From the middle of September last year to the present, it has been a full four months, and the local princes of the Rus' people have naturally organized their own defense lines, and there is no rush in time. However, in the ice and snow, you can't fortify the city, and you can't build a castle, so all you can do is raise troops and build armor and weapons.

Or in the wind and snow, digging one or several deep trenches in the ground that is harder than pig iron in winter.

Although there is a long buffer time, it may not really allow the Ross to be fully prepared.

When they faced the mighty Qi army, there was a huge and incomparable pressure on their minds alone.

The Tianzhu people, the Kpchaks, and the terrible Seljuks, one after another, have fallen at the feet of Lu Qi's army. Can the Rus, whose own people cannot unite, really repel the attack of the Chinese?

You know, there are still a large number of wooden castles in the Rus' region at this time.

It was only after the Rus' acceptance of Orthodoxy at the end of the 10th century that stone architecture began to appear in the Byzantine-influenced principalities of Rus', but the area was made up for by the boreal forests, and wooden architecture was still developing rapidly. Many cities are walled with wood, except for the central fortress in the interior, which is made of stone, and the houses in the city are like today's children's Lego bricks: all the houses seem to be made of wood. There are still solid mud and stones inside the wooden city walls, and if you face the attacker with completely cold weapons, you can naturally play a good defensive effect, but it is not enough to face the Lu Qi army with firearms.

Therefore, the grand dukes and dukes of Rus are very concerned about one point - whether the Chinese bring cannons or not.

It would have been much better if it had been like the army that had crushed the Bolgars before. Although their trebuchets are also very powerful, they are far from the legendary artillery that can destroy a city wall with a few shots.

Then the war began, and the combat effectiveness of the Lu Qi army was not under pressure to beat the Rus, but to the relief of the entire Rus' princes, although the Chinese carried some medicinal powder weapons, it was obvious that they did not carry artillery on a large scale.

But the Lu Qi army is still not an opponent even if it doesn't have artillery. The gap between the two armies that is visible to the naked eye cannot be bridged by a single city defense!

At this point, the Ross people are like a little girl who is bullied, no matter how resentful and fearful, they are also helpless. The upper and lower strata of the several principalities patronized by Lu Qijun were full of fear and trepidation in their hearts.

"The Chinese are an invincible group of demons!" Gleb Svyatoslavich slapped the table and yelled, "We must be rescued by reinforcements." Otherwise, we will never be able to defeat those demons by our own strength. ”

Gleb Svyatoslavich was the Duke of Pereyaslaval, a man who did not do much with Vsevolod II Oligovich. On more than one occasion, Vsevolod II had sent letters to him in the hope of forming an alliance. But Gleb rejected his offer.

Now, however, Gleb Svyatoslavich had to flee to the Grand Duke of Kiev to settle down, because his Pereyaslaval was completely shrouded in the evil of the Chinese.

"In the war in Pereyaslaval, Gleb lost at least five thousand people, and counting the local militia, Pereyaslaval's losses were more than six thousand." Andrei Vladimirovich, Duke of North Novgorod, said bitterly: "In my territory, the losses of North Novgorod will only be greater, but I don't know if I have killed or wounded 500 people in the battle with such a great sacrifice." ”

"The Chinese are too strong!"

"I'm finally convinced by Tyre Eyler's words now. Before the Chinese arrived, his chief Tuerhan was terrified and did not know all day, and finally made the decision to flee westward, only to be caught up by the Chinese's light cavalry in the middle of the road, and easily lost his head. ”

"There is no doubt that Thurhan is very powerful, they are the masters of the land northeast of the Sea of Azov." Andrei Vladimirovich said, "I have sent warriors to their land several times to spread the glory of the Lord, and although the Kpchaks have voluntarily attached themselves to God, they are not religious. However, the army of Northern Novgorod was met by the steppe cavalry of Turkhan, and I did not take advantage of it, and suffered a painful defeat. ”

To assess how strong a certain force is, the most reliable thing is to have the experience of fighting that force, so that you can make a more accurate assessment. Otherwise, just looking at how much territory that force has, how much population it has, how much wealth it has, and so on, it is really not so reliable to evaluate.

Byzantium and Egyptian Famati are two very realistic examples. The previous Zhao Song is also an example of a red fruit. The difference is that Zhao Song is finished, while Byzantium has struggled out of the mud, and Famati is still in the mud.

The fault is not that the Seljuks have not yet settled, Lu Qian has already asked someone to bring a group of soldiers and horses straight into the depths of the Red Sea.

Hengzhi is an indispensable place for Lu Qi in the future.

The Famati dynasty is already rotten at home, and even the Kingdom of Jerusalem can't do it, and if you don't take the opportunity to make a profit, it will be a blood loss.

Vsevolod II Oligovich didn't say a word, he wanted reinforcements, and his face was really big. He had long understood how good the Poles were, and as for the Hungarians, their former king, Béla II, was an enemy of Vsevolod II Oligovich.

As early as the last years of Yaropolk II Vladimirovich, Vsevolod II Oligovich challenged him, and as a result, the former summoned his ally Béla II, and 30,000 Hungarian troops left Vsevolod in vain. It was only after the death of Yaropolk II that Vsevolod really occupied the Grand Duchy of Kiev.

From the very beginning, Vsevolod II did not treat the Hungarians as Austrian reinforcements that could be borrowed. Polish talent was his main target, but Bolesław, the "curly-haired" man in northeastern Poland, was an overly greedy man.

He actually wanted to devour the Duchy of Warren.

What else could Vsevolod II do?

If this word can be spread, the Grand Duke of Volyn, Izyaslav Mstislavich, is afraid that he will immediately raise the flag and surrender to the Chinese.

In the city of Kiev, the princes of Rus' sat around a long table, and Vsevolod II could not have gathered them together at the beginning, but now, they were beaten miserably by the Lu Qi army, and they had to sit together with their heads covered with bags and blood.

With the exception of the northernmost Republic of Novgorod and the Vladimir Principality, all the Rus' princes are now all in one place.

The harsh reality forced them to do so.

Pereyaslaval, SeveroNovgorod, Kursk, Chernikov, and Ryazan were ruthlessly ravaged by the Lu Qi army, and the remnants of their defeated generals fled to the Grand Duchy of Kiev. Except for the unlucky Grand Duke of Ryazan, who was brutally beheaded, the other four Grand Dukes all escaped smoothly and broke out of a bloody road with the desperate fighting of his knights and guards cavalry.

This is the defect of the cavalry siege, which is not as reliable as the infantry siege.

"What a bunch of pathetic fools. They don't understand why the Chinese stop at the edge of the Grand Duchy of Kiev, sit back and watch the remnants of the defeated army gather here, and sit back and watch the reinforcements from Pinsk, Polotsk and Smolensk arrive in Kiev, what are the Chinese going to do? Is it to give Ross as much time as possible to prepare for war? ”

"Nope. They were just trying to defeat us more conveniently, slaughtering our soldiers and inflicting heavy losses on the military power of Rus'. Vsevolod II said with a sneer.

"Your Highness, it is said that the number of Chinese troops in the three routes is around 10,000. And Kyiv has now gathered 50,000 people......"

"Fifty thousand rabble, isn't it?" What kind of army is in the city of Kyiv, will he still not know? "The Seljuks had more troops, and the Sultan had far more soldiers than the Chinese army. But the result? ”

"Pray quietly to the Lord. May God appear and save our lives and Ross. Vsevolod II said to one of his henchmen.