Chapter 6: Imperial Clash

  But before we take our revenge on society, there's somewhere we have to go first.

  As the sun gradually swallowed up the walls of Constantinople, Father took me and Alexander to ride horses on the main road of Augusta Square.

  The streets are cool and unparalleled, on the bleak white speckled bluestone of Augusta Square, tall Greek oak trees stand aloof.

  "Hail! Caesar!!"

  Two rows of Plaza Guards wearing Imperial Eagle Cross-patterned half-body iron armor and red robes at the entrance to the plaza put down their flintlock guns in unison and raised one hand high!

  One arm after another suddenly appeared in mid-air.

  Forget it, this is the origin of Hitler's sneaky salute. The previous guy who liked to mess around didn't let the salute go either. It's said that in his time, Romans used salutes instead of handshakes when meeting each other. Even now, thinking about it feels quite ridiculous.

  A vast square, surrounded by towering buildings that have stood for over a thousand years. The cold bluestone colonnade and the large Roman gateways replaced the pure white marble buildings of the past. The dozens of meters high vaults are faintly visible in the dim light, shining and twinkling. On both sides of the corridors, rows of candle holders were placed, and the continuous white candles reflected a soft atmosphere throughout the courtyard.

  The location of the United Front Department meeting was in a small three-story building inside the inner layer of Augusta Square. The conference hall was very simple, with one red-bottomed golden-edged imperial eagle flag and one royal purple-golden-threaded royal flag standing next to the huge imperial map, surrounded by several portrait sculptures that belonged to our Seofano family's ancestors. In the corridor, many people in formal attire stood in twos and threes, they were the dignitaries of this Roman Empire today, but like the guards outside, when they saw us, these guys retreated to both sides again, and saluted!

  As bystanders, it's not our first time entering this place. Upon closer inspection, they're all familiar big shots from various departments of the Empire. The Imperial Seal Minister Skrelnus, Finance Minister Eriks, Navy Minister Vataki, Administrative Minister Seodori, and Foreign Minister Leo.

  I used to have nothing to do and made a relatively intuitive division based on the patterns of several mainstream single-player games. According to the Three Kingdoms mode, none of the abilities of these senior ministers exceeded 85. If it were Total War mode, the initial ability values of the ministers were basically three stars. The honesty attribute of Sklerenus, the royal steward, gave him an extra star, and the 20-year veteran politician added two more stars, for a total of six stars. Finance Minister Eriks was about the same, with the audit expert adding one star, honesty adding one star, and overall six stars. The others were roughly the same.

  It's relatively excellent, this is the level of the entire imperial administrative institution, and it's also closest to the real level. It's unlikely that there would be a large group of full-starred or ability values exceeding one hundred like in games. Perhaps in the past when old men entered this place, the old guy's value could exceed ninety.

  The guard pushed open the dark cross-carved Greek redwood door, and with a loud rumble, the most dazzling stage of the thousand-year Roman Empire opened!

  Red, blood-red splendor everywhere, the Greek-dyed woolen hangings exported from the workshops of Tyre which had been hung in the halls by the doors and carried all the way across the ceiling to the far wall, six red standards with black borders bearing the emblem of the house of Sefora.

  A male eagle, a royal crown, this is the emblem of the Seofano family!

  On the main seat in the center, two huge black curtains covered up the things inside.

  When lifted up, a red curtain will replace the black exterior, and then a huge map will be presented!

  Europe, Asia, Africa and the New World.

  But no matter what name or title they have on that map of power, they all have only one appellation - enemy!

  France, Britain, Germany, Austria, Russia, Sweden, Castile, Netherlands... The entire European continent, all powers can be enemies! Far and near, strong and weak, some can temporarily cooperate, while others must be eliminated!

  Two marble busts are placed on the left and right, which are my great-grandfather and grandfather of Alexander. In the future, when Old Man is in a good mood one day, he can also let someone make one for him and put it here.

  The gate was walked into by two or three people. This meeting, a total of 11 top-level figures appeared, all deputy ministers and other vice-hands attended, a total of 21 people, more than half of the Roman Empire's top officials were present here.

  A very familiar pattern, if I'm not mistaken, this organization that brings together high-ranking officials from various government departments to discuss policies is called a cabinet.

  The name is different, but the meaning is roughly the same. In recent decades, the empire's policies have been made here in the United Front Department rather than at the so-called imperial court conference presided over by the emperor. It can be said that the United Front Department allows our Seo family to bypass the imperial court conference and issue orders to the entire empire. As for the catalyst, this has to do with the Muslim Mahdi, of course, also related to the previous two hundred and fifty emperor.

  Our ancestor of the Saonofano family, to be exact, my great-grandfather, a nobleman from a military aristocratic background, successfully married into an imperial family through his military achievements, namely the Saonofano family which had existed since before the Macedonian dynasty. After that, with the support of the old Saonofano family which had produced several empresses and his original military background, my great-grandfather, who was then serving as Deputy Minister of Military Affairs and Commander-in-Chief of the Syrian Defense Zone, once confronted Mahdi, a Muslim, face-to-face and did not back down.

  The empire suffered two major defeats in the 17th century Muslim uprisings, with over 150,000 people killed. The stupid emperor had to reappoint my great-grandfather. To mobilize national strength to reverse strategic failures, the United Front Department emerged, and after that, the military action to recover Aleppo and the long battle with Muslim Mahdi allowed the United Front Department, which could coordinate various departments of the empire, to slowly surpass other departments. Finally, under my grandfather's reform, his United Front Department officially replaced the Imperial Council to manage the entire empire.

  But my grandfather still couldn't become the emperor after all. In the end, it was because my great-grandfather was an ordinary military nobleman who married into the Sefano family. Moreover, with the previous emperor's edict of raising troops, the wealthy and powerful imperial clan held a certain amount of military power at that time. Once they started fighting, Rome's civil war would only allow France to easily annex Castile, and at that time, the Muslims still had the strength for one more battle. Rome's internal strife might very well let them reap the benefits without lifting a finger.

  Bloodline is a pain in the ass, but it's also a game rule that everyone has to follow. Our helpless grandfather had no choice but to pick up a relatively marginal royal family member and marry him off to someone close to the current emperor's bloodline, so my brother and I could move closer to the front of the line for succession.

  In this brief moment, the crowd in the hall had already gone through the formalities and entered the main topic of this meeting, the problem of rising grain prices caused by the empire's poor grain supply.

  The Byzantine Empire was short of grain, no, the Eastern Roman Empire had been plagued by a long-standing problem that could not be solved for many years. In the past, when the empire still owned Egypt, the empire never worried about food. Unfortunately, Egypt was occupied in the 8th century.

  After that, the Eastern Roman Empire was always looking for a substitute for the Egyptian granary, but within the empire's territory, it was really impossible to find any fertile land comparable to the Nile River basin in Egypt. As is well known, Greece has never been a grain-producing region since ancient times, otherwise the Phoenicians would not have gone out to sea. The eastern Anatolia region has many mountains, minerals and good horses, but arable fertile land is only available along the Mediterranean coast. The Thracian plain and the more distant Danube river basin are not bad choices, but the rise of Bulgaria makes that vast plain really unsuitable as a production base. So the population of the Eastern Roman Empire has not increased much since losing Egypt. In modern times, the rising Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth finally replaced Egypt as the empire's granary, with cheap grain passing through the Southern Bug River and Dnieper River to enter Constantinople from the Black Sea outlet.

  It's just that the Poles are like the Greeks, they have a natural talent for comedy, and before you know it, they've managed to mess themselves up. Okay, so maybe we Romans had something to do with it too, but who would have thought that the famous Polish Winged Hussars of the 16th century would decline so quickly! So quickly that after we finished off the Muslims, Poland's defeat in the north was already a done deal. We ended up having to buy grain from the French.

  But the French were even more dishonest, as the only country in the entire continent capable of massively exporting grain, they seized the soft underbelly of the Roman Empire. Our old friend from France, Finance Minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert, citing poor harvests in France, once again increased various grain export tariffs. The increase ranged from 20% to 50%. Among them, buckwheat had the largest increase of 50%. After this tax increase, the barley export tariff reached 70%, and the wheat and processed flour export tariffs reached 90%.

  According to the investigation by Imperial Foreign Minister Erix in Constantinople's grain market not long ago, 3 aspers can buy 1 pound of fairly good wheat flour, and about 2 pounds of medium-quality wheat flour with some insects. If news of France increasing tariffs spreads on the streets, prices in the market are likely to rise to three times their original price, or even more!

  "Damn Frenchman."