Three days later, the dead-faced Cardinal Dandoro and his people visited the Palazzo Picromini in the middle of the night – people were speculating why they couldn't wait even the night, but they soon got the answer – the Prixin Po fleet, which the Venetians were so proud of, had been defeated by Ferrara, and it was said that their ships had burned on the Po River, a tributary of the Po River, the Podi Volano, and the flames had turned half the sky the color of hell.

The Venetians were completely subjugated to the feet of Leo X and his brothers, and the Holy See regained all the Venetian territories and cities occupied by Romagna, and regained the priesthood delegation that the Dandoro family had won from Innocent VII, that is, from this moment on, the priesthood of the Republic of Venice, large and small, was no longer under the control of the Venetians, and the diocese of Wisny was truly in the possession of Leo X - as well as all the military expenses that the church army had to pay for this and subsequent battles. All of them will also be paid by the Venetians to the Pope's treasury in the name of assistance and reconciliation money.

Machiavelli wrote in his diary: "The Venetians lost the fruits of their ancestors' efforts for eight hundred years. "It's an exaggeration, but it's not a lie.

But the Venetians could finally breathe a sigh of relief, because the new alliance was finally formed again at the call of Leo X, and this time England joined the alliance - England and France had become out-and-out mortal enemies after the Hundred Years' War, and it was almost impossible to make them friends, but as soon as they heard that they could fight France, the English immediately rushed in, and as for the others, Venice needless to say, the Spaniards had already gone to war with the French, and Milan - now Giovanni. Sforza has proclaimed his return to all Milanese and that he is qualified to succeed Ludovico. Needless to say, the Dukeship of Sforza, Romagna and Ferrara, which had fallen to the Papal States, even the commercial cities of Tuscany, such as Florence, Lucca and Pisa, which Louis XII had always considered weak, were making a sense of ominous noise.

Louis XII was already isolated in Naples, but that didn't mean he was out of action.

The letter of the King of France quickly reached the courtiers and queen Anne of Blois, the Duchess of Brittany, in which Louis XII humbly prayed for help from his courtiers and his wife—in return, of course, he gave up many of the powers that belonged to the king - such as marriage, mining, roads, taxes, etc., and the Duchess of Brittany took the opportunity to regain the right to marry under the head of Madame Kindness (whose husband had unfortunately or luckily died in the last battle), The other princes also got what they wanted, so that Louis XII was supplemented by 8,000 men from the princes and Brittany, all crossbowmen and spearmen, and he also authorized the queen to hire 20,000 mercenaries from the Swiss Confederation on his behalf.

To Louis XII's disappointment, the Swiss Confederation rejected his offer.

——————

The people of Europa know that the Swiss mercenaries are among the most committed and brave of their kind, but they also have the disadvantage of refusing to fight their fellow countrymen, that is, when they are preemptively hired by one side of the war, the other side does not want to have Swiss fighters for them.

As you may recall, Julius II hired 1,300 Swiss mercenaries to defend Rome for him, and when Louis XII attacked Castel Sant'Angelo, the Swiss mercenaries, who had already lost hundreds of men in the previous rebellion, suffered nearly half of the casualties, and when they escorted Julius II to Le Piy, only a fraction of the original amount remained.

These poor victims, in Giulio. When the Medici arrived, he ordered the servants to collect their bodies, the cardinal's priests performed sacraments on the soldiers, and the archbishop himself celebrated a solemn Mass for them to go to heaven. The Medici also promised that if they did not wish to return to Switzerland, they would sleep in Rome with the saints – much to the tears of the living, knowing that they were worried about their colleagues and brothers, and even if they were willing to give their indulgences, it would not be enough for all of them to be comforted......

The surviving 300 Swiss mercenaries were well healed and cared for at Lepuy, and while they were still in Lepuy, Giulio asked them if they would like to continue to accept the employment of the Church, and they almost all agreed, except for those who were more seriously injured - after the election of Leo X, Giulio wrote a letter to him that night, to the Swiss Confederation, and hired them 10,000 men.

For the Swiss Confederation, they had a lot to think about – they had been under the rule of the Holy Roman Empire until 1499, but that almost meant that the Holy Roman Empire had become their enemy – at least not friends, and they needed a strong and credible supporter. Within the Confederation, there were also two voices, some in favour of the French, after all, the Swiss Confederation bordered France, but others in favour of the Papal States, and they sensed the ambitions of the new pope, and if they were bordering, they were also bordering Italy.

In the end, however, the arguments in favour of the Papal States prevailed, and for no other reason than to open the map, if France had occupied Milan, and had taken Lombardy or all of Venice, or swallowed Romagna, then Switzerland would have been squeezed in the middle by the French possessions—wouldn't Yi XII have the heart to erase this unpleasant-looking little plot? In this case, of course, they will not accept Louis XII's employment again, and even the excuse of refusal is justified and justified.

However, it would be months before the new alliance assembled the army, and Louis XII was waiting - a large part of his army had gone back to farming, well, it was not surprising at all, this was the case with the mercenaries at this time, except for professional soldiers such as knights of the edict, most of the soldiers were farmers or craftsmen, they had to work, and it was precisely because of this that the war could not be dragged on too long, and in the spring it was ploughed and sown, and the autumn fields were harvested and dried— There's nothing more important than wheat.

The victory or defeat of the war, only the old man cares, the soldiers come to the battlefield just to serve and pay money.

But in Julio. Here in Medici, the work never ends, why did he take back complete clerical power from the Venetians, apart from the speculation that Leo X wanted to take advantage of the opportunity of buying and selling the priesthood to collect money, but also to push his ecclesiastical school and the Congregation of Mercy to a farther and wider place - a revolution without a foundation is like a house without a foundation, no matter how splendid it is, it can only collapse suddenly in the end, and in addition to these, there are all the affairs of the Ministry of Jurisprudence and the Congregation of the Sacraments and Liturgy - Primarily the censorship of the printed matter, especially the translation and dissemination of the Bible, although Leo X and Duarte, as well as Brother John, expressed varying degrees of concern about this, Giulio stuck to his original idea, and what persuaded them was the translation and printing of the Bible that the Medici merchants had collected from all over the world, although they looked crude, unadorned, and full of errors, but everyone knew what that meant.

When everybody, he was saying, everybody who knew how to read was given a Bible in Latin, Greek, or translated, in the native language, they could read it out loud, and if he had some education, he would be able to explain it—this was the power of the monks and clergy, but even the Inquisition could not monitor everybody—especially since there were more universities sprouting and establishing themselves in the cities besides the printing press— More and more people will be able to read and understand the Bible for themselves, instead of the ignorant people who trembled or grieved at the intimidation and persuasion of the monks and clergy, as they had in the previous centuries.

"Some territories," said Giulio, "if we do not occupy them, the enemy will go, so we must not only occupy them first, but also build walls and dig trenches to ensure that the houses of the church do not collapse—we are many years too late to wait." ”

After some hesitation, Leo X granted his request, and the monks and students of the Order of Mercy were carried by the wind like dandelion flowers to Venice and everywhere the tentacles of the Church could touch, even France and England, or the Holy Roman Empire.

——

Located in the eastern part of the Holy Roman Empire, Madgarburg is an autonomous city of the Duchy of Saxony, where the Elbe River flows leisurely, bringing it abundant water and fertile land, where people grow wheat, rye and sugar beet, feed livestock, have a thriving handicraft and textile industry, and there are many merchants.

After their embarrassment and grief from Rome, Martin and Bora settled here, where Martin's father gave him some help, and Martin's former college classmates, he found him a job reading and copying for a lawyer, and the pay, if not so good, allowed them to rent a small apartment and have no worries about food and clothing.

Just like Martin. As Lud had assured Bora, they had lived a very stable life, and Bora could eat whatever he wanted, chickens, bread, and steaks, and the teeth that had been brutally pulled out during torture grew back, a little crooked, but very powerful, and Bora used them to knock walnuts and open them.

Now Bora is also thirteen years old, although when she was seven years old, she was as tall as a grown woman, but now she is stronger and more majestic—when she stands next to Martin, if she is not wearing a dress, some people may think that she is the master of the family—Speaking of which, when Bora was a child, she would pursue the lover of her heart without shame, but when she really became a woman, she became shy, and if it wasn't for Martin's insistence, she would even have to leave Martin, Go to the family to work as a maid and live with the servants.

"I'm not trying to leave...... I want to get out of here," Bora whispered, "I just think that if we continue to live in one place, it might be a disservice to your reputation." ”

Martin was surprised: "How so? He said, "You are my benefactor, Bora, and I will not go anywhere without you." ”

Bora lowered her head and did not speak.

It wasn't until their landlord, an enthusiastic and eventful old woman, saw Bora and Martin that she rode Bora out of the room to do her work, and said to Martin, "Is that girl your sister or your wife?" ”

Martin was stunned for a moment, of course Bora was not his sister, but to say that Bora was treated as a wife...... She used to be a child, and now he can barely think of her as a woman.

"I am a decent man," said the old woman, "therefore, sir, if she is not your sister or your wife, you would better get out of here, or let her get out of here." ”

Martin hesitated for a moment: "She's my wife." He said this, and that very afternoon he bought a gold ring for Pola, a beautiful velvet tune, and proposed to her.

When people came to celebrate him, Martin's colleagues and classmates couldn't help but be a little surprised, because Bora was not a beauty, and her overly thick figure made her look a little vulgar, but Martin could be said to love her from the bottom of his heart, and they didn't say anything, but at the end of the wedding feast, Martin's classmates stepped aside and told Martin that if he wished, he could leave the lawyer's office and go to a church school to become a teacher, where the money was very good, and there was a house for the students and teachers to live in. In this way, he can save a lot of money and increase his income by a while.

"Now that you're married." "Soon," said his classmates, "children will be born, one, two, three, depending on God's will, your original job was only for you and your wife, but it will be very difficult to provide for the children, and believe me, I will hardly dare to go to the show and buy coffee and tobacco now—and if your children were there, they should be cared for and raised by the clergy...... A couple of my kids, you know, are just a bunch of little devils who have just crawled out of purgatory. ”

"But I have never heard of such a church school before," asked Martin, "is it the Archbishop of Magdeburg, or the Franciscans, the Dominicans, or the Brotherhood of Living Together?" ”

His classmates thought for a moment: "It's a new order, the Order of the Monks of Mercy," he said, "it is said to have been founded by a cardinal, but it has been approved by the Holy Father, and it is very open-minded and generous, and I think you will like it there." ”