Three months later.

Constantinople.

"Is there really a new crusader?"

Ambassador Yang, dressed as a Tatar merchant and dressed in a dirty ragged leather robe, led his horse through the ancient city......

Of course, he could not miss this kind of war.

Da Ming didn't have anything to do, and the little princess took care of it herself.

Although the presence of a yellow man in Constantinople is indeed a bit noticeable, it is not uncommon for people to see it here, it is the center of trade between the East and the West, and it is not uncommon for merchants from the Golden Horde to visit here. You must know that Nahai, the powerful minister of the Golden Horde, even married the illegitimate daughter of the Eastern Roman Emperor, and the trade with the Golden Horde here has always been frequent, although Yang Feng looks very different from the people of the Golden Horde, but he is not considered a monster.

At this time, Constantinople was already full of soldiers from all over the world.

Zhu Di had already given an ultimatum to the Eastern Roman Emperor Manuel II at this time last time.

Later, he built a fort on the other side of the strait, Üsküdar, locked the strait with heavy artillery, forced passing ships to pay taxes, and even bombarded Constantinople with artillery from time to time......

Of course, not very powerful.

After all, it is more than three kilometers from the Üsküdar Fort to Constantinople, and even if the specially cast cannon hits so far, it has no kinetic energy, at most, it throws a lead ball from the air, and whoever hits it is unlucky. In fact, in more than a year, a total of less than 100 shells were fired into the city, killing two people, at this time the city was sparsely populated, and it was good luck to hit two people, which also made the people in the city fear of the Ming artillery sharply reduced, and also strengthened Manuel II's determination to defend to the death. For this reason, he even went to old Rome to seek the support of the Vatican Pope, and the Venetians and Genoese rarely united to support him, after all, the Zhao Shengjun of the founding of the state seriously affected their interests. Eventually, under the persuasion of them, as well as Poland and Hungary, which faced the threat of Tokhtarymysh, the Pope finally issued a call for support in Constantinople.

Just a call-to-action, of course.

At this time, the influence of the pope was sharply reduced......

They've only been back from Avignon for less than thirty years!

The Renaissance movement has begun.

And Milan has just broken out against the massive plague.

Under these circumstances, it is simply impossible for the Holy See to form a new crusade, and the Holy See can only issue a call, and it is up to him who will come.

But apparently there are.

Groups of mercenaries carrying crossbows, spears and other weapons.

A poor ghost knight wearing a mixed armor of chains, a barrel helmet, and riding a horse with a servant......

If you are not poor, you will not still wear a barrel helmet.

There are only soldiers in armed suits.

……

On the streets of Constantinople at this moment, soldiers or armed ronins from all over Europe are swaggering very confidently, in fact, most of them can only be said to be armed ronins, after all, Europe at this time has not really come out of the shadow of the Black Death, and the vast majority of countries are struggling in the quagmire of poverty.

Want to make a fortune?

Then you can only come out and fight hard.

With the loss of Jerusalem, new shipping routes have not yet been opened, and there are not many places where they can fight desperately.

The Holy See boasted of the defense of Constantinople as a means of salvation, and also preached that once the devilish legions from the East were defeated, there would be endless riches waiting for them to divide, and many of the most destitute wandering knights came to test the waters.

They also made the place a miasma, fighting, robbing and even robbing women, just like the crusaders who captured the city.

But Manuel II didn't dare to care.

One is that he is here to help him, and the other is that he has thousands of soldiers under him, and he can't manage it.

Whatever!

As for his staunchest ally at this time, it was actually the Ottomans, the Ottoman Sultan Suleiman, who controlled Adrianople, and Manuel II was originally a vassal of the Ottomans......

Well, at this time, Eastern Rome had long been reduced to an Ottoman vassal, and was even summoned by Bayezet, including other Christian vassal monarchs, who were ready to cut it down together, but finally let it go. Manuel II even took the Ottomans hostage, leading troops to follow the Ottomans to attack the cities of the Eastern Roman Empire, as for his rejection of Zhu Di, it was entirely because he knew nothing about Zhu Di. Suddenly, a person came and asked him to give up all his titles to be a minister, no one could accept it, if Zhu Di gave him some time to understand, he might be gone, but the problem was that Zhu Di didn't give him any time.

Then the bombardment of the city began.

At this time, he already knew, but there was no room to retreat.

Because the city is not so much his as a Venetian colony.

And across the Golden Horn was the Genoese colony of Pera.

And Suleiman turned to him as a subject......

By this time, the West Ottoman Sultan had become a vassal of the Eastern Roman Emperor.

Coupled with the fact that the Crusaders called by the Pope, which had already been formed by the Hungarian king, and the Serbs who would soon be sent south for reinforcements, finally gave him the courage to resist, after all, if he really could hold Constantinople, there was a vague hope of restoring the glory of Eastern Rome......

"Sunset in Rome!"

Yang Feng watched the sunset in the distance.

Then there was a familiar whistle, followed by a splash of rubble on the wall of a house in front of him, and a cannonball bounced off the wall, hitting a knight who was pretending to be a force next to him.

Although the kinetic energy is not large, he still relies on the weight to knock the plate armor on his body into it.

It's lined inside.

But the problem was that it was all dented into a pot, and there was no use for any lining, and the knight screamed and fell off his horse, fell to the ground and spewed out a mouthful of blood, and then tilted his head and swallowed directly. But there was not much panic around, and even people gathered around with great interest, admiring his body there, and one person found a shell that was badly deformed and even missing a piece......

"Ten gold coins!"

He shouted.

"Bring it!"

A woman's voice rang out.

Then they all turned back and looked at a carriage in which a noble lady was sitting.

About thirty, tall and tall, gorgeously dressed, very temperamental.

"Her Royal Highness."

The man said quickly.

The crowd saluted their queen, Manuel II's wife, the future saint Dragash from Serbia, after all, this was a city with a small population, and the total population of Junbao was only forty or fifty thousand.

At most, it is an ordinary town by modern standards.

Everyone and the queen actually looked down and didn't see each other.

Seeing that he did not mean to hand it to herself, Her Royal Highness had to signal to the maid, who hurriedly took out ten gold coins and handed them to the Venetian profiteer, and then exchanged them for cannonballs.

"How can such a small thing open our walls?"

The queen disdainfully held the cannonball, which was still six or seven pounds in weight.

"Your Highness, this is a cannonball that has exhausted its strength, just like an arrow with a range to the limit, it can't penetrate the armor at all, if it was at close range, this house would have already been penetrated."

A Turkic voice suddenly spoke.

Both the mother-in-law and the mother-in-law were vassals of the Turks, so Her Royal Highness the Queen, who knew Turkic dialect, raised her head and looked at Yang Feng who was holding the horse in surprise.

Yang Feng smiled.

"Tatars?"

The queen said.

"Tatars, infidels, kill him!"

Immediately after that, several armed ronin shouted happily.

Fat sheep!

At this time, it is just right to rob it.

One of them carried an axe, and the first one rushed towards Yang Feng, but as soon as he arrived in front of Yang Feng, he was slapped in the face by Yang Feng's arm, and then fell backwards with blood spraying beyond recognition, and smashed straight to the ground, and then only convulsions remained.

The other armed ronins were honest, and one by one they hesitated with their weapons.

"Your Highness, I'm just a businessman."

Yang Feng said.

"What do you mean by that?"

Her Royal Highness said.

"I'm from the river, and I've seen the power of this cannon, the cannonball in your hand is like an arrow with a limited range of range, but if it is fired at close range, it can easily shatter a dozen soldiers in armor. And it's just a very light cannonball, their real siege artillery, the cannonball weighs ten times as much, although I don't know if it can break through your walls, but at least it can break a lot of walls. ”

Yang Feng said.

"Lie, he's a spy, arrest him!"

The queen suddenly shouted excitedly.

But at this moment, the alarm bell on the city wall suddenly rang.

This was followed by the sound of cannonballs, which sounded like thunder before a summer rainstorm.

However, the direction of the artillery fire was not in Üsküdar, but in the Golden Horn.

The queen and the others didn't care about Yang Feng, they all flocked to the high ground in front, Yang Feng led the horse and followed them, and soon they saw Pera's landmark building, the Tower of Christ, which was the core of the Genoese colonial fortress, but at the moment the spire of the fortress was falling. And at the same time as it fell, although it was a little far away, people could still see that the tower seemed to be changing with the sound of the cannon, because the walls prevented them from seeing anything else, and the sound of the cannons continued.

It was as if a terrible storm was about to sweep through the city.

"The devils are attacking Pera, they landed in the north and went south with artillery, they are destroying Pera with shells!"

A man running in from outside the city shouted.

"Ah, these Genoese fools."

The Venetian profiteer said with a smile.

For the Venetians, even at this time, the Genoese were unlucky.

As soon as he finished speaking, the tower of Christ suddenly shook in a visible way, followed by the sound of a huge cannon unlike any other, and a gap appeared in the middle of the tower of Christ, and then the upper part of the gap collapsed downward, and in the stunned eyes of everyone, the fortified fortress was reduced to ruins.

"Your Highness the Queen, do you still think I'm lying?"

Yang Feng stood behind Her Royal Highness the Empress and said.

The latter looked back blankly and looked at the strange Tatar.

"Take him back to the palace!"

She said.

With that, she walked straight into the carriage.