"General, this is it!"

A Norman pirate found a delicate silver knight's medal from the man's coat pocket and sent it to General Carter like a treasure.

General Carter frowned, looked at the other hand's outstretched hand, and subconsciously took a step back, carefully identifying the coat of arms in the other party's hand.

In fact, he himself did not carefully study heraldry!

It's also in vain, the interrogation has been carried out so far, and the information obtained is enough.

"Throw them all into the sea and feed the sharks."

Carter took a handkerchief from his pocket, wrapped it around the knight's medal, and walked towards his captain's quarters under the reluctant gaze of the pirate who found it.

"My lord, I know everything I know, why do you want to kill me?" The captive, who had told the information, shouted like a pig.

General Carter turned around: "By the way, you guys wait first."

The Vikings, who were about to throw them into the sea to feed the sharks, stopped.

"Your Excellency, Your Excellency, the ......"

The captive, who thought he had survived, smiled disgustingly like a pug, looked at Carter, as if pondering a few sycophants.

Carter ignored the captive completely, took a gold coin from his pocket, and threw it to the pirate who had searched for his knight's medal.

"We Normans have a rule, we will hand over half of the things we have grabbed to Your Majesty, and we can't let you suffer, and this gold coin will be compensated." General Carter said earnestly to the pirate.

"The general is mighty! The general is righteous! The pirate shamelessly gritted the gold coin with his teeth, and laughed.

"Alright, it's okay, do it!"

This time, Carter really walked away without looking back, and no matter how much the Slavs shouted, it would be useless.

"The Grand Duchy of Moscow, is Catherine II's Biaozi also going to war? However, this is also to be expected, after all, Moscow, like Eastern Rome, is an Orthodox Christian. ”

Thinking of this, Carter didn't hesitate, walked quickly back to the captain's room, repaired a letter to wrap up what happened this time, along with the knight's medal, and found the secret agent with the army, so that he could contact the outside world.

This is quite simple to say, the ruler of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, the ambitious Catherine II, also wants a piece of the pie in this chaos.

Because of the geography, religion, and most importantly, the unfair trade with the Norman kingdom, the Slavs suffered heavy losses, and the Grand Duchy of Moscow complained, so Catherine II directly approached the Eastern Roman Empire to form an alliance with it, and the Eastern Roman Empire naturally had no reason to refuse the allies sent up, the two sides hit it off and signed an alliance, and the Grand Duchy of Moscow officially declared war on the Catholic coalition led by the Norman Kingdom, the Papal States, the Holy Roman Empire, and the quasi-allies of the Norman Kingdom, the Novgorod Republic!

The Grand Duchy of Moscow mobilized all its forces, a total of 40,000 troops, divided into two routes.

All the way north, attacking Novgorod, of course, this is just to expand the territory, Novgorod is obviously not the same as the Norman kingdom, and saying that it is a quasi-ally is just an excuse made by Catherina.

The other main force, still led by General Semenovsky, marched from the steppes of Eastern Europe, striving to pacify southern Poland as soon as possible and join forces with the Eastern Roman Empire.

Carter's fleet was met by this army.

Although the Grand Duchy of Moscow did not have a coastal area, and the naval construction was basically zero, only the Norman fleet went all the way down, and the pirates were idle and itchy, and they had a chance when they went ashore to rob.

Therefore, Semenovsky, discovered this fleet.

Speaking of which, Semenovsky is also a good general, but naval battles and land battles are not the same thing at all, and he takes it for granted that as long as he gets on the ship, it is basically not much different from cutting people with an axe.

So he sent people to take advantage of the night to launch a surprise attack, but he didn't expect the news to be revealed, not to mention the loss of troops, and let the Normans know about it in advance.

As soon as the news broke, Randy made a decision!

Norman Kingdom, Second Mobilization!

From Brittany to Scandinavia, all Norman territories, all reserve forces, began to mobilize, mobilizing 200,000 troops into battle.

Of these, 100,000 headed south and entered the Apennine Peninsula through the route originally taken by the coalition forces.

Another 100,000 troops joined Artoria's army.

In addition, Artoria was canonized as a field marshal and led the war in the northern frontier of the kingdom!

In addition, he believed in Prince Rurik of Novgorod and strictly ordered him to convert to Catholicism as soon as possible and join the Catholic crusade sequence, otherwise it would be regarded as an enemy country, and the three armies would be defeated.

Randy thought to himself: In times of internal and external troubles, Rurik should be able to make the right choice, right!?

This was followed by Randy's third measure, which was to write to Frederick Hohenstaufen, Duke of Bavaria, Duke of Swabia, and Holy Roman Emperor, hoping that he would end the war with Saxony as soon as possible, and indeed lead 200,000 German troops south to King Qin, as he had said.

Seeing that the Eastern Roman Empire was growing stronger, with more and more allies, and a stronger posture to sweep the world, Randy's sense of powerlessness became more and more obvious, just as Basil II said, the Catholic world was scattered.

"No! Need! More allies are needed! After Randy finished writing his letter to Frederick, he threw his quill pen to the ground and leaned back in his chair, thinking viciously.

"For example...... Those Muslims ......"

Thinking of this, Randy couldn't help but laugh, his voice as harsh as a night owl, making Joan of Arc frown, who was standing behind him.

"Do you understand? Joan of Arc? ”

Randy has been with Joan of Arc for so long, so he naturally knows her temper, and this time he didn't wait for Joan of Arc to speak, he turned to Joan of Arc and said, "Sometimes in order to fight against stronger enemies, angels will also work with demons!" ”

Joan of Arc decisively rejects Randy's arrogant blasphemy: "I've never heard of such a thing, and you're not an angel, at best you're only a little better than the devil." ”

"So...... According to Joan of Arc, I should cooperate with the devil, with the pagan devils. Randy lowered his voice, muttering to himself in a small voice that he could only hear.

This neurotic look made Joan of Arc feel very uneasy......

——————————

Because I'm from the mountains, I don't have much knowledge.

Because I'm from the mountains, I'm not polite.

Because I'm from the mountains, I don't know the rules.

Because he is from the mountains, he is illiterate.

Because I am from the mountains, I have no money!

Because they are mountain people, the land is not suitable for farming.

Because he is from the mountains, he can only be a mercenary.

This is Randy's impression of the so-called mountain people.

This is true of Scotland, and it is also true of the Swiss.

However, there are some slight differences between the two, and this difference is partly that the Swiss are poorer than the Scottish, the land is less suitable for farming, and there are more mercenaries.

Speaking of Randy, the legendary famous, invented the phalanx offensive tactics of the Swiss, or more important, the vast majority of the regular army in this era did not have these Swiss mercenaries to fight, although the equipment is poor, but with rich combat experience, tenacious will, and a sense of identity with the concept of the Swiss, in order to bring unity, the combat effectiveness of the Swiss mercenaries is eye-catching, but it's a pity......

Switzerland is so poor! Therefore, it is difficult to be independent, and it is often controlled by other powers, but Switzerland's unique mountain culture cannot tolerate the control of other countries in any case, and no matter which country Switzerland is controlled by, the Swiss people's tendency towards independence is very high and very difficult to manage.

In order to consolidate his rule in the southern regions of France and improve his position in the Holy Roman Empire, Charles, Duke of Burgundy, spent several years sending an army to finally take Switzerland into his pocket and add a crown of Prince of Switzerland to herself, but she soon regretted it......

If you can't bring you profits, no one wants to give it to others for nothing.

And the Swiss territory can't bring Charlie any benefit at all.

A little tax collected from the Swiss is not as much as the military expenditure in order to suppress the rebellion of the Swiss, and the whole of Switzerland suddenly becomes a big burden of the Duchy of Burgundy, and more than 1/3 of the taxes of the Duchy of Burgundy are embezzled every year.

Duke Charles was sad because of this matter, but he is also a man who understands, and he can't do such a thing as letting the Swiss become independent from him, if he dares to do this, then tomorrow his most important source of finance and taxation, the Netherlands, will also have to make an independent scene, so that independence comes and goes, and my brother and I will collapse.

Hire Swiss soldiers! And it was a massive, mass-hired Swiss population.

In the event of a disaster or famine, the Swiss were hired as mercenaries and dismissed when the conditions were good.

In this way, the Duchy of Bogundy has a semi-standing army of 20,000 semi-professional and semi-mercenary troops, composed entirely of Swiss, and its combat effectiveness is extremely strong, it can be said that the entire army of the Duchy of Burgundy is fully mobilized, and the combat power of 20,000 people can account for at least 1/3 of the entire Duchy.

Randy looked at this group of Swiss mercenaries with envy in his heart.

Although he has a stronger dwarven chamber guard, but stronger combat effectiveness means higher hiring costs, and more difficult to replenish the troops, Randy sits on the Norman kingdom of Norman's territory, and the dwarven chamber guards under his command are only 5,000 people, which can only be used to stabilize the front on the battlefield, not to attack, so Randy tried to reorganize the Normans' professional super long spear troops, but unfortunately, it was not successful.

Speaking of which, the Normans specialize in the tomahawks! As a universal hoplite, it is naturally competent, but as a super-long spear unit, it is not qualified enough. Therefore, after the research of ultra-long spear technology, the Norman kingdom only added some spear militia, and there was no professional super-lance unit in the real sense.

And Randy's latest conquest of Scotland, although it has a very suitable super-long spear unit, is still very inconvenient.

First, Scotland is now at least nominally, Artoria's territory, recruiting troops from Scotland themselves, if it's a militia, it's fine, if it's a regular army, then it's not a big deal.

Second, Randy doesn't look down on the Scots, because the Scots are too poorly disciplined, and it is very easy to charge without permission, no Swiss are obedient, and the Swiss mercenaries work hard for their employers, and there is no word in the mountains and fires, which is very easy to use.

Therefore, Randy is very envious of Charlie, who has 20,000 Swiss mercenaries in his hands, and thinks that Charlie's use of these soldiers is simply a treasure.

"Give each of them ten acres of land, two slaves, let them become military property, specialize in fighting, and then give each of them a set of chainmail overalls of the same style, and form a professional army." Completely ignoring the fact that Burgundy doesn't have that much land at all, Randy talks lightly while planning to dig into the corners of the Covenant.

In fact, just after the coalition entered the Apennine Peninsula, Randy deliberately began to woo some of Charlie's largest Swiss mercenary generals, and successfully won the favor of these people.

In fact, Randy's behavior is completely useless, and at the same time, it is also unnecessary.

After Randy had a good impression, he tentatively asked them if they would be willing to hire them for three times the price of Charlie.

Several mercenary leaders nodded: Of course we do, we will eat this bowl of rice.

Randy was overjoyed, but before he could rejoice, several mercenary leaders uttered such a twist:

However, we will not be able to re-enter into a new employment contract until the employment contract between us and Duke Charles expires.

Randy said that this is understandable, disciplined mercenaries recruit people, if they can abandon Charlie for three times the mercenary money, then they can abandon Randy for a higher mercenary, this kind of undisciplined mercenary no one will be at ease.

So Randy then asked, "And how long does it take for your contract with Duke Charlie to expire?" ”

The mercenary leader replied: "Actually, this contract is a little different, this is a contract that can only be terminated unilaterally, and there is no time limit, which means that as long as Duke Charles does not want to break the contract and has been paying commissions, then the employment contract will not be invalidated." ”

Randy was speechless for a while, and at the same time, he began to be a little impressed by Charlie, a big grinning guy.

After confirming that it was almost impossible for Charlie to let these mercenaries go at least until the end of this war, Randy also gave up the idea of continuing to dig into the corner and began to kill seriously.

Kill the Venetians!

The reason is also very sufficient, just five words!

"Death to heretics!"

Randy's army dug trenches three or four times under the city of Bologna, prepared for a long-term siege, and prepared for reinforcements, and at the same time sent light cavalry troops to burn and loot in northeastern Italy, sowing fear, and forcing the Venetian army to come out of the city and engage their own side head-on.

(End of chapter)