Just as Randy led his army to Moscow, a siege battle had just ended in the troubled city of Moscow.

The Muscovite soldiers and civilians on the city walls, who had once again repelled the Cumans' attack, cheered and rejoiced at their victory, but of course this cheering soon stopped.

Semenovsky ordered the soldiers to take advantage of the time of the project to eat and rest, and the logistics unit, which was formed spontaneously by the citizens, immediately carried baskets of hard black bread and clear water to the city wall.

"Two people for two, no one can take more, don't rob it, I know that you are very hungry, but there is so much food, if you don't save it, you can't hold on at all."

The aristocratic officer who managed the distribution of food shouted as he nibbled on the two palm-sized pieces of black bread that belonged to him. This kind of thing is really hard to eat, the taste is a little bitter, and because of the weather and its own selection of materials, it is as hard as a brick, and in some cases it can even be used as a weapon, the rye flour is not handled carefully, the bread is mixed with a lot of wheat husks, in order to increase the production and supply the whole army, such black bread is also mixed with a lot of wood chips, in short, it is really a miracle that the Slavs who eat this kind of thing do not die.

But even this kind of thing can't be supplied openly, the soldiers fight for a day, and all they get is four pieces of this palm-sized black bread, two in the morning and two in the evening, which must only be treated by the troops fighting on the front line, and the soldiers in the rear can only eat half of this amount, one in the morning and one in the evening, as for the other old and weak women and children, as well as the logistics troops, they can only eat together, otherwise they can only wait for death.

In fact, since the second week after the siege of Moscow by the Cuman army, people have been starving to death in Moscow, and if it continues, the consequences will be unimaginable.

The whole city has been shrouded in ominous clouds......

"Did Hongu do something wrong?"

In the gloomy palace, Catherine II listened to the report and sighed, in fact, before this, Semenovsky and his current deputy, the commander of the Moscow city defense, General Kutuzov, had drawn up a plan, that is, to clear the wall, burn the whole of Moscow with a fire, and the army to the north into Novgorod, or west into Smolensk, to fight against the invasion of the nomadic Cumans with scorched earth, but this plan with heavy losses was finally rejected by Catherine II.

"All the belongings that Bengong has accumulated for half a lifetime are here, if you want to go, Bengong will die here even if he dies."

After proposing this plan at that time, Semenovsky was sprayed in the face by the Grand Duchess, as Catherine II said, now the vast majority of the material and money of the Grand Duchy of Moscow are all stored in Moscow, and this is not the most critical, the most critical thing is that Catherine II was deeply afraid that after losing Moscow, her authority and strength would be devastated, so that her terrible neighbor in the West, the Norman Empire, would take advantage of the situation and usurp her territory.

Randy had already declared the Tsar of Rus, and from a legal point of view, Moscow and Novgorod should be counted as his legitimate domains, and it was one thing to nominally submit to a country, but it was another thing to let the country interfere in its own internal affairs, or even usurp supremacy.

Now that the entire Grand Duchy of Moscow is in turmoil, the only possible reinforcement is Randy, who claims to be the Tsar, so Catherine II finally made up her mind to claim to the Norman Empire, and paid tribute in exchange for Norman reinforcements.

"But doing so means that we recognize the position of the Norman Tsar, and the future of Moscow will be ......" Thinking of this, Catherine II sighed very much, knowing that at least while Randy was alive, her long-cherished wish to obtain the position of Tsar and unify the whole Rus' would not be realized, and even to keep her share in the hands of such an aggressive and terrifying emperor was already a difficult task.

"In other words, I can only rely on my descendants to try......"

Catherine II looked at Paul, who was already sitting next to her, and felt very dissatisfied.

Although she did not speak, her frown showed that the Grand Duchess was in a very irritable mood now, and that she was extremely dissatisfied with her only son, and that Paul was cowardly and suspicious, cruel and arbitrary, and that his appearance and personality were almost a copy of his father Peter III, and every time she saw him, Catherine II remembered her former husband and the unpleasant times.

Of course, Catherine II was not the kind of monarch who judged people by their appearance.

Paul is her only son, but Catherine II herself is not in the right position, so many nobles of the Grand Duchy like the prince Paul, hoping to make him the Grand Duke, and even had a plan at the beginning to bypass Catherine II, but this plan was not implemented in the end, Catherine II directly declared the Grand Duchess after the death of Peter III.

A few years ago, Catherine II, in order to consolidate her power, had Paul disguise herself under the pretext of supervising foreign state affairs, and expelled her from the Grand Duchy of Moscow under the pseudonym of Count North.

Paul, who was only twenty-seven or eighteen years old at the time, really couldn't stand the suffocating palace environment in Moscow, in fact, he was quite satisfied with his mother's approach, the only pity was that the location was wrong.

At that time, the most suitable place to travel abroad and learn advanced foreign experience should be the Eastern Roman Empire.

And Catherine II also instructed Paul at the beginning to let him go to the Eastern Roman Empire, but the prince's rebellious psychology had an effect, and instead of listening to his mother's words to go to Constantinople, he went all the way to the west, to the animals that had become chaotic because of the fall of the United Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania.

"What's going on here, this, what's going on?"

Having just arrived in Norman from the chaos of Eastern Europe, Paul was in disbelief by the stark contrast.

The streets are neat, the fields are endless, and there are a variety of beautifully decorated taverns, inns, entertainment venues, fountains, public restrooms, and public baths.

If that's all there is, maybe it won't be enough to shock this son, but what really shocks him is the Norman garrison stationed here.

The uniform formation, the shining armor, the high morale, the salvos of crossbowmen, the tomahawk throwing of the infantry, the wild but disciplined charge, and their fanatical worship and extreme loyalty to Emperor Randy.

"Is this the king's most elite troops?" He was very eager to ask people, but the answers he received shocked him.

"Nope! This was only a local garrison, and the main forces were all around the emperor, following the emperor's direct orders. The local nobleman replied to him.

"It's ......"

In the following days, Paul sailed to Scandinavia and then to England.

Any piece of Norman territory looked vibrant, neat and clean, and he was even more impressed by the absolute obedience and fanatical worship of the Norman people to the emperor, and in a letter to his mother, he wrote:

"The country is full of order, the law here is very clear, there is a clear law for everything, everything in this country seems to be in the hands of the king, all rights belong to the king, the officials who manage the state are all appointed by the king, the king arranges their official positions according to their talents and expertise, and they can be removed at will, which is different from all the countries I know, I believe that such a country is the direction of the future development of Moscow, and His Majesty Randy, who created this system, Definitely the greatest man of our time. ”

Catherine II was saddened to find that her son, after a turn in Norman, had become an ardent admirer of the Norman Emperor Randy, advocating a comprehensive reform of the Norman political system in order to advance the Grand Duchy of Moscow.

In terms of diplomacy, it is even more hoped to get closer to the Norman Empire, after Catherine II announced that she would submit to the Norman Empire, and the happiest was Prince Paul.

"The future of the principality, if you rely on this guy, it's over, fortunately I have a very smart grandson." Catherine II turned her gaze to the side, following behind her, a skinny boy of twelve.

Her grandson, Alexander I, was wiser, more likable and, above all, a very obedient child, and Catherine II spared no effort in his education, hoping that after her death Alexander would succeed him directly to the title of Grand Duke.

But these things must be overcome after this difficulty!

Thinking so, Catherine II decided to send another group of emissaries to break through and go to the Normans to ask for reinforcements.

At this time, the military and civilians in Moscow were nibbling on black bread in unison.

Outside the city, the camp of the Cumans was full of jubilation, barbecuing cattle and sheep around the bonfire, and putting their hands on the women who had been taken captive from other cities in Moscow, and some monkeys were dragged directly into the camp tents for fun, and the drunken Cumans began to wrestle and try their archery, and in such a dim firelight, occasionally a first-class archer could hit the bull's-eye a hundred paces away, which immediately attracted a cheer and admiration, and some bragged indiscriminately about the strength of the wine, boasting about how many people they had killed before, how many things they had robbed, and how many women they had.

And what they discussed the most was the victory in the Battle of Novgorod.

"At that time, we mobilized tens of thousands of catties of black fire and blew half of the city to pieces, and the rest of the people were so frightened by this grand occasion that they didn't even have the strength to resist, we rushed over and slashed and slashed with scimitars, and they scattered like frightened lambs, and the battle was too enjoyable."

Several Cumans who participated in the campaign boasted about their later companions.

This later Cuman, who claimed to be a hunter who wandered in the steppe, did not belong to any tribe, had a fairly good archery skill, was also cheerful, and had a good temper, and quickly mingled with these veterans, and this person's favorite thing was to listen to stories, even if it was drunk veterans' nonsense, he liked to listen to it, and he looked very easily deceived, no matter how exaggerated he looked, he was amazed.

"Oh oh, that's amazing!"

Over time, people from various tribes would go to him when they wanted to brag, as if this bit of black powder was not black powder at all, but an atomic bomb.

"Oh, it's hard to imagine, but why don't we use black powder now? How nice it would be to just blow the city to the ground. ”

"That siege has used up all the black powder." The man next to him explained.

"So where did all this black powder come from? Can't we go get some more? ”

"To put it simply, it was a few great khans who pooled money together, and the Mongols in the east said that you bought it, and there was only so much in total, and the Mongols no longer sold it."

"Oh! Mongol! ”

The Cuman nodded, made an excuse to pee, and silently returned to his camp, and nodded tacitly with a few other people who had been waiting here for a long time, and said, "This should be the information Your Majesty wants. ”

The silly and innocent appearance before was completely gone, replaced by a bland, expressionless face.

After receiving an affirmative reply, the man nodded, sorted out the information obtained by several people, including his own, re-wrote it on a piece of paper obtained from the East with the password, and took out a pigeon from the cage hidden next to it and put it on its leg, walked out of the camp to see that there was no one, and secretly released it.

"And so it was!"

The information brought back from the Cumans proves that Randy is right.

Trade between the other party and the Mongols seemed to be all there was to it, which reassured Randy somewhat, and on the way to Moscow, news came from the East.

Temujin was already old, and his eldest son Jochi and his second son Chagatai were full of contradictions, and the place where the Han people in the south of the Yangtze River gathered was desperate, but the opponent Timur Empire was quite strong.

Tang Li Longji seemed to have been kicked in the head by a donkey, and in order to fight against Timur, he actually sought skin with the tiger, formed an alliance with the Mongols, and even traded the country's most secret gunpowder weapons in exchange for more than 20,000 Mongolian war horses.

After seeing the explosive power of the black powder weapon, Temujin was anxious and gave an order:

Who can find the secret recipe of black powder for me, reward thousands of cattle and sheep, seal thousands of households, and enter the cowardly Xue Zhongjun!

In fact, those who have mastered the secret art of making this black powder are not counting those messy gunpowder weapons, there are really some in the Northern Dynasties, and in such an atmosphere, a certain Taoist branch living in Zhongnan Mountain unveiled the imperial list and offered the gunpowder prescription.

There were also some lowly craftsmen in the Southern Dynasties, who heard about it through what channel, and secretly stole a lot of drawings about iron artillery, rocket cars, sweet watermelon bombs, etc., and fled to the north. Equipped with these gunpowder weapons and obtaining the latest counterweight catapults from the Western Regions, the Mongol iron cavalry, 300,000 elite Mongolian cavalry and nearly 800,000 auxiliary troops of various ethnic groups in the northern country, under the leadership of Temujin, rushed towards the Timurid Empire.

(End of chapter)