears to the ground like a defeated army.

Gawain rode through the avenue of the square, flanked by olive trees, and "informed the whole city that there should be no fear and that all baths, shops, and churches were open as they were." ”

Cezes stayed in the basilica with some trepidation, as a courtier and conscious. When he saw the Emperor, armed with a sword, standing at the entrance to the long colonnade of Basilica, surrounded by the guards, Zezes immediately bowed down according to etiquette, and then prostrated himself respectfully at Gawain's feet, kissing first the Emperor's boots, and then the Emperor in his arms, and kissing his left breast.

At the moment when he kissed the shoulder strap of Gao Wen's bra, he regretted it a little - was it too gullible to believe the promise of this barbarian emperor?

But the Emperor grabbed him tightly and passionately, and kept repeating the difficulty of the original edict, "Of course you will enjoy a special payment of one-fifth of Thessaloniki's income." ”

In order to show that what he said was true, Gawain took the hand of this man and went to the circular patio altar at the end of the temple.

Agnes followed the Emperor, holding a miniature model of the city, which Gawain was about to point to and personally identify the location of the "Pronia Flat" for General Zezes.