After leaving the factory, Phil found that the rain had stopped and the number of passers-by on the street was gradually increasing.
He walked along the river. Arno River flows from east to west, dividing the Florence city into two parts. Many factories and small workshops were built along the river.
On the left, a group of porters carrying large bundles of wet wool passed by Phil. The workers' trouser legs were rolled up to near their knees, and their calves were stained with mud and gray wool. Their breathing was heavy, and the white breath they exhaled quickly dissipated in the cold wind.
At the intersection ahead, a carriage stopped in front of the shop. The driver uncovered the waterproof felt on the goods and asked the shopkeeper to receive a batch of dyed cloth.
"India cotton again?"
Phil remembered the light yellow dress that my wife ordered yesterday. It had roses, roses and other floral patterns on it. The fabric came from India and was sold to Florence from the Red Sea route.
According to the tailor, several high-end tailor shops in the city purchased India cotton and supplied it to the rich and powerful.
The remaining tailor shops purchase lower-grade India cloth, which does not have complex patterns or bright colors and is suitable for selling to the civilian class.
At this time, the newsboy's cry sounded, "Come and see, the latest issue of "Arno River Citizen Gazette" has all kinds of news."
"Arno River Citizen Gazette" is Florence's local newspaper. Phil bought a copy in the past. He ignored the boring gossip and strange legends and found a piece of business information:
The Portugal fleet returned to Lisbon from India. The three sailing ships returned fully loaded with cotton cloth and spices produced by India, as well as a small amount of tea and porcelain.
"Portugal opened the India route?"
Phil's mood is even worse.
The Mediterranean Sea area has a large population, but only a few citizens and wealthy farmers with real purchasing power. If Portugal ships more than a dozen ships of cotton every year, they cannot digest it domestically and will definitely have to sell it outside, which will affect Florence's business.
"From now on, India cotton will have two routes into Europe, one is Red Sea Trade Route, the other is Africa route. The good days of the textile industry are over."
Phil's pessimistic attitude is not limited to the textile industry, but includes the entire Florence.
When his father (Giulio·Di Maggio) was alive, he relied on his outstanding ability to maintain the internal situation of Florence and spent twenty years stably.
The situation is different now. Several families maintain a balance of power, and no one can overpower the opponent. Formal meetings are almost always quarreling. After the meeting, the major families often hold banquets or small gatherings to decide public affairs in private.
"Last month, the youngest son of Albizzi's family disappeared. A few days later, his body was found on the river beach downstream. The murderer has not yet been found. Some people say it was Medici who did it, while others say it was the killer sent by me.
In a few years, with the decline of the textile industry and the depression of Florence's business environment, the struggle between various families will become more intense. What should we do?"
Unknowingly, Phil walked to the old bridge connecting the two sides of the Arno River. The bridge deck was spacious, butcher shops and fish shops were built on both sides of the stone bridge, and the air was filled with the smell of blood.
Arriving at the south bank of the Arno River, Phil was stopped by a passerby in flashy clothes, "Master Phil, I didn't expect to meet you here."
Matteo Golopazzi?
Phil recognized an old acquaintance from the past. He was wearing a red embroidered robe, a bonnet with pearls on the edge, and fancy peacock feathers on the back. It seemed that this guy was doing well.
Phil: "I heard that you are doing business in the Eastern Roman Empire. How is the situation?"
Mateo ignored the guards behind Phil and smiled and hugged Phil's shoulders, "In the past few years, Eastern Roman Empire has won many battles and won a large territory in the east. The population and area have doubled. No matter what business he does, he can make money."
Phil sighed, "If you make so much money, then why are you coming back?"
Mateo pointed to the mansion dozens of steps away and claimed that he would sell most of the real estate in his hometown and only keep a manor on the outskirts of the city. All the funds obtained would be invested in the Eastern Roman Empire.
From now on, Matteo plans to settle down in the Eastern Roman Empire. Only in this way will he be qualified to enter more business fields, such as opening Textile Mill, or getting involved in the Red Sea Trade.
He took out an iron can and showed Phil the incense inside.
"Do you know what this is? Persia The incense made from Pyrethrum can repel mosquitoes in summer. The Rome army has included it in military rations, and the private sector is also purchasing it. I started planting Pyrethrum in the manor of Cappadocia. If you are interested, you can order from me in the future. This is my address in Constantinople."
Matteo wrote a series of addresses in a notebook with charcoal pen, tore off the page and stuffed it to Phil, and then walked away in a hurry.
Phil stood where he was and found that Florence's situation was far worse than he thought.
The prosperity of the Eastern Roman Empire market has attracted businessmen like Matteo to settle there. They have taken away capital and technology, which will intensify the decline of Florence.
The general trend is, Phil can only follow the trend.
Next spring, he decided to send his youngest son to Constantinople to go to school, and he will live a stable life in the Eastern Roman Empire from now on.
He himself stayed in his hometown to help his brother deal with various crises and maintain the situation of Di Maggio family in Florence.
One week later, Blachernae Palace, Cabinet.
As usual, when the crown prince and Chancellors were handling official business, Inner Palace Directorate's Eunuch was also present. Today, it was Pelato who was on duty. He continued his past habits and silently classified the official documents that had been processed.
At two o'clock in the afternoon, Pelato walked out of Cabinet with a stack of documents. There was heavy snow in the sky. He walked in the palace along a familiar route. Eunuch and attendants along the way stepped aside and saluted him respectfully.
Coming to the emperor's study, Pelato divided the documents into three parts: important and urgent documents, important but not urgent documents, and unimportant documents.
At this time, Vitus had just woken up, sitting behind the desk and yawning.
"I feel like it's just all the little things lately, nothing particularly important."
"This all relies on His Majesty's power. Officials and the army are doing their jobs, people are living a stable life, and neighboring countries dare not make the slightest move..."
Vitus waved his hand, interrupting Pelato's flattery, and asked the other party to return to Cabinet's duty.
He picked up the coffee cup, stirred it a few times with a silver spoon to fully mix the milk and sucrose, and drank it all in one gulp.
"A cup of coffee every morning and evening makes me feel like a white-collar worker in future generations."
In less than an hour, Vitus finished the important and high-priority files and started processing the second pile of files.
"Historical Records Compilation Group? That's right, today is indeed the day they submit the report."
The history of the Eastern Roman Empire spans nearly a thousand years, and involves too much content and is too complex, so it is divided into four time periods and is responsible for different compilation groups.
Each compilation group has more than a hundred people, including officials, scholars, priests and scribes, and must submit a report every month. In order to speed up the compilation, they entrusted part of the work to universities, further increasing project expenses.
The first part is the early stage of the Eastern Roman Empire and lasts until the end of Heraclius I.
Most of the time, the territory of the Eastern Roman Empire includes Balkans, Anatolia, North Africa, Levant, and the official language is Latin.
At the end of Heraclius's reign, Arab Empire rose up. At this time, Eastern Roman Empire and Sasanian Persia had gone through a long bloody battle, both suffered losses, and were unable to fight against this emerging force.
In the end, Sasanian Persia perished, and Eastern Roman Empire lost Levant and North Africa, losing half of its territory.
The second part starts with the successor of Heraclius and continues to the end of the Macedonian Dynasty.
Eastern Roman Empire gradually transformed into Greece culture. The military district system replaced the former Province system, and the territory was stabilized between Balkans and Anatolia.
The third part starts in 1056 and ends in 1204.
After the disastrous defeat of Manzikert, Eastern Roman Empire lost Anatolia inland, the military district system collapsed, and Komnenos promoted Pronoia System, leading to the rise of local forces.
The starting time of the fourth part is 1204, including Nicaea and Palaiologos Dynasty, extending to John VIII.
This part contains the most information, is the most troublesome to deal with, and involves a bunch of complex historical issues.
Vitus is most concerned about the report of the fourth editing team. When he saw the content about John VIII, he felt a sense of powerlessness in his heart.
"Can't you change your title to a better one?"
For a long time, after each emperor passed away, the outside world would add one or two concluding titles to him.
The title "Great Emperor" belongs to the "beautiful posthumous title", and Constantine I, Theodosius I, Justinian I, and Manuel I all have this title.
Some titles describe appearance, while others are ironic, such as Michael VII's "less than a quarter", which satirizes him for reducing the precious metal content of his currency.
The founder of the Palaiologos Dynasty, Michael VIII, his title is the Almighty Spider, which means that he is good at Foreign Affairs and tactics.
Manuel II is a longevity person.
John VIII's reputation is very poor. In this spring's report, scholars gave him the title of apostate, which is an absolute "evil posthumous title".
Vitus feels that Pope calls on Crusaders to attack Ottoman. Part of the reason comes from John VIII's Foreign Affairs efforts. He should not be evaluated in this way.
In this regard, Vitus's approach was not to read back and let the reports of the four editing groups pile up, which took half a year.
Last month, the editorial team was forced to compromise and changed the name of John VIII to "Latins".
After 1204, Eastern Roman Empire was full of hostility towards the Latin community. He called John VIII Latins to mock him for leaning towards the West. The title was also an evil posthumous title.
The Vitus at that time was still unsatisfactory and hinted that they would replace it with another one.
This time, in the report submitted by the editing team, the title of John VIII was changed to Traveler, which still had a derogatory connotation, insinuating that John VIII often went on missions abroad in his early years, which damaged the dignity of the royal family.
After spending more than half a year, Vitus couldn't do anything. "Forget it, that's it."
Vitus After reading the following content, when he turned to the last page, he raised his head and found that the sky outside the window was gradually darkening, and whale oil candles were lit in the study at some point.
He leaned back on the seat, rubbed his eyes tiredly, and ordered Eunuch who was guarding the door:
"One more cup of coffee. Wait, I've had enough coffee today. Let's have a cup of tea."
After reading the report of the fourth group, Vitus began to review the report of the first group.
This month, the first group collected information on the late period of the Theodosian Dynasty, compared existing books with church records, and found that there were conflicts between the three.
"Well, that's the trouble with writing history books. Pulcheria has a very bad relationship with his brother (Theodosius II)'s wife Eudocia. They were also involved in conflicts within the church, and the two slandered each other. After more than a thousand years, we don't know which information is true and which is false."
The report was filled with so many doubtful points that Vitus felt dizzy, so he simply wrote a few comments and asked the editing team to handle it properly.
"It's time to eat. I'll leave the reports of the second and third groups until tomorrow. Call it a day."
During dinner, Vitus discovered that Agnes was hiding something on his mind.
"Are you struggling with the Cotton Act promulgated by the empire? The bill does have an impact on Florence and Di Maggio family, but it involves the overall layout and is an unavoidable accidental injury. You can write a letter and ask Phil to come and open the factory, and no one will embarrass them."
Over the past twenty years, Eastern Roman Empire has had three allies: Georgia, Florence, and Montferrat Branch.
Georgia participated in the Eastern Front War, with poor combat effectiveness and only played a diversionary role.
The value of Florence lies in the early stage. Their funds and technology entered Eastern Roman Empire, which promoted Eastern Roman Empire's business recovery, and both parties benefited from each other.
Montferrat Branch has no effect.
Under normal circumstances, if an ally makes a harmless request, Vitus is willing to help in exchange for a good reputation. This time the situation is different. Even if the Di Maggio family writes a letter to plead for mercy, Vitus will not change its decision.
When Agnes finished the main course in silence and enjoyed the dessert, he mentioned the second thing on his mind: Leo's marriage.
She proposed several marriage partners, all of whom she personally inspected, but all of them were rejected by Vitus.
First of all, Vitus does not want Leo to marry the daughter of a certain Chancellor or a serving general.
If he did this, it would be equivalent to forcing this important minister to join the Leo camp, which would cause a lot of trouble. There were many examples in history, and he was too lazy to recall them.
Secondly, Vitus vetoed the daughters or sisters of the rulers of neighboring countries for the same reason of dynasty stability.
If Leo marries princesses from neighboring countries such as Georgia and Jagiellon, and when Romanus comes to the throne, it is possible that Leo's father-in-law will incite civil war and seek benefits from it.
Agnes was a little angry and had a very strong reaction. "This won't work, that won't work either. Is he your son? Are you going to throw him into a monastery?"
Vitus: "Excluding important domestic ministers and neighboring monarchs, you can pay attention to other people. The scope is limited to scholars, middle-level military officers, squires and merchant families. Ordinary citizens can also be included."
This decision is unfair to Leo, but we have no choice but to do this.
Agnes knew that what her husband said was reasonable, but it was difficult to accept it in her heart. She felt that she owed her second son.
"After he gets married, how do you decide to arrange for him? Theodore, Demetrius, and Thomas all have their own land to support themselves in their old age. Sons are always closer than brothers."
Vitus is in a tangle.
Sealing Leo too close would not be conducive to the rule of the emperor's eldest son, Eldest Imperial Grandson.
Let Leo go to a barbaric place like East Africa and Madagascar, Agnes will definitely go crazy.
At this time, Agnes opened his eyes wide and pressed his hands on the table, like a lion about to prey. Vitus looked at his wife's expression and felt like laughing inexplicably. After thinking for a few minutes, he gave the answer:
"Tripoli coast, which faces Sicily Island across the sea. From Constantinople to the local area, if the sailing goes smoothly, it can be reached in half a month."
(Note: There are two Tripoli, one is in North Africa and the other is in Levant. What we are talking about here is North Africa Tripoli.)