Constantinople in late spring and May did not usher in the gorgeous scenery of spring flowers, but was immersed in a gloomy and terrifying atmosphere.

-- The funeral processions filled the streets, the coffin shops were long out of stock, the church bells were constantly ringing, and everyone was filled with fear and helplessness.

Shortly after the "Jihadist Army" in Constantinople withdrew from Adrianople, the "City of the Dead", the Black Death, the name used by mothers to stop babies crying at night, swept through the Balkans in an instant.

“…… It's not just the Black Death! dysentery, typhoid, smallpox, cholera, measles, influenza...... All kinds of infectious diseases that can be suffered by human beings have actually broken out in Constantinople in one go! Is this going to turn my imperial capital into a plague museum? ”

Standing on the roof of his humble little palace, looking at the city of Constantinople with the bell ringing and the earth in mourning, and then looking at the stack of shocking reports in his hand, Emperor Constantine XI, who had just returned to the capital, couldn't help but have dark eyes and almost fainted.

-- What happened to the origin of this plague is impossible to verify at the moment. In conclusion, radiation sickness caused by nuclear waste is obviously not contagious, like food poisoning. But the problem is that after the entire village of Turks died of radiation sickness, their bodies were exposed, unburied and incinerated, and then gradually decomposed, breeding germs and causing a real plague.

In addition, during the previous Soman gas bombardment, the corpses of 140,000 Turkish troops and tens of thousands of war horses were piled up outside the city of Constantinople. When they decay as the temperature rises, they become an excellent source of plague. Although Emperor Constantine XI had ordered the remaining men to dig pits and bury the corpses of more than 200,000 men and horses when he left the city. However, due to the fact that almost all the strong men in the city followed the emperor to Adrianople to fight the "holy war", even the imperial court was closed. All that remained in the city were old and weak, women and children, lacking both strength and initiative, and in addition to the fact that the martyrs who had died in the defensive battle had to be mourned first, so the work of burying the bodies of the enemy had to be put on hold for a while...... As a result, the "Jihadist Army" had returned from the Thracian battlefield in triumph, and the bodies of the Turks outside the city had not been buried.

Thus, when Emperor Constantine XI was still stranded on the island of Lemnos in the Aegean Sea. While organizing the relocation of the Greek population and the dumping of nuclear waste from another time and space, a menacing plague broke out in Constantinople without warning.

First, some of the wounded soldiers were not well cared for, resulting in wounds becoming infected and suppurated, and dying—a common occurrence in the armies of ancient countries, and no one paid much attention to them—and then some of them, after a binge of eating, began to vomit and diarrhea, and fell into a coma with fever, apparently suffering from dysentery and cholera. Further back. Typhoid fever, smallpox, and the most terrible of all, the Black Death, broke out one after another, leaving the entire city in an ice cellar for a moment.

Because it was in the absence of the emperor that caused this disaster. The courtiers of the Eastern Roman Empire, who were the first to return to the imperial capital, initially wanted to cover the lid and try to deal with the matter privately themselves, so as not to disappoint the emperor, who had just won a great victory...... But the problem is that the speed of the plague is so alarming that the quarantine and screening of the sick in the city has not yet begun, and the plague has already swept through the small court of the Eastern Roman Empire!

-- Among the emperor's most trusted ministers, the Minister of War John and the Secretary of State Franz were bedridden one after another, and the treasurer in charge of the finances, Metochet, simply closed his door and neglected his official duties in order to avoid the plague. The central government of the Eastern Roman Empire was completely paralyzed for a time. Lucas, the remaining admiral who had not yet fallen ill, was also frightened by the plague and helpless, so he had to send a clipper to report to the emperor Bixia who was "patrolling" Lemnos, and successfully intercepted the emperor's ship in the Dardanelles Strait, and at the same time took the entire imperial fleet and moved to the newly captured fortress of Anadoli Hisar on the other side of the Bosphorus, preparing to stay there until the plague was over.

Thereupon. As soon as the Emperor arrived in Constantinople, he was dismayed to find that his court had moved from Europe to Asia.

-- In medieval Europe, where medical care was backward, plagues were frequented in overpopulated cities. It can often make a thriving city empty in an instant. Even the dignitaries had no choice but to flee the "cursed city" and take refuge in the wilderness on the outskirts for a while, waiting for the plague to end, and then returning to live in the city, which was the conventional response to the plague at the time.

But the problem was that the Eastern Roman Empire at this time was only the size of a cat's forehead, and as long as you walked out of the walls of Constantinople, it was either a ruined ruin, or a village and town controlled by the Turks. The only places to move were the two Turkish forts that had just been captured...... So, the panicked courtiers of the Eastern Roman Empire resolutely fled to the fortress of Anadory-Hissar, located on the Asian side of the Bosphorus, far from Constantinople, hoping that the raging waters would stop the spread of the disease.

What made the emperor even more depressed was that the military liliang of the Eastern Roman Empire was also completely disintegrated by this plague.

“…… As soon as the plague broke out, almost all the Western European mercenaries in Constantinople ran away! Alas, foreigners just can't be trusted! ”

Looking at the empty barracks and stables, Emperor Constantine XI couldn't help but sigh for a while.

Due to frequent palace coups and imperial strife, from a long time ago, successive Eastern Roman emperors liked to use foreign mercenaries as personal attendants, such as the most famous Varangian Guard, recruited from among the Vikings in Northern Europe. Because these foreigners had no connections in Constantinople, they were not easy to be bought by their own careerists and participated in palace coups, which made successive Eastern Roman emperors feel more at ease.

But the problem is that foreign mercenaries, although rarely plotting to assassinate the emperor, also have their disadvantages: if you continue to be unpaid, they will naturally rebel and mutiny, or jump ship to the enemy's camp; But once they make a fortune, they will immediately quit their jobs and go home, buy a field and build a house, and enjoy the blessings of the local owner...... No way, no matter what era it is, the murderers who are willing to be bloody and exciting are in the minority after all. Whether in Europe or Asia, most of the people who are forced to go to war still dream of owning their own land and homeland and living a stable and peaceful life.

Even the so-called Western European knights, from an economic and sociological point of view, should first and foremost be a lord of the manor.

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