"I don't like this person, I feel like this person is hypocritical." Joan of Arc frowned.

"But this guy's abilities are pretty good, at least for a humanoid notepad." Randy didn't take Joan of Arc's words to heart at all, and in fact Joan of Arc herself just said it casually, and didn't think too much about it.

"Forget it, don't talk about it yet, is what you said before true? Soon to the south to rescue Rome? ”

"Of course, I mean what I say, and Venice has nothing left to rob of."

"You're so direct......"

"I will always be the most authentic in front of you, and I will never hide myself, and if I don't go, maybe Rome will really fall."

Randy recalled the news from Ragusa yesterday, it seemed that the previous victory against the Eastern Rome had completely angered the arrogant empire, and the other party actually transported five legions to Italy, and the governor of the Two Sicilies, Narciss, was directly sitting on the army of eighty or ninety thousand Eastern Rome, and the Catholic coalition was definitely not an opponent, if he didn't hurry up, maybe there would be no world to save him.

And the Pope seems to have his own special news channel, and he also knows about the increase of 50,000 troops in the Eastern Roman Empire, this guy didn't urge Randy much before, because he still has more than 10,000 troops in his hands, plus the 20,000 troops joined by France, Genoa, and Bologna, the number is as many as 37,000 troops, and he is not under Narciss, but this time it will not work, if he doesn't ask for help, maybe he really wants to go to heaven.

The Pope bleed again, promising Randy many benefits.

After Randy's successful rescue of Rome, Innocent III would personally crown Randy as Emperor of the Normans of the North in the Papal Chamber, and give the title of Valhalla, the true Knight of Christ, and the annual employment fee of five million also increased by 10% to five and a half million.

Even for the 5.5 million gold coins, Randy felt that he should go to Rome and kill some Greeks by the way.

Randy begins to calculate his own combat power ratio to that of the Eastern Roman Empire!

The 40,000 Norman troops under his command suffered a lot of losses in bloody battles, and now the situation in Venice is unstable and needs to be suppressed by the army, so there are only more than 30,000 people who can be brought to the southern battlefield.

In addition, Duke Charles also decided to station 5,000 troops in Venice.

Then all that left his army was the 18,000 Swiss mercenaries.

Charlie, this guy is really a bastard, he transferred his direct troops to the city to enjoy the blessings, but let the mercenaries do the things that were sent to death.

In this way, the number of troops that the entire Catholic coalition army can mobilize is roughly the same as the number of Eastern Roman troops in Sicily, which is also the number of eighty or ninety thousand, if it is calculated like this, it should almost be able to win, but Randy is the kind of person who plans and then acts, and most of the battles fought so far have been done only when his own side has a clear advantage.

But now the other side has an army of 100,000 troops, and they are all the armies of one country, with neat equipment and unified orders.

But his side is the coalition of the Papal States, the Norman Kingdom, France, Burgundy, Aquitaine, Genoa, Bologna, and the seven countries, so when you calculate it, Randy has no bottom in his heart.

So Randy is still waiting, not like before, there is no time limit to wait, but it takes a very short period of time, about ten days, as long as he waits for another ten days or so, the 100,000 troops mobilized by Norman can arrive in Italy, and then the number of his army will be more than double that of the other party, so that Randy has 70% certainty that he will wipe out the Narcissian army.

After this period of time, Von IV of Saxony was almost finished, and his two important ministers, Frederick, Count of Brandenburg, and Luciverd, Count of Hesse, declared independence, and established the Duke of Brandenburg and the title of Duke of Hesse respectively, and unilaterally declared an armistice with Norman, pledged allegiance to Frederick, and joined the Holy War against the heresy of Eastern Rome.

Frederick I was also very generous to the two dukes who had thrown himself in favor of him, acknowledging their titles of the lands and raising the Duchy of Brandenburg and Hesse to the rank of Elector, in exchange for the favor of the two powerful dukes.

Feng IV betrayed his relatives and was embattled, and most of his army was scattered, and now there were less than 20,000 lone troops trapped in Dresden, and it was about to be extinguished like a candle in the wind, so Frederick was idle, and there were hundreds of thousands of troops that could be mobilized, and if he was allowed to join this war, Randy would be much easier.

That's why Randy sent money to Frederick, to let Frederick know that coming to the Italian Peninsula to fight a war was much easier than fighting in Germany.

Privately, Randi also spared no effort to woo Charles IV, Grand Duke of Bohemia, and Albrecht II of Austria, after all, the Holy Roman Empire, a loose country that seems to have more than one federation than an empire, has a high degree of autonomy for vassals, and even a country like Bohemia often calls itself a king in diplomacy.

The current king, Charles IV, is not willing to be lonely, although he temporarily succumbed to Frederick, but the small actions in private did continue, after a period of negotiations, Charles IV was very interested in what Randy said, to increase his prestige in the holy war, as a capital to unite the princes of the Holy Roman Empire, and further compete for the emperor, it does sound like a good path.

It seems that the old things before France are staged, and Randy deliberately reveals his private contact with other vassals of the Holy Roman Empire, even the two old Saxony ministers who have just been promoted to dukes, to make Frederick anxious for a while.

As a native of the Holy Roman Empire, Frederick naturally understood better than Randy how important the support of the Elector was to an emperor, and if all the princes left him, then the Holy Roman Emperor would not be a fart, or even as easy as his original Duke of Bavaria.

In addition, the Pope's ascension was also very eager, and he wrote to Fret to inquire, saying that before you said that the mountains were covered by heavy snow, and the Alps were not easy to climb, how did the Norman king climb over? There are still 300 rounds of war with the Eastern Roman heresy, do you still want to do it as an emperor? Do you have to tear your face and excommunicate you before you can act?

However, blindly scaring is not a thing, in the second half of the letter, the Holy See changed his words and said: "The previous things have passed like this, and if you know your mistakes, you are a good comrade, and now the things of the Holy Roman Empire are almost done, and the time is also in April, and there is no heavy snow or anything, so what about the 200,000 troops you promised?" ”

After thinking carefully and thinking about how to deal with it, Frederick announced that he would join the ranks of the Holy Crusade and give the Orthodox heretics a profound and unforgettable lesson.

The princes of the Holy Roman Empire marched together under Frederick's banner and marched south with a total of 150,000 troops.

This figure is slightly different from what Frederick had promised before, but doesn't the siege of Feng IV still require troops? In case there are fewer troops in the siege, it will not be fun to let this guy break through and resurrect from the ashes.

Either way, it's a good start.

After the Holy Roman Empire announced that it would join the crusade, the three countries of northern Spain, Leon Castel, Aragon, Portugal, and the three countries also announced their participation in the crusade.

A total of twelve Catholic nations gathered under the same banner in the name of Jesus Christ to form an alliance against the Orthodox heresy, the first time since the split between the Eastern and Western Churches, that Basil II may have been unable to sleep again when he heard the news.

Ten days later, the Norman army turned south to Italy.

Fifteen days, fifteen days later, the Holy Roman Empire army will be able to move south to Italy.

By then, the number of Catholic coalition troops in northern Italy would be 350,000.

Such a terrifying number, even compared to some of the great powers in the East, is not inferior, and it is safe to say that this army is enough to deter the entire continent of Europa!

It will take a little time for the news to reach Hungary, but in southern Italy, Narciss, the plenipotentiary of the Eastern Roman Governor in the Two Sicilies, has been sleepless for two days, and Basil II's orders are very strict, and he will be awarded meritorious service in the attack on Rome, and he will not be able to take Rome to meet him.

But the problem is that Rome is also the capital of a country, a historical city, although the original commander of the defenders was inexplicably hung up, but after a long time, several battles have been fought, the Pope has already chosen a new commander, and there are still more than 10,000 defenders in the city, which is difficult to break in a short time.

If there is no time limit for this task, it is fine, but how can it be completed when there is a time limit? At most, 350,000 troops will gather under the city of Rome, and the leading figures are all kings among people, countless famous generals, fierce generals like clouds, their own soldiers and horses, it is not easy to keep their own safety, and they still want to break Rome? Looking for death?

In fact, Narsis now feels that he is dying, how unreliable Basil II's imagination is, after the fall of Rome, to suppress the Catholic coalition, it is true that in the Middle Ages, religion played an important role in people's lives, but this does not mean that everyone cares about the so-called God.

And this degree of care, from a certain point of view, is inversely proportional to status, wealth, power, the richer people are, the less religious, for example, the Venetian has a famous saying!

Venetian first, then Christian.

The more status, the less religious, the higher the status of the clergy, the faster the life of the corrupted, and the more powerful the more unreligious, the only emperor of the entire Catholic Church, the successive monarchs of the Holy Roman Empire, all committed to the struggle for power with the Holy See!

Which is higher, the pope or the emperor? This controversy has been going on for hundreds of years, so Narcisse is very convinced that it is nonsense to bring these Catholic kings together under the banner of the so-called Catholic flag, the so-called crusaders, the so-called devotion to the faith in Christ.

Pious kings do have them, but they are basically the neurotics of consanguineous marriages.

There are rich and pious businessmen, but they are basically out-and-out households who have failed to the extreme.

There are pious clergy, but they are certainly heretics.

Narcisse was sure that even if he could take Rome as promised, it would not stop the entire Catholic world from uniting, and even said that it would give the kings an excuse.

What awaited Narcisse was definitely not the triumphal arch of victory, but the 350,000-strong army that was furious and vowed to recapture Rome.

Narsis felt that he had a good chance of being trampled to death like an ant, three hundred and fifty thousand, what a terrible number!

Narcis didn't want to die yet, he was still very young, he had a beautiful wife and two children, a boy and a girl, and the family plantation produced grapes, olives, and figs.

He also had thousands of slaves, five merchant ships, and several workshops, and if he died here, all of them would belong to someone else.

Oh, God! Is there anything more terrible in this world than this?

Narcisse gritted his teeth, wrote a letter to the messenger about what he thought, and asked him to hand the letter to the emperor, in which he explained that it was impossible for him to capture Rome, and asked His Majesty the Emperor to forgive him for his crimes, and also assured His Majesty that he was willing to protect the safety of the two Sicilies for him, although he could not expand his territory, but it was absolutely impossible for Catholic heretics to take away an inch of land from him, hoping to use this as an excuse for His Majesty the Emperor to forgive him and give him another chance, after all, it was not that he was incompetent, but that the enemy was too strong!

When Randy led the army south, joined the armies of France, Genoa, and Bologna, and marched into Rome, he was very surprised to find that the 100,000 Eastern Roman troops who had originally besieged Rome had withdrawn, leaving only a mess of hard disks like a garbage dump.

"The credit for rescuing Rome is too worthless!"

Randy rode around the abandoned hard drive in Eastern Rome twice, until the light cavalry came back to report that there were no enemy troops within a radius of tens of kilometers, and then he showed an extremely ironic smile, the task of aiding Rome was so simple to complete, it was too ironic.

Of course, if this irony wasn't enough, it's even more ironic that Randy was given a title for rescuing Rome.

A true knight of Christ!

"I am the Holy Catholic Knight Valhalla!"

The effect of this title is actually to increase a little prestige and a little piety, God is pitiful, this is the first time Randy knows that his piety attribute can still be positively increased.

Just as Randy was sighing there, another light cavalry suddenly came running.

"Your Majesty, there is a guy who claims to be an emissary of the Holy See who wants to see you."

"Yes, let him come."

Randy is still in a very mysterious, thoughtful, and extremely excited emotion, and his voice flutters as if he is sleepwalking, which you can also interpret as the divine sense of God's chosen Norman king.

Soon after, a magnificently dressed red bishop came running quickly, and it was really embarrassing for him to see that he could run so fast in such a heavy bishop's robe, and even so fast that several guards in heavy armor could not catch up with him.

Randy glanced at it from a distance, stunned, the red gown, the red shawl with the angel pattern drawn with gold thread, and the red square hat, this guy turned out to be a cardinal!

Thinking that the Pope actually sent a cardinal over, this face was really big enough, and Randy was embarrassed to pretend anymore, so he quickly jumped off the horse and ran away quickly at a speed that was not lost to the cardinal.

This book was first published from 17K, the first time to see the genuine content!