Frederick was able to obtain the throne of Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.

First, it depends on his personal ability.

Although there have been frequent faint tricks in recent times, but it is because of old age and decay, at least a few years ago, he was still a very wise king, although he has been a little paranoid and arrogant in recent times, but on the whole he is still at the level of the first-class and second-rate top.

The second is the Duchy of Swabia and the Duchy of Bavaria, which he himself controls.

The population, army, economy, and agriculture of these two territories are all very good, and in terms of heads-up, only Feng IV, who has been defeated and lived and dies, can suppress him.

The German princes, fearful of military might and revered their abilities, eventually made him emperor.

But now......

In terms of ability, he was first ceded by the Normans to a large part of North Germany, then defeated by the Eastern Roman Emperor Basil II, and finally arbitrarily launched a war against the Norman Empire.

In terms of strength, the two major dukedoms, the Swabian duchess as the base camp was taken away, the Swabian soldiers defected in large numbers, the other duke Bavaria, as the former duke, Henry was more prestigious than him, in this case, Frederick was almost so anxious that he vomited blood, coupled with his age, his physical condition, and the current situation, more and more princes of the Holy Roman Empire felt that it might be time to choose the emperor again.

However, Frederick still has a chance, and if he can turn around in this war and win this war that idiots are not optimistic about, then he, the Holy Roman Emperor, may still be able to survive.

Contrarily...... Recently, it has been widely circulated:

The vow to "kill the Hohenstaufen family" is very likely to be fulfilled.

Frederick abandoned the strategic goal of continuing the siege of Hamburg and attacking Bremen, leaving Frederick II, Duke of Brandenburg, against the Norman garrison in Pomerania, and the Norman Queen's legion, which could come to support at any time.

When Frederick II received the order, he immediately wailed at the military council, he had fought with the Norman Empress in the hands of von IV, and remembered the hellish empress vividly.

"She's going to kill me! She will definitely kill me, and in addition to this, the whole of Brandenburg, and even the whole of North Germany, the Germans, she will definitely kill me, when she only had twenty or thirty thousand men in her hands, she wanted to do this, and now she has nearly 100,000 in her hands, 100,000 brutal and bloodthirsty Norman troops, Your Majesty, you can't leave me, I only have 12,000 people in my hands, Your Majesty, you should support me with some troops, otherwise the whole of North Germany will be finished. ”

Frederick cried and shouted to Frederick, of course, as the emperor, Frederick would not care about the difficulties of his subordinate princes.

He didn't care at all about the devastation of the Elector of Brandenburg, who had only 12,000 people, and in fact he was now unable to protect himself, so where could he take care of others?

For now, the army of the Holy Roman Empire ignored the desperate Brandenburgers and continued south......

It wouldn't be Schwaper who fled.

Seeing that Frederick made such a stupid decision, the princes under his command were also disheartened, especially Luciverd, Duke of Hesse, who defected to Frederick with Albrecht and was promoted to the Elector, because he was close to Albrecht's territory, so when he saw Erbrecht's fate, he felt sad.

Moreover, Hesse's territory also belonged to North Germany, and if Brandenburg was destroyed, then the next target of the other party might be Hesse, so after careful consideration, Lucived proposed to Frederick that he could stay and defend, so that with his 19,000 men, the northern front would have 30,000 troops, with a ratio of 3:1 to the enemy, which was enough for defense.

Luciveder's proposal was ultimately rejected by Frederick, because compared to his stronghold, South Germany, North Germany was not so important and could be discarded if necessary, and if the nearly 20,000 Hessian troops were left here, it would indeed be able to hold Artoria's army at bay longer.

But does that make sense? Not at all!

Because without enough troops, it was impossible to defeat the Norman Emperor's army entrenched in Swabia, which was the key to this war, and what did it matter if North Germany was eroded? Anyway, those princes won't give him a dime in taxes.

To put it bluntly, the weakening of these German princes also had certain benefits for Frederick, so that he did not have to worry about these princes rebelling.

Frederick's wishful thinking was cleverly played, but the other princes were not stupid, and Lucived was not the only one who seemed to feel sad about the death of the rabbit.

Swabia was not the only one fleeing Frederick's army on the way south. The soldiers of the armies of the other princes also began to flee continuously, and those princes, noble lords, also seemed to acquiesce in this behavior, after all, the direction of these people fleeing is their hometown, that is, their own territory, excluding natural and man-made disasters, most of them can escape back, if they are defeated and flee on the battlefield, then the loss will be great.

In this way, he walked all the way, ran all the way, and when he was halfway through, and was nearly fifty kilometers away from Frankfurt, Frederick counted his original army of 70,000, but now there is less than half of it, and excluding the 12,000 Brandenburg army, with 60,000 troops as the original number, only half is left.

The most terrifying thing was that Luciverd, Duke of Hesse, the Elector of Hesse, who had a pivotal position in the Holy Roman Empire, also escaped and became a deserter.

"With such an army, with such morale, what should I do to fight the Normans?"

Hearing such news, Frederick waved back left and right, leaving only the crown prince Henry by his side, crying to his son, his voice was full of sadness, so that the crown prince Henry couldn't help but tears moistened, and he wanted to persuade his father, but he didn't know where to start, and finally the father and son hugged each other and cried, and the scene was extremely miserable.

In this war, although the main armies of the two sides have not met once, the victory seems to have been revealed.

After the Norman army raided Swabia and pacified the entire Swabian army, the Norman army had about a sixty percent chance of winning, and Frederick could not grasp the heart of the army, resulting in a large number of troops fleeing, and the Norman army had a seventy percent chance of winning at this moment.

By the time the Norman Empress Artoria's 100,000 army marched westward, and the situation in North Germany was repeated, the odds of victory had reached ninety percent.

"But the more times like this, the more careful you have to be, if you get carried away, you are likely to be caught by the other party, and even reverse the tide of the battle, there are too many such cases in the whole world."

Randy reminded himself of this as he looked at the huge three-dimensional sand table that took up an entire table, with white flags representing his own troops and black flags representing the armies of the Holy Roman Empire.

This is a very convenient three-dimensional map sand table that Randy exchanged for 500 points, and can show different situations with different wars.

"About five days ago, the Holy Roman Empire army abandoned its attacks on Hamburg and Lübeck and chose to move south." Randy pulls out the seven small black flags of the burger.

"And now, according to the report of the spies, Frederick's main force in the north has divided about 10,000 to defend near Brandenburg." Randy planted a black flag in Brandenburg.

"According to the speed of the other party, it should be Frankfurt at the moment."

Six black flags were planted on a model of the city representing Frankfurt......

"However, the desertion of the other side is very serious, nearly 20,000 Hessian troops have fled, nearly 15,000 Swabian troops have fled, about half, and other armies, the number of escapes is amazing, even if 30,000...... No! 40,000 ......"

Randy thought about it, but in the end he was a little more conservative and only drew two flags.

"As for Munich...... I didn't expect the tigers to return to the mountain is such a serious matter. ”

A total of five black flags were planted on the model of the city of Munich......

Swabia, a total of ten white flags planted on it.

Outside the entire sand table, there are also ten flags.

In Pomerania, there is an equally white pennant, symbolizing the Pomeranian Guard Legion, General Anderson's 5,000 guards.

To the south, Innsbruck and Salzburg also have a black pennant each, symbolizing the guards of the two fortresses.

"The whole situation is like this, with Swabia and stabilizing Swabia, our side has an overall advantage, whether it is attacking Frankfurt and Mainz in the north, or attacking Innsbruck and Salzburg in the south, or attacking Munich in the east, we can crush any enemy front, and now the only question is, which unfortunate bastard should I attack first?"

Eventually, Randy chooses his target!

Frankfurt!

Abandoning the war with the Holy Roman Empire in Munich, he went north to fight Frederick.

It's easy to see why Randy made this decision.

Although the area around Frankfurt in the north was Frederick's regular army, its actual combat effectiveness was weaker than that of the rabble gathered in Munich, only 40,000 in number, 10,000 less than the Munich army, and because of the large number of deserters, the occupation of Swabia and Frederick's wrong decision and many other factors, which led to low morale, Randy even felt that his army could completely defeat the opponent with a single charge.

The Munich army, on the other hand, looked a little more resistant, although it was also more or less influenced by defeatist pessimism, but carefully analyzed......

Troops from Austria and Bohemia, with direct allegiance to Albrecht.

The army from Bavaria regarded Henry as its commander-in-chief.

Mercenaries from far and wide, gathered here simply because of the old general Tilly.

So this army can at least guarantee the strength of a battle, and there will be more or less damage in fighting with it.

In addition, as long as this army is defeated, Frederick is defeated, then this army gathered in Munich is meaningless.

The emperor died in battle, in a politically chaotic country like the Holy Roman Empire, it was the most violent political turmoil, entangled in the throne, and the princes who wanted to occupy a better position in the empire in the future would be impatient to give him what Randy wanted, and behind closed doors, they would fight all the time, and they would not do anything until a new emperor was decided.

In this way, the threat of the Holy Roman Empire will be lifted.

Empire to Empire ......

Between the sacred and the sacred......

It will also end with the complete victory of Randy von Hoffmann, the holy Norman Empire of the North!

"So to the north, the whole army to the north, to defeat, to capture, to kill the arrogant German emperor." Randy told his soldiers about his decision, and the Norman army cheered loudly, waving their weapons excitedly, and the morale was obviously inversely proportional to Frederick's army.

At the same time, Randy ordered to go north to destroy Frankfurt......

Frederick finally made up his mind, and after a series of defeats and betrayals, the emperor was not defeated by these failures, on the contrary, after fading his arrogance and stubbornness, the emperor who had been crisscrossing the continent for decades seemed to be back at once, and the physical illnesses and wounds seemed to be suppressed by some inexplicable force, and Emperor Frederick was now not discouraged, he was not exhausted, and he did not feel like he had a splitting headache, he was healthy and energetic, and he could work fourteen hours a day without rest.

Able to eat a whole roast chicken at a meal, he kept boosting his morale and kept writing letters to the Pope, hoping that the Pope would mediate the war and restore his membership.

Write a letter to Randy, hoping that Randy can forgive her for her recklessness and coexist peacefully, and write a letter to his subordinate princes, hoping that they can unite and go to the national disaster together at this critical juncture, regardless of their past suspicions.

Write letters to every continental European country, France, Burgundy, Northern Italy, Iberia, Lithuania, Hungary, what is possible, what is not possible, hoping that they will unite with themselves against the tyrannical Normans.

"The Norman barbarians of the north, the nature of the wolf, the food is excessive, the food is not full of England, the food is not full of Poland, then the food is Germany, if Germany is buried in the wolf's belly, please think twice, who is next?"

Frederick tried every way he could to improve his strength.

But the army is still on the run, and other countries have responded with lukewarm, not even replying.

The Holy See also seems to be tired of the Holy Roman Emperor, and has begun to actively search for a new emperor.

As for Randy, he replied directly: "Idiot, die." ”

Then we were determined to move towards Frankfurt......

"Completely hopeless!"

As the bad news grew on all fronts, Frederick finally came to his senses, and the previous efforts seemed to be more of a return to the light than to ZTE, and holding the report of another count refusing to send troops, Frederick collapsed in his chair and sighed:

"It seems that my time has really come."

"Don't be discouraged, we still have hope, there is still the fortified city of Frankfurt, and the 30,000 elite army, as long as we can defend for a while, the situation will definitely change, father." When Crown Prince Henry heard his father say such dejected words, he couldn't help but fall down beside him and shout loudly.

"Alright, my child, it's just the two of us here, who are you fooling?"

"Father?" Whether it was because of Frederick's unusual state that Henry was a little overwhelmed.

"I originally wanted to put a complete and powerful Holy Roman Empire in your hands, but now it seems unlikely, you go to the Holy See to ask for their protection, those priests will protect your safety, after all, Randy ......"

"But my father...... Why aren't we together? ”

"If we walk together, no one can go! The defeat of this war must have an end, such as the life of an emperor, and the glory of the Hohenstaufen family in the future depends on you. ”

"Father......" Perhaps because of what the old father said, or because of the bleak fate in the future, Henry, the crown prince, knelt beside Frederick and wept.

(End of chapter)