Gawain gazed at the city of Durazo, and then at the brilliant morning light in the east, and he closed his eyes, and could not help but emerge a picture: on the steppe on the east bank of the Amu Darya River, boundless nomadic cavalry, countless herd vehicles, rolling up dust that could obscure the sun and moon, like terrible dragons, surging towards the plateaus of Persia and Asia Minor, and behind them there might be even more powerful and terrible empires. Pen @ fun @ pavilion wWw. ｂｉｑUｇE。 ｉｎｆｏ

Now is not the time to follow suit.

Several Inner Palace guards were just about to step forward to dissuade the emperor, but Gawain still walked to the piled up Khitan snow bucket, motioned to the famous gunner to use a halberd to cut open the medicine bag made of gray Seleucian paper, and then twisted up a ball of pale gray granular Khitan snow, "Agnes." ”

Agnes also boldly used a lit fire stick to burn the Khitan snow in Gawain's leather gloves.

The flames rose, and the Makyanias next to him couldn't help but retreat in shock, but the emperor didn't have any painful and burning expression, and those Khitan snow quickly burned out, and the white smoke quickly dissipated.

"Is there a problem with the quality of the gunpowder?"

"No problem at all." Agnes replied, "The quality of the products produced in the valley of the Mut River is better than that of the great ordnance workshops of the imperial capital." ”

"How many packs of ammunition are fired now?"

"Six packs, Your Majesty." Stalianus hurriedly replied.

"Then add to the eight packs, the emperor and I are here to stay, you can rest assured and boldly do it, don't worry about the cannon chamber and gun carriage, the bear and the lion are the most outstanding works of the imperial gunsmiths, it can withstand it completely." Barcelisa immediately instructed.

"Add to nine packs." Gawain's pale blue eyes flashed.

"I'll wave the flag first, and let the lion cannon over there fire like this first."

"No, Bear Cannon did the same immediately!" The emperor's tone was unstoppable.

When the flag was fired, the gunners, including Nexus, who carried the fruit vinegar bucket in front of the lion cannon and poured out the puffs of green smoke, all silently accepted it all with a look of disbelief.

The two siege guns fired projectiles almost simultaneously, and the cavalry under the southern base, which had been standing solemnly, were disturbed by the trembling of the ground, and the horses began to stir and play in circles in agony, and the dust that fell from the fort covered the helmets of the Forbidden Guards, who held halberds under the base, and they raised their eyes to see two heavy and huge cannonballs, with a small red afterburn, growing smaller and smaller in the sky, and then hit the city wall and the low and thick round tower to the north of Durazo......

This was followed by a ferocious and continuous bombardment of light and heavy mortars and fire bear artillery.

On the second day, the northern wall of Dulazo collapsed in many sections, and the citizens who had been forcibly recruited abandoned their posts and fled despite the threat, and even attacked and killed the scattered guards, fiercely resisting the aliens and opening the gates for His Majesty the Emperor.

Makjanias on the southern rampart saw that under the north wall and under the eastern wall, all the besieging brigades and companies were rushing up to tear the gap in the city wall, and hundreds of foul-mouthed guns and shrimp whiskers were lined up there, spewing out a terrible rain of bullets, sweeping away the wolf-rushing defenders, and then the stragglers and spearmen lined up in a horn-shaped formation to reinforce each other, stepping on the ruins and rubble to step forward bravely, and the screams of sharp swords and spear blades poking at the enemy seemed to be heard when he stood on the southern rampart.

On the third day, the follow-up echelon that went up on the bench was also pressed, and the exhausted defender soldiers could no longer stand it, and there was no suspense about the outcome.

On the fourth day, when the papal legation finally came to the city of Durazo by boat, under the sails with the logo of St. Peter's key, everyone saw a hellish scene, the harbor and towers of Durazzo had been covered with gray smoke, and the arrows and projectiles of red and white flames were constantly rising, passing and falling in front of the city, and the ships on fire pulled their sails like drunken people, and had just escaped from the harbor when they were captured or sunk by the intercepted ships of Bari or Ragusa, and the sea was full of gray-and-white dead bodies. I also heard that the city was surrendering like an avalanche.

Fortunately, the envoys met two Ragusa ships, protected by them, and went ashore safely, where they managed to meet the new Roman emperor in front of the monastery of St. Mikhail.

"Are you finally willing to approve of me and my wife's throne?" Gawain held the Golden Eagle Scepter and said to the priests standing in front of him.

"The Church of Peter should withdraw from the coasts and cities of Dalmatia in its entirety!" Next to him, the little Barcelisa, had a very fierce tone, and she also held a slender scepter of golden ears of wheat in her hand, and a beautiful little crown.

The Emperor raised his hand to signal his wife to calm down, and then he changed his tone and asked the Holy See, "Your legitimacy is still unstable, so I have decided to use the fleet to cross the Adriatic Sea after the Battle of Durazo, land at the city of Bari, and then drive directly to the city of Rome to convene a real assembly, so as to give a final conclusion to the authenticity of your existence." ”

"Could it be that the emperor wants to emulate the Huns Attila or the Vandals?" The clergy at the head of the legation fought hard.

"I am in the name of Constantine the Great and Justinian the Great." Gawain was unhurried.

"How could Pope St. Peter, as a prince of many dioceses, whose position is built on a spiritual rock, fall because of the power of His Majesty the Emperor?"

It is evident that the Emperor on the throne was preoccupied with his interests, and for a moment he seemed to fear the authority of the Holy See, or was concerned about the situation in Italy, and said to the legations: "I am willing to return the captives of the city of Durazzo and to return the remains of the nobles who have fallen in battle, but I demand that the court of Palermo, the Palazzo Dukes of Venice, and the Castello de Cano in Tuscany send envoys, and that I will meet them at Fort Ohrid, and negotiate peace, a peace for which they must pay." Otherwise, I will raze all the hostile nations. Therefore, whether I cross the Adriatic Sea or not is up to you, and you must give me a proper answer within a month, otherwise you will not regret it. ”

The envoys of the Holy See looked at each other, and now that the city of Durazo has fallen, the elite soldiers gathered here are equivalent to being lost, and there are not many cards to play in the anti-Gawain camp, plus the emperor also took a diplomatic offensive to win over the emperor of Germany, the king of Hungary, and even the distant kingdoms of Aquitaine, Córdoba, and even England and other kingdoms of different banners are actively sending envoys to exchange policies. If we continue to confront him, I am afraid that the basic plate of Pope St. Peter will collapse, and the current situation of the "four popes" tearing up may be far away.

Eventually, the envoys said that they would faithfully convey the Emperor's opinion to all parties, but before retiring, the Emperor suddenly added to them:

"I intend to reconvene the next great assembly of Christians in three years' time, in Adrianople or in the city of Veliky Preslav, to decide on the plan of the millennium, and then I hope that the Diocese of Rome will also send representatives to participate in it, otherwise the Diocese of Rome will be separated from it, and I am afraid that it will be very detrimental to the Catholic Church."

All the envoys turned blue, the original Eastern Roman Empire had degenerated into the existence of the "Greek state and Greek Orthodoxy", and as a result, the first thing it did to revive now was to regain universal power, and the "assembly under the chairmanship of the emperor's high priest" was the most important part of it.