Chapter 1160 Postscript 16 The Situation in the West

Chapter 11 Situation in the West

What is the Pope doing at this time?

He is contacting the King of the Han Dynasty, hoping that "Priest John" can truly convert to Christianity.

At the end of the Northern Song Dynasty, a priest visited Rome, claiming to be from faraway India, and brought news about Nestorianism.

So Europe began to have the legend of "Priest John", that is, in the far east full of pagans, there was an emperor who believed in Christianity and served as a priest, ruling a mysterious country for hundreds of years.

After defeating Sanjar, Yelu Dashi was mistaken by Europe as "Priest John".

Marrakech, now called Chang'an City.

Lucius, the envoy sent by the Holy See, was taken to the palace of the Han Dynasty trembling with fear.

The elderly Yang Wenhu was still energetic. He sat on the throne left by the Caliph and looked at the Roman monk in front of him: "What did the Crusader send you to do?"

Lucius bowed to greet him first, and then said: "Your Majesty, the great Pope has received news from Iberia. Hearing that you treat the Crusaders well, the Pope is very pleased. If you are willing to formally convert to Christianity, the Pope promises to crown you in person."

Yang Wenhu sneered: "How many troops does he have?"

Lucius was speechless.

The current Pope had already fallen out with the Holy Roman Emperor because the Holy Roman Emperor's territory surrounded the Papal States.

The contradiction between the two sides became more and more intensified, and even a war broke out.

The Pope's army was defeated by the Holy Roman Emperor.

Even the Pope did not dare to excommunicate the Holy Roman Emperor in Rome, but went to France first. He was afraid that once the Holy Roman Emperor was excommunicated, the other party would rush into Rome and capture the Pope alive.

Now, the relationship between the two sides has eased on the surface, and the excommunication has been lifted.

Because the excommunication has not been lifted, the Holy Roman Emperor will really send troops to flatten Rome!

Lucius said: "As long as you convert to Christianity, the Pope can order the King of Castile to cease fire."

Yang Wenhu said with disdain: "This is a war provoked by the King of Castile. He can make the decision when he wants to fight, but he has no choice when he doesn't want to fight. In addition to ceding land and paying compensation, the King of Castile should not think of ending this war!"

Lucius threatened: "I heard that your country is also fighting with the Caliph, fighting on the north and east fronts at the same time, which is not a good phenomenon. If you reconcile with Castile, you can go all out to defeat the young Caliph in the east."

"Blast out!" Yang Wenhu was too lazy to talk anymore.

Lucius was dragged away by two Berber soldiers. These Berber soldiers were orphans adopted by Yang Wenhu.

Lucius was a little embarrassed after being thrown out of the palace.

The authority of the Pope today has reached an unprecedented peak.

Although the Papal Army was defeated, it led to a superficial reconciliation with the Holy Roman Empire.

In order to lift the excommunication, the Holy Roman Emperor agreed to many of the Pope's requests and granted more privileges to the clergy.

With the cooperation between the two sides, the Pope's prestige soared, and he took the opportunity to enhance religious privileges in other countries.

This time, the Pope sent envoys to the Han Kingdom to continue to expand the territory of the Cross. What if the King of the Han Dynasty really converted?

Inside the palace.

Yang Wenhu was silent. He had understood Emperor Dingtai. It was really a headache for the civil and military officials to be out of control.

It has only been 20 to 30 years, and the nobles that Yang Wenhu has enfeoffed have not been very obedient. They dragged their feet in gathering troops to fight, cried poor, and even said that they had no food to send troops.

In desperation, Yang Wenhu could only promise more benefits.

He even told the noble lords in various places that as long as the enemies in the north and the east were defeated, all the newly occupied territories would be enfeoffed according to military merits.

The war in the north is going well at present.

The Kingdom of Castile has been expelling desert believers and Jews for decades.

The Jews took the initiative to seek cooperation with Yang Wenhu, saying that they were willing to be the guide. Moreover, they could also contact the Jews in Castile, who were willing to be the insiders for the Han army.

With the help of those Jews, the Han army has already conquered two large cities.

As for the Caliph in the east, a young man dared to take the initiative to send troops to provoke the main force of the Han Dynasty while it was heading north.

Now, the Han army has been conducting defensive operations in the east, relying on city walls and fortresses.

As long as they defend for another half a year, the Caliph's soldiers will lose their morale. When the Han army launches a large-scale counterattack, they will definitely destroy the Caliph in one go!

The real problem of the Han Dynasty is that races and religions are too chaotic.

Yang Wenhu is worried that after his death, the Han Dynasty will soon fall apart.

Not to mention being torn apart, but at least it will be divided into two countries, one dominated by desert religion and the other dominated by Christianity.

The navy brought by Yang Wenhu is too small after all.

While influencing the locals, they were gradually assimilated by them.

Especially those Han lords who were granted fiefs, who were surrounded by foreigners and had few opportunities to use Chinese.

The sons of the lords became locals from birth and had only a vague concept of the distant Ming Empire.

In the long run, within two or three generations, they would completely forget their ancestors.

Yang Wenhu also tried to promote Chinese teaching, but it was useless. Even the Desert Church could not do this.

At the beginning, the Desert Church used Arabic to spread its doctrine, but it turned out that the people were all fake believers. Because most of the people could not understand Arabic at all!

It was not until a hundred years ago that the local language was used for preaching, and all the foreign desert believers were assimilated by the Berbers.

What Yang Wenhu could do was to continue to adopt war orphans and teach them to speak Chinese and write Chinese characters.

Today, Chinese has become the language of the nobility, and Chinese characters have become the writing of the nobility. Only by mastering Chinese characters can one understand scientific books and be qualified to learn how to make firearms.

In addition, local agriculture has also developed, all of which are agricultural technologies brought by the Han people.

…

Holy Roman Empire, Imperial Palace.

The panting messenger was brought in and knelt on one knee and said: "Your Majesty, the Seventh Crusade failed!"

Frederick II had a blank expression: "How did it fail?"

The messenger said: "The enemy still used artillery, but this time it was installed on warships. The Crusaders' fleet was defeated by the enemy's fleet with artillery before it landed."

"I know, you go down." Frederick II said.

This Crusade was led by France, and even if everyone died, it would have nothing to do with the Holy Roman Empire.

In another time and space, Frederick II should have died three years ago.

But history has long changed. It is hard to say whether the Frederick II in front of us is the original one. It is possible that they just have the same name.

Because of the emergence of firearms, the Holy Roman Empire and Sicily married earlier.

So this Frederick II was born two years earlier than in history. He should have been an only child, but he even had a younger brother.

This series of huge changes started with the Third Crusade.

The three kings of England, France, and Sicily personally led their troops to Jerusalem and encountered a firearms raid during the battle.

The Crusaders were in chaos, and Saladin took the opportunity to lead the cavalry to charge.

The King of Sicily was killed on the spot.

The King of France fled quickly.

King Charles I of England was extremely stubborn. When his friendly army was fleeing, he actually led his army to launch a counterattack. Soon he was surrounded by heavy sieges. His soldiers tried to break through many times but failed, and were all slaughtered in despair.

Unable to surrender, because surrender would also mean death.

Charles the Lionheart was seriously wounded and captured, and Saladin personally ordered him to be beheaded. (This led to great changes in British history. John I succeeded to the throne early, and fought fewer wars. The king was not forced by the nobles to sign the Magna Carta.)

The then Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI took advantage of the death of the King of Sicily and led his army to seize the throne of Sicily and forced the Sicilian princess to marry.

It was also because of this that the relationship between the Holy Roman Emperor and the Holy See deteriorated, and the Holy Roman territory took over the Papal States.

In the subsequent Crusades, firearms technology gradually spread to some European countries. But they did not have muskets for the time being, and could only make relatively primitive bronze cannons.

In comparison, the firearms of the Crusaders' enemies were much more advanced.

Frederick II called his confidant and said, "Go to the Greek Empire (Byzantium) and ask them if they have any plans for marriage."

The confidant was surprised and said, "Do you want to resume the marriage with the Greeks?"

Frederick II did not explain: "Go ahead."

The Holy Roman Empire and the Eastern Roman Empire used to have frequent marriages, but they had a complete falling out decades ago.

Frederick II's grandfather launched the Crusades, but it turned out to be a false attack on the state, and the real purpose was to conquer Byzantium.

Then, his grandfather was killed by the Byzantines, because Byzantium also secretly hid firearms!

But the days of Byzantium were not easy. The ruler was young and the country was suspicious, the princes rebelled, the dynasty changed, and the civil war started again. The neighboring Sultanate of Rum took the opportunity to expand and took away all of Asia Minor.

Immediately afterwards, the Sultanate of Rum also began to have civil strife, and the Byzantine Empire took the opportunity to counterattack and finally recovered Asia Minor more than ten years ago.

Now, the real overlord of the Middle East is Egypt, the Ayyubid Dynasty founded by Saladin's father.

The Zengid Dynasty was also very powerful at one time. It devoured the legacy of the Seljuk Empire and even abolished the Caliph of Baghdad. But when they expanded eastward, they fought a bloody battle with the Kingdom of Dayuan in the Khorasan region.

In that Khorasan battle, Zhu Ming's grandson (King of Dayuan) personally went to the battlefield, and the Zengid Sultan was killed on the spot. Since then, the Zengid Dynasty has been torn apart.

In order to stop the endless Crusaders, the Ayyubid Dynasty, which believed in the Desert Religion, and the Byzantine Empire, which believed in the Orthodox Church, have been in an alliance for decades.

The Ayyubid Dynasty of Egypt tried to unify the Middle East and West Asia, swallow up all the forces split from the Zengid Dynasty, and would not stop expanding until it bordered the Kingdom of Dayuan.

The Byzantine Empire planned to destroy the Sultanate of Rum first, and then march westward to recover its territory in Bulgaria.

Frederick II knew that his time was running out, and the Pope had infiltrated the Holy Roman Empire, so he now wanted to repair the relationship and marry the Byzantine Empire.

In addition, Khwarezm has been destroyed for many years.

The reason for its destruction was that it dared to play tricks on the Ming Emperor Taizong!

Today, the Golden Horde, established by the descendants of the Turks, is located in the original territory of Khwarezm.

The Golden Horde has always been a vassal of the Ming Dynasty, accumulating wealth through the northern Silk Road and expanding westward little by little.

To their west is the Cuman Khanate, and the two khanates have been fighting for decades.

(This chapter is very tiring to write, so I will stop writing it today.)