Chapter 1000 With all due respect, everyone sitting here is not religious
Logically speaking, the appearance of a group of horse bandits outside the city would not cause panic in the entire city of Cologne.
The current situation is not trivial. Those horse bandits are clearly Normans on horseback. They are clearly killing people for the sake of killing. These apostles of Satan can still escape God's sanction.
The people in the city can curse them with all kinds of vicious words, but how can they be cursed to death by swearing?
The high priests gathered together to vote, and they finally reached a basic consensus - if the price is acceptable, it is acceptable to pay the price to restore peace to everything.
Therefore, led by temporary acting Archbishop Hildwin, the motion to spend money to buy peace was finally voted through.
All that remains is the question of how much money can be spent on the savages to satisfy their voracious appetites.
"In my opinion, give them fifty pounds of silver and send them away."
"Only fifty pounds? Can those greedy devils be satisfied? Don't anger them for this, which will put us in danger."
"Hey! Why isn't fifty pounds enough? It's already a huge sum of money. You speak for them, what's your position?"
"A hundred pounds. Increase it to a hundred pounds and they should be satisfied."
"What if they are not satisfied yet?!"
"Then give them five hundred pounds."
…
The senior priests still tried hard to control their superficial emotions, but their words became more and more intense.
Finally, someone couldn't bear it anymore and suddenly stood up from his seat and criticized the situation very seriously: "With all due respect, all of you sitting here are ungrateful! You are actually bargaining with the devil! In my opinion, let's stop the discussion and open all our treasury.
Forget about giving up your wealth to them."
These were the words that lifted the table. For a moment, the other senior priests were stunned and stared at Acting Archbishop Hildwin, who looked as if he had been constipated for ten days.
Everyone saw that Hildwin was speechless, and suddenly someone said sarcastically to his colleague who had just lost his temper: "You are noble! You are pious! Why don't you go talk to the barbarians outside the city in person? Maybe you can use righteous words to persuade them.
Those barbarians, persuade them to lay down their weapons and convert to atone for their sins."
As soon as he finished speaking, many senior priests covered their faces and snickered. After all, these words were too absurd. How could it be possible to negotiate with the devil? Even if they negotiate, would the devils accept it?
"Hey! This is a way. Although it is not pious to make a deal with the devil, now we can only do this. Maybe, I can do it. I apologize for the gaffe just now, so I have the confidence to handle this matter personally.
If I did it, you..." The speaker couldn't help but emphasize his tone, "This is a great achievement, will you recommend me as the next official archbishop?"
The entire venue was silent, no one scolded, no one snickered, everyone remained silent.
After being silent for a while, Hildwin said in a low voice: "In this case, Marquez, if you succeed, I will nominate you in the next archbishop election."
"Okay. One hundred pounds of silver coins, this is our bottom line. I will try my best to settle them with one hundred pounds of silver coins."
Risks come with opportunities, and countless junior clergy, local priests, and regional archbishops are eager for promotion.
I am afraid that Archbishop Hadbold, who followed King Ludwig in his crusade against the barbarians, will be promoted to a cardinal and transferred to Rome for his merits. There is also a possibility that he will even be promoted to the pope.
The prelates of Cologne believed that the archbishop's position in their diocese would quickly become vacant, and that all careerists would be suddenly exposed.
Hildwin became the acting bishop on his own, but he was not confident in fixing the mess in front of him, and he did not have great ambitions to succeed as a formal archbishop.
The careerist Marquez makes a brilliant appearance.
If you praise this man in good terms, Marquez is a warrior with the will of a martyr. From an economic point of view, if you spend a little money to deal with the Norman horse bandits, the city will not have to spend a lot of money to recruit guards, which is actually saving money.
Money move.
Therefore, Cologne City is well prepared.
They will implement the plan to recruit three hundred guards based on the results of the meeting. The guards must be strong enough and healthy. The church will issue them an iron sword and a pair of armor, as well as a Frankish-style iron helmet, which makes the guards
Looks like a regular soldier.
The three hundred guards became the Crusaders in the real sense. Unfortunately, they lacked the ability to actively attack and could only be used to guard the city, but their presence would calm the hearts of the people in the city.
On the other hand, the Ross cavalry outside the city was wreaking havoc as before.
The wide Rhine River has not frozen as a whole, but the river channels near the shore have frozen on a large scale.
This year is a complete freeze. When the Rhine River is in a semi-frozen state, the situation in Northern Europe can only get worse.
This is indeed the case. The Gulf of Bothnia and the Gulf of Finland are almost completely frozen, and the ice extends all the way to the Åland Islands, where Tombstone Island is located. Lake Mälaren in the core area of Sweden has entered a completely closed state, and some ruthless people who want to survive in the ice and snow have begun to dig.
Ice fishing…
Even if it is a cold winter this year, the Nordic world, which is not a major food-producing area, is generally not very worried. The Eastern European agricultural areas of the Rus Kingdom are not very worried. Although Lake Ilmen is frozen, it is not unusual for it to be frozen as usual.
If the weather is not good, it is possible to postpone the sowing season to early May, but at that time the planting of spring wheat will have to be put on hold, and the whole people will go all out to plant spring oats with a short growth cycle.
After all, agricultural production is not something Fisk and his gang who are fighting outside need to consider.
They acted as horse bandits for the time being, sweeping up the huge forest outside Cologne. Not only was their life not bad, but because they had looted so much food, they could not take it away, so they simply piled up a batch of food in the camp in the forest. They feasted every day, and even some
Ability to ensure that prisoners do not starve to death.
It was also deliberately done to ensure that the prisoners would not starve to death.
More and more villagers were captured, and the number of innocent villagers currently in Fisk's hands had reached 300. The soldiers selected some pretty women among them, ignored their frantic wails, and forced themselves to have sex with them.
According to the past Viking practice, if you have a relationship with a captured woman, the woman is considered a slave of the warrior, and can later become a wife and concubine, and eventually be absorbed into the tribe as a tribesman.
Today's operation is extremely special. The cavalry will not take any prisoners. All prisoners will be either released or killed. Now they have become bargaining chips that can threaten wealth. Therefore, Fisk allowed his subordinates to do these things, causing the desperate woman to wail and go crazy.
, causing the captured priests to fall into despair.
An occupied village became a huge prisoner of war camp, and the Ross cavalry controlled it and did whatever they wanted.
The year-long war made Fisk even more cruel and ruthless. He finally grew into a ruthless man a hundred times more powerful than his father who died in the war twenty years ago. Since some of the prisoners were dishonest, he deliberately instructed his subordinates to execute the villagers in public.
This shocked all prisoners of war.
Such force deterrence alone was not enough, so he ordered the captured priests to declare something like this: "When Cologne pays the ransom, we will be free!"
Fisk's purpose is to get a large amount of ransom, so that the brothers can bring the loot to the king and divide it 50-50 according to the pirate robbery rules set by the king. The brothers can take advantage of the opportunity to make a fortune, so every prisoner is money!
According to the price of purchasing slaves in the past, an adult male slave could cost nearly one pound of silver coins.
The plan of exchanging one pound of silver coins for one person is theoretically feasible, but when Fiske thinks about Cologne's wealth, why does it make sense not to ask for such an exorbitant price?
Finally, the appointed day.
The five special operations teams that were wreaking havoc in the Cologne area returned one after another. When they returned, they not only brought a lot of food and a small amount of wool, but also fresh meat and even pack horses for pulling stones.
The cavalry met at the edge of the forest outside the north gate of Cologne. They deliberately showed their assembled figures, and then fled into the forest like ghosts.
Everyone is willing to share their looting experiences with the brothers on the home team, and then show off to each other who has more loot.
Unexpectedly, after being ordered to kill without mercy, they returned to Commander Fisk's forest camp, and were shocked to see that the place was full of prisoners.
The eyes of the captives of different ages were dull, and there were sporadic sounds of children crying.
The aroma of boiled wheat filled the air, whetting everyone's appetite.
The captains of each team gathered around Fisk for dinner at night, sharing the cold meat they had obtained with each other.
Someone asked Fisk: "Why capture a large number of prisoners? Our brothers just followed your request, killing the village and setting a fire at the end."
Another person was very sober: "We have captured a large number of prisoners, and we want to exchange money with them, right?"
"Just exchange for money!" Fisk slapped his thigh: "Oh, I didn't think of this until you ran away. But I have four hundred prisoners now, which is enough to ask the Cologne people for a price. I want to ask for twenty pounds for the strong men.
Everyone else weighs ten pounds together, what do you think?"
So, he opened the conversation, and the team leaders started a lively discussion.
Among the captives, the first 100 or so men in their prime will be exchanged for 2,000 pounds of silver coins, while the remaining 300 or so will be exchanged for 3,000 pounds of silver coins.
Fisker planned to ask for five thousand pounds, a staggering amount of wealth.
The young warriors couldn't help but fantasize, and their discussion became more intense. They imagined that if they drove the prisoners to the city to ask for a price, they would definitely be able to walk away with five thousand pounds of silver coins. As for whether each cavalry could share some of the weight and take away all the silver coins, they
After some calculations, I found that it was indeed possible, and I became even more eager.
"Then let's talk to the brothers. We will launch operations tomorrow morning. You should also prepare for battle. Be careful if the Cologne people don't appreciate it and send troops to attack us. If so, we will not only kill the prisoners, but also kill the challengers who come out of the city."
When everyone heard this, they all said "Ula".
At dawn the next day, a melodious sound of horns was heard in the forest.
It seems that the dragon-headed warships from the ice sea have sailed upstream and arrived at the city of Cologne. In fact, the Ross cavalry has begun the final action.
Except for the two men who were guarding the trophies and remaining in the forest camp, Fisk led one hundred and fifty cavalry and drove as many as four hundred prisoners towards the north gate of Cologne.
Now, under the influence of Qian's ability, a new team of three hundred city guards has been formed. They were anointed with holy oil by the priests, and ordinary men instantly gained great spiritual power, but they did not dare to go out of the city to fight.
Among these people are a group of craftsmen and free mercenaries, and the rest are farmers who have taken refuge in the city. Although the commission from the church is not much, the farmers can quickly settle their debts after taking the money, and even have a
A considerable surplus. The priests did not allow everyone to go out to fight in the city. With the protection of the city wall, the money was obtained without any risk.
So for some farmers, this crisis is nothing but pie in the sky for their small families. Barbarians are raging outside the city. As long as they leave, the farmers who serve as guards can buy some farmland that has lost their owners from the church. The crisis
became an opportunity.
But now the city's alarm bells are ringing.
The defenders gathered in large numbers at the north gate of the city, and men with bows stood on high ground.
Acting Archbishop Hildwin and the priests watched the approaching team with vigilance. They subconsciously thought it was a siege army. As it continued to approach, they discovered that apart from the obvious Ross cavalry, the rest were actually a group of incompetent troops.
Helping villagers.
The villagers are easy to identify, especially the village women, who almost always wear black one-piece robes and white headscarves to keep out the cold.
The horses of those cavalry were smaller, and they were holding multiple flags. The white background and diagonal blue stripes were the symbol of the Norman Ross people. They were obviously not ordinary bandits. The cavalry were dressed exactly the same, and some of them even had a
Bright feathers.
To be fair, Hildwin hoped that these cavalrymen were holding cross flags. If Cologne had such a gorgeous army, they would not be harassed by the enemy.
The people in the city watched nervously, and the careerist Marquez was even more nervous.
"It seems they want to negotiate with us?" Hildwin made this judgment after witnessing the cavalry and a large number of captured villagers suddenly arriving within a stone's throw.
"Maybe I went out of town to negotiate." Marquez said, swallowing hard.
"Okay! Friends, I hope everything goes well."
Marquez nodded: "I will bring a hundred pounds of silver coins and a few brave defenders. I will create a miracle."
"God is with you." In this way, Hildwin and the high priests watched Marquez walk down the city wall like a martyr.
After a moment, the Norman cavalry under the city suddenly spoke!
I saw a tall and strong man in the lead dismounting his horse, taking off his hat and revealing his bald head.
Fisk also wore wooden-framed sunglasses this time to protect his eyes from the sun in summer and snow in winter. The cavalrymen each had a pair of sunglasses, making their appearance always look weird.
He took off his sunglasses to reveal his full face, and then shouted in Latin with a loud voice: "Let's negotiate! Give me the money! We will release the prisoners and leave!"
He roared several times in succession. Although the shouts were all in Latin, the priests were shocked. They instantly changed their minds and became overjoyed.
Since the barbarians also plan to leave after asking for a sum of money, they have mutual needs and negotiations can proceed.
Fisk was very happy that the people of Cologne seemed to understand his cry, the closed wooden door was opened, and the iron fence reinforcing the door was raised by the mechanism.
After that, several rat-like guys who came out quickly ran to the gate of the city gate, released the suspension bridge, and the planks fell heavily on the dry trench.
Fisk raised his hand to signal the brothers who were following him not to act rashly, not to rush into the city on horseback, and to beware of ambushes.
After a moment, as expected, a priest personally carried the cross and walked out under the escort of some sword-bearing men.
"It seems that he is their negotiator. Brothers, please don't act rashly. Everything is up to me."
The Russian cavalry were on alert, with their arrows on the handles of their bows to prevent their opponents from suddenly coming out of the city to cause chaos.
For the negotiator Marquez, his previous ambitions suddenly withered after he actually witnessed the Ross cavalry that had been raging for months. The other party could speak Latin, which was an unimaginable miracle. Perhaps, they could be converted.
But the moment the two parties met, the situation was very awkward.
Marquez looked at the giant in front of him and subconsciously realized the large number of giants riding behind him.
Take a closer look at the Norman cavalry general in front of you! He is wearing a white plush leather jacket, which is fastened with buttons, and there are two staggered blue cloth strips on the chest. It is obvious that there is a layer of chain mail under the leather jacket.
.
The general has a very good belt, and the sword looks like a strange thin sword (compared to the Frankish sword, the Ross steel sword is much narrower), and the hilt is inlaid with gems. In other words, this general has a lot of gem jewelry.
(It's actually a piece of cheap colored glass), it clearly doesn't look like it was snatched from various monasteries.
Does such a noble warrior actually regard killing farmers and burning villages as an honorable act and part of war? Marquez deeply despised this. Even if the so-called dirty people put on gorgeous clothes, they still can't hide the essence of dung maggots.
"Have you seen enough?" Fisk asked suddenly.
"Ah! Yes. This warrior, we are willing to make a deal with you."
"Of course." Fisk was overjoyed, "You are very sensible. When you saw us coming, you knew that we wanted to make a deal first. You see, I have four hundred prisoners in my hands, including some priests. You... know our
Means. Don’t talk nonsense. Let’s talk about your conditions first.”
Hearing this, Marquez took a breath. He had never expected that the Normans had actually captured four hundred people! Looking at it now, there were indeed faces everywhere eager to be redeemed. The prisoners' eyes were trembling and impatient.