In the fifth year of the New Emperor's reign, in the Bosphorus, a series of sails rose on the western shore of the strait, pressing on the sea level like clouds.

They are warriors from Italy!

The terrible sound of trumpets resounded on both sides of the strait, both in the castles of Constantinople in the west and in the eastern armies on the east coast. God's warriors rushed to the city, armed with shields and swords, carrying crossbows, all of them looking panicked, as if they were seeing the end of the empire. To the north and west of Constantinople, large areas of military barracks were grounded.

China's Emperor Taishang personally conquered Europe. Lu Qian did not start from the Bosphorus. Instead, he led 50,000 iron horsemen wearing plate armor, and led an army of more than 100,000 vassals recruited from one vassal state after another from one vassal state after another, feudal states, and vassal states, and went straight south from the western shore of the Black Sea.

Galicia, Hungary, Bulgaria and Serbia were all vulnerable in front of the front of Lu Qian's army.

When the emperor was over seventy years old, but he was a majestic and domineering emperor, he personally stepped on a war horse, put on armor, and inspected the army, the sun could not describe the scorching heat in the hearts of more than 100,000 soldiers at that moment.

In the entire Lu Qi Empire centered on the Central Plains, Lu Qian is a living god.

For these young soldiers, in front of the vested interests of the Lu Qi Empire, when a god walks in front of them, will they still be afraid of the enemy?

Like a hot knife plunged into butter, the army swept all the way to Constantinople without encountering the slightest resistance. More than 100,000 iron horsemen formed a mighty torrent, crushing all the obstacles that stood in front of them.

However, the Byzantine emperor still resisted with all his might, and although John II was gone, his son Manuel I never gave up his country. What's more, the whole monotheistic world did not want to see the Byzantines fall.

At this time, they really felt that Byzantium was really a good shield!

If you want to protect the essence area of the world of one god, you really need a good shield to shelter yourself from the wind and rain in the east.

Because everyone knows that when the Chinese make a comeback, the Eastern Roman Empire, a country that has existed for thousands of years, will inevitably suffer a test that is far more severe than the last one.

John II steered the empire through the last crisis, but will the new emperor Manuel I be able to steer the old ship through the storm in front of him again?

As the oldest country in the European world, Byzantium has always occupied a very important position in it. He has gone through one dynasty after another, the early Theodosius, Leo, Justinian, Heraclius, and later Isurian, Phrygian, Amorian, etc., and now the Komnonian dynasty, one dynasty after another, giving the Byzantine Empire a big illusion - this empire will last forever until the end of the world!

But this delusion has finally been proven wrong today. The end of the Eastern Roman Empire is coming!

The Italian fleet gathered on the west bank of the strait could not save its fate, compared to the army of Lu Qi that raised troops on the east bank of the strait, the army led by Lu Qian himself in the north and west of Constantinople was more threatening.

What's more, the Yiduli people have to face the Chinese sailors who have formed and grown in the Black Sea in the north over the years. The latter were all gunboats, and the only reason why the Italians could strengthen their confidence was that Lu Qi's Black Sea Division warships were too few.

Constantinople is located on a headland on the west coast of the Bosphorus, the whole city is triangular, the north is the Golden Horn (also known as Halich Bay), the south is the Sea of Marmara, the coastal areas are fortified, the entrance to the Golden Horn is blocked by iron chains, this is to prevent the enemy's surface forces from easily sailing into the Golden Horn, the city to the danger of being attacked on many sides. To the west of the castle is the land, the only land route in the city, with two layers of walls. Outside the city was a trench 100 feet deep.

Lu Qian obviously couldn't ignore the Golden Horn, which was two or three hundred zhang wide and narrow, and directly launched an offensive in the north of the city. It had to go around the city to the south and besiege Constantinople from the west.

Heavy artillery was transported here through the Black Sea, and the army marched south along the western shore of the Black Sea, where artillery was not used. However, to conquer Constantinople, a fortress fortified by John II and Manuel I several times in recent years, it was impossible to conquer Constantinople without artillery.

This is a stone city, a city that can be called the pinnacle of defense in the Cold Weapon Age. Never before has the city fallen before a military assault. Even in the era of the complete decline of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople was besieged continuously, but the enemy still did not break through its walls once (the despicable rebellion of the Crusaders in 1204 is another matter).

Throughout its millennia of history, the city has repeatedly repelled outsiders, and its strong defenses and strategic location make it easy to defend and difficult to attack.

In the last Battle of Constantinople, the Turks, who had the upper hand, maintained the artillery bombardment for 47 days, consuming a total of 55,000 pounds of gunpowder and firing about 5,000 heavy shells. Now the strength of the city of Constantinople is far better than when it fell in history, there is no heavy artillery, only relying on cold weapons to attack, not to mention that Lu Qian is under 150,000 cavalry, that is, 150,000 heavy infantry, it is difficult to be satisfied.

But even so, it's really hard to take down the city in front of you.

Lu Qian looked at the head of the city of Constantinople, and the bright red clouds like burning clouds enveloped the entire city. The morale of the Europeans is quite high!

Bomb, bomb, bomb!

For Constantinople, Lu Qian could only bombard with artillery. Crack a gap first, and then engage in close combat?

As long as he could break through the thick city defenses of Constantinople, Lu Qian was not afraid of close combat. With the armament of the Europeans at this time, how could they beat plate armor + muskets?

Even if the Sea of Marmara was still in the hands of the Europeans, and a large number of material and military supplies could be sent to Constantinople by sea, there was a limit to everything, right?

It is reported that there were no less than 50,000 soldiers in the city of Constantinople, but could the Europeans bring another 50,000? You must know that Hungary is in his hands, and if Central Europe and Western Europe send a large number of military horses, he will immediately divide his troops all the way, pass through Hungary and enter Slovenia, and then be one step away from Northern Italy......

The iron cavalry under his command is used to attack the city, of course, there are some shortcomings, but it is only a vertical and horizontal advance, and it is really difficult to contain the current ability of the Europeans!

Even, if you let go of the reins that limit their 'mobility', you can see if the cavalry will attack the city? Are the Mongol methods rare? They are all the methods left by the 'predecessors', but they have been organically integrated and carried forward......

On the sea, the Italian fleet sailed like clouds. With the Venetian fleet as the main force and the combined fleet of Genoa and other city-states and principalities, this is the most powerful fleet in European military history. But at this time, the Italians on the fleet were nervous, and their eyes were looking intently to the north, to the Black Sea, which was connected to the other side of the Bosphorus.

The Black Sea, a new shipbuilding center spawned by the Chinese in recent years. A large number of shipwrights and technicians brought in from the East to the Black Sea, and a large number of high-quality timber, such as oak, fir, pine, cypress, etc., drifted down from the middle reaches of the Don River. For the Don River basin, which is still in its infancy, large areas of forest can be seen everywhere.

But as mentioned before, it takes time for the wood to dry before you can start building a warship. After that, it was launched with sailors to test the voyage, experimental artillery, etc., and it was not until the end of last year that the Black Sea Division was officially formed.

It's just that they are based in the Sea of Azov, where the environment is safer.

Now, the ships of the Black Sea Division have also accompanied the army south, and they are now at the northern mouth of the strait. It faces off across the Bosphorus Strait with the most powerful naval force ever seen in Europe.

A mountain of heavy pressure overwhelmed all the European sailors at the southern end of the channel.

No one wants to use flesh and blood to compete with the enemy's artillery, and in recent years, Europeans have been working firearms. Relying on the accumulation of the Seljuks and their hard work, a batch of cannons was really built. There is a gun carriage base, a gun lug, a quasi-letter, and even a cannon watch that I want to draw a scoop based on the gourd!

However, their technology is simply not able to achieve the same indicators of all types of artillery, and the so-called gun table is very inaccurate.

And they also have a very troublesome problem, no, it should be said that a series of troublesome things. The first is the speed of making cannons, and a series of shortcomings of clay mold cannons are all under their eyes, first of all, the speed is slow, and the clay mold itself has a high rejection rate in the drying process, and it is still a disposable. Second, there are many eyeholes inside the clay mold cannon, which has a significant impact on the safety and performance of the artillery. Third, the scrap rate of clay mold casting cannons is high, and many guns seem to be intact, and they explode as soon as they are released! This has also caused a sharp increase in the unit cost of artillery from the side.

There are various reasons for horizontal and vertical, Lu Qi has pulled up the Black Sea Division, but the Europeans are far from realizing the popularization of artillery. That is, the importance of Constantinople, and the fact that both John II and Manuel I spent huge financial and material resources on the manufacture of firearms, so that Constantinople had nearly fifty guns of various calibers and sizes.

That's not a small number, but compared to a huge city, how can fifty guns be too much?

It's just that these fifty artillery pieces have nothing to do with the Italian naval army. All the cannons were placed at the head of the city by the Byzantines, and whether there were artillery on the row-row galleons that crossed the Mediterranean Sea depended on the attitude of the Byzantines themselves.

In fact, most of the rowboats did not have artillery!

Is it because Venice doesn't have enough money? Jokes. In the twelfth century, the Republic of Venice was already the richest power in Europe, and in terms of financial revenue, the dignified French and HRE emperors could not necessarily surpass Venice.

- This refers only to the annual income of the regime headed by the King of France and the Emperor of the Holy Empire, not to the whole of France and the Holy Empire. There is a clear distinction between the two.

Strong money means strong mercenaries, plus their own invincible naval forces in the Mediterranean. The Venetians are no ordinary awesome in Europe in this era!

If artillery were a 'commodity' that could be bought with money alone, even if it was a luxury, the Venetian navy would have had hundreds of cannons long ago. But alas, in Europe, artillery is a treasure that you can't even sell with money.

The Venetian navy was a military force with a broad vision, a wide range of knowledge, and a fairly high level of culture, because this naval fleet was filled with a large number of Venetian merchant ships. Even if the real boss is not there, why don't the sailors who run around understand the power of artillery?

Among other things, the sailors who have been stationed on the islands of Cyprus and Crete for several years are well aware of the power of artillery.

Well, it's true that there is a truce on both sides. But this is an agreement made by the bilateral regime, so it can't restrain pirates, right? As for why those pirates are exactly the same as the Italian navy except for a tattered banner, it is not clear, is it?