Crusade against the Pope

Chapter 110 In the Name of Jerusalem!

Raynald of Châtillon, Raynald the Breaker, Raynald the Lord of Hebron and Transjordan, these titles all refer to the same formidable figure.

As the second son of Hervé II, Lord of Donzy in France, Raynald came to the Holy Land with the Second Crusade. He had already made his mark when Baldwin III besieged Ascalon.

Because of personal grudges, Isabel spoke of Leonard in a very unbearable way, and his words were full of contempt.

But to be fair, Reynard's military talent is indeed indisputable, at most his brain is probably not quite normal.

In the Battle of Montgisard, the Leper King Baldwin IV, as a leader, naturally made great contributions, but the one who actually led hundreds of knights to tear apart Saladin's line was Reynald.

After the war, as a reward for Raynald's achievements, Baldwin IV introduced him to the noble widow Stephanie, enabling him to become one of the top nobles in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

The relationship between nobles is complicated, and Reynard presents different faces in the eyes of different people. In the eyes of the Leper King, he may be a vicious dog who obeys orders; in the eyes of Isabel, he is a treacherous and unscrupulous villain; and in the eyes of other nobles, he is just an upstart foreigner.

But to the caravans and pilgrims passing through Transjordan, Reynald was an evil dragon that no one could resist.

Reynald never cared about the peace agreement that was like a piece of waste paper. In this territory, he indulged in his greed and bloodthirstiness. He believed that this was a privilege and the reward he deserved after risking his life for the kingdom.

Even though the nobles in the kingdom talked about this, and even Baldwin IV warned and tried to punish him many times, these punishments never really hurt Reynald. After all, who would strangle their loyal mastiff to protect the interests of the enemy?
Raynald acted like this during the reign of the Leper King, and became even more unscrupulous after the death of Baldwin IV.

After Guy came to power, Reynald's power expanded further. Reynald's territory covered almost one-third of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and the noble forces that secretly opposed Guy controlled nearly half of the land.

As long as Reynald abandoned his support for Guy, Guy's royal power could collapse at any time, even without Isabel's intervention, because Guy alone could not compete with the noble forces that secretly opposed him.

Reynald knew that he was now the backbone of Guy's throne, so he acted more and more recklessly.

His outrageous behavior made people terrified both inside and outside the kingdom.

Yellow sand rolls across the ground, and Muslims walk on the thousands-mile pilgrimage route in accordance with God's will through this desolate land.

They are caravans, they are pilgrims, they are pious people who believe in the only true God in the world.

On a night in July of the year 621 in the Gregorian calendar, under the sky of Jerusalem, the Prophet Muhammad, accompanied by the angel Gabriel, came from Mecca on a Pegasus and ascended to the seventh heaven for a night tour.

"He teaches his servants to go from the Sacred Mosque to the distant mosques that We have blessed around them by night." This is the first verse of the 17th chapter of the Quran.

As the place where Muhammad performed his miracles, Al-Aqsa Mosque is one of the three most sacred places in Islam, second only to the Mosque in Mecca and the Mosque in Medina.

Although the core of Muslim faith is the pilgrimage to Mecca, the pilgrimage to the Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem is still a recognized good deed. Every Muslim who can afford it is eager to go to this holy place for worship.

However, behind the religious piety, the bloody shadow follows closely.

It was the time of the call to prayer, and the pilgrims, led by the Imam, faced Mecca and prayed devoutly.

"Deus vult!!"

"In nomine hierusalem!"

This is destiny!

In the name of Jerusalem!

Whenever Muslims hear such roars, it usually means rivers of blood.

The pilgrim group heading to Jerusalem would naturally not all go to worship without being alert. They left some people behind as a guard.

But by the time they could hear the hymns and the sound of horse hooves, it was too late.

【Heavenly Father! Heavenly Father! 】

Don’t give us the glory, don’t give us the glory

Because of your lovingkindness and truth

【In Your Name】

【Heavenly Father! Heavenly Father! 】

[The victory should not be ours, it should not be ours]

【For your glory and virtue】

【Return to...】

The sentinel hurriedly took the horn from his waist and blew it to warn others.

After hearing the hymn and the warning horn, the believers who had been maintaining a pious posture hurriedly stood up and tried to run towards the convoy. But just as they stood up, a flag with a red and white octagonal cross pattern rose from the west of the high ground. It was the symbol of the Knights Templar!
This was followed by the melodious sound of horse hooves, and a team of more than a dozen cavalrymen crossed the steep slope to the west.

The people on horseback had their backs to the sun, so their faces could not be seen clearly, and their elongated shadows were about to touch the panicked crowd.

When the leading knight drew his sword and pointed it at the crowd, the setting sun and the sky behind them turned scarlet blood, and everything seemed to be going wrong.

The knights said nothing, but lowered their bodies in silence. The horses under them pounced on all fours and walked quickly.

Whenever the horses' hooves hit the ground, sand would splash up on the earth, making them look like an army of thousands!
Tassels and military flags fluttered on the tips of the knights' lances, and a sticky smell of blood appeared out of nowhere.

It was clearly just a squad-level cavalry charge, but it displayed an overwhelming momentum that could crush everything.

Few people dared to fight head-on. When the knights wearing robes with cross patterns on them rushed into the crowd with lances in hand, the only way for those who fled in all directions was to die.

The nobles of Western Europe acquired new fiefs, the peasants of Frank settled in the Holy Land, and the bishops established new parishes. Behind the religious wars, interests are the eternal law.

However, the establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was not all disaster for Muslims. Palestine, a land that had been shattered by the division of the Seljuk Empire, was reunited under the rule of the Crusaders.

The corrupt iqta system of tax farmers was even more greedy than the Crusader nobles in exploiting the people.

Religion? Crusades? Jihad?

During the truce, the Crusader knights hunted with the Muslim lords, but no longer waved the banner of God.

In this world, only interests remain unchanged.

Faith? It seems so pale at this moment. In the face of greed and desire, the glory of any religion seems illusory.

Reynald's knights indulged in the pleasure of killing, chasing after the fleeing pilgrims and treating them as their hunting targets. Their lives were easily harvested and became the leftovers after the war.

They hunted those who escaped first like hunting wild beasts.

Following the footsteps, a team of knights discovered the traces of prey. Any intact adult would be sold for a high price to the passing slave traders.

Whether they were Christians or Muslims, it made no difference when they showed up at the slave market.

The leading knight dismounted and checked the blood, which was pink and bubbly, like a lung injury.

Their footprints disappeared near the river bank, and the river water seemed a little turbid, indicating that they had just arrived at the river. Obviously, the prey tried to cover their tracks by walking in the river.

Did he go upstream or downstream? In any case, he did not cross the river. After all, it is difficult to swim across the river if his lungs are injured.

After thinking for a moment, the leading knight decided to search downstream. They did not go to great lengths to search separately. In their opinion, these were just a few slaves that could be exchanged for money. They did not really care and just wanted to enjoy the joy of hunting.

Compared to hunting mindless beasts, it is more fun to catch talking two-legged sheep.

After the knights rode downstream for a while, they again found a lot of muddy footprints coming out of the river.

When they looked into the distance along the footprints, they saw a carriage surrounded by about a dozen people. Their clothes were soaked with water and some of them had wounds and were bleeding.

They are frightened and they need shelter.

At this moment, a young man in simple clothes was treating the injured.

Garys had never imagined that he would have to perform a surgical operation in the wilderness.

Earlier, he was riding in a carriage passing by this river and saw a group of Muslim pilgrims who were fleeing.

Among the group were children, women and a husband who had been hit by a horse. When they saw the carriage, they instinctively wanted to escape.

Garys observed them silently, watching their every move, feeling their fear between life and death, and their unyielding friendship - if they had abandoned the wounded, they would have been able to escape faster.

So Gelis kept them in Arabic.

“May Allah’s mercy and blessings be with you. I am a doctor and can treat your injuries.”

The Muslim pilgrims were somewhat surprised that a Frank could speak Arabic, but considering that they had nowhere else to go, they were forced to trust him.

After examination, Garys found that the most seriously injured person among them was an adult male who showed symptoms of shortness of breath, chest pain and abnormal swelling of one side of the chest cavity, which meant there was a high probability of pneumothorax.

In the 12th century, this was quite difficult to deal with. Moreover, Gellis was now in the wilderness, and a group of ill-intentioned people appeared not far away.

(End of this chapter)