After spending an entire day reviewing the army, Randy felt a surge of power.

In this era when a thousand people are a force and 10,000 people are a large army, more than 200,000 people is simply unimaginable, and only those legendary huge empires can come up with an army in ancient times.

But now this legendary figure can be reproduced, and it is in front of my own eyes, it is simply incredible, and it seems that he is destined to be remembered by history.

Under the watchful eye, the 240,000-strong army divided into three routes, starting from Venice and following the path of the Holy Roman Empire, approaching Budapest, the capital of Hungary.

But what bothered Randy was that because the previous group of damn Holy Roman Empire troops bullied the Hungarians under the banner of the Crusaders, the Hungarians also had no good impression of this coalition army, most people regarded them as the same goods, non-violent non-cooperation was already very polite, and the raids of the rangers made the coalition army extremely irritable, and the coalition army was not a benevolent and righteous army, so the depressed mood naturally affected their attitude towards the local Hungarians, and their attitude towards the Hungarians, It also confirmed the Hungarians' understanding of them, so the Hungarians attacked them even harder.

It's a vicious circle, the rest is good to say, the coalition army itself has more than 200,000 troops, after the division of troops into three routes, Norman is in the center, northern Italy and the spontaneous crusaders are in the south, France is north, these three armies have at least 50,000 horses on each road, and it is impossible to have too many casualties if they are harassed by the Hungarians a little, as for the morale problem, it can be mediated by heavy robbery and massacre of local residents, anyway, Randy sees it, if the reputation is not good, the reputation is not good, it is not a big deal.

So, the Hungarians attacked the Allied convoys, attacked the Allied scouts, attacked the Coalition stragglers, and some even dared to attack the Allied forces themselves, in short, they attacked all the targets they could.

The coalition slaughtered settlements, villages, captured Hungarian Rangers, towns, and everything they could!

In this kind of large-scale killing and interference, it is impossible for the coalition forces to be faster, and it is already thankful to travel more than ten kilometers a day, and if there is bad weather such as wind and rain, it is even impossible to travel five kilometers a day.

The Hungarian fields were no match for the Norman Boulevard, not as good as the Eastern Roman Empire, not even France, the Holy Roman Empire, or Spain, after all, the Roman Empire had not entered the region on a large scale before that, and they could not take advantage of the roads built by the Romans.

But when it comes to the road problem, Randy is not very worried, maybe other idiots may get lost without the locals to lead the way, but for a person like Randy who holds a golden finger, it is simply a simple matter, and the local intelligence, there are also Norman spies who have been mixed into Hungary in advance, it is relying on the intelligence of these spies that the Norman middle army commanded by Randy did not suffer any losses, on the contrary, they will also plan and exterminate several Hungarian ranger units.

These Hungarian rangers made a deep impression on Randy.

Although these people are not tall, and the horses they ride are not as good as the hussars under their command, and the weapons and equipment are incomparable, but the fighting spirit of these people and the momentum of desperately killing the enemy make Randy appreciate it very much, worthy of Hungary, in a sense, Hungary is the first cavalry power in Europe, and it would be great if these excellent soldiers could be used for themselves.

But it seems a little premature to think about such a thing now, let alone recruit these soldiers for their own use, it is already very difficult to prevent them from fighting against him, adhering to the theory that he thinks when it is useful and discards it when it is useless, Randy thinks of one of his nominal allies, one of the members of the Catholic League of Seventeen, the fallen king of Hungary.

It would have been much better if that guy had been with the army! I don't know how that guy mixed up in the Eastern European steppes, whether it got into the belly of that wild wolf, so it's better to take care of yourself for the time being, the army began to advance to Budapest on July 10th, but it has been gone for more than a month, and no other opponents have been encountered except for the Hungarians, Randy's intelligence network has long sent the news back, the top of the Holy Roman Empire don't say anything, but the soldiers can't control their mouths, Randy knows how the Holy Roman Empire was defeated.

"If that guy thinks I'm that stupid, he's very wrong." Walking down a Hungarian field road, Randy complained.

At the same time, Basil II was complaining: "That damned Norman scout cavalry is so annoying, it seems that I should change my strategy and let him know that the Roman army is the most invincible." ”

——————————

Judging by the direction of the war, we have the upper hand.

Yes! Upper hand!

There was no better news for Randy, who had wiped out about five hundred Rangers at a time, and a hundred times more civilians, but could do nothing about the Greeks cowering in the city of Budapest.

If the coalition forces continue to attack, the rear road will become very unstable, and the opponent only needs to send a group of light cavalry to continuously attack the baggage team, and the entire coalition army can be dragged down!

But Budapest is already in sight, and if he doesn't go on the attack, how can Randy be willing?

Randy suddenly felt that Frederick was very pitiful, he should have been in a similar situation to himself, but the will of the two sides was completely different, Frederick was intoxicated with his consecutive victories, and felt that he could rely on this momentum to continue to win, but Randy sensed the potential danger, and fell into a dilemma, sure enough, people are stupid and distressed, Randy couldn't help but think like this, felt Frederick's pitiful thoughts, and it also concluded that this guy may be good at scheming and proficient in battle, but he lacks the necessary political means and strategic vision.

The absence of the former led him to make a wrong policy towards Northern Italy and Hungary, which led him to abandon two future allies in exchange for two enemies.

The absence of the latter allowed him to win one or two victories, but it could not solve the whole war.

This is how history develops, because of such shortcomings, Frederick invaded Italy from Germany, and later the German princes rebelled, and he returned to Germany from Italy, then the Italian city-states would become independent again, and this guy would consume all the strength and time he had left between Italy and Germany, and achieve nothing.

After weighing the rights and disadvantages, Randy sent all the hussars and Finnish light cavalry under his command to carefully inspect every vegetation and sand and gravel within a hundred kilometers of the surrounding area before advancing.

A hundred kilometers from Budapest, Randy receives a message from Norman spies that the main force of the other side had evacuated Budapest two days ago, and now there is only one Greek Provisional Levy Legion in Budapest, but only 10,000 light infantry.

"Did you escape?"

The enemy left an empty city as bait to lure himself in, and if you convert the time of the enemy's departure and the time of his arrival in Budapest, the time when he finally discovered the enemy's conspiracy...... The whole process takes almost a month!

In other words, if there is no Norman spy intelligence network, Randy will lose a month to attack a city that is no longer of much use, and the other party can calmly deploy troops to attack the other two armies of the coalition with absolute superiority.

But alas, everything didn't go so smoothly!

Randy sent heralds to deliver news to the other two armies, and at the same time gave orders for them to move closer to him, Budapest, and took the time to write a letter to the commander of the army of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, asking her to see if he could contact Attila, the former king of Hungary.

After that, there was a long wait......

Randy doesn't like to wait, either for his enemies or for his own people.

During this time, Randy had the idea of winning over a group of tribal chiefs who lived a nomadic life.

These guys have a strong sense of identity with the Hungarian nation and are also very loyal to their ancestor Attila, Randy explained that he was willing to send people to find Attila, and was willing to help Attila recover the country, and gave these tribes enough money benefits, these tribes were willing to follow Randy, and even some of them were developed and simple-minded and sent troops to follow Randy.

And the group that Randy suppressed was the aristocratic forces that Hungary had already taken refuge in, or secretly turned to, the Eastern Roman Empire.

Because of time reasons, they can't be cleaned up one by one, but there is still a necessary way to kill chickens and monkeys, Randy on the way to Budapest, he selected two of the most jumpy aristocratic forces, an earl and a baron, and then attacked the city and wiped out their whole family, and the long-useless human head fork spear execution method was used again, directly turning that area into a human head pole forest, seeing thousands of hideous and terrifying facial expressions, and the heads of the dead were hung by a company of spears, stuck in the ground and could not be seen at a glance, Even the strongest Hungarian warriors would feel a chill in their hearts.

If that were all there was to it, the Hungarians would not stop resisting.

What really made the Hungarians stop revolting was that Randy divided the territories of the two nobles into small pieces and gave them to the Hungarian peasants or herdsmen for free, and promised to give all the land of the Eastern Roman heretical nobles to the Hungarians loyal to Catholicism free of charge after defeating the Eastern Roman heresy in the future.

The Hungarians were skeptical of Randy's claims, and it wasn't until Randy actually sealed off all the lands, instead of taking them for himself like Frederick, that the Hungarians believed that there was such a good thing in this world, that there were wolves that didn't eat meat and sheep that didn't eat grass.

Of course, Randy still can't do this kind of thing to kill the Hungarian nobles, and it is not his turn to do it, and Randy spreads such rumors in private:

As long as they can abandon the darkness and turn to the light, comrades are still good comrades, and the life of a slave owner who is lawless and lawless can continue to live.

In this way, those aristocrats who are suspicious, have returned to the Eastern Roman Empire, and even have converted to Orthodox Christianity, have also contacted Randy privately, but until Randy completely defeats the Eastern Romans, these people are only potential underground parties, and they will never disclose their identities.

Randy adjusted his strategy and was delayed for several days, finally arriving in Budapest City on July 20th.

Of the other two armies, the French responded that they should come to rendezvous in three or four days, while the Italian front had no news.

"Is something wrong?"

The next day, he still did not receive news from the Italian coalition forces, and after contacting the French army, Randy decisively ordered the 140,000 troops to go south to meet the northern Italian army.

It's not that Randy is really worried about the death or life of that group of Northern Italian profiteers, but if his own army is really defeated all the way, the impact Randy can't stand it, but Randy thinks a little, the other party must have a spy intelligence network, otherwise why would he directly choose the weakest Italian army in the three-way army to attack?

The rabble composed of ** merchants and small citizens, I'm afraid they will be crushed in two or three clicks!

Of course, things weren't as bad as Randy thought!

Although it is said that the Northern Italian coalition army is a kind of mischief who dare not fight hard, but when is the score, the merchants can even sell Jesus Christ for profit, and it is natural to be desperate.

Nowadays, the trade of the entire Eastern Mediterranean, because of the defeat of the Venetian and Genoese navies, was almost taken over by the Eastern Roman Empire, which made a lot of money by virtue of its trade monopoly, and there were not a few city-states in northern Italy who committed suicide by jumping into the Mediterranean because of the trade blockade.

The city-state of northern Italy can be described as a bitter and deep hatred!

Genoa, Venice, Bologna, the Papal States, not to mention, others just for money, people for their lives to bloody Rome is chilling to hear.

In this case, in an open terrain 400 kilometers from Budapest.

The 50,000 Northern Italians and the Crusader coalition were all red-eyed in the face of the Greek heresy, and the posture was similar to that of a bull, and after the coalition army rested for a day and strictly guarded the camp to prevent harassment from the other side, the next day they took the initiative to attack, despite the huge gap that their army was only 1/4 or even 1/5 of the opponent.

The Northern Italian army preemptively attacked this kind of thing, and the Greek army really did not expect that the Eastern Roman army, from the lowest conscripted peasant soldiers, up to Basil II, almost everyone thought that the other party was just a lamb to the slaughter, and would only shrink in their own camp and tremble, and then be killed by the great Eastern Roman Empire army without any suspense.

But the fact is that the northern Italian army not only took the initiative, but also attacked quite fiercely.

Fifteen hundred Italian heavy cavalry, all equipped with plate chain composite armor, war horse chain armor, war horse felt, these heavy equipment, and the best war horses that the merchants could get, from Arabia, these cavalry are the essence of the Italian army, the strongest and sharpest spearhead, the vast majority of them come from wealthy merchant families and the aristocratic class, and their roots are red and morale is strong.

Seeing the Italian heavy cavalry swarming, the Greek army was shocked, and in the end, Basil II was able to control the scene, seeing that the enemy was not good, and did not know whether the Eastern Roman heavy infantry phalanx could resist, so he quickly sent three companies of ironclad holy cavalry out.

After a series of hard battles, especially a few days ago, when fighting with the Holy Roman Empire, the ironclad paladier cavalry was also damaged, and the cavalry in the early 5,000s of the original five companies was now only more than 4,600 people, and the three companies were 2,800 cavalry, which was much more than the Italian army.

(End of chapter)