By the time I led thirty knights to the territory of his master, Knight Necar, following the guidance of the fat tax collector, it was in ruins.

The ashes between the ruins and walls had long since cooled, the ground was full of tattered melons and fruits that the peasants had fallen as they fled, many of them crushed by the horses' hooves, and a few stiff corpses floated in the pool, looking like the guards of this place, and the scavenging crows came one after another, pecking at the eyes and lips of the dead, not afraid of the knights who passed by, but flapped their wings and screamed in intimidation, as if they feared that these bipeds riding on the backs of four-hoofed animals would compete with them for hard-won food.

The knight's castle was also a wooden walled city, but it was much more sturdy and complex than the tax collector's quarters, with a wide moat in front of the log wall, and the city was connected to the outside world by a drawbridge, which could be raised and defended at any time in case of danger.

There are several wooden houses in the first wall, which are supposed to be the dwellings of the guards and servants, stables, and granaries, but unfortunately only black rafters are burned out, and there is a well in the middle of the courtyard to ensure that the water will not be cut off when the siege is besieged, and it can also provide support in the vicinity in the event of a fire in the walled city.

The knight and his family lived at the back of the courtyard, on an apparently artificially piled earth hill, overlooking the village, which was also the last line of defense to retreat after the fall of the first wall, and of course, the enemy who had the ability to break through the first wall was not afraid to attack the small wooden fortress again.

The fat tax collector, who had been tied up with five flowers, was lying on the horse's ass and moaning, the movement was worse than the killing of a pig, and since he entered the looted village, he realized that his life was short, and he howled more and more intensely, as if this would make the knights who had swooped in the air move their hearts with compassion.

But when he was kicked to the ground and saw what the sausage-like object at the city gate was dangling and swaying in the wind, he fell into despair completely, and his little face suddenly turned white with fright.

He saw his master, the so-called Knight Nekar, hanging upside down from the doorbeam, the blood poured into the cranial cavity made his head purple like an eggplant, and his eyes and tongue fell softly, exactly like the hanged man.

The fat tax officer was shaking like chaff, his breathing became more and more rapid, and finally he couldn't bear the psychological pressure and collapsed to the ground with a scream.

"Dead? No way? Seeing the attendant who put his hand under the fat man's nose glared in surprise, I asked with a smile.

"He's dead, my lord, scared to death, what a wretched waste!" The attendant kicked the fat man's body in disgust, and the fat body trembled with the vibration, like a lump of transparent jelly.

"I hope that when he stands before God, he will not die again because of excessive excitement."

I twisted my eyebrows and grimaced, took out the bag containing the fat tax officer's savings from my bosom and threw it into the squire's hand, and said lightly in the latter's surprised eyes: "You guys divide it, you can't fight in vain." ”

The attendants burst into enthusiastic cheers and praised my generosity in unison, in fact, they had long been jealous of the spoils of the Hessian knights, but they had no way to leave their posts in their own duties, and could only envy the good fortune of others in vain, so how could my generosity not make them very excited?

The county of Speyer was originally small, and the hilly terrain of dense forests between the main stream of the Rhine and the Neckar was like an inverted trumpet flower.

Once a backyard for the Burgundians and then a major route connecting the Frisian and Lombards, Otto the Great bestowed Lorraine on his loyal son-in-law, Conrad the Redhead, and one of his sons gained control of the territory, continuing his lineage and eventually developing into an independent countydom.

Henry, the current Count of Speyer, is the nephew of Otto, Duke of Carinthia, both and the Duke of Franconia have the noble blood of the Sarian family, but the latter obviously thinks highly of themselves and does not agree with their kinship, and later Otto II transferred the red-haired Conrad line from Lorraine, which is deeply entrenched, to Carinthia, which is at the forefront of resisting the Magyar invasion, although they retain their family's traditional territory of Speyer, but the powerful Lorraine line has since begun. It made the Duke of Franconia's family, which regarded itself as an orthodox descendant, look down on it, and the two sides only maintained polite exchanges between relatives, and there were not many times when they shared the same enemy.

There are many stories to tell about this Henry......

Leonardo's Chamber of Commerce had an all-round cooperative relationship with him, and little Henry was once sent by his father to Rome to study scriptures with his uncle William, Bishop of Strasbourg, so his cultural level and education level were quite high.

Unlike other illiterate blind aristocrats, they left a good network base in Italy, so the chambers of commerce with the support of the big nobles behind them all like to rest in Speyer, and then slowly evolved into the second largest bazaar after Burgundy.

Perhaps he had read too much of the Bible and was a bit of a fool, but the nobleman, who succeeded his father as an earl, spoke decently and elegantly, liked to delve into obscure scriptures, and often summoned respected abbots and priests to his castle to preach and preach, and vowed to build a church dedicated to God that had never been seen before in the world.

Legend has it that once he and an elderly priest had been discussing doctrine all night, and in the middle of the night the old man could not resist the fatigue and sleepiness and dozed off, feeling that the other party's rude attendant was about to wake up the unruly old man, but the pious Henry stopped him, and then warmed the priest's slippers and covered them with fur to protect them from the cold.

The next day the priest woke up and was deeply moved, and from then on Henry had a good reputation as a pious man, coupled with his moderate ruling policy and philanthropic character, and the people were crowned with the title of good man, or the honorific title of sage can be translated into literary points, this wise fellow was pious, young, rich, noble-born, and well-mannered, and belonged to the kind of positive person who gave a thumbs up to anyone who mentioned it.

The knights, who had completed their respective tasks, gradually rushed back to the assembly place, and the movement was so great that there was no announcement to the Count of Speyer, and they also knew that the Nijmegen army was coming, and they could not help but directly regard him as an enemy and attacked, ransacked almost all the villages in the territory, hanged the nobles and knights who could not escape in time, drove the people who fled with the old and the young, and flocked to the Earl's castle from all directions, and the scene of chaos seemed to be the end of the world.

Because of his reputation as a good man, Henry had to open the gates of the city to accept the peasants who had taken refuge, and the spacious castle courtyard was filled with men, women, and children with their families.

But as the number of refugees grew, the courtyards were crowded with no more places to stand, and the gates, corridors, and stables were stuffed with people, so that the castle, built on the ruins of the Roman fortress, and the supposedly impregnable castle, became a smoky refugee camp, a viciously inflated balloon, and every defender stared worriedly at the horizon, praying that reinforcements would arrive before the Nijmegens.

In fact, they had long since lost hope, and the over-admission of refugees and the premature closure of the castle had stretched Speyer's stockpiles, although they had absolute confidence in their fortified castle, and hunger would be their greatest enemy if reinforcements were delayed.

"You were ready to starve them from the beginning, were you?"

Hans stood side by side with me, looking at the archers who had slammed the gates shut in a hurry by the presence of the enemy, the archers running around the walls to prepare for the defense, and the incessant ringing of the church bells, reminding everyone that Spayer was in a state of war.

"I didn't bring engineers and craftsmen, so I wasted the precious lives of the knights to storm the thick walls? The knights of Nijmegen were no invulnerable robocops, and the castle was never captured even by Charlemagne's army. ”

I shrugged my shoulders in disbelief, my eyes about to fall out: "Since the Earl can't let go of the name of a good man, then you must bear the price for carrying it, God is fair to everyone, and if he gives you something, he also means that he will take away something." ”

Hans nodded, this time he understood, closed his mouth and did not continue to ask, nearly a thousand knights lined up in a tight phalanx, slowly pressed up from the front of the castle, the unharvested wheat in the field was ruthlessly trampled by the horses' hooves, hitting the fragile nerves of the peasants at once, and the dust raised in the sky was wrapped in a cold murderous aura, and pounced on the immovable castle in the center of the storm.

"God, what a miracle on earth!"

The closer you get to the walls, the more oppressive the castle becomes, and it also makes you feel awe-inspiring from the bottom of your heart, and as far as I can see, I have never seen such an impregnable fortress except in the Eternal City of Rome and the rich Apennines of Milan and Venice, and as the nest of three generations of the Speyer family, it is so extraordinary that I have to reconfirm that every step of the plan is foolproof.

"Hans, how are you doing?"

Hans was obviously more able to withstand the world than I did, and his expression was not so exaggerated, and he quickly replied: "I have specially arranged for men to block all the roads leading to the field of Speyer, which are densely forested and mountainous, and there are only a few roads that can run horses, and if the enemy's messengers choose to cross the mountains on foot, it will take at least five days to reach Triphys, which is the nearest here, and it will take the same amount of time to get to Alsace or Strasbourg, and the people in the city will starve to death by the time reinforcements arrive......"

After listening to Hans's report, I squinted my eyes at the castle that was becoming more and more desolate in the dust, and suddenly felt a deep sorrow for them, how many innocent people would become the bones of the victory in Nijmegen.

The walls were lined with wooden rows to keep arrows out, the archers crowded behind them to reveal the spires of their hats, the echoes of the church bells drifted away, and the army of Nijmegen came to a halt neatly out of the range of the archers at the command of the standard-bearer.

The heavy gate rattled obscurously, and it was pushed open from within, and a group of knights galloped towards us with banners, and Hans led his knights to meet them with their horses, and I gazed at the approaching enemy, and whispered to myself:

"Is this going to be a towel, Henry......"