At the same time that Gawain returned to sweep the Romani Plateau west of Cappadocia, the Seleucian Militia between Miliosephron and Antioch the Lesser, the Paulicians, and the "beggar army" of Roman, all took action, and under the command of Billel, Hajib, and the Archon of the Golden Hand, they marched towards the majestic land of Conya. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

Ibn . Mai Meng was in disarray, cobbling together thousands of soldiers out of the city to fight, and the two sides fought fiercely in the wilderness of forty gulli south of Konya: however, the main force of the Turkic Bey and Ghazi failed to defeat the people's army, which had been trained by Khitan fire and array strengthening, but instead lost many soldiers and horses, and retreated into the city in disarray.

At this time, in the nearby military town of Ikang, Hajib's young son Zangi suddenly raised his banner and gathered hundreds of soldiers to join his father, and then scattered slaves and ghazi came to join along the way, and the whole army rushed to the city of Konya under the banner of "By the will of Allah and the son of the Sultan Massoud, and punish the rebels who killed the Sultan". Maimun was besieged.

On the other side, the 5,000 new army under the command of Tetisius, Theognes, Stephen, and Robert of Normandy was less than sixty miles from the city of Ankara along the Sakarya River north of Konya—just as Gawain's army was rolling in from the city of Nazar in the southeast corner, and close to the valley behind Ankara.

With only 2,000 Danishmonds stationed in the city, and their Bey commander repeatedly asking for the help of the Maimon of Konya, he received the same demands from Maimon, and the whole situation was in danger - if Ankara was lost, the southern front of Merrick would collapse, for the valiant emir could not have expected that Gawain's firethrowers, catapults, and siege weapons would be so powerful that they would break his impregnable Kayseri fortress in five days......

But the Great Emir, the lord of the Sivas Plateau, was still gritting his teeth, and he was determined not to care about the gains and losses of one city or one place, and anyway, the Turks only needed tents and flocks of sheep to defeat any enemy on this plateau, and his plan remained the same: first to defeat the large coalition of pilgrims of Raymond and Guillaum, and then to break the enemy forces in the direction of Ankara and Konya with the hope of victory.

Just as Merrick was shaking his hands, Raymond of Castamonu finally convened a joint meeting to discuss the topic of "moving on".

Because before the meeting, Raymond received a compliment from the emperor, and in a secret letter Alexios even promised him, "After the restoration of the whole of Paphlagonia, you will be the greatest hero of the empire." I will bestow upon you the most glorious title, not only Laudisia, but also Afyon to you to guard, and all the rights and taxes of this place will be at your disposal, as long as you can cooperate with Brenus to suppress Gawain's vicious expansion. There are also gifts worth 60,000 Imperial gold coins, including coins, silk, etc., which I have entrusted to the Pisan fleet to transport to Sinop, and will be rationed to your camp immediately. As for Conrad, who has been departed, I am disappointed in him and in the friendship between the Empire and the Salian Caesar, but do not hesitate to continue your great journey, my friend Raymond, and pierce your spear through the Great Mosque of Sivas. ”

It is said that the Emperor issued such an order to withstand the opposition of many bureaucrats, senators, and privy councilors in the imperial capital: even Mylais was no exception, and he vehemently rebuked the Emperor, "Your Majesty, you have not hesitated to raise a greedy snake in order to get rid of an eagle that is a danger to your estate, and the eagle and the snake may fight and cause both sides to lose, but before that they would have eaten all the animals and eggs in the estate." Of course, there is also the possibility that the eagle and the snake will unite and turn against the owner of the manor. ”

"It was my mistake to fail to control Gawain before, but I am absolutely confident that I will be able to control the Count of Saint-Gilles." The emperor was also inconvenienced by this, and could only explain his hardships and determination to his servants with sincerity, and then passed the resolution and passed it to Castamonu. Alexios then began to mobilize the Imperial army and crossed the Macedonian border again, both to frighten the many Slavic chieftains who had been unstable after the Battle of Miliosepharon, and to "welcome" the tens of thousands of pilgrims who had crossed the sea from Italy, Welf and Lady Huey, in order to prevent them from burning and plundering along the way.

At the Kastamonu meeting, Raymond was agitated and thanked the Emperor for his grace, and then drove everyone on the road.

"If you advance now, I'm afraid you will be ambushed by the Turks." As soon as the Duke of Guillaume expressed his concern, he was booed and ridiculed by the audience, and some people advised him to return to his hometown now, play the piano and write poetry, "How could an artist who could only write rhymes go to distant Asia Minor to suffer this sin?" ”

"Guillaume, really, it's hard to imagine how a guy like you, such a fellow, could appease the rich Aquitaine, that, so many years! You don't deserve to have more glory and more land, because, because that's like a bad horse-drawn cart. Raymond stood beside the spear and laughed, and then the One-Eyed Marquis clenched his fists and spoke in front of the crowd, "I, I swear, Gangara will be occupied by us immediately, immediately, and then, and then Calaby." ”

"Hooray, God's will!" Almost all the lords present cheered.

Behind the firelight of the tent, the smell of wine, and the miscellaneous human heads, Mikhail, the young chief of the palace guard and the commander of the Count of the Auxiliaries, looked coldly at Raymond, who was in the center of the crowd, and the tip of the glittering holy spear, frowning and silent, and occasionally making the sound of gnashing teeth......

As the sun filled the wilderness and the camps, the glorious spears were erected at the sound of trumpets, and then the drunken pilgrims marched in hordes, in a huge procession with no end in sight, carrying the plundered or the emperor's bounty, and the knights and noblewomen, the peasants and the village women, laughing and teasing each other, and continuing their march towards the deeper mountains in no disorder.

Once in this area, Gawain and Theodoro, the Grand Duke of Trabzon, fought to the death, but it was quickly forgotten by this group, or not mentioned at all.

Slowly, in the course of the rugged mountain road, the number of light cavalry raids by the Turks increased. They would raid an isolated camp at night, killing all the men, abducting all the women and children, and the next day, when the other pilgrims noticed it, they would leave only the bodies of the wilderness.

The terror quickly spread throughout the pilgrims, and Guillaume once again proposed to be "cautious", but Raymond and the other lords could not stop at all, and they made an agreement: every night all the pilgrims would rush to the wilderness and join forces, and then an earl and all his men and horses would be on guard and continue on their way to Gangara. (To be continued.) )