Tumeng: I am a national advisor in the Golden Family

At this time, most of the Hungarian generals had gathered in the defensive fortress to meet with Batu's envoy.

As soon as they entered the castle, Batu's envoys began to persuade many Hungarian generals to surrender.

"As long as you give up resistance and welcome Lord Batu's army in, all of you here can survive, and all the people can survive too."

"Really? Then what will we have to pay, Messenger!" A Hungarian general sneered and asked.

They still remember the war eight years ago vividly, and it has only been more than six years since King John left!
The outcome after surrendering was not much better. All the people would be driven out of the city, and then the Mongolian army would enter the city to plunder.

They also captured all the men in the city and made them their servants, leaving them to be cannon fodder and die.

Of course, Hungary did not suffer this treatment because it was King John who attacked them at that time, but the reason they knew this information was because the Mongolian army also attacked Austria, the Czech Republic, and Poland.

Half of the people in Poland were slaughtered, and a large number of adult men died in the war. The country has not recovered until now.

"Generals, we have 100,000 grassland cavalry outside the city. If you don't surrender, you know what will happen to you." Batu's envoy snorted coldly and said.

"Hahaha! Noble knights, he thinks we are scared!" A Hungarian officer looked at Batu's envoy with a sarcastic expression.

"We should cut off his head and throw it out of the city," said a general.

"You, how dare you? You are just a vassal state of my Great Mongol Empire! Now you should submit to the Golden Horde." The envoy of Badu looked at a large group of Hungarian officers and said angrily.

After the Western Expedition ended, Hungary surrendered to Mongolia. How dare you say such things now?

"You got one thing wrong. First of all, our country did not submit to the Mongol Empire. The church betrayed us and let the nobles assassinate our king.

King John finally saved us and showed us miracles, so we submit to King John, not you, the so-called Mongolian envoy, let alone the so-called Golden Horde. "The Hungarian general snorted coldly, drew his sword and put it on the envoy's neck.

What are you kidding me, you bastard? What do you believe in, the Golden Horde? We believe in God, and you believe in Allah!
We are natural enemies. During so many Crusades, the targets of attack were without exception guys like you.

As long as one does not believe in Allah, in the eyes of Christians or even Orthodox Christians, one is considered to believe in God.

King John was considered a messenger of God, and he even summoned angels to come, so they were willing to follow King John's arrangements. But your Golden Horde has completely thrown itself into the arms of Allah, and we absolutely cannot accept this.

"Kill him, kill him, kill him, kill this infidel."

"Kill the infidel."

"No, we will burn him, the infidel."

All of a sudden, the generals in the castle became excited. This line of defense had been built for several years, and usually there were 10,000 troops stationed there. After learning that the Golden Horde was coming to launch a surprise attack.

Queen Maria gave an urgent order and mobilized 30,000 troops to come to support. Some subsequent coalition forces were also on the way, and even the army of the Eastern Roman Empire was on the way.

This time they are really not afraid of Batu's Golden Horde. If you want to fight, then go ahead! Anyway, our trade route has been cut off by you, but the good news is.

The ships from the Eastern Roman Empire have found an outlet to the sea, allowing them to conduct long-distance maritime trade with King John's country.

So even now, the trade route between the East and the West has been cut off, the Kingdom of Hungary is not afraid, they just want to change the route.

King John had promised that all goods sent to Europe would be sold and distributed uniformly by Queen Maria.

The opening of the East-West trade routes in recent years has allowed Hungarians to make a lot of money, and now the country is very rich.

"If you submit to the Golden Horde, you can still maintain your autonomy. Batu Khan wants only one thing, and that is King John's illegitimate son."

"There is no illegitimate son of King John here, only our little king of Hungary. You have said enough. Come here! Cut off his head and throw it away! The leading general snorted coldly.

The Hungarian people had no objection to King John's bloodline inheriting the throne of Hungary. After all, such things were very common in Europe.

What's more, King John's bloodline represented a kind of divine power. The scene of the angel's descent was seen by tens of thousands of people in Budapest, which shocked the whole of Europe.

Soon the head of Batu's messenger was chopped off and thrown out of the castle, landing at Batu's feet.

"Khan! These barbarians dared to kill your messenger."

"We must not let them go. After we capture this city and enter the Kingdom of Hungary, we must massacre and plunder them."

"Massacre, massacre, plunder, plunder." The soldiers of the Golden Horde raised their sabers and shouted loudly.

The army of the Golden Horde was composed of Mongols as the main force, with Turks, Cumans, and even a small number of Russians as vassal troops.

"Humph! We must capture this city. Give me my military order to attack the city." Batu said with a cold snort.

The army of the Golden Horde immediately took action. Aliang's catapult was taken out and began to launch huge stones at the Hungarians.

That's right, it was just a huge stone attack, but no explosive packs were used.

Why? Because after Zhang Yong took control of the entire Central Plains and the Mongolian grasslands, he directly cut off the supply of goods between the East and the West.

This also resulted in the Golden Horde having no raw materials available for its explosives. After all, the Golden Horde was a completely nomadic empire and had no production capacity at all.

Throughout the country, the most abundant things were horses, cattle and sheep. Batu was indeed a military genius, but his domestic affairs level was exactly the same as his father's. Most Mongols were like this.

It is clear that the Golden Horde owned part of the fertile agricultural land of Khwarezm, but this part of the land of Khwarezm.

All the princes of the Golden Horde did not pay much attention to these cities and did not want to live in them, so they were abandoned, and even some local farming people fled to other areas.

In a war, a cavalry charge outside is indeed very spectacular, but if it faces a solid city fortress, it will be stretched to its limits.

You can't rely on the cavalry to attack the city on horseback, right?
On the border wall of the Kingdom of Hungary, the army of the Golden Horde engaged in a fierce battle with the army of the Kingdom of Hungary, but without any heavy artillery weapons, Batu's Golden Horde army was not as powerful as he thought.

On the border of the Kingdom of Hungary, Batu led his army and fought with them for a full half month. During this period, Batu tried many times to use the strategy of luring the enemy deep into his territory.

The plan to lure the defenders in the city out to fight was basically discovered. They were fed up with the Mongols' tactics.

Lure the knights out of the city, and then wait until they are exhausted, then use the mobility of the light cavalry and long-range bow and arrow shooting to kill them all.

This tactic is okay if you use it for the first or second time, but once it is thoroughly studied by others, it will no longer be effective.

The Hungarian army was not fools. They stayed inside the city walls and were protected by the tall walls. The Mongols had no way to deal with them.

In that case, why rush out and die? This line of defense is very solid.

Half a month later, reinforcements from the Kingdom of Hungary also arrived. The Principality of Serbia, the Principality of Croatia, and the Eastern Roman Empire all sent some reinforcements, and even some troops from the Principality of Austria. Although the son of the Holy Roman Emperor was rescued by Batu, in the end, due to geographical reasons, the other party formed an alliance with Zhang Yong's forces.

The main reason is that Zhang Yong is claiming to be King John and has performed miracles many times.

Moreover, the new Pope also sent envoys to the East and successfully met with King John, who was also very hostile to the Golden Horde.

This greatly benefited ordinary people in Europe. As long as you were hostile to Allah, you were a good buddy.

So the king of Austria, and even the king of Bohemia, expressed their willingness to fight against Allah, the enemy of God.

Since the Golden Horde chose to believe in Allah, they had abandoned King John's teachings and were no longer King John's power.

After the arrival of reinforcements, Batu's army attacked even slower. The city wall kept Batu's Golden Horde army out.

This siege lasted for three months, during which the enemy was helpless against the Hungarian border cities. There was even bad news coming from the rear.

The Northern Rus region launched a rebellion under the instigation of Southern Rus, and even the Southern Rus army was ready to attack its rear.

You know, the Southern Russia region believes in Orthodox Christianity, while the Northern Russia region is subject to the Golden Horde.

But they became slaves of Allah, which made some people in the northern Russian region very dissatisfied. The Russians have believed in Orthodox Christianity for hundreds of years.

The nobles in Northern Russia were also having a hard time. The people were against Southern Russia, so they would naturally seize the opportunity to incite the people in Northern Russia, so that they could break away from the control of the pagans and return to the embrace of God.

At this time, Batu was sitting in his camp, holding his head, with a look of regret and sadness on his face.

He had been preparing for and launching this war for more than half a year. His original plan was to conquer the Kingdom of Hungary within a few months and end the war quickly, but his army was blocked on the border. The Hungarians built magnificent fortifications to block his army. (This fortification was actually built by Bela IV in history. It was precisely because of the deterrence of this fortification that the Golden Horde did not attack Hungary again, and even indirectly protected Hungary during World War I and World War II.)
"Batu Khan! We, our food is almost gone. The soldiers have run out of dried meat, cheese and milk powder." One of his generals brought Batu very bad news that their military rations were almost exhausted.

"How could it run out so quickly? We stockpiled so much rations when we came here." Batu said.

"Khan, the rations we prepared are all dried meat and some cheese. After we finish eating the dried meat and cheese, we will have no more food."

"Where's the food? Where's our food?"

"Batu Khan, where do we get food?

In the past, food was supplied by trade between the East and the West, from the Mongolian steppes or from Chagatai," said the Mongolian general.

Batu was a little surprised when he heard this. So, his country didn't grow crops?
When they marched westward, they never worried about food problems.

All of the problems were solved by military advisor Zhang Yong. The Han troops under his command, as well as the people in Southern Russia and even Hungary in the rear, would grow food to provide food and fodder for the army.

But the Golden Horde was a purely nomadic empire and had no farmland at all.

"I remember that our military advisor Zhang Yong once reclaimed wasteland on a piece of black soil in the lower reaches of the Volga River. We have a place to grow crops," Batu said.

"Khan! You, why are you so confused? That piece of land, military advisor, the wasteland that the rebel Zhang Yong once developed, should have been destroyed long ago under your order!" The Mongolian general said speechlessly.

At that time, Zhang Yong led 15,000 Han troops and some Russian slaves, but the wasteland they reclaimed had long been abandoned.

Even these farmlands were trampled and destroyed by Batu's orders, and then planted with grass to become their pastures.

The Mongols didn't like farming at all. They liked to destroy the fields and then plant grass to turn them into their large pastures.

The land that Zhang Yong, the military advisor, had reclaimed with years of hard work and mobilizing 20,000 Russian slaves and more than 10,000 Han troops was completely wasted by Batu.

If he had continued to cultivate the land, even if these black soils could only be used to grow crops for a few months each year, it could have provided some food for the Golden Horde.

If he had continued to implement the plan Zhang Yong made for him, he would not have come to this day.

Batu suddenly realized that the ten thousand acres of black soil fields that Zhang Yong had developed were completely destroyed by him, and even planted with grass.

But everyone applauded this decision! All of his brothers thought that these fields should not exist and should be destroyed, and then planted with grass and raised cattle and sheep.

Because the Golden Horde at that time had no shortage of food at all, the Mongol Empire and Chagatai Khanate in the east, and even the West would export some food to them.

"Since we cut off trade with the East and the West, our country seems to have become much poorer." Batu looked at the soldiers outside the tent.

Their originally gorgeous armor, the woven armor by Eastern craftsmen, has been transformed back into the animal skin armor that the Mongols wore when they first started out.

Their Golden Horde did not have any top craftsmen. They were just a nomadic group and could not produce any advanced weapons.

They even gave up the Khwarezm region. Later, Zhang Yong invented the golden oil that could start a big fire. They also lost the oil of eternal fire and didn't even know how to configure it.

"It was fine at the beginning, but as time went on, many herders, many of whom used to run post stations and serve the caravans, have lost their livelihoods.

Now, they are grazing again." A Mongolian general sighed and said.

At first, none of them cared about these things, or about this trade route between the East and the West.

But it was not until the trade routes were actually cut off that they realized the seriousness of the problem.

A large number of herdsmen who originally relied on entertaining merchants traveling between the two trade routes directly lost their livelihoods, and their wool and furs were no longer as easy to sell as before.

There will no longer be businessmen who spend money lavishly and come to live in their homes. The era when they could make a fortune by simply having a bowl of beef soup, mutton soup, and cooking some wild vegetables is gone.

Even now his army is much weaker than the Mongolian army that marched westward! Now his army is just like Genghis Khan when he just started his career, and it is even slightly inferior.

When the Mongolian army marched westward, the entire army was equipped with armor made by Han craftsmen and a large number of gunpowder weapons. The soldiers were all well-trained.

But in just a few years, or even less than ten years, his Golden Horde had already fallen into decline.

The original beautiful black armor was completely gone, and no one knew how to make it, so they changed back to the grassland people's animal skin battle clothes.

The fine Damascus steel knives were also lost, and they returned to the era of wild iron smelting, and could only forge some Mongolian scimitars of poor quality.

The brave Mongolian cavalry were like a tiger without its fangs. Batu found it hard to accept this huge gap.

He could not admit, nor was he willing to admit, that Zhang Yong had brought so many benefits and so many things to their Mongol Empire, even the Western Expedition that year.

If Zhang Yong had not been planning and managing the logistics, their army would not have had enough food and fodder to maintain perfect combat effectiveness.

Are you really wrong?
But it was too late. A month later, Batu, having lost all his food and supplies, had no choice but to withdraw his troops. (End of this chapter)