Crusade against the Pope

Chapter 149 No matter how many ways he comes, I will only go one way!

At the beginning, it was a connection between people. They formed families, and families formed villages. The villages then elected representatives to participate in the district council and coordinate the relationship between their own village and nearby villages.

Both levels of structure are almost pure rural autonomy, with no constraints on rights and obligations between them.

At this level, the religious order actually plays more of an advisory role, providing services to believers.

The Paladins and priests of the order should bring advanced knowledge, answer all questions for them, guide them to develop productivity, cure their diseases, and lead the believers on the right path.

They are not high-ranking nobles or officials, but people who serve the believers.

But this kind of autonomy has its limits. People in the village rely on their familiarity with each other to understand each other, and there is more coordination between village communities.

When we go higher up, to the county level, we can no longer expect the heads of the villages and communities to achieve self-government.

The situation with Muslims is not so bad. They have a relatively high average cultural level and sufficient experience in self-governance.

Many of the leading figures in the village, such as the Imam, are even knowledgeable, and people like Tariq also have sufficient business experience. They can understand very well what it means to eat, drink, defecate and urinate on a scale of tens of thousands of people.

The Franks are not good enough. To what extent are the Franks not good enough?

It's so bad that I can't even find a local scholar...

Russell's father, Cardoso, who had invited Gillis to dinner and spend the night, was already the most culturally accomplished of the Frankish farmers.

However, in terms of that level of education...he is now not as good as his son.

Generally speaking, the early parliamentary self-government system would actually evolve into the gentry controlling local power. But at present, the Franks have not even seen the emergence of a gentry group, so it is too primitive.

Therefore, at the county level, although there is still a county council to coordinate and communicate with the villages, Gaillis still arranged for John to serve as the county governor.

Avoid the Franks, who were led by the Muslims because of their low cultural level.

The mountains in the distance stretch out like dark green, forming an endless arc that connects the distant sky with the earth.

Under the blue sky, Garys took Old John and Simon aside to have a chat.

When I left the town of Alhadi and walked out of the Arnon Valley, they were the two in charge here.

Old John served as the county sheriff, coordinating administrative management and tax collection. He wanted to slowly build a county-level civil service government.

Currently, there are only two people in the church who truly possess the status of priests, that is, high-level priests, one is Simon and the other is Archos.

Simon is currently the only official Paladin. According to the hierarchy in the church, an official Paladin has also received the divine seal, resembles Christ, is qualified to hold ceremonies, and possesses a status equivalent to that of a priest.

Alchos had just arrived, and although Gairis acknowledged his status as a priest, it was obviously impossible for him to be in charge of the affairs of the order.

Therefore, Simon, who has followed Garys for a long time and has been taught by Garys, will be responsible for the affairs of the sect after Garys leaves.

As for the Jerusalem Kingdom Army, for now, they still regard Isabella as the nominal supreme leader, and Gailis also trusts Isabella to stabilize the situation.

Therefore, in this wilderness, he wanted to explain some final things clearly, hoping that John, Simon and Isabella could work together.

"John, Simon, you must remember that only by completely destroying the current feudal order, thoroughly transforming the feudal ownership, and carrying out a social reform can feudal dependence be ended. Only in this way can we transition to the kingdom of heaven, or at least make this transition possible."

"From now on, there will no longer be any feudal lords occupying land and forcing the people under his rule to pledge allegiance to him."

"In fact, as citizens of the country, the only object they swear allegiance to is the country itself, and the country must provide citizens with public services that match their tax payments and service."

"I have already told you about the situation in the Muslim Sultanate. The so-called 'holy ruler' and the tyrant are two sides of the same coin. Only by creating a tyrant's system can a 'holy ruler' be created."

"The Arabs have outstanding performance in culture and technology, but you all know what their level is in politics and military."

"The current sultanates are not worthy of being called countries, and the Frankish state is just the state of the Frankish nobles."

"When the Franks and Muslim Saracens all firmly believe that they are citizens of the State of Jerusalem, the foundation of the Kingdom of Heaven will be established."

“We must replace the aristocratic state with a citizen’s state, and prioritize national identity over ethnic identity.”

“Because only when a country becomes the country of the majority, will it issue the word of God from the mouths of all nations and announce to the world: The kingdom of heaven is near, you should repent!”

Garys stood in front of Simon and John, looking at their expressions, talking to them and answering their questions.

【The Pharisees asked, “When will the kingdom of the Lord come?” Jesus answered and said to them, “The kingdom of the Lord does not come with observation; they will not say, ‘Look, here it is!’ or ‘There!’ For the kingdom of the Lord is within you.”】

—Luke 17:20-21
The wind is rising, and the old generation is coming to an end.

With the gathering of the army of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, a war is inevitable. By then, the entire Holy Land will be filled with killing, crying, famine and war.

This war will provide Gairis with an opportunity to get out of Arnon, and the Kingdom of Jerusalem will have no energy to focus on itself.

He had already set his sights on the south, where Reynard's old lair, Castle Karak, seemed to Gellis to be open to the world.

……

Leonard naturally had no idea what Garys was planning, as he had more pressing issues to deal with right now.

Food has been replenished by looting villages, and as for water, there is no shortage because the army is marching northward along the Jordan River.

But the problem was that the Tukopo light cavalry he sent out brought back not very good news.

The term Turkpo refers to the Turks who have accepted Christianity. Many of these people are mixed-race and accepted Christianity from their mothers.

Because they are not accepted by traditional Turkic tribes, Tukopos often choose to leave their hometowns and become mercenaries.

Of course, quite a number of Turkopos converted to Islam in order to serve as mercenaries for the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

After all, you need to make a living.

Basically, the light cavalry of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was composed of these Tukobos.

"More than four thousand-man teams?"

The news brought by Tukopo made Reynald a little unbelievable. Was Saladin's reaction so quick?

While Jerusalem was still gathering its troops, Saladin's vanguard had already broken into the Kingdom of Jerusalem and wreaked havoc on nearby villages.

This act of directly starting the war on the enemy's territory is undoubtedly destroying the enemy's war potential and is actively helping the enemy to clear the land.

The news reported by Tukopo also brought Leonard more specific details.

"Coming from the northeast, heading due west?"

This direction of movement obviously starts from Damascus, and if it extends in a straight line, it will inevitably pass through Nazareth...

But would the enemy's target be Nazareth? Having lived for more than sixty years, Reynard pondered over this issue carefully.

Although Nazareth is the childhood home of Jesus and is considered a sacred place in the hearts of Christians, it is meaningless in terms of strategic value.

Therefore, it is unlikely to be the first target of attack.

In this case, the more likely option is a roundabout one.

Detour? The purpose of the detour was to avoid the city of Tiberias, and now the location where the main force of the kingdom was assembled had become Tripoli.

So? Aka is left in the void?!

Indeed, only an important city like Acre was worthy of Saladin's first attack.

Reynald made his own judgment almost immediately. As a veteran who had fought on many battlefields, perhaps he was far inferior to Saladin in terms of strategy.

But he has a strong talent for the tactical details of war.

The fact that he was able to lead a few hundred knights, infiltrate Saladin's 30,000 troops and attack Saladin directly is proof of this.

It can be said that his confrontation with Saladin is like using micro-management to confront operations.

Then Reynald realized an even more dangerous possibility: if the Count of Tripoli had really reached some secret agreement with Saladin, and made it public in order to eliminate other people's suspicion of him, wouldn't that be even more dangerous!

At that time, it would become like this: Count Tripoli defected on the spot to attract the kingdom's army to assemble, and Saladin's vanguard troops were divided into several groups to take advantage of the opportunity and attack directly, causing the kingdom's army to be attacked from both sides!

All kinds of possibilities turned over and over in Leonard's mind, and all the worst possibilities were anticipated by Leonard.

Leonard licked his lips, and then he made a decisive decision.

"No matter how many ways he comes, I will only go one way!"

　Second update, and two more extra updates, also before 12 noon. Now there are over updates a day, I feel a little dizzy, ε=(ο｀*))) Alas

　　
　
(End of this chapter)