The road has to be walked step by step, and the food has to be eaten in one bite, Zhao Jia, Su Zhe and others naturally understand this simple truth, so after the initial discussion, they decided to divide the next task into two steps, the first step is to solve the problem of the Holy See, and Zhao Jia also has to master a part of the territory that belongs to him completely, as for the second step, it is more troublesome, that is, to solve the situation of the princes in the Holy Roman Empire, this matter affects the whole body, so it was temporarily put to the end by Zhao Jia.

The general direction is determined, and the next step is the specific implementation, which is not a big problem at all for Su Zhe and others, who have rich administrative experience, the next day they returned to Rome with Zhao Jia, and then began to build an administrative body to rule Rome, the core of the whole institution is still the kind of monarch of the Great Song Dynasty, and the political dualism of mutual containment, although the emperor rules the entire empire in name, but in fact, the emperor only holds the military power and the appointment and dismissal of ministers. Of course, in order to ensure the power of the emperor, the emperor still has the right to veto the handling of government affairs, and when encountering particularly important matters, the emperor can also join in the decision-making of government affairs.

Many of the people brought by Su Zhe this time are officials with rich administrative experience like You Shixiong, and with them, they quickly set up a temporary administrative core in the city of Rome, and then Agnes officially announced the landing as emperor, she was originally the heir of the Holy Roman Emperor, and now she has defeated her two elder brothers, so there is naturally no problem in ascending the throne.

After Agnes ascended the throne as emperor, the first thing he did was to announce that the original Pope Pascal II was suspected of instigating civil strife in the empire, causing great losses to the empire, and was no longer worthy of the position of pope, so Agnes announced the abolition of his title of Roman priesthood. The original Cardinal Maurice was appointed Pope, known as Gregory VIII.

Everyone was very calm about the deposition of the pope, after all, this was expected, and Agnes's grandfather and father had also deposed the pope in the past few decades. This made everyone ******** long ago, and even if Agnes did not abolish the pope, it would be strange.

Although the abolition of the pope did not attract much attention, but the next thing made many people puzzled, in the eyes of most people, after the empress ascended the throne announced the new pope, then the next step must be to let the new pope crown her, so that her throne can be more stable, but also in line with the legal procedures of the Holy Roman Empire imperial succession. But what everyone didn't expect was that the coronation ceremony was delayed, which made many people secretly speculate whether there was something new on the empress's side?

However, just when everyone was secretly speculating, the new Pope Gregory VIII suddenly announced that the Holy Roman Emperor's power came from God, and he ruled over all the people in place of God, and although the Pope was God's shepherd on earth, he was still not qualified to crown the emperor. Therefore, in the future, the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire did not have to go through the coronation of the pope, and could still be the legitimate emperor of the empire.

As soon as the above news came out. Immediately caused an uproar, many clergy accused Gregory VIII of tampering with the doctrine and was not worthy of being the pope at all, and even some hot-tempered clergy accused Gregory VIII of being the empress's lackey, so they no longer recognized Gregory's papacy and were ready to launch a resolution to establish a new pope.

In the face of the opposition of these clergy. Gregory VIII did not flinch, or Zhao Jia behind him did not flinch, but once again launched a very tough counterattack, that is, the empress and the pope jointly issued a statement announcing the disarmament of any armed forces of the Holy See. Tithes levied by the Holy See on the faithful were also abolished, and no one was entitled to collect taxes from private individuals except the canonized lords of the empire and the various localities.

Tithes are the largest source of finance for the Holy See, as early as hundreds of years ago, the Holy See stipulated that all believers should hand over one-tenth of their income to the Holy See for religious purposes, but most of this huge income was not used for religious causes, but was used by the upper echelons of the Holy See for private enjoyment, and also let the Holy See raise a large number of Holy See knights, these Holy See knights became the Holy See's armed guarantee, so that the Holy See accelerated its outward expansion, and at the same time implemented more strict internal rule, which further promoted the development of the Holy See.

Now Zhao Jia has cut off the largest financial revenue of the Holy See at once, and also ordered the Holy See to disarm the force, which is tantamount to cutting off the roots of the Holy See, so as soon as this news came out, it immediately triggered the protest of most of the clergy in the empire, you must know that at this time, the Holy See has a lot of power, especially the bishops in various places, who have power and armies in their hands, and their strength is not much worse than that of the nobles, so their opposition is also very powerful, and even a few bishops closer to Rome have united, Prepare to take advantage of the opportunity of Huyanqing's army to pursue little Henry and capture Rome in one fell swoop, of course, it is best to be able to capture Zhao Jia and Agnes couple, and then turn around and threaten Huyanqing's army to lay down their arms.

The plan of these bishops is not bad, but unfortunately since Zhao Jia dares to deal with the Holy See, he naturally has perfect certainty, just as these bishops have just gathered the army, the army on the Roman side has already been killed, although Hu Yanqing took the army away, but this time Su Zhe came to bring a group of nearly 10,000 troops, as for the generals of the unified army, it is ready-made, You Shixiong is both civil and military, and he followed Zhang Zai to fight against the Liao army back then, and later cleared the natives in Nanyang, and the ability to unify the army is no worse than that of ordinary generals. Therefore, Zhao Jia was also very relieved to let him command the army.

You Shixiong led an army of 10,000 and attacked the bishops who had united to prepare to resist with lightning speed, and as a result, it only took half a day to crush their army, and all the bishops led by them were captured alive except for one who fled, and all of these bishops were taken to Rome and then handed over to the new Pope Gregory VIII.

For these bishops who dared to resist, Gregory VIII declared them apostates, and then all burned at the stake, Zhao Jia was also very surprised by Gregory VIII's sentence, but then they were happy, because Gregory was showing his allegiance to him with actions, which made Zhao Jia trust him a little more.

With the elimination of several leading bishops by the Great Song army, especially when those bishops were sentenced to be burned at the stake, many opposing priests were frightened and silenced, and the number of opposing priests was greatly reduced for a while, and only a few recalcitrant priests were quickly wiped out, and then starting from Rome, gradually began to disarm all the forces of the Holy See.

At the same time, on a plain in the north of the Holy Roman Empire, there is a wide river in the middle of this plain, which makes the irrigation of this plain very convenient, and the villages on both sides of the river are relatively dense.

Hu Yanqing sat on a tree stump on the side of the road, holding a flatbread in one hand, and smearing the hot sauce on the cake with the other hand, and then rolled up the dried meat and vegetable leaves with cakes, and then put it in his mouth and ate it in a big gulp.

"General, further ais the sea, I think little Henry will definitely not be able to escape this time!" Just as Hu Yanqing was eating dry food, he saw Gluth suddenly come over and speak, and by the way, he handed Hu Yanqing a kettle.

Hu Yanqing was not polite, reached out and took the kettle and took a sip, swallowed the dry food in his mouth with water, and then said: "Little Henry is much stronger than his eldest brother, although he has been defeated by us several times, but he can escape unscathed every time, this alone shows that this person is extremely cunning, so I am worried that this time we will still return empty-handed!" ”

"This can't be, General, you have sent pursuers on both the left and right flanks, and you are like a pocket with us to force little Henry to this plain, the only thing that is not pursued is the north, but the north is facing the sea, how can he escape in this case?" Gruss was a little unbelieving at this time.

"There are no absolutes in the world, you only know that the north is the sea, so let me ask you again, what is the other side of the sea?" Hu Yanqing asked after taking another sip of water.

"The other side of the sea?" Gruss was also stunned when he heard this question, lowered his head and thought for a while before he suddenly raised his head and said, "I know, on the other side of the sea is England, and there is only one strait between us and here, although this is not the narrowest part of the strait, but as long as there is a ship, you can still escape to the other side!" ”

"Yes, on the other side of the sea is the island country called England, and I also know that little Henry's wife is the sister of the king of England, and there is such a relationship, with my understanding of little Henry, he will definitely take advantage of it, so I estimate that there are already English ships on the seashore ready to meet him!" When Hu Yanqing said this, he couldn't help but bite the big cake in his hand fiercely, although this was just his inference, but he was eighty percent sure that this would definitely happen.

"Then what should we do, are we chasing for so long in vain?" Hearing this, Gruth couldn't help but say anxiously, he and most of the soldiers thought that they were going to catch little Henry this time, and it would be too embarrassing to let the English rescue the other party again.

"Hehe, don't worry, as long as England dares to save people, our Great Song will let him know who is the overlord of the sea!" Hu Yanqing said in a murderous low voice at this time. (To be continued.) )