The messenger sent by James to report to Alexander and Zhisa that the Castilian fleet had been blockaded in the port of Sanlucar-de la Valmeda was none other than Rosacea.

Armed with James's letter and two companions, Rosacea made his way upstream along the Guadaville River, where he was inspected by the Castilian army, but eventually delivered the letter to Alexander.

The rosacea was overjoyed by the good news, but in Alexander's view, it was not the blockade of the Castilian fleet that made him happy, but the control of the lower Guadaville River.

So he immediately decided to change his plan, and the original plan for the decisive battle with Gonzalo was postponed, and after a sleepless discussion with him, he announced to the Sicilian officers their new plan.

The Sicilian army began to move southwest along the south of the city of Seville.

The blockade of the Grand Knight's Castle still left the city of Seville invisibly split in half, and the Castilians had attacked the castle twice with great difficulty, but both were defeated.

In addition to the difficult terrain and more importantly, the experience of the early years in the war led to two major repairs when Serbia was the capital.

The pre-Castilian monarchs of the time used every means they could think of to fortify the castle.

Among them, the auxiliary forts built on both sides of the main fort played an important role in the subsequent wars.

In the later Reconquista, the Moors and Castilians, who had occupied the castles, made major repairs and reinforcements to the two auxiliary forts.

The two auxiliary forts and the main fort form a triangular interdependence, and the batteries set up on the three forts pose a great threat to the Guadaville River twice.

Gonzalo had conceived of sending men to attack from both the upper and lower levels to bypass the Grand Knight's Castle, but he soon discovered a strange phenomenon.

It was the Sicilian army that seemed to be cooperating with the Catalans in the castle of the Grand Knights, consciously or unconsciously.

They blocked the Castilian army on the river, and with the help of a horse-drawn artillery that seemed to be less powerful, but better than the transportable ones, the Sicilians sniped the Castilian army on the river as they tried to cross it.

The caliber of the guns, mounted on specially designed gun carriages, was not very large, but it was very dexterous, and in the reports of his men, Gonzalo soon discovered that the enemy's artillery appeared to be a kind of support fire specially assigned to the various units.

And judging by the fact that the enemy had been encountered for a long time and was immediately under shelling, Gonzalo was surprised to find that the Sicilian artillery should have been assigned even smaller combat units than he had suspected.

This meant that the enemy probably had more artillery than he had suspected, because only in this way could the Sicilian troops deployed along the river be supported by artillery fire so quickly.

And because the enemy was defending the riverbank, he only needed to hold a few important landing points to effectively hold off the Castilian army, which was much larger than them, which made Gonzalo worry that the ensuing battle might turn into a pure strangulation battle.

The number of troops that the Castilians were able to commit to the battle of crossing the river was about 4,800 people.

This was already the largest number of troops Gonzalo was able to organize.

The capture of Seville meant that all the important parts of the city had to be defended, including the Doge's Palace and the Cathedral, as well as the key buildings that could lead to an attack by the remnants of the Andalusian rebels.

Gonzalo, for example, found it difficult to understand why he should devote his precious forces to protect such a pointless house, but some of the local nobles who had surrendered and had been temporarily appointed by him to stay by his side to rule the city insisted that it must be protected with heavy troops.

In this way, Gonzalo's forces were divided considerably, and when he heard that the Sicilian army had almost completely left the south of the city alone, he realized the seriousness of the problem.

Therefore, he tried to gather all the troops he could muster, and at the same time tried to launch a river crossing battle against Henan.

But the result of the temptation disappointed him, and Gonzalo had come to realize that the strange tacit understanding between the Sicilian army and the Talonians at home might contain something that worried him.

Gonzalo knew that if it was as he had guessed, the forces of the two sides, which had been evenly matched, had changed dramatically.

The total strength of the Castilian counterinsurgency army was about 6,000 men, while the Sicilians were originally slightly inferior to them.

But if those Catalans had colluded with the Sicilian army, then it would well have been more likely than his army.

And now he can use less than 5,000 people.

The precarious situation in front of him gave Gonzalo the idea of going on the defensive for the first time.

Although he knew that such an attempt would be met with fierce opposition, and that neither within the army nor Ferdinand, who was far away in Vallidode, would accept his proposal, Gonzalo announced the decision after some consideration.

But before he could face the fierce opposition of his subordinates, a bad news suddenly came that he had to change his mind as well.

The nightmarish accident of the Castilian fleet being blocked in the port of Sanlucar de la Valmeda shook the entire royal army for a moment, and even those who did not have any affection for the navy knew exactly what the news meant.

Almost at the same time, the officers rushed to the Doge's Palace, and they demanded that Gonzalo immediately send troops across the river, and that the Sicilians on the other side of the river must be defeated, even at the risk of great losses.

Because as soon as the Sicilians were allowed to divide their forces and occupy Sanlucar-de la Valmeda to the south, there was a danger that the entire fleet of the Kingdom of Castile would be captured by the enemy.

For the Castilians, a strong naval fleet is their pride today, and it involves all kinds of grievances with Aragon, and they really can't imagine the situation of relying entirely on the Aragonese fleet in the future, so these army officers put aside their dislike of the navy for a while and are eager to save their fleet.

At this time, Gonzalo also knew that his plan to go on the defensive had died before it had even begun, and neither Ferdinnor nor anyone else would agree to his plan at this time, on the contrary, in order to silence the nobles of Barriariddous, Ferdinand would be the first to ask him to attack as soon as possible and destroy the Sicilians.

Calling the messenger again, Gonzalo listened carefully to his report, and when he heard that the fleet was completely blocked in his home port, Gonzalo waved his hand lightly so that the man would not say any more.

"Portuguese?"

"Yes, my lord, it's the Portuguese."

The messenger looked at Gonzalo with some strange eyes, he didn't know why the general was asking this question.

Could anyone else but the Portuguese do this?

Gonzalo stood up and paced slowly, feeling that things were more than just as the man had said.

The Portuguese fleet may have indeed blockaded the home port of the Castilian fleet, but the timing seemed to have been too coincidental.

Gonzalo could not but suspect that this might also be one of Alexander's plans, and the purpose of this plan, most likely, was not just for the Castilian fleet.

"He's going to force me out of the city to fight him."

Gonzalo suddenly thought of this possibility, and at the same time, his face couldn't help but show a slight consternation.

Gonzalo believed that until he realized it, he had a vague sense that Alexander had some kind of inexplicable fear of him.

Whether it was their past interactions or the arrangements made after they finally met on the battlefield, Gonzalo could vaguely sense that Alexander was much more wary of him than he was of others.

He was careful to maintain some kind of good or bad relationship with himself, and whenever he had the chance, he would try to convince himself to leave the Isabella couple.

Now that I think about it, even when the Queen was still alive, that Alexandre Juliant Cambrai was already trying to move himself as much as he could.

Even in Sicily, Alexander's soft and hard aim was to force him to stay away from Sicily and Iberia, and for this reason he even offered himself the opportunity to send troops to Crete.

And the purpose of all this is just to keep himself from getting in his way.

Even after the attack on Seville had begun, the Sicilian army maintained a strict guard, as evidenced by the fact that they preferred to abandon the plundering of the city for the time being rather than divide their forces.

This had made Gonzalo secretly proud, and even when he realized that the situation might not be in his favor, he turned to the defensive tactics in order to refocus his forces in exchange for time.

As soon as his forces are regrouped, he will immediately turn to the attack.

At that point he was convinced that even if the Catalans had defected to the Sicilian army, he was confident that he would defeat the enemy in one fell swoop.

But now things have taken an unexpected turn.

Alexander offered to challenge him.

Gonzalo thought of something, and he immediately ordered to send someone to reconnoiter the movements of the Sicilian army on the other side.

When it was getting dark, the scouts who had been sent out returned.

The officers, who had been waiting impatiently, immediately rushed to urge, and Gonzalo had wine and meatloaf brought to a few tired scouts.

Looking at the scouts who gobbled up their food, Gonzalo waited silently and patiently.

His composure also affected his officers, and everyone waited quietly.

"Your Excellency," the scout, who had finally hurriedly swallowed the last bite of meatloaf, brought the food down with his drink, and then immediately nervously reported, "The Sicilians are moving southwest. ”

"Oh?" Gonzalo walked over to the map, listening to the scout's report while guessing the movements of the Sicilian army on the rough map.

"Their army is heading towards the Great Wetland," said the scout hurriedly, "our men have followed them for a long time, but they don't seem to fear being discovered, and they swagger through the south of Saville. ”

"Looks like they want you to know what they're doing," Gonzalo looked at the scouts, then at his officers, "what do you think, those two have challenged us, and the Duke of Rome may even have staked his crown on this battle." ”

Gonzalo's words caused a lot of laughter from the officers.

However, he also noticed that some people did not laugh along.

All along, Gonzalo has always maintained a posture of indifference to the sudden competition for the throne of Castile.

But that doesn't mean everyone in his army doesn't care about it.

He was well aware that some of his officers were close to Barriaridud, and he did not want to inquire about the noble groups to which they belonged.

He was now interested in how Alexander had suddenly had the idea of a head-on battle with him.

Is it already considered to have an advantage in terms of troops, or is there some detailed plan.

Gonzalo did not despise Alexander for his previous efforts to avoid the war, but he responded to this cautious attitude with more caution.

Speaking of which, just a few years ago, when he first landed in Italy, Gonzalo had also suffered a crushing defeat to the French because of his light enemy.

During that time he had to be equally careful to avoid the French, until he finally seized an opportunity in Naples and beat Charles VIII hard.

So for Alexander, Gonzalo was always very careful, as long as one day he did not show signs of complete loss of confidence due to failure and timidity, Gonzalo would not take him lightly.

Now Alexander suddenly showed the posture of a decisive battle, which made Gonzalo immediately vigilant.

For from what he knew about Alexander's past experiences, although he sometimes seemed to be reckless, and even more often than luck had led to his victory, Gonzalo did not believe that it could only be explained by luck.

In Bucharest, in Rome and Lombardy, every time he seemed to be cornered by the enemy, he was also cornered by the enemy.

Thinking about it this way, Gonzalo suddenly thought that perhaps the blockade of the Castilian fleet was also part of Alexander's plan.

"He's forcing me to fight him in Andalusia," Gonzalo suddenly raised his head to look at the officers, seeing that his subordinates didn't seem to fully understand, Gonzalo smiled and shook his head, "Okay, go get ready, we're leaving Seville." ”

"Leaving Seville?"

The officers looked surprised, some of them were pure surprise, some were a little angry, and some listened to Gonzalo's words at once, as if they were afraid of missing a little.

"The Sicilian army is waiting for us, and at this time, do you really think that the Catalan Therm is working for Don Bavi?"

Gonzalo's words silenced the officers.

In fact, by this time everyone knew that the Catalans were acting too strangely.

They sent someone to tell the Catalans the news of Don Bavi's death, but in exchange for the emissary who was kicked back in the ass and ridiculed.

No matter how dedicated they are, their employers have gone to heaven, their follow-up commissions are gone, and the Catalans are still clinging to the castle of the Grand Knights, and even worse, which is not normal to look at.

"Catalans and Sicilians colluded?"

Someone asked tentatively.

"Or maybe they hooked up from the start."

Gonzalo remembered that in the recent Italian War, there seemed to be a large number of Catalan mercenaries in the service of Pisa, and the Duchess of Pisa, Estles, was Alexander's daughter.

It's just that the Catalans, like the Swiss, have never been specifically in the service of a certain monarch, they fight for this one day and be contributed by that tomorrow, never asking who the employer is, only how much money is paid.

Because of this, Gonzalo did not notice anything unusual in the actions of the Catalan mercenaries at first, and even they also blocked the Andalusian rebels, but he was only considered by him to fear that the royal army might take the opportunity to cross the river.

However, as the signs of the next few days followed, Gonzalo began to suspect the Catalans' intentions.

By now, the truth seems to have been revealed.

As if to prove Gonzalo's suspicions, a soldier suddenly broke into the room while the officers were still doubting his conjecture.

"My lord, the Great Knight's Castle!" The soldier gasped and shouted, "The flag has been changed on the castle!" ”

"What's going on." Although he had vaguely guessed, Gonzalo asked urgently.

"It's the banner of the king of Castile," the soldier replied with a strange expression, "but it's not the king's banner, because it's not the same as the king's banner." ”

Listening to the soldier's incoherent answer, Gonzalo was at first slightly puzzled, and then he came to his senses and thought of something.

Several officers had already heard the report and hurried out without waiting for Gonzalo's order.

They mounted their horses and galloped in the direction of the Great Knight's Castle.

Obviously, if it was as the soldier said, it was probably more than just a castle suddenly changing flags.

Sure enough, when they crossed the city of Seville and arrived at the river, the officers saw a scene that made them jaw-dropping.

Although it was completely dark, it seemed that the people in the castle had deliberately let the other side see that the flag that had been erected high above the castle was surrounded by torches, which made the flag jump in sight even across the river.

It's just that after all, the distance is too far, and the flag on the red background can't stop fluttering in the night wind, but it is not very clear that the pattern on it can be seen.

"What's going on over there?"

An officer impatiently grabbed a soldier who was huddled on the shore and watched the excitement and asked.

"We don't know about your lordship, but they and their people started shouting, and we thought they were going to attack, and then we realized that they seemed to be greeting someone, and then the flag was changed in the city."

"Can any of you see what that flag looks like?"

"It's a royal flag, but it's not like a ......"

"I saw a crown on it, but it didn't seem to be one of the banners, but two castles......"

Listening to the soldiers' babbling answers, the officers had to squint their eyes and take a closer look at the flag on the other side of the river, which did look somewhat similar to the flag of the King of Castile, but which seemed very different.

"It's Cambrai."

I don't know when, Gonzalo also led his men to the river, and he looked at the knight's castle on the other bank and sighed softly.

"Gombray is on the other side, he's waiting for us."

Listening to Gonzalo's words, the Castilian officers fell silent for a while.

While Gonzalo was observing the movement on the opposite bank across the river, on the walls of the castle of the Grand Knights, Alexander was raising his right hand, raising his thumb and ten-fingered arms upward, making a shooting motion towards the opposite bank.

"Gonzalo."