Preparations for the upcoming offensive against the Ottomans were in full swing.

The Bucharest people were armed, and the hatred and anger against the Ottomans for a long time became more and more difficult to suppress with the precipitation of time, and the anger of resistance brewed in the breasts of every man, burned in the breasts of every woman, and rolled in the bodies of every old man and child, whether in the city or in the countryside, if you ask the locals what they hate the most, it must be the Ottoman invaders, this is the seed of hatred that has been brewed between the two sides since decades ago, after this long time, At last it is about to bear terrible fruits.

Alexander could feel the horror of this hatred, and everyone around him was talking about the war, about the upcoming attack, which made him feel that there was no secret about it, and it was clear that from the very beginning the king was ready to involve everyone in this war of revenge, so that the attack on the Ottomans spread quickly throughout the city.

Alexander knew that he could detect that this was a trick of Ladislas II, and that Tzepes should also be able to perceive it, which would probably give the Grand Duke of Wallachia a bit of a headache.

Ladislas II's extreme approach was not favored by Cepes, or rather, the various considerations were in very different directions for the two men.

As the Grand Duke of Wallachia, Chipes certainly did not want his principality to be bogged down in the vortex of all-out war, and Alexander was even sure that although everyone was interested in Rois?? The act of surrender was abhorred, but if given the opportunity, those themselves would not have chosen that path, or at least found an opportunity to negotiate with the Ottomans to avoid becoming victims of a war.

And for Ladislas II, everything that happened in the Balkans actually had nothing to do with him, his purpose was just to contain the Sultan so that he had no time to invade Hungary, so the more lively the Balkans, the happier the king would be.

It's just that Alexander didn't expect the king to push him out as a gunman.

The front-line commander of the Balkan coalition army, this sounds very powerful, but Alexander knows that what he can command is probably his own Montina army, although it is called the coalition army, but those unruly Balkan nobles are full of factions, the biggest of which are the two groups led by the king and Cepes, and the local nobles of Bucharest led by the Patriarch of Bucharest should not be underestimated, as for the smaller ones, the small groups of small rural nobles divided by territory and kinship, These various factions of the nobility formed the coalition of what is now Bucharest, and they were nominally under Alexander's command on the battlefield.

It is clear that this coalition is more of a hodgepodge than an army, and there is no specific and precise figure on the total number of such an army.

This is because some people deliberately overreported their troops in order to bluff, while others were careful to underreport the numbers, and some simply counted the petty traders and jugglers who came with their troops, which made the composition of the coalition army look extremely complicated and bloated.

Seeing these bad debts in front of him, Alexander couldn't help but be a little envious of the Ottomans, although the Ottomans may not be united, but at least they are much more efficient than their own side.

He could imagine that Bayezid II, as the commander-in-chief of the whole army, would immediately and thoroughly carry out an order, and it was this near-arm-to-arm efficiency that made the Ottoman army a nightmare for Europeans for a long time.

But what kind of army is this that you are commanding now, or is this an army?

Alexander was eager to show the nobles what his Montina army was like, but he knew that even if they did, they would only be indifferent, for it was not just a matter of habit, but a matter of power.

Those nobles could not willingly surrender the command of their armies, even if only temporarily.

Ladislas II had this in mind, of course, so he generously handed over the command of the battlefield to Alexander, knowing that no one, including himself, could really hold this power.

Alexander looked at Gompati, who was sitting opposite him and looked bored because he had nothing to do, and smiled: "Why, are the girls of Bucharest boring you so quickly?" ”

"It's not the girls, in fact, they are very good, and they are very enthusiastic and energetic," said Gompati who deliberately lowered his voice and blinked his eyes a little ambiguously, but then he waved his hand in boredom, "But it's not interesting to have more of this kind of thing, I used to date six or seven girls in one day, and although they were all cute, you know that I didn't come to Bucharest just for girls." ”

"Then what do you need, you have already obtained fame, beauty, and wealth will not be far away from you, you must know that these locals are still very rich, and they will repay us for coming from afar to help them, so what do you lack?"

"Cannon, my lord is a cannon!" Gompati almost shouted to Alexander as he reminded Alexander, "You promised me that I would get enough cannons here, and although we had made a lot of ore by looting the copper mines, we had been here for some days until the stones were cast into cannons, but I had not seen a single cannon except the girl." ”

Looking at Gompati who couldn't stop complaining, Alexander nodded, he remembered that he had promised to get enough artillery for Gompati before he came, but it was only after entering Bucharest that he found that there were surprisingly few artillery in the city, which made him wonder how the Bucharest people had defeated Muhammad in the first place.

And Gompati did remind him that, looking at the chaos in front of him, Alexander felt that it was better to prepare for the worst.

"You're right about Gompati, we need artillery."

Gompati's sudden seriousness made Gompati a little strange, but he was glad that the adults had listened to him, and he immediately sat up straight at Alexander.

"You go and find the artillery, whether it's in my own name or in the name of the coalition forces, if you need to buy it with money or exchange it for something that can be exchanged, but you must collect enough artillery as soon as possible," Alexander walked to the window and looked out at the noisy streets, "We all know that this attack is dangerous, and if we don't prepare in advance, it may be difficult to do the following." ”

"My lord, it would be foolish to take the initiative to attack the Ottomans at this time," Gompati walked to the window and stood side by side with Alexander and looked out, "Look at them, it doesn't look like an army at all, we can't win with these people." ”

"In fact, no one expected them to win," said Alexander faintly, "it is not necessarily a good thing that we have entered Bucharest, the city is like a cage that has trapped us inside, and we have become ill-informed, and I am sure that the king is having some idea, but because we do not know what is going on outside, there is no way to deal with what is next." ”

"Perhaps we ought not have come here," Gompati whispered, and then he saw the meaningful look of Alexander looking at him, and Gompati hastened to say, "but we will find a way to solve these problems, and perhaps things will be better in the future." ”

Alexander smiled silently, knowing that Gompati was not complaining but reminding him that it seemed that the excessive attention paid to Sophia during this time had caused some in his own army to be uneasy.

Gompati said to belong to the Lucrezia faction, as the leader of the officers who were born in Pisa, almost all the Pisa officers automatically put themselves in the camp of loyalty to Lucrezia and Estelles, just as the Bari'an merchant Tiego did not hesitate to work for the Josa, and the Agri also regarded the Josa as their mistress, and now Uliu, who also governed Montina's territory by Barentia's side, for various reasons Alexander's men are gradually dividing into different factions, and the criteria for distinguishing these factions, is to see which woman of Alexander she is following.

Sophia seems a bit lonely in comparison, but this is not true, the Bohemian cavalry in Montina's army is her natural supporter, and the Balkans see her as their spiritual symbol.

Thinking of this, Alexander somewhat understood the Bucharests, after all, there were so many different factions within his own power, and how could a coalition of large and small nobles expect them to be truly united.

Thinking about how even the Ottomans might not be really monolithic, and thinking about Ashulk's use of his power to secretly influence the Sultan's decision-making to his own benefit, Alexander felt that he had overestimated the Ottomans before.

However, this is inevitable, whether it is in the eyes of the present person or in the eyes of him who can see the future, the current Ottoman Empire is an invincible behemoth, and in the face of such an enemy, it is inevitable that people will have a sense of powerlessness, but perhaps because of this, it faintly arouses Alexander's competitive spirit.

"Go find the artillery, the city needs to have enough artillery to hold it," Alexander commanded.

"But we've seen the walls, and there's no more artillery on them than that pitiful one." Gompati was a little annoyed, "I don't know what these people think, you must know that there are so many copper mines here that they can be used to forge a castle." ”

"Yes, I've read a book before," said Alexander, who of course could not tell Gompati where he had seen them, but he vaguely remembered that they must have been written at this time, and he thought for a moment and said to Gompati, "Go to the monastery, you may find something there." ”

"Why go to the monastery?" Gompati asked in amazement, he thought that Alexander was probably a little confused by Sophia, although every time Alexander went to see Sophia alone, everyone could see that the count was often not in a very good mood when he came back, "Could it be that the locals hide the cannon in the monastery?" ”

"It's not a cannon, it's a clue," Alexander's finger tapped lightly on the table, "look in the monastery, look in those books, I mean the monastery writings of recent years, and maybe you'll find something." ”

Alexander pointed to Gompati with some helplessness, he remembered that he had seen in some documents about the defense of Bucharest, and some of the paintings made a deep impression on him.

In the brightly coloured, exaggerated religious works, the city of Bucharest is lined with artillery, and the muzzles of relentless flames rain down barrage on the Ottoman army outside the city.

"There used to be a lot of artillery in the Battle of Bucharest," Alexander affirmed, "but of course there may not be as many as you think, but it should not disappoint you, and you only have to ask the people who participated in that battle in the first place, and as for where the artillery went, I think you can ask the Patriarch, after all, he himself participated in that battle." ”

Gompa looked at Alexander in amazement, looking like he didn't know what to do.

"My lord, if I go to the Patriarch of Bucharest like this, I will probably be whipped next, do you know how much he hates the Catholics, I heard that he even refuses to ......" Gompati pointed to the castle outside the window and lowered his voice, "The King of Hungary attends the Saturday banquet with him, because it is contrary to his teachings." ”

"It seems that you have not wasted all your energy on the girls during this time," Alexander smiled slightly, of course he knew how ridiculous it was to ask Gompati to go to the Patriarch, and the books he remembered about the battle should be in the famous church of Bukul, "I suggest you hurry up, knowing that we may soon have those cannons," said Alexander, whose face sank slightly, "and maybe we will rely on those things to keep us alive." ”

Gompati nodded silently, knowing that Alexander was referring to the fact that if this attack on the Ottomans did not go well, then the rest of the day might be difficult.

"As for me, I will go to the Patriarch in your place," said Alexander, taking the cloak that was on the back of his chair and putting it on, "I hope you will bring me some good news when you return, for we have enough bad news now." ”

Alexander walked out of his residence, a typical Eastern Roman building on the banks of the Den Bovica River in Bucharest, with a boxy penthouse that made the house look a little dull, but Alexander liked the residence with a direct view of the castle from the window.

Alexander's visit was very unexpected to the Patriarch of Bucharest, who was not only polite enough to the foreign nobleman from Rome, but more often chose to be distant.

It can be said that if possible, the Patriarch would prefer to save Bucharest is an Orthodox hero, but both Ladislas II and the Count of Montina are not only Catholics, but according to legend, this count also has a deep relationship with Pope Alexander VI, which makes it really difficult for the Patriarch to face this count calmly.

However, the sudden arrival of Alexander forced the Patriarch to temporarily stop teaching his students, and came to the side court to meet Alexander with doubts.

And Alexander's first words surprised the Patriarch: "My lord, I would like to ask you one thing, how to prove the legitimacy of a marriage that has not been blessed by the church. ”

.。 m.