As Henry fled from the battlefield, he tripped over a broken arrow stuck in the ground, and he stared at the corpse in front of him that was clinging to the long grass, and slumped to his feet.

He was quite tall and Rudolph's soldiers would sooner or later recognize him, and now the enemy was probably still stripping his armor on the banks of the river, or counting on the recognition of the high nobles among the captives. Henry didn't even dare to imagine the fate of the poor creatures who were trampled like wildflowers in front of the Saxon phalanx and knights—they were still in the direction of the silt and bushes, but sooner or later they would spread out into a huge fan and sweep towards the steep slope beneath his feet.

A great tragedy, at the cost of the entire empire? Henry could not imagine the shock of his defeat here, his enemies were not weak, for example, Matilda's territory occupied a fifth of the Apennines, but these enemies had been divided into pieces by the Emperor's army, and now everything was ruined.

Henry did not dare to stop, he had tried to find a mount, but all he could see was the corpse of the horse that had been scorched hot by the sun - his knights were scattered when Rudolph launched his third charge, and Henry's own mount, which had once looked down on the subservient Saxon nobles from the palace in Goslar, had not survived the chaos and had not even received any attention, and to those who had raided the battlefield it was nothing more than a gigantic bareback horse corpse.

"Who is it?" Henry felt himself hallucinating, he saw the men and horses in front of him gathering under the scorching sun, could it be that the enemy had surrounded him?

"Your Majesty! It's Your Majesty! An excited shout broke the peace of the dead, but it was nothing short of heaven for Henry.

"Your Majesty, the Duke of Bavaria is ahead," the good news kept coming to the Emperor's ears, "our army has withdrawn to the Grune Valley - God knows why the rebels did not launch a pursuit. ”

Is it? Rudolph's army actually let go of this opportunity? He lowered his head, contemplating all possibilities, but saw the purple clover on the ground swaying slightly, and the horse led by the Franconian knight was impatiently trampling the ground.

"Let's go at once." The emperor regained his majesty, and since Rudolph dared to spare himself, then he should not live up to the good intentions of the enemy, Henry looked at the knight's red leather dress and black iron hoop breastplate, and secretly made the most vicious oath.

Three days later, in the Saxon barracks, the jubilant soldiers were still boasting of their rich catches, and their duke was preoccupied as he walked out of a golden-domed tent, and the view of the Thuringian Forest and the Weiselster River did not interest him in the slightest, and Duke Magnus saw nothing but blood, from which the terrible wound on King Rudolph's thigh kept coming to mind.

Sooner or later, the Duke of Saxony thought bitterly, and then saw the former Duke of Bavaria, Otto von Nordheim, appear beside him.

"What's next?" Otto's mood was just as nervous.

"Although Henry's army is scattered, we cannot defeat the Bohemians and the Duke of Meissen, and the princes of the south are all blocked by your nephew's army, and it is impossible for them to join us." The Duke of Saxony refers to Frederick of the House of Belém, the new Duke of Swabia who is fighting Madame Veil over the Black Forest.

"Then withdraw it, and we will return to Saxony at once." Otto was not an indecisive man, having inflicted heavy losses on Henry three times on the battlefield, but unfortunately the northern Saxon aristocrat was now finally disappointed with the situation in the south.

"How can we ensure that the enemy does not pursue?" Magnus, Duke of Saxony, suddenly asked.

Otto's voice was almost inaudible, like the rustling of a viper: "Let's hand over Rudolph's body to Henry......"

In the summer of that year, Emperor Henry announced that he had killed the rebellious Rudolf von Reinfelden in Hohenmuirsser, and legend has it that Henry's knight had slashed Rudolf's "oath-breaking hand" on the battlefield with a sword, a evidence that the Emperor had kept in a wooden box.

The Saxons, who had retreated back to the north, were temporarily silenced, which gave Henry finally the opportunity to set his sights on Italy, the source of all evil.

The news that the emperor of the Teutonic people was about to descend on Lombardy spread rapidly, and people seemed to see the silver-gray shadow of the northern sky, the raindrops falling from the dense clouds falling on the mountain tops, dissipating like morning dew, the black knights appearing in this bordered mist, the memories of the ancient barbarians were constantly awakening, and the bearded warriors, showing the fangs of demons, brought countless blood and tears to the famous city of the Latin - did the emperor's revenge mean the destruction of Rome? And as we all know, the destruction of Rome will mean the end of the world.

In the far reaches of the North Sea, the bumpy decks and dark cabins bring the darkest dreams to all sailors, and the waves in the distance sometimes resemble towering walls of water on which armies of armored immortals stand. On the side of the mast, King Edgar stood proudly between the wind and waves like an ancient Viking chieftain.

There were a large number of new sailing ships in the rear of his fleet, although they were not combat ships, and the design of the triangular stern sails and the bow and stern towers revealed an unusual taste, which were the North Sea merchant ships of the English, abandoning the broadside oars and using sail power exclusively, and the complicated rigging was not low in manpower, for which Edgar had to admit the free status of many slaves who illegally participated in whaling, in order to ensure the huge demand for shipping in England. According to Tudor archives, during the time of Queen Elizabeth, there were 16,259 registered sailors in England, and Edgar's kingdom naturally did not have such abundant manpower, but fortunately he did not need to fight against an invincible armada.

The king once said to the Earl of Mercia that England had the best natural harbor in the world, that the fate of this kingdom lay on the sea, that England would have an oak heart in the future, and that this expedition was a starting point for Edgar.

From the beginning of his intervention in the succession turmoil in Lorraine, Edgar set his sights on the East, and Verdun provided this excuse, he sided with Emperor Henry on the grounds of supporting the Boulogne, and then made a position to Rome at the right time, doing what William the Conqueror did not dare to do in history - actively involved in the political vortex of the Empire and the Holy See.

In the original history, William and Philip, the monarchs of Western Europe, may have seen chaos, the fall of the King of Poland and the Duke of Swabia, but Edgar knew very well what the outcome of all this crisis would lead to, and he had no intention of changing the storm that swept east of the Adriatic, he only needed to plan for England in advance.

The power of the feudal aristocracy may have been strong for a while, but Edgar naturally knew that times were changing, and that all over Europe, the ancient order was aging, and cities were about to rise, and those merchants who could only run errands to earn hard-earned money now would no longer go out to do business in person after two hundred years, and they would become international trade merchants who relied on the bookkeeping of the business established in various places, and from among them there would rise new families to participate in politics.

At present, the English need to set up overseas trading stations in the North Sea and the Baltic Sea in advance, and even control the ports, otherwise they can only become transit merchants, and have to accept the "compulsory unloading right" of the local chamber of commerce, and have no right to transport goods across the border on their own, and if there is no profit from overseas trade, the eyes of the English will not be turned to the sea.

Of course, it was not the merchants who followed the King of England across the sea, but a heavily armed army, and the expedition was seen as a support for the "cousins" across the sea and against the evil Germanic emperors.