This heretic cannot be burned, he must be hung up and whipped!

Jerusalem was hot in the summer of 1099

The air was filled with the smell of dust, sweat, and death. The walls held by the Egyptian army were extremely strong and towering into the sky, as if mocking the ragged and exhausted expeditionary forces outside the city.

Inside the city, a militia composed of local Jews and Muslims from Jerusalem worked together to defend it. The number of soldiers was small, at most about 30,000, but they knew that once the city was broken, a catastrophe would await them.

No one was left with any hope of survival, as all the cities and towns conquered by the Crusaders along the way had long been reduced to ruins. All pagans were killed or enslaved, and the Christians in Jerusalem were driven out by the defenders and citizens, leaving only those residents who were considered "pagans" in the city.

Beneath the walls of Jerusalem lay the exhausted Frankish army, a force that had returned from its long expedition. They were small in number, numbering only about 1,200 knights and 12,000 soldiers, a mere drop in the ocean compared to the mighty 80,000 men who had originally set out.

They traveled thousands of kilometers across Europe and Asia, overcoming countless obstacles and sacrificing countless lives before finally arriving at the foot of this sacred city. Everyone knew that this was the climax of the First Crusade, the pinnacle that determined everything.

Four years ago, in the distant European continent, in Clermont, the Kingdom of Franks, Pope Urban II convened a meeting. Before the gathering of princes, nobles, and ordinary citizens, this diminutive pope unleashed a formidable energy.

He stood on the platform and announced in a loud and inflammatory voice: "We will conquer Jerusalem and liberate the Church of the Holy Sepulchre!"

Urban II saw as his life's mission the restoration of the power and prestige of the Catholic Church, and especially of the Pope himself.

After all, it had only been a few decades since the Roman Empire split and Christendom was divided into Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism. He knew that in this era of turmoil and religious fanaticism, nothing could better unite people and enhance authority than a holy war.

So he cleverly invented a new theory of "holy war" to revitalize the Christian world and found a seemingly reasonable excuse to eliminate pagans and expand his sphere of influence.

His core message is incredibly alluring, a boon to those harboring sin or thirsting for wealth:

"As long as we can eliminate these pagans, all our sins will be forgiven!"

This unprecedented indulgence and commitment has given rise to a Christian version of "holy war" similar to the Islamic "jihad." The universal reverence for Jerusalem, regarded as the city of Christ, the supreme holy place, and the kingdom of heaven on earth, is the psychological foundation necessary to support this "jihad."

Every Christian knows this because the story of Jerusalem is everywhere in countless sermons, pilgrimage stories, passion plays, paintings and historical relics. They are told that retaking the holy city is a call of faith, for Jesus Christ, for the Holy Land!

"Countless pilgrims have been massacred, and the Turkmen have committed countless crimes against us Christians!"

Urban II strenuously stirred growing concerns about the safety of the Holy Sepulchre, citing filtered and even fabricated testimonies of Christian persecution to support his claims.

In the face of huge interests, no one cares about the truth of those testimonies!

In the frenzied crowd, in an unassuming corner, stood an ordinary man. He wore a simple robe, his face gentle, his eyes deep and compassionate. He was Jesus, the embodiment of a thousand-year-old faith in the Christian world. Yet, as an ordinary man, he stood silently among the crowd.

He listened to the Pope's passionate speech, heard the thunderous cheers and cries of "Deus vult!" (God's will!) from the crowd. He saw the tears in the eyes of the devout peasants, saw the desire for glory and wealth in the eyes of the knights, and saw the relief on the faces of those who were called criminals.

It seems that as long as they participate in this war, they can get rid of all their sins and be reborn.

A great sorrow welled up in him. This was not the way he had taught!

Love, forgiveness, mercy...

These commandments that he had repeatedly emphasized were now completely abandoned. They carried his banner, chanted his name, and embarked on an expedition filled with hatred and violence.

He tried to speak, whispering to the people around him, "The Kingdom of God is not in this world. God's teaching is to love your enemies, not to kill them..."

"Get away, heretic! I'll send you to heaven right now!"

But his weak voice was instantly drowned out by the deafening frenzy around him.

The people's eyes were filled only with longing for the Holy City and the fervor for the absolution promised by the Pope. They could hear no other voices. Jesus felt a profound sense of powerlessness, as if he were caught in a vast, uncontrollable whirlpool. He looked out at this sea of ​​fervor and knew that a great tragedy was about to unfold in his name.

Those who first responded to the call and raised the cross were not all fanatical believers.

Thousands of trouble-making knights and bandits became the first “pilgrims.” The Pope’s promise of absolution was a gift tailor-made for them: a perfect opportunity to evade legal sanctions in their homeland while also gaining a reputation for “holiness” and potential wealth!

They embarked on a great journey with their own goals in mind. Of course, the vast majority of participants truly desired to gain spiritual salvation through this pilgrimage-like battle.

Count Raymond, who was loyal to the Duke of Toulouse of the Frankish Kingdom, was the first to raise the cross.

Eighty thousand men—this was the preliminary tally of the number of responders. This force was a mixed bag, encompassing relatively disciplined local elite legions led by nobles, bands of plundering adventurers, holy hermits, and devout but poorly trained peasants. Driven by a shared fervor and diverse goals, they merged into a torrent, pouring eastward.

As the First Crusade swept across Europe, bloody crimes followed. Wherever they went, Jews were brutally persecuted. Accused of being "Christ-killers," they were forced to convert or be massacred. This was the most direct and brutal manifestation of the doctrine of "holy war."

Jesus walked silently among the crowds, on the roads, and in the towns that were being plundered and massacred, observing all this. He saw the descendants of the Jews who had been hostile to him and had crucified him being treated in extremely cruel ways by those who claimed to believe in him.

He heard the Crusaders shouting his name and waving their knives.

He had tried to intervene. In Byzantine territory, he appeared among the Crusaders as they plundered a village. The villagers cried out as their homes burned and their possessions looted. The Crusaders laughed and hung the stolen chickens and ducks around their waists.

Jesus approached a knight who was stabbing an old man who was lying on the ground with his lance, tried to grab his arm, and said:

"Friend, put away your sword. 'Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.' This is what the Bible teaches."

The knight threw him away, his face full of ferocity. "Who are you? How dare you stop a warrior fighting for God? These pagans, like those Jews, deserve to die! Killing them is avenging Christ!"

Several soldiers gathered around him, looking at him unkindly. Seeing that he was dressed in ordinary clothes and had no cross mark, they began to doubt his identity.

"I think he's a Byzantine spy! Or a heretic!" a soldier shouted.

"He is not one of ours! Catch him! Send him to the cross!!!"

Anger and suspicion quickly spread among these people, already carried away by fanaticism. They had forgotten that their "holy war" was to recapture the Holy Land, not to burn, kill, and loot the lands of their allies. Or, more accurately, looting itself had become an integral part of this "holy war," the "holy" spoils of war.

They pushed, kicked, and dragged Jesus to a makeshift stake.

"He's against our crusade for Christ! Crucify him like that Jew!"

Someone had already found a rope, and someone even suggested piling firewood at his feet. Jesus didn't resist. He simply looked calmly at these people whose faces were distorted by hatred and greed. He saw the fanaticism in their eyes, but also saw a deeper level of ignorance and loss.

Just as they were about to strike, a priest accompanying the army passed by. Looking at Jesus bound to the cross, he seemed to be moved. His past discipline cooled his fanatical mind, and he stood up as if possessed.

"Enough! Don't waste time in a place like this! Our enemy is the pagan from the East! Drive him away! God will decide his fate."

Jesus was violently driven out of the village, covered in bruises and dust. He looked back at the village still rising from the smoke, his heart filled with disappointment and pain in human nature. They would rather believe in a pope who incited hatred and violence than listen to his own teachings.

So what is the point of the Bible? Is it just to give humans an excuse to commit atrocities?

He became more and more suspicious of all this. The acts of birth that the Crusaders had committed along the way were no different from hell. His power was declining, but he didn't understand why reality had become like this?

The Crusaders continued their march, defeating the Seljuks who had attacked the Byzantine Empire and then heading straight for Constantinople. Apparently, they hadn't gotten enough.

The thieves did not leave empty-handed. They continued to burn, kill, and loot along the way, plundering many rural towns in the Byzantine Empire.

The Byzantine Emperor Alexius, frightened by this group of Latin thugs, hastily welcomed the Crusaders, opening the city gates, providing food and water, and free accommodation, just to send these bandits in the name of God away quickly and encourage them to march towards Jerusalem as soon as possible.

The temple of the Byzantine Empire is too small to accommodate these gods and men.

Moreover, Alexios was also aware that he was in the wrong first - two years ago, it was he who called on Western volunteers to go to the Byzantine Empire to rescue and resist the invasion of the Seljuks from Anatolia.

He gave Urban II an excuse to go to war, but he also lost the qualification to end the war. He could only allow this force to carry him away and roll towards the Holy Land.

Fortunately, the regions the Crusaders attacked were deeply divided. Caliphs, sultans, and emirs, and Turks and Arabs, were at war with each other, prioritizing their rivalry over the unity of the Islamic world. This division gave the Crusaders an opportunity to exploit, allowing them to advance deeper into the heartland at a heavy cost.

The fall of Antioch marked the Crusaders' first substantial victory, but the euphoria was short-lived. The Muslim coalition, having recovered, quickly trapped the Crusaders within the city. Siege, starvation, and disease nearly brought the Crusade to a screeching halt at Antioch.

During the siege of Antioch, hunger and despair consumed the hearts of every Crusader. The camp was filled with the stench of decay and death. Many devout believers knelt on the ground, praying to their God, begging for a miracle. Their prayers were filled with agony and wailing.

Jesus could hear it all.

He could hear everything, the voices of the suffering people along the way, and the prayers of the Crusaders day and night before they participated in this war. But he could do nothing, as the powerful barrier between the warp and reality prevented him from sending more power.

He only has this one incarnation.

Jesus also watched these desperate believers in Antioch, once fanatical but now vulnerable. He saw them begging for divine help, willing to injure their bodies, brutally scourging, and even offering human sacrifices—some fanatics believed that only the most extreme sacrifices could move God and bring about a turnaround.

This wasn't a sacrifice to Him. They were offering sacrifice to a bloodthirsty and cold deity, a deity they had either imagined or deliberately created by someone else. Jesus felt waves of nausea and heartbreak as he watched the innocents trembling before the altar, the "believers" with distorted faces performing the rituals He most loathed.

He wanted to stop them, wanted to tell them that God wanted mercy, not sacrifice, justice, not bloodshed, but he knew that in such fanaticism and despair, his voice would also be regarded as blasphemy.

He had a premonition that, although he lacked the power to bring down the apocalypse or to raise armies and slaughter people on earth, if things continued like this, he would likely transform. He was born from the faith of the people, and he was who he was in their hearts.

"I can't let my will be polluted."

He closed his eyes and sighed in his heart.

Then, a devout believer claimed that he saw the respected bishop Adhemar, who had died in Antioch, in a dream and received a revelation about the burial place of the Holy Lance.

In despair, this "miracle" became their last straw. The Crusaders began digging and, as expected, discovered the Holy Lance. Whether true or not, this discovery was like a shot in the arm, greatly boosting their already crumbling morale.

Relying on the morale brought by this illusory hope, they broke through the siege, then moved south along the coastline, cutting off the inland transportation lines to Jerusalem, and gradually approaching their ultimate goal.

During the siege of Jerusalem, the issue of how to divide the cake had caused endless arguments among the nobles from the Christian world.

Before they even captured Jerusalem, they had already begun to divide up the conquered land and power. The two most capable nobles, Bohemond and Baldwin, had already established their own Crusader principalities on the spot:

The Principalities of Antioch and Edessa.

The Church remained silent on this, claiming only ownership of the birthplace of Christ, with the rest going to the nobles.

The church did not have any land, but it could make a claim according to the Bible and let the Crusaders fight their way out. How much they could conquer was up to them. The church only wanted the symbol of "Holy Land".

The city was heavily defended, and the exhausted army was unable to capture it quickly. Then another "miracle" saved them. On July 6, a monk who had a vision claimed to be visited by the spirit of Bishop Adhemar, who had died in Antioch.

The "oracle" conveyed by the monk said that the bishop's spirit was inspiring the Franks to surround the city walls and cause them to collapse, just as Joshua had done when he besieged Jericho.

But Jesus knew that this was all false. He had never encouraged such atrocities. He had always appeared in the dreams of his believers, wanting them to go home. But how could the nobles, who had already gone crazy with killing, stop?

Driven by their fervent faith and a desire for miracles, the Crusaders fasted for three days, as described in the Book of Joshua. On July 8, led by monks holding holy relics, the troops, blowing trumpets and carrying flags and weapons, circled the walls of Jerusalem barefoot, hoping they would crumble.

Inside the city, Jesus mingled with the inhabitants of Jerusalem, observing all this. He saw the Jewish and Muslim defenders behind the battlements, their eyes filled with anger, fear, and mockery. He saw them placing and insulting statues of their own suffering on the walls, urinating into the holes in their hands in response to the enemies below, who were waving the banner of the cross.

He turned to look at the Crusaders at the foot of the city wall. They were barefoot, their faces filled with piety, exhaustion, and hope. The Crusaders held high crosses and relics, muttering prayers, begging for a miracle. He saw the swords at their waists, the blood stains still unwashed on their bodies—evidence of their crimes during their long journey, in Antioch, and in the villages along the way.

Those blood-stained hands were now folded in prayer, begging for his blessing and begging for the city walls to collapse for them.

Jesus watched all this with a complex expression. He saw the mockery from the city walls, the fanaticism below. He saw the distortion of faith, the contradictions of human nature. They had used his name to kill, plunder, and wage a war that completely contradicted his teachings, yet now they were begging him for his blessing to capture the city and complete this crime!

He sensed the longing beneath the city walls, the power of a "faith" so strong it was almost twisted. But he could not bless this war. He could not endorse the bloodshed and hatred; he was constrained by his faith. He stood silent within the city walls, a solitary witness.

The wall did not fall. God did not perform the miracle they had hoped for.

But the nobles had long anticipated this unusual change. They never truly believed in the existence of God, and they knew deep down that even if God existed, he wouldn't let the city walls collapse just because of their detour.

During these three days, they were not idle. They directed soldiers and craftsmen to work day and night, transforming the wood brought by the Genoese into siege equipment—ladders, siege engines, catapults, projectiles, arrows, faggots... Everything was meticulously prepared by the nobles. Even women and the elderly were mobilized to sew protective leather for the siege equipment.

After the circumambulation ceremony, the Crusaders gathered on the Mount of Olives to listen to the chaplain's speech, receiving a final brainwashing and encouragement. The monks preached to the soldiers, filling them with determination. Now, there were only two paths to take:

Either die at the gates of Jerusalem, or conquer the holy city and gain glory, wealth, and forgiveness of sins.

Even though their hands are already stained with innocent blood.

On the evening of July 13, the Crusaders were ready to march.

At dawn on July 14, the siege began.

As the Crusaders used slings to fire stones and projectiles at the walls, attempting to breach them, the defenders softened the blows with bags of cotton and hay, piling the material onto the defensive walls until they resembled a giant clothesline.

The Muslim defenders also counterattacked with slingshots, specifically targeting the Crusaders' inadequate siege equipment. The Crusaders soon discovered that spies had infiltrated their ranks, providing coordinates and passing on information. Furious, the Crusaders tied the captured spies alive to slingshots and hurled them over the city walls, smashing them into pieces.

Since a daytime attack was inconvenient, they decided to fight at night. The Crusaders spent the entire night filling the ravines beneath the city walls with dry wood, earth, and stones to allow the siege engines to close in. Three massive siege engines were dismantled and shipped in parts, then assembled in the darkness like giant modular furniture: one for Count Raymond on Mount Zion, and the other two were transported to the north of the city, where scouts had discovered a potential weakness.

Count Raymond's siege tower was the first to be pushed against the wall, but the defenders, determined to resist, attacked it with Greek fire, attempting to burn it down. However, the attack was merely a feint. The true breach was discovered and confirmed at the northeast corner of the wall. There, another siege tower slowly approached.

At Count Raymond's command, a volley of arrows rained down upon the city walls, overwhelming the defenders' archers. Generals even climbed to the top of the wooden towers and personally launched arrows into the city. The defenders responded with a fierce attack of Greek fire, erupting in flames that engulfed parts of the siege towers. But it was not enough to halt the Frankish advance.

At noon, the siege engines finally approached the city wall, and the huge wooden towers crashed into the stone wall.

The Franks set up wooden planks between the siege engines and the city walls and tried to cross them despite the attacks of the defenders. Suddenly, the crowd erupted in wild cheers, claiming to have seen the late Bishop Adhemar appear on the top of the siege tower, fighting alongside them, waving banners and urging them forward.

A few Crusaders were the first to climb into the city, using the wooden planks. Then, more Crusaders poured in like a tide, pouring through the gaps in the city walls and the siege towers. They even said that the deceased bishop had ordered them to open the city gates!

It might have been a true vision, a mass hysteria fueled by fervor, or perhaps a deliberate lie. Regardless, it worked. Crusader morale reached a fever pitch, and they poured into the city like mad. In just a few hours, they had widened the breach and completely captured Jerusalem.

Street fighting began. Pursued by the Crusaders, citizens and soldiers fled toward the Temple Mount, hoping to find refuge in that sacred place. During the fighting, Jerusalemites closed all the gates of the Temple Mount in an attempt to mount a last-ditch resistance. But the Crusaders were completely out of control. They claimed this was punishment for the infidels and a "purification" of the holy city.

They are crazy.

The Crusaders slaughtered everyone they saw in the streets, regardless of gender, age or status. The cries, screams, the sound of swords hitting bodies, and the fanatical roars of the Crusaders intertwined into a horrifying symphony of doom.

They not only cut off the heads of their enemies as trophies or proofs, but also their hands and feet, and they took pride in washing their bodies with the blood of pagans in the fountains of the Holy City, a city that was supposed to symbolize peace and holiness.

"We saw a wonderful scene,"

The chaplain of the Count of Toulouse wrote excitedly,

"Our Crusaders cut off the heads of their enemies. Some shot them down from towers with arrows, others threw them into fires to prolong their suffering. The streets were piles of heads, feet, and hands, and you had to pick your way through the corpses of men and horses.

Babies were ripped from their mothers' arms and their heads smashed against walls. As the violence escalated, more and more civilians took refuge on the roofs of mosques.

Our cavalrymen cut a bloody path through the crowded mosque square, hacking and slashing through the crowd until they reached the Temple (the Temple of Solomon, as the Crusaders called the Al-Aqsa Mosque), where they mounted their horses amidst a pool of blood. This was truly a fair and glorious judgment from God; this place deserved to be stained with the blood of the infidels!

Jesus walked the blood-soaked streets, his robe splattered with blood and dust. He looked upon those who had lost their lives, their faces frozen in fear and pain. He saw the "believers" wielding butcher knives, their faces twisted, their eyes gleaming with bloodlust. They shouted "Deus vult!" while committing the most evil acts.