Chapter 431 Target Rome

People get crazy when they get old, which is reflected in Mircea. This war may cause the whole of Europe to target them.

However, before that, there needs to be a war of public opinion. The reason why the Bishop of Rome can gain a foothold is that Constantine donated a piece of land to the church, but this document was vigorously promoted in the 10th century. It can be basically concluded that it was forged by the Pope in order to obtain legal power.

According to legend, the document was issued by Constantine I, and the right to rule over Judea, Greece, Asia, Thrace, Africa, Rome, Italy and the entire Western Roman Empire was given to Pope Sylvester I and his successor Peter. The ruling institutions of the Roman Empire were transferred to the new capital of the Eastern Roman Empire.

This document played a great role in the exchanges between Pope Stephen II and King Pepin the Short of France in the eighth century. In 754, Pepin was anointed by Stephen II, who was the archbishop at the time, and ascended the throne to replace the Merovingian family as the King of France. Later, he also received Italy and Lombardy from Pepin.

In this case, let's start a war of public opinion. Those clergymen of the Orthodox Church have been fed up with the arrogance of the Catholic Church, and they just took advantage of this incident to kill all sides.

So, an article published in the name of the Patriarch of Constantinople caused discussion. It directly said that the document that Constantine the Great presented to the church was fake, because the words in this document showed that this document would not be a product of the fourth century. Although some of the words in it conform to the style of the imperial era, some words do not belong to the fourth century. For example, the fiefdom system was mentioned.

From this, it can be concluded that this is a document forged by the Catholic Church for its own selfish interests. In order to correct the chaos, the Orthodox Church authorized the Roman Empire to take back this unreasonable land.

This directly exploded the Catholic Church. No one expected that the Orthodox Church would make such a big move. This is to force the Pope to death.

The cardinals took the lead in action, accusing the Roman Empire of robbing Rome, which had angered God and would be punished sooner or later. The six electors of the Holy Roman Empire also successively expressed that they would form a coalition to defend the holy city. (Brandenburg and Pomerania did not agree, and Bohemia started to quarrel)

Who knew that the Orthodox Church was so stubborn that it dared to ask the Pope to return the land. Can this be agreed? This is not possible. Otherwise, what prestige does the church have?

This time, the news spread quite quickly and relied on the popular newspapers in the upper class. The few pages in the past became more than a dozen. In addition to government decisions, there are also news about business recruitment, culture and religion, and banquet invitations. The "Constantinople News" founded by Peter is the most popular newspaper at the moment.

When the newspaper published that Constantine's land donation was forged by the West, the public sentiment really went in the direction they expected. They were all angry with the Pope, and after hearing that the six electors supported the false bishop of Rome, they even hated them.

Now Constantinople is discussing when to send troops to recover the homeland. The propaganda has been initially successful.

The previously assembled army will not be disbanded for the time being, and 20,000 of them will go to the Papal States via Romagna. At the same time, the new firearms army will also go there by ship, but it will take a little longer.

However, Rome reacted so strongly that except for one country, all others reacted. The country that did not react was France. As long as the Pope of Rome was kicked out, the Avignon Pope he supported would become the only one in the Catholic world. He wished that the Pope was gone, so how could he support him.

Pope Gregory XII began to call on the Catholic world to defend Rome and resist pagans. But Florence and Siena recently sent 6,000 people, and Naples and Romagna belonged to the Orthodox Church. Now we have to deal with them, and we can only mobilize all the people in the Papal States.

But what made him happy was that the Kingdom of Aragon was okay again. The king directly transported most of the navy to Sardinia first, and then to Rome. And joined forces with Castile to defend the Western Mediterranean. If the Roman attack failed, they would form a coalition to attack Malta.

The most important Duke of Burgundy did not answer. Why? It was simple. Britain had taken action. But it was not an attack, but a retreat.

I don’t know what the King of England thought, and he actually gave all the Normandy region to Stefan. They got a large piece of land without any effort, which made him re-evaluate England as an ally.

Henry IV was also heartbroken. He hesitated for a long time to withdraw such a large piece of land. However, if he could see the Duke of Normandy fighting with Burgundy and Orleans, he could take the opportunity to attack and take Paris. Moreover, his rule in Normandy was not smooth, and the benefits of rule were far less than the cost, so he simply withdrew. Only a few coastal towns such as Calais were left.

Doing so did give Stefan a foothold, but after being ravaged by England and the mercenary group, Normandy was now sparsely populated and barren. It can only be said that it is a very suitable place for reclamation.

Although it is not okay, it is still his own land. He can only pinch his nose and admit it. However, with several brothers chasing for the goal, Stefan will not be at ease in this duke. His goal is at least like a king or an independent duchy.

Now he is the most "loyal" minister around Charles VI, and Salmon provides him with a lot of convenience. His wife's princess and his own duke status also gathered a group of small nobles and senior officials around him. He had his initial team in France.

In addition, representatives of the Hanseatic League and Genoa came to the door and said that they could provide Stefan with a loan of 200,000 gold coins, but he had to exchange it with equivalent items or other things after the expiration, otherwise they would go to Constantinople to collect the money.

Stefan signed it generously and got the money first. As for how to pay it back, he had to think carefully. After all, the most important thing now was to organize an army. The relationship between England and France was becoming more and more tense. Maybe one day the war would be rekindled, and he, the duke, had to join in.

In his spare time, he also liked to read books and learn from the lessons and methods of his predecessors. Before, it was Alexander, Caesar, and Trajan. Recently, it was Charlemagne and Justinian. Today is a more recent era, King William I of England.

At the beginning, more than 10,000 people took over England. This was a miracle, and he also had to learn from it. At the same time, the "Book of Judgment Day" he formulated dealt a strong blow to the local nobles. Such an outstanding monarch is worthy of his predecessor.

"That's great! I wish I could copy his path." Stefan thought. For the family, impossible things must be turned into possibilities, so as to encourage them to move forward.