"Master, how much food can you get if you want to raise this guy." Muzafiadin clapped his hands, dumbfounded, and worried about this problem for Gawain.

"It costs food to live, but if he were to be hanged or driven away, he would not have survived in Asia Minor." Gawain touched his chin, "Tell him to be the chief flag bearer and enjoy the food of the four people - by the way, giant, what's your name!" ”

"Diem. Hussein. The giant man fell to the ground and replied with the flagpole in his hand.

"In the future, I will call you Goliath, and if you have no salary or salary, I will temporarily give you four meals to feed yourself and protect the military flag." Gawain quipped.

"Great, great!" Diem's mouth was full of breadcrumbs, burping, and he didn't care about the question of whether there was money to reward him, and it seemed that he only needed to be fed, which made Gawain and all the soldiers laugh. In the laughter, Dim didn't know why he came, so he looked around, took out a few coins from his bosom, and said to Gawain that I have money, don't worry, as long as I eat enough.

"Blood" Gawain took one of the gold coins, frowned, and saw the initials on it, "The person Lord Godfrey mentioned in his letter is you?" He who can kill the bear. Why didn't you just find me? ”

As a result, Goliath looked at himself and scratched his hair, "Who are you, this old man?" ”

Gawain couldn't laugh or cry, and by this time several of the military musicians had obeyed the orders of the detachment commander, walked to the side of the road, and began to blow their flutes - the army was about to move from the city of Ramas, and at the crossing of the river thirty gully west of the city of Zefelim, the wounded Wesat. Merlot, with a large contingent of Genat landlords of Cicilicia. Wait there to meet him.

The entire brigade and regiment advanced by land and water, and the speed of implementation was very fast. By the end of the evening, we arrived at the east of Zeefilim. The agreed place.

Wesat. Merlot rode to meet Gawain and was ashamed to say that he had been recuperating for so long in the cities of Caron and Tarsus because he had suffered an arrow wound in the battle against Theodoro due to his carelessness.

Behind him, Gawain saw a large number of Roman cavalrymen with their own rations, horses, and armor, standing in front of and behind their banners, followed by a considerable number of lightly armed military servants. Add up to about 1,000. Most of them were local Jinat landlords, and after receiving Gawain's request for military service, they had to gather to join the army, and Gawain set a service period of two months, after which they would be exempted from the second tax in September (Gawain divided the tax period into two months, January and September).

First of these were two nobles of great fame and power, Asba in the foothills north of Lamas. Preskos, a brave warrior on the battlefield. He had previously served under the Sultan's account, and now he has come to "abandon the darkness and turn to the light". There is also a descendant of the most glorious military family in Anatolia, "Scolero". Scolero. Under Merlot's introduction. The two armors were neat, respectfully and arrogantly paid homage to the "Grass King" Gao Wen.

"What is the situation east of Tarsus?"

Gawain then received an answer from Merlot, the campmaster who was in the city. Still closely grasping the movements of the various forces in eastern Cilicia," the city of Mamistra. It was also captured by Baldwin. Tancred and his army have been expelled from the city! ”

"What? Tancred was still too upright. Gawain shook his head. He sighed for the Norman hero who was the enemy.

Then Melo told him what happened:

After capturing the city of Mamistra at the hands of the Turks, Tancred continued to lead his army into the mountains, preparing to join forces with the princes and dukes of Armenia to occupy the main road to Antioch, but his inclination aroused the jealousy and vigilance of General Orson Orsen, the owner of the castle of Lamprun.

There is no other way to do it who is called East Cilicia. Little Armenia is also a scene of many princes?

Twenty-six years earlier, at the Battle of Manchiket in 1071, the Byzantine Roman Emperor Romanus IV had led the main army of his empire to Lake Van in Armenia to meet the Seljuk leader Alp. At the time of the decisive battle of Arslan, one of the Archdukes of the Empire at that time, Ferraredos. Bletchamios, ordered to lead the army of the entire Cilician Military District, monitor Mesopotamia, protect the direction of the emperor's flank.

General Ferraredos was fortunate enough to avoid the military catastrophe at Manchikert, but when he prepared to lead his army back to the aid of his comrades who had been defeated in Armenia, he found that the road to Anatolia had been cut off by the swarming Turks, and most of his generals and soldiers, with 8,000 Normans. The armed forces with the Frankish mercenaries as the core also refused to swear allegiance to the empire, so Ferraredos simply formed an independent principality with the Citadel of Gemalicia in northern Cilicia (on the border with southern Armenia) as the core, and once owned the eastern part of Cilicia, the southern part of Armenia, Antioch, Bydessa, and Aleppo.

But the good times of this principality were short-lived, because the Turkic offensive to the west was still fierce, and the first unfortunate were the 8,000 Western mercenaries under Ferraredos, who were defeated by the Turks at Antioch two years later, and the survivors went into exile in Anatolia and became the backbone of the rebellion of the "greedy wolf Lusail", which was later defeated by Alexios. Komnenos defeated and eliminated.

Then, the Roman Genate warriors under Ferraredos also departed, and a considerable number of them went to Seleucia and West Cilicia to settle in Constantinople and Cornia (in the current Gawain territory, this group was mainly this group). The last to support the principality were the remaining Jinats, peasant soldiers, and Armenian warriors who were dissatisfied with Turkic rule and went into exile.

Twelve years ago, Ferraredos died, and at the end of his life, he was extremely disloyal to the Empire, constantly claiming honorary titles, and even receiving the title of "sebastos" (Greek for 'head'), but after his death, his principality was torn apart in an instant:

Aleppo, Bydessa, Antioch, and half of Cilicia fell into the hands of the Turks and became the fiefdom of the Crescents;

And the hill forts of Lamprun and Barbalen, near the passage of the Cilician Gate, fell into the hands of the man named Orson. In the hands of Hetomis's general, who was originally from East Georgia (present-day Azerbaijan) and fled to Cilicia with his family, including brothers, wives and children, and a reliquary said to contain St. Peter's middle finger, to escape the Turkic invasion;

There was also an Armenian named Ruben, who was originally a subordinate of the last monarch of the Armenian Bagladioni dynasty, Gajik II, who was later murdered in the city of Sith, and his body was dismembered and hung separately in front of the fortress gate, and the murderers were the "three Kallegos brothers" in the city, namely Severn, Ace and Tyro (blind old general Nika. Callegos' eldest son, second son, and third son), the three brothers are believed to have been instructed by Constantinople, but after the death of Gajik II, Ruben led the rest of the Armenians to revolt and set up himself as a single force to establish the "Kingdom of Lesser Armenia". Reuben, or "Prince Ruben", inherited the family business and was the leader of many Armenian families, and guarded the mountain city of "Vanka Castle" in the north.

In short, in the eastern part of Cilicia, there are Turks, Orson. The three brothers, Hertomis, Prince Ruben and Callegos, were divided by various forces, fiercely biting each other, and changing their offensive and defensive alliances, which was definitely more lively than playing the "Four Nations Military Chess". (About Cilicia. Lesser Armenia, i.e. Gawain and the partition of various powers in 1097, see the map of Tieba)

The present situation was even more delicate, because of the arrival of the pilgrim armies from the west, and the many forces nested in the mountains, knowing that a new round of troops was coming—General Orson of Lampren, who had prepared to go to serve the Normans who had reached the city of Mamistra first, but when he heard that Pak Ad and his son were among them, he was furious, believing that Tancred would only take care of the rights and interests of the Armenians, so he changed his way and sent his own light cavalry, cut off the roads in and around Tancred, and sent secret envoys, He is also his most personal brother Haarlem. Hertomis went to see Baldwin and told him that he wanted to be like the dog.

Baldwin replied, "I have a brother Stephen. Gawain. Lusail, not only the priesthood of the Holy Crown, but also the Grand Duke General of His Majesty the Emperor, with tens of thousands of elites on hand, has already occupied the whole territory of Seleucia, and will immediately join forces with me, punish the Normans and Armenians, and return this land to Constantinople, which is the territory that the Emperor deserves. ”

"General Orson was a loyal servant of Constantinople, Ferraredos. The reliable subordinates of Sebaste, the sincere friends of the pilgrim army, are at odds with the Armenian thieves who usurped this sacred land! From now on, General Orson will be completely at the mercy of Your Excellency and General Gawain. Haarlem immediately said heartily, and presented Baldwin with the instrument of the "Holy Covenant of Friendship."

Then, Haarlem's eyes rolled, and when he saw Godheild, Baldwin's beautiful wife, he thought that this man's path was no longer possible, so he cautiously asked, "May I ask how old General Gawain is, and whether he has ever been married?" ”

Goethehild immediately laughed, "Honorable envoy, what do you mean by this topic?" ”

"General Orson has a young daughter, Hetomia, who is beautiful and intelligent, and is now sixteen years old, and it is the time of marriage," said Haarlem. Everyone knew that the return of Cilicia to the Emperor was a fake, and the first priority was to form a strong kinship with the new powerhouses of the land and preserve the castle territory.

Who wants Mrs. Baldwin's hand to make a gesture of resistance, "Please report to Your Excellency General Orson that the Emperor has given his daughter to General Gawain, and Hertomia should find another son-in-law!" (To be continued.) )