Crusade against the Pope

Chapter 376: The Beginning of the Cleansing
Gellis and Alexios talked a lot. To put it bluntly, it was nothing more than a long-term goal and a short-term distribution of interests.

Gellis hoped that the other party would respect his goal. He wanted to shape a "civilization" in the Near East with religion as the bond.

Therefore, what Gelis needed more than simple military victory was religious influence.

Based on this premise, Gellis can make concessions at the level of secular interests.

Gellis did not want to take the land for himself, but to develop a plan for distributing the land to facilitate subsequent reforms and progress, and then reshape social consciousness from an economic basis.

Both sides got what they needed, so the two armies were able to cooperate and march towards Trebizond.

On the other hand, in the city of Trebizond, a consensus was reached on whether to recognize the Latin emperor of Constantinople.

Admit it! You must admit it!

In the past, the city of Trebizond would have relied on its high position and the emperor being far away, and would not have cared who the emperor of Constantinople was.

In fact, even the orthodox Eastern Roman emperor had little influence on them.

But now they are facing internal and external troubles. As a model of the landlord class, they naturally need to seek support from higher-level authorities.

Even if the other party is actually a foreigner, it will not affect their decision.

This situation has happened again and again in human history.

For example, when the Eight Banners entered the Pass in later generations, the Han landlord group, after discovering that the Eight Banners could quell slave rebellions and peasant uprisings, did not hesitate too much and abandoned the Southern Ming regime and turned to the Eight Banners.

After all, whether it was the Eight Banners or the Latin emperor of Constantinople, they would not carry out large-scale purges of the landlord group. Instead, they needed powerful local classes to help govern the area.

But whether it was the riots of the heretic peasants outside the city, or the Komnenos brothers who led the Georgian army westward, it was hard to say...

Anyway, the former must want to chop off the heads of these nobles.

After reaching an internal consensus, the nobles of the Cardia Military District, relying on the city of Trebizond, began to formally assemble their troops, with the thousand men who came to support from Constantinople as the vanguard, and the old farmers who were previously captured as servants, and officially began the campaign to clean up the countryside.

To be honest, as a military commander sent by the Latin Emperor, Edmund actually didn't want to participate in this kind of cleansing movement.

After all, the troops should be divided into several groups, go deep into the countryside and deal with the farmers.

This is dangerous in every way.

But the nobles in the city had to pay nearly 10,000 gold coins to get him to send troops, and many of them were willing to give their daughters to marry the knights in his army...

The subordinates, who were dazzled by money and women, were naturally full of enthusiasm.

He was stubborn but could only let it go.

However, Edmund was a veteran who had participated in the Crusades after all, so he did not disperse all his troops to clear the countryside. He still kept half of the troops, gathered them in his hands, and was on guard against the enemy's movements.

……

A person's life is indeed like a dream, and one always takes a detour inadvertently.

Take Zoe for example. Although she often dreams, she would think about what it would be like if one day, my flower blooms and all other flowers die, and the fragrance rises to the sky and penetrates the castle.

But she never thought it would come true.

Until now, as Alexandros had said to her at the time, when they had an army behind them, she felt that this might really be possible. Now, excluding the regular army that had joined the Komnenos brothers, Alexandros had nearly a thousand troops under his command.

Many of them were temporarily reorganized Turks, and others were militias organized by their Paulicians.

The Paulician ideas and habits have never been eradicated in this land; they are just a spark covered by ashes.

As long as there is any disturbance, it will easily revive.

After all, wherever there is oppression in this world, there is resistance.

Alexandros, together with the Paladins, carried out a temporary reorganization of the villages that supported them, and each village was required to send people to participate in military training.

After completing the training, they will be incorporated into the militia at the township and village levels.

The village level is naturally mainly responsible for vigilance and communications, while the township level is to act together with the Paladins or Turks and provide certain battlefield support tasks.

The thought of fighting alongside the Turks was naturally a source of fear and anxiety for many people, especially since their farms had been looted before.

Fortunately, the group of Cumans were captured.

Earlier, Zoe, along with the Gregor brothers and several other members of the caravan, accompanied by Arsalan and his men, escorted the Cumans to the affected villages to carry out their executions.

The appearance of the Cumans is significantly different from that of the Seljuk Turks.

As Arsalan raised his sword and chopped off several people's heads, it was enough to convince everyone of what had happened before.

In addition, according to the confessions of the Cumans, the reason they crossed the Black Sea and appeared in Anatolia was that the nobles in the city wanted them to create chaos and disrupt spring plowing.

As soon as this statement was made, everyone was in an uproar, whether it was the manor that originally belonged to the nobles or the independent village community.

After all, who would have thought that the nobles would actually find someone to actively disrupt the spring plowing.

Of course, Zoe also stood up and demonstrated the benefits of doing so.

All of this was planned by the nobles in the city.

On the one hand, Ioannis hopes to create a chaotic situation so that he can get to the top.

On the other hand, this is conducive to the nobles' seizure of land.

In the case of Zoe's family, after her father died in the war, the family lacked strong labor, so they borrowed money from the monastery for seeds, farm tools and renting livestock by mortgaging their fields.

Since Christian doctrine prohibits usury, this loan is basically interest-free and will almost certainly be repaid when the harvest comes in the fall.

Then, out of nowhere, the Turks came to her farm, chopped down Basil, the eldest son of the Manuil family, and took away the livestock, disrupting the spring ploughing...

Obviously, if you borrow money from others without asking for interest, the other party will directly target the land you have mortgaged.

Afterwards, the land was taken away by the monastery, and registered in the name of the monastery to exempt it from taxes. At the same time, serfs belonging to the Ioannis family were arranged to cultivate the land.

It sounds a bit complicated, but once it is related to the ownership of the land, the old farmers will understand it.

(End of this chapter)