Even the two Islamic countries in the chaos did not relax the maintenance and construction of water conservancy projects in their territories, and the alliance of Christian states, in the eyes of many bureaucrats in the empire, the image of Islam was much better than that of the turtle-like nobles in Europe, after all, since the Tang Dynasty, the great cannibals in the Arab region have entered the eyes of the imperial government and the opposition on a large scale. Compared with Europe, which is sparsely populated and backward in civilization, the countries that support Islam are much more cost-effective than those that support the poor and weak countries of Europe, not to mention the rich products and huge markets of the Islamic world in the subtropical region, and even the huge amount of oil and mineral deposits buried underground cannot be compared with that of poor Europe.

It is very appropriate to use one word - chicken ribs to describe the countries of Europe. The Empire's direct selling free zone in Gibraltar was worth more than the whole of Europe in a year, and the purchasing power of the European market was poor. The war between Murabit and Muwahid continues, while the armaments of the Northern Alliance are becoming more and more depleted. It's not that the lords of the countries don't want to reorganize their armaments, it's that it's simply impossible to engage in an arms race with two 'big countries' with a population of more than 5 million. While the Muslim soldiers of the two countries were armed with steel helmets and armor swords imported from the Chinese Empire, the Northern Alliance was still only a few patchwork goggles and thin plate armor produced in Milan instead of Chinese goods. The resentment of a kingdom of Leon, with a population of less than one million, that could only support a standing army of 20,000 was boiling, and the cavalry of this standing army was even less pitiful, less than 800 people. The total number of mobile forces of the alliance of the countries is only 50,000. If the wartime mobilization is done well, about 200,000 militia can be gathered to build a defensive line against the Muslims in the south.

To tell the truth, if it weren't for the weakening of the kingdom of Mulabit back then. Let a few grass cowards claim to be the king, and the founders of these Christian Nations Coalition still don't know where to go? The Duchy of Asturias, the Kingdom of León, the Kingdom of Aragon, the Marquis of Coloria, the Count of Barcelona, the Duchy of Catalonia, and the Duchy of Navarre are all small and weak states that cannot speak at all in the international arena. It's almost as weak as those small island nations in Tonga or something in the old plane. If they hadn't united, they would have been wiped out eight times by the Murabit Kingdom that had obtained the Emperor's Fire and Tactics.

The tripartite balance of power is actually very fragile, and Murabit, who is on fire in the backyard, thinks that Muwahid is the henchman, and the Northern Alliance is a joke. If the last two Islamic countries decide to win or lose, an even more critical situation for the Northern Alliance can arise.

Unlike the East, at this time, the armies of Europe were all rabbles like serfs who picked up stinky fish on the battlefield, and the rabble was used to lift up their militia. The battle scenes and magnificent poems of the European armies at this time have nothing to do with the large-scale scenes of literary and artistic works. For example, in the most famous battle of the Hundred Years' War between England and France, in which the two fingers were raised as a victory gesture, the total number of participants in this war was less than 10,000, and the number of baggage troops and flag-waving militia on both sides was only 30,000. The most intense battle scenes are not even comparable to the scenes of the modern Latin American underworld gangs fighting each other.

The Muslims are not armed with these petty European playmakers. At the beginning of the Caliphate's expansion into the Iberian Peninsula, hundreds of years ago, at the height of the Muslims, the Mediterranean Sea almost turned into a Muslim sea. The Eastern Romans, the largest power in Europe, were defeated and humiliated one after another, and the emperor wrote to the pope for help. When the Ottomans rose. The coalition forces that almost finished the battle in Vienna and took out all the countries of Europe. Dominate Europa.

The standing army is the main force of the army, but in European countries with scarce financial resources, it is cost-effective to spend money to hire some mercenaries who have been fighting abroad all year round in wartime. It costs a lot of money to prepare an elite army that does not necessarily fight a war, and a larger scale will bring down the country's finances, and a smaller one will not be a big deal. It is more cost-effective to save money and hire a group of reputable and high-quality mercenaries to fight in wartime.

But in Muslim countries, this practice is undoubtedly seeking death. Once the scale of the war increases, the mercenaries will not be able to do anything, and they will not be able to coordinate and cooperate with multiple arms at all (the mercenary arms are single). When fighting in the Grand Legion, it will only lag behind. When attacking fortified positions, they even played soy sauce (mercenaries generally engaged in defensive battles and infantry phalanxes on the plains). Nor is there a country in North Africa and Western Asia that produces mercenaries, such as Switzerland, which is rich in mountain poor.

In order to cling to the thighs of the empire, the Northern Alliance will do whatever it takes to survive. There is an unwritten rule in the halls of the embassies of the alliance countries, that is, the officials and merchants of the Chinese Empire are God, and only when God is happy can the country exist. All European countries and other countries with diplomatic relations did not sign the traitorous treaty, and the content of these countries dared to sign, and the content was no less than that of Japan forcing the Beiyang government to sign the '21 Articles'.

This despicable practice is also the instruction of the traversal. Let the two Islamic countries in the south fight in full swing first, and if you move the battlefield slightly, the north will be like a bird with a bow. Then the reality of the difference in arms generation and the dilemma of insufficient military strength also put these countries in a dilemma, they could not win the war, and they were unwilling to surrender, so they had to find their thighs and hug them tightly.

Long before the emergence of the Gibraltar Special District, the Travelers wanted to see if the effect of the unification of the Northern Alliance could withstand the harassment of these Muslim separatist forces in the South, but the result was that all the arms shipped to Gibraltar were bought by the Muslims with deep pockets, and the further power of the South promoted the Islamization of Iberia. In order to curb the rapid centralization and revival of Murabit, the export of a large number of arms to the ** army of Muwahid is also a need for diplomatic checks and balances, after all, if Murabit becomes strong again, it may change the pattern of the whole of Europe and North Africa, which is not conducive to the empire's control of the Mediterranean and the eastern Atlantic.

If the greatest wish of the Christian magnates in Iberia is probably that the Northern Alliance will be unified under one national flag, but everyone is equal to the king of the United Kingdom and does not want to be a courtier. Originally, in Iberia in the old plane, this peninsula would belong to Castile, but in this plane, whoever the travelers wanted to be kings could be them. In order to tie up with the powerful aristocracy of the empire, it was also a tradition for many nobles of the Northern Alliance to let their children serve as interns to serve as ambassadors and advisers of the empire in various countries (see Article 21 for the traitorous clause).

The empire is the diplomatic relationship of these kingdoms, principalities, princely states, and ear states, and the nameless suzerainty states, and the ambassadors sent to each country are equivalent to the emperor. Are these emperors the same as the empire? Of course it can't be, these ambassadors who came to Iberia with a complicated situation are all human beings, and even if they scrape the ground, it is impossible to scrape much oil and water, not to mention that they want a bonus point for political correctness, not to leave a mess to be handed over to their successors. Therefore, it is very easy to talk about supporting the economic development of various countries and attracting investment, but it is very slippery to express to the monarchs of various countries who can be the co-owners of the alliance, and they are never willing to show a little gesture easily. The princes of various countries have exhausted their tricks, and they still can't detect a trace of tone from the mouths of these imperial diplomats. (To be continued.) )