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The reason why Damascus was captured by the Crusaders was mainly because Li Tong sent his pro-army to quell the rebellion, with only more than 1,000 pro-troops and more than 2,000 reservists around him, while the Crusader army led by King Conrad II of Germany and King Louis VII of France exceeded 20,000.

In addition, Li Tong was attacked by the Crusaders without any preparation.

In this way, how could Li Tong be able to defeat him?

For Liu Qi, this point of the crusaders is completely insufficient, he led 100,000 elites this time, it can be said that he can completely crush the more than 20,000 crusaders led by King Conrad II of Germany and King Louis VII of France.

Therefore, there was no suspense in this battle, more than 20,000 crusaders were almost completely annihilated by the Chinese army, and King Conrad II of Germany and King Louis VII of France, two rabbit guys, fled to Jerusalem with only a small part of the crusaders.

Lieutenant General Orihiko led 3,000 light horsemen all the way to Jerusalem by King Conrad II of Germany and King Louis VII of France.

For Jerusalem here, Li Yan has a clear instruction: you can't destroy, you can't storm - as a person of later generations, Li Yan knows too well that Jerusalem here is completely a dynamite bag, and if you don't get it right, you will be burned, the key is that the gains outweigh the losses, and there is no need to provoke those fanatics because of such a big place.

Therefore, although Orihiko wanted to attack Jerusalem, he finally couldn't help it.

Slowly, more and more Chinese troops gathered in Jerusalem and besieged it.

Li Yan only explained that he could not storm Jerusalem and could not break Jerusalem, but did not say that he could not frighten the king of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Therefore, Liu Qi consulted with his subordinates and decided to write a threatening letter to the king of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

Liu Qi said in the letter: "We don't want to destroy this sacred place, so you'd better surrender immediately and let us take over here, otherwise, if the army attacks the city, we will teach that there will be no tiles left here, and no grass will be left!" ”

The king of the kingdom of Jerusalem at this time, no, it should be said, the queen of the kingdom of Jerusalem at this time was Melisander - she ruled with her husband Fulke.

Unlike the two idiots of Germany, King Conrad II and King Louis VII of France, Melisander and Furk, who were on the edge of Central Asia, were very aware of the strength of the Chinese army that had conquered the whole of Central Asia, and this strength had left them without the slightest resistance.

Therefore, Melisander and Fulke consulted with their ministers, and finally decided to open the city and surrender.

Seeing that things were not going well, King Conrad II of Germany and King Louis VII of France quietly fled out of Jerusalem with their men, and then fled all the way west.

Liu Qi did not send people to chase King Conrad II of Germany and King Louis VII of France, because these two goods were the best excuse for the Chinese army to attack Europe.

On the other side, the Left Route Army led by Yue Fei also crossed the Caucasus Mountains and opened up the north-south communication line of the Caucasus.

A month later, Li Yan led 150,000 elites and 300,000 reservists to Damascus.

Seeing the corpse of the young Li Tong, Li Yan was sad!

Although Li Yan didn't even have a single white hair, this was also a white-haired person sending a black-haired person.

It's okay -

Li Yan has enough sons, and he is really not bad for Li Tong.

Therefore, it didn't take long for Li Yan to come out of the grief of losing his son.

Shi Hao suggested that Li Yan let Li Tong's eldest son be the king of Tongguo.

However, after thinking about it, Li Yan rejected Shi Hao's proposal, and then did not draw lots for the first time, but let Li Bi, who is more capable of his son, be the king here - through this incident, Li Yan realized that here in Damascus, it is extraordinary, and it is impossible to let people who are not capable serve as kings, and even less so the son of Li Tong, who has just been able to walk.

After dealing with these matters, Li Yan came to Jerusalem.

When Li Yan arrived in Jerusalem, Liu Qi and they had already occupied Jerusalem, and as usual, all the royal family and nobles in Jerusalem were arrested, and they were raided - the royal family and nobles were kept, which was an extremely unstable factor for the rule of Li Yan's sons, and as for copying their homes, there was no way to do it, for this western expedition, Li Yan spent a lot of money, so he naturally had to earn some money back, otherwise, it would definitely be a heavy burden for Dazhong.

Li Yan was not hypocritical, including the queen of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, Melisander, all the daughters of the nobles, as long as they were young and beautiful, Li Yan accepted them all.

As for the women and men who were not beautiful and were old, Li Yan also sent people to escort them back to Dazhong, who must live in Dazhong in the future for the sake of his sons' future rule.

Li Yan also collected all the treasures plundered by the soldiers of the Chinese army and prepared to bring them back to Dazhong.

But—

There is a treasure that Li Yan didn't want.

So the treasure is the true cross.

Not only did he not ask for it, Li Yan also personally sent this treasure to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

After this, Li Yan declared that Jerusalem would always be a land of freedom, and that it belonged to no one, including him, Li Yan.

After the announcement, Li Yan ordered all the officers and men of the Chinese army to withdraw from Jerusalem, leaving only 1,000 Chinese without faith to maintain the security of Jerusalem, and Li Yan set a rule: In the future, the guards of Jerusalem will never allow people of faith to join, and the guards will always only serve the security of the holy place of Jerusalem.

In addition, Li Yan also stipulated that everyone who entered Jerusalem must pay one yuan, and it is possible to pay more.

Li Yan did not accept this money, nor did he allow anyone to collect it, it was only used for the expenses of the guards and the maintenance of the city of Jerusalem, and Li Yan also asked people to build a stone slab and disclose the income of every dollar.

By the way, this first yuan was paid by Li Yan.

Li Yan hopes that Jerusalem will become a true holy place, a holy place where there will never be war, and a holy place where all believers can enter and leave freely.

After dealing with the affairs of Jerusalem, Li Yan did not stay in Jerusalem - he then ordered Liu Qi to continue his expedition to the west, while he himself came to Cairo with a large army.

After occupying Central Asia, the army and navy of Dazhong were already in contact.

But—

There is also a problem, a very serious problem, which is that Asia and Europe are cut off by land, in other words, the large and medium-sized ships cannot move Europe, unless they go around a huge, huge, huge circle.

In this case, it is obviously not conducive to large-scale trade.

In addition, it is not conducive to communication between Dazhong and the countries established by Li Yan's sons in Europe in the future.

Therefore, Li Yan planned to open a canal to open up shipping between Asia and Europe, to connect the Mediterranean Sea with the Red Sea, and to provide the closest route from Europe to the Indian Ocean and the nearby lands in the western Pacific.

To put it simply, Li Yan is ready to dig through the Suez Canal.

Actually-

The Suez Canal has existed for a long time, but due to various things, it has been abandoned and needs to be re-dug.

However, even if the Suez Canal had been around for a long time, it was by no means so easy to dig through.

Historically, it took nearly eleven years for poor Egyptians to dig canals through the desert.

(This is mainly because they don't have the technology and are seriously underfunded, otherwise it wouldn't have taken so long.) ）

After Li Yan arrived in Cairo, he immediately sent troops to occupy Cairo, and even Egypt was defeated, and Egypt was divided among his sons.

But Cairo, Li Yan did not divide it, and made it clear that Cairo will always belong to Dazhong - after the opening of the Suez Canal, Cairo will be one of the richest places in the world, so rich that Li Yan is reluctant to give up here.

After repeated discussions with the ministers, Li Yan decided to contract the project of digging the Suez Canal to the Jews, requiring them to dig the Suez Canal within two years - Li Yan was not short of money, and the Jews were much smarter than the Egyptians, so Li Yan believed that in less than two years, the Jews would be able to dig this important canal for themselves.

In Cairo, after the 300,000 elites and sufficient weapons and ammunition sent by the fleet around sunset, Li Yanxi's journey to Europe could be regarded as the real beginning......

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