"Governor, this time the Crusaders of the indigenousness of Europa are mainly composed of four main parts. The Holy Roman faction, including the German states and the Iberian states, is naturally led by the Holy Roman Emperor Alphons I, who is also the king of Leon-Castile and the Duke of Swabia, of which the Duchy of Swabia is where we recruit mercenaries from the Black Forest, which was originally the territory of the Hohenstaufen family, and now belongs to Alphonse I, and the capital of Holy Rome is now located in Freiburg, Swabia, in the heart of the Black Forest, which is very remote and dangerous. In addition to the direct armies of Alphonse I, that is, the Castilian legions and the Swabian legions. The main legions of the Holy Roman faction also had three legions from Iberia, namely the Portuguese legions, the Aragon legions, and the Navarre legions, as well as five legions from Germany, namely the Habsburgs, Saxony, Rhine, Bavarian, and Bohemian legions......"

In the Governor's Palace on the Macau Peninsula, Chen Chongguan was reporting to the Governor of the Atlantic, Liang Chongru, on the composition of the Eighth Crusade. He is now a Holy Roman Ambassador of the Ming Empire and a military advisor to the Holy Roman Emperor Alphonse I. Alphonse I, who had four Iberian legions (including the Castilian legions) and six German legions (including the Swabian legions), was undoubtedly the leader among the secular monarchs of Europa. The unquestioned commander of the Eighth Crusade.

However, the composition of the number of these ten legions is not certain, and the exact number of men, Alphonse I himself does not know. Moreover, except for the Swabian Legion, which was an elite force composed of 40,000 German mercenaries and 10,000 Italian crossbowmen, the remaining nine legions were mainly feudal knights. Although there are quite a few people, there is a question mark over the combat effectiveness.

Other than that. As far as Chen Chongguan knows. Within Germany, there were now four factions: the Swabian faction (which supported the emperor), the Habsburgs, the Bavarians, and the Bohemians. Rudolf I, the leader of the Habsburgs, Louis II, the leader of the Bavarians, and Ottokar II, the leader of the Bohemians, were all interested in the throne of the Holy Roman Emperor. Just because both the Ming and the Pope supported Alphonse I. only then did they know the difficulty and retreat.

"In addition to the Holy Roman faction, France is also in its own right." Chen Chongguan picked up the wine produced in the Countdom of Champagne on the desk and took a sip, his brows tightened a little. "King Louis IX of France is said to have gathered an army of 140,000, of which 100,000 were the French army, 20,000 were the Anglo-Aquitaine army, and 20,000 were the Sicilian legions."

"Who commanded the Anglo-Aquitaine coalition?" Liang Chongru asked with some interest.

"It's Duke Edward I of Aquitaine!" Chen Chongguan's face was slightly ugly. The Duchy of Aquitaine was the French fiefdom of the Plantagenet dynasty – a monster who was a vassal of the King of France on the one hand, and the King of England on the other. The Duchy of Aquitaine was a very large territory, not much smaller than the direct domain of the King of France. The site is located in the southeast of France. It was far from England proper, and had not been affected much in previous Anglo-French engagements. As a result, the Duke of Aquitaine remained with the Crown of England and was generally held by the heir to the throne.

So Edward I, who was both the heir to the throne of England and a vassal of the King of France - what a mess - he was obliged to lead the Aquitaine knights to war with the King of France. During the Eighth Crusade in history, Edward I followed Louis IX to Tunisia and almost died there!

"Did the new army of England go?" Liang Chongru asked. In his opinion, Europa's knightly army could not defeat the Mongols at all, and no matter how many there were, it would be in vain. Those who have combat effectiveness are all kinds of mercenaries, among which the Ming-style new army in England should be the most powerful.

"Nope." Chen Chongguan shook his head, "Edward I said that the new army of England will continue to train. This time he would lead 5,000 English longbowmen, 2,000 Welsh spearmen, and 13,000 Aquitaine knights, as well as a retinue of knights, as well as some conscripts, to fight with the King of France. ”

"Finally sent longbowmen." Liang Chongru smiled bitterly, "I don't care much...... And what about the King of Sicily? He was the younger brother of Louis IX, right? ”

"This is a thug!" Chen Chongguan nodded with some appreciation, "Unscrupulous character." He was also bent on getting Constantinople, and was a sworn enemy of that Roman Khan Michael VIII. However, he also defeated a usurper bastard and a teenage child (the last male of the Hohenstaufen family, Ding Kang Latin), and his reputation was somewhat notorious. His army was a mixture of mercenaries and knights. The combat effectiveness should be passable. ”

He took another sip of wine, "The third major part of the crusaders is the Pope's men. There were men of the Order, the Teutonic Order, the Santiago Order, the Templar Order, and the Knights Hospitaller; And the mercenaries of the Italian countries. Genoa, Venice, Pisa, Florence, Milan, Parma, Ferrara, Modena, etc., are small but strong. Those small states don't have any knights, they all rely on mercenaries to fight the world. Their crossbowmen were strong, and they also procured our cannons and H-medicine. However, it is unlikely that the armies of these small Italian states could be used in Poland and North Germany. The Pope needed them to hold the mountains of northern Italy at the most critical time and prevent the Mongols from invading Italy proper. ”

"Italy really can't be lost, and if Italy loses, there will be no more naval powers...... The Iberian Peninsula should also be preserved as much as possible. ”

Liang Chongru gently turned the wine glass in his hand and said thoughtfully: "We must have at least 20,000 crossbowmen in our hands, and deploy them to various fortresses and fortresses in the Pyrenees Mountains when necessary to block the Mongol invasion." ”

He looked at Chen Chongguan, "However, we still have to help the natives of Europa win this battle as much as possible!" ”

He paused for a moment, as if he knew that this battle was difficult to fight, and the opponent was hundreds of thousands of Mongol troops, so he added: "Even if you don't win, it's best to delay for a while, but you can't lose too quickly." ”

Chen Chongguan smiled bitterly and nodded. He didn't seem to be a good officer. Not counting those "old men" who are old and have taken a back seat, now the Ming army is also like a cloud. There are Zhu Sijiu, Chen Qianyi, Meng Qi, Zhang Xizai, Zhang Jiu, Chen Derui, Guo Kan, Yang Axi, Wei Zhutar, Hai Dawei, Xiao Da and a lot of other characters who can fight and kill. It's not his turn to be a teacher! Last time I was in the Thames, this time...... Can you really help Emperor Alphonse defeat Kublai Khan?

……

With a loud bang, a huge shining fireball appeared less than a hundred steps away in front of Kublai Khan, the Great Khan of Mongolia. A wave of heat rushed to his face, and Kublai Khan's face was suddenly overflowing with a smile that could not be concealed.

You can feel the heat from so far away, and if you are hit by this fireball, you will definitely be burned to death! If hundreds or thousands of these fireballs fell in the middle of the Europa army, it would be absolute chaos!

"Good, good!" Kublai Khan laughed, "Liu Xiaoyuan has made a great contribution to me again!" With this Roman fire, why should the Great Mongols worry about fighting Europa? ”

Speaking of this, his face showed a little regret, "If there are more of these things, it is not impossible to counterattack the Central Plains!" ”

Liu Bingzhong shook his head with a smile, "Great Khan, if the Roman fire is easy to obtain, I'm afraid I won't even be able to reach Rus." ”

Kublai Khan was stunned for a moment, nodded with a smile, "It's this reason!" When our Mongol armies swept across Europa and conquered Boreel (Poland) and Magyar (Hungary), we did not see the Europa people use Roman fire. ”

"It's only available in Constantinople, and it's very small." Liu Bingzhong explained, "This thing is made of petroleum (the name of oil is Shen Kuo of the Northern Song Dynasty), saltpeter, sulfur, white phosphorus and other substances are made by secret methods, and can be burned on water. And not oil can be used anywhere......"

In fact, Roman fire is a gasoline bomb or something, and the difficulty of production is oil refining, and if the quality of oil is poor, the difficulty of refining is naturally high. Therefore, the Roman fire factory in Constantinople used relatively high-quality light crude oil.

However, the main reason why Roman fire production has not been able to increase is not that crude oil is rare, but that it is too difficult to refine and preserve. After all, this is a very dangerous flammable product, and it is easy to have a fire accident.

Kublai Khan waved his hand, "I don't listen to this, just let Roman Khan do his best." ”

He turned around and returned to his golden-domed tent with the civil warriors who had accompanied him to watch the explosion of the Roman fire. Inside the tent was a log table, on which a map of Eastern Europe was spread out. On the map, about the lower reaches of the Dnieper River, near the Black Sea, densely packed with small chess pieces of various colors, representing the eight banners of Mongolia.

Now it is the army of the Eight Banners of Mongolia that is driving to Europa, and the dependents and slaves of the Eight Banners are still moving slowly westward. Therefore, each flag left five thousand men to act as guards. The Mongol Eight Banners Army that arrived in Europe was 160,000, of which 20,000 were taken to Constantinople by Liu Xiaoyuan. The remaining 140,000 are in the Dnieper region. In addition, the Golden Horde also prepared an army of 40,000 to invade with Kublai Khan. The Rus' countries also provided 50,000 vassals, known as the Europa Green Banner - the Ming Dynasty had the Aztec Green Battalion, and the Mongols had the Europa Green Banner.

140,000 Mongolian Eight Banners, 40,000 Golden Horde Army, 50,000 Europa Green Banners, a total of 230,000 troops, is the main force of Kublai Khan's invasion of Eastern Europe this time! (To be continued......)