Eagle Byzantium

"What is John the Priest King? Isn't he the King of Aksum in the south of Egypt?" Anna said with disdain.

It turned out that in this century, with the conquest of the Western Christian Kingdom on the East, various ancient myths and legends mixed with various errors began to prevail, and in Italy, the capital of the country, many scholars recently emerged with the story of "King John" mentioned by Gawain.

According to legend, this King John was a high priest, but he also wore a crown on his head. Like the Emperor of Constantinople and the Holy Roman Emperor, he was an "emperor" with a pure and noble status (the monarchs of Ethiopia did have the so-called imperial lineage, but the quality was lower than that of several other imperial lines in the world, such as Persia, the Celestial Empire, India, and the Eastern Roman Empire). He had an extremely powerful empire located in the far east (for Europeans who had never seen the world at that time, Asia Minor was the East, Persia was the East, Egypt and Syria were the East, and Seres was of course the East. Anyway, everything in the east was the East), and he always fought against the Mohammedans.

In the era of Gawain and Anna, because the Crusades achieved great success and recovered Jerusalem, the West was more curious about King John and hoped that someone could find his empire and join hands to spread the "great love" of Christianity to the whole world.

In fact, from the 12th to the 13th century, due to the fierce counterattack of the Crescent countries in the East, and the fact that the Christian kingdoms in the West were no match for the Crescent countries in terms of social system and military system (the difference was huge), the small kingdoms of the Levantine Crusaders were defeated one after another. At this time, the legend of King John was seized by the Church like a life-saving straw - the Church sent envoys to constantly look for "where is the world with King John", hoping that he could help attack the Crescent Church.

Later, the Church announced that it had found King John.

This King John, ahem, some say it is the Khan of the Kerait tribe on the Mongolian grassland, and some say it is the Karakhitan King (that is, Yelu Dashi, but he seems to be a Buddhist) who later defeated the Seljuk Sultan. Anyway, whoever rises in the East is "King John" in the eyes of the Church!

Even when the Mongolian army first came to Europe, many people still believed that this group of evil ghosts was the legendary King John!

Later, after the rise of the Ottoman Empire, Western Europe was still tirelessly looking for King John, hoping that he could cooperate with them and attack the evil Ottoman Empire. After the Portuguese bypassed the Cape of Good Hope and entered East Africa, they found Abyssinia, the only remaining Christian power in Africa at that time, and believed that this country was established by the descendants of King John.

Of course, the official statement of the monarch of Abyssinia: We are descendants of King Solomon.

Westerners regard this country as a treasure, but the Eastern Roman Empire would not think so - because although there has not been a long period of direct contact with Abyssinia in history, the indirect contact has never been severed. As early as the time of Constantine the Great, he announced that "Axum (the name of the ancient Abyssinia) citizens enjoy the same rights as Roman citizens!" Earlier than Constantine the Great, Greek sailors arrived here and described the local customs and customs in detail.

Afterwards, Eastern Roman priests often went deep into the country, and many of them were canonized for their outstanding missionary achievements. The most famous were St. Flormondius and St. Edicius. They lived in the late reign of Constantine the Great. They were originally Syrian priests. In 330 AD, they ventured into the Red Sea by ship, but the ship was quickly sunk by friendly pirates. The two climbed ashore and were taken in by the then Aksumite King Ella Amidah. Then, under the diligent propaganda of the two, the king, nobles and people of Aksum were collectively baptized and converted to Christianity.

In fact, now, the entire Abyssinian church is still under the jurisdiction of the "Coptic Church" in Alexandria, and the bishops in various places are also appointed by the Archbishop of Alexandria: but because the Coptic Church and Constantinople have always had a bad relationship, and after the sixth century, Abyssinia's power began to retreat from the coast to the southern inland, and then it became a bully who beat the surrounding primitive people. It was gradually isolated and forgotten in the eyes of the world. After the rise of the Ottoman Empire, it cut off all ties with Western Christianity.

As Edward Gibbon said: "Ethiopia is surrounded by all kinds of pagan enemies and has been sleeping for a thousand years. They have forgotten the world and the world has forgotten them."

But now Gawain has not forgotten!

He used to travel to Ethiopia, and there was often a string of local children following him, selling him various ancient coins.

Of course, Gawain also knew that it was not feasible to package Abyssinia (Ethiopia) as "King John" as his own industry. Since Anna knew the place, there was no reason why the priests from all over the empire didn't know it.

So he had to counter it.

Extend King John's kingdom to a more remote place? Or even if he formally established diplomatic relations with Abyssinia, it would be a rare industrial achievement!

Of course, his plan also had more practical ideas in it, because the eastern corner of Africa not only had a developed maritime trade, but also had extremely considerable gold mines and high-quality cotton - in this era, most countries' gold was shipped from the Maghreb (west of Egypt, now Morocco, Tunisia and Algeria), and the competition was very fierce. If Gawain wanted to mint his own gold coins, in addition to recycling the original Eastern Roman gold coins, he also had to obtain the source of East Africa.

Although the couple's discussion about King John came to an end, Gawain's plan gradually became clear.

Previously, when he was still a court soldier, he followed the stablemaster George to fight in Asia Minor. He had heard his military servant Ericson talk about Iceland, and the idea had moved his mind, but now it seems that the entire empire's route to the northern ocean is too far away, and there is no reliable control. Instead, the "King John Route" is more practical and can bring more generous returns.

Therefore, the news was soon announced in the palace. Anna's second son was baptized and named Flormondis.

At the same time, news came from the ocean that the Venetians were determined not to succumb to Gawain. They supported John to establish the "Imperial Court" on Crete, and the ruling area was three castles in the north of the island and Rhodes. In addition, Morea, Thessaly, Epirus, Dirhacium and other places previously governed by John also expressed their continued loyalty to John. Isaac Comnenus was forced to refuse Gawain's surrender.

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However, Ceces of Thessalonica was still in a dilemma and kept in touch with Gawain, probably hoping to get better treatment.

In addition, due to the enemy fleets in Crete and Rhodes showing off their power in the Holy Sea, shipping was completely interrupted. The grain sent to Constantinople could only be transported from Iconium to the port of Sinope by land, and then transferred from the Euxin Sea to the imperial capital.

And the whole of Thrace had almost no harvest due to the war last year, and famine broke out.