The Genoese not only had a fortified fortress city in Kaffa on the Crimean Peninsula, but also a well-developed harbor in which at least hundreds of warships and merchant ships of all sizes were moored.

If these ships are snatched into his hands, Wang Baobao can make the Great Mongolian Navy take place in one step and become one of the few naval forces in the Black Sea and even the Mediterranean.

Therefore, the capture of Kaffa City has become Wang Baobao's top priority.

However, after decades of operation by Genoese people, the Cafacheng were exceptionally strong, with double-tiered walls, a large number of trebuchets and cannons, and thousands of elite soldiers hired from Europe and Anatolia.

Relying on the strong defenses of the city of Kaffa, these Genoese repelled several Golden Horde attacks.

Wang Baobao said that if he wants to conquer Kaffa City quickly, it is definitely a very difficult task for Paul Gale.

Wang Baobao has a lot of confidence in conquering Kaffa City.

Because the spies he sent have obtained a lot of information about the city of Kaffa.

The city of Kaffa is located on a flat ground near the sea, surrounded by no other defensive formula or natural barrier, only the walls that connect to the port.

In Wang Baobao's opinion, this is very simple, as long as the newly cast giant artillery of the Great Mongolian Kingdom is transported to the city of Kaffa, it is completely possible to break through this Genoese city.

That's right!

The current Great Mongol army already has a giant artillery that can destroy the city walls.

After destroying the Golden Horde, Wang Baobao gathered all his craftsmen in the city of John Salai to forge new artillery for him.

After spending a lot of money and countless materials, the Great Mongols finally forged a worthy siege cannon.

These cannons weighed thousands of pounds and required dozens of horses to tow them.

But the power of these guns is also very satisfying.

Wang Baobao had personally tested the power of these cannons not long ago, and it only took a single shot to destroy the rammed earth walls covered in masonry.

According to the information obtained by Meng Yuan's spies, although the walls of Kaffa City are made of stone, they are not very thick.

After Wang Baobao left Wuyun City, he immediately ordered the Meng Yuan army under his command.

He is ready to attack Kaffa City after the beginning of next spring, before the snow melts.

The Great Mongol siege cannons were so heavy that once the snow melted completely, the roads on the Eastern European Plain would become soft, leaving them stuck in the mud and unable to advance.

According to Wang Baobao's estimate, the Mengyuan army will take one to two months to conquer Kaffa City.

He would then be able to capture the Genoese ships in Kaffa, strengthen the Mongol navy, and finally march on Constantinople!

………

Constantinople.

After a blizzard, the entire city was covered in snow.

This city, which was gradually lonely, became even more depressed and silent after the snow.

And under this silence, there is actually an undercurrent.

More than 100,000 inhabitants of Constantinople are now in a state of panic.

Recently, there has been a series of events in the Eastern Roman Empire that all the citizens of the empire do not want to see.

First of all, the Genoese blockade of the ports of the Eastern Roman Empire, which completely cut off supplies necessary for many of the inhabitants of Constantinople.

In order to solve this situation, the Eastern Roman Emperor John V ignored the opposition of his subjects Orthodox Patriarch, and insisted on going to the city of Rome, hoping to use his own way of changing his religious beliefs to obtain the support of the Pope.

Subsequently, the Roman navy, which was in the port of Constantinople, left the port without any order and disappeared.

Many rumors have it that the Roman navy went to surrender to the Genoese.

It is also rumored that the Roman navy went to the Mongols.

Anyway, no matter what the result is, it also represents the last naval power of the Roman Empire, which no longer belongs to itself.

In addition to these, just a few days ago, an even more shocking news was revealed.

There is a rumor that the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church, Alexius, has sent a secret messenger to contact the Mongols, wanting to ask that John Timur to enter Constantinople and replace John V as Emperor of the Roman Empire.

This is even more shocking news.

The Roman citizens in the city of Constantinople had many grievances against John V.

But to make a legendary savage, murderous Mongol, Roman emperor, is almost impossible for everyone to accept.

Even if this John Timur had converted to Orthodox Christianity and claimed to be the protector of the Orthodox Church in the Rus' region, it would not have allowed the proud Roman citizens to accept him as Roman Emperor!

All of a sudden, the Roman citizens of Constantinople gathered in protest to get Patriarch Alexios to give a reasonable explanation.

However, the Patriarch of Alexton was noncommittal about all this and did not respond in any way.

Recently, he has not appeared at various gatherings.

The news also quickly spread to Europe.

After hearing the news, John V, who was in the city of Rome, immediately fell into panic and fear.

Before he left Constantinople, he already knew that Patriarch Alexios would definitely not give up, but he didn't expect Archbishop Alexios to come up with such a brilliant idea!

Let a barbarian Mongol take over Constantinople and replace himself as the Roman Emperor God?

What a ridiculous decision, O God!

However, John V did not have a very good way to deal with it.

Because after he came to the city of Rome, although he met Pope Innocent VI, he did not get the result he wanted.

The Pope of Rome promised to mediate between the Genoese and John V.

He also promised to send a new crusader to support the Eastern Roman Empire against the surrounding Ottomans and other hostile forces.

But.

All of this required the Roman Empire to agree to its own conditions in advance, that is, to allow the integration of Roman Catholicism and the Orthodox Church.

This integration and unification is naturally led by the Catholic Church headed by the Pope, which is equivalent to allowing the Roman Catholic Church to annex the power of the Orthodox Church.

Pope Innocent VI's conversation from beginning to end adheres to the principle of 'no rabbit and no eagle'.

No matter how much John V pleaded for assurances, he did not agree.

In any case, as long as the subjects of the Eastern Rome and the Orthodox Church did not accept the Catholic rule, the Pope would not send a single soldier or mediate between the Genoese and the Eastern Roman Empire.

John V himself could have agreed to such a forceful request, but the citizens of the Eastern Roman Empire would certainly not have agreed.

Let them turn their backs on centuries-old Orthodox beliefs without any substantial assistance, only fools would do such things!

John V touched a nose in Rome.

Now there is the bad news that the Orthodox Church and the Empire are about to abandon themselves and welcome a Mongol to become Roman Emperor.

He couldn't stay in the city of Rome any longer.

But.

John V was unable to return to Constantinople at this time.

Because, now not only the Genoese are enemies of him.

Even the Republic of Venice, another powerful maritime power in the Mediterranean, has issued a warrant for John V's arrest!

That's right, it's Wanted!

John V had previously borrowed a lot of usury from the Venetians to finance his war to restore Rome to its glory.

However, these wars were all defeated by the attacks of the Ottomans and other hostile forces, and they did not achieve the slightest result.

The poor Roman Empire was not financially rich in the first place, and there was simply no money left to repay the Venetians.

The loans of the Venetian merchants, who had always been known for their black hearts, had multiplied several times after years of delay.

John V simply lay down and began his career as a debtor to the Venetians.

In line with the principle of "why should you repay the money you borrow if you have the ability", he has driven out the Venetians who came to collect debts several times in succession.

After arriving in Rome this time, the Venetian merchants, who were already extremely angry with him, issued a wanted warrant in the name of the Assembly of the Republic of Venice to arrest John V, the dishonest emperor.

In the sea outside the city of Rome, there were already many Venetian ships patrolling back and forth, and as soon as they received information about Emperor John V's voyage, they would immediately intercept it with their powerful fleet and capture Emperor John V back to Venice for trial.

According to the Venetians' urine nature of dying and asking for money, if John V did not pay the money, I am afraid that he would have to spend the rest of his life in the water prison of Venice.

In the midst of this internal and external predicament, John V fell into deep despair.

He didn't understand that everything he did was obviously for the Roman Empire, but in the end he ended up betraying his relatives.

For several nights, John V was so deep in remorse and fear that he could not sleep at all.

Just when John V felt that the future was bleak and that he was already in a desperate situation.

Things suddenly took a turn for the better.

Early in the morning, several of the Pope's men arrived, bringing the news that Pope Innocent VI had invited John V to meet him, and that the officials of the Holy See had changed their previous arrogant attitude towards John V, and their attitude towards him was full of kindness.

John V did not understand what the hell was going on with all this.

After arriving at the chamber of Pope Innocent VI, John V saw that he was greeted by an unusually large scene.

Almost all the cardinals in the city of Rome had gathered, and all looked at him with very kind eyes.

John V did not understand the reason for all this change, and his heart was extremely terrified.

He's a frightened bird now.

Any disturbance could have made the Eastern Roman Emperor tremble.

However, the subsequent words of Pope Innocent VI made John V instantly surrounded by surprise.

Sitting on his papal throne, Innocent VI first apologized to John V for his poor hospitality, and then he said that in view of the fact that the Eastern Holy See was now going astray step by step, he wanted to make a barbaric Mongol emperor of Rome!

As the brother of Christ, the Roman Catholic Church naturally could not sit idly by, so Innocent VI decided to convene a synod of bishops to organize a new crusade to support John V and consolidate his position as Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire!

It turned out that Pope Ingrosson VI had also learned that the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church, Alexios, was preparing to welcome the Mongol John Timur as emperor of the Roman Empire.

And, unlike those gossip, Pope Innocent VI had countless spies in the Eastern Roman Empire, and the information they sent was very accurate!

Patriarch Alexios, a vile careerist, in order to consolidate his power, was already planning to choose the wrong path and try to fight the Roman Catholic Church to the end!

If the Mongols had become emperors of the Roman Empire, hundreds of thousands of Mongol warriors would have instantly become supporters of the Orthodox Church.

The Orthodox Church will completely overwhelm the Roman Catholic Church in terms of force!

In the late Middle Ages, Roman Catholicism, also known as Catholicism, had three of its strongest supporters.

One is the Kingdom of France, the Holy Roman Empire, and the other is the Kingdom of Poland.

Under the attack of the Mongols, the Kingdom of Poland performed very poorly, not only losing almost all the Polish knights, but also King Kami III was killed in battle.

The entire Kingdom of Poland was quickly reduced to a second-rate power that was not worth mentioning after this war.

When Innocent VI heard that the Kingdom of Poland had been ravaged and destroyed by the Mongols, he became very ill.

The Poles were one of the most loyal supporters of the Holy See, and without the control of the Kingdom of Poland, the Holy Roman Empire was not as respectful to the Holy See as it had been.

Right now!

An even more terrifying news came to Innocent VI!

Once the Mongols took control of the Eastern Roman Empire, they would inevitably expand into the surrounding Catholic countries, which was unacceptable to Innocent VI.

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During Innocent VI's decades-long papal career, his greatest goal was to integrate the internal forces of the Catholic Church and establish the absolute authority and orthodoxy of the Catholic Church in Christendom with an absolutely superior situation!

Thus achieving the goal of the eventual unification and annexation of the Orthodox Church.

Now it's a bad dish!

The Orthodox Church directly did not emphasize martial virtues, and recruited strong Mongols as foreign aid.

Once Patriarch Alex Hughes completes this plan, Innocent VI's decades of hard work will be in vain.

The desire to unify Christendom will also be completely hopeless.

Therefore, Innocent VI decided to help John V consolidate his position as emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire before John Timur of the Mongols came to Constantinople.

Comparatively speaking, John V, a mediocre emperor with little talent, was more in line with the interests of Catholicism.

As for the merger and unification of the Holy See, it will have to wait until later, as long as the Mongols cannot enter Constantinople, there will be a chance after the merger of the Eastern and Western Holy Sees.

And once the Mongols became the rulers of the Roman Empire, Europe was bound to fall into the great civil war of Christendom.

When Innocent III said this, he could be described as a thief playing with double standards.

The Catholic organization of the Crusaders to attack the Orthodox Romans was not a civil war.

The Orthodox Romans came to attack Catholicism and it was a shameful civil war.

In order to make the crusaders famous, Pope Innocent VI declared that the Patriarch of the Orthodox Church, Alexios, and the Great Yuan Dynasty, who had just converted to Orthodox Christianity, were hypocrites!

Hypocrites, for Christianity, are almost as serious as excommunication.

This completely trampled the legitimacy of the Orthodox Church under his feet.

John V still had many supporters in Constantinople.

After all, many Roman citizens, although they did not like Catholicism, did not like to have a Mongol as their emperor.