Crusade against the Pope

Chapter 348: Egypt and Jerusalem's Response

There are actually not many regions with four distinct seasons.

In many places, there is often only one dry season or one rainy season.

Egypt is different. It has no rain and high temperatures all year round, making clothes unnecessary decorations.

Cairo's annual average precipitation is no more than 20 mm. The so-called Mediterranean climate and heavy rains in winter are nothing more than an extra millimeter or two.

As a Norman, Robert has been in Egypt for ten years, but he still can't get used to the climate here.

Although when he was young, he often complained about the endless rain in England, which made everyone around him look gloomy.

Now that he is old, he often misses his hometown and always hopes it will rain in Cairo so that he won't get sunburned.

In later times, forty years old is still considered middle-aged, but now half of Diu's body is buried in the ground. He probably won't be able to return to England in his lifetime and can only be buried here.

Robert has been the Duke of Alexandria for almost nine years. Not long after Richard the Lionheart was crowned in Alexandria, he left his brothers behind and returned to Europe with his entourage.

He, Robert, led the Egyptian Crusades as Duke of Alexandria.

At first, everyone thought that everything was fine now. The five patriarchs originally established by Rome had all been recovered. Except for Tunisia and Iberia, the complete victory of the Orthodox Church in the Mediterranean region seemed to be just around the corner.

Even the Crusades seemed to be coming to an end.

But the good times did not last long. Jerusalem, the former ally and the head of the holy land, turned against the country and became a heretic!
As a result, the Crusaders in Egypt, after learning about the theology of the Jerusalem Church, were caught off guard and hurriedly engaged in the work of defending Jerusalem against attacks.

Since the Kingdom of Jerusalem has focused on economic development in recent years, large-scale wars have not occurred.

Small-scale border frictions are common.

In these border frictions, Egypt suffered more defeats than victories. Although this did not affect the overall situation, it was enough to confirm that Egypt was the isolated and militarily weak party.

To this end, Robert wrote many letters, hoping that Richard the Lionheart could instigate a new round of Crusades in Europe and provide reinforcements to Egypt.

In Robert's opinion, King Richard the Lionheart should have made some contribution, at least Innocent III announced a new round of crusades as soon as he was crowned Pope.

After that, the nobles of Western Europe gathered together and mobilized a part of the troops to start the Eastern Expedition.

Robert has also received news of the outcome of this matter.

Rome fell, and the Fourth Crusade came to an end in a way he had never imagined...

So what should he do?

No...Has everyone forgotten about Egypt?

After listening to the report from the few nobles who abandoned Constantinople and voluntarily came to Egypt.

Robert fell into self-doubt, while other Egyptian nobles on the side were also talking about it.

Although the Kingdom of Egypt was a kingdom, the king was not in Egypt, so a very special system was established to rule.

Since the Fatimid dynasty, Egypt has established a complete bureaucratic system to manage taxation, irrigation, military and justice.

Saladin further deepened this. After conquering Egypt, the Lionheart King did not rashly abolish this bureaucratic mechanism. Instead, after drawing on the Norman Kingdom of Sicily and the Kingdom of Jerusalem, he established his own system in a more innovative way.

Of course, after watching it, Garys actually found it quite hilarious and a bit like déjà vu.

Although Egypt is large, its real core area is actually only the Nile Delta, plus the Egyptian River Valley, which is generally stretched into a long line.

The Nile Delta is only 2.4 square kilometers, and together with the controllable area along the Nile River, the total area is close to 2.8 square kilometers, which is equivalent to the southern Jiangsu region.

Unlike the sparsely populated Kingdom of Jerusalem, this 2.8 square kilometers of Egypt's central area was home to at least 400 million people.

With such a small area and such a dense population, it would be unrealistic to simply enfeoff land nobles.

After all, these more than 10,000 Crusaders may seem like a lot, but if they were really dispersed, they would be trapped in the vast sea of ​​Egyptian Muslims.

Maintaining the military system and ensuring the Crusaders' own military control over the local areas are the foundation for maintaining the national system.

But no matter what, we cannot ignore rewards according to merit.

Therefore, King Richard the Lionheart, while retaining the bureaucratic system, divided the Crusaders under his command who were willing to stay in Egypt into eight "legions".

The garrison areas are divided into "corps" units, but they do not have financial power.

Among them, the upper three regiments were directly under the command of Governor Robert, Duke of Alexandria, and were stationed in core areas such as Cairo and Alexandria to ensure the stability of the central government.

The lower five regiments were stationed in various places, responsible for local governance and defense.

Within the group, another round of division took place.

Among them, the Frankish knights and their families were granted land and were required to perform military service.

The Coptic Christians who came closer to the Legion were granted partial autonomy and incorporated into the administrative management.

As for the Muslim civilians who were attached to the legion, they were divided into two categories, one as vassal laborers, and the other as joining local troops through service.

The knights of each regiment formed a regimental council within the regiment. Although the high-ranking nobles came from each regiment, they formed a noble council in the central committee of the regiment to supervise the operation of the bureaucracy and discuss various budget tax expenditures.

Such a set of things unexpectedly fits the current situation of the Crusaders in Egypt where "a small tribe faces a big country".

At the same time, in order to make up for the population shortage, these eight legions do not use bloodline as an entry threshold.

Many former Mamluks were also incorporated into the Eight Regiments system after an open conversion.

"How about we take the initiative and launch an attack directly on Jerusalem?"

A legion commander said this at the meeting.

Robert simply replied: "Can you win?"

Then everyone present sighed together.

Of course, Robert was able to be Duke Alexander and lead the meeting, so he must be quite capable. After rejecting the suggestion of reckless military advance, he turned around and put forward a feasible suggestion.

"I think we need to contact the Ayyubid dynasty in Syria. As the saying goes, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Now that we have a common enemy, there is nothing wrong with joining forces."

Then the other people present also showed embarrassment on their faces. When the British and French Crusaders conquered Egypt, they took it from the Ayyubid dynasty. Now, in order to deal with Jerusalem, they have to join forces with Muslims.

Is this too blasphemous? Will he also be declared heretic and excommunicated?
In the face of everyone's concerns, Robert said calmly: "We all know that the Jerusalem heretics are allies with Venice, but have you ever seen the Holy See publicly condemn Venice's actions?"

"Four Crusades directly captured Constantinople. What impact did this have?"

"The Holy See has condemned many things verbally, but does he really dare to excommunicate the Count of Champagne and his followers?"

"Will the Holy See abandon the diocese in Romania just because they attacked their brothers?"

"Will the Holy See abandon our diocese in Egypt just because we are allied with the Muslims to fight heresy?"

"We should not look at what those people say, but look at who is actually controlling the real interests."

Robert's words touched the hearts of everyone present.

Compared to Venice's years of persistent assistance to the Jerusalem heretics, they were merely allying themselves with the Muslim dynasty, all for the glory of God, a small sacrifice for the greatest cause.

After some discussion, everyone reached a consensus and decided to send envoys to contact the Ayyubid dynasty to form an alliance against Jerusalem.

……

While Egypt expressed regret over the end of the Fourth Crusade.

The Kingdom of Jerusalem also responded.

They strongly protested against the atrocities of the Fourth Crusade and stepped up efforts to publish the experiences of the members of the Constantinople mission in domestic newspapers.

Quite a number of expatriates from the Kingdom of Jerusalem who had experienced the siege of Constantinople also returned to their homeland.

Of course, after these people returned to their homeland, officials in Jerusalem discovered that quite a number of them were not actually Jerusalemites, but just ordinary Arabs.

However, even without proof of household registration, these ordinary Arabs, after experiencing such an exciting adventure, all said that they have long been Jerusalemites and strongly hoped to obtain citizenship of Jerusalem.

After all, most civilians in most countries these days really have no human rights.

If a noble died abroad, the local lord would have to pay compensation for the sake of his image. However, if a commoner died abroad, it would be great if someone would care about him.

When a crisis really occurs, the overseas Chinese have to form gangs and associations.

As for the Kingdom of Jerusalem, which hired troops, organized self-defense for expatriates, and protected its own citizens from foreign troops, this was unheard of for the Arabs.

Correspondingly, after experiencing this, many traditional Muslims who had often shouted for the Franks to get out have become more vocal.

After all, the Franks, who currently rule the kingdom, still treat everyone as human beings and take care of them when something happens.

But the Fourth Crusade directly massacred the empire of their fellow clansmen. They were so cruel that they even beat their own people, and they beat them so hard.

If the Kingdom of Jerusalem fails to withstand the pressure, then these traditional Muslims will probably suffer an even worse fate.

After ten years of hard work, and with the personal demonstration of the Fourth Crusade, some of the discussions that Gellis had had with Balian finally bore some fruit.

At that time, Gaillis discussed the political situation of the Kingdom of Jerusalem:

The Kingdom of Jerusalem was a Frankish kingdom.

In this kingdom, the monarch was the monarch of the Franks, not the monarch of all the citizens of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. In fact, in the old Kingdom of Jerusalem, there was not even the concept of citizens.

Simply put, the Franks only knew that they were loyal to the monarch, and a large number of Saracens did not consider the Kingdom of Jerusalem as their homeland.

Both groups lacked an understanding of the concept of a nation, since they did not consider the Kingdom of Jerusalem to be a national entity, nor did they feel that they were closely related to the existence of the nation.

Then there would be no talk of deep-level reforms of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, because the premise of our reform is to have a national entity, which not only needs to exist but also needs to be deeply rooted in the hearts of the people.

In other words, rather than carrying out national reforms, Gellis first had to establish a national concept.

The Kingdom of Jerusalem, although nominally a country, is not a thing of a national nature.

To be more specific, it was the kingdom of the Franks, and to be more specific, it was actually the kingdom of the House of Anjou, which was the personal property of Gérice and Isabella.

And this ethical and moral concept is very common in this era.

Of course, Gellis can do whatever he wants with his private property, but what does this have to do with the people in the kingdom?

Of course, Garys could issue a few orders at random, declaring democracy, a republic, a constitutional monarchy... but what was the significance of issuing such orders?

The people don’t even have a concept of the country, so does whether this country is “democratic” really matter to them?
Should a country nominally belong to its citizens?
Or should it be the private property of a certain monarch in name only?

History has actually given an answer to this question.

For this reason, Gairis has long tried to reduce his political influence as much as possible, relying on various cultural means to make subtle adjustments to the Kingdom of Jerusalem.

The means used include not only religious propaganda, but also reliance on newspapers to promote the concept of national entity.

The treatment enjoyed by various ethnic groups within the Kingdom of Jerusalem was in stark contrast to that of civilians abroad.

To the extent that some have begun to claim that the Kingdom of Jerusalem is special and unique because everyone in the country is a "noble."

The birth of the concept of nobility actually has certain historical origins.

In the primitive tribal period, there was naturally no such thing as nobility.

By the time of the classical states, political power began to be divided, but it was still unclear.

In the early and middle Middle Ages, the concept of "aristocracy" was born.

To be precise, "nobility" refers to those who own their own land and are not dependent on others.

As for the amount of land, it is not important.

Simply put, if you live like a human being and don’t have to be a dog for others, you are free and you are a “noble”.

Of course, in this era of the Middle Ages, personal dependence was the norm.

(End of this chapter)