Crusade against the Pope

Chapter 334 Rome and Winter

After removing those mythological elements that are difficult to verify, the origin of the word Rome is actually quite vague...

In mythology, Romulus naturally came first, and then Rome.

But from the perspective of etymology, the word Romulus means: little Roman.

Then in this process, a more reasonable explanation seems to be that the myth of the city-building by Romulus and his brothers is actually an extension or metaphor of the history of the time.

Of course, it's not just the myth of Romulus and his brothers. In fact, there are about 60 different myths about the founding of Rome in the Greek world.

Most of these myths believe that the founder of Rome was a Roman of the same name, usually "Romos" or "Rome", rather than Romulus.

In any case, there was a city called Rome, and later a republic, an empire, and a civilization named after it.

When the Western Roman Empire collapsed, the Eastern Roman Empire still existed.

The citizens of Constantinople were still proud of being Roman.

Now, these "Romans" were like ants on a hot pot, panicking and hysterical. They deposed Alexios III, hanged Alexios IV, and Isaac II died of depression in panic...

In just one year, the masters of Constantinople changed several times.

There were no more reinforcements willing to come forward to rescue this "New Rome"

Instead, the ambitious people swarmed forward, wanting to eat alive the sheep that had taken off its armor.

In Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, in the royal palace that displays the glory of the royal family, Queen Tamara looked at the letters sent by the monks with some disbelief.

The mainstream belief in the Kingdom of Georgia is naturally the Orthodox Church, or Eastern Orthodoxy.

Although Eastern Orthodoxy does not have a unified Vatican like Catholicism, the independent churches are actually closely connected.

The Kingdom of Georgia sponsored many monasteries outside Georgia.

These monasteries are spread all over the Middle East and Near East, some in the Aegean Sea, some in Anatolia, and some in the Balkans...

Even in Palestine, there were several monasteries funded by the Kingdom of Georgia.

Funding these monasteries, in addition to helping the Georgian royal family gain an advantage on the religious level, also enabled them to more flexibly obtain political and military intelligence from surrounding areas.

Through letters from the Monastery of Mount Athos, Queen Tamara had long been following the political situation in Constantinople.

There is actually nothing surprising about the Crusaders' attack on Constantinople.

Judging from the degree of deterioration in relations between Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy over the years, the Crusaders had previously set their sights on attacking the Roman Empire.

But the fact that the world's most desired city, Constantinople, surrendered so easily and directly started the emperor's rotation was indeed somewhat unexpected...

From what we know from the monastic correspondence, the current "emperor" in Constantinople seems to be Alexios V, an unknown person...

But no matter what, the news from those monasteries further strengthened Tamara's plan.

That is to say, taking this opportunity to divide "Rome"...

It's winter now, which is not very suitable for sending troops, but it's okay to prepare in advance.

The excuse for sending troops was actually ready-made: the two grandchildren of the last emperor of the Komnenos dynasty were in her court.

However, there was one thing that made Tamara uneasy.

"David, that first... that Garys, is he really as amazing as you said?"

"Or do you believe his self-claim and description?"

Next to Tamara, the Prince of Alania, her husband David Soslan, was also reviewing the letters.

However, these letters did not come from Anatolia, but from Palestine.

After completing the war against the Sultanate of Rum, David did not rush back to the Tbilisi Palace, but led an army to the southeast of Georgia and launched another war.

No, to be precise, it was a march.

With the great victory over the Rum Sultanate, the small Islamic countries in the southeast of Georgia did not dare to fight head-on.

The reason for going there was, in fact, to show off one's strength.

This laid the foundation for Georgia to control those small countries.

Therefore, he returned to Tbilisi much later than Tamara.

Facing Tamara's question, David hesitated: "I, I'm not sure..."

"Didn't you meet and negotiate with him?"

Tamara rarely saw David look like this.

As an excellent military general, ambiguity is actually the most taboo thing.

In war, wrong decisions can often bring unexpected results because of decisive execution.

But if you are indecisive and shaky, then the good plans will often fail because of missed opportunities.

"He is amazing, but he has never shown me any miracles."

David emphasized the word miracle when he mentioned it.

In the three Abrahamic religions, the word miracle has a special meaning. It is something that is impossible for humans to do and is not a form of witchcraft.

In essence, God uses people to reveal his true self to believers.

Come to think of it, although many people told him that Garys had real power, David himself seemed to have never seen it?
With the attitude that what you see may not be the truth, David was naturally confused and worried after he came to his senses. Even with evidence, David did not dare to believe it 100%.

Therefore, after returning to the palace, he asked the clerk to look up the letters that had been sent from the monastery in Palestine in recent years.

The situation in Jerusalem is indeed not a top priority for Georgia.

Therefore, many letters were replied to by the clerks below, and they were not read personally.

Now, after David sorted it out himself, he clearly noticed the problem.

Too much of the content of these letters praises the economic achievements of the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

It seemed as if in just ten years, the entire Kingdom of Jerusalem had successfully escaped hunger.

Then there were many more letters regarding the local religious situation.

The general outlines of this are consistent with what David knew, namely the rise of the Jerusalem sect, which broke off due to theological differences and rejection of the authority of the Bishop of Rome.

During this process, all the churches that originally belonged to the Jerusalem Catholic Church were basically reformed or directly abolished.

Other religious sects were not affected too much in this process.

The details made David feel a little uneasy.

There was much less information about Gillis himself in these letters than he had expected.

Once Gérice was mentioned, most of the writers were nervous, as if they were afraid. It seemed that they didn't know how to face Gérice.

There seemed to be no conclusive and real evidence enough to disprove Garys, so much so that they often doubted their lives.

After listening to what David had summarized, Tamara looked skeptical.

As a woman born in 1160, she was already 40 years old, and it had been more than a decade since she ruled the country.

She was not a naive woman, and she was far more pragmatic than many people in dealing with religious issues.

Of course, this does not prevent her from being very pious on a daily basis.

"If I have the chance, I'd like to meet him."

"There will be a chance, but before that, it should be the Komnenos brothers who should go and meet the other party first. According to the agreement we reached earlier, the other party will provide us with a certain degree of support in the division of Trebizond."

"The news from Erzurum tells me that Gairis seems to have started heading north. If he is as amazing as you said, I am sure there will be more surprising news for us."

……

After a long winter night, a glimmer of light appeared in the eastern sky. The cold wind whistled past, blowing up the snow on the hillside and making it dance in the air.

Unlike the Mediterranean climate, which has mild and rainy winters, the mountainous areas of Anatolia are closer to a highland continental climate.

The cold wind blowing from the Black Sea and the Armenian Plateau covered everything in the world with frost.

Alexandros was not a man with good writing skills, so if he wanted to express the bitter cold of this place, he would only coldly say a number: minus 15 degrees Celsius.

This number was taught to him by Garys. In Garys' class, he was instilled with all kinds of knowledge and looked at the world from an accurate perspective that he had never thought of before.

A temperature of minus 15 degrees Celsius can easily take the life of a naked human.

Well, even if you put on clothes, you may not live long.

Why do you think so?

Because, now, Alexandros, who was standing on the hillside and herding sheep in the snow, saw a ragged guy, dragging a broken leg, wriggling and crawling, with dark red bloodstains behind him, painting the snow dark red like plum blossoms.

In this harsh winter, those who cannot endure suffering will be despised.

But the person in the distance is definitely not enduring suffering;

Sighing, Alexandros drove the flock and took a few steps in that direction.

But then he sensed something was wrong. When he reached a high place, he noticed that in addition to people, there were not only sheep in the snow, but also many wolves.

Of course, the wolves were not coming to besiege Alexandros, but to follow the guy squirming in the snow.

The man was nearly a hundred meters away from Alexandros, and those vicious guys who looked like gray spots were more than ten steps away from him.

Living is suffering. When Zoe thinks about it carefully now, she realizes that what her mother said is the truth of life.

Of course, such cold weather has made it impossible for Zoe to fill her mind with anything else.

All Zoe could feel was numbness, despair, and the heavy breathing of the guys around her.

The time passed so slowly that it felt like a year to Zoe.

Those unruly wolves did not rush forward, but waited in silence, which surprised Zoe a little.

What Zoe didn't know was that the reason wolves gathered in the winter was to huddle together for warmth and to hunt their targets in the most efficient way.

Generally speaking, wolves will not actively attack humans. After all, a human being is as tall as three or four wolves when standing. If he holds a stick in his hand, the posture of a terrifying upright ape is engraved into the wolf's "DNA".

However, just when the wolves' patience was about to run out, a sharp howl suddenly cut through the air.

An arrow flew from a distance and hit a wolf's neck straight.

The wolves all looked in the direction where the sound came from. In that direction, apart from the white earth and snow-covered bushes, there was an upright ape with a bow and arrow.

Immediately afterwards, three arrows were fired in succession, and one of them hit the target.

When the man drew his sword and rushed towards the wolves.

Those hungry wolves, seeing that the situation was hopeless, scattered in all directions.

Without much effort, Alexandros walked on the thin snow to Zoe's side, and was quite surprised to find that it was a girl.

……

baa!
The sheep's heart-wrenching cries are actually quite scary.

Even though he was being pinned down, he still refused to calm down and kept jumping up and down trying to break free.

But Alexandros didn't care much.

He opened the sheep's mouth and poured a mouthful of water into it. Then, following his habit since childhood, he casually uttered a prayer for slaughtering the animal.

[You did not die for sin, and we did not live to starve. ]

Alexandros thrust the knife into the sheep's neck, cut the artery, let the hot blood gush out into the bowl, and then hurriedly drank a few gulps himself.

When the warm and smelly sheep's blood rushed into his mouth, Alexander suddenly felt that he was alive again and his body was warm again. Then he took another bowl of blood and handed it to the girl beside him.

Then Alexandros took the dagger and peeled off the sheepskin along the midline of the ribs to the navel.

During the process, he was a little impatient and cut it in a mess, but he finally took off the sheepskin.

After completing this step, he hurriedly turned the bloody sheepskin over and put it on himself.

Then it got a lot warmer.

Before putting on the sheepskin, Alexandros had only a few pieces of clothing on him.

As for the cotton coat he was wearing, he put it on the farm girl.

I have to say, cotton is a good thing.

Even in this era, an acre of land in Palestine can produce dozens of pounds of cotton.

The cotton-padded jacket made by filling the cotton into cotton cloth is both light and warm.

Of course, the price is also very expensive. These clothes have only been mass-produced in the Kingdom of Jerusalem in recent years.

However, as a Paladin, Alexandros could get a free cotton jacket.

After resolving the dilemma of almost freezing to death, Alexandros finally had the energy to inquire about the girl's origins.

"My name is Alexandros, a Paladin... What's your name?"

"Zoe, a witch."

(End of this chapter)