Since the Accounting: A Chronicle of the Roman Khanate

Chapter 818 Sigismund, Patience!

While the port was bustling with activity, the palace was not idle either.

At the Niangniang Temple, a routine ceremony was also being held. A group of dignitaries were in the prayer hall watching the Great Lama Wang personally preside over the sermon. After the ceremony, everyone, as was customary, began to chat and exchange ideas. The Great Lama Wang also left the platform, took a letter from an assistant priest, and glanced at the cover.

"Young Master Guo sent this through our court's channels," the abbot whispered to Lama Wang. "It's the investigation report on 'Cleopatra'."

"Where is Baselisa?" Wang Da Lama asked, stuffing the letter into the wide sleeve of his robe.

“Over there,” Father Peter, who was standing next to him, pointed to a corner of the hall.

"Alright, you can go back now." Lama Wang nodded to the assistant priest. "By the way, when will Young Master Guo arrive?"

“It’s already past Crete, it should be a few days later than this letter at most.” The acolyte thought for a moment and replied, “Taiji has been urging him every day, it shouldn’t be too long.”

"Great, finally someone can help us share the burden." Lama Wang breathed a sigh of relief, looking like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. "Let's go, Peter, let's go find them."

As he spoke, he waved to the deacon; the latter bowed and stepped aside. Meanwhile, the Great Lama Wang and Father Peter left one end of the hall and walked along the corridor beside the chapel towards another corner.

People along the way greeted them warmly, and Wang Da Lama nodded in response to each greeting.

Those who came to the Niangniang Temple to participate in the worship services were all important figures in the Khanate, therefore, the church needed to maintain good relations with them. Of course, today's exchange was not aimed at them, so he never stopped walking.

Meanwhile, the other high-ranking officials and noblewomen were all watching him, intentionally or unintentionally, to see who he would go to see.

Although nominally a religious organization under the Ministry of Rites, the Church's functions and actual power far exceeded their official ranks due to the unique circumstances of the Mediterranean world. For example, the Church was one of the few departments with its own intelligence agency. Besides them, only Baisa Khan himself, the Ministry of Rites' foreign affairs department, the Marshal's Office, and the Royal Caravan possessed independent information gathering systems capable of proactively acquiring internal and external intelligence.

On the other hand, the church even had its own judicial system, dispatching professional law enforcement officers to various locations to investigate related cases. They would track down those who spread heretical ideas and promoted anti-Roman theories, and if necessary, they would take action themselves or coordinate with local garrisons to arrest and bring them to justice.

Besides the church, only the legions and postal services had such comprehensive functions.

In Rome, the army was essentially an independent kingdom, with its own military court system that adjudicated cases independently.

The postal system, whether in Seres during the Qin and Han dynasties or in Rome after its system was perfected, was a self-contained tradition from ancient times. When power was considerable, the postal system even concurrently served as a supervisory body for officials. Since the founding of the Purple Horde, due to the extreme importance of roads and communication, a similar system was established. Therefore, the postal system, like the church, was an independent system, directly subordinate to the Postal Commissioner according to the custom of the Eastern Roman Empire, and not accountable to local governments.

However, the military is a special case, and the postal system is generally considered to offer worse treatment than the church.

Back then, the largest and most comprehensive postal system in the known world was established by the Yuan Dynasty. Through this system, even princes as far away as Sarai could understand the situation in their fiefdoms in Hebei. However, the Yuan Dynasty's post stations were entirely maintained by hereditary station owners. The constant flow of travelers required vast amounts of supplies, and government funding was insufficient, so station owners often had to pay out of their own pockets to keep the stations running. Over time, many station owners fled. Especially on the grasslands, where resources were scarce and survival was already difficult, station owners simply couldn't make a living. Eventually, some even had to sell themselves into slavery to escape their duties. This system naturally collapsed.

Learning from these lessons, the Purple Horde provided significant support to the postal stations. Now, major roads, along with the adjacent inns and merchant guildhouses, were under the control of the postal service. This was because, according to regulations, roads within the postal system, along with the land within a certain distance on either side, belonged to the respective post stations. By renting out transport vehicles and warehouses to merchants and opening inns to travelers, most post stations were financially secure. This solved the problem of the post stations and their couriers becoming unsustainable, and also made some postal station management positions lucrative.

Even so, everyone agreed that working at the church was far better than at the post station. Even with money, the post station staff weren't idle; in fact, they were busier due to increased traffic, essentially still earning a meager wage. Moreover, at the church, one could slack off. But at the post station, no one knew when an important mission might suddenly arise. If you happened to be slacking off when a life-or-death mission like military intelligence arrived, you were doomed… Therefore, even now, everyone considers the church a very special place.

Wang Da Lama himself actually had some complaints about this situation.

Within the Purple Horde, many other departments complained that the Church had too much power and was taking away everyone's resources; but when they negotiated with representatives of the Catholic Church, hoping that the Church would defect in groups and join them, the Catholic Church felt that they were not sincere and that the offer was too low.

In fact, besides unifying by force, the Church has repeatedly tried to persuade members of other denominations to join through negotiation since its founding. Because the Catholic Church has been in a state of division for decades, and the rise of the Purple Horde Khanate occurred almost entirely within this period, the Khanate and their "Roman Church," from the moment they discovered this situation, wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to persuade everyone to join them and achieve unification of the various factions.

Over the years, they have negotiated with the two Catholic churches multiple times, offering to help resolve the Great Schism in the Church—not just the Western Schism that began in 1378, but also the East-West Schism of 1054. However, from the highest levels of the Papacy to the bishops who control the local dioceses, there has been little interest in their proposals.

For a long time, these negotiations were merely a way to kill time. Rather than trying to solve problems, both sides were simply using the guise of communication to maintain basic interaction and keep the communication channels open in case something really happened. The core issue wasn't the doctrines of the Khanate and the Roman Catholic Church, which were often attacked as heretical or even cultish—after all, the Church had incorporated many different faiths. The most crucial point was how to accommodate the bishops and even the Pope who had defected. And as soon as discussions began, the other side would start complaining, feeling that the high-ranking clergy of the Roman Catholic Church were too constrained and had too little power.

As a result, only in Egypt and Syria, regions long ruled by Islam, were local churches willing to join the Roman Catholic Church to avoid religious discrimination and oppression. In other places, at most, a few disgruntled priests and monks would come sporadically to request membership; or some Catholics, disillusioned with power struggles or those whose ideas clashed with others and were ostracized, would request to study or train here—essentially a flight. However, neither of these groups had much political influence, nor were they organized, so there haven't been any significant, demonstrably impactful achievements to date.

This led other departments to make even more sarcastic remarks, and they even thought the church was useless, which gave Wang Da Lama a huge headache.

Today's occasion is one that others envy and resent. After all, although the rank is not high, anyone familiar with the court knows the immense significance of such regular gatherings of top personnel—and of course, there are corresponding enormous benefits hidden within.

Besides the other important figures attending the service, everyone else also paid close attention to the actions of Wang Da Lama and his group, attempting to analyze the dynamics within the church and even the Khanate. Therefore, each service meant being stared at intently by a large group of high-ranking officials and dignitaries, as if they wanted to strip him naked to see what intelligence he might be hiding—it felt like being spied on. Even a seasoned veteran like Wang Da Lama, who had climbed his way up from the bottom, found it somewhat unbearable…

Beside him, Father Peter, with a stern face, followed Wang Da Lama all the way. No matter who greeted him, he would slip behind Wang Da Lama, then lower his head, adopting an attitude of "I'm just a follower, don't bother me."

This made Lama Wang miss Guo Kang even more—whenever he brought Guo Kang along, Guo Kang, due to his special status, often attracted more attention than Lama Wang himself. Moreover, Guo Kang was quite simple and honest; all it took was a simple "Little Guo, come and say hello to XX from XX department," and he would obediently go over and chat with the person, drawing everyone's attention away from any baseless speculations and gossip. Such useful people are truly rare these days…

However, things were alright today. In a corner of the chapel, Baselisa, Princess Ma, Madam Huang, and a few others were chatting. Seeing the Great Lama Wang walking towards them, other eyes dwindled considerably. Because of their special status, there was little room for further investigation or speculation.

As he approached, he overheard Madam Huang saying to Princess Ma, "Is things progressing well on your side lately? I heard that Sigismund barely escaped with his life this time, losing his men and fleeing disguised as a peasant. Now he's calling for a new crusade, but the great nobles are somewhat afraid and dare not act."

“It’s not that we dare not,” Princess Ma shook her head. “Those nobles still have considerable power. It’s not that only those who claim to be kings have enough soldiers and generals. The reason they don’t respond is not because they are afraid, but because Sigismund’s hometown has been raided. Now, not only have they lost their savings, but they have also lost a large part of their source of income. They can’t come up with enough money to persuade everyone.”

"How can this person run so fast?" Queen Anna commented. "These nobles are quite capable of disguising themselves as farmers without being discovered."

“He’s quite experienced. He successfully escaped in disguise like this back when we suffered a defeat in Hungary,” Princess Ma said helplessly. “His escape skills are about the same as my husband’s…”

"Ah..." Anna remembered too: "He hasn't lost his skills yet. But in that case, things should be a little more peaceful on your side."

“I think it’s difficult.” Princess Ma shook her head. “It’s not that the nobles don’t oppose us, but that they have lost faith in Sigismund and dare not let him lead the fight against us anymore. If I’m not mistaken, they will choose another great noble to replace Sigismund and organize others to fight against us.”

“Then Sigismund probably just needs to bide his time for a while,” Anna said. “I’ve met quite a few of the great nobles of Alemany. The others are probably not as good as Sigismund. Once this replacement is defeated, they’ll probably bring him back.”

“We also want to congratulate you.” She glanced at the people beside her and said to Princess Ma, “In the history of Europe, there has probably never been a power that has expanded so rapidly.”

"This isn't expansion; it's merely a reintegration of the order that the local nobles themselves shattered." Princess Ma shook her head. "We haven't changed local customs, nor have we substantially altered their ritual and musical order. We've simply reorganized some chaotic areas. To give the locals a sense of accomplishment in the new order, we've renamed them after the Central Plains. Even their soldiers are mostly locals directly employed. Wen Kui's victory was simply the Alemanni defeating the Poles once again—only this time, the Alemanni leader's surname is Zhu."

“In my opinion, your side is the one that has truly combined local conditions with the Central Plains system. Although others say that this is a Khanate, the level of Central Plains integration is much higher than that of our side.”

“We had no choice back then,” Anna replied. “We didn’t have such a good reputation or starting conditions. Although we managed to take over the Golden Horde’s name, the people felt more fear than trust when they mentioned the Mongols, so it was very difficult to settle down. Therefore, we could only start by changing customs and gradually establish a system different from that of other lords. It’s not that we didn’t want to be fast, but that we couldn’t be fast.”

“That’s a good thing. Our system is not stable. Now that my husband and Wen Kui are in charge of the army, there are already problems of conflicting policies and a chaotic system.” Princess Ma said frankly, “Now that we are at war, the problem is not so big; but when peace comes, that will probably be the real test of our abilities.”

"Is it really a choice between two benefits?" Madam Huang interjected. "Back then, both Jiang Ziya and Bo Qin, the eldest son of the Duke of Zhou, went to their respective fiefdoms. Jiang Ziya simplified the rituals and did not pursue changing customs, completing his administration in five months before returning to Haojing to report back. Bo Qin changed the local customs and reformed their rituals, which took three years to complete. The Duke of Zhou then said that after Lu, it would probably have to serve Qi in the north; but Qi would also have internal problems, and there might even be ministers who usurped the throne and murdered the ruler. We, the descendants, can only learn from their experiences and make our own decisions."

Everyone else thought it made sense—of course, quite a few people felt it was too profound and didn't understand what it was quoting.

Seeing that they had finished, Lama Wang quickly went forward to greet them.

(End of this chapter)