Soon Anna sent a reply from Tarsus, saying that she would go to Prusa, Smyrna, and Trabzon with a guard of honour this winter, to supervise the construction of the city and the commercial port, and in the letter she mentioned to her husband, "My spy has made contact with the Ducasse family in the imperial capital, and they are willing to overthrow John's imperial capital on the condition of protecting my mother, my younger brother (Adjoan), as well as Mikhail and Gusyun, and bring our army into Constantinople at the right time." Pen Fun Pavilion www.biquge.info"

It is stamped with Anna's seal.

In the palace of Tauris, after Gawain finished reading, he added a sticker to it, "The entry of Constantinople must not be slow, but it is also impatient, you can calmly deal with the affairs of the territory, especially the construction of the new port of St. Paul, the issuance of the national debt, the preparation of the fleet, and the distribution and training of the sailors, and consult with the relevant officials." After my eastern crusade triumphs, I will discuss the major matter of capturing the imperial capital in the long run. ”

Now Anna is very well-behaved, she no longer interferes in strategic matters, and follows her husband's ideas and plans in everything.

Whatever Gawain wrote stickers, Anna did.

Time flies, and the winter at the end of the following year quickly fades away, and on the Erzurum mountain road, Kabeamia rides a yellow-haired mare with a white mouth, guarded by a group of believers, and a mule carrying a bamboo cage, in which lies a rabbit cat with a lot of fortune, along the restored trade route, slowly in the direction of Tbilisi.

There was a lot of white snow on the ridges, but in the direction of Kars and Ani in front of them, the number of caravans and pedestrians suddenly increased, and this ancient trade road was revitalized: because Gawain annihilated many small Turkic states (who either acted as mercenaries or plundered trade routes), so that the place was once again unified and intact.

Halfway through, Kabeamia received a second letter from Gawain, asking her not to go to Tbilisi again, but to the Taulis Palace, "I may go east against the Mountain Sect in Alamut, and you may rest in the Lake Palace there." In the tidbits scattered in the mountains, the holy sister pursed her pink lips, and a few strands of black hair covered her slightly red cheeks in the plateau, and put Gawain's letter into the box under the saddle, and looked at the fork in the road, no matter what, she was happy, and she would soon be with Gawain for a while.

At this moment, in the wilderness outside the city of Tauris, countless troops and banners were shining in the world's vision, shaking their nerves, and gathered under the command of Gawain's camp.

The kingdom of Hilvanpasha sent a thousand Aran soldiers as agreed;

Latty, Grand Duke of Georgia, also came with five hundred cavalry;

Sylvan . Haddadi's two Kurdish vassals gathered 2,000 men to follow Gawain's campaign;

The Seljuk states gathered 10,000 elite Turkic soldiers and thousands of craftsmen and servants, and carried the banner of the Sultan under the banner of the Sultan. Tabo commanded and served as a wing of Gawain;

The governor of Mosul, Kobha, sent his general, Bo Aisas, with 3,000 soldiers to help in the battle;

In the end, even the caliphate of the city of Baghdad, although he did not send a team, presented fifteen battle flags made of brocade to make a strong appearance.

Riding on a black mare to inspect many armies, Gawain couldn't help but sigh in his heart, "How did I, who was canonized as a saint by the city of Rome, get here and get the caliph's banner, and then command a large number of Seljuk Oghuz, Kurdish and Khorasan warriors, and run to raze a stronghold of the Persian mountain sect?"

But Hassan and his sect must die!

I, the dignified King of Tarsus, the future ruler of the new Roman Empire, must not allow an old bastard hiding in a mountain fortress and pretending to be a fool to go unpunished, secretly threatening me and my men, not to mention that if this battle is fought well, the eastern frontier will be at least ten years at peace.

In addition, the mountain sect is just a group of fanatical believers, and the cost of annihilating them militarily is very low, but the prestige they win politically and diplomatically is very high, and it is definitely a very good deal.

After the army was assembled, the first to suffer was the important city "Ardabil" in the southwestern corner of the Khazar Sea, on the border between Sylvan and Persia. Gawain's onslaught lasted only three days before he was subdued, and the city's 4,000 Persian Ismailis heretics, if not Assasin, were taken prisoner and handed over to the Seljuk princes and generals, or sold into slavery or simply killed.

At the same time, Gawain sent ten messengers to the Vulture Fortress, ordered Hassan and his followers to surrender, razed the battlements and curtain walls of the various strongholds, broke all the gates, and refused to resist the might of the army, and then he could "If you can leave the city and leave your fate to me, I will forgive the lives of the followers of the Cult of the Mountains, and let the Seljuk Sultan set aside a flat and easily controllable territory for them to settle." ”

However, Hassan, who was hiding in his room, instigated his subordinates to detain ten messengers, and then, perhaps frightened, put them all back, and wrote back to Gawain, saying, "The destruction of the castle is not an overnight thing, please let me dispose of the five first, and your army will not advance for the time being, and each of them will express its sincerity in making peace." ”

Gawain said yes, so he asked all the troops to rest in Ardabil for half a month, waiting for news from Hassan.

However, information soon came that Hassan was preparing to collude with the Qarakhanid against the armies.

Gawain then ordered the whole army to no longer be bound by the armistice, and to advance all the way along the mountainous and rugged land of Gillan, along the shore of the Khazar Sea, and sweep the outlying fortresses and castles of the various mountain sects like a furious wind, and capture any believer without questioning his identity, age, or interrogation, and immediately put him to death on the spot.

Just seven days later, in the third month of the year 1105, Gawain's army advanced into the valley beneath the precipitous Vulture Fortress and beheaded the thousands of heretics they had captured in front of the people of the cult on the hill above him.

The Asasim devotees in the Eagle Fort on the summit saw all this, and their anger for revenge for their companions could not be contained, and they gathered like clouds and knelt down in front of the ashram of the "Grand Master" Hassan, chanting that "three Seljuk sultans (Arp, Malikshah, and Sanjad) tried to besiege me, but they all came back with a feather of a feather, so the flood was rushing down and the birds were not as high as me", and demanded that Hassan take a tough attitude towards the enemy who did not know what to do.

Eventually, Hassan sent a handwritten letter to Gawain's tent camp at the foot of the mountain, and the tone was arrogant:

"Mortals can't climb to the top where I'm at,

Not even eagles and vultures can do it.

My dog here can only bark at the stars in the sky,

But you are not as good as it, because the mountains of Alamut obscure all the sun and the stars. ”