As soon as he finished speaking, Gawain suddenly saw that the Turks of Mosul under the city began to make a loud noise, and then he followed Giovanni's point and looked into the distance: in the distant area between the city of Atta and the port of San Simon, several thick pillars of smoke were ignited, and then the Turks besieging the city, some of the banners of their soldiers and horses were staggered, and galloped away in the direction of the smoke pillar.

"Looks like Lord Godfrey did it!" Giovanni said excitedly.

Next, the scouts who came from the beacon platform on the Rose Ridge to report verified the judge's judgment: at the moment when Amassa was concentrating his main forces and pressing on our camp, Lord Godfrey made a quick decision to send the eight hundred cavalry of Count Warner and Count Hartmann, who had been prepared by their subordinates in advance, along the passage of the West Fort, galloped to the city of Ata, broke through several camps behind the side of the Amassa line, burned and plundered many heavy wagons loaded with grain, and almost almost knocked down the city of Ata.

Not to be outdone, Raymond, who was on that flank, bribed a few local Saracens and led small groups of troops to attack Mosul or Aleppo on the edge of the Bayou Fortress and Daphne Jungle, and also had a great success.

Enraged, the king of Aleppo, Kmandwan, sent his soldiers down the river in boats to attack Raymond's estuary fortress and iron bridge, but Raymond had already raised and strengthened the bridge with timber and brick, turning its entire bridge into a pillbox, and then the Provençal soldiers fired firing canisters at Ridwan's ships in the shooting holes inside, which they were familiar with with this powerful weapon, and burned many Turkic boats to victory.

"Well, well, Godfrey and Raymond are also good at learning warfare. I used to read that in the military texts that Anna gave me, the former Emperor Leo described the Franks as brave and stupid, and when they could not take advantage of their tactics, they became meaningless and wasted their lives. Before passing through Minor, Godfrey's group of lords had indeed been like this, but by now, they had made rapid progress - although they were not as good as the men of the Grand Duke. While Gawain admired, he also praised his team.

In fact, he understands that the situation of Kobuha and Ridwan is not much better than his own.

Then Gawain and his guards hurriedly left the fortress and entered the city of Antioch along the bridge.

At the intersection of the palace district and St. Peter's Church, where Merlot, the camper, was rubbing his hands and waiting for him, Gawain clearly saw that Merlot's face was pale, and he was obviously suffering from a lack of food, and then he thought of the scene he saw along the way, and could not help but understand a little:

In the whole city of Antioch, there was no longer the former flourishing of trade, and since the fall of the two external ports, there was basically no one alive in the streets except for the soldiers—the pilgrims and the inhabitants, most of the able-bodied men, were forced to build forts, and the women and children hid in the surviving houses of the neighborhood, like rats in the day, in order to save their strength from hunger.

Even the first-line team is like this, take Gawain for example, he has three brigades plus servant Jinat soldiers, plus more than 10,000 military servants, but now it can only be divided into three rounds, one stationed in the Orontes camp to fight, and the other two in the camp inside and outside the city to rest and rotate.

It is said to be resting, but in fact, it is a lack of food, so you can only stay in the camp. The food ration was also divided into upper and lower quantities, and most of them were given to the first line.

When the team was rotated, the soldiers were screaming and dragging their weapons into the barracks, because they also knew that they would have enough food to fight the enemy face to face.

Godfrey, Bohemond and Raymond should be in a similar situation.

"It's hard, isn't it?" Gawain said to Merlot.

The head of the camping steward, and then in the weather in June, he tightened his cloak very tightly, and he did the same, and the state of ordinary grassroots soldiers can be imagined.

Gawain's mood suddenly became heavy, and the joy of his previous victory was diluted a lot, but he had not lost confidence, on the contrary, his fiery fighting spirit burned even more.

He strode into the chapel of the church, accompanied by the steward of the camp, where all the men who remained in the city, including Admar, Peter, Okhilt, and Venerable Hugh, stood or recpt, but had lost almost most of their spirits, and were languishing, and evidently they were all afflicted with a lack of food.

And Bohemond learned of Gawain's arrival, and also rushed from the Acropolis defense line (he handed over the defense to Tancred) to attend the meeting, although he was also a little hungry, but still proudly announced his exploits:

Many times in the small defense pan, he thwarted the Turkic infiltration attacks and cut off more than 300 heads.

"But if we continue to consume like this, I'm afraid we will collapse one step earlier than Kobuha, I didn't expect the lack of food to be so difficult." Sadmar was worried, painted a cross in front of the icon of Jesus in the church, and prayed to the Lord Almighty to help the devout believers to overcome this suffering as soon as possible, to continue to advance towards the Holy Land, and not to "forsake us sinners".

The rest, both clergymen and lords, were listless, and generally unoptimistic about the prospects of the battle.

But as soon as Gawain and Bohemond appeared in the church, many people inside and outside the nave regained their strength, roaring loudly and waving their fists, unanimously condemning the agreement they had reached: a resolution to collect the private money of all pilgrims, civilians and soldiers, and to gather together to buy food from the Pisa.

Among them, Venerable Hugh also held up a scroll of paper in exasperation, which listed the extent to which the prices of the whole city of Antioch had skyrocketed under the hoarding of the Pisans:

"Listen, one of you is the chief of the army, and the other is the grand duke of the Roman Empire. How much is an egg laid by a hen in the city right now? ”

Gawain was silent, then Hugh raised his hand and shouted, "It's six full Lukka coins!" With this offer, the people who stood and sat in the courtyard and the temple let out a great groan, and it was obvious that this was their pain.

"I thought it was worth 60 silver coins, but it doesn't look that serious." Bohemond laughed, but what he received was more resentful eyes from everyone.

"Sixty silver coins of eggs are not for nothing, the noble Duke of Apulia, that is the eggs laid by the rooster, and today my servant bought us a bag of beans to satisfy our hunger." With that, Hugh picked up a bag with a rope tied to it, and then untied it, "I have counted carefully, and there are ten shriveled beans in this bag, but it cost me one Lukka of silver. (To be continued.) )