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

Chapter 640 I am the peace-loving emperor of the empire
The Byzantine Empire was also in turmoil at this time. Not all the imperial nobles were willing to be buried with the empire.

Since ancient times, the nobles of various countries have been finding their own escape routes no slower than France's surrender.

Not to mention Richard, who only deprived people of their land and titles, there were plenty of rulers who were more strict than Richard who were willing to surrender, not to mention that Richard also offered them the opportunity to participate in politics in exchange.

So while on the surface the Byzantine Empire was actively preparing for war, secretly those nobles were flirting with Richard's envoys.

These nobles are now flirting with the envoys because they see that the Byzantine Empire can no longer hold on and want to get a ticket to a more powerful warship before the empire sinks.

When the Ming Dynasty of Dongda fell in the previous life, what did those officials and nobles do?

The corpse of Emperor Chongzhen was not even cold yet, but these people went to the city gate to kneel and welcome King Chuang. When the Qing Dynasty entered the country, some people were shaving their heads before they even had a firm foothold.

There is nothing new under the sun. Richard was not surprised at all that these people wanted to surrender.

On the other hand, monotheism was also in a difficult situation. The Eastern Roman Empire was now the most powerful country besides the Western Roman Empire. If the Eastern Roman Empire was also annexed, then the status of monotheism would never rise again.

Saints of monotheistic religions also began to offer help, but in reality the help they could provide was very limited.

After all, this era is the era of humans, and the gods have retreated to the kingdom of God. Even the power of the saints is very limited.

Even the strongest saint, when using divine arts, can only kill a hundred people at most, and then the magic power will be exhausted. If the loss of a hundred people is too great, an army can surround and kill it.

In order to maintain the glory of monotheism, the saints of monotheism continued to support the Byzantine Empire. They even made the worst plan, once Byzantium was annexed by the Roman Empire.

They planned to spend a huge price to use the Spear of Longinus again to assassinate Richard.

As for the plans of Monotheism, the spiritual imprint Richard left on those saints recorded their plans clearly.

The battlefield was completely transparent to him.

The war against Byzantium soon began. Almost a year had passed since the last war, and the Byzantine Alliance had basically ceased to exist.

The small countries attacked each other and were unable to form a coalition to resist the army of the Western Roman Empire.

Richard divided his troops into two groups. After recruiting a large number of government soldiers, a total of 30,000 troops set out from the Balkan Peninsula to attack Thrace.

The other large army was still the navy, but this time the navy did not attack Byzantium. Instead, it set out from Greece, landed in Asia Minor, and dealt with those small countries first.

These small countries did not have much strength to begin with, and they had suffered heavy losses in the past year due to the mutual attacks. They were no match for the Western Roman Empire's army, and the sudden landing of 20,000 naval forces did not give these small countries any time at all.

Under the leadership of the Blood Knights, the army attacked frantically all the way, not giving them any chance to gather their troops, and the army had already successfully advanced to the outskirts of their capital.

The nobles in the city who had long wanted to surrender directly united and secretly opened the city gates, and the army easily captured the capitals of these small countries.

After dealing with a small country, Richard directly recruited the soldiers of this small country to form a vassal army, and then led these vassal armies to attack another small country.

Richard announced the policies of the Western Roman Empire to these vassal troops, and stated that all those who joined the vassal troops would be rewarded with fifty acres of farmland, and if they made military achievements, they would be rewarded with one hundred acres of farmland.

In the army of this era, except for the nobles, the treatment of ordinary people was not high, and they didn't even receive military pay. So after learning about the policies of the Western Roman Empire, these soldiers became highly motivated and rushed to join the army.

With the help of these vassal armies, the surrounding small countries fell one after another.

A large number of nobles and upper-class dignitaries were killed, and then their wives, daughters, and property were given as rewards to soldiers who had made military achievements, while land was rewarded to ordinary people and vassal troops.

Ordinary people in various countries will receive ten acres of cultivated land and twenty acres of wasteland to be reclaimed, and the newly reclaimed land will be exempt from taxes for three years.

For the oppressed people at the bottom, they don’t care whether the emperor has changed or not. They care more about whether they have enough food and whether they can survive.

Therefore, after Richard's Equal Field System distributed land to them, they all became excited and became loyal members of the Western Roman Empire.

Many people think that distributing the land is a waste, but Richard still insists on doing so. In his opinion, distributing the land to the lower class people is a good thing for an empire.

This will not only benefit the stability of the empire, but also provide tax revenue for the empire. Why not do it?

The value of the Equal Field System has been increasing. It can be said that by offering this system, the Roman Empire easily won the hearts of the people in these countries.

In addition to winning back the hearts of the people, the Roman Empire's army, as outsiders, fought as if they were on their own soil, with people from all over the country guiding them and delivering messages to them.

Richard even deliberately let spies spread the news of the Equal Field System in various countries, and claimed that as long as the army of the Western Roman Empire arrived here, the Equal Field System would be implemented here.

By then, everyone would have land to farm, food to eat, and clothes to wear. As a result, people from all over the country even welcomed the arrival of the Roman Empire's army.

It can be said that in the next two or three months, all the countries and tribes east of Asia Minor, all the way to Damascus, were wiped out by the army of the Western Roman Empire.

The entire war went as smoothly as during World War II, with lightning streaking across the sky and no Poland in the entire world.

The resistance from all the countries did not cause any waves. Richard commanded the army and solved the problem smoothly.

Immediately afterwards, Richard ordered the officials who came with the army and the surrendered nobles to begin implementing the Equal Field System.

In fact, this was Richard's first assessment of these people. If anyone was corrupt, colluded with these nobles, and meddled in the matter of equal distribution of land, Richard would deal with them directly.

After all, having too many nobles surrendering is not a good thing.

After spending two months to deal with these small countries and tribes, Richard did not stop and directly led the army to attack Jerusalem and Egypt.

Jerusalem and Egypt were equally powerless against his mighty army.

The morale of the army was high at this time, and the implementation of the Equal Field System made the soldiers fight bravely.

In addition, with the cooperation of people in the city, Jerusalem, which was not a strong city to begin with, was quickly conquered, and then Egypt was also quickly conquered.

On the other hand, the army from the Balkan Peninsula attacked Thrace, and in three months, it captured the entire Thrace and reached Constantinople.

However, the Western Roman army did not continue the attack, after all, Constantinople's defenses were strong and the losses from a strong attack were too great.

Draenos commanded his army steadily and surrounded Constantinople.

Constantinople only had waterways to connect with the outside world, but soon, as Richard cut off the rest of the Byzantine Empire's territories, Constantinople was left with only Asia Minor.

After resolving the issue of Egypt, Richard led his army directly to Asia Minor.

Twenty thousand naval forces came out in full force to blockade Constantinople.

At this time, Constantinople was not as well-defended as it had been in the 14th century. Under naval interception, Constantinople completely lost contact with Asia Minor.

Richard also led his vassal troops to capture Asia Minor.

Eventually the Byzantine Empire lost all of its territory except Constantinople.

After surrounding Constantinople, Richard did not attack again. Instead, he began to reinforce the blockade line, showing an attitude of being determined to fight with Constantinople.

This behavior dumbfounded everyone in Constantinople.

They strengthened the city walls, built fortifications, and stored food and grass in order to prepare for Rome's attack. They wanted Rome to suffer a bloody defeat here.

As a result, the Roman Empire did not play by the rules. It directly blockaded Constantinople and then stationed its army outside to fight with them.

This immediately put the people of Constantinople and the monotheistic religion in a difficult position.

Originally, the people of Constantinople and the Monotheistic Church wanted to inflict heavy losses on Richard's army during the attack, forcing them to retreat. The saints of the Monotheistic Church even planned to take the opportunity to use the Spear of Longinus to launch a sneak attack on Richard.

As a result, Richard didn't come at all, and their plan became a complete joke.

After surrounding Constantinople, Richard did not continue to defend it, but began to reform the recovered land.

The situation in Asia Minor is not bad. Although the ethnic groups are complicated, it is also simple to deal with. After all, most of these people are tribes, so we just need to split them up.

But he would need to be ruthless in Jerusalem.

There are many squids living in Jerusalem. Richard directly ordered that all the upper squids be captured and sent to Spain for mining.

These people are different from others. They are the pastors, priests and upper-level dignitaries of the Squid Church. They hold administrative and divine power. Keeping them around is basically a disaster.

So the best way is to kill him directly, but it would be a waste of resources to chop him off directly. Besides, Richard is also a peace-loving and great emperor of the empire. How could he do such a cruel thing?
Therefore, sending these people to mine is the best solution. There is a shortage of labor in Spain, and these people are just right to go there.

This place is home to many dignitaries from all over Europe, and they might find something in common. Of course, other people only need to work here for five years, but the squids are hired for life.

(End of this chapter)