Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 410 England's fourth uncle also failed

For these enemies hundreds of years ago, the Kingdom of England actually intended to make peace.

In fact, if it weren't for the emergence of the Purple Horde, the Anza people in Crimea would indeed have a tendency to accept recruitment.After all, at this time, the Eastern Roman Empire dominated by the Greeks had already declined badly, and could no longer provide even momentum.

Although there was a grudge back then, at least everyone is from England, so they are considered fellow villagers, at least a little bit of fate.If you can get the support of the Kingdom of England, you can at least increase your confidence when facing the Slavs and Turks who pose a direct threat around you.

To put it bluntly, it has already been reduced to this level, and any relationship is a relationship.

Still, England was too far away after all.Although there are some priests and businessmen who come and go, and some people are willing to provide some sponsorship, it is still a drop in the bucket for the overall situation in the local area.Moreover, the Kingdom of England is busy fighting with France, and has no intention of recruiting them.Naturally, this matter is over.

However, after the rise of the Purple Horde Khanate, the situation changed again.The Kingdom of England unexpectedly discovered that these people could actually threaten themselves by taking the northern sea route.

In the past, Nordic raiders often haunted the North Sea, and they went to England to rob from time to time, and some people settled here for a long time, hoping to conquer here.However, after the Norman dynasty conquered England, the Nordic forces have been declining day by day, and there are basically no threats.

The French also tried to attack mainland England.More than a hundred years ago, the navies of the two sides fought in the harbor of Sluis.At that time, both of them were not very professional. In order to make up for this problem, the King of France hired Genoese to help in the battle.

However, before the war, the French commander had an idea and decided to connect all the warships with iron cables and use them as a stable castle to make up for the problem that their own soldiers were not familiar with water.The Genoese mercenary leader thought this was not possible, but the French refused to listen.He refused to accept the order and left with his own boat.

As a result, the English navy launched an attack from upstream by means of the current, and the huddled French navy was almost wiped out.Afterwards, the French were very angry, thinking that it was the Genoese's fault, and arrested the mercenary leader.

After that, everyone knew that the French could not afford to lose, and gradually no one worried that they could attack the mainland of England.

Therefore, even though they lost the first battle, many English nobles still believed that the Purple Horde's offensive was successful only because it was too unexpected-no one expected that this kind of safe place for hundreds of years would come again.

When the Purple Horde was recruiting people everywhere, everyone felt that they were too far away. These actions must have just helped the French to force the withdrawal of the English army and ease the pressure on the allies.No one expected that they would come to the truth in the end.In this state of mind, there is no way to be attacked by someone.

But on the other hand, it does represent a threat.

The current situation in England is actually not as glamorous as outsiders see.At the beginning, King Edward launched the war against France, the main purpose was to keep the important economic production area, and at the same time strengthen the prestige of the royal family.Although it has been fairly successful on the battlefield, the decades-long war has also had a serious impact on England itself.

Compared with mainland Europe, England on the island is actually very barren and backward.Relying on the island's output alone could not feed such an army strong enough to fight against France, nor could it meet the needs of the nobles.Therefore, the kings of England have to rely on tax increases and borrowing to survive.

The former brought tremendous pressure on ordinary residents of England. By the late 14th century, there were even rebellions across the country—the farmers in England rebelled. It is of course conceivable how the economic situation has deteriorated.

The latter caused the kingdom to bear huge debts, so large that it was almost impossible to seriously repay the money.Therefore, the kings had to renege on their debts many times.

Italian businessmen suffered greatly from it.The first few large multinational banks that emerged were all beaten by England in the end.In order to maintain the foreign war, Edward III relied on Baldi Bank for 90 florins and Peruzzi Bank for 60, which led to the bankruptcy of the two largest banks at the time.

The operators of these banks are already businessmen who are best at dealing with kings and nobles, but as long as the other party wants to renege on their debts, there is still nothing they can do.Therefore, Guo Kang's ability to receive sponsorship from Italian businessmen did not surprise everyone in the Khan court, because nobles who are willing to repay are very scarce resources at any time.It is not surprising that people follow him every day.

But for the Kingdom of England, repudiation is actually not a good thing.

The repayment of this debt does not mean that nothing will happen afterwards.The consumption of various internal and external wars is staggering, and the king still needs more financial resources.However, because everyone knows that lending money to the king is extremely risky, if you want to attract businessmen to continue to give money, you have to offer a higher bargaining chip.

Therefore, corresponding to the extremely high risk, the interest rate of this kind of loan is also extremely high.Because they cannot renege on their debts every time, kings often mortgage various taxes directly to merchants for repayment.In the early fourteenth century, Italian merchants almost monopolized the country's tariffs.Later, various privileges were also sold to Lowland and Hanseatic merchants in exchange for their financial support.Even the right to appoint the mayor of London has long been contracted out.

This situation made the nobles quite dissatisfied, feeling that all kinds of sovereignty were about to be sold to the king.The dignified Great Britain has become the imperial court of foreigners.With the support of the nobles and their own merchants, the subsequent kings gradually took back these powers-of course, this greatly offended the Hanse merchants and lowland merchants who had been operating locally for a long time.They turned to support the Purple Horde, and to put it bluntly, this is the cause of these messes.

So in the end, the Kingdom of England has actually fallen into a bad situation that is difficult to get rid of. No matter how the kings change their policies, it is difficult to make the situation better.The only way to break the situation is to make up for these huge gaps through war and looting.In short, it is necessary to make money in every battle, otherwise problems will easily occur in the country.

In fact, in history, after the final failure of the Hundred Years War, the Kingdom of England did collapse very quickly.

During the tragic civil war, 60 of the 25 great aristocratic families were cut off, more than half of the nobles above the baron died, and thousands of small feudal lords perished in the war, so that the period after the war was called "illegitimate feudalism" - because the direct descendants of the traditional feudal nobles were not enough to die.It's just that now, everyone can't imagine that this kind of thing is too scary for the old nobleman.

Now, of course, they have not fallen to such a point, but the rulers of England, it is not difficult to see these danger signals.All are well aware of the perilous position in which the kingdom is situated.In this case, even if some risk factors can be reduced as much as possible, it is obviously a good thing worthy of attention.

So far, in New Anglia, there are still a group of settlements called "London" and "York".From the point of view of the Zizhang Khanate, this is a kind of overseas Chinese county.The English took this as a breakthrough point, saying that since the Anza people still miss their hometown, can the two sides talk at all.

England has been promoting this matter with great fanfare, and Princess Jeanne should have known about it before.However, the senior officials of the Purple Horde specifically mentioned this matter, which still caught her attention.

"What does the English court want to gain from this?" She asked, "They should be concerned about more than just this one thing."

Lu Shangshu nodded.

"You should have known it before. Henry IV passed away earlier this year." He said: "The current situation in England is actually more dangerous."

Princess Jeanne showed a thoughtful expression.

Henry IV was a "wrong" king.This matter has also been known to the courts of various countries for a long time.

Of course, Zhu Wenkui doesn't seem to be very clear...

"What happened to England?" he asked curiously.

"This matter started decades ago." Prime Minister Wang Zhongren glanced at the others and briefly introduced him: "Back then, King Edward III of England had several sons. The eldest son he valued most was the famous 'Black Prince' Edward. The Black Prince had military merits and a direct lineage status. He was originally the best heir, but he died before his father."

"The old king was very sad and decided to let the black prince's son succeed him. Since the eldest son of the black prince, Edward of Angoulême, died young, the succession fell to the second son Richard. However, this also aroused his uncles' covetousness."

"After the little king succeeded to the throne, he was called Richard II. The fourth son of Edward III, John, Duke of Lancaster, gained the power to be regent. But the king has always had a bad relationship with him, and he has been trying to get rid of him. However, his ability is limited and his relationship with the parliament and other nobles is not good, so he has never been successful."

"After John passed away, Richard, who had always wanted to weaken the great nobles, immediately ordered the deprivation of his fief. However, this move was not effective, but caused widespread panic among the great nobles. The nobles who feared that they would have the same experience turned against each other."

"John's son Henry took the opportunity to launch a counterattack, successfully defeated Richard, captured him, and usurped the throne. He is the King Henry IV who has been in power until this year."

"And Richard II was imprisoned. Henry IV assured him and Parliament that the deposed king would not be executed. But within a few months, he was accused of instigating supporters to assassinate the new king. Henry IV executed him for this reason."

"Although it is reasonable to say that Richard is really dead, many people don't believe it. There are various rumors among the people that he survived and escaped." Prime Minister Wang finally said: "Scotland has also spoken publicly, saying that Richard has successfully escaped and is now living in the capital Stirling. Many people really believe this statement. No matter what the royal family says, it is useless."

"That's it..." Zhu Wenkui said with emotion, "I boiled his fourth uncle to death, but it still didn't work. I really don't know how to evaluate..."

"This..." Prime Minister Wang really didn't like to comment on his family, so he had no choice but to divert the conversation and continue his topic: "In short, we believe that these situations show that there are serious conflicts and dissatisfaction within England. There should be no suspense about this."

Zhu Wenkui thought for a while and nodded.

(End of this chapter)