The Great Arcanist Who Traveled Through the World of American Variety Shows.

Chapter 638 Chaotic Alliance

The Balkan War ended faster than anyone expected. The Byzantine Empire's disastrous defeat stunned everyone.

The victory of the Western Roman Empire made the surrounding countries tremble with fear.

Just after the war, many small countries and tribal lords in the surrounding areas sent envoys to Rome to express their willingness to surrender after learning that the Byzantine Alliance had suffered heavy losses and that the Western Roman Empire had won a great victory.

In order to gain Richard's trust, some people even sent envoys to Rome with hostages. The original anti-Western Roman Empire alliance became shaky at this moment.

In this situation, the saints of monotheism had to come out and appease the people personally.

Not only Saint Henry, but also Saint George came, together with Saint John from the Holy See. At one time, Byzantium gathered six saints from three sects.

The six saints came forward together and began to call on the believers of monotheism to join, and only then did they manage to stabilize the situation.

However, even if the situation was stabilized, the Byzantine Empire temporarily lost its ability to attack.

More than 20,000 elite troops and more than 10,000 auxiliary troops were lost in one battle, and even the Byzantine Empire could not bear it.

So this time the Byzantine Empire began to frantically build city walls, create various city defense equipment, and dig a large number of moats, hoping to force back the Western Roman army in this way of defending the city.

After seeing the Byzantine army gathered together to defend, Richard did not let the army continue to attack, but only left one Roman legion to guard the territory that had just been occupied, and then the army began to retreat.

If the Byzantine Empire attacked at this time, it would have to fight to the death, and it would definitely cost a lot to capture it. So he simply withdrew his army and reorganized.

Now Byzantium and the surrounding countries saw the powerful strength of the Western Roman Empire, so they formed this alliance under pressure.

Once Richard withdraws his army and loses this pressure, it will be questionable whether these small countries are willing to continue to form an alliance.

Don't think these people are so smart. Those who eat meat are despicable. This is what I mean.

Of course, the smarter people are, the more likely they are to make collective mistakes when they gather together. Are they really stupid? They are not stupid, but too smart. These smart people will calculate their own gains and losses, and then start to fight for power and profit with each other.

This kind of thing has happened too many times since ancient times.

Some smart people would even surrender to Richard or betray their companions in order to get better treatment.

Therefore, Richard was in no hurry to deal with the Byzantine Empire. He just needed to retract his fist and wait for the alliance formed by Byzantium to collapse.

Why didn't Cao Cao wipe out Yuan Shao's forces in Hebei in one fell swoop after the Battle of Guandu during the Three Kingdoms period? Instead, he withdrew his troops?

Because he knew very well that if he attacked, Yuan Shao's three sons would certainly unite to resist Cao Cao. Even if Cao Cao won at that time, he would also suffer heavy losses.

If he didn't force it, Yuan Shao's three sons would fight each other.

Couldn't Yuan Shao's advisers see this? No, they could see it, but they had to do it.

So after Richard withdrew the army, in the first month, the countries in the alliance were still able to work together and provided support with all kinds of supplies and weapons. But in the second month, after seeing that the army of the Western Roman Empire had really withdrawn, the leaders of various countries and tribes began to have their own little ideas.

Some countries began to stop sending laborers on the grounds of grain cultivation, while other countries stopped supplying food on the grounds of food shortages and even asked the Byzantine Empire to provide food.

Some kingdoms even began to deliberately create friction on the border when they saw that the surrounding tribes and small countries left their large armies in Byzantium.

Even directly annexed a tribe.

Are these people stupid? They are not stupid! From their point of view, the Western Roman Empire is now shrinking back, and it is very likely that they will send troops again in the future, so they need to strengthen their strength as much as possible.

The fastest way to increase strength is to take the opportunity to annex the surrounding countries and tribes.

As for whether his behavior would be attacked by the Byzantine Empire, he didn't need to worry at all, because once the Byzantine Empire mobilized its army, the Western Roman Empire would most likely take the opportunity to attack.

Without a large army to conquer him, those people could only condemn him verbally at best, and they still needed his power to fight against the Western Roman Empire.

So why doesn't he do it?
So, after this situation occurred, the countries of the Byzantine Alliance went crazy and started to attack those tribes or small countries.

In the third month after Richard's army withdrew, the Byzantine Alliance became a mere formality and wars broke out among the small countries.

Once a war starts, it is very difficult to end it. More importantly, this war has completely wiped out the little trust that existed between countries.

The Byzantine Empire personally stepped in and tried to get the countries to stop fighting and unite to deal with the Western Roman Empire, but the fighting between these countries had already stopped.

Even if the saints of monotheism took action, it only stopped the war among these countries on the surface, but the confrontation between them did not end.

As for sending troops to gather again, it was even more unrealistic. These countries did not trust each other and were afraid that if they sent troops to Byzantium, other countries would take the opportunity to attack. As a result, this military alliance ended in vain.

Watching the countries going to war with each other, Richard did not attack immediately, but prepared to wait until they were exhausted before sending troops to clean up the mess.

Although he did not send troops, Richard had been sending intelligence personnel to collect various intelligence on Byzantium. Naturally, he discovered the confluence of monotheism.

But Richard did not target Monotheism. In fact, even if Monotheism merged now, it would not change anything.

After the implementation of various policies of the Western Roman Empire, the power of monotheism declined seriously, and Richard was no longer a local governor who only controlled the Rhine region.

If they really turned against each other now, the Monotheism would suffer heavy losses. That's why the Monotheism didn't confront Richard directly.

Richard's plan was to cut off the flesh all at once, making the strength of the monotheism weaker and weaker little by little, and then concentrate the power of the polytheism to fight a war of gods with the monotheism.

After Richard withdrew his army, he began to reform the Greek peninsula, the Ostrogothic Kingdom and the Macedonian Kingdom. He divided the Ostrogothic Kingdom and the Macedonian Kingdom into several provinces.

The Ostrogothic Kingdom was divided into Upper Pannonia, Lower Pannonia and Dalmatia, while Macedonia was divided into the provinces of Macedonia, Athens and Upper Moesia.

Then Richard began to send the students who had been studying in Gaul to study in the Administrative Council, and promoted some of the good performers in the Administrative Council to serve as officials in these provinces.

At the same time, migration activities were started in these provinces, and language unification was enforced. Unified language and writing can enhance the sense of identity in various places.

Richard relocated all the ethnic groups around the empire and then promoted a unified language, because the original upper-class power figures had either been killed and exiled, or accepted the rule of the Roman Empire.

Therefore, there was no resistance to the promotion of a unified language.

After all, if you want to serve as an imperial official, you must master the official language.

Richard won the love of the lower classes because of his policies such as distributing land equally to ordinary people and abolishing slavery, so his policies were quickly accepted by the lower classes.

Of course, promoting a unified language is very difficult, and this system may need to last for hundreds of years.

It is basically impossible for this generation of adults to learn other languages, so Richard sets his sights on children.

Schools across the country began to use local languages ​​as well as the official language for instruction.

If this continues for one or two generations, when these children grow up, the local languages ​​will gradually disappear and the official language will expand rapidly.

After the language is unified, migrating people from all over the place will intermarry with each other over the course of a few decades. Eventually, the original ethnic group will disappear and a new ethnic group will be born.

Richard has made a long-term plan for this country, but he doesn't know whether the contents of these plans can be realized in the end.

He just planned these things out. As for whether they will be successful in the future and whether future generations will promote them, it depends on their own ideas. Believe in the wisdom of future generations.

After all, Richard can't stay in this world forever.

For this country, Richard simply established various rules and systems, while also leaving a lot of room for maneuver, allowing future generations to adjust according to the development of the times.

He would not be like Zhu Yuanzhang, who thought that just because he had established various perfect and strict systems, his Ming Dynasty would last forever.

As a result, after his death, his successors began to destroy the rules set by Zhu Yuanzhang, generation after generation.

In the end, the so-called ancestral system directly became a means for ministers to attack their political opponents.

Every generation has its own problems, and Zhu Yuanzhang's problem was that he thought too much. Perhaps it was because he had suffered too much in his childhood, so he wanted to solve all the problems.

So they made all kinds of rules and regulations, just like an old farmer who kept his fields tidy, thinking that future generations would just follow his rules.

What he didn't expect was that things would develop and change so quickly.

Although Richard has formulated a development plan, ultimately it all depends on what his descendants do.

Reforms in the Ostrogothic Kingdom, Macedonia and the Greek peninsula were in full swing, while on the other hand, the alliance between the Byzantine Empire and other small countries was completely in name only.

The wars between the small countries have become completely chaotic.

This time, the saints of monotheism were unable to solve the problem. Of course, the small countries changed so quickly, and Richard also played a big role. In order to make these small countries more chaotic, he secretly sent envoys to contact these small countries respectively.

(End of this chapter)