Chapter 54: Bare-faced Lies

Chapter 54: Bare-faced Lies

“We...”

Vernier took off her glasses and wiped them. Her voice was quivering.

“We have to stop him! The consequences will be dire if we allow the Khitan to continue messing around!”

“I’m surprised you know that,” the provincial commander sneered in seething anger, “You should have known the danger you are putting our country in right from the start!”

The provincial commander might not be as skilled at politicking and commerce as the senators, but as a military man, his sense of war was far sharper than theirs.

Venice was in the midst of competing with Milan for superiority in Italy.

They had previously thought that with their overflowing coffers, they could simply hire enough mercenaries to crush Milan and evolve from a city-nation into a country.

Little did they know that despite Milan’s small size, it had a ferocious land army. In contrast, Venice’s land army had poor discipline, weak fighting prowess, and dubious loyalties.

As a result, Venice’s land army kept getting crushed by Milan despite outnumbering the latter.

“We suffered a series of defeats in Milan last year, to the point where we had to deploy our seamen on land,” the provincial commander said, “We failed to rally an army of 4000 to reinforce our troops. I don’t know what’s going through your mind to provoke such a powerful enemy at this juncture. Esteemed Senato, if I may ask, did water get into your head?”

He was baffled. For the love of his life, he simply couldn’t understand how such a motion was passed in the Senate.

Did those merchant-politicians’ heads short-circuited?

“That’s why we need this!” Vernier indignantly refuted. “That’s why we need that sea route more than ever. It secures a steady stream of lucrative commodities like spices, silk, and porcelain for us!”

“...Forget it. There’s no way to reason with someone like you.” The provincial commander slammed the door and walked out. “I shall entertain your whims no more. You bunch of fools can await your deaths here!”

“You!”

“Senato, now is not the time to be arguing!” The white-haired Athens envoy stepped forward to calm Vernier down. “We should discuss countermeasures instead.”

Vernier took a deep breath before contemplating their next move. Moments later, she began making arrangements.

“Tell Crete’s Provincial Commander to bring his fleet to Thessaloniki to showcase our prowess. Let’s see if we can intimidate the Romain emperor into peace negotiations.

“Order our mercenaries to gather in Morea. The uneven terrain there is disadvantageous to cavalrymen, so it’ll be easier for us to defend there.

Vernier’s hopes were about to fall flat.

The Venetians had prioritized their profits over potential danger, and they one-sidedly believed that things would go down the direction they had envisioned. But that didn’t mean that others weren’t able to see through the situation...

...

In Constantinope, the Patriarch was hosting guests in his chambers after a sermon.

After trading pleasantries, one of the guests asked, “Patriarch, don’t you think that His Majesty has been acting out of place? He’s propagating heretical culture!”

As Constantin XI propagated his ‘Khitan’ cultural revolution, some Romains became influenced by the Hans’ teachings and started perceiving and interpreting things from a different angle.

This shook the church’s standing.

What do you mean there is more than one God? What the hell is the Three Purities?! There should only be one God in the world, and that’s our Lord!

The clergymen would have burned those people spreading such blasphemy at the stake if not for the fact that they were the new nobles supported by the emperor. Thus, they hoped that the Patriarch could step forward and right everything, or maybe even...

“Some of the viscounts and counts said that they would support us...” the guest vaguely said.

Then, the guests saw the supposedly insane Patriarch looking at them with mocking eyes.

“The mounds outside the city,” the Patriarch slowly said, “how many heads do you think they are made out of?”

“...”

“The biggest mound had ten thousand heads, whereas the smaller ones had at least a hundred. I heard our Caesar recently piled up hundreds more of such mounds. How many people do you reckon that is?

“...”

“One last question,” the Patriarch nailed the coffin, “how many people do you think there are in Constantinope?”

“...” The guests were speechless.

Before the guests’ stupefied eyes, the Patriarch took out a book written in Han characters and relished in it. I might be the pope, but I still have to follow the tides of change.

“May I ask again who is the heretic?”