On the outskirts of Moscow, in the Koromensk Manor, in a small but splendid palace, there are only Tsar Alexei and Bajkov, who are from an aristocratic background.

Alexei sat in his own high-backed chair, with a huge portrait of his father, the elder Tsar Mikhail, behind him, which reflected his thinness. Although Baykov stands with his hands down, he has a more rugged appearance of the Russian nation in comparison.

"My dear Baykov, I have entrusted you to China, do you know how to achieve this?" After some politeness, the tsar finally blinked his unfathomable eyes, looked at Baykov with a smile, and said meaningfully.

Alexei. Mikhailovich. The Romanovs, the second tsar of the Romanov dynasty, were only twenty-five or six years old, but he had already grown a thick Rus' beard early on, and a pair of stubby eyebrows, which surrounded the whole face very tightly, leaving only a small space for the eyes with oriental double eyelids. Strictly speaking, this young Rus, who was not tall and not burly, was closer to the East in appearance - his eyes were not deep, and the bridge of his nose was not high, which was definitely not the general standard of a beautiful man in Europe in the eyes of Baykov.

"Your Majesty the Tsar, I will definitely complete this mission with dignity in accordance with the requirements of your instructions!" Baykov swore by it.

"Very well, my friend!" When the tsar heard this, he did not show an expression of approval that matched his words, but was a little disappointed.

"My Emperor, what other instructions do you have?" Baykov saw the oddity. Asked tentatively.

"Hehe, you can do well according to the instructions given to you by the Foreign Affairs Yamen. However, I have heard that the emperors of China have said since ancient times that they are the center of the whole world, and that he himself is the ruler of the world, and even God is his father! That's why they call it China, the country of the center, and they call themselves emperors, and even on an equal footing with the emperors of the Roman Empire...... Haha, that sounds ridiculous! With a mocking tone. The young Tsar, however, could not help but feel a little melancholy.

"Yes. My emperor, it does make people laugh out loud. How dare a barbaric nation that even God does not know how to worship call itself a 'central nation'? In this world, the only one who can be honored as an emperor. Only the absolutist monarch of our great Russia. To know. You and your predecessor are the legal heirs of the Roman Emperor! Baykov's words were in line with the will of the superiors, but his expression was as uncertain as that of the Tsar.

"But—" Sure enough, Alexei gave the expected vicarious words.

"Your Majesty. What do you mean? Baykov didn't know how to answer, but he knew that the rest of the words must be very important.

"Come and see."

Instead of rushing to answer Baykov's question, Alexei got up from his chair and walked around a round table filled with all sorts of curiosities to a burning fireplace.

"Do you know what this is?" The young tsar asked, without looking back, as he pointed to a bronze metal shield hanging directly above the fireplace.

"Your Majesty, this is the double-headed eagle emblem set by the venerable Grand Duke Ivan III for the independence of the Grand Duchy of Moscow after marrying the honorable Princess Sophia."

The historical origin of Bajkov's words is unmistakable: in 17th-century Europe, all countries that adopted the double-headed eagle as their national emblem were inspired by the Byzantine Empire's version of the national emblem. The Byzantine royal family originally only used the symbol of the Roman Empire's single-headed eagle, and later changed to the double-headed eagle as the national emblem. The reason for this was to show the geographical character of its imperial territory, i.e. the fact that Byzantium inherited the territory of the Roman Empire in Europe and the eastern and western parts of Asia. Therefore, the Byzantine monarch, who was the king of both the east and the west, had to take care of the territories of both sides, so he added another head to the original one-headed eagle.

In 1453, the once-glorious Byzantine Empire was wiped out by the Ottoman Empire, and the Byzantine Emperor Constantine XI died heroically in battle. His two younger brothers, one subject to the Ottoman Empire, the other with two sons and daughter "Sophia. Paleologue "fled to Rome. Later, the two sons and one daughter were raised by the Pope after the death of their father. In order to use the Russian military power to defend against the Turks, the Roman politicians of the time married Sophia to Ivan III, the Grand Duke of Moscow, by marriage in 1473.

As a result, Princess Sophia came to Russia wearing the majestic double-headed eagle insignia of the Byzantine Empire, and assisted her husband Ivan III in basically uniting the Russian lands into a unified state with a vast territory. Ivan III also stopped paying tribute to the Golden Horde in 1480, ending two and a half centuries of rule by the Golden Horde, and finally destroying it in 1502.

The reason why Ivan III married Sophia, the last princess of the Byzantine Empire, was based on deep considerations. Doing so would legally mean that the Grand Duchy of Moscow would become the legitimate heir to Byzantium, at least nominally the capital of the Rus' city-states, and that Ivan III's status would change from the Grand Duke to that of the various city-states, and that the Rus' city-states could rightfully be incorporated into Moscow.

It turns out that after Sophia joined the Grand Duchy of Moscow, the Grand Duchy of Moscow was rightly called the heir of the Byzantine Empire, and the national emblem of the double-headed eagle of the Byzantine Empire became the national emblem of Russia, and since then the double-headed eagle has also become a symbol of Russia. During this period, the saying that "Russia is the third Roman Empire" appeared.

Bajkov had wanted to elaborate on the origin of this coat of arms and the history of that good story, but suddenly remembered the advice of the tsar's close minister before he came in - not to show off any of his knowledge in front of His Majesty, so he stopped in time and said no more.

"Yes, this is the national emblem of the double-headed eagle. My friend, however, is not the humble coat of arms of the time of Ivan III. ”

Sure enough, because Baykov did not go into details, Alexei was able to show off his knowledge in front of his courtiers. I saw him raise his right hand, point to the square metal pendant with a red background, and continue with great interest:

In 1497, twenty-four years after Ivan III married Princess Sophia, the famous Code of Ivan III was promulgated to consolidate the power of the state under centralized rule, which established the government institutions of the Grand Duchy of Moscow. It was in this code that he established the Byzantine double-headed eagle as the coat of arms of the Grand Duchy and engraved its design on the seal. In the same year, the Sbasky Tower of the Kremlin [1] appeared with the gilded double-headed eagle insignia, that is, since then our Russia has received the symbol of its own country. ”

Baykov was very glad that his dozen rubles played an important role, and nodded frequently, without saying much.

Tsar Alexei in front of him, with his back to Baykov, seemed to be completely immersed in his erudition, and continued to "tell" there......

(Chapter to be continued)

"A limerick poem. Hidden Head

Reading literature and reading history is only a long breath

I was saying that there was an opportunity back then

The layout is a long-cherished wish

It's hard to come and go

Get up and spend a hundred years

Point out the suffering and diseases of the world

The edge of the town was razed to the sea

Wen'an Wuding tears of joy

[1] From the end of the 15th century, the Kremlin's Spasskaya Tower, Nikolskaya, Troitskaya, Borovitskaya, and Vodovzvodnaya Towers [where aya means tower] These five towers were successively installed with the national emblem of the Russian double-headed eagle in different eras, and it was not until 1935 that the Soviet Russian government replaced it with the famous "red five stars". (To be continued......)