"Your Majesty, we are willing to submit to you and obey any of your orders."

The Grand Palace of Constantine, the mottled walls make this thousand-year-old building more historical, since Constantine took office, there has been no large-scale repair of the Grand Palace, just a simple repair of the damaged place,

In the reception hall at this time, several domestic nobles such as the Constantinoy family and the Kantakuzin family that Louis said were standing in front of Constantine, with extremely respectful faces.

Constantine smiled and patted several people on the shoulders one by one,

"You are all the pillars of the country, and at a critical juncture, you should take care of yourself first, and only when you have the spare power can you help others, you don't have to worry that I will bring up the old things again,"

Constantine directly made it clear that the previous things would not be investigated, these big nobles hiding in the local area, even under the Ottomans, they still ate and drank spicy, the Ottomans did not deprive him of the fiefs of the nobles of the occupied areas, for the local nobles, in a large part of them, the rule of the Ottomans was no different from the rule of the Byzantine emperor, and even because the Ottomans had lower taxes, in some areas, the Ottomans were more popular than the Byzantine emperor's tax envoys, No one, whether for the peasants at the bottom or the local aristocracy, wanted less taxation.

"You are all the senators of the Senate, and you are also highly respected within the entire empire, many nobles take you as an example, and regard a few as lions leading the team, in many ways, the policy of Constantinople still needs a few more advices and more cooperation!"

"Your Majesty, rest assured, as long as it is useful to us, we will never say anything."

In front of Constantine, these people showed their loyalty, as if they were all peerless loyal ministers.

Constantine nodded with satisfaction, no matter what they thought in their hearts, at least the attitude was there, and that was enough,

"Constantinople has gone through many wars, and the rich city with a population of one million that was once built by Constantine the Great is now only tens of thousands, and the city is withered, all industries are not prosperous, and the population is not prosperous, how can it not make people sad?"

"Since you are the pillars of the empire, it is a little condescending to stay in the place, it is better to move your family to Constantinople, the high-ranking officials are in front of you, I, Constantine, will never treat everyone badly, I can swear in the name of God Christ."

Constantine's words were like morning bells and dusk drums, constantly echoing in the hearts of several people, to be honest, several people didn't expect Constantine to come to such a move, they looked at each other, and didn't know how to speak,

The key thing is that what Constantine said makes sense, when Constantine the Great built Constantinople, he also moved commoners and nobles from all over the country to enrich the population of Constantinople, if you refuse, there must be an excuse that no one can refute, otherwise, you don't give the emperor face so much, you don't even find an excuse, you want to rebel? If you don't want to tear your face with Constantine, you have to find an excuse.

For Constantine, if these people enter Constantinople, what is the difference between them and the fish on the chopping board, without being attached to their vassals and commoners, their influence is illusory, after all, no matter how high the officials, no matter how thick the title, can they surpass Constantine?

"What? What concerns do you have? Say it all! We will solve it on the spot, any problem can be discussed, you should follow the emperor as soon as possible, and the development of the empire cannot lose a few people! ”

In the face of Constantine's earnest eyes, several weak-hearted people lowered their heads slightly, and Duke Kantakuzin had an idea and blurted out a sentence,

"Your Majesty, I think we can and easily cooperate with all of Your Majesty's policies at the local level, without our cooperation, the local people may make trouble."

"Yes, yes, yes..."

Several other dukes followed up and said that they would not want to come to Constantinople, and when they arrived in Constantinople, it would be life and death, and it would be bad to be powerful on their own territory. In front of Constantine, anything you do will be magnified, and you are not free at all.

"So... Are you unwilling to cooperate with the Empire's policies? ”

Constantine paused the scepter in his hand and looked angry,

"You want to fight against the central government? You are so arrogant that you want to start a civil war again? Is this the patriarch of the Empire? Are you worthy of your status as a patriarch? ”

"Your Majesty is angry..."

Several people quickly knelt on the ground, buried their heads in the carpet, and exchanged glances several times, anyway, they didn't intend to compromise.

After a while, I felt that Constantine's anger had subsided a little, and he slowly spoke,

"Since you don't want to go back to Constantinople, go to Anatolia! It's full of Orthodox Christians surrounded by heretics, go there! Don't be happy in the Balkans, it's not what a warrior should do, if you want to do territory, you can change it one to one, and you can choose your own position, except for Asia Minor. ”

Feeling that Constantine said these words with anger, even if the few people kneeling on the ground wanted to object, they didn't know how to speak, could it be that I like to enjoy happiness in the Balkans? This is not in line with the spirit of the aristocracy, in this era, the spirit of nobility is still more valuable, not the future generations can be trampled on casually, the nobles who do not pursue progress will be spurned, the same way, the nobility who dare not fight is looked down upon by others, in the Holy Roman Empire, a flag officer, the Duke of Württemberg and the Duke of Braunschweig two imperial princes to compete for, this flag officer is in charge of the Holy Roman Empire battle flag on the battlefield, in our eyes is an inconspicuous position, at that time it was the object of people's competition.

And there are a lot of MSLs in Anatolia, Constantine has not thought of any good way to settle this group of people, expulsion is impossible, the country is very short of manpower, this group of people can also provide taxes, no matter what, they can't give up, even if Constantine plans to move a part of MSL to Constantinople to enrich the population of the capital, there is no way to solve all MSLs, although it is not easy to centralize the feudal aristocratic territory, but for local stability, this system still has great advantages, Many things that are not well managed by the central government or are not easy to manage can be easily solved in the hands of local lords.

Constantine's purpose is not to be the few big nobles in front of him, according to his idea, those nobles who have no reason to do it should also drive some to Anatolia, put all these local nobles in Constantinople, or go to Anatolia to maintain the small peasant economy and prevent land annexation,

In the successive emperors of the Roman Empire, many emperors attached great importance to the development of yeoman farmers, and there were laws to restrain the large landed aristocracy, although land annexation can reduce the cost of tax collection by the central government, but once the land is annexed, there is a certain similarity with the tax package system, all of which are paid by one person, and the local tax central government cannot control, because this is people's land, which is undoubtedly a disaster for local agricultural production.

On the other hand, although it may be more troublesome to curb land annexation, under the control of the government, the local aristocracy has no way to do evil, and to a certain extent, it is necessary to promote the development of agriculture, and the peasants who own land are more stable and more secure.

"Of course, I still say the same thing, if you want to come to Constantinople to develop, the empire will always welcome you, high-ranking officials and nobles are in front of you, you can apply to me at any time, I can arrange it,"

"In addition, the land assets in your name, etc., will be handed over to the Count of St. Treasury and the Count of the Royal Private Property, so that they can be distributed to Anatolia with a considerable amount of assets."

"Yes, Your Majesty!"

Very helpless, they can only agree to Constantine's request, after all, with Constantine, the loss will not be too big,

One might wonder why these great nobles didn't resist when Constantine was so aggressive? There must be enough troops and food in their territory, even if they fight with Constantine, they may not be able to fight.

If you have been beaten, you don't have to fight, and you can't just rely on emotion, especially for these long-standing nobles, first of all, these families don't have the desire to overthrow Constantine himself as emperor, not that they don't necessarily have the strength, but they know that they can't take over this mess, and the biggest possibility of ascending to the throne is to be dragged down by finances, or to be messed up by riots,

Secondly, opposing Constantine will do more harm than good, Constantine, as the emperor, has a natural suppressive effect on the local nobles, otherwise how could Boss Cao "coerce the Son of Heaven to order the princes"? If a war with Constantine breaks out and a civil war starts, it will mean that production will stagnate, casualties will increase, and finances will dry up, and even if they win, they will probably get a country full of holes.

Here again, it is important to understand the concept that the aristocracy is not all tied to the state, some nobles are tied to the land, and in their eyes the state is a very illusory concept, and the same is true of religion, and there is no shortage of Sunnis who have converted to Christianity and played an important role in the court of the Ottomans.

There are two kinds of nobles, one is the fiefdom nobles who have their own fiefs, this kind of nobles are tied to the land, no matter who the ruler of the land is, as long as it does not harm their interests, they will generally not object, and their loyalty to the central government is generally not very high, and there is a type of free aristocracy, this kind of nobles usually only have a title, but this title is enough for them to occupy a prominent position in the court of the country, and their interests are tied to the state, of course, there is no shortage of existing fiefs, The nobles who also held prominent positions in the government, but it has been said before that in the late Byzantine Empire, the central free aristocracy had disappeared, and the local fiefdom aristocracy became the mainstream of the late Byzantine Empire, which is why sometimes these people would ignore the interests of Constantinople, because their roots were not here, they didn't care,

In the Heraclius era, the central nobility in Constantinople had not been lost, and these people still had money to support Emperor Heraclius, but by the time of Constantine XI, in fact, as early as the time of the Komnenian Dynasty, the central aristocracy had almost disappeared, and now Constantine just wanted to create a group of central nobles again to balance the fiefdom aristocracy, which is what a qualified emperor should do.