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

Chapter 641 The End of the Byzantine Empire
Without these squid priests, priests and upper-class dignitaries, it would be much easier to deal with the remaining people.

Richard directly separated all these people and ordered that they were forbidden to marry within the same ethnic group. Then they migrated these people to the Balkan Peninsula, the Greek Islands, North Africa, Gaul and other regions.

After this migration and forced prohibition of intermarriage, these people will basically be completely assimilated into other ethnic groups in just two generations.

Even if Richard was even more ruthless and directly forced these people to do labor or military service, it would only take ten years for the entire squid population to be drained of its last drop of blood.

Of course, Richard was a peace-loving man. He simply recruited vassal troops from these people to fight against the Hun Empire and the Germanic barbarians.

This also gives them a path to advancement. As long as they can kill the enemy bravely, Richard will not be stingy with rewards.

Of course, the casualty rate in fighting the Huns would definitely be higher.

Richard's migration was naturally opposed by many Squid dignitaries, but with a large army at his side, these people could not cause any trouble at all.

If they obey the arrangements obediently, they can get some preferential treatment, but if they dare to resist, Richard's army will let them taste the iron fist of the empire.

Soon a large number of squids were forcibly transported directly to Spain, and then thrown into the mines by the soldiers stationed there, allowing them to contribute to the construction of the empire.

The remaining squids were assigned to various provinces of the empire.

These provinces have always been short of population, and the arrival of these people just makes up for it.

And it's not just the squid people, the same goes for other ethnic groups. Richard used this administrative method to constantly break up and mix the races in different places, let them intermarry, use the same language, and finally integrate them into one.

Richard didn't want to see a Roman Empire with dozens or hundreds of ethnic groups scattered around, with no single ethnic group being the absolute majority.

This is not good for the stability of the empire.

Richard planned to forcibly unite a nation so that they could account for more than 80% of the total population of the empire. If this standard was reached, the entire country would be stable.

Fortunately, nationalism has not awakened in this era. Ordinary people have no concept of nation, let alone the concept of country, so it is very easy to integrate.

Richard's series of policies were aimed at integrating these ethnic groups.

Richard carried out comprehensive reforms on these newly occupied lands through the Equal Field Distribution Order and the Abolition of Slavery Order, and also used the promotion of decrees to select a group of hard-working people and nobles.

As he expected, when Richard handed the Equal Field System over to these people to implement, some nobles and officials indeed colluded with each other, either hiding the fields or impersonating others, and took a large amount of land into their hands.

These people were soon discovered. Richard would not show mercy to such people. He directly ordered all the officials and nobles to be arrested and sent to Spain together.

After this rectification, the remaining nobles and officials were trembling with fear, and no one dared to collude with each other.

Soon after the land was evenly distributed, Richard appointed the officials with outstanding performance as official officials, and those nobles who passed the test were qualified to study at the Roman Academy.

Through the Roman Academy, Richard trained many officials and scholars. These scholars first received training at the grassroots level and then were assigned to various provinces.

Richard developed a relatively complete system that allowed these officials to be promoted according to the system.

A complete bureaucratic system was gradually established under Richard's leadership.

While Richard was busy establishing the system, Byzantium finally collapsed after being besieged for a whole year.

At the beginning, the Byzantine Empire had never thought that the army would besiege the city for a whole year, so the food stored in the city was almost exhausted.

In fact, it was not just the food that was gone, the city had run out of fuel a few months ago. You know, without fuel you can't make a fire, and without fire you can't heat food.

Eating food without processing is not a good thing, and various diseases will soon appear. In order to ensure the fuel problem, the city had to demolish houses and then use the demolished houses to cook.

However, the fuel obtained from house demolition will eventually run out, and without a house to shelter from the wind and rain, people will get sick.

This caused a large number of soldiers in Constantinople to become sick, and the morale of the soldiers in the city was low, even though there were saints from Monotheistic religions to comfort the people and soldiers.

This seemingly endless siege still made people despair. In fact, in the third month of Richard's army's siege, the generals in the city began to abandon the advantages of the city walls and took the initiative to attack, trying to tear open a gap.

The result was that without the advantage of the city walls, the Byzantine army was no match for Richard's army.

The two sides fought fiercely several times, and each time the Byzantine army was defeated and had to retreat back into the city.

At the beginning, the Byzantine army must have pretended to be defeated on purpose, hoping to lure the Western Roman Empire army outside the city to actively pursue and attack the city, but they did not expect that Drenos, who only knew how to fight large armies, would strictly follow Richard's orders without compromise.

The order to besiege Richard was carried out to the fullest. No matter how the Byzantines retreated, the army of the Western Roman Empire would stop after chasing for 300 meters.

There was no attempt to attack the walls of Byzantium.

After seeing that this approach did not work, the Byzantine army had to take the initiative to attack. Naturally, the result of their forced attack was a crushing defeat.

These people even used night attacks for the purpose of surprise attacks, and the saints of the monotheistic religion also blessed the Byzantine army with halos, hoping to break through the defense line of the Western Roman Empire.

Drenos was not afraid at all. He also used his extraordinary power to enhance the status of the army. The two armies fought fiercely, but in the end the Byzantine army still failed to break through the defense line and finally had to retreat.

Starting from the third month of the siege, the two sides fought six or seven times on the blockade line. In the end, the Byzantine army suffered heavy losses but still failed to break through the line of defense.

After all, the Western Roman Empire could provide continuous reinforcements, while the Byzantine Empire had lost other territories of the empire, was besieged and had no reinforcements at all.

In the end, there will be fewer and fewer people.

Under such circumstances, more and more nobles could not bear it anymore and began to secretly climb over the city walls and surrender to Richard.

At first, not many people surrendered, but as the situation worsened, more and more people surrendered. Even the soldiers who originally defended the city began to flee Constantinople while defending the city and surrendered to the Western Roman Empire outside the city.

In just one month, thousands of people left the city to surrender, and the whole of Constantinople was filled with an atmosphere of despair.

In this case, Constantinople was actually completely defenseless. As long as Richard was willing, the army would attack and Constantinople would be easily conquered.

After learning about the situation in the city, Richard ordered the army on the front line to start sending letters to the city to demand its surrender. At the same time, he asked the cooks to set up big pots on the front line and start cooking all kinds of fragrant foods.

The rising smoke was gently blown by the evening breeze and soon drifted into the city. The soldiers who were guarding the city smelled the fragrance and stretched their necks to sniff.

The soldiers could no longer hold on after not having hot food for a long time.

Soon, a large number of soldiers surrendered in an organized manner. The Byzantine army collapsed completely.

Seeing this, Dranos led his army to attack after giving them a good meal. The high-spirited imperial army shouted slogans and quickly arrived at the city wall with siege equipment.

Then the army attacked directly. The resistance of the soldiers in the city was weaker than expected. Many soldiers did not try to stop them at all. After seeing the Roman army climbing up the city wall, they simply dropped their weapons and surrendered.

The remaining soldiers surrendered without firing a single arrow.

The speed of the entire collapse was beyond everyone's expectations. The gate was quickly opened, and the Byzantine soldiers in the city surrendered one after another. The army rushed into the city and rushed directly to the palace.

At this time, most of the guards who were originally guarding the palace had fled, leaving only a few soldiers guarding the king.

But in the end they couldn't change anything.

The Byzantine emperor looked at the sky in despair and finally said, "Surrender!"

This sentence seemed to have used up all his strength. After he finished speaking, he lay down on the bed and did not move.

The guards also surrendered one after another.

Eventually the entire city fell into the hands of Dranos.

(End of this chapter)