Finally, Manuel only reluctantly calmed down after Barbara, who had regained her senses, persuaded him.
According to the doctors' final diagnosis, she had probably conceived three or four months prior.
Three or four months ago, that seemed to be the tail end of the Bosporus and Ottoman war.
Doesn't that mean Barbara was pregnant during those small indulgences of his at that time?
No, he had to properly conceal what he had done back then.
Otherwise, if the good deeds he did at that time were known to the world, his Caesar career would be over.
To prevent his reputation from being harmed, Manuel decided to subtly suggest to these doctors to obscure his wife's pregnancy date, or more accurately, push it back to around February.
And after receiving Caesar's instructions, these doctors were very cooperative and did as he said.
After all, to be honest, such a matter would not harm anyone, including themselves; it was no big deal.
The result was that after Manuel's intervention, Princess Catherine's second pregnancy was publicly and historically considered to have occurred in February.
Subsequently, the couple decided to have their second child born in Pontus to appease the local populace and win their hearts, demonstrating the great importance Asia Minor held in his eyes.
In short, this episode ended on a happy note.
However, after this incident, Manuel specifically allocated more time to his family, rather than almost entirely dedicating his energy to governing his territory as he had before.
During this period, servants and guards in Trabzon Palace could even occasionally see the Caesar couple strolling and relaxing in the garden.
Although the specific details are unknown to later generations, if Manuel had known that future bards and novelists would describe him as a monarch who would utter sappy words, his expression would surely have been priceless.
But this was a hundred years after Manuel's death.
Although Manuel allocated some time during this period, he still completed one task after another with abundant energy and high efficiency.
One of these included the legal preparations he was currently planning.
It was called by Caesar himself "the law above all laws."
Well, it wasn't that mysterious, actually.
The so-called "law above all laws" was a term Manuel proclaimed in front of the jurists and scholars under him who were compiling the law.
More accurately reflecting its essence, it should be the concept of a "constitution" from his previous life.
As for why Manuel wanted to create a "constitution" in the 15th century, it was not actually for various lofty or unrealistic reasons.
He simply felt that to fight the Ottoman, Pontus and Tauris needed to be integrated with a certain degree of cohesion.
In terms of law, this meant that there must be fundamental principles in the law that supersede other specific legal provisions, and it could also set a standard for every subsequent legislation, establishing basic principles that should not be violated unless circumstances change.
Furthermore, he was somewhat tired of the rigorous and elaborate compilation of laws each time.
After much thought, he finally conceived of establishing something similar to what was called a constitution in his previous life.
However, strictly speaking, what he was compiling was not a true modern constitution in the sense of his previous life, but rather a collection of fundamental legal principles similar to those of the classical and medieval periods.
Because in his plan, this set of "constitution" would not touch upon any of the later so-called personal rights or limitations of power.
On the contrary, what he sought to achieve was to further establish that the monarch, as Caesar, possessed power second only to the Holy Father, which is to say, "unlimited power" in the secular sense—
"My power as Caesar is limitless!"
This was Manuel's original words when he was hyping himself up alone in his personal room at night, and naturally, it was his true thought.
With this idea in mind, when he last convened scholars from across the country to revise the "Bosporus Code (Pontus)," he took the opportunity to privately consult some great scholars and academics for their opinions on this so-called "law above all laws."
And according to their opinions, his line of thought indeed had a certain feasibility and practicality.
Therefore, encouraged by this, Manuel, as mentioned before, after the conclusion of his current law compilation, gave new appointments to several loyal scholars who shared his ideas, forming a new, secret law compilation team with them.
To this day, Manuel is still making extensive preparations with his scholars and jurists for his "law above all laws."
By May, they had already established a large number of principles related to territorial governance.
In addition to the so-called constitution, he was also considering the possibility of another area: whether the Bosporus needed to establish a Senate.
As is well known, the Bosporus is now considered a medium-sized country, and its religious and cultural differences have gradually affected Manuel's various decisions.
Among the larger groups alone, there are Greeks, Goths, Tatars, Armenians, Turks, and Latins; Eastern Orthodox, Muslims, Armenian Apostolic Church followers, Catholics, and Jews; Pontus and Tauris.
These permutations and combinations, brought about by religion, culture, and region, seemed incredibly glaring to him, who possessed the "clairvoyance" of later generations.
These mixtures sometimes made Manuel's head feel like it was about to explode from thinking.
However, this was an absolutely unavoidable issue; even though religious and cultural problems were not as acute in the Middle Ages as in later times, if his covetous neighbors were to stir up trouble, it would be enough to give him a headache.
Although he had previously used harsh methods to brutally suppress the Muslims under his rule, he could not engage in large-scale massacres as he did on the Tauris Peninsula, using their rebellion as an excuse, as most of Asia Minor was still ruled by Muslims.
The reason that previous incident ended up that way, besides the Golden Horde's actual weakness in being unable to protect the Tauris Tatars and his naval superiority, was also related to his immense resentment at the time, fueled by that large-scale rebellion.
Although he genuinely found massacres quite convenient, for example, in his previous life, there were so many Armenians and Greeks in Asia Minor, and after the massacres led by the Three Pashas of the Young Turk Party, Asia Minor underwent a significant demographic change.
There was no other way; Manuel considered himself not a madman like the Turks, so he had to use more rational methods to alleviate the problems.
Strong measures on religious and cultural issues were necessary, as was winning over the powerful, only then could it be considered sound.