The Great Earth King didn't know what to do, but he knew that if he abandoned Sophia's Fort, Gawain would be able to tear his kingdom in half in an instant, and then he would either retreat to Za'tar or retreat back to Ohrid, but either way would be difficult. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

"You have to stick to what you do, at least inflict great damage on Gawain...... Why haven't the reinforcements come yet! "Berdin, who was under constant shelling around the clock in the fortress, shouted hysterically.

In fact, at this time, whether it was the Lateran Papal Palace in Rome or the hall of Canosa Castle in Tuscany, the envoys in various costumes were arguing, and Pope Eugene and Matilda were old and helpless, curled up on high seats, and from time to time they were out of dispute under the mediation.

In short, the assembly of believers was to be held, at which Tuscany and Rome would not only reunite the Holy See, but also denounce Gawain and his new empire, depose the false popes of Bari and Ravenna, declare Gawain a fallen heresy, and call all kingdoms against him.

"Order Gawain to divorce the Greek empress, declare Gawain and the heretess, and ask Baldwin of Jerusalem to break off his marriage to Gawain!" Owen Seth. Eugene suddenly came to his senses when he heard this, and he stacked the scepter on the floor heavily, and he remembered his predecessor's admonition at this time, "Be careful not to let Gawain become the climate", it was too late to regret it.

Second, soldiers are to be produced, but the opinions of all parties are different.

In the end, under the mediation of Eugene, a strange plan was formed: the Venetians sent a fleet to send the Hungarian troops to Durazo, and the Sicilian troops landed on the coast of Epirus by boat, and then went to Durazo to join the others; The Tuscan troops, on the other hand, had to go to Venice on foot, and Venice would provide ships to Durazzo.

With Durazo as the meeting place, it was a victory for Venetian diplomacy, after all, it was more confident to speak with a powerful fleet in hand. In addition, Dulazo is only a day's journey from Ohrid, so that reinforcements can be sent to Constantine as soon as possible. Burding.

At the same time, Pope Eugene of Tuscany and Pope Benedict of Rome finally reached an agreement to jointly issue an edict to remove the two "pseudo-holy sees" of Anselm and Ravenna in Bari, and incidentally issued a "sacramental cessation order" against the four city-states of Relaya, Pisa, Amalfi and Bari, calling on all churches in the country to suspend all religious services.

In addition, the Kingdom of Sicily sent a "small expeditionary force" of Normans, starting with Roger the Younger, whose mission was to cross the sea alone to Dalmatia and incite the small Slavic states to form an alliance against Gawain and cause trouble for him. Of course, if these small states do not obey their orders, little Roger will launch a devastating campaign of conquest like his predecessors twenty-five years ago, either in the nature of punishment and warning, or directly replace them, and establish an independent Norman kingdom in Dalmatia as a bridgehead against Gawain.

Little Roger, who came to Tuscany with 400 Norman cavalry, recruited troops in Apulia and Kastoria along the way, annexed the forces of the rest of the Norman lords, and soon formed a team of 4,000 people, arrived at the Canosa Castle and received the consecration of weapons from the Tuscan pope.

During this time, Roger Jr. also wrote several secret letters to his cousin Bohemond of Antioch, inviting him to send troops anyway, "to attack and plunder Gawain's territory in the east." ”

But Bohemond never reacted, after all, the reason why he ventured to the East was largely because his territory was coveted by his uncle Roger Sr., when the three Ottwell brothers "Iron Hand William", "Guiscato" and "Sicily Roger", originally one occupied Aversa, one occupied Apulia, and the other occupied Sicily, but now there is a tendency to be swallowed up by the Sicilian family, which is of course what Bohemond does not want to see.

When the final meeting came to an end, Matilda walked out of the side door of the hall sleepily, and there was a shoulder waiting for her at the foot of the steps, and the flames in the castle were even colder in the night, and when the elderly duchess wrapped her shawl tightly to ward off the still biting wind of the late spring evening and walked down, a strong young hand reached out and put her fingers just right, Matilda looked sideways, it was Roger, the second prince of Sicily, and the torches of the attendants illuminated his brave face, and he was a pleasing pirate.

"No, lad, you should go to Dalmatia as soon as possible and become a true king." Matilda's reply was straightforward.

"So Tuscany needs a real king to protect it, doesn't it?" Little Roger had no embarrassed expression, in fact, Matilda was old enough to be his mother, but when an ambitious young man desperately needed the glory and power that gold brings, would he care if the seal on the gold ingot was twenty or thirty years ago?

The Holy See's call for troops soon resounded throughout the Hungarian land, and the royal palace of Panunhalma was full of noise, with the white towers behind it towering over the field, but the dwellings scattered around it were still backward - half protruding from the ground, half buried in the ground, like damp and dirty caves, with crooked railings beside them tethered to weak cattle and broken carts, where the vast majority of the 1.2 million ordinary Hungarian inhabitants lived, and many of these houses surrounded the fortress. Clustered into a number of small agricultural market towns, most of them between 500 and 1,000 people, with smoky smogs from the smithy and mills, and the houses of the noble "Barrows" were the most striking buildings in each market town square.

Many Barrows galloped on tall horses, scolding the serfs who were running hard with their luggage and flags behind them, and came to the palace of Panunhalma from all parts of the kingdom to discuss the events of the Crusade.

Along the way, many villages were lined with Catholic priests, dressed in vestments and raising their arms impassionedly, urging everyone to "join in the holy crusade against the Greek Empire," and that the capital of the Greek emperor was full of treasures of gold and silver that you have never seen in your life. The Lord has granted the Christian warriors who participated in the holy war to take possession of their power".

Many of the Barrows were so angry that they raised their whips and whipped their mounts bloodied, lest they see such an unattainable spectacle, and when they came to the palace, the king's "book-lover" Carroman was standing at the gate, welcoming anyone with open arms.

Because in Hungary, the king did not have the right to decide the most important matters of the country, and he had to consult with many prominent "Barrows". This time it was a matter of the country's future foreign policy towards the entire Eastern Roman Empire, and the Coroman king certainly could not be arbitrary.