"Our country will fall, like a comet falling."
1453 For Europeans at that time, life was not much different from before. The French were busy giving the British a final blow to end the century-long war. The colonists of the Iberian Peninsula marched towards the ocean with a greedy golden dream. Few people noticed that a call for help from an ancient empire came from a city on the Bosphorus. It shouted powerlessly, "Save us! Europe, Christ brothers!" People turned a deaf ear. This faint call for help was drowned between the conversation and laughter of the princes in the European court. Submerged under hundreds of thousands of cavalry of Ottoman Sultan Mohammed II. No one cares about its destiny, the Byzantine Empire is so isolated and helpless, facing all this alone.
How vast was the Byzantine Empire? It starts from the Strait of Gibraltar in the west and ends at the Caucasus Mountains in the east. The people of the empire proudly called the Mediterranean "our inner sea." A huge empire spanning Europe, Africa and Asia. In its golden age, no imperial citizen would believe that his country would come to an end one day. It is so strong. ——However, after its prosperity, the country began to continue to decline. After Justinian's era, the empire declined in the endless internal struggle, plague, and foreign wars. Although there was a brief revival under the rule of some emperors who worked hard to rule, everything seemed so useless when Turkic Muslim invaders flocked to Anatolia, the most important lifeline of the empire, after the Battle of Manchikot in 1071. The Crusades in 1204 gave the empire a fatal blow. When the Paleoluo Dynasty struggled to restore its country, the powerful empire that once occupied the three continents and five seas is now only a pitiful small part of it along the Balkans and Asia Minor.
The disaster of the thousand-year empire did not end. In the 13th to 14th centuries, the Ottomans in the Anatolian region rose rapidly and continued to greedily erode the remains of Byzantine. Until the mid-15th century, the only remaining territory of the Byzantine Empire was its capital, Constantinople, and a small part of the territory of the Peloponnese—the only result of the efforts of the last emperor Constantine XI to restore the territory of the empire. Constantinople, a world-desire city, had a population of 500,000 at its peak. Merchants from Arabia, Venice, and India gather here. Now there is only 50,000 people left, and the city is full of dilapidated scenes. It used to be difficult to travel across the entire territory even if it took several months, but now it can travel to a complete country in three hours. Only the towering Theodosy walls were left telling how powerful and prosperous the empire was back then.
1453, Ottoman Sultan Mohammed II personally led an army of 80,000 to the city of Constantinople. He issued an ultimatum to Emperor Constantinople: to give up Constantinople, he would be able to maintain his faith and survive as the Ottoman noble. But the honor and responsibility of being a Roman emperor made Emperor Constantine flatly reject this request, and he was determined to live and die with the city. On April 6, 1453, the Ottoman army began to siege Constantinople.
Facing the Sudanese army, thousands of defenders in the city, including Genoa sailors and Western European mercenaries, could not resist, but the military and civilians of Constantinople still gave tenacious resistance. They relied on the solid walls to hold on for a full fifty days. On May 26, the angry and embarrassed Mohamed II decided to launch the final general attack. In order to boost morale, he ordered the city to be broken and robbed for three days. The Ottoman army began the attack after praying. On that day, Constantinople declared its fall in the smoke of gunpowder.
When the city wall was broken and the Ottoman Guards rushed in. The two sides launched a fierce street battle. In the last moment of despair, Emperor Constantine XI drew out his sword and rushed towards the enemy without hesitation. His glorious purple robe was instantly obliterated in the red battle robe of the Ottoman Guards.
When the Ottoman army broke through the walls of Theodosi that had guarded the city for thousands of years, the cross that had tolerated all suffering in the world on the top of the cathedral finally fell ruthlessly, and the last gem on the crown of the Byzantine Emperor was also ruthlessly taken away. After the city was broken, barbaric plunder and destruction were followed by barbaric plunder and destruction. Men and women were sold into slavery, and those without labor were ruthlessly killed. Some sacred objects and artworks left by saints were destroyed at will, precious books that condensed the wisdom of the Greeks were burned, and exquisite statues were smashed. Many precious artistic crystals have disappeared forever from then on. It is impossible to estimate how huge the loss of human spiritual wealth is. This empire that stood for thousands of years, Byzantium finally came to an end, and this is its final elegy.
But there is no doubt that at its last moment, this ancient empire ushered in a soul-stirring and tragic heroic ending. The last emperor, Condor Dante, did not choose to surrender or to live in vain, but lived and perished with his own subjects. When the city was captured, the emperor finally died with his Roman spirit and full of glory with his empire. Ended a proud life. He never betrayed his ideals. In the face of crisis in the country, his character and indomitableness were worthy of the name of the Roman emperor, which was enough to be comparable to emperors such as Trajan and Justinian. He was the last Roman.
When Byzantium perished, a large number of refugees poured into Western Europe, and the intellectuals brought the remaining spiritual treasures from Greece and Rome to Western Europe, promoting the development of the Renaissance. The imperial civil law code formed the basis of later generations. In 1492, Gobrun discovered the Americas through Ptolemy's "Geography" in Roman times. The demise of the Byzantine Empire put an end to the Middle Ages and Roman times, closing its heavy page. Injecting strength into a new era kicked off its prelude - the Renaissance.
