Branas, Pacaad, father and son, all had serious deviations in their estimates of Reuben's battles beforehand, and in fact, it had only been three months since the fall of Castabara, and the surrender of most of the Cilician forts. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

The approximately 22,000 Armenian civilians captured by Gawain's cavalry during the previous battle were all escorted to Alalmanburg on the other side of the territory, where they were to be the first to drain and reclaim the marshes, along with the 4,000 German immigrants who had already been there. "This is Gawain's promise.

Gawain then kept his promise and gave the city of Kastabara and all the surrounding fields to the kingdom of Adanab, while he himself marched north with two brigades and a thin layer of snow toward Vanka, in order to assert his authority over his new territory.

On the way, more than seventy captured Armenian nobles felt that something was wrong: first their horses and armor, as well as their cloaks and ornaments that symbolized their status, were confiscated, and then they were told to walk, and they were full of fierce cavalry in front of them, and they were whipped at every turn, and the groans and wails of the nobles filled the whole path of suffering, and then the treatment was even more exaggerated, and they were deprived of food and water, and as they got closer to the mountainous terrain, more and more people starved to death.

The whirlwind blowing from the Taurus Mountains, stirring up the powder of the snow, became more and more bitter and strong, and Anselm, who could not stand it, put on a fur hat to protect the few remaining hairs from being blown away by the wind or frozen by the rain and snow, and Golpan beside him rode on a donkey and wept all the way, for the princes whom he had previously revered, and for the nobles who had fallen on both sides of the road, and finally Anselm could not stand it, and he said to the monk of the Apostolic Church, "Hey! I have heard that when you weep for a dead man, you are paying tribute to him, which means forgetting your allegiance to him and giving up revenge for him. After saying this, Golpan suddenly closed his mouth.

The snow was so white that even the road to the city of Tronzac was obscured, and Anselm could only see the white earth, and the black columns of the army that walked on it, and the gold-colored flags of the various teams, and yet another nobleman fell, and he refused to go any further, leaning against a short pine tree, and when Anselm stepped forward to encourage him, he looked desperate, and clung to his dying hound, "My fiefdom has passed, and I know what is going on, so let me die here." ”

Two Germans of the Guardian Brigade approached, and Anselm and Gorpan hurriedly did not dare to say more, but drew a cross on each other's foreheads, and hurried forward with the donkey.

So the two German soldiers walked up to the seated nobleman and urged him to continue, "I will not go again, your Grand Duke has deceived us, and we have betrayed others." The nobleman was stubborn, and the hound in his hand lowered his eyes and whined, and fell on his master's knees, and then the German soldiers said a few words to each other, and then drew their swords from their sheaths, "Come, kill me." Take my life and take my land! The nobleman shouted with all his last strength, and before he could finish speaking, the sword of the German soldier fell diagonally, and with the blood that splattered out, pierced his head, and nailed it firmly to the trunk of the tree, and the snow on the branches fluttered down, covering the head and body of the dead nobleman like an insignificant funeral.

The German soldier drew his sword, wiped it and put it back into its sheath, while another soldier led the hound in chains, pulled it out of his master's carcass, threw him a few pieces of dry food, and carried it back on his way.

Followed by four thousand captured Armenian soldiers, they looked numbly at the remains of the great nobleman still sitting in front of the trunk, where a German soldier stood by, and beside him a clerk named Gawain was identifying the dead and registering it. When the soldier saw the captives coming, he took off the boots on the corpse's feet, whistled, and threw them to the captive, and everyone took two steps back in horror, and then someone ran out, sat down on the snow, and put the boots on his feet, and the German soldier laughed and waved to the captive, and the man stood up with his boots on, bowed and said "thank you......

They had nothing to complain about, because Gawain gave them some of the food every day, and was in a much better position than this group of nobles. As a result, many prisoners, even during the march, have consciously assumed the responsibility of the "logistics corps", they help the military servants push carts, help the cavalry watch the horses, and some bold generals also let them cook food and water, and the effect is also very good.

Fort Tranzak finally arrived, which was the main hill fort leading to the city of Vanka in the Taurus Mountains, with several rivers flowing from above and below. On the sunny hillside, all the soldiers stood in formation, and Gawain, who was riding on his horse, looked at his army condescendingly, holding Anna's letter in his hand, "Dear barbarian, please finish everything as soon as possible, I need you to accompany me to spend this winter on the mountain side of Cappadocia, and next year the salt pans will be beautiful when they are 'sown'." After reading it, Gawain understood what Anna meant, and sent the letter to Anderodat's hand, "Begin." ”

At the foot of the hill, on the roads on both sides, stood four thousand captives on one side, thousands of people from the Ruben kingdom stood on the other, and on the plain opposite the hillside, Gawain's cavalry columns.

Surrounded in the middle were the more than thirty remaining Armenian nobles, as well as their captured family members, all bound by ropes and kneeling on the ground.

"I dreamed yesterday that the Holy Apostle, who had come on behalf of Prince Reuben, cried to me that he had killed him because he had refused to surrender in the camp. Therefore, in the face of the prince's request for revenge in his dreams, all I can do is to carry out a reasonable death sentence on you and your family in front of this mountain fort. After saying that, Gawain on horseback chopped off his hand, and the Germans standing behind this group of great nobles instantly cut off their two-handed swords, and hundreds of heads all rolled down to the ground, and the silence around them was like death, and then Gawain pulled his braid, and Quicksilver's roar overshadowed everything, "I once signed an order on the paperwork to ensure that the land of the Ani people will not change, of course this promise is valid, and I will fulfill it immediately - you are all Ani, aren't you?" However, he was attached to the nobles' fortress as a serf, or followed the nobles as soldiers. Now I will distribute all the fields here to you, and in the future I will lead you to recover Great Armenia, and when the time comes, you can return to those you want, and those who are willing to stay can stay. Listen, it is now I who have given freedom to this land, whether it is a village, a fortress, or a market town, where everyone is absolutely free while paying taxes and serving in the military! If you need a field, come forward and tell my heraldic officer and all the clerks! (To be continued.) )