"Hehe, after a few days with the Italians, your rhetoric has improved a lot, if you haven't carefully studied Aristotle's "The Art of Rhetoric", then you usually have a lot of nostalgia for the skirts of noble ladies, and you are courting for pleasure in a smooth tone!"

The emperor made a harmless joke with his eyebrows, and the nobles picked up the amusement, laughing one by one, and nine times out of ten they followed the emperor's words and thought of something dirty.

"You will accompany me in the next few days, witness the demise of the rebels, as long as the castle in front of you is captured, the whole of Italy will return to the hands of Germany, I will use a victory as the key to open the door of Rome, to show the careerist in Paris and the bearded man of Constantinople the strength of Germany, and when the emperor Basil II of the Eastern Empire wants to regain control of Venice, he needs to weigh it carefully."

Emperor Otto waved his fists, his young face full of irrepressible smugness, he probably saw the dream of the European empire that generations of Saxon royalty had worked for, all the kings humbly prostrate themselves at their feet and kissed the dust.

A few months ago, people thought that the rebellion in Italy would be the last straw that crushed Germany, because the exhausted Germany did not seem to be able to cope with the neighbors who were eyeing the gradual rise of the neighbors, and was once weak enough to sign a peace treaty with Poland, a former vassal country, and divide the control of the Slavs in the Oder Valley to get a respite, but His Majesty the Emperor proved that it was just a tiger tired and taking a nap, and when it woke up again, the young people who jumped off the beam needed to learn to restrain and submit, The wings of the German Eagle are bound to envelop all of Europe.

Early the next morning, under the prayer of the bishop of the army, the whole army made a good morning mass, and nearly 100,000 people knelt on the ground and folded their hands.

I watched the nobles around me, who were usually fierce and vicious, and only knew how to compete and drink, instantly turned into obedient little white rabbits, and the violent killing aura on their bodies was shrouded in a trance of holy light, and I couldn't help but sigh in my heart:

If there was a submachine gun on the other side, all of these 100,000 people would have been sudden, but fortunately his father was not Li Moumou......

Although His Majesty the Emperor is disgusted, his ambitious cousin has stretched his tentacles so long, and is more and more willing to serve God, but tries his best to contact secular power, interfere in German administration, and even have a faint tendency to surpass imperial power in some aspects, but it has to be said that the bishop of the army and a large number of priests and priests under him, like a very effective sedative, greatly calmed the anxiety of the soldiers during the march and battle, So that they can adapt to a war that is far from home and seems to be far away.

When they were lost and bored, most people chose to pray to the priests, and instead of drunken fights, desertions and mutinies almost did not happen, as before.

In charge of the first wave of the offensive was the army of the Grand Duke of Bavaria, which consisted mainly of 800 noble knights at the front of the ranks, as well as their servants, who were well-equipped and morale-packed, and were the best on the battlefield.

The pikemen directly under the duke and the Germanic mercenary crossbowmen dressed in fancy clothes are arranged in battle formations, and their combat power cannot be ignored, and most of the rest are peasant soldiers, but most of them are homesteaders who have the ability to bring their own weapons and armor, and it seems that their combat effectiveness can be trusted.

The land annexation in Duke Henry's domain was not very serious, the number of serfs was far less than that of other duchies, and the peasants were mostly yeoman farmers with their own land, living in clans and tribes, with a strong Germanic style of the barbaric era, advocating force, especially good at using cheap battle axes, fighting bravely, and taking pride in dying in battle.

At this moment, the Duke was at the front of the line, giving an impassioned pre-battle speech, and I could not hear what he was saying because of the distance away, but I could feel the vigorous fighting spirit from the high-pitched roars of the soldiers.

Duke Henry was a courteous and humble gentleman, who governed the country very well, and the Duchy of Bavaria under his rule had surpassed the traditional powers of Swabian and Franconia in terms of strength, coupled with the Duke's own charisma and noble bloodline, aristocratic circles often privately said that he had posed a direct threat to the throne, especially when Emperor Otto still had no heirs.

"Let's get started!"

His Majesty Otto said to the herald, and he immediately ordered the drummers to beat the rhythm of the attack, and the Bavarian ranks began to change their formation rapidly, the knights retreated to the sides, the pikemen lined up in a compact phalanx, and moved slowly in the direction of the castle, while the crossbowmen nervously loaded their crossbows and waited for the order to fire.

The enemy in the castle has long been in full formation, dense archers appeared at the head of the city, with bows and arrows to lead but not fired, staring at the soldiers into the firing range, the hillside in front of the castle is gentle and there are no extra weeds and bushes, in today's words, the vision is very good, the attacker can only bite the bullet, bear huge casualties to charge, the long ramp is a gladiatorial arena to test the life and death of both the enemy and us.

The soldiers at the front had already entered the range of the castle, but the enemy was cunning and did not shoot, and the troops behind charged forward one after another, and began to attack upwards.

These soldiers wore only simple leather armor and a small round shield wrapped in a layer of iron, although they were agile but their protective ability was very worrying, and the knights hid far away from the range to accumulate horsepower, fully armed to observe the situation on the battlefield.

It seems that the Grand Duke is ready to sacrifice the cannon fodder in front of him, attract the enemy's firepower, and earn time and opportunity for the elite knights to charge, this way of relying entirely on piles of people to win, also reflects the rebels' condescending firepower advantage, our archers have no way to threaten the city, and the archers in the places where they want can only watch their own people, consuming the enemy's arrows with flesh and blood in batches.

The attacking infantry was fully within range, and the archers on the head of the city fired a volley in an instant, producing a muffled buzz, and the arrows used the gravitational momentum to pierce the back half of the attacking team, burrowing through the gaps between the shields.

For a while, the screams came and went, and three salvos were fired, and there were not many soldiers left, either falling to the ground and groaning, or turning into feathered birdmen, motionless to see God.

After a few rounds of attacks, the enemy archers seemed to be tired, and the connection between the two attacks slowed down significantly, Duke Henry keenly sensed the change in the situation on the battlefield, used his trump card, and ordered the knight troops to start charging.

The heavily armed knights scattered their impatient horses, rushed up the hill, and soon crossed the phalanx of infantry on their backs, and quickly approached the castle, the servants followed with ladders and panting, as long as their masters reached the city walls, in front of the elite knights, there would be no power to stop these skilled sons of the family.

Emperor Otto muttered to himself, "The offensive is fierce, and it looks like we'll be able to capture that old fellow of Cresentie alive soon!" ”