Chapter 179 The long night has come, let us go to hell together
After days of fighting, the land in front of the holy city was soaked red with blood.
The morning light of the morning sun failed to bring about the renewal of all things, but instead awakened the ghosts of this city that had been dormant for a long time.
Jerusalem!
How much blood has been poured out by you.
Jerusalem!
There are more than a thousand heroes who have fallen under your skirt?
Jerusalem!
You girl of Xiyong is now dim and dull...
Balian, who was wearing chainmail and his robe was stained with blood, looked at Saladin.
"Irakli is still in the city, he can do it."
Saladin was speechless for a long time.
"Buy your freedom, I'll give you this opportunity."
"What's the price?"
"Ten gold dinars for men, five gold dinars for women, and two gold dinars for children." Saladin offered a price.
"I will let everyone live, everyone..."
"Women, children and old men, your knights, warriors and your queen."
"Even if the ransom cannot be paid, no one will die. At most, they will be sold into slavery."
"I am Saladin, and I swear by the name of Allah!"
Some people have a bad reputation and are a terrible mess in the world.
And there are some people who can be respected by others just by saying their names.
Balian nodded, this was the condition he could accept.
"Thank you, I will go back and inform you of your request."
"Waiting for good news."
"Goodbye."
When the two were separated, Balian suddenly asked:
"Jerusalem, of what value?"
Saladin, who took a few steps away, turned his head and answered easily:
"Worthless."
Just when Balian felt a little sad, Saladin showed a smile.
"That value is difficult to measure."
……
When Balian returned to the city of Jerusalem, he announced the news to the Franks.
Just like in the city of Karak, the rich were ecstatic, while the poor were at a loss.
For these poor people, mainly refugees, this will be an impossible ransom.
The poor in spirit possess the kingdom of heaven, but they will be abandoned in this world.
Walking in this city that had been baptized by war, Balian called to the people on the side:
"Mono."
"Here."
"How much military spending is left in the warehouse?"
"There should be thirty thousand gold dinars left."
“Not enough, too bad.”
The city of Jerusalem conservatively estimates that at least 20,000 people are unable to redeem themselves. The 30,000 gold dinars are just a drop in the bucket.
As for Balian’s own belongings?
He had already donated it to the military.
"Mono."
"Here."
"We are going to commit more sins. You shouldn't mind going to hell after death."
"Where your sword points, that's where I am, that's where we charge."
"Go and gather the soldiers. This city of Jerusalem is destined to be a burnt offering with the blood of sinners, so that every trace of sin can be washed away."
In the eyes of many people, the poor are the waste of mankind, but in the eyes of Garris, the poor are people who have been crucified by this world.
If the poor resisted, they would be suddenly crucified by the powers that be.
If they do not resist, they will be slowly crucified by poverty and hunger.
This world is a dark, long and almost endless tunnel.
Poverty and hunger are slow carnage.
This is a continent shedding blood and tears, a hopeless world in which it is difficult for people to see a glimmer of hope.
Humanity is dead and politeness is lost.
Garris told Balian that someone must die. As for who should die, it depends on which side you stand on...
That night, Balian gathered a group of soldiers who had survived the bloody battle, and beside him were a few knights who were willing to struggle together in this hopeless world.
"The long night has come, let us go to hell together."
Not even neat footsteps, the sound of footsteps echoed on the street.
Balian and the soldiers behind him were all wearing broken armor, with blood stains still on their faces, and determination flashing in their eyes.
The city trembled at their footsteps.
Balian strode into the residence of Jerusalem Patriarch Irakli, and the original festive atmosphere here was instantly broken.
The soldiers quickly controlled all exits and controlled the distinguished Patriarch Irakli.
Balian drew his sword in his hand, it was sharp, and an illusory shadow stood beside him.
"Yes, that's it... let Jerusalem flow like a river of blood..."
Balian has turned a blind eye to the existence of the shadow and is accustomed to it. No one except him can notice the other party.
"What?! What are you doing!"
"You are crazy! Balian! You are all crazy!"
Faced with Irakli's hysterical accusations, Balian turned a blind eye.
His voice was like a hammer hitting an anvil, powerful and crisp: "Three thousand dinars, at least three thousand dinars! Hand over three thousand dinars, and you will live."
Irakli fell to the ground on his back, his face full of panic.
He held the cross tightly in his hand and prayed tremblingly in his mouth, but when he faced Balian's cold gaze, his words stopped abruptly in his throat.
Finally, after a long silence, Balian got what he wanted.
But this was just the beginning. Taking advantage of the night, Balian visited various wealthy households and nobles in the city.
At Baron Levi's mansion, when the baron saw Balian, he voluntarily knelt down and presented all the belongings in the house with both hands, for fear of offending the somewhat crazy lord.
Elsewhere, a greasy businessman steadfastly refused to hand over his wealth and even tried to bribe Balian.
Balian's answer was only the low sound of the sword tip cutting through the air.
The businessman's head rolled off in an instant, and his blood splashed three feet, staining the marble floor of the mansion red.
Accompanied by the screams of the wealthy businessman's wife and daughter, Balian personally led people to plunder and loot.
Along the way, the air in the city became more solemn, and the god of death was following Balian.
Balian, a hero who defended the city during the day, became a sinner who committed all kinds of evil in just one night, burning, killing, looting, and raping women.
But will Balian care? His robe was already stained with blood.
Now he has to fight to defend the lives of the chosen ones. This kind of battle means bottomless loneliness, but fortunately, there is someone behind him.
"The kingdom of God is the kingdom of life, but poverty is the victory of death..."
"It shouldn't be like this, it shouldn't be like this, and it can't be like this..."
Leonard once said that Balian was a madman, and facts proved that Leonard was right.
Unlike Leonard, who was obsessed with his posthumous reputation, Balian chose a more rugged path.
In this dark, long and almost endless tunnel, Balian trampled his reputation into the mud.
For the sake of Jerusalem, Balian was so heartbroken that he would not hesitate to die!
The next day, when Saladin saw Balian again, he felt a little palpitated. At this moment, Balian looked more like he had been fished out of a pool of blood.
The evil he carried was so strong that ordinary people would not dare to approach him.
"God made him who knew no sin to be sin for us, so that we might become the righteousness of God in him. 】
——"2 Corinthians" 5:21
"I brought sixty thousand dinars, and I will take away ten thousand."
The dark circles under his eyes were thick as if they had been painted on, and Balian's tone was filled with indifference and exhaustion.
Saladin nodded slightly and did not study the accounting issues in detail.
Extorting ransom does not mean much to Saladin. What he needs more is to make a statement to the Islamic world. What he needs is to satisfy the greed of the 25,000 troops behind him.
Compared with the noble Saladin, he actually knew the moral character of his troops.
On October 2, the sky in Jerusalem was shrouded in clouds.
Saladin's army took over the holy city, but he did not let all his troops enter the city.
The first to control the gates of each city were the Mamluks under his command. These military slaves, who had received brutal training since childhood, were Saladin's most trusted troops and the most well-trained among his armies. Ten thousand of the poorest people in the city, including refugees caused by the war, were counted and left the city with their few remaining belongings.
Many of them were in ragged clothes and looked haggard.
And the rich people are also busy packing their belongings.
But excluding the 10,000 poor people who were redeemed by Balian, and excluding the rich and nobles who redeemed themselves, there are still thousands of people in the city who are unable to save themselves.
In this case, Saladin's brother Tugtarkin took the initiative to stand up and asked Saladin for a thousand unredeemed Franks to be his slaves in the name of getting his own reward.
After obtaining Saladin's permission, Tugtarkin announced in public that the slaves would be released to freedom.
For a time, Tugtarkin's fame spread, and those who were saved by him praised the virtues of this pagan emir.
As Saladin's brothers took the lead, other Saladin's generals also followed suit.
Green Wolf Muzaffar released a thousand Jerusalem citizens on the grounds that one thousand people were his fellow citizens.
Balian also used the excuse that he had contributed to the city's initiative, and asked Saladin to act as a partner, and released hundreds of more people.
Because there were so many people following his example, Saladin announced that the elderly, women, and children in the city could be freed.
Nobles from foreign countries do not need to pay ransom.
There are thousands of these people, and a large number of poor people among them have joined Balian's team, while the rich and nobles have formed a separate team, which is vaguely hostile to Balian.
Washed by rose petals and clean water, Saladin and the imams under his command stepped into this filthy city.
The cross on the dome of the King's Palace in Jerusalem was torn down and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher was closed for three days.
Although many religious scholars have suggested destroying churches to end Christian interest in Jerusalem.
However, most of his advisers advised him not to destroy the church, saying that Christian pilgrimages would continue anyway due to the sanctity of the place.
The advisers also reminded him that Caliph Umar had allowed the church to remain in Christian hands after conquering the city.
Saladin ultimately decided not to destroy the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, stating that he had no intention of preventing Christians from making pilgrimages there.
The church reopened three days later under his orders, and Catholic pilgrims would be allowed inside after paying a fee.
Orthodox Christians and Syrians were allowed to stay and worship according to their own wishes. Other faiths or nationalities considered heretics, pagans, and atheists by the Catholic Church were allowed by Saladin to visit the Church of the Holy Sepulcher for free.
Saladin then appointed two Muslim families to manage the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, among which the Judah Algodia family was the "keepers of the keys" and the Nusseib family was the "guardians and gatekeepers of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher".
These two positions have also been passed down to the 21st century. Because they do not belong to any Christian denomination, they often serve as neutral witnesses in various ceremonies throughout history.
……
The renovation of the Karak City Manor has been ongoing.
Just like the chat between Garris and Antoine in the bathroom before, Garris did not give the land ownership to anyone in the true sense.
The production model of the manor system itself is not actually backward in this era.
In terms of land ownership, a typical fief manor will divide the land into three broad categories.
Although all the land in the manor belongs to the manor owner, about one-fifth of the cultivated land will be donated to the church.
One-third of the land is the lord's private land. In addition to farmland, it also includes ponds, rivers, and woodlands... All the output belongs to the lord.
The remaining nearly one-half of the land was leased to freemen and serfs for cultivation.
The intuitive difference between freemen and serfs is that serfs will bear more feudal obligations, while freemen, as the name suggests, can move freely and are not bound by feudal obligations.
In addition to cultivating the small land they rented, serfs had fixed days every week to perform unpaid labor on the private plots of the church and lords.
In this process, some of the freedmen will serve as overseers to urge the serfs to work hard.
Among the free people, there are actually three, six or nine grades. The richest free people can rent large areas of land at extremely low rents.
Some of these freedmen could not even cultivate their own land, and could transfer part of the land to serfs second-hand to earn a certain price difference.
However, free people like this are often required to serve as cavalry in the Kingdom of Jerusalem and are an important backbone of the army.
The second-level free people had the wealth accumulated by their ancestors. In addition to renting land, they also had their own private means of production, such as cattle, horses, livestock, carriages, plows, and iron farm tools.
While they pay land rent and perform infantry service, they are also obliged to contribute their own means of production to help the entire manor with sowing or harvesting, and even with the transportation of food.
As for the second level of freedmen and serf groups.
Apart from their labor force and the house they live in, they often don't even have a hoe.
In this case, if all the land in the manor is really divided, how will the farm tools be divided? How to divide livestock into cattle and horses?
You must know that for the upper class of free people, this kind of land division has great advantages, because they really have oxen and plows.
As for the serfs? If Gehris could divide the land, could he also distribute the private means of production of the Frankish freemen to the Muslim serfs?
If this was done, in the eyes of the Frankish free people, it would be naked robbery and plunder.
After all, the distribution of land is to distribute the land of the manor, but the distribution of livestock is to distribute the private property of the free people.
In this case, the collective economy of the manor system is still necessary to exist, and arable land, harvesting, and fruit tree planting also require a more reasonable distribution of labor.
However, the ownership of these manors, which originally belonged to the individual lords, has become closer to the collective ownership of the village community.
As a result, they were exempted from high land rents and only had to pay lower agricultural taxes. This also allowed farmers at the bottom to improve their farming and production models faster and bring iron farm tools and large livestock into their villages and households faster.
When the means of production of the farmers in the manors in Palestine can reach the state of the Eastern Roman military system at its peak, then the disintegration of the manor system will actually be a matter of course.
Different from the past, because Garris had the full support of Karak City, and Russell's group of paladins had already set out, although Garris went to various manors to preach.
But he is no longer responsible for specific affairs, but only corrects problems that arise during the work process.
Nowadays, the general situation in Transjordan has been established, and Gairis no longer needs to travel to the front lines in person.
Therefore, in mid-September, he returned to the school in Alhadi Town and was busy teaching and writing books.
Apart from ideological construction, compared to the first half of the year, Gehry put more energy into more technical aspects.
Although Garris could not remember the details of most technologies clearly, due to his past life experiences, Garris was actually familiar with many basic technical principles.
There are three majors in Alhadi School, namely theology, medicine, and natural sciences.
In terms of theology and philosophy, Gehrys left a large number of programmatic texts, for which Archos is currently mainly responsible.
In terms of medicine, Dr. Abdullah is in charge, and his assistants and hygienists provided by Gairis teach together. It is the major with the most qualified teachers.
Only in natural science, except for Garris, everyone else essentially knows little about it. They only follow Garris to learn methodology and understand the world in an almost crammed model.
Due to the limitations of the times, Garris still quoted words from the Bible on the cover of his natural science course.
[The heavens declare the glory of God; the firmament proclaims his handiwork. He proclaims knowledge day and night, and sends out words day and night. 】
——"Psalm" 19:1-2
"The LORD establishes the earth with wisdom, and establishes the heavens with understanding. He opens the deeps with knowledge, and causes dew to drop from the sky." 】
——"Proverbs" 3:19-20
In Garris's teaching materials, it is always emphasized that the world created by God is almost perfect.
This perfection has nothing to do with human society, but refers to the near-perfect physical rules of how the objective world operates.
It is so perfect that even humans can rationally understand the connection between heaven and earth and all things.
Those students majoring in natural sciences who took Gehry's class will clearly remember what Gehry did in class until their death.
"Now, I want to demonstrate the framework of the world system."
In an ordinary classroom, Garris brought two relatively light-transmitting glass vessels, two candles, a few mice and some other props.
"God has given food to all things and all life in the world, but this food is not consistent"
He whispered, his eyes scanning every student in the classroom, and finally stopped on Isabella's face.
"But for all animals, oxygen is vital."
Garris lit a candle, carefully placed it under the glass, and then used another candle to seal the gap on the table with precise and calm movements.
Later, the students in the classroom, including Isabella, saw the candle in the glass gradually dim and eventually extinguish.
From this, the students in the classroom realized that in this world created by God, air can be divided into two types, one is used for combustion, and the other is not used for combustion.
Then Garris's experiment was even more horrifying.
He first set up a nailed vertical wooden board on the table, lit a candle on one side of the board, covered it with a larger glass vessel, and threw a mouse into the other side of the board.
There are many students with associative logic skills who have begun to anticipate what is going to happen.
A corner of the world's truth was revealed to mortals like them through the hands of the prophet.
The moment the glassware fell, the entire classroom fell into a long silence, as if time had been frozen.
The mice scurried around in the enclosed space, scratching the wooden boards with their sharp claws, making a squeaking sound.
The students' eyes were fixed on it, some trembled slightly, and some took a step back involuntarily, but none of them looked away.
Even Isabella's breathing became rapid, and she could feel her heart beating violently in her chest.
The mouse was full of energy at first, but as time went by, the mouse's movements gradually became sluggish, as if it was oppressed by some invisible force, and it became increasingly tired.
Finally, the candlelight began to weaken again in the glass vessel, and the faint firelight was like a dying star.
The mouse's steps became heavier and heavier, and the sound of its claws scratching the board became lower and lower. Finally, it fell to the ground, its limbs twitching, struggling desperately, but it was in vain.
As the last candlelight went out, the mouse's body became completely stiff and motionless.
"This is air, a kind that can burn and sustain life, but it can also be consumed in a way that other kinds cannot."
"We understand all things and God through the world, its movement, evolution, non-inevitability, order and beauty."
"We have the ability to know the existence of a personal God who has given us revelations and placed them everywhere in the world, waiting for us to discover them."
When he said this, Garris paused again.
"Indeed, the Bible is the word of God, for it was written by prophets and apostles under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit."
"But humans have limits. Prophets and apostles are still humans. As long as they are humans, their understanding and knowledge of the world will have limitations."
A large chapter of 6,000 words, and additional chapters will be released at 12 midnight.
(End of chapter)