Just when the little sunfish closed its eyes, full of unhappy expression.

In the palace of Brachna, the emperor also sat nervously on the throne, having just won a great victory over Berdin on the Macedonian front, and the other party had retreated to Dalmatia, where he had re-sent envoys to present the begging for surrender; However, after a wave of unsettled, Alexios received a letter of help from Antioch, felt that the matter was important, crossed Adrianople in the starry night, and then rushed to the imperial capital.

After the queen Irene had given the newly-born boy to the eunuchs and maids, she went to rest in the manor house of the Thracian Ducasses, while the chief lady Marlena retreated to the inner chamber to avoid suspicion.

In front of the throne, almost all the heads of the empire present were gathered, including the royal officer, the Grand Count of the Navy, the chief of law, the chief assistant of the Empire, the chief of the imperial wardrobe, the commander-in-chief of the palace guard, etc., Brenus and Isaac also arrived from their respective local offices, and even the emperor's mother, Daracena, came from the monastery again on her shoulder.

Now everyone felt that the good days of pilgrims fighting bloody battles in Anatolia, Cilicia and Antioch, and then the empire following without much effort, were over, and that "the time had come for the claims, and that it was time to pay."

In front of the emperor were three letters of great importance, one from the Holy See of Urban in Rome, one from Ademar of Antioch, and the last one from Tetisius, the governor of the march in Asia.

The contents of the three letters, both identical and contradictory, weave a web full of hallucinations and guidance, which makes Alexios, who has always been self-conscious of his ability to control intelligence, somewhat overwhelmed: the Holy See asks the Emperor to fulfill his original promise to immediately send troops to the aid of the pilgrims of Antioch from the slaughter of the pagan princes, otherwise "the unbelief and rift between the Eastern and Western Churches will be further deepened" and "the consequences will be unpredictable"; Ademar's words were even more urgent, and he urgently said that there were as many as 100,000 or more, that the infidels with very good equipment had already gathered from Mosul and Khorasan, and that His Majesty the Emperor must immediately bring reinforcements to him, otherwise the great cause of the pilgrimage would be completely destroyed; And Tetisius (at the time of writing this letter, he was just about to leave) also wrote a letter in hand, sending fast horses to the imperial capital in turn, in which the general said that in the siege of Antioch, the elite of the pilgrims had suffered heavy losses, and now although they had thwarted Aji's counterattack and rushed into the city, Aji was holding the acropolis inside, and the Kobha army was coming, and there was no hope of success in the whole battle, "Therefore, in order to preserve Your Majesty's precious army, I have decided to leave the Frankish pilgrims from the port of Latakia, Then go to the island of Cyprus and Panfylia, and come to see Your Majesty, and inform you of all the circumstances of the front."

After reading the letter twice, the Emperor told them the general situation, and then put his hand on his forehead, so distressed that he did not know what to do.

"Tetisius was originally a slave of the Ducasse family, is what he said to the front line true?" Covered in armor, Yagfei was the first to question.

The Emperor raised his forehead and brushed up a somewhat gray beard, he looked much older than Gawain, "I am now concerned with the battle of Antioch itself—according to Harold of Konia, the remnants of the Gilligi have been increasingly active in the valleys surrounding the city lately, and I have not even been able to get any definite information about the farther city of Tarsus. Not only that, but my agents brought back the latest news of the Anatolian plateau, and this time Kobha was not only targeting the city of Antioch, but he also used his prestige to reach an agreement with the Seljuk chiefs of Danishmund, Konya, Antioch, Jerusalem, Damascus, Aleppo and all other regions, which means that the Turks were about to launch a frenzied counteroffensive from the initial surprise. ”

After listening to the Emperor's analysis, Berriel spoke, "Your Majesty is worried that our further offensive on the Anatolian plateau will be subject to the Danishmund and Konya followers?" ”

"We must prepare for the worst, that is, our border will not advance to Cappadocia, perhaps in Nicaea, but I have harvested two rich granaries in Bithynia and Lydia, and the excellent fleet base of Panfelia, and it is not in vain to fight side by side with the Frankish barbarians. As for going out into the army," Alexios finished speaking, looking at his mother, who was clothed in a sacrificial cloak and covered with a turban, "we can adopt a more flexible strategy, such as negotiating peace with the Turks of the plateau for the time being, gathering heavy troops in Panfelia, and taking Seleucia and Cilicia after the expiration of Gawain's promise in the coming year, so that I can enter Antioch in the east and the Anatolian plateau in the north, which is also a safe strategy!" ”

Everyone was silent, and it seemed that the emperor had formed an established policy: Emperor Komnenos was always in the middle of a fortune, doing everything possible to exchange the smallest losses for the greatest benefits, and asking him to concentrate all the remaining essence of the empire and confront the plateau Turks, which was not at all in line with his usual idea - the emperor was like a small bull market peddler, always cautious.

"My child, but you must not compromise the prestige of the Roman Emperor." At this point, Daracena pleaded.

"Yes Mother, I have prepared another plan, and that is that I will entrust the task of negotiating with Berdeen to my most trusted son-in-law, Brenus." The Emperor stood up from his throne and spoke gently.

Brenus immediately bowed and said that he was determined to undertake this mission perfectly, and the emperor entrusted his brother to stay in Constantinople, and finally Alexios said that he would gather a large army to cross the strait, along the plain of Lydia, towards the city of Philadophiam, where the prince John was located, "I will personally listen to the report of Tetisius, understand the real situation on the Antioch front, and then make a decision." In this way, he replied to the Patriarch of Rome and to the Catholic friar named Admar. This was a public statement by the emperor, but in fact he was indeed ready to "abandon the pilgrims".

As for whether the emperor had issued an encyclical to Tetisius in advance, no one knows

In the camp on the Orontes River, several Venetian sailors, escorted by the light cavalry of the Gimagis brigade, ran to the tent where Gawain was located, and reported to the Grand Duke a terrible news:

"Your Highness, all our barges were burned by the cavalry of the Turks, and they rushed to the port of Saint-Simon and did everything!"

"What?" Gawain was amazed, and then he asked, "Apparently the scouts have calculated the schedule of the Kobha march, and you are enough to transport grain here by barge." (To be continued.) )