Europe in the last month of 1499 was not much different from the rest of the world.

Cold, damp or bitter winds blow from the inaccessible Siberia to the east coast of the Atlantic, or from the icy Scandinavian peninsula to the warm shores of the Mediterranean.

Although it is the end of the century, in the eyes of the vast majority of people in this world, the year 1499 is no different from anything before, and people believe that the days will continue like this, and they also believe that the next 100 years, 200 years, and even longer will continue to pass like the long thousands of years in the past.

But Alexander knew otherwise.

There will be countless examples of what the sixteenth century was like, but all of them show only one thing: the sixteenth century was a time of change, an era that put an end to a thousand years of darkness that had been achieved before it.

Who will emerge in this era?

There will be Martin Luther, who divided and disintegrated the entire Western church world, or Copernicus, who completely subverted mankind's understanding of heaven and earth for thousands of years, and Galileo who set his eyes on the distant starry sky, and put tragicomedy scenes on the stage with the spirit of humanism, so that countless audiences created art obsessed with reversing Shakespeare.

These people either raise questions about the religious rule that has been entrenched for thousands of years, or openly challenge the ancient teachings that have been taken for granted, or criticize in utterly chilling terms those authorities that have long been recognized by history and will never dare to evaluate.

The sixteenth century was destined to be a time that would radically change too much of the past and create too many futures, and it was this era that would slowly awaken mankind from its long years of ignorance and cast a fearful and curious gaze towards the future that was glimmering at the dawn of the future.

At the same time, the sixteenth century was also a time of real law of the jungle, the New World, the New World, and behind these wonderful words were savage occupation and bloody massacres, accompanied by the immeasurable wealth plundered from the New World, the terrible and cruel darkness of the merciless slaughter of the Indians in that land.

Alexander was familiar with all of this, he knew a lot of what was going to happen in this era, and at his age, he believed that if he didn't die halfway through, and if he lived long enough, he might be able to witness too many of those moments that were destined to shine in history, and maybe even meet some of them.

At the beginning of December, the Austrians and the French fought a major battle north of Alexandria between 33,000 French troops under the command of the French Count of Lanserge and about 32,000 troops of the Austrian Turin Front, headed by the Austrian court minister Kotzchach.

This is a classic battle that can be said to be a very typical concentration of forces to form a local advantage, although even if the forces are concentrated, the two sides have not formed any real advantage, but in the case of the French originally faced a situation from three sides, the total strength of the enemy was once as high as 55,000 men, Louis XII was actually a perfect military commander.

After quickly defeating Montina's army with an overwhelming force advantage, Louis XII quickly mobilized his army to regroup while putting pressure on Genoa, and then, taking advantage of the fact that Emperor Maximian had not fully recovered from the frustration of missing his battle, he launched an attack with more than 30,000 French troops against the Kotschach army, which had not yet had time to join the emperor.

Louis XII chose Cotschach, who was almost equal to his forces, rather than Maximian, who was obviously weak and numbered about 18,000 men, because of concerns about Montina's army.

The defeated Montina army chose to retreat east rather than into Genoa, which made the French king secretly relieved, otherwise it would obviously affect his subsequent capture of Genoa, a choice that Louis XII thought might have something to do with the intrigue between the Roman men.

Montina's army, which had retreated to the east, had not withdrawn from Lombardy, and the distance between them and Maximian was not very far, which made Louis XII worried that if he fought with the emperor, he would likely attract a two-sided attack from the Montinas.

Louis XII was very impressed by the performance of Montina's army, whether it was the skillful use of firearms or the casualties inflicted on his army, which made the French king clearly aware that this was a difficult opponent to deal with, and the most impressive thing for the king was that even if they were defeated, they were still able to maintain a surprising organization that did not completely collapse, which made Louis XII not doubt that the Montina people were likely to regroup in a very short time, if at the time of his war with Maximian, With the sudden appearance of such an army on his flank, Louis XII found it difficult for him to guess what the outcome would be.

Therefore, although the Austrian army of the Turin side was strong, the French king still chose this relatively "weaker" opponent.

The battle was not long, or what should have been a long battle for both sides, but it was interrupted by an accident that no one expected.

On December 6, just three days after the battle began, that is, when the French army was unhurriedly marching towards Alexandria, but immediately received the initiative of the French army to attack the Turin legion, and then Maximian, who was in a hurry to order the speed of the march, reacted, a French army that came out of nowhere suddenly landed at Cape Fino near Genoa, and then this French army quickly approached Genoa as if it had fallen from the sky.

The Genoese were completely panicked by this unexpected surprise, and despite the resolute opposition of the Doria family, the Genoese Parliament, under the control of the Governor Vicolai Calgino, passed the decision to surrender to the French.

In the early morning of December 7, the governor of Genoa, Vicolet Calgino, led the representatives of the Genoese parliament out of the city to ask the French to surrender.

For the third time, Charlon became the occupier of a famous Italian city.

Faced with such a result, the Holy Roman Emperor Maximian had to admit that his military campaign in northern Italy had in fact been a complete failure.

Genoa was occupied by a French army of 7,000 people, which was originally at a disadvantage compared to the emperor, but with the rapid cessation of Louis XII's exit from Alexandria after hearing the news, and then the second occupation of the town of Tarot Valley, the total strength of the French army reached nearly 40,000 people, although this was still at a disadvantage in strength compared with the 50,000 army of the Austrian army, but the surrender of Genoa was really a severe blow to Maximian's spirit.

At the same time, Maximian knew very well that with the fall of Genoa, the French no longer needed to send reinforcements to Italy by overland, but only needed to load the troops on ships from those ports in France, and then it only took two or three days to send a large number of troops to Italian soil.

On the contrary, the Austrian army had been fighting for more than half a year from Swabian in Switzerland to Italy, and the ideology and war-weariness were spreading throughout the army, and even some nobles had begun to show their disgust with war.

Even the Emperor himself began to be a little impatient with this war that did not know when it would end, although he captured Milan, but lost Genoa, and the increasingly cold weather made it more and more difficult for the army to move, you must know that the original plan from Milan to Alexandria, the Austrians actually walked half of it in a week.

But these were not the things that worried the emperor the most, what really worried Maximian was that the big benefactor who had been negotiated through Cardinal Rovelle the Elder seemed to have lost interest in him.

Maximian was well aware of what was going on, and his slackness at the Battle of Tarot Valley had clearly angered Alexander, so even though Montina's army had withdrawn from the battlefield and had not joined him, but had adopted a strange attitude that seemed to remain neutral, Maximian would not have found it strange.

But cutting off his funds made the emperor feel a little uncomfortable.

Maximian had been a little hesitant after the collapse of the Fugger family, he was very worried that he might gradually lose his influence in Italy because he had no money to support the army, and he felt that he could not sleep at the thought of the possibility of the French annexing those city-states, so when the old Rovere told him that the Count of Montina was willing to provide him with enough money to fight a war with the French king, although he knew that it could not be a free lunch, Maximian immediately accepted it.

With this money, he was able to reorganize reinforcements of 10,000 men from Austria and Switzerland, so that he had the confidence to start a film with the French.

However, during the battle of Tarot Valley, Montina's actions completely angered Montina, and according to the letter written by the envoy sent to Montina, when she heard of the defeat in Tarot Valley, the future Countess of Montina was so angry that she shouted at the Austrian envoy, and her gaffe "did not look at all like a noble noble lady".

Montina's army was then ordered to withdraw to La Spezia, near Romagna, a seaport, where, according to the Austrian envoy's report to the Emperor, "the Countess thought that if necessary, Montina's army should return to Pisa by ship, without any accountability or moral condemnation, for 'we have suffered a betrayal.'" ”

The Montinas were unreliable, and to make matters worse, their money seemed to be unreliable, which put the Emperor in a dilemma, he was unwilling to give up Italy to the French, but he did not have the confidence to single out his opponent, which made the Emperor regret his previous crampedness, but all this was obviously useless.

The situation, it seems, has been completely controlled by the French.

The sound of crackling raindrops hitting the glass woke Alexander from his sleep, and he moved, and then felt half of his body go numb and sore.

Alexander cautiously turned his head to look at it, and saw that he was nestled in his arms, with her head pressed against his chest, and slowly lay back on the sofa.

They were covered with blankets, which Alexander guessed must have been draped over them by the maids of the Cinza.

For the queen and the earl, the "brother and sister" who have a "deep relationship", in addition to Schelle, the people around Jisha have gradually discovered the absolutely inhumane relationship between them.

In fact, this is a secret that cannot be kept at all, especially the personal maids and female officials around Ji Sha, which are even more difficult to hide.

A casual look, an involuntary intimate action, when all this gradually becomes natural, the strange relationship between the brother and sister is no secret to the people around them.

At first, the maid was indeed frightened by what she saw, and she was worried that the Count would kill her, because it was too terrible, but after swearing to her that she would keep a secret and be loyal to her mistress, she finally chose to believe her.

"We can't keep this secret forever, and don't you think one day maybe we'll need someone to help us solve more problems?"

Josa asked Alexander this at the time, and she didn't say what kind of trouble it was, but Alexander could guess it.

Sensing the movement of his sister next to him, Alexander leaned slightly to make himself lie more comfortable.

"It's raining?" Jisha slowly opened her eyes, and the ignorance she had just woken up made her look a little silly, completely different from her usual intelligent and lively appearance.

Alexander smiled, he was the only man who could see Josha like this, and just thinking about it made him feel that many things were not so important.

She lifted the blanket and sat up from the sofa, then rubbed her forehead and swayed to the table, picked up the cup and poured herself a glass of water and drank it, then she sat down weakly and let out a painful moan: "Oh, my head hurts. ”

Alexander looked at the hangover with amusement, then at the empty bottle thrown on the table and shook his head, "I told you that this rum has a lot of stamina, and you are asking for it." ”

Jossa leaned back, the back of her head leaning back against the top of her chair, and she turned her head to look at Alexander's words.

"I remember you said that Lucrezia was always crazy after drinking too much." Seeing that Alexander seemed a little dumbfounded, Jisha couldn't help but smile, and then she asked with a smirk, "Do you know why I think Barondi is more suitable to be your wife?" ”

"Because she's like you?" Alexander wondered, he had actually been wondering about it, speaking of which Josa didn't seem to have a good impression of Lucrezia, let alone Sophia, of course, Sophia couldn't get along with anyone, but in comparison, Josa did not object to his marriage to Barendi from the beginning.

This made Alexander think about it for a long time, and it could only be attributed to the fact that the two of them had a lot of similarities.

"It's because she doesn't care what kind of woman you have," Jossa turned and lay lazily on the back of her chair, resting her chin with the back of her hand and looking at Alexander without blinking, "unless that woman endangers her position or is detrimental to the Gombray family, she will never dwell on such a trivial matter, she is a wise and sensible woman." ”

Alexander wanted to say something, but in the end he remained silent, he knew that what Josha said was actually right, Barendi was a calm and rational person, she always looked at the interests of the family, once the Lovelle family, now the Gombray family, she regarded this as her responsibility, thinking that God had given her wisdom even more than many men in order to allow her to take on this responsibility that even many men could not bear.

Josha stood up, pulled a blanket over her, and slowly walked to the balcony.

This room has a large balcony, with a dozen little angels as balustrades and marble bollars that completely protrude the whole balcony outside the wall facing the bay of Santa Lucia, and below it is a huge garden with large flowers and trees, although it is winter, the warm and humid climate of the Mediterranean makes this garden lush and green even in December.

This is the living room of the Naples Palace, which the French retreated to immediately accept the Naples pain of the palace to find that it had been sacked, and this is the second time in recent years that the palace has suffered such a catastrophe, the last time five years before Charles VIII's army.

Although the palace was not suitable for occupancy, the nobles were eager to ask for the immediate entry of the royal family, as it heralded the return of the legitimate royal family of Naples.

Returning to the palace, Josa refused to return to the room where she had been married, and instead of moving into the room where Frederick had previously lived, as some had suggested, she chose this suite, which was not very conspicuous in the palace, as her living room.

The reason for choosing this suite is that it is clean and sunny, and for those who are close to her cronies, such as Sher or Josha's personal maid, the reason why the queen chose it is simply because of its proximity to the Earl's rooms in the palace.

It was raining outside, and the wet and cold rain fell on the marble handrails of the balcony and splashed in all directions, so she felt a little cold and wrapped the blanket around her body again.

"It is said to be snowing in Genoa," Alexander said, looking at the dark and dreary sky, "which is rare, isn't it?" ”

Josha was a little stunned, she didn't quite understand what Alexander meant, which made her a little strange that the rum she had drunk last night was so harmful that her head was still a little unconscious.

"Don't you notice that the winters have been exceptionally cold in recent years," Alexander asked, "which is not a good thing for many people." ”

She was stunned a little again, her beautiful blue eyes flashing with confusion, and then her eyes suddenly lit up.

"I remember that your agreement with Louis was that he must end the war in Lombardy by 1500?" Ji Sha asked vaguely excitedly.

"Yes, it's clear that this agreement is a deadline for everyone." Alexander said as he stood side by side on the balcony with Josha, letting the icy rain splash from the railing in front of him fall on him, "All along, when the winter is severe, the warring sides will enter Dongying for the winter, and then a temporary truce will be declared, this tradition has been on the battlefield for a long time, maybe hundreds of years, but from now on this tradition will have to change." ”

Alexander turned to Zha as he spoke, "Didn't you ask me why you prefer Barondy to be my wife, and now I want to ask you why I have to let Louis defeat the Emperor?" ”

Seeing that Jisha shook his head slightly in confusion, Alexander smiled lightly: "I must find something to do for that emperor, because I heard that his son is going to Castile." ”