king of ros

Chapter 492 Capital Change
Seeing how many times he had passed through the golden gate of the imperial capital, Leo felt a sense of right and wrong.

In the past, as an imperial official, he passed through this city gate many times. He still remembers that the gatekeepers here liked to accept bribes, which led to a very bad reputation in Constantinople. .

But they were smart enough to hand over half of them, so the higher-ups turned a blind eye to their behavior.

But the most important thing is that the gatekeeper will do things for the officials of the imperial capital that are inconvenient for them to do. This makes the gatekeeper's position as stable as a rock, so no matter how much the people scold him, he will not be able to move. He doesn't.

But now the smart gatekeeper is obviously gone, and the person guarding the city gate is a face that is unfamiliar to him, and he doesn't even know any of the city gate guards.

Leo looked away from these people for a while, and then lamented the huge change in his heart. You must know that he knew many of these people before. There is never a lot of dirty work.

As the facade of Constantinople, the Golden Gate is much more magnificent than the monkey version in Kiev. The height alone is not comparable to the Golden Gate in Kyiv, let alone the various gorgeous reliefs on the Golden Gate, and the Gold-painted door frames.

Every time he sees the Golden Gate in Kyiv, Leo feels funny from the bottom of his heart, but he always hides it very well. Some Ross people will dislike him showing such an attitude, which will affect the future rule Can be very disadvantageous.

After passing through the majestic Golden Gate, Leo saw the nobles and officials of the capital who greeted him, and behind them stood the Emperor Nikephoros' Praetorian Guard.

There are not many familiar faces among these nobles and officials. Over the years, these people have changed several times, and emperors have come and gone. In these years, no one has been able to stand in Constantinople for a long time, like an orphanage. It is impossible for such a powerful minister to appear in these years.

Many of them were obviously very friendly towards Leo, which made Leo a little strange, but after thinking about it, he understood what was going on. Their friendliness was definitely not because of him, but because of Alexios.

This made the former Greek bureaucrat pay more attention to that Alexios. Originally, he thought that it was just another warlord who challenged Constantinople without thinking, but it was only because of the cooperation from the Grand Duke that he got so much attention. There is some possibility of success, but now it seems that he has a lot of friends in the city, and his foundation is not shallow.

He also remembered the task the Grand Duke gave him, and it seemed that Alexios' friend was much more powerful than he expected.

It's just that most of these relationships are not very useful. If you can't take down the walls of Constantinople, then these relationships are actually the same as if they don't exist.

Alexios had been in such a predicament before, and as he was trapped under the city wall, his friends buried their heads.

But the arrival of the Ross people also broke up his predicament, as can be seen from the fact that these guys will show kindness to the messengers of the rebels outside the city in public.

The Imperial Guards acted as if they hadn’t seen all of this. Leo admired their ability to pretend to be deaf and dumb. These soldiers just invited Leo to board the gorgeous carriage that had been prepared for a long time, and then escorted him by the Imperial Guards. Under this, Leo went to the center of the empire - the Grand Palace.

The horse-drawn carriage escorted by the Janissaries was speeding forward on Messe Avenue. Leo was familiar with this bustling street. This is the Goldsmiths Avenue in Constantinople, which can be said to be the most prosperous main road in the entire city. , Those foreign visitors will sway the gold and silver in their hands here.

But under prosperity, Leona's keen vision as an old bureaucrat made him notice some details, such as the fact that the vendors were hiding in every possible way, but he could still see the scarcity of goods; Looking for strong laborers to work, many people stood desperately near those dilapidated shops, and once someone came to hire them, they would swarm up; as well as the lingering refugees in the corner, many people even fell to the ground unconscious...

In addition, dissatisfaction is actually brewing in everyone's heart. When they look up at the rich and nobles, their eyes are full of anger and dissatisfaction. This is not an emotion that will be born overnight.

"It seems that Constantinople has had a hard time these years..."

As a person who has worked here for so long, he can see at a glance that the scenes in front of him are definitely not achieved overnight. He had heard a lot of news about the war in the south in Kyiv before, but he never expected the situation to be so serious.

And then Leo didn't have to think so much, because with the shouts and the changes in the scene outside the window, he knew he was where he was.

"Ah, Grand Palace, I'm back again."

Looking at the historic Grand Palace in front of him, the political center of the Eastern Empire for almost a thousand years, Leo sighed, and near the Grand Palace, there stood the majestic Hagia Sophia, as well as the always bustling athletics field.

However, the Grand Palace is obviously more dilapidated than in the past. Such a huge and magnificent palace requires a lot of money and manpower to maintain, but the chaos and coups in the empire over the years undoubtedly cannot provide such stability.

But this kind of dilapidation is for people like Leo who have been in Constantinople for so long. No matter how dilapidated the Grand Palace is, it has a gorgeous and majestic outer skin, plus the nearby Hagia Sophia and the Hippodrome, foreign visitors will believe that the glory of Rome still lives here.

This is also the period when the emperors of the past dynasties are doing it. Through these wonders, it shows that the emperor of Constantinople is still the monarch of the world, not the Greek king with broken mountains and rivers. The emperors of Macedonia have done a good job in this. But these past ten years...

Here, Leo's guard took over from the local Varangian guards, strong northern warriors with tomahawks inlaid with gold and silver.

By observing the status of these guards, he noticed that these northern guards obviously had a kind of fanatical loyalty to the Emperor Nikephoros. When they mentioned the name of the emperor, their voices were high. He heard that the emperor gave The guard is a huge sum of money, and it appears to be true.

And unlike the imperial guards who turned a blind eye to the following things, once someone disrespected the emperor, these soldiers from the north would scold them, and Leo even saw someone being beaten.

Originally, he wanted to watch it for a while, but those northerners took him away arbitrarily. In this way, Leo entered the Grand Palace and the center of the empire.

"After so many years, I finally came back."

When he crossed the gate of the Grand Palace, Leo said this. His words were full of emotion for the impermanence of the world. He returned after all, and behind him was a huge army that could overwhelm the city.

However, as Leo entered the Grand Palace, the ruin of the empire became more obvious to him. Many interiors of the Grand Palace were obviously lacking in maintenance, and cheap goods were used, but he was still very happy with those expensive artworks and decorations The goods have not been sold - but now that the empire is here, he knows that he will have to sell it sooner or later, but it has nothing to do with him.

Leo was ushered into a living room. The decoration here is not bad. It seems that there are many rich and discerning people among the visitors, because a lot of energy has been devoted to maintaining it.

But apart from Leo, there are only a few Varangian guards in the room. Fortunately, these people are from Ross. Leo has been the mayor of Kyiv for so long, so he can naturally talk to them. Leo doubts This was actively arranged by the Grand Palace in order to prevent him from being bored, but it was also good, and the time for chatting with people passed quickly.

In the conversation with these people, Leo didn't get much information, obviously they all knew what to say and what not to say, but their loyalty to the emperor was obvious, which further confirmed Leo's guess.

And just when he was about to continue chatting with these people, suddenly a person walked in, this person was dressed in the color of a royal attendant.

"Master Leo, please follow me, the emperor wants to see you."

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(End of this chapter)