Chapter 969 - 92: Merchant Conspiracy
The Latin merchants, grieving as if mourning parents, together with their Attendants and servants, were driven out beyond the palace gate by the Varangian Guard brandishing bundled rods.
Their steps faltered, their faces were deathly pale; that Tyrant’s cold, harsh voice seemed still to echo in their ears—"From this day forth, all Latin City-State ’concessions,’ ’autonomous judicial rights,’ ’tariff rights,’ ’tax‑exemption privileges,’ and the like in Jerusalem are abolished."
"But we’re supposed to be his own people—does he really regard those Heretics not yet under his rule as his subjects?"
The representative of Venice stared blankly, at a loss, and turned to look back at the towering hall.
He could hardly make sense of it. In his eyes, these Latin merchants were essentially the mouthpieces of the Crusader nobility; compared to continuing to employ those Heretic magnates as Tax Collectors, were they not far more trustworthy?
"In years past, the tribute we paid the Royal Family of Jerusalem, the Port rental fees, the warehousing charges—those alone were almost half the Kingdom’s total revenue. What is he dissatisfied with?"
Beside him, the representative of Genoa sneered: "His Majesty the Emperor misunderstands us deeply. This is all your Venetians’ doing."
"If you hadn’t dragged the Crusaders along and blinded them, leading to that scandalous assault on Constantinople, how would His Majesty Losa be so wary of us?"
Genoa’s main base was in Tyr; though it, too, was deeply entangled in the Kingdom of Jerusalem’s economy, it was far inferior to Venice, and its commercial focus was not the Levant Region, but the Eastern Empire and the Black Sea.
The ’Latin Massacre’ that had occurred in Constantinople sent relations between Venice and the Eastern Empire plunging to an ice‑cold low; the Genoese seized the chance to rise and supplanted the Venetians.
From that point on, the Venetians began shifting their commercial focus toward the Levant Region.
For example, in Acre City alone, the pepper, cinnamon and other spices shipped by Venetians to Europe accounted for sixty percent of the total volume. Moreover, they not only enjoyed numerous privileges in the coastal cities; in Hebron under Losa’s rule, in Montreal under Reynard’s rule, and elsewhere, they enjoyed tax‑exemption charters and rights of free enterprise.
Watching the Genoese and Venetians bicker endlessly, the representatives of minor states such as Pisa stood to the side, inwardly smirking.
The power of Pisa had declined considerably in recent years; among the three great Latin City-States it now ranked last, and because it had long been locked in struggle with Genoa over Corsica Island, its interests in the Levant Region were the least entangled.
They had come here with the notion of taking a swing whether or not there was fruit to be had; though some of their privileges were abolished, compared to Venice, this loss was not even a drop in the bucket.
For a long time now, the Venetians and Genoese had been like two enormous beasts riding on their heads—ransacking bullies of the Mediterranean. To see them suffer, these minor powers were happy enough to be unlucky themselves.
What is more, now that Venetian and Genoese privileges had been abolished, in the newly opened lands of the Damascus Kingdom these minor-state merchants could finally compete with them, instead of merely watching, helpless, as Venice, by virtue of its array of privileges, shipped goods at the lowest cost and squeezed them to death, then, once it had gained a monopoly, recklessly jacked up the prices.
The minor-state merchants soon drifted away, expressions relaxed, leaving only the two great powers still lingering before the palace gate, trading accusations and curses, unwilling to depart.
Duke Leopold happened to pass by at this moment with a group of Crusader nobles. Seeing these two factions of Latin merchants locked in quarrel, he asked what was going on, then burst out laughing: "Those damned hounds of Simon, serve you right!"
Simon here refers to "Simon Magus" of the Bible, famed for attempting to purchase "spiritual authority" with money, a name commonly used to mock dealers in Holy Office.
A crowd of Crusader nobles likewise broke into jeers and curses against this lot.
What attitude did the Crusaders take toward the Latin merchants?
Greedy wretches, trading the blood of Christians for spices from Heretics!
They drove up the ticket prices along the Pilgrim routes at will, forcing many impoverished Pilgrims to travel by land, to be robbed and slaughtered by Robber Knights and Turkic people; or else to be pressured by Latin merchants into becoming Contracted Slaves, sold onto plantations, and even into the hands of Heretic Slave Masters.
A host of Crusaders who were meant to go to the Holy Land and defend Jerusalem, unable to bear the cost of sea passage, were forced to linger where they were for months, even a year, surviving on odd jobs, guarding the estates of rich merchants—and in the end, to turn their Swords against their Christian brothers in Constantinople.
Every year, during the pilgrimage peak around Easter, Latin merchants would raise the ticket price from the original one or two Gold Coins to a sky‑high near‑ten Gold Coins.
In history, the Children’s Crusade, after putting to sea, was directly sold to Heretics by two Latin merchants.
Had these Latin merchants possessed backing instead of being like Jewish merchants, the ’Latin Massacre’ of Constantinople might well have occurred in Jerusalem as well.
And yet the Crusaders did not dare truly break with the Latin merchants. Baldwin once wrote to the Governor of Venice: "Without the merchant ships of your noble state, our country’s men‑at‑arms would have no Armor to wear, the common folk no bread to eat."
Indeed, without the help of the Latin merchants, those Crusader states, their territories mere narrow strips, would long since have perished.
Historically, once Jerusalem fell, these Latin merchants immediately rushed to flatter the Monarchs of the Ayyubid dynasty, just as they later fawned over the Ottomans when Constantinople fell.
"You pack of damned thieves, you’ve turned the road of salvation to the Holy Land into a road of bone‑cracking, marrow‑squeezing, a road of hoarding Gold—now you even dare make trouble at His Majesty the Emperor’s palace gate. Get out of here!"
One after another, the coarse and brutal Crusader nobles drew their Swords, frightening the merchants into scurrying away.
The representative of Venice still harbored some defiance and shouted: "We are here to swear fealty to His Majesty the Emperor! How dare you, you boorish Germanic rabble, treat us so?"
Duke Leopold snorted: "The loyalty of Latin merchants is like pack ice on the sea, drifting with the wind of profit—are you fit to swear fealty to Your Majesty? Go lick your Saracen masters’ arseholes instead."
In an age when even a bridge or a city gate might be granted to a Knight as a ’fief,’ the commercial environment was terrifyingly hostile. Nobles setting up tolls and levies at will counted as the mild cases; open robbery by Robber Knights occurred all the time.
In such an environment, any merchant able to grow in a savage fashion—whether Latin, Saracen, from Greece, or Jewish—would not be any kind of good bird.
The kind‑hearted had long since lain in the desert feeding vultures.
After being mocked and cursed out, the Venetians and Genoese, fuming with indignation, hefted the gifts they had brought and slunk away.
Once they were far enough from that pack of crude Germanic brutes, the Venetian representative dusted off his collar—where no dust had fallen—and said angrily: "Even while Saladin still lived, he showed us the utmost respect; and now a mere band of Germanic bumpkins from the countryside dare humiliate me like this."
The Genoese merchant raised his voice: "What did you just say? You’d rather serve Saladin than His Majesty Losa? What is your intent?"
The Venetian representative, alarmed, hastily clapped a hand over the Genoese’s mouth: "Are you mad? What good would it do you to get me killed?"
The Genoese merchant sneered: "Once your power is driven out of the Levant, I’ll be watching to see how you Venetians, who have now offended Empress Ragaya and Emperor Losa, plan to contend with us."
The Venetian merchant shot back: "’You Venetians’? Are you truly one with the noble lords back home? Now that both our privileges have been revoked, with your interests damaged, do you really think that, once you return home, the other grandees of Genoa will compensate you?"
He stressed his words: "Right now, we’re grasshoppers tied to the same rope, understand?"
The Genoese representative’s expression shifted slightly; he snorted: "In any case, I’m not the one who should be most anxious. And besides, as things stand, His Majesty Losa has even sent back the gifts we offered. What more can you do?"
The Venetian representative replied solemnly: "That Tyrant Losa... the Emperor now holds Alexandria, Cairo, Damascus; a single month’s customs revenue is more than the wealth we brought. It’s only natural he looks down on it."
The Genoese turned on his heel and left.
"Hey, wait—do you think that just because he sent the gifts back, it means there is no room left to maneuver?"
The Genoese merchant raised his chin: "What else could it mean?"
"It could also mean we sent the wrong things. Why not try again—with curiosities, secret treasures?"
The merchants of Venice and Genoa had travelled as far as the Great Song; Marco Polo’s journey east would not occur until some decades later. The exotic treasures in their hands were by no means few, and the Apennines had always been one of the most vibrant regions for Casters.