Ankara.

Leo I had been here for fifteen days under the protection of the Praetorian Guard commander Antemius and others, and after these days of rest, the frightened Leo I finally recovered, but he could no longer sit still after receiving the news that the Thracian province had completely fallen into the hands of the Huns, and immediately summoned the Praetorian Guard commander Antemius, the consul Priests, and the Chancellor Cyrus to discuss countermeasures. The governors of Crete and Cyrenaica, Galatia, Bombili and Lydia, Egypt, Syria, and Canaan (including Palestine, Israel, Jordan, Gaza, and the West Bank) were ordered by Leo I to rush to Ankara to discuss state affairs, and Zeno, the governor of Isuria, was also ordered to rush to Ankara.

Since some of the provinces were too far away, Leo I did not have time to wait for them, and when Zeno arrived, he directly convened a council of ministers and governors of the provinces.

Ankara is the capital of Galati Province, and Leo I and his party settled in the governor's palace of the province, and after arriving here, Leo I also ordered two legions to be transferred to protect it, which was really frightened by the Huns.

The meeting was held in the governor's palace of Galatia, and while the ministers were gathering together to discuss the situation in a low voice, Leo I came over with a gloomy face after a eunuch chanted a loud promise.

All the officials bowed to Leo, who walked to the top and sat down and said, "It's all forgiven, it's an extraordinary time." It's not in Constantinople either, and the etiquette is as simple as possible. Alright, gather you all today. As you all know, Constantinople has been under siege for more than 20 days, and today we have received news that the entire province of Thrace and a part of the northern tip of Epirus in the north of the Greek province have been occupied by the Huns. Should they mobilize heavy troops to cross the sea to fight the Huns, or should they defend important checkpoints so that the Huns would not invade the Greek provinces in the south or cross the strait to continue their attack to the east, or should they negotiate peace with the Huns? ”

After Leo I's words fell. The officials began to talk about it, and some of them were a little surprised when they had just received the news that the lands of the Thracian province and part of the Greek province had fallen into the hands of the Huns. However, most of the officials already knew the news, but they didn't know how to answer Leo's question.

Zeno, the governor of Isuria, wanted to speak up, but he held back, he was still very young. As a general from a barbarian. His blood was full of the factor of force, and according to his temper, the Eastern Roman Empire should have gathered a large army at this time to fight the Huns to the death, but he just thought that among the provinces now, only his army was the strongest, which was a well-known thing, if he advocated an all-out war with the Huns. Then Leo I would certainly draw his army first, and so on. Whether he wins or loses, his strength will be damaged, which he is unwilling, after all, it damages his interests, so he still didn't stand up and speak just now.

At this time, the consul Priests spoke, he had made several previous missions to the Huns, in the time of Attila he had been to Pannonia with the embassy as a historian, and later he became the mayor of Constantinople, and then he was sent to meet the Hun regent Qin Dong, and after returning to Constantinople, Leo promoted him to be the imperial consul.

He said: "Your Majesty, if we want to mobilize an army to wage a full-scale war with the Huns, we must prepare sufficient military funds, but we are full of rebellions everywhere, we have to use money everywhere, and it is very difficult to collect taxes from various provinces and provinces, and we escaped from Constantinople in too haste, we did not carry any property, and all the taxes in the treasury fell into the hands of the Huns, and we have no money, Your Majesty!" ”

Although Priests's words were not explicitly stated, the meaning was already obvious, he did not agree to start a war with the Huns, and did not say whether he could win the war, only one, there was no money to fight, your emperor now eats and drinks all provided by the locality, what to take to fight the Huns? Don't the army need money to go on the march? Who will work for you if you don't have money?

"Ha, it's ridiculous, do we just watch the Huns occupy Constantinople and Thracian provinces?" The commander of the Praetorian Guard, Antemicius, was furious, and then said: "The Huns have honestly stopped for a few years since Attila's death, but in the last two years they have begun to be arrogant again, and they don't take the empire in their eyes at all, and they don't take the respected Majesty in their eyes, if we endure it this time, they will think that we are easy to bully next time, and then wave their troops to continue to attack us, Your Majesty, the last general thinks that this time we must give the Huns a little color to see, let them know that we are not so easy to bully!" Ladies and gentlemen, the dignity of the Eastern Empire is inviolable, and our ancestors once made the barbarians bow down to the subservient tribes, and the prestige of the conquerors spread all over the world. ”

"Yes, Lord Antemius is right, the last general will support it!"

Compared with the Western Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman Empire has been relatively stable in the past ten years, there have been no external wars, and there have been more traitors in the country recently, and for the generals, commanding foreign wars is more fulfilling than suppressing internal popular uprisings, so they all support waging war against the Huns, and now the Huns not only occupy the Thracian region, but even the capital Constantinople was captured by them, How can these generals stay at ease?

Although the generals muttered that they wanted to fight to the death with the Huns by mobilizing a large army, the civil officials were unanimously opposed to a full-scale war with the Huns, not that these civil officials were timid and afraid of death, there were still main battle factions among them, but the civil officials were more aware of the domestic situation than the generals, and now the Eastern Roman Empire was trapped inside and outside, and the news of barbarian rebellion came everywhere in the country, especially in Armenia, Syria and other provinces, and the external Persians harassed in the east, and the Huns invaded in the west, and the domestic economic situation was sluggish, The money of the Huns was popular, the collection of taxes was difficult, and all the money accumulated in the treasury fell into the hands of the Huns. Could it be that soldiers could fight without food, grass and salaries, and horses without fodder?

The generals and civil officials were noisy, so that the entire hall of the provincial governor's palace was noisy, Leo I was dizzy by the ministers, at this time he was in a bad mood, by the ministers so fried, the anger in his heart came up, angry: "Noisy, noisy, when are you going to quarrel?" Do you still have Ben Augustus in your eyes? ”

As soon as Leo was angry, the ministers all closed their mouths and were silent, the scene was suddenly silent, Leo's old face was angry and bloody, his face was a little flushed, and he looked at the ministers after gasping for two breaths, just now among these people, he noticed that only Zeno, the governor of the province of Izuria, did not say a word, nor did he express his opinion, so Leo asked: "Flavi, you didn't speak just now, what is your opinion?" ”

Zeno originally wanted to hide, but he didn't expect Leo to still pay attention to him, and now Leo asked, but he couldn't help but say, he thought about it and said: "Supreme Augustus, the minister thinks that we are not the time for a full-scale war with the Huns!" ”

As soon as Zeno's words were finished, they immediately aroused the hostility of the generals, who did not want to see Zeno in the first place, because he was a barbarian Izulian, and although the Izulians already had citizenship rights in the Eastern Roman Empire, the upper nobles and officials of the Eastern Empire still did not consider them "their own people".

Words such as "coward" and "coward" immediately came from the crowd of generals, and Zeno's face changed several times after hearing it, but in the end there was no reaction.

Seeing this, Leo exclaimed, "That's enough, let Flavi speak!" ”

Zeno had no choice but to say: "Your Majesty, the minister thinks that no matter what the shape of the country is, at least we can't make enemies on both sides or on many sides, there are Persians in the east who keep harassing our borders and trying to invade our territory, and the Vandals in the south are also constantly digging our corners, and now the Huns are messing with us in the west, originally we had a good relationship with the Huns, and the border trade was very good, so we shouldn't have provoked the Huns in the first place, Those who at first bewitched His Majesty to sever relations with the Huns should be judged! ”

Zeno's words came this, many of the officials looked embarrassed, and they involuntarily moved their positions behind others, and Leo I's face was also very unnatural, except for other officials, he thought so at the beginning, even if there was no other person's demagoguery, he himself would think of some excuses, but now, he is not ready to admit this responsibility, nor is he ready to pull out the ministers who agreed to sever relations with the Huns to ask for guilt, after all, this matter has been so long, and there is no point in pursuing it, And this decision was agreed by the vast majority of officials, so he said: "Don't mention the previous things, the key now is to pass the current hurdle, Flavi, you go on!" ”

Zeno was not discouraged when he saw that he had not pulled down those oppositionists, and continued: "Okay, Your Majesty, just now the minister said that we can't make enemies from many sides, and the hatred between the Persians and us is not a day or two, it has lasted for hundreds of years, this kind of hatred can not be resolved in a short time, and even if we are willing, others may not be willing, so we can only try our best to deal with the Persians, they want to harass our borders, and we can't show weakness, And the Vandals in the south, Gaseric, is a hungry wolf who can't be fed, he is so old, and he personally led people to Rome to rob, for such a barbarian, do you make sense of him reasoning? If you don't want to be taken advantage of by him, you can only fight with him, as for the Huns, now Qin Dong is in charge, Qin Dong seems to be rough and arrogant, but he is a very reasonable person, and before the war started, he also asked the embassy to send us a declaration of war, which is a kind of war etiquette, although we were attacked by them from behind Constantinople, but isn't this the fault of some of us? If it weren't for the fact that some people didn't take the Huns into account and didn't think that they would attack on the sea, how could Constantinople and the Thracian province be lost? (To be continued......)