Guo Kang himself had also thought about these unique customs of the Purple Horde Khanate.
This place for them is not a safe place. In the history known to Guo Kang, this place of four wars finally exhausted its vitality and shattered into pieces. From then on, it was immersed in endless and meaningless internal strife, and became a game field for other great powers.
However, the Land of Four Battles does not necessarily have only such an ending.
More than three thousand years ago, when Dayu stood by the Yellow River and faced Dongyi, Sanmiao, Xirong, and Beidi, he probably felt that he was in a place of four battles.
Two thousand years ago, when Gong Yanggao taught his disciples about the achievements of Duke Huan of Qi, and concluded that "the southern Yi and the northern Di were at crossroads, China was as continuous as a line", he would also have felt that this place was a place of four wars.
And right now, when Zhu Yuanzhang started his career, he always found the right opportunity to fight his way out of an environment with Zhang Shicheng in the east, Chen Youliang in the west, Wang Baobao in the north, and Fang Guozhen in the south.
In his past world, people believed that his homeland, Seris, was a very lucky civilization. It happened to be born at one end of the Eurasian continent and was protected by the sea, plateaus and deserts, and would not be invaded by foreign enemies.
But after seeing the civilizations of the two worlds, Guo Kang himself knew very well that Siris was not this big just after he came out.
The so-called "no enemies" means that all enemies are gone.
If Rome had not collapsed at that time and had continued to rule the Mediterranean region until later generations, then future generations might also count Gaul and Iberia as a branch of Roman civilization, and then sigh with emotion, saying that the Eurasian continent Rome in the west was also a lonely civilization, lacking communication with other people.
Therefore, geography is a very important aspect, but what determines geography is, to put it bluntly, people. In his opinion, the various performances of the Purple Horde Khanate were just a choice to fight to survive in such a harsh environment.
The soldiers of the Purple Horde Khanate have pretty good combat effectiveness and are large in number. But as high as their abilities are, so are their tempers. The other nobles obviously did not understand why the Purple Horde tolerated or even condoned these arrogant and powerful generals, and they were not very comfortable with how to get along with them.
When the nobles refused to reduce the soldiers' labor service or provide money for subsidies, the purple tent advisers began to hesitate. When consultants' salaries were also deducted, they decisively chose traditional methods of protest.
In the local area, the people of the territories used to only make trouble on a village basis. At most, a single territory opposed the lord. Most of the time, the nobles will suppress them directly - their network of contacts is much wider than that of the villagers, and by gathering all kinds of relatives together, they can quickly organize a capable armed force.
If the commotion becomes too big and the benefits of suppression outweigh the losses, sometimes they will choose to reprimand the local small lords and ask them to cough up some of their scraped wealth to settle the matter.
But this time, because they had been intensively trained for a period of time, the people in various places knew each other, so they used this organizational method to deal with the lords.
Roman veterans who were owed commissions also decisively joined in. They were comrades in the same legion before, so they quickly connected with each other. At this time, recruits from most of the state began to gather, demanding that the local nobles follow the example of the military government next door and cancel all excess taxes.
Of course, it is impossible for the nobles to agree, but the scale and speed this time far exceed previous experience. In order to save time, I had to act modestly and said that I would invite the leader of the people to negotiate.
The villagers were very happy about this, but the old sergeant who took the lead said that the answer was too fast and something was obviously wrong. So, he asked a few mountain people to help him, took a small road to the negotiation location, and personally investigated the situation.
The nobles' awareness of precautions was very poor. After a few people turned around, they discovered that a group of mercenaries was ambushing them. Smoke and dust were billowing on the road in the distance, and it was obvious that someone was coming on horseback.
Obviously, this is a scam.
So, they took advantage of their plan and organized a group of capable people to arrive at the venue one day in advance, prepare themselves further outside, and then attack suddenly. The noble army was frightened and fled in all directions. Several lords were killed on the spot. On the same day, others rushed to the local lord's manor and found that no one was guarding it, so they quickly captured it.
If it ends here, it's just a slightly better mutiny. However, some letters were found in the captured manor.
The villagers were more concerned about the wealth that the lord had collected over the years, but the legion veterans immediately went to collect the letters and files in the lord's hands to see if there was any important information. As a result, the news that the nobles were colluding with each other and preparing for rebellion was exposed.
After a brief discussion, everyone decided not to rebel. From now on, everyone will be loyal ministers of the Purple Horde Khanate and must report the conspiracy of the evil chieftain in time. The old sergeant once again asked the mountain people to lead the way. Instead of going to Dadu, he took a shortcut through the mountains and went north to find the nearest military mansion and inform them.
The largest civil war in the history of the Purple Horde Khanate began in such an unexpected way.
After receiving the news, the Khan's court decided to intervene immediately. No matter what was going on over there, these nobles must be uneasy and well-intentioned.
When the Serbian nobles heard the news about the mobilization of the Khan's army, they were also upset and decided to go against it first. Everyone pulls in people, the more the better, and strives to drive the Romans out directly.
They first besieged Belgrade, demanding that the city allow them to move in and provide money and supplies to sponsor the restoration movement. Citizens who feared being robbed closed the city gates and resisted desperately. Both sides fell into anxiety.
Other nobles brought private soldiers and went south into Greece, preparing to compete for Thessaloniki.
The Purple Horde Khanate did not rule here for long, and the local Greek nobles had great influence. Many of these people are old nobles who have gone through several dynasties. In the history of Guo Kang's world, they could still hold high-level positions such as pashas until the Ottoman era. The way of living.
The old nobles immediately announced that they also sympathized with the Serbs and could provide necessary assistance. At the same time, he sent his confidants with secret messages to set off from the port and sail directly to Dadu to inform the Purple Horde Khan of the size, composition and supply situation of the Serbian noble army.
In Morea in the south and Transylvania in the north, many people joined the rebels in the newly recovered areas. When the news spread to the north, several rebellious Rus' Grand Duchys began to routinely attack Moscow. Sure enough, HRE, Hungary, and Ottoman also tried to intervene, and most of the Khanate was caught in the flames of war.
However, in terms of risk alone, this time it is lower than last time.
Guo Kang’s Greek teacher has specialized in this period of history. He believed that judging from various subsequent documents, the messy reasons put forward by the nobles were only temporary excuses. He also told Guo Kang that judging from his own experience at the time and subsequent investigations, these nobles did not even have a unified slogan.
Queen Mother Helena's various measures were indeed unable to eliminate the inherent contradiction between the Khan's court itself and these local nobles. But the Queen Mother was so familiar with these people that she destroyed the traditional but very important organizational methods among the nobles without paying much price.
Because the incident was too hasty, the noble rebels lacked unified actions and no clear strategic goals. At first, many people thought that they could just protect themselves in the mountains. But after the number of nobles and soldiers who joined exceeded expectations, the crowd quickly swelled and actually decided to take the initiative.
Due to the chaos in the rebel organization, Guo Kang's scholars and teachers didn't know who came up with the idea, and even wondered whether this person was an undercover agent. However, the improvised aristocratic assembly quickly passed the proposal in a frenzy. This move also quickly ruined themselves.
Unlike his mother, Basil III did have a reliable and large army at his disposal.
After the Queen Mother fell, he may have sensed that the situation was about to change, so he recalled Li Yinglin early, who had been forced to flee because he was accused of planning to "encircle the garden and kill the Queen."
In order to get rid of his embarrassing identity as soon as possible, Li Yinglin was very active in this. He even pointed out that although those local nobles now supported the Great Khan and opposed the Queen Mother, they were actually opposing the Khan's court itself and were not trustworthy.
Although he should be the person who hates the Queen Mother the most, Li Yinglin admitted that the Queen Mother's various methods actually weakened the war capabilities of the nobles.
This rabble is the political legacy left by the Queen Mother. Instead of waiting for them to slowly plan and form an organization, it is better to start early to avoid letting them recover their strength.
He also proposed a plan to send troops to the east coast of the Adriatic Sea to attack the enemy from behind by supporting Venice. However, the development of things is even more outrageous than Li Yinglin's radical plan. I guess neither of them thought of this at the time.
(End of chapter)
