By the time the news reached the Norman kingdom, the Norman legions were ready to go.

The 50,000 Norman standing army was reorganized, and with the addition of new Finnish light cavalry and professional hussars, the number of light cavalry units in the Norman regiment had reached 6,000, and the total number of cavalry was close to 10,000.

At the same time, there was news from the diplomatic front.

The diplomat Foster's mission to Novgorod went very well, and Rurik seemed to have been frightened by the fighting power of the Norman army, and when Foster said Randy's conditions, he agreed without thinking, as if he was afraid that Randy would regret it.

To Randy's surprise, the Grand Duchy of Moscow's diplomacy was also going very well.

Duchess Catherine II praised Randy's great achievements and agreed to Randy's terms despite the consensus, declaring that the previous unhappiness could not hinder the friendship between the two countries for generations.

At the banquet, Catherine II frequently toasted the diplomat, praised Randy and the huge power of the Norman kingdom many times, compared Randy to a great monarch like Alexander and Charlemagne, and even claimed to be an admirer of Randy, and the entire Grand Duchy of Moscow was willing to be a solid ally of the Norman kingdom!

If it weren't for the fact that Catherine II vaguely proposed that the two countries should jointly punish Novgorod, or even eliminate Lithuania and partition Poland, this series of cooperation, the diplomat Sekender was almost fooled, believing the sweet words of the young duchess.

"It's extremely dangerous, but it's not useless, and how to choose is all in my king's thoughts."

After receiving the pigeon news from Sykende, Randy fell into deep thought.

Eventually, Randy agreed to an alliance between the Norman kingdom and Moscow, and accepted the 20,000 gold coins from Moscow with peace of mind, and wrote a letter with an extremely arrogant attitude, like that of the suzerainty emperor to the barbarian king of Fanbang, encouraging Moscow's loyalty and promising to participate in the alliance in Moscow, in order to confuse Catherine II into believing that she was an idiot and that it was only luck that she was able to achieve such a victory.

Of course, as for Catherine's disbelief or not, that's another matter.

Secretly, Randy ordered his Norman merchants to treat the grain trade to Novgorod and Moscow differently, citing the long distances and the large number of checkpoints along the way, with more favorable prices for Novgorod and windfall profits for Moscow. At the same time, consult with the Royal Consulate to select a small number of trustworthy and controllable merchants to carry all kinds of contraband prepared by Randy......

Iron, feathered arrows, piles of spears, shields, and even plate-chain composite armor to Novgorod were sold at a flat price, or even at a loss.

Randy also wrote a letter asking Prince Rurik if he needed some military instructors to help him train the army and even command the battle, but in the end Rurik politely refused, presumably because he couldn't believe that Randy would be so kind.

Randy was busy for most of the day, but still out of vague unease about Moscow.

The duchess of Moscow, Catherine II, is quite outstanding in both governing the country and strategic vision, and is resolute between giving and taking, and is very courageous, if Moscow really gets its wish, annexes Novgorod, unifies the whole of East Slavia, and even annexes Poland, there is no need to think about it, and then the Moscow state will be greatly enhanced.

Although it is not realistic to revive the glory of Tsarist Russia, it is extremely possible to replace the original position of the United Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania and become the strongest power in Eastern Europe.

Under Catherine II, a brilliant monarch, Russia would become a formidable enemy to hinder Randy's eastward advance.

As a result, Randy felt the need to support Novgorod to fight it, at least until Randy had his hands free to take care of the countries of Eastern Europe.

But then again, the situation in Poland has not been optimistic in recent times.

The Yugoslav territory in southern Poland, which had been invaded by the Hungarians, established two principalities here, Bosnia, Serbia, and two principalities, together with the former Transylvania, as vassals of the Kingdom of Hungary.

The whole of southern Poland has been consolidated, and after obtaining the resources of these territories, the Kingdom of Hungary has regained a lot of strength!

In addition, there is Eastern Rome, but because there is a very large nomadic kingdom of Hungary in the north of Eastern Rome, Eastern Rome does not get much benefit from the Poles, and in the end it can only rely on the Imperial Black Sea Fleet to transport a 10,000-strong army to occupy a small part of the Crimea region, as a new colony of the Eastern Roman Empire, and a military base to use.

It is said that Emperor Basil was annoyed by the fact that Hungary had been given such a big advantage, and the people of the Eastern Romans were also very concerned about the Hungarians, who were beginning to regain their strength.

At that time, Hungary was deterred by force, so that the Eastern Roman Empire had to pay tribute to it, which was a shame for all Romans.

As a result, the tension between Eastern Rome and Hungary began to intensify in the Balkans, and Randy received news that a large number of Roman troops had begun to assemble on the Hungarian border, and according to the spies, he saw eight different Roman legion flags, as well as the banners of the Roman Imperial Guard's Eagle and Constantine's ironclad palazaders.

That is to say, this time the Romans concentrated at least eight legions, plus two special legions, the Emperor's Guards and the Iron Paladin.

The Romans gathered more than 100,000 troops, and the ironclad paladiers, who were regarded as the king of the heavy cavalry of the Middle Ages, were also taken out, plus the emperor's personal expedition......

It seems that the Romans can't help but want to go big and wipe out Hungary once and for all.

If such news doesn't have much to do with Randy for the time being, then this news about Lithuania should be able to arouse Randy's interest.

As the ultimate beneficiary of the disintegration of the Kingdom of Poland, Grand Duke Vytautas of Lithuania finally played the title of heir to the Polish throne, and cleaned up all the opponents supported by Randy in a devastating manner, and completely controlled the entire Lithuanian region.

However, at least for now, it seems that Vytautas has no plans to declare war on Randy.

Although Randy was at war with the coalition forces of the Three Kingdoms in the East before this, and Vytautas also led his steppe iron cavalry to gather in the Livonia region to plot against him, after the victory of the Norman Kingdom, Vytautas did not say a word, directly led his troops to withdraw, and continued to wander around the steppes of Eastern Europe with his army.

It is no exaggeration to say that during that time, although the two sides were tense, they did not actually declare war, and diplomatic relations remained neutral, and on the interface of the Enides system, it was also yellow and hostile.

So, Randy also came up with a countermeasure.

When sending envoys to Novgorod and the Grand Duchy of Moscow, diplomats were also sent to Lithuania, hoping to establish diplomatic relations with Lithuania on an equal footing and sign a trade treaty to facilitate the development of commercial activities between the two sides, so as to release goodwill and pass on some trade to the Norman kingdom by the way.

Psychologically speaking, whether it is the Grand Duke of Lithuania among the three Baltic states, or Vytautas as the heir of the United Kingdom, he has no good feelings at all about the Norman Kingdom, which occupies the Livonian region, indirectly destroys two of the three Baltic states, and directly leads to the defeat of the United Kingdom.

No! It's not so much that they don't have good feelings, but they only have malice but malice, and they want to wipe out the Norman kingdom every moment, kill all their Viking warriors, and then pull their king off the throne and cut off the precious head with the Norman iron crown.

But......

"Hahaha, my country also has good intentions towards the Norman Kingdom, and I admire King Randy and the Norman heroes under his command, and I am willing to make friends with him!"

This was the reply of the Grand Duke Vytautas, who readily accepted the emissaries with fine pottery, furs, and silks from the East, and signed treaties of commerce and non-aggression that were clearly beneficial to the Norman merchants.

The so-called eloquent monarch is almost like that!

The situation is stronger than the people, and that is exactly what it is.

From May 1101 to August 1102, it lasted for a year and three months, affecting the entire Baltic Sea coast, except for the Holy Roman Empire, and finally led to the destruction of the two powerful kingdoms of Sweden and the United Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, more than 500,000 people died in the war, millions of people were displaced, and the great battle named the First Baltic Total War finally came to an end.

The biggest winners of this campaign were the annexation of Sweden, the vassal of Finland, the annexation of Livonia, Prussia, the Danish kingdom with the capital of Gotland, and the Norman kingdom on the coast of Novgorod, whose capital was newly founded St. Petersburg, which was named Neo-Scandinavia, and grew into a new European power.

In this way, Randy got a total of two cities in Sweden, Gothenburg and Stockholm, none in Finland, two cities in Livonia, Riga and Vilnius, three cities in Prussia, Königsberg, Marienburg, Danzig, Gotland in Denmark, New Scandinavia, St. Petersburg, and Pskov.

By this time, the Norman kingdom had unified all the Baltic coastal territories and cities except for Pomerania, and the number of cities had increased to eighteen, and it had successfully risen to become a European power such as the Kingdom of France and the Holy Roman Empire.

Militarily not inferior, political system and economic state, but stronger than these two countries.

If it continues to develop like this, it can even become a continental hegemon comparable to that of Eastern Rome.

So Randy transformed gorgeously again, upgrading from the braised carp of the year to a European crocodile, and officially entered the predator level.

After a busy day in the Royal Consulate, Randy finalizes foreign policy with the three countries of Eastern Europe.

Defend against Lithuania, restrain Moscow, and support Novgorod.

At the same time, he also formulated the kingdom's budget for the next quarter, talked about the kingdom's next scientific and technological development direction, and continued to reinforce Normandy.

In terms of diplomacy, it is better to finish fighting with France, or to cut a piece of his flesh fiercely.

Under the moonlight, Randy was lying on the balcony of the palace a little lonely, drinking grape juice with ice in front of the moonlight, and the night breeze was a little cool that night, so Randy was covered with a quilt, so he drank cold drinks covered with a quilt, and felt a little full of food, but Randy liked to do this.

After a while, when the maid refills the glass five times, Randy feels a little bored and misses his wife at the same time, when suddenly this voice comes from behind him.

"Congratulations!"

"Hehehe......"

Randy knew that in this situation, it was basically the cheap sister arranged by Enides to come to him for fun, and this situation had been played out often in recent days, making Randy overwhelmed but helpless.

In this way, while Randy's days like this have passed for a long time, Randy orders to speed up the preparations and let General Carter's naval fleet return quickly, so that the Norman Legion has to be transported to France!

Before the Navy fleet returned, Randy had such a time that was not very leisurely.

Working hard in the Royal Consulate, checking the progress of the army's training in the barracks, and the progress of the research on many items that he planned to make money on, as well as bits and pieces such as two-handed swords, full-coverage helmets, composite shields, pulley crossbows, and a series of very nice equipment.

"What happened again?" Randy replied in a somewhat impatient tone.

"That's right! How are you thinking about it? Aurora asked, completely ignoring Randy's impatience.

"My answer is that it's no fun, the kingdom can't draw that kind of strength and make such a scale of investment now."

"Really? Can't even squeeze out 50,000 gold coins for scientific research? ”

"Sea ships are a very expensive thing, even if it is an early ocean-going sailing ship like the Galen, it is absolutely impossible to study without 1.8 million, so the input and output are completely disproportionate."

Aurora still smiled: "Don't lie to anyone, it's okay to use an old-fashioned ship like the Dragon's Head Ship, as long as you use Greenland ice as a transit station, you only need to invest tens of thousands of gold coins." ”

"That kind of ice and snow, half of the year is the polar night that does not see the light of day, and there is no development value at all." Randy grumbled.

"But it can be used as a transit point, and then we can reach the new continent as quickly as possible."

"Once you arrive, it's a snowy place, and no one likes it except polar bears and seals."

"Didn't you keep saying you wanted to leave a way out for yourself? Although it is icy and snowy, there is also a polar night for half of the year, isn't this also the case in Scandinavia? ”

"Perhaps! But such an expedition would be of limited use, and it would be fine to establish a colony in Greenland and Iceland, but it would be too difficult to make a difference in the New World. ”

On the other few nights, Aurora would come here to discuss the sending of expeditions from Iceland to Iceland in Greenland to North America to carry out colonization activities.

However, although Aurora is very enthusiastic about this matter, Randy, who really has the idea, is not very interested in it, although Randy has thought before that if the continent fails, he will take the people to the New World to develop and establish the Holy Norman Empire! But now that the Norman kingdom is thriving, and the Holy Norman Empire can be established on the European continent, why bother looking for the near and far?

In addition, there are a lot of newly acquired cities during this time, and Randy also wants to build a St. Petersburg in the original history, and it will cost more money at that time, so Randy has no plans to colonize the New World in the near future.

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