The Kingdom of England actually intends to make peace with these enemies from hundreds of years ago.
In fact, had it not been for the emergence of the Purple Horde Khanate, the Crimean Ansa people would indeed have been inclined to accept the invitation. After all, at this time, the Eastern Roman Empire dominated by the Greeks had declined terribly, and was unable to provide even support in terms of momentum.
Although there was some enmity back then, at least we were all from England, so we were fellow countrymen, and at least we had a bit of fate. If we can get the support of the Kingdom of England, we can at least gain some confidence when facing the surrounding Slavs and Turks who pose direct threats.
To put it bluntly, we have all fallen to this point, and any relationship is a relationship.
However, England is still too far away after all. Although I can meet some priests and businessmen coming and going, and some people are willing to provide some sponsorship, it still does not help the overall situation of the local area. Moreover, the Kingdom of England was busy at war with France and had no time to recruit them. This matter naturally dropped to nothing.
However, after the rise of the Purple Horde Khanate, the situation changed again. The Kingdom of England unexpectedly discovered that these people could actually threaten themselves by taking the northern sea route.
In the past, Nordic raiders often appeared in the North Sea, and from time to time they went to England to rob. Some people also settled here for a long time, hoping to conquer it. However, after the Norman dynasty conquered England, the Nordic power has gradually declined, and there is basically no threat.
The French also tried to attack England itself. More than a hundred years ago, the navies of the two sides fought in the seaport of Sluys. At that time, both of them were not very professional. In order to make up for this problem, the Dharma King specially hired Genoese people to assist in the battle.
However, before the war, the French commander had an idea and decided to connect all the warships with iron cables and use them as a stable castle to make up for the problem that his soldiers were not accustomed to water. The Genoese mercenary leader thought this was not possible, but the French did not listen. Unwilling to accept the order, he took his ship and left.
As a result, the English Navy took advantage of the current to launch an attack from upstream, and the huddled French Navy was almost completely wiped out. Afterwards, everyone in France was very angry, thinking it was all the Genoese's fault, and arrested the mercenary leader.
After this, everyone knew that the French were weak and could not afford to lose, and gradually no one worried that they could attack England.
Therefore, although they lost the battle, many English nobles still believed that the success of the Purple Horde Khanate's offensive was just because it was too unexpected - no one expected that there would be people in such a safe place for hundreds of years. Come.
When the Purple Horde Khanate was recruiting people everywhere, everyone thought they were too far away. These actions must have only helped the French to shout, forcing the English army to withdraw and relieving the pressure on their allies. No one expected that they would actually do it for real in the end. With this kind of mentality, there is nothing you can do about being attacked by someone.
But on the other hand, it does represent a threat.
The current situation in England is actually not as bright as outsiders see it. When King Edward launched the war against France, his main purpose was to preserve important economic production areas and at the same time strengthen the prestige of the royal family. Although it has been relatively successful on the battlefield, the decades-long war has also had a serious impact on England itself.
Compared with mainland Europe, England on the island is actually very poor and backward. The island's output alone could not feed such an army large enough to fight France, nor could it meet the needs of the nobles. Therefore, the kings of England had to rely on tax increases and loans to survive.
The former brought huge pressure to the ordinary residents of England. By the late 14th century, there were even rebellions across the country. All the farmers in England rebelled. It is of course conceivable how the economic situation has deteriorated.
The latter has saddled the kingdom with huge debts, so much that it is almost impossible to pay them back seriously. Therefore, kings could only default on their debts many times.
Italian businessmen suffered greatly. The first few large multinational banks that emerged were eventually tricked by England. In order to maintain foreign wars, Edward III relied on the Bank of Bardi for 900,000 florins and the Bank of Peruzzi for 600,000, causing the two largest banks at the time to go bankrupt.
The operators of these banks are already the best businessmen in dealing with kings and nobles, but as long as the other party wants to default on their debts, there is still nothing they can do. Therefore, Guo Kang's ability to obtain sponsorship from Italian businessmen did not surprise everyone in the Khan's court, because at any time, nobles who were willing to repay were a very scarce resource. It's not strange at all that people follow him every day.
For the Kingdom of England, defaulting on debt is actually not a good thing.
Just because this debt is gone doesn't mean everything will be fine in the future. The consumption of various internal and external wars was staggering, and the king still needed more financial resources. However, because everyone knows that lending money to the king is extremely risky, if you want to attract businessmen to continue to give money, you have to offer higher chips.
Therefore, corresponding to the extremely high risk, the interest rate of this kind of loan is also extremely high. Because they could not default on their debts every time, kings often mortgaged various taxes directly to merchants for repayment. In the early 14th century, Italian merchants almost monopolized the country's tariffs. Later, privileges were sold to Lowland and Hanseatic merchants in exchange for their financial support. Even the appointment power of the Mayor of London has long been contracted out.
This situation made the nobles quite dissatisfied, feeling that all kinds of sovereignty were about to be sold to the king. The great Britain became the court of foreigners. With the support of the nobles and domestic merchants, subsequent kings gradually took back these powers - of course, this greatly offended the Hanseatic merchants and lowland merchants who had been operating in the local area for a long time. They turned to support the Purple Horde Khanate. To put it bluntly, it was these troubles that caused the trouble.
So in the end, the Kingdom of England actually fell into a bad situation that was difficult to get out of. No matter how the kings changed their policies, it was difficult to make the situation better. The only way to break the situation is to fill these huge gaps through war and plunder. In short, every battle must be profitable, otherwise problems will easily arise in the country.
In fact, historically, after the final failure of the Hundred Years' War, the Kingdom of England did collapse very quickly.
During the brutal civil war, 25 of the 60 great aristocratic families were exterminated, more than half of the nobles above the baron died, and thousands of petty feudal lords perished in the war, so that the period after the war was called "illegitimate feudalism"—— Because there are not enough direct descendants of the traditional feudal nobles to die. But now, no one can imagine that this kind of thing is too scary for the old nobles.
Now, of course, they have not fallen to this point, but it is not difficult for the rulers of England to see these dangerous signals. Everyone was well aware of the dangerous situation the kingdom was in. In this case, even if some risk factors can be reduced as much as possible, it is obviously a good thing worthy of attention.
To this day, there are still a number of settlements called "London" and "York" in New Anglia. From the perspective of the Purple Horde Khanate, this was a kind of overseas-controlled county. The English used this as a breakthrough, saying that since the Angsa people still miss their hometown, can the two sides talk about it?
England has been promoting this matter with great fanfare, and Princess Jeanne should have known about it before. However, the senior officials of the Purple Horde Khanate specifically mentioned this matter, which still caught her attention.
"What does the English court want to gain from this?" she asked: "They should be concerned about more than just this one thing."
Lu Shangshu nodded.
"You should have known before. Henry IV passed away earlier this year." He said: "The current situation in England is actually more dangerous."
Princess Jeanne looked thoughtful.
Henry IV was a king who "was not in the right position". This matter has also been known to the courts of various countries for a long time.
Of course, Zhu Wenkui doesn't seem to know very well...
"What happened over there in England?" he asked curiously.
"This matter started decades ago." Prime Minister Wang Zhongren glanced at the others and briefly introduced him: "At the beginning, King Edward III of England had several sons. The eldest son he valued most was the one he valued most. The famous 'Black Prince' Edward. The Black Prince had military merit and direct lineage status, and was originally the best heir. However, he died before his father."
"The old king was very sad and decided to let the Black Prince's son succeed to the throne. Since the Black Prince's eldest son, Edward of Angoulême, died young, the inheritance rights fell on the second son Richard. However, this also caused some confusion. Coveted by his uncles.”
"After the young king succeeded to the throne, he was called Richard II. Edward III's fourth son, John, Duke of Lancaster, obtained the power to serve as regent. However, the king and he had never had a good relationship, and he was always trying to find a way to get rid of him. He, it’s just that his abilities are limited and his relationship with the Parliament and other nobles is not good, so he has never succeeded.”
"After John died, Richard, who had always wanted to weaken the great nobles, immediately ordered to deprive him of his fief. However, this move was not only ineffective, but also caused widespread panic among the great nobles. Nobles who were afraid that they would have the same experience, They all became rebellious."
"John's son Henry took the opportunity to launch a counterattack, successfully defeated Richard, captured him, and usurped the throne. He was King Henry IV of England who ruled until this year."
"Richard II was imprisoned. Henry IV assured him and Parliament that the deposed king would not be executed. But within months he was accused of inciting his supporters to assassinate the new king. King. Henry IV had him executed for this reason.”
"Although Richard is said to be really dead, many people don't believe it. There are various rumors among the people that he survived and escaped." Prime Minister Wang finally said: "In Scotland, there are also public releases It is said that Richard has successfully escaped and is now living in the capital Stirling. Many people really believe this statement, and it is useless no matter what the royal family says."
"That's it..." Zhu Wenkui said with emotion: "I even tortured his fourth uncle to death, but in the end I still failed to cut down the vassal clan. I really don't know how to evaluate..."
"This..." Prime Minister Wang really couldn't comment on his family, so he had to change his words and continue his theme: "In short, we believe that these situations indicate that the contradictions and dissatisfaction within England are serious. This point , there should be no suspense.”
Zhu Wenkui thought for a while and nodded.
(End of chapter)
