I shrugged my eyebrows, asked the little squire to fill up the wine, turned my back and stared at the windmill slowly turning on the hillside in the distance, thinking about something, not noticing Kohler behind me, in fact his steps were as light as a mouse-catching cat, completely silent and imperceptible.

"This is the royal decree just issued by His Majesty the Pope, my nightingale sent it from the Vatican back to Nijmegen, it only took ten days without stopping, the official order has arrived in Burgundy, and if everything goes well, it will be here in about twenty days."

Kohler took out from his bosom the parchment stuffed in a special tin barrel to seal the oil, the small piece of paper roughly wrote the main content of the papal edict, the small print was dizzy, I handed it to Leonardo, sat down on the side, and ordered the little squire to pour everyone a glass and cold the fine wine with ice cubes in the cellar.

"By this time there will be a hand, cunning man......"

Leonardo nodded with a sneer, and muttered to himself in a low voice, deliberately bullying the two of us who were anxiously waiting for us to be illiterate, no, Kohler should have understood the content of the edict, and now I am the only one who is looking forward to it!

"Ahem!"

I pretended to clear my throat loudly, and touched Leonardo with my elbow, this old man is good at everything, but he likes to hang people's appetite, and this temper and character are estimated to have been beaten since childhood.

"Shouldn't I be told what's in the secret letter? Who's the Earl here? ”

Leonardo walked over to the burning candle in the niche where the cross was placed, lit a corner of the folded note, and played with it to see it burn to ashes, and then said to me: "His Holiness the Pope has waged a holy war in the name of the Holy See, asking all devout Christians, especially the knights who defend the glory of God, to take up arms and recover Sicily, which is occupied by the Saracens, and to relieve this small ****** emir state of the threat to the western Mediterranean." ”

"Finally ready to act? The Duke of Normandy would then have to lead his army and set out for the coastal cities of Provence, and we would have no worries about attacking Friesland, and by the time he returned in a fit of rage, all had settled. ”

Hearing this, I was excited, and the fat in my mouth finally had a chance to swallow it, arousing my greedy greed.

"I'm afraid it's not that simple, His Holiness the Pope saw the trick we were playing, and he made a special mention of a few devout followers who were favored by God, and asked them to unite around them to wield the sword of justice, slay the evil heretics, and open the door to heaven, in addition to the good leaders you know such as the Duke of Normandy and the Count of Flanders, but also you, Lord Randy Adrian Hoffmann, Count of Nijmegen, according to the orders of the document, You must arrive in Rome with your army within two months, and in fact all the knights involved in the holy war are required to assemble on the outskirts of Rome and cross the Campania gorge to capture the ****** city of Reggio in Calabria. ”

"He is taking the opportunity of the holy war to gather an army for himself, and when the army gathers in Rome, even His Majesty the Emperor not only does not have the certainty of victory, but also does not dare to attack the Vatican at the risk of the world's condemnation, and during this time, the Holy See can make a contingency and coerce His Majesty to bow his head and make concessions."

"Damn it!"

I slammed the glass on the ground and stood up suddenly: "I didn't expect him to put it together, we were used as guns by others!" ”

"And we ourselves handed him the gun."

Leonardo sat back in his chair, and he didn't see anything unusual on his expression, but in fact, his heart was already thinking about countermeasures at high speed.

"Is there anything you can do to turn the tide? At least don't let the Pope's conspiracy succeed. ”

Kohler, who was about to forget his existence, suddenly walked to the middle, raised his hand and made a motion to wipe his neck in our surprised eyes, which admittedly scared us into farts and urine, and almost incontinent, especially Leonardo's reaction, which is definitely an early symptom of Alzheimer's disease.

Even if we knew in advance that Kohler was not religious at all, and that he had little affection for the Pope, who was at the top of the aristocracy he hated most, this criticism still shocked our perceptions.

"It's the worst I can think of."

Leonardo finally relieved himself and said with a blank look at Kohler.

"Then there's only one way."

Kohler estimated that he was going to play a joke with us just now, but he didn't expect our lower limit to be so high, so he had to say seriously: "I heard that the ****** of Sicily are all vassals of the Spanish caliphate, and the holy war launched by the Pope will inevitably shock Córdoba, is there nothing we can do to encourage them to attack a few small principalities at the southern foot of the Pyrenees, causing the defense line of southwestern France to be in jeopardy?" ”

"Sound from east to west!"

Knowing this, I slapped my head and summed it up succinctly: "Yes, then we can refuse to rush to Rome in the name of helping our brothers in Christ." ”

"Stupid!"

Leonardo slapped the table and stared at us with hatred: "Won't the Duke of Normandy use this excuse?" They will continue to stand behind the Frisians, ready to strike us a fatal blow. ”

Koller listened silently to his reprimand, then turned his face and asked with an innocent expression, "Do you have any more clever plans?" ”

Leonardo nodded solemnly: "We must first prepare our troops and horses to participate in the Pope's crusade." ”

My brain suddenly rusted off and short-circuited for a moment, and then reacted violently: "Wait, what did you just say that the Holy War launched by the Pope is called?" ”

"Crusades, knights who participated in the holy war, had to wear a shirt embroidered with a cross to identify themselves, otherwise it would be disrespectful to God and the holy cause."

Kohler didn't understand why I was asking, but he patiently explained to me.

Grandma's, I didn't expect that the first crusade was provoked by me, but the target was changed from Jerusalem to Sicily......

I cupped my heavy forehead and sighed at the butterfly effect of the crossing.

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If it weren't for the surrounding verdant midsummer forests and rippling blue water, the warm breath of closing my eyes would suddenly make me feel like I am in the scorching desert of the Middle East, where the dry tumbleweeds are blown wildly by the suffocating dragon's breath wind, and disappear into the vast wind and dust in an instant.

At the end of the dim world, there is a ****** rider whose face is unclear, the edge of his turban is messily flying up and down, and the cold and glistening Damascus scimitar in his hand still exudes a murderous aura even if he is so far away.

"Your Excellency, the Bishop has sent an attendant to invite you, saying that there is something to discuss with you."

Rollo rode on his horse, and the form-fitting chain mail covered his maturing and strong figure, and he looked majestic, enough to charm the thousands of girls in Nijmegen.

"I said, little one, you have to be careful when you sleep alone lately, Kohler may kill you secretly, just as easily as he can go through Yang in a hundred steps."

I pretended to bend my bow and arrow, and when I saw Luo Luo, whose cheeks twitched unnaturally with fright, laughed: "Because you have taken away his throne as the most beautiful man in Nijmegen, how many beautiful women have since left his arms, it is very likely that our unsmiling Lord Kohler will be furious!" ”

Luo Luo embarrassedly took off the hat of the chain mail, scratched the back of his head with messy hair, cleared his throat in embarrassment, and drove the war horse to the side with the long sword hanging from his waist.

I grinned as I watched him go away, then I tightened the reins of my horse and urged my horse to run to the carriage of Archbishop Gailius of Berlin.

The archbishop's carriage was surrounded by the church's own Templar regiment, like a tall and tight wall, so dense that not even a fly could fly into it, and I even sympathized with him for his breath of fresh air.

The archbishop, who had a fortune, was of course very sorry for his life, as the largest feudal lord in North Germany, he did not trust anyone from the bottom of his heart, which stemmed from the pathological paranoia of the superiors.

The Bishop refused my offer to send troops for protection, and only agreed that the army in Nijmegen should be responsible for the guard of the periphery, and that only the armed priests who had grown up bathing in the light of the church since childhood, and the caring people who obeyed his orders, all of them made people wonder if it was the old bishop's forbidden place to have fun every night.

Looking at these Templars who covered the armor they wore inside with their rudimentary robes, and their eyes were resolute and unsquinting, my saliva was about to flow out, they were all brainwashed war machines, they could willingly shed their blood for their faith, they were literate and disciplined, and their personal fighting skills were not to be mentioned, who had an army composed entirely of such warriors could simply sweep the world.

"O Lord! If I could have them, would I trade them for the same amount of gold, or would we sit down and chat? With my hands folded, I sat on my horse and silently prayed that I would get the samurai I had always wanted.

"Sure enough, you are a well-known pious person, who confesses your original sins to God and asks for forgiveness at all times and at all times, you are an example for all secular lords to follow, those utilitarians who only know how to wield the sword and wield the strong, are simply barbaric heretics."

Bishop Gailius carried the little priest in his arms and got out of his carriage, his huge belly tightly wrapped in a belt inlaid with pearls, and he trembled and swayed with every movement, like a lump of jelly that could fall out at any moment, and the eyeballs of the eye involuntarily swayed up and down with it.

(End of chapter)