After the fall of the first generation of the Roman Dynasty, Rome experienced the Flavian Dynasty, the Antoni Dynasty, etc., and produced a lot of excellent emperors, one of which was the title of emperor obtained by auction, when the Roman Empire was degenerate, the ancestors of today's Europeans, the Germanic people, began to develop and grow, the Roman emperor at this time was Constantine, he lived in Istanbul in what is now Turkey, but Constantine at this time was very annoying, because he found that although he was an emperor, some nobles were disobedient, normally such a big country, the younger brothers were disobedient, and it was too normal for the Yang to be disobedient, and now the political system cannot solve this problem, but Constantine is different, it is an ambitious wonder, since you are disobedient, then I will change to an obedient one.
His idea is very simple, that is, to get the group of uncivilized Germanic people in the north to be mercenaries, whoever is disobedient will do whom, and at this time the Germanic people are still in a primitive society, it is easy to fool at a glance, and the Roman army soon became the world of mercenaries under the indiscriminate efforts of Lord Constantine. So many ethnic minorities are flooded in the army, it is obvious that it is easy to have problems, and in the end there is a problem, the cause of the matter is this, after the Han Dynasty completed the unification, desperately drove the Huns out, the Huns had no choice, they could only run vigorously, part of them ran to the Roman Empire, and occupied Hungary, Hungary means the home of the Huns, of course it is not the home of the Huns, it is the chassis of the Roman Empire.
Rome saw a group of people come to grab the territory, so sent mercenaries to fight to the death with them, it is obvious that the mercenaries have no will to fight and civic responsibility, were beaten by the Huns, with Rome defeated again and again, the whole country is obviously going to fall apart, the Germanic warlords took the opportunity to seize the leadership, completed the gorgeous turn, since then Rome has entered the era of barbarian rule, this group of barbarians is very strange, they even abolished the currency, Western Europe began to enter a magical era.
After this group of people ruled Rome, Rome was divided into N small kingdoms, each small kingdom can be understood as a large estate, completely self-sufficient, no trade at all, no trade, the money is really useless, everyone has returned to the simple era of barter, then why did this group of people finally believe in Christianity, among these barbarians, there was a cunning and cruel Clovis, and later he unified the Frankish tribes and established the Frankish kingdom, he converted to Christianity not because of the spirit of democracy, but because he converted to Christianity, he had the basis of inheriting the mantle of the Roman Empire de jure by converting to Christianity, a bit like China now also recognizes the Qing Dynasty, or not recognize him, you will not be able to inherit his territory.
Clovis as a big man with little culture, in the process of conquest, in order to win the hearts of the people, he made great efforts to make welfare, and generously distributed the conquered land to his ministers, generals and relatives, and later because of the too much land, the strength of the lord and the emperor was almost the same, and finally he became the object of robbery, and later was seized by the European version of the eunuch palace, and then after several evolutions, Europe entered the era of feudal lords. The peasants could not get out of the realm of the lord for the rest of their lives, and there was no currency, and each lord was a small independent kingdom, and the war was called on by the emperor to bring people to fight, and entered a magical and stable social structure. Until the appearance of a gang of pirates.
When we mention Northern Europe now, everyone thinks that it is a paradise on earth, there are a bunch of rich small countries, beautiful scenery, ancient Northern Europe is not beautiful, there is ice and snow everywhere, in the 9th-10th century, Northern Europe is still at the end of the primitive society, and it is still an era behind the barbarian Germans, we were already at the end of the Tang Dynasty, the two sides are not at all at the same level of civilization, that place in Northern Europe was still primogeniture and polygamy, if you are the eldest son, wife, property is great, but if it is a younger brother, then it is a calf, not only no wife, no property, can only engage in heavy labor to support themselves。
In this environment, normal people want to change their fate, after all, no one wants to be a dick for the rest of their lives, but the poor group of Northern Europe, they are all acquaintance society, and there is no way to get rich, and finally after hard thinking, a group of people found a new profession, that is, to be a pirate, this job, with good pay and great profits, can not only consume a large number of labor in Northern Europe, but also bring people to make a fortune, so aspiring young people in the Nordic region have joined such a rich and promising sport.
Viking started a long-term wandering crime in Western Europe, historical records record, Viking pirates rushed into the manor to rob everything, women, livestock, food as long as they can be taken away, there is nothing to want, why didn't Western Europe organize an army to kill them, the answer is no, at that time Western Europe was in a feudal lord state, to fight a war needs the king to issue an order in advance, let the knights with the servants assembled, and so the knights assembled, the pirates did not know where to run, because piracy is a very lucrative profession, practitioners soon made a lot of money, the pirates also changed guns, from small sampans to battleships, in the long plundering career, the pirates twice V surrounded Paris, besieged Constantinople twice and forced the Byzantine Empire to sign an alliance under the city, and some people estimate that the Viking pirates took about 270,000 pounds of silver and 600 pounds of gold from Western Europe.
The pirates with money were targeted by the Arabs and Oriental merchants, and began to trade, because the trade risk was low, and the money came quickly, most of the pirates began to transform, and slowly the pirate leader became a business leader, and built a series of castles to trade and store goods Viking piracy for two centuries of looting, not all bad, at least for Western Europe to bring commerce, the feudal lord model was dismantled, and finally the pirates also believed in Christianity, everyone became a family, and I don't know who lost this thing in the end.