The audience of the prince is usually composed of nobles, businessmen and farmers, and sometimes there are envoys from other places. They have been waiting for an hour to see the prince, and the prince will now accept their audience.
As usual, Zoe, who is the wife of the prince, accompanied her. When she saw her husband coming in after changing clothes in a hurry, Zoe gave Rostislav a somewhat angry look, angry that he had made the audience wait for so long.
.
Rostislav completely ignored this, and he was too lazy to explain it to his wife. Moreover, many times his wife's temper really baffled him and he was completely confused.
Zoe turned her head away angrily, and her earrings fell to the ground when she turned them away, and the fragile and expensive jewelry shattered to pieces.
And it was at this moment that the muezzin announced the entrance of the audience. The prince and his wife could not care about these matters. They sat upright and took the next business seriously.
Visitors came in one after another, bringing their questions. The nobles and merchants basically came for trade agreements or monopoly rights on certain goods.
The prince's attitude towards this is very firm. A trade agreement can be negotiated, but it is absolutely impossible to sell such a privilege exclusively. He has not yet reached the point of selling that privilege in exchange for cash.
The problem after trade is to ask for support. Every Rus' town is not considered rich, and many infrastructure constructions require support from the capital. For this, Rustislav has to carefully weigh and then allocate resources.
There is only one thing that Rostislav will allocate money for without even thinking about it, and that is the construction of roads and bridges between cities in Northeastern Russia.
The prince regards completing this matter as his first priority. Northeastern Rus is a land divided by forests and river networks. It is naturally suitable for separatism. If you want to effectively rule such a vast land, building roads and bridges is the only option.
.
And this is a very costly thing. After all, it goes without saying how difficult it is to open a road through the forest ocean.
Fortunately, Zhucheng is willing to invest resources in this matter. As a city where trade accounts for an important income, Zhucheng understands that with the improvement of roads, commerce will flow faster, and flowing trade routes bring flowing gold and silver. Therefore,
When the prince offered to take the lead in coordinating the plan, every town expressed support.
For the prince, these roads will make the connection between the cities closer, the prince's army will be more convenient to mobilize, and his power will be further enhanced.
Some merchants would sell their luxury goods to the prince, but the prince had no interest in this. He just introduced these people to the nobles under his command.
After the nobles and merchants, the next people to meet were the city lords, citizens and farmers.
The castle lords basically came to seek help from the poor. These people were all enfeoffed near Moscow. They were all granted the title for their meritorious service in the war with Bulgar.
To these people the prince could only give some hryvnia as a matter of routine, and he could not help much. The prince's troops would only be dispatched after a bad incident such as the murder of the castle lord.
The castle owners were very dissatisfied, but it was better than nothing.
As for the matters brought by citizens and farmers, it is much more complicated. Since the prince has recently made some small attempts to improve urban production organization and agricultural technology, many citizens and farmers came to see them. They came to respond to various problems and hoped that
Get support and help.
For these matters, the prince directly delegated them to the professional bureaucrats under him, that is, the clerks led by Leo. These scholars in the imperial capital and Kiev have now mastered the corresponding professional skills, and they are naturally comfortable in handling these matters.
As for those who asked the prince to adjudicate disputes, they could not come from the beginning, because the prince had already established a court to handle civil and criminal disputes on his behalf. This court would travel around the countryside every month to judge things and promote the authority of the prince.
After dealing with these internal matters, the next step is naturally the external ones, mainly meeting various envoys.
At the beginning, what the prince saw was the envoy he sent to Bulgar to demand ransom. The messenger brought good news. Bulgar was willing to pay the ransom. Even if he had no money to redeem himself, the Khan would pay for it.
And he brought another surprising news: Bulgar Khan has been replaced.
Aqad Moska Tulu, the prince's defeated general, has become the new Bulgar Khan.
After returning to Bulgar, this loser went south and took control of the border garrison. He took this army to the capital of Bulgar, took control of the city, and after a fierce battle, killed those who stood on the side of the old khan.
Father and Khan.
Now this Khan is called a parricide because the two elders of the Dulu family he killed were both his relatives.
Of course, no one dared to do this in front of him.
The new Khan assured everyone that their families could return to them, which appeased the people who were disturbed by the coup and the fighting. For the people, the most important thing at the moment was for their families to return smoothly from foreign lands.
The prince was quite surprised by this, and felt a little uneasy. That poor general actually launched a rebellion so decisively, even killing his relatives to seize the throne, and was willing to spend so much money to secure his position. It seemed that this
The neighbors are very difficult to get along with...
Fortunately, it would cost a lot of money to ransom so many prisoners. If all the money was spent on these things, Bulgar would not have the energy to start a war within a few years, and the days of peace could still continue.
Among the Bulgar news brought by the envoy, there was another thing that Rostislav was very concerned about, that is, Adam Dolu, the son of the former Khan, was missing.
There are rumors in the city of Bulgar that the prince has escaped from Bulgar with the help of the Khan's confidant Aleph...
Intuition told the prince that this was a good opportunity. He always felt that this opportunity to intervene with Bulgar would fall into his hands...
As the envoy to Bulgar withdrew, the next envoy was a Russian envoy from the city of Novo, who brought news that excited Rostislav.
The teacher of the Prince of Moscow, Luca Zhigata, has been conferred the title of Bishop of Moscow and is on his way to Northeastern Rus. He is expected to arrive in a week.
Regarding the establishment of a Moscow bishop, Rostislav had been fighting for a long time, but because Kiev had to notify Constantinople and obtain approval, a lot of time was spent on the road.
Now that Constantinople has approved it, Naruka can naturally perform his duties.
The prince is very happy that his teacher is coming, and the teacher will definitely bring many clergy. By then, the shortage of manpower in the Northeastern Rus' Church will be alleviated.