Finally, in the midst of a slight laugh, Burke. Baldwin himself held the shield and bent his waist, and Decius on the opposite side held the bladeless spear he used for practice, and the two began to whirl each other, practicing the thorn very seriously.

"Soon, I will practice how to deal with the enemy's stragglers, how to deal with the enemy's projectors, how to deal with the enemy's scimitars, and so on." Baldwin shrugged his shoulders at Melo's earnest reply, and then he walked to the mighty meander, and stood with Gawain, looking at the towering twin towers on that side, guarding the crucial stone bridge, and on the other side of the river, the boundless camp of Kobha. In three days or so, they will be there to fight the dangerous and powerful prince of Mosul to the death.

"When the time comes, it will be a completely fair distribution of war horses, not depending on the identity and bloodline of the warriors, as long as they can take up arms, they will ride any mount and attack Kobha's camp." Gawain sighed as if he was expecting the coming fight.

"Anna is in Adana City, have you sent a letter?" Baldwin asked, propped himself up on his waist with one hand.

"I wrote to tell me that Ingrid was pregnant, and told me to be careful on the battlefield." Gawain chuckled, twisted his eyebrows, and looked at the wide churning river.

"It's hard to imagine that this is what Anna said, and she would make you careful because of the child you had with another woman?"

"No, she means that I must not die, because I must go back and impregnate her before the winter of this year, and she questioned in her letter that I had not done my best for her on the bed, and that I had not even prayed to the Virgin Mary in my heart that she might conceive in sweetness."

After hearing this, Nahan's Baldwin was relieved, smiled and patted Gawain on the back, telling him to "do his best" in the future.

Then they fell silent together, looking out at the long, thin black masonry bridge between the twin towers, as if there was no end in sight.

The port city of Salamis, on the east side of the island, has flourished since ancient times for its maritime trade with the Levant and Egypt, and was once the capital of the rulers of Cyprus. After the annexation of the island by the Roman Republic, the governor's palace moved to Paphos on the west side of the island (legend has it that Venus, the goddess of love), and although the political status of Salamis declined, the transit trade to the East continued to flourish, reaching its peak in the time of the Roman Emperor Hadrian, with cisterns, baptisms and large bazaars built around the cemetery of Sant'Epifianiros, and the palace renovated from the Archaic semicircular opera house and royal manor house on its side, backed by a hillside covered with vineyards, Facing the blue and soft sea.

In front of the open garden promenade, the governor of Cyprus, Laptsomatus, sat in a chair with some horror - the sea as far as his eye could see was full of Saracen clippers with green spinnakers, a hundred, a hundred and fifty, nay, two hundred, and in the midst of them were seven fearful and great warships of which the Babylonian king of Fatimid was most proud, with three layers of oars, with complex and effective sails, with iron decks and silver-plated masts, and fierce and agile in battle, On the towers at the bow and stern of the ship, there were deadly crossbows, and the Fatimids gave this type of warship the nickname, "Cat".

Now, the ships, which were supposed to anchor at Ashkelon, sailed to Salamis, carrying 4,000 warrior Gesilai (later Cairo) soldiers, 500 horses, and the president was the commander of the fleet of the Fatimid caliphate, Al Gil. Al. Rumi, whose official title in Egypt was "Menqing" (the second rank of the dynasty, after 'Swordsman'). As his name suggests (rumi means "Greek"), this Orthodox Christian on the borders of the Eastern Roman Empire was taken to Egypt as a child as a slave, and then rose to prominence in the lavish palace of Fatima, Egypt, without even changing his faith, until he was appointed as a high-ranking official in charge of such a powerful fleet and army.

This was not new in the Fatimids, where the power of the caliphate had long since declined, and the real power of the state was in the hands of the viziers, and the various legions (such as the Abyssinian Guard, the Turkic Cavalry Legion, and the Berber Janissaries) were fighting each other.

For example, the current caliph is named Musta Ali, the "high one", who is only seventeen years old, and is the chief vizier merek. Everdler's puppet is even more ironic: Everdler's father, Djemali, was a standard Armenian and a court slave, and the most ridiculous thing is that Everdler's father and son were Sunnis.

Therefore, Fatima in Egypt has long competed with the Seljuk Turks for the Holy Land, but the interior of its country has long been dominated by Armenian, Turkic, Greek, Abyssinian and other foreign generals and servants.

and Al. Rumi came to the island with the fleet with letters from the Grand Vizier Everdler, one to the representative of the Pilgrims and one to Lapsomatus.

It is the latter that is read before the Governor of Cyprus. Although the letter is still signed by the author of the letter, "King of Egypt, incomparable chief of believers, owner of the seal of the prophet (i.e., Muhammad), possession of the head, cloak and carved windows, great Mustaari", in fact, everyone knows that the letter was written by Everdel himself, and it actually reprimanded Laptsomatus, saying that he "dared to follow the Greek emperor and capture the port of Latakia, and put the Christian pilgrims in danger".

It was embarrassing for Laptsomatus, who was originally the governor of the Roman Empire, but now he followed his own emperor, which became an unforgivable crime.

But he can also swallow his anger, who calls his island a "stepping cloth on the sea" sandwiched between the two great powers of the emperor and the Fatimid caliphate?

Subsequently, the Egyptian side made a solemn demand:

The port of Latakia must be surrendered and taken over by us;

Cyprus must provide a large quantity of food, olive oil, and our supplies to support the pilgrims of Antiochri;

Cyprus had to provide an army of 1,000 men to join the Arles. Rumi's legions, which went to relieve the siege of Antioch, recognized the Turkic princes of Kobuha, Durak, and Ridwan as our common enemies;

Laptsomatus himself had to act as a man in the middle of the day, concluding a military covenant between the Egyptian side and the pilgrim side.

To put it bluntly, in order to deal with the Seljuk Turks, Evdler, "a Sunni who came from an Armenian slave family but went to Egypt to become a vizier in the Shiite Fatimid dynasty", was determined to form an alliance with the pilgrims - the information provided by the Amalfi merchants and Gawain's judgment were completely correct. (To be continued.) )