One of the kingdoms of the Two Sicilies on either side of the lighthouse, Ferdinand II of Naples, died.

When the news spread, many people didn't really realize the far-reaching impact of the incident.

Ferdinand went from hasty succession to abandonment and exile, to his easy return to Naples, and then to the final summoning of the Lord to heaven, just over a year later.

Such a short reign did not give him any opportunity to display his talents, except for the Neapolitans, in the eyes of most other city-states, Ferdinand was completely like a passer-by who did not make any impression on anyone, and some people further away did not even know that Naples had changed kings.

But in spite of this, the Neapolitans were still grieving for the loss of their king, and the people who heard the news flocked to the city from all directions, everywhere it was heavy black, and everyone had a sad and sad expression on their faces, especially when they thought of the high spirits of the king when he returned to Naples not long ago to regain the lost territory occupied by the French, and many of them wept bitterly and burst into tears.

The nobles felt the crisis they were facing because of Ferdinand's death, and they began to wonder whether Frederick could successfully take over the throne, with the food sent by Alexander to relieve the famine in Naples, and Modiglo's inexplicable ambiguous attitude.

Massimo, who was supposed to return to Agri on Modillo's orders, was also affected, and as Alexander's representative in Naples, he had to stay.

After sending another messenger to deliver the news to Alexander, Massimo was summoned by the House of Nobles.

For this sudden summons, Mahimo was so excited that he couldn't even remember how he walked in and how he came out.

The only thing he remembered was what seemed to be a generous speech to a group of Neapolitan nobles, and he didn't remember anything afterwards.

Massimo still has a lot of friends in Naples.

So he decided to make a trip back to the Lookout Tavern, only this time he didn't have to sneak around.

When Massimo appeared at the door of the tavern, the tavernkeeper rushed up to pick him up and spun him in the air at the first sight of him, and in a frenzied shouting and cheering around him, Massimo was dragged into the "lookout post" by the tavernkeeper.

Now Massimo has become a hero, or at least a big man who follows the hero.

Although the king's death diluted much of the joy, that sadness was soon diluted by the arrival of the naturally optimistic Mahimo.

Everyone was eager to know what Massimo had experienced during this time, and some of the people who had seen Alexander before couldn't stop bragging to the people next to them that they had drunk with the lord and bragged.

The tavernkeeper's sister squeezed through the crowd to pour Massimo a drink, which caused another burst of laughter.

After taking a large sip of the ale that was as light as clear water, Massimo stood up and raised his glass and said in a loud voice: "May God bless my master, merciful Lord Gombray!" ”

"God forbid!" The crowd chanted along, and louder than Mashimo.

They worked so hard not only because the Lord Gombray had brought them wheat to solve the famine, but also because Massimo had thrown it on the table and paid for the wine for everyone in the tavern.

Massimo became rich, Brother Massimo became a big man, Father Massimo even talked and laughed with the Duke and Count Modillo, one more mysterious news made people no longer dare to use names like Massimo the liar or Toad Massimo, people's eyes flashed with awe, and some people even tried to get closer so that they could find an opportunity to say a few words to this big man.

Assemo's life seemed to be complete at this moment, he looked around triumphantly, and then took out a few florins from his robes in high spirits, and threw them on the table under the reverent gaze of people's eyes shining almost in adoration: "These are the wine money and interest I owe before, and the excess will be stored on the counter, and I will come to drink often in the future." ”

As he said this, Massimo winked at the tavernkeeper's sister.

Because this action was so obvious, there was a burst of teasing boos in the tavern.

Then Massimo stood up and packed up his monastic robes and walked out of the "lookout post" surrounded by people.

But as he reached the door, he stopped and turned to the tavern keeper who was following him, and said earnestly, "I'm talking about the real Baal, and I'll be here often in the future." ”

With that, he walked down the steep staircase under the somewhat puzzled gaze of the tavernkeeper, and slowly disappeared into the corner of the diagonal street.

It's just that no one knows, when no one else can see it when he turns the street, the shoulders of the originally high-spirited Massimo collapse, he turns over the pocket of his robe and looks at the empty pocket and sighs for a while.

The money had been given to him by Alexander before he left Agri, and he was so happy that he almost thought of him as a saint, but the words he heard next shattered all his dreams.

Alexander told him that the money had to be spent all at once, and that even if he had to continue to cheat at the end, he had to spend it all.

Massimo really didn't know what Alexander was going to do, but he knew that his master's orders could not be disobeyed.

At least after seeing how he dealt with the bohemians, Massimo no longer dared to associate him with words like cowardice and weakness.

Alexander was undoubtedly generous to the Bohists, and having given them their due, Alexander again made a suggestion to them that he could not refuse: he would hire the Bohemians as long-term mercenaries, and unless the King of Bohemia recalled them, the Bohemian cavalry would remain in Agri, and their reward was not gold, but a cut of the grain tax on a small part of the fields of the Agri Plain.

For most mercenaries, fighting for their employers and then receiving gold or loot is always the most straightforward method, and only the most elite mercenaries with sufficient background power are eligible to choose whether to pay money or tax from their territory.

A long time ago, only the Sforza family of Milan could do this, and when the Sforza family finally seized the rule of Milan, no lord dared to try this method of easily asking for trouble and luring the wolf into the house.

Alexander didn't seem to care about this, and his suggestion to the Bohemians made the mercenaries nod their heads before they even had time to think about it.

But what Alexander did next was a bit unexpected.

He first divided the Bohemians into squads, then took out a map that he had made out of nowhere, drew circles on it, and then declared that the food taxes in those places belonged to the different squads.

The Bohemians were astonished, they did not know what the division was, and didn't everyone get that share of the grain tax?

Alexander's answer to the Bohèmes' doubts was simple: "Usually this land tax belongs to your squad, and then I will depend on your bravery and duty in battle, and if anyone does more than he is duty, I will reward him, and the reward will be drawn from other people who are not dutiful." ”

The bohemians immediately showed their displeasure, they felt that each of them was the bravest, and that no one wanted to admit that they were cowards.

"Then let me see how brave and loyal you are." This is how Alexander responded to the Bohemian question.

A confrontation began.

Assemo would not forget what happened next, and he wondered how Alexander had come up with so many strange solutions.

He told the peasants on both sides of the Agri to put down their farming tools and pick up their bows and arrows and pitchforks, but he did not want to organize these mud-legged men who had not yet seen the shadow of the cavalry, but turned and fled when they heard the sound of horses' hooves to confront the Bohemians, but let them go into the jungle, hide in the wheat fields, or hide in the forks of the ditches, and the only task of the farmers was to harass, to harass, and even to shout a few times in the distance, so that the Bohemians who were eating had to put down their food and jump on horseback and wander around. And so that the bohemians can't stop.

And when the Bohemians finally really faced the enemy, they were faced with the knights left behind by Odonie.

When Ordone left Cosenza, he didn't take many people with him, and there were still many people who remained in the castle, but first Kaiser's distrust of them, then Josa's purge of dissidents in the territory that he had not had time to deal with, and when they realized that the Countess was no more merciful than her brother, these people were faced with two choices given by Kosenza: either leave Kosenza's territory or go to the plains of Agri to guard the Kosenza family's reserves.

Most of these people end up opting for the latter.

A contingent of less than a hundred men gathered from all over Kosenza came to the plain of Agri, and what awaited these restless exiles was Alexander on the same unceremonious terms: to fight for me in exchange for payment.

There were no fiefs, no taxes, these were deprived of all rights, and the exiles with only one knightly title were faced with new options.

In the end, except for a small number of people who chose to leave, the others remained in Agri.

But those who remained were soon told that they were going to use a confrontation with the Bohemians to determine how much they would be paid.

When they took up arms again, they were confident, believing that they were no worse than the bohemians, but soon they realized that this idea was a little too optimistic.

Despite the constant harassment of the peasants, the Bohemians were able to teach the old soldiers from Cosenza a perfect lesson.

As a Bohemian cavalryman proudly waved the flag he had taken from the first detachment of Kosencha infantry, consisting of more than twenty men, he heard a heavy muffled thud!

When the bohemian turned back, he saw a large white mass rushing towards him, and then he felt some pain in his face as if he had been punched, and then he heard the laughter of his companions behind him.

When the second Corsenza Guard appeared, the Bohemians saw something strange.

A group of guards, though slightly disheveled, were well organized in formation, with those in the front row holding spears made of twigs, while those later in the back were holding hard arrows, and a few of them vaguely looked like muskets.

The Bohemians hesitated, they did not know what the guards were going to do, and the brave but not reckless Bohemians chose to be cautious at this time.

They began to run rapidly around this strange formation, and as their horses drew closer to the enemy, the guards panicked at first, and then stabilized at the sound of muskets or two.

This was because they found that while muskets might not actually hit the "enemy", the Bohemians were still cautious of the might of this strange weapon of the age.

However, the Bohemians were victorious, finding a flaw in the ranks in their tireless movements, and then overwhelming the guards with a single menacing charge.

The victory made the Bohemians laugh triumphantly, but they didn't know that Alexander, who was watching it all from afar, was also smiling.

The Bohemians still got the grain tax they were expecting, but as Alexander said, they realized that not everyone was so brave.

This is not to say that there are cowards among them, but in the face of inexplicable enemies, it is true that some bohemians do not know what to do.

"Those who fight bravely and win deserve more rewards than those who lose," Alexander told them, "so you will be divided into different squads, and whether or not you can earn enough money and spoils for yourself is entirely up to yourselves and no one else." ”

Bohemians have become accustomed to fighting together and sharing pay, and now they are arranged in this way, which is unacceptable to many people, but they can't think of a reason to accept it.

And for the bohemians who might be captains, such a decision has a completely different meaning.

The same reward for the same battles, and the same reward for the same battles, made these bohemians eager to try.

Eventually, Alexander's proposal was agreed to by the Bohemians, and when one of the most prestigious of them pressed his handprint on the contract, perhaps in the autumn afternoon sun, Massimo, who was standing behind Alexander, suddenly felt inexplicably dizzy as he looked at his master in front of him.

And what made Mahimo really dizzy was the next thing that happened.

Not all bohemians were in favor of such a somewhat cruel contract, so when the complaints coalesced, several of them staged a mutiny.

It was an unsuccessful mutiny, and while the drunken Bohemians were shaking and shouting with their sabers, Alexander suddenly gave the order to kill!

Except for two lucky guys, these people were instantly stabbed into a honeycomb by the guards who had been prepared for a long time.

Then Alexander announced the trial of the two surviving people, there was no forgiveness and pardon, and the mercenaries who rebelled against the order have always had only one end: they were hanged alive!

All the Bohemians saw the execution, and after Massimo prayed, the two mutinous soldiers were roped, and with a shout, the wooden pier kicked down, and the bodies of the two men began to shake and twitch in the air until they finally fell silent.

"I have given you wealth and honor, and you have reciprocated my loyalty, and by following me you will get what you never thought possible, and disobedience will be punished with the severest punishment."

This is what Alexander said to the Bohemians while standing on the execution ground.

He stood there unwaveringly confronting the bohemians, and finally, in the silence, the commotion, and the tension that drove Massimo almost insane, the bohemians, led by several captains, bowed their heads to Alexander.

The bohemians were touched by the rich reward, and the same cold punishment showed them the young lord's uncompromising nature.

"What an incomprehensible master."

Assemo pondered as he walked through his empty pocket.

Many of the things Alexander did were incomprehensible to him, at least he did not understand why Alexander wanted him to spend all the florins sent by the Countess of Cosenza, and that he must spend them on places like "lookouts".

But the monk really liked this errand.

Massimo and his convoy were placed in a building not far from the palace, which was originally the residence of a Neapolitan nobleman, but had become a parish school in Naples after his family's extinction many years earlier.

Now that the school had been vacated, the Bohemians unceremoniously put the expensive furniture, tables, and chairs from their rooms in the courtyard, and then set up a fire and roasted the jerky.

As Massimo walked into the courtyard, he was greeted by a burst of aroma, and to his surprise, he saw several brightly dressed women among the Bohemians, and from their mannerisms, Massimo quickly knew that these women were not of proper origin.

The Bohemians' profligate behavior caused some displeasure among the monks, but before he could drive the women away, he was told that a messenger had been waiting for him inside.

The messenger was a quick-witted-looking valet, which reminded Massimo of Ulliu.

When he learned that the Moorish had become Alexander's butler, the monk was upset and even felt that he had been ignored.

But now that Massimo no longer cared about the Moors, watching the manservant respectfully deliver a letter from a nobleman, the monk's heart was indescribably comfortable.

In fact, Massimo had received several such letters, and although no great nobles had invited him so far, it was enough to satisfy the monks.

Massimo knew very well what this time meant to the Neapolitans, and to be able to invite him as a guest at this time, which shows how much the Neapolitan nobility valued him, or rather Agri's Gombray.

In fact, as more and more people gathered in the city of Naples, all kinds of rumors and news became endless.

From the sudden outbreak of famine to the death of Ferdinand, from Frederick's dictatorship to Modiglo's stigma, people seemed to spin in a whirlpool of rumours one after another.

Ferdinand's death also attracted the attention of other city-states.

After all, the excuse of the French invasion was the claim to the throne of Naples, and the fact that Ferdinand had no heirs made many city-states feel excited when they heard the news, and at the same time, they couldn't help but secretly worry about whether this would be a new excuse for King Charles VI of France.

All sorts of speculation and rumors have piled up, and in the midst of all these rumors, there is one name that keeps being mentioned - Alexandre Giulian Cambrai!

Alexander was summoned by the king,

Alexander once denounced the Florentine emissary,

Alexander had a duel for the son of Alfred, Countess of Cosenza,

Alexander accepted the request of the Count of Mordillo to bring food to Naples!

All these rumors spread among the populace, among the aristocracy, and in the streets of Naples.

Especially when some people said that they had seen Alexander's messenger, an originally poor monk, generously throw out a bunch of florins to pay for the wine of his poor friends, the kindness of the young man from Sicily had reached an irrepressible level.

It was in this strange atmosphere, in which everyone was immersed in the death of the king, but was disturbed by strange rumors, that Alexander entered the city of the most talked about for a time, with his Bohemian cavalry, Ulliu, and more food.

The day was September 15, 1496, an ordinary day.