Chapter 110 In the name of Jerusalem!
Renard of Chatillon, Renard the Breaker, Renard the Lord of Hebron and Transjordan, these titles all point to the same formidable figure.
As the second son of Hervé II, lord of Donzi in France, Leonard followed the Second Crusade to the Holy Land. He had already distinguished himself when Baldwin III besieged Ascalon.
Because of personal grudges, Isabel found Leonard quite unbearable in his mouth, and her words were full of contempt.
But to be fair, Leonard's military ability is indeed undisputed. At most, his brain is probably not normal.
In the Battle of Montgisard, the leper king Baldwin IV naturally took the greatest credit as the leader, but it was Leonard who actually led hundreds of knights to tear apart Saladin's front.
After the war, in return for Leonard's achievements, Baldwin IV connected him with the noble widow Stephanie, making him one of the top nobles in the Kingdom of Jerusalem.
The relationship between nobles is complicated, and Leonard shows different faces in the eyes of different people. In the eyes of the Leper King, he may be a vicious dog that obeys orders; in the eyes of Isabel, he is an unscrupulous traitor; but in the eyes of other nobles, he is just a violent foreign visitor.
But for the caravans and pilgrims passing through Transjordan, Leonard was a dragon that was powerless to fight against.
Leonard never cared about the peace agreement that was as useless as paper. In this territory, he showed his greed and bloodthirsty wantonly. This was a privilege he considered to be what he deserved for the kingdom through life and death. reward.
Although the nobles in the kingdom discussed this, and even Baldwin IV warned and tried to punish him many times, these punishments never really hurt Leonard's roots. After all, who would kill his loyal dog to protect the interests of his enemy?
During the reign of the Leper King, Leonard was still like this, and when Baldwin IV passed away, Leonard became even more careless.
After Guy came to power, Leonard's power further expanded. Leonard's territory covered almost one-third of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, and the noble forces secretly opposed to Guy together controlled nearly half of the land.
As long as Leonard betrays his support for Guy, even without Isabel's intervention, Guy's royal power may collapse at any time. Because Guy himself was unable to compete with the aristocratic forces that secretly opposed him.
Leonard knew that he was now the mainstay of Guy's throne, so he did whatever he wanted.
His unscrupulous behavior was horrifying both inside and outside the kingdom.
The yellow sand rolls over the ground, and the pilgrimage road is thousands of miles away. Following God's will, Muslims walk in this wilderness of heaven and earth.
They are caravans, they are pilgrims, they are devout people who believe in the only true God in the world.
One night in July 621 of the Christian calendar, under the sky of Jerusalem, the Prophet Muhammad, accompanied by the angel Gabriel, came from Mecca on a Pegasus and climbed to the sky for a night tour of the seventh heaven.
“He taught his servants to go from the Forbidden Mosque at night to the distant temple that I had blessed around it.” This is the first verse of Chapter 17 of the Quran.
As the place where Muhammad performed his miracles, the Al-Aqsa Mosque is one of the three holiest places in Islam, second only to the Mosque in Mecca and the Mosque in Medina.
Although the core of the Muslim faith is the pilgrimage to Mecca, the pilgrimage to a distant mosque in Jerusalem is still a recognized good deed. Every capable Muslim desires to go to this holy land to perform pilgrimage.
However, behind the religious piety, the shadow of blood follows closely.
At this time, the pilgrims, led by the Imam, faced Mecca and worshiped devoutly.
"Deusvult!!"
"Innominehierusalem!"
Such is destiny!
In the name of Jerusalem!
Whenever Muslims hear such roars, it often means rivers of blood.
Naturally, the pilgrims to Jerusalem would not all go to worship without warning. They left some people behind as a warning.
But when they could hear chants and the sound of horse hooves, it was too late.
【Heavenly Father! Heavenly Father! 】
【Glory not to us, not to us】
【Because of your kindness and truth】
【In your name】
【Heavenly Father! Heavenly Father! 】
【Do not give victory to us, do not give it to us】
【Because of your glory and virtue】
【Return to...】
The vigilant quickly took off the horn from his waist and blew it to warn others.
After hearing this hymn and the warning horn, the believers who had maintained a devout posture hurriedly stood up and tried to run towards the motorcade. But just as the crowd stood upright, a flag with a red and white octagonal cross pattern rose from the west of this highland. It was the symbol of the Knights Templar!
Then there was the melodious sound of horse hoofbeats, and a group of more than a dozen cavalrymen crossed the steep slope to the west.
These people on horseback had their backs to the sun, so their faces could not be seen clearly, and their elongated shadows were about to touch the panicked crowd.
When the leading knight drew his sword and pointed it at the crowd, the setting sun and the sky behind them were stained with scarlet blood, and everything looked bad.
The knights were silent and lowered their bodies. The horses under them moved their hooves and walked quickly.
Whenever those horses' hooves hit the ground, sand would splash up on the ground, making them look like thousands of troops!
The knights' flat lance tips were fluttering with tassels and military flags, and the thick bloody smell appeared out of thin air.
It was clearly just a squad-level cavalry charge, but it showed an overwhelming and unstoppable momentum.
There were only a few people who dared to fight head-on. When the knights wearing robes with cross patterns sewn on them rushed into the crowd with lances in hand, the only way for those fleeing crowds was death.
Nobles in Western Europe gained new fiefdoms, Frankish peasants settled in the Holy Land, and bishops established new dioceses. Behind religious wars, interests are the eternal law.
However, the establishment of the Kingdom of Jerusalem was not all disaster for Muslims. Palestine, a land that had been fragmented by the fragmentation of the Seljuk Empire, was reunited under the rule of the Crusaders.
And the decadent Iqta tax collector system was more greedy than the Crusader nobles when squeezing the people.
religion? Crusaders? Jihad?
During the truce, the Crusader knights hunted with the Muslim lords but no longer waved the banner of God.
In this world, only interests remain unchanged.
Belief? It seems so pale at this time, and in the face of greed and desire, the glory of any religion seems illusory.
Leonard's knights were immersed in the thrill of killing, chasing the fleeing pilgrims, treating them as hunting targets. Every life was harvested easily and became leftovers after the war.
Like hunting wild animals, they pursued those who escaped first.
Following their footsteps, a group of knights found traces of their prey. Any intact adult would be sold at a high price to a passing slave trader.
Whether they were Christians or Muslims, there really was no difference when they showed up at the slave market.
The leading knight dismounted and checked the blood. The blood was pink and bubbly, like a lung injury.
Their footprints also disappeared by the river bank, and the river looked a little turbid, indicating that they had just arrived at the river not long ago. Apparently, the prey were trying to cover their tracks by walking in the river.
Did it go upstream or downstream? In short, he has not crossed the river. After all, it is difficult to swim across this river if his lungs are injured.
After thinking for a moment, the leading knight decided to search downstream. They did not spend a lot of time searching separately. In their opinion, these were just a few slaves who could be exchanged for money. In fact, they didn't really care. They just enjoyed the hunt. Just happiness.
It is more fun to capture talking sheep than to hunt mindless beasts.
When the knights rode their horses downstream for a section, they once again discovered many muddy footprints coming out of the river.
When they followed the footprints and looked into the distance, they saw a carriage surrounded by about a dozen people. Their robes were leaking water, and some people had wounds on their bodies and bleeding.
They are frightened and need shelter.
At this moment, a young man dressed simply was treating the injured among them.
Garris never imagined that he would have to perform a surgical operation in the wilderness.
Previously, he passed by this river in a carriage and saw a group of fleeing Muslim pilgrims.
This group of people included children, women, and husbands who were injured by horses. When they saw the carriage, they instinctively wanted to escape.
Garris observed them silently, watching their every move, feeling their fear between life and death, and their unyielding friendship - if they had left the injured behind, they would have been able to escape faster.
So Qaris kept them in Arabic.
"May Allah's mercy and blessings be with you. I am a doctor and can treat your injuries."
The Muslim pilgrims were a little surprised. They had never thought that a Frank could speak Arabic, but considering that they had nowhere to go, they were forced to trust this man
After examination, Garris found that the most seriously injured of these people was an adult male. He showed symptoms of shortness of breath, chest pain and abnormal expansion of one side of the chest, which meant that there was a high probability of pneumothorax.
In this era of the 12th century, it was quite difficult. What's more, Garris was still in the wilderness, and a group of people with bad intentions appeared not far away.
(End of chapter)