Changfeng Thousands of Miles End Han Song

Chapter 1045 Postscript 1
In the fifth year of the new Emperor Taihe, a series of sails rose on the west bank of the Bosporus Strait, pressing down on the sea level like clouds.

They are warriors from Italy!
The shrill trumpets resounded on both sides of the strait, whether it was the castle of Constantinople in the west, or the eastern army that drove out of the camp on the east bank.God's warriors were running around the city, holding shields, swords and crossbows, all of them panicked, as if they were seeing the end of the empire.And in the north and west of Constantinople, large tracts of military camps are grounded to the sky.

The Supreme Emperor of China conquered Europe himself.However, Lu Qian did not start from the Bosporus Strait.Instead, he led [-] imperial cavalry in plate armor and hundreds of thousands of vassal troops recruited from each vassal state, feudal state, and vassal state, and headed straight south from the west bank of the Black Sea.

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

When the over [-]s year passed, but the majestic and domineering Taishang Huang personally stepped on the horse, put on armor, and inspected the army, the sun could not describe the heat in the hearts of more than [-] 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 piercing into butter, the army swept all the way to Constantinople without encountering any resistance.More than [-] cavalry formed a mighty torrent, crushing all obstacles in front of them.

However, the emperor of Byzantium was still doing his best to resist. Although John II had passed away, his son Manuel I never gave up his country.What's more, the entire monotheistic world is unwilling to see the Byzantines fall.

Only at this time did they really feel that Byzantium is really a good shield!
If you want to preserve the essence of One God World, you really need a good shield to protect 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 be tested ten times more harshly than the last time.

John II steered the empire through the last crisis without any risk, but can the new emperor Manuel I steer this old big ship through the storm 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, from the early Theodosius dynasty, Leo dynasty, Justinian dynasty, and Heraclius dynasty to the later Isaurian dynasty, Phrygian dynasty, and Amorian dynasty, etc. Up to the current Komnenos Dynasty, one dynasty after another has changed, giving the Byzantine Empire a big illusion-this empire will last forever, until the end of the world!

But this illusion has finally been proven wrong today.The end of the Eastern Roman Empire is coming!
The Italian fleet gathered on the west coast of the strait could not save its fate. Compared with the Lu Qi army that raised troops on the east coast of the strait, the army led by Lu Qian in the north and west of Constantinople was more threatening.

What's more, what the Italians have to face is to form a powerful Chinese navy in the Black Sea in the north over the years.The latter are all gunboats. The only reason why the Italians can strengthen their confidence is that Lu Qi's Black Sea Navy warships are too few.

Constantinople is located on a promontory on the west coast of the Bosphorus. The entire city is triangular in shape, with the Golden Horn (also known as Halic Bay) to the north and the Sea of ​​Marmara to the south. The coastal areas are fortified. Fortifications, the entrance of the Golden Horn Bay is even blocked by iron chains. This is to prevent the enemy's water surface forces from easily entering the Golden Horn Bay, putting the city in a dangerous place where it will be attacked from many sides.To the west of the city is the land, which is the only land passage for the city, with two layers of walls.Outside the city is a trench 100 feet deep.

Obviously, Lu Qian couldn't ignore the Golden Horn Bay, which was two to three hundred feet wide, and launch an offensive directly in the north of the city.It could only go south around the city and surrounded Constantinople from the west.

A series of heavy artillery was transported here through the Black Sea, and the army traveled all the way south along the west coast of the Black Sea, galloping freely, which is a place where artillery is not used.But to conquer Constantinople, a fortified city that has been reinforced several times by John II and Manuel I in recent years, it is absolutely impossible without artillery.

This is a stone city, a city that can be said to be the pinnacle of defense in the cold weapon era.Never before had the city fallen before a military attack.Even in the era of the complete decline of the Byzantine Empire in history, Constantinople was continuously besieged, but the enemy still could not break through its walls (the despicable rebellion of the Crusaders in 1204 is another story).

With a history of thousands of years, this city has repeatedly repelled the coveted outsiders. Its strong defense and superior geographical location make it easy to defend but difficult to attack.

In the last battle of Constantinople, the dominant Turks also maintained shelling for 47 days, consuming a total of 55000 pounds of gunpowder and firing about 5000 heavy artillery shells.Today, the military strength in Constantinople is far greater than when it fell in history. There are no heavy artillery, and they only rely on cold weapons to attack and kill. Let alone 15 cavalry under Lu Qian's command, it is difficult for 15 heavy armored infantry. As one wishes.

But even so, it is really difficult to win the city in front of you.

Lu Qian looked at the top of the city of Constantinople, and the bright red clouds enveloped the whole city like a burning cloud.The morale of the Europeans is quite high!
Bombing, bombing, bombing!

For Constantinople, Lu Qian could only bombard it with artillery.Open a gap first, and then fight at close range?

As long as he could break through the thick city defense of Constantinople, Lu Qian was not afraid of close combat.With the weapons the Europeans had at this time, how could they possibly defeat plate armor and muskets?

Even if the Sea of ​​Marmara is still in the hands of the Europeans, a large amount of material and military supplies can be sent to Constantinople by sea, but there is a limit to everything, right?
It is reported that there are no less than 5 soldiers in the city of Constantinople. Can the Europeans transport another [-] soldiers?You must know that Hungary is in his hands. If Central Europe and Western Europe send a large number of military horses, he will immediately divide his troops all the way, enter Slovenia through Hungary, and then be one step away from Northern Italy...

The iron cavalry under his command are of course not enough for attacking the city, but they are only advancing vertically and horizontally. With the current capabilities of the Europeans, it is really difficult to contain it!

Even, if you let go of the reins that limit their 'mobility', will you 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 white sails of the Italian fleet are like clouds.With the Venetian Fleet as the main force, the United Fleet affiliated to Genoa and other city-state duchies is considered the most powerful fleet in European military history.But at this time, the Italians on the fleet were all nervous. Their eyes were focused on the north, looking at the Black Sea connected to the other end of the Bosphorus.

The Black Sea, this is a new shipbuilding center spawned by the Chinese in recent years.A large number of shipwrights and technicians were transferred from the East to the Black Sea, together with a large amount of high-quality wood floating down the middle reaches of the Don River, such as oak, fir, pine, and cypress.For the Don River Basin, where the degree of development is still in its infancy, large tracts of forest can be seen everywhere.

But like I said before, no amount of wood will take time to dry before you can start building a warship.After that, the launch was accompanied by sailor trials, experimental artillery and so on. It was not until the end of last year that the Black Sea Division officially became an army.

It's just that their foothold is more precisely in the Sea of ​​Azov, where the environment is safer.

Today, warships belonging to the Black Sea Division are also going south with the army, and they are now at the northern mouth of the strait.It confronts the most powerful naval force in European history across the Bosporus Strait.

A huge pressure as heavy as a mountain made all European sailors at the southern end of the strait breathless.

No one is willing to use flesh and blood to contend with the enemy's artillery. In the past few years, Europeans have also gone all out to study firearms.Relying on the accumulation of the Seljuks and their strenuous efforts, they really built a batch of cannons.There are cannon carriage bases, cannon lugs, quasi-signals, and even want to make a cannon watch according to the gourd painting!
But their technology can't make the various indicators of each artillery exactly the same. The so-called gun meter is very inaccurate.

And they also encountered a very troublesome problem, no, I should say a series of troublesome things.The first is the speed of making cannons. A series of shortcomings of making cannons from clay molds are all in front of them. The first is the slow speed. The clay mold itself has a high scrap rate during the drying process, and it is also a disposable item.Second, there are many wind holes inside the clay molded cannon, which has a significant impact on the safety and performance of the cannon.Third, the scrap rate of clay-moulded cannons is high. Many cannons appear to be intact, but explode as soon as they are fired!This also caused a sharp increase in the unit cost of artillery from the side.

Anyway, there are various reasons. Lu Qi has pulled up the Black Sea Navy, but the Europeans are far from realizing the popularization of artillery.That is the importance of Constantinople, and both John II and Manuel I spent huge financial and material resources on the manufacture of firearms, which allowed Constantinople to have nearly fifty guns of different sizes. One of the artillery.

This number is not small, but compared to such a huge city, how can fifty artillery pieces be considered too many?
It's just that these fifty artillery pieces have nothing to do with the Italian navy.All the cannons were placed on the head of the city by the Byzantines. Whether there are cannons on the galleys sailing across the Mediterranean Sea depends on the attitude of the Italians themselves.

In fact, most galleys have no guns on board!
Is Venice not financially strong enough?It's a joke.In the twelfth century, the Republic of Venice was already the wealthiest regime in Europe. In terms of financial revenue alone, the majestic King of France and Emperor Shinra may not be able to surpass Venice.

——Here only refers to the annual income of the regime headed by the King of France and Emperor Shinra, not the whole of France and Shinra.The two must be clearly distinguished.

Strong financial resources mean powerful mercenaries, plus their own invincible naval power in the Mediterranean.The Venetians are not ordinary in Europe in this era!
If artillery were a 'commodity' that could be bought with money alone, even if it was a luxury accessory, the Venetian navy would already have hundreds of artillery.But it's a pity that in Europe, artillery is a treasure that you can't sell even if you have money.

The Venetian navy is a military force with a broad vision, a wide range of knowledge and a high level of culture, because a large number of Venetian merchant ships are flooding this navy fleet.Even though the real boss is not around, why don't those sailors running around understand the power of artillery?
Among other things, the sailors who have been stationed in Cyprus and Crete in the past few years understand the power of artillery.

Well, it is true that the two sides have reached a truce.But this is an agreement made by the bilateral regimes, so it can't restrain the pirates, can it?As for why those pirates are exactly the same as Italy's navy except for a tattered flag, then it's not clear, is it?
　In the preparation of the new book, there are a lot of information to check...

　　
　
(End of this chapter)