Qian Song

Chapter 486 There are countless beauties in Europe (please vote for me!)

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In many people's minds, the Crusades were the invasion of the enlightened, diverse, and wealthy Central Asia by the barbaric, backward, and corrupt medieval church.

In fact, this is just an illusion of these people.

In fact, the so-called Crusades were an out-and-out war between religions.

I won’t say more about what is right and wrong.

Li Cun doesn't care who is right or wrong between them.

Moreover, to be honest, Li Cun really couldn't tell who was right and who was wrong when it came to matters between religions.

Li Cun's attitude towards religion has always been consistent, that is, he respects everyone and doesn't want to get involved too deeply.

Therefore, after Li Cun occupied Central Asia, he issued a decree: As long as the divine power does not violate his imperial power, the royal power of his sons, and does not taint secular power, he will support freedom of belief.

In addition, Li Cun also issued an imperial edict: to capture all areas in Central Asia, except Jerusalem.

So, under Li Cun's instructions, Li Cun's sons even captured Damascus, the capital of the Arab Empire, but none of them touched Jerusalem.

From Li Cun's always restrained attitude, it is not difficult to see that Li Cun sincerely respects religion, fears all gods, and does not want to get involved in the affairs between the Christian religion and the Muslim religion.

However, the tree wants to be quiet, but the wind doesn't stop.

Faced with hundreds of years of brutal jihad, Western countries launched the Crusades in an attempt to support the Christian Christians in the East and regain the Holy Land of Jerusalem.

However, the Byzantine Empire subsequently fell and Hagia Sophia was turned into a mosque.

Pope Urban II then called on the warriors of the Christian community to resist the invasion of Muslims at the Clermont Conference held decades ago. He received an enthusiastic response. Thousands of European warriors erected the symbol of the cross. Take an oath and prepare to fight.

I won’t go into detail about the process of the First Crusade, but those who are interested can look it up themselves.

It is only said that during the First Crusade, after the fall of the County of Edessa established by Europeans, in response to the request of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, under the leadership of King Louis VII of France and King Conrad III of the Holy Roman Empire, The Europeans launched the Second Crusade.

Speaking of which, the cause of this incident was that Sanjar, a militant, sent troops to occupy Edessa before the Daqian Expeditionary Force came from the east.

After the First Crusade, the earlier German Crusaders were defeated by the Turks in Asia Minor, and the French Crusaders' attempt to capture Damascus also failed. Therefore, the First Crusade failed to achieve any strategic goals.

Later, Sanjar sent people to give the important Edessa to the war leader.

This led to the great defeat of Christianity in Central Asia.

Judging from the situation at the time, if there was no further eastward expedition, the Christian religion would be completely driven out of the east.

The key point is that you can throw it away in other places, but never in the holy land of Jerusalem.

So the Crusaders began their Second Crusade.

Many Germans missed the first Eastern Expedition led by the French, Normans, and Flemish nobles, and naturally hoped to add glory to themselves through new achievements.

Their leader, Conrad, had been to Jerusalem more than ten years ago and participated as a knight in King Baldwin II of Jerusalem's expedition to the area near Damascus. He had some experience in fighting in the Middle East.

Conrad led the German crusaders along the overland route of the First Crusade from Regensburg across the Rhine and Danube rivers.

After a bumpy walk, the Byzantines finally sent the German Crusaders across the strait, and then Emperor Manuel sent his Varangian Guard Captain as the guide of the German Crusaders.

In Nicaea, Conrad sent most of the non-combatants in the team to the area controlled by Byzantium, and led the main force into the interior of Asia Minor.

The Crusaders gradually completed the confluence and began to try to surround Asia Minor.

If the Daqian Expeditionary Army did not march westward, the Turks would not actually be afraid of the Crusaders.

Let's put it this way, in the years of fighting with the Crusaders, the Turks have defeated the Crusaders many times.

Of course, the Crusaders also often defeated the Turks.

It should be said that the two sides are equally matched and have about the same strength.

But the problem is that the Daqian Expeditionary Force has already come over, defeated the Turks and occupied most of Central Asia, and then drove all the Turks who refused to surrender to Asia Minor, which greatly damaged the Turks' vitality.

Such Turks obviously can no longer protect the Muslim religion.

——Not only could they not protect Mu religion, but in the eyes of the people in Yi World, they could no longer even protect themselves.

Just at this moment, the Crusaders came over.

The arrival of the Crusaders meant that the Christian religion would invade the Muslim missionary land.

How does this work?

People in the Iraqi world must find another big brother to lead them to defeat the Crusaders. It would be better if he could lead them to Europe and let the Muslim religion defeat the Christian religion.

And who is more suitable to serve as the eldest brother of the people of the Yi world than the people of the Daqian Dynasty who defeated the Turks?

Therefore, the people of Yijie gathered together to express their willingness to submit to the rule of Li Cun and Li Cun's sons, and only asked Li Cun to protect them and the Mu religion.

Li Cun was unwilling to get involved in religious wars.

But Li Cun was still very interested in conquering Europe.

Furthermore, Li Cun has given birth to many sons in recent years. The key is that many of his young sons have grown up, so Li Cun still needs a large amount of fiefdom to divide his sons.

The key is that Li Cun, who has always been worried about the Eight-Power Allied Forces entering Beijing and the Opium War, has always wanted to give those brutal and arrogant bandits in the West a good beating.

The key point, the people of Yijie also said that as long as Li Cun leads them to defeat the Crusaders, they will completely surrender to the rule of Li Cun and Li Cun's sons.

For Li Cun, the temptation to make the people of Yi World obey the rule of himself and his sons is really big, because it can save Li Cun and Li Cun's sons too many things. .

In addition, there are countless beauties in Europe - blond, red-haired, brown-haired, hot-bodied, charming...

Therefore, Li Cun slapped his dragon chair hard: This matter... I, Old Li, did it!

After the First Crusade, the Crusaders crossed the sea from near Constantinople into Asia Minor, captured Nicaea, the capital of the Roman Sultanate, and captured Edessa and Antioch, establishing the first few Crusades. nation.

Soon, the Crusaders captured the Holy Land of Jerusalem and established the Kingdom of Jerusalem in Jerusalem.

The people of Yi World have been eager to take back their holy land.

But before the people of Yijie could take action, Li Cun led the Daqian Expeditionary Army to the east and reached Central Asia.

This undoubtedly left the people of Iraq with no time to attack Jerusalem.

After Li Cun's sons defeated the Turks and occupied Central Asia, they all followed Li Cun's imperial edict and did not provoke these Crusader countries, let alone Jerusalem.

In other words, before this, the Daqian Dynasty and the Crusader countries in Europe had always been at peace with each other, and there was no reason for the two sides to fight.

But with the smooth progress of the Second Crusade, and as the Crusaders easily defeated the Turks who were severely injured by the Daqian Expedition after entering Asia Minor, some Crusaders began to swell.The Crusaders led by King Conrad II of Germany and King Louis VII of France foolishly decided to attack Damascus and then continue to expand territory eastward.

At this time, the Muslim religion in Damascus was actually a strong ally of the Christian religion. The Crusader countries should not attack Damascus wherever they attacked.

More importantly, Damascus is now the fiefdom of Li Cun's son Li Zhi.

Therefore, the stupid claims of King Conrad II of Germany and King Louis VII of France were unanimously opposed by the Crusaders countries. They insisted that the Crusaders attack Aleppo, the biggest threat to the Crusaders countries, and regain the control of the Turks. Down Edessa.

King Conrad II of Germany and King Louis VII of France refused to listen at all, and stubbornly went to attack Damascus.

The Crusaders suddenly attacked Damascus, catching Li Zhi by surprise, who had never thought that the Crusaders would attack Damascus.

Unfortunately, Li Zhi died heroically while resisting the Crusaders' invasion.

In addition, after taking Damascus, the Crusaders led by German King Conrad II and French King Louis VII also carried out a bloodbath on Damascus.

Undoubtedly, this gave Li Cun, who was planning to enter Europe, an excellent excuse.

Li Cun immediately issued an imperial edict: War on all Crusader countries to avenge my son Li Zhi!

In less than half a month, Li Cun's sons whose fiefs were close to Damascus wiped out more than 2 crusaders led by German King Conrad II and French King Louis VII who were in Damascus.

But it is a pity that King Conrad II of Germany and King Louis VII of France, two guys born in the Year of the Rabbit, saw that the situation was not good and decisively fled to Jerusalem with a small part of the Crusaders.

Li Cun's sons Li Lin, Li Yi, and Li Feng led three thousand light cavalry and chased King Conrad II of Germany and King Louis VII of France all the way to Jerusalem.

Regarding Jerusalem, Li Cunke had a clear edict: it should not be touched.

Therefore, Li Lin, Li Yi, and Li Feng could not attack Jerusalem by force.

Therefore, after chasing to Jerusalem, Li Lin, Li Yi, and Li Feng had no choice but to stop.

The three brothers discussed it and decided that Jerusalem must not be fought, otherwise their father might take back their brothers' fiefdom and drive them back to the mainland of the Daqian Dynasty to eat and die.

The cleverest Li Xi rolled his eyes and said, "How about we write a letter to scare the king of Jerusalem?"

However, the three brothers also knew that the three of them would not be able to scare the king of Jerusalem with their prestige. Therefore, at Li Yi's suggestion, the three brothers wrote a letter of surrender to the king of Jerusalem in the name of their father.

The content of the letter is probably: "I don't want to destroy this sacred place, so you and others had better open the city and surrender immediately. I will let you and others leave safely. Otherwise, if the army attacks the city, there will be no tiles left and no grass growing here!"

The king of the Kingdom of Jerusalem at this time, no, I should say, the queen of the Kingdom of Jerusalem at this time is Melisande.

- Mélisande ruled with her husband Fulk.

Unlike the two idiots King Conrad II of Germany and King Louis VII of France, Melisande and Fulk, who have been on the edge of Central Asia, know very well how powerful Li Cun is, who has conquered the entire Central Asia. It is no exaggeration to say that this kind of power leaves no room for resistance.

Therefore, after discussing with their ministers, Melisande and Fulk decided to leave the city and surrender.

Seeing that things were not going well, King Conrad II of Germany and King Louis VII of France quietly escaped from Jerusalem with their people, and then fled all the way west...

Li Lin and Li Feng wanted to continue to hunt down King Conrad II of Germany and King Louis VII of France, but they were stopped by Li Yi because these two guys were their best excuse to attack Europe.

A month later, Li Cun came to Damascus in person and saw Li Zhi's body.

Although Li Cun didn't even have a single white hair, this was a gift from a white-haired person to a black-haired person, so Li Cun was very sad.

But when fighting for world hegemony, people will inevitably die. Not to mention Li Zhi, it is also normal for Li Cun himself to die.

In other words, from the day Li Zhi chose to be the king of princes, he should have had the consciousness to end up like this.

Moreover, Li Zhi had his own reasons for dying in battle this time.

In addition, Li Cun has enough sons, and Li Zhi is really worthy of him.

So, after a while, Li Cun came out of his sadness.

Some people suggested that Li Zhi's eldest son should inherit Li Zhi's fiefdom.

But it was rejected by Li Cun.

After this incident, Li Cun realized that Damascus was an unusual place and people with incompetence could not be allowed to serve as princes and kings. As for Li Zhi's son, who had just learned to walk, it was even more impossible.

Therefore, Li Cun appointed Li Yi, who performed best in this battle and gave himself an excuse to attack Europe, to take over Damascus.

After handling these matters, Li Cun came to Jerusalem.

At this time, the royal family, clan and nobles of the Kingdom of Jerusalem all fled back to Europe with Melisande, Queen of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and the Ganjun army had officially taken over Jerusalem.

However, since Li Cun had issued an imperial edict not to disturb Jerusalem in advance, after taking over Jerusalem, all the soldiers, one by one, withdrew from Jerusalem without causing any damage to this sacred place.

However, although Li Cun was always cautious when dealing with matters related to Jerusalem, things eventually got into trouble.

As soon as Li Cunjin arrived in Jerusalem, Li Lin presented Li Cunjin with a precious treasure - the True Cross.

Li Lin was very proud of this, as if to say: "My two brothers are so stupid that they didn't even find this treasure. Now they can only watch me make great achievements!"

What Li Lin never expected was that when his father learned what he had donated, he almost slapped him to death, and cursed him unceremoniously: "Confused! This troublemaker" Can I also want something?!”

Li Cun didn't even hesitate, and immediately delivered this treasure to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre.

After that, Li Cun declared: Jerusalem will always be a land of freedom and it does not belong to anyone, including himself.

After the announcement, Li Cun left a thousand unbelieving officers and soldiers to maintain the security of Jerusalem, and set an iron rule: People of faith will never be allowed to join the Jerusalem guard, and no religious inclinations are allowed.The Guards have only two responsibilities. One is to protect Jerusalem from intrusion by anyone or any force; the other is to serve the security of Jerusalem.

After making the announcement, Li Cun dismissed the thousand escorts from their duties in the army.

——Three years later, new guards will come from the homeland of the Daqian Dynasty to replace them. They will then return to their country to resume their duties, and collectively they will be promoted to three levels in a row.

In addition, Li Cun also stipulated that everyone entering Jerusalem must pay one yuan. Of course, you can pay more, depending on your personal wishes.

Li Cun did not accept this money, nor did he allow anyone to accept it. It was only used for the daily expenses of the escort and the maintenance of the city of Jerusalem.

Li Cun also asked people to build a slate, disclosing every money collected and where every money went.

By the way, the first yuan was paid by Li Cun.

Some people may want to ask, if those penniless ascetics came to Jerusalem, wouldn't they be allowed in?

If this is the case, as long as the ascetics are willing to serve as volunteers in Jerusalem, they can enter Jerusalem and even practice long-term practice there.

All in all, Li Cun, who has a heart of respect for all religions, sincerely hopes that Jerusalem can become a truly holy land, a holy land where there will never be war, and where all believers can enter and exit freely.

After carefully handling matters here in Jerusalem, Li Cun gave the order: Continue the Western Expedition and continue to avenge my son Li Zhi...

... (end of this chapter)