After listening to Wanyan Xiebao's words, Wanyan Zonghan just smiled bitterly, looked at his son and said: "Xiebao, you are wrong! The small number of people when we rebelled against Liao is not the same as the small number of people now. The few people we identified back then were the Hushui Wanyan tribe, not the Jurchen and Bohai tribes. In the Liao Kingdom at that time, the Jurchen, mature Jurchen and Bohai people together were more numerous than the Khitan and Xi people. Ah! Moreover, the enemies of the Khitans are not only us, but also the Zubu, Mongolian, Tatar and other ethnic groups in the Mobei grassland. The Han people in the Central Plains have also joined forces with us. There are many Han people in the Yan area under the rule of the Liao people. People's hearts turned toward the Song Dynasty in the Southern Dynasty. Therefore, it was actually the anti-Liao side that had the numerical advantage at that time, not the Khitan and Xi tribes!
In the west, the Saracens, Turks, Romans, Rakshasas, Alans, Huns, and people from various countries and ethnic groups in the west have nothing to do with us. Even the tribes on the Kipchak grassland are not with us. So we fought all the way, and although we grabbed a lot of property and women, we couldn't occupy the territory. Even a small Crimea is now difficult to occupy. Otherwise, we can allocate more troops and go south to attack King's Castle..."
Wanyan Zonghan is right. The "few people" when A Gu started his army was just the first batch of people who stood up to fight against the Liao. It did not mean that there were few people who could stand up against the Liao, let alone the Khitan and Xi tribes. The Liao Kingdom has a large base of people.
Nowadays, the "few people" among the Jurchens on West Road means the total number of people is small! If we do not count the old and weak women and children who cannot join the army, the total number of Jurchens on the West Road is now only 75,000. According to the 2,500 warriors (households), there are 30 fierce houses. 20 of them were handed over to Wanyan Xiebao and will follow him south to King's Castle.
These 20 Meng'an, plus the Jinxi Route Army's Qincha, Alan, and Rakshasa servants, did not have an army of 100,000, but there were still 80,000.
These armies are not just a small number of knights and a large number of serfs and servants, but full personnel. This number of regular soldiers would have been absolutely invincible in the medieval West. I am afraid that only the Seljuk Turks can pull out the same number of troops! Therefore, there are not many troops in the Jinxi Route Army, but their population is too small.
And as a wandering military group from the Far East, they are really different from Westerners. Regardless of appearance, language, beliefs, and living habits, they are all so out of place.
It can be said that if this group of Jurchens took over the Central Plains, as long as they picked up the imperial examination system, traitors would come in droves and their rule would be stable.
But in the Rakshasa countries and the Alan Kingdom, the Jurchens have no way to do this. Because those countries practiced hierarchical feudalism, and those at the first level were feudal knights. There was no bureaucratic landlord class at all... These knights would certainly submit to the Jurchens, but the allegiance they could offer was different from the allegiance offered by unarmed feudal bureaucrats.
Their allegiance is just a contract. They are responsible for how much tribute and military service they provide, while the Jinxi Route Army must ensure that their territory and beliefs remain unchanged.
And these Rakshasa and Alan knights maintaining their territory means maintaining the military power to resist the Jurchens!
And their belief...that's even more terrifying, they all worship God! Moreover, there is also a powerful God-worshipping church (the Eastern Orthodox Church) that hosts God-worshiping activities and various other social activities. It has penetrated into almost every aspect and is impossible to eradicate.
In other words, the God-worshipping churches in the Rakshasa Kingdom and the Alan Kingdom are not only deeply rooted, but also connected together, and receive the command of the Kingsburg God-Worshiping Association!
As far as Zonghan and his son know, the loyalty of these Rakshasa and Alan knights to their master is limited, but their belief in God is unlimited... Worshiping God can affect whether they go to heaven or hell after death. The problem!
And sacrificing for God guarantees you will go to heaven and become a saint.
Theoretically, as long as the General Assembly of King's Castle issued an order to worship God, the eighteen princes of the Rakshasa Kingdom and the Alan Kingdom would rebel against each other.
Moreover, the eighteen Rakshasa princes and the knights of the Alan Kingdom also have a very strange characteristic. If there are many soldiers, they will be chaotic, but if they are few, they will be fierce!
Once they gather in large numbers, it will be very easy to deal with them... because no one of the eighteen princes obeys anyone, and there is no unified command at all. The army of tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of people was in chaos, and they could only fight like pigs. They had no organization or discipline whatsoever. It was weaker than the Song army before Zhao Kai's rise, and was completely vulnerable to a single blow.
But once this group of people disperses, a group of dozens or hundreds of knights will fight guerrillas with you. They are also very powerful, and their combat effectiveness is almost as good as that of the Jurchen warriors. In fact, this is the norm under hierarchical feudalism. They can support dozens of knights. The feudal lord of a knight is no longer young. These feudal lords commanded their knights to defend their homes, which was of course very powerful. If you let hundreds of such feudal lords gather together without a strong monarch to command them, it would be strange if things don't go haywire.
Therefore, Wanyan Zonghan and Wanyan Xiebao did not put in much effort when they defeated the coalition of eighteen Rakshasa princes. However, when they dispersed their troops to attack the grass valley, they were defeated by the scattered Rakshasa knights and suffered heavy losses... ....
After suffering losses, Wanyan Zonghan and Wanyan Xiebao realized that there was no way to establish effective rule in the vast and desolate Rakshasa, so they could only choose the Crimean Peninsula, which was easy to defend, difficult to attack, and had a small territory, as their homeland. basis.
At the same time, he also signed a subordination contract with the eighteen Rakshasa princes to protect their territory and beliefs in exchange for some tributes and warriors.
However, they also knew that hiding on the Crimean Peninsula was not a long-term solution, so they shifted their target of conquest from the vast and desolate Rakshasa to the small and wealthy Eastern Rome... They had already inquired about it. Rome is one city and the world!
As long as Castle was captured and the Black Sea Strait (the Bosporus, Dardanelles, and Sea of Marmara collectively known as the Sea of Marmara) was controlled, the entire Roman state was within its grasp.
Moreover, there is also the General Assembly of the God-Worshipping Church in the Castle... If this God-Worshiping Church can be controlled, then the Jinxi Route Army's recharge for the Dajin National Games will be secure.
"Dad," Wanyan Xiebao pulled up a chair and sat down in front of Wanyan Zonghan, "Eighty thousand people are definitely enough to capture King's Castle... No matter how many more we have, we don't have enough ships to transport them. "
Wanyan Zonghan and Wanyan Xiebao still had many ships on hand. In addition to the 40 warships built with the help of craftsmen from Venice and Genoa, there were also many merchant ships carrying grain snatched from the port of Chesonis. There is no problem in transporting tens of thousands of people south, but no more.
"But how many people are there in Castle City?" Wanyan Zonghan asked himself, and then answered by himself, "There must be hundreds of thousands, right? How many people are there in the entire Roman Kingdom? There must be millions, right? If they are all Just like the Rakshasa people, can we control it?"
Wanyan Xiabao frowned, as if he was thinking hard, and seemed to want to say something but couldn't.
"Xie Bao," Wanyan Zonghan looked at his son, "Just say what you want to say... Is there anything else that can't be said between father and son?"
"Dad," Wanyan Xiebao breathed out, seemingly determined, "I want to worship God!"
"Worship, worship God?" Wanyan Zonghan was surprised, "Son, do you want to join the Roman religion of worshiping God?"
"You must join!" Wanyan Xiabao gritted his teeth, "If we don't join the God-worshipping Church, even if we capture Castle, we won't be able to manage the entire Roman Kingdom... My son has discovered these days that the God-worshipping Church and Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism are all different. These churches meddle in too many things, while the Roman court and government meddle in too little.
Without the help of the Church of Worship, we wouldn’t be able to control much territory... and we wouldn’t be able to sustain it! "
Wanyan Xiebao was right. After the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West, many affairs originally undertaken by the empire were gradually transferred to the hands of the church.
Therefore, this church is not only responsible for going to heaven and slaying demons, but also for education, medical care, disaster relief, adoption of orphans, and relief for the poor... It is even responsible for training and educating a small number of bureaucrats to serve the feudal lords. Sometimes the church would directly organize a crusade to fight the war.
In addition, the order of the Christian world...that is, God's version of "kings and ministers, fathers and sons," is also the responsibility of the church.
It was the church that endowed the monarchy with the sanctity of various feudal contracts, and this sanctity ensured that the obligations of the monarch and his ministers and the spirit of the contract could be fulfilled.
It can be said that if in the Middle Ages, all the church forces in the jurisdiction of a certain feudal lord were eliminated, the feudal lord would probably not know how to rule the territory.
It is for this reason that the "excommunication order" of the Roman Universal Church can frighten the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire.
If Wanyan Zonghan and Wanyan Xiebao want to seize the crown of Rome with the support of 200,000 to 300,000 nationalities, they must get the support of the Eastern Orthodox Church... They cannot act as pagan conquerors. You can enter King's Castle only as a protector of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Wanyan Zonghan frowned, not because he was worried that he would be punished by Changshengtian after joining the Church of Worshiping God, but because he was worried that the Church of Worshiping God would not cooperate.
"If we worship God, they can support us?"
Wanyan Xiabao nodded, "Yes! Dad... my son has already met the special envoy of the Archmage Leon of the King's Castle God Worshiping Society!"
"What did they say?" Wanyan Zonghan looked at his son.
"As long as we worship God with them and ensure that the property and special rights of the church are not infringed upon, the Archmage of Leon is happy to see the army of the Eastern Priest King John enter the Castle!"
"Who is Priest John?" Wanyan Zonghan asked.
Wanyan Xiebao smiled and said: "Dad, you are John the Priest King! Isn't your name Wanyan John?"
