Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 706 Declaration of War on All Nations
In the auditorium of the Niangniang Temple, a group of officials gathered around and watched the Empress Dowager rehearse her speech.

As soon as she finished reading the notice, several people from the Ministry of Rites came over.

"No, no, this is too passionless."

"The middle part of your story was fine, but the ending was too bland."

They all put forward their opinions.

"I thought I had tried my best?" The Queen Mother was a little confused.

"You may not be emotional enough." The leading official pointed out: "When the time comes, you will read it out to everyone in the square. Such occasions place great emphasis on the speaker's ability to spread emotions, and the source of emotional infection is that you yourself must be full of emotions. You have to put on an attitude of 'I want the barbarians to die!', then it will be more obvious."

"The more emotional you are, the more excited everyone will be, and the better the speech will be. But even though you put in some effort, it still feels like you're just doing a routine, like reading an official document. This way, it's hard to mobilize everyone's emotions and get their support."

"That makes sense. It should be this emotional issue." The Queen Mother scratched her head: "But this is just reading official documents? Besides, I don't know how to put myself in this mood."

"When I first got married, none of the noble ladies in the capital were willing to deal with me. They all said that I was a barbarian from the mountains who was lucky enough to win a prize and enter the city. Therefore, my relationship with them has never been very good. When you mention barbarians, I think of myself...so, I really can't be angry."

"Uh..." Everyone felt a little embarrassed.

"And I think it's useless to stir up emotions." The Queen Mother continued: "War is not a joke, especially this time. I also carefully understood it last night."

"If we get involved, we have to advance from at least two directions, southern Italy and Bohemia, and we have to consider how to contain the enemies in other directions until we pacify Italy and the Alemanni region. In short, at this point, we either don't move, or we have to move to the end. Otherwise, there is no need to spend so much effort and intervene comprehensively."

"This war will not be short. We have to prepare for it according to the length of the war against Hungary."

"After all, I am just a woman, and I am not as powerful as those female generals in the novels. I have never commanded a war." She shook her head and explained: "However, when I was young, I followed my father and uncles to participate in family fights. Later, I also followed my husband to go to war a few times. After my son succeeded to the throne, people in the court even forced me to follow him to fight a few battles around. The Seris scriptures say that before a woman gets married, she should follow her father; after getting married, she should follow her husband; after the husband dies, she should follow her son. So, although my ability is average, I have tried my best to meet the requirements of the sages, and I still have some say."

"I'm not an expert at commanding people to fight. But I know who can fight. I do like war, and so do many people around me. But that's why I hope that everyone will support our war after careful consideration. Those who understand the whole story, know exactly what they need to do, and can still act firmly and steadily are the cornerstones of our Rome. What we have to do is to explain the situation to them."

"As for now, I can only give a speech to the people in Dadu." She looked at the manuscript in her hand. "Moreover, based on my previous observations, the people who can come to listen are basically those Greeks in the city who have some money and some free time. These people are indeed easily excited - but they are excited every day, and they get excited from time to time, and even fight with the night watchmen; but when the excitement is over, it is the same as nothing happening. People like this can't be soldiers. I think it doesn't really make any difference whether you talk to them or not."

"So I think it's enough to just express my intention. Let's write the notices to be issued to the various military regions." She muttered for a while, thought for a while, and said, "These things are supposed to be the most important."

After hearing this, everyone felt that it made sense and started discussing it.

"This... the three obediences are not what you meant..." The leading official reminded in a low voice with some embarrassment: "But we understand your idea, we will report it to the minister right away." "Alas, I am not well educated, just know what I mean." The queen mother waved her hand indifferently. Seeing this, several people ran out to call for help.

And the other people in the capital did not stop either.

As soon as they left the house, Princess Ma's motorcade arrived at the door. Needless to say, they must be here to ask the Queen Mother for help. Across the square, the carriage parking space was already full, but people kept coming, ignoring the guards' obstruction, and even jumped off the carriage and ran in on foot.

There was a large group of people gathered at the parking lot, discussing fiercely. Almost all of them were envoys and attendants from other countries. They had obviously received the news and rushed here to wait, hoping to find out the Romans' attitude as soon as possible.

Previous rumors said that Khan Ting wanted to take this opportunity to go to war with all European countries and unify the former Roman territory in one fell swoop. This statement sounds a bit absurd. But on the other hand, there is something even more absurd: if you analyze it carefully, you will find that from a legal point of view, this statement is completely fine...

Now the situation is rather awkward. In theory, the Romans did not even need to declare war when they started a war - only equal countries needed to go through the declaration of war process. For Rome, these were all acts of suppressing rebellions and expelling invaders. Going through the process and declaring war on all nations was giving everyone enough face.

In fact, as long as the Khanate still adheres to the Roman legal system, the European and North African countries that do not obey Rome should be considered to be in a state of war by default. This declaration of war is more of a reaffirmation of one's position than a move to change the diplomatic status. From this perspective, even if they really declare it, it seems that there will be no consequences.

This incident does sound strange, because in terms of the result, it is actually not fair, and it will definitely make the barbarian countries very unhappy - but Rome and the barbarians are not equal to begin with; the existence of Rome itself will make the barbarian countries unhappy, so even if this rumor is true, everyone can only endure it.

It is actually very simple to end this situation. Anyone who calls himself Rome is superior to everyone else, which will certainly attract hatred and be easily besieged. All we need to do is unite and destroy him. However, when the Purple Tent was still weak, everyone could not destroy Rome. And now, no major country is willing to take action. What else can we do?

Therefore, everyone didn't even know where to protest. Shouldn't you, Rome, stop being so arrogant and stop trying to conquer all of our barbarians? This is a slap in your own face, because all countries usually boast that they are the orthodox Romans. Now that Rome wants to unify, you should support it and declare that you are the more orthodox, more representative of everyone, and the real Rome. But in this way, you will also have to declare war on all barbarians...

As a result, the envoys were also a little confused. After finding out that the Queen Mother was temporarily in charge of the affairs, everyone came here to find out the situation first. Even if it was true, they could find a way out. After all, most of the permanent envoys here were from Italian city-states. For them, bowing to the new power was not a difficult decision due to their self-esteem...

After Princess Ma got off the car, everyone rushed over to see if she had any news. However, Princess Ma seemed anxious and rushed to the cathedral without saying hello. The guards stopped them and did not allow them to talk to her, so they had to give up.

But at this time, Monk Daoyan opened the door of a small car behind and got out.

The envoys were all very familiar with him, and they went to his side. Monk Daoyan didn't seem to be in a hurry, but chatted with everyone for a while, and seemed quite interested. Not long after, someone ran out of the gate and said that the Queen Mother and the Princess wanted to ask Master Daoyan something, so he said goodbye and left.

Everyone got some new information from Daoyan. Soon, the messengers spread rumors to each other, saying that the direct cause of this incident was that the Ming royal family was attacked by Sigismund. Although he spoke in a hurry and didn't know the whole story, it was enough for everyone to think about it - if nothing else, this guy must be in big trouble.

Everyone believed that as an active monk in the palace, Master Daoyan was an important advisor to the palace, just like the bishops in the Paris Palace. He must have a clear purpose in saying this. So soon, a group of his men were sent back. The first batch of intelligence about Rome's measures was spread out in this way.

(End of this chapter)