The little girl squeezed her eyes in a hurry, and in a moment the tears fell straight down like beads of broken threads, which made people feel distressed.

The swordfish nervously patted the shoulders of those people, and leaned towards Figura, hoping to stabilize this charming goblin in person, and for a while the atmosphere on the boat became a little weird, and the meat ticket used his moving beauty and spring-like tongue to hook the kidnappers with compassion.

After a while, perhaps Figura found that his coquettish tactics did not work, at least he was defeated by me, who had the absolute right to speak, so he sniffed, and said with a rainy voice: "Otherwise, you send me back, just say that I met Count Biscupin who was hunting outside the city, and he had to invite me to his country castle to attend a banquet, and after he was full of wine and food, the knights in charge of guarding were drunk and couldn't leave, so he could only send his own squire knights to send me back, so they were all fresh faces, what is the excuse?" ”

I turned my face to look at the swordfish, and asked the latter to verify the authenticity of the Count Biscupin in Figura's mouth, and he nodded, and said affirmatively: "I know this old count, he is a fun-loving wine bag and rice bag, his almost perverted accumulation of wealth and torturing serfs are his two great hobbies, once led a hundred cavalry to pursue us along the river, and finally fell into the swamp and were captured alive, and the ugliness of kneeling and begging for mercy can still make me laugh even now, and it took five hundred gold coins to redeem himself, and his country castle is not far from Gniezno. ”

Time is pressing, and there is no time to scrutinize the rigor of the plan, in case the Poles in the city are not in a hurry to go out of the city to find people, then our situation will be more passive, even if this little girl deceives us with clever words, the enemy's garrison will not be too tight when entering the city at night, and it is enough to get through the pass.

With a decision, I motioned for the swordfish to lean over, leaned over and lowered my voice to discuss with him: "You and I will each send out five people, pick and choose to be neat, disguised as the attendant knight who came to escort me, I will follow her into the city in advance, you take the rest of the people to ambush by the city wall, if everything goes well, I will accept you into the city, if the situation changes, see me raise the fire as a number, you will kill the generals and take advantage of the chaos to set fire, all of them use the real skills of the usual life, give me a big momentum, and stir the water as muddy as possible, understand?" ”

The swordfish spat at the palm of his hand and rubbed his hands excitedly, indicating that he was very interested in this exciting business, and the harvest in the city of Gniezno would definitely make him forget the pain of losing the accumulated wealth of his life for a while:

"Don't worry, my lord, we rely on this job to eat, the little ones are like hungry wolves rushing into the flock with knives in their hands, and they don't need to shout at themselves to handle the road with ease, we are not as good as you in the war, killing people and setting fires is the old business!"

"Understood."

I gave him a knowing look, the two of them looked at each other tacitly, turned around and stared at the poor Figura and laughed lewdly, the little girl was slightly frightened at first, and then immediately fixed her mood, straightened up her plump breasts under the elegantly made long skirt, and redoubled her salute with hot eyes.

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Gniezno is the oldest capital city in Polish history, older than the world-famous ancient city of Warsaw and the immortal city of Krakow, which dates back to the time when the Vandals were in southwestern Poland and had not yet migrated.

At that time, Gniezno was just a small stronghold built by dozens of families along the river, and was often invaded and looted by the surrounding powerful peoples, so the people living in this land were always poor, and the main trade routes also left this humble village far away, and it may be a few years before a tattered merchant came and went, trading small items with needles and threads, and cultivating the land for the lord and fishing in the river was the only source of livelihood for the peasants.

Time flies, once mighty empires disappear into history one by one, becoming dusty memories, and new barbarian states are built on the ruins of the old empire.

Freed from the threat and control of powerful neighbors, the Polish tribes centered on the middle reaches of the Varta River gradually rose, like the totem white mountain eagle that their people believed, spread their wings, slowly stretched out their claws around, a unified tribal alliance, and finally mastered the vast land between the Oder and the Vistula, and began to roar at the dead world in the name of Poland.

Legend has it that the mother of the first Grand Duke of Poland, Piast the Rainborn, was working in the fields when she gave birth, and felt unbearable abdominal pain, so she found a clean grass and lay down, and after a while, the head of little Piast was exposed, and this strong mother had no help around her, she gritted her teeth and stood up with her back against the tree, and gave birth to the child completely by her own strength.

Little Piaste was born purple and red, perhaps in the mother's womb for too long caused by blood and breath, did not cry for a long time, his mother thought that the child was dead, holding the temperature of the small body was grief-stricken, but did not expect that the sky and the earth suddenly dark clouds and wind and rain, just silent child, suddenly burst out of a sharp cry, at the same time thunder and lightning, purple lightning pierced the sky, it is said that this lightning even the Pope of Rome has seen, shocked again and again to make a great man to come into the world.

As he grew older, Piast's talents and popularity grew, and more and more warriors gathered around him, and the tribal chiefs prostrate at his feet, all the way to the outside of the tent of the council, and the state was founded on the hill of Gniezno, like the great empire built on seven hills, from victory to victory, and glory after glory, and Poland finally stood tall among the great powers.

The fourth generation of the country's ruler, Grand Duke Mieshko, inherited the majesty of his ancestors, basically stabilized the eastern border with Kievan Rus, subdued the invading Slavs, and drove them to the lands on both sides of the Elbe and Oder rivers, becoming a buffer between Poland and the growing German state.

Although the Poles had submitted to the authority of the German emperor during the time of Otto the Great and offered their offerings respectfully, deep down, they were still a white mountain eagle soaring freely in the sky.

But the proud eagles also had a clever mind, they often hid behind the stage of great power rivalry, ready to join at the right time, always on the side of the victor, and the rulers of Poland knew very well that they could not go head-to-head with the rising German Empire by their own strength, so they learned to bow down to themselves, just as their ancestors bent down to serve other powerful overlords.

They were waiting for an opportunity, not in the time of Otto the Great, not in the time of Otto II, not in the era of Emperor Otto III, but Germany was tired, like a tall and powerful giant, alone withstanding the guns and arrows from all directions, and finally crumbling overwhelmed.

Especially after the death of the emperor in the Battle of Reggio Calabria, the new successor Henry II was unpopular, the major principalities had evil intentions, Italy was not willing to be conquered, and the sinister nobles waited for it......

By all indications, now was the time that the Poles had been waiting for for a long time, and Grand Duke Mieszko did not want to bring this ancestral regret to the coffin and leave it to future generations, so he decided to strike first, even if he could not bring down the powerful Germany, but also force the emperor to make concessions, at least stabilize the borders of the Elbe, restrain the aggressive German aristocracy to stop expanding eastward, and if the rich Bohemia could be pocketed by the way, Poland's strength would be greatly improved, and its voice among the great powers would be more weighty.

So he intervened, uniting with his restless neighbors, the Magyars, who had just recovered from the stormy invasion of the Bulgarian Tsar Samuil, and lost his original territory from the Danube to Transylvania, and had it not been for the Byzantine Emperor Basil II, who had fallen from heaven to join the war with the Bulgarians, the Magyars would have been in jeopardy.

The hungry nomad was now like a jackal in a failed battle, with scarlet eyes and trying to rip fresh meat from somewhere else to satisfy his stomach, and the Poles' proposal hit it off, and the two sides hit it off, and they jointly launched a crusade against Emperor Henry, who had broken the oath of the Emperor.

At night, there are few lights in Gniezno, except for the bonfire on the castle of the Grand Duke's residence, known as the Imperial Mountain, which burns all night, like a lighthouse guiding travelers in the dark, beckoning the timid wanderer to return home.

The outline of the castle in the night is very clear, it is different from the typical castles of Western Europe, it is unique in shape, it looks like a tall water tower in the future, the tapered pointed hat is buckled on it, the civil structure of the building is easier to pile up than the masonry structure, it is four stories high, but the poor fire resistance is its fatal shortcoming, so the castle is close to the big river flowing from east to south, and the west is close to Lake Yalonek and Lake Szyvient, the wide water surface is convenient for taking water to extinguish the fire in case of danger, and it can also provide a certain degree of protection, Create difficulties for the enemy to besiege the city.

The Poles in the city were indeed aware of their princess, and that it was getting late but still not returning, so there were more torches than usual on the walled city, and many people could be seen walking around, shouting orders and shouting questions and answers, as if they were nervous preparations for battle.

I put on the costume of a Polish knight and escorted Figura to the edge of the forest outside the city, staring at the soldiers on the city walls, and gasped for a sigh of relief, for I could not imagine that I would be able to agree to such a thrilling plan in such a desperate attempt again.

(End of chapter)