Eagle Byzantium

Feleye's sons looked at each other in dismay. They felt that their father was over-worrying: from Piero Corner's inauguration ceremony, the fleet of Venice was so majestic and powerful, the citizens were so wealthy and enterprising, and the Senate was so united.

So the voice of his father at this moment was so discordant.

So much so that some people openly discussed in front of the mansion, "Old people like Feleye are more greedy for power as they grow older, and they even do not hesitate to slander the correct policies to gain reputation."

Yes, as long as the rights and interests of Crete are seized, the Venetian city-state will officially break through the constraints of the Adriatic Sea and truly move towards a commercial empire. This is an absolute good thing. Why bother to toss in the wind and waves, risk life and death, and the threat of constant war with pagans to compete with the Levant? Just doing transit trade between the Adriatic and Aegean Seas will make wealth inexhaustible.

"All the capsized ships are out looking for gold." After saying this, Feleyer said no more and walked to the round pavilion on the terrace to drink by himself.

A few days later, the new consul, who was vigorous and resolute, passed a major resolution in the Senate: Venice was willing to send out fleets and mercenaries to help the Holy Emperor John to quell the rebellion. For this reason, the Senate once again recruited the "Razor Company" of Gonletto Salgemons and equipped it with a powerful auxiliary army - two thousand Bohemian miners as engineering troops, one thousand Magyar light cavalry and eight hundred fierce Epirus mountaineers, a total of five thousand people, with forty galleys as escorts, striving to land on the land of Crete in early August and begin to meet with the Byzantine Empire garrison there to fight the rebellion war.

In addition, Piero also purchased four bronze cannons equipped with trolleys and solid wheels from the city of Ragusa, as well as dozens of craftsmen and the Cretan expeditionary force.

The city-state of Venice itself is a large arsenal, and it has a keen sense of smell for the innovation of military technology. At this time, there are three major forces in the entire Mediterranean world that began to cast copper and iron cannons on a large scale, Tarsus, Constantinople and Ragusa. Although Ragusa imitated the first two, it has a latecomer trend. Now it can produce dozens of light and heavy cannons of various specifications every year, which makes Venice amazed.

The city of St. Mark, unwilling to fall behind, first bought others to use. Once it has accumulated sufficient experience, it is ready to manufacture it in the "Arsenal Arsenal" immediately, and it will also be installed on the warships that show off its power.

The efficiency of the Venetians is terrible. It took only one week from Piero's election to Goletto's departure.

During this period, the rebellious noble Curtatzis on Crete sent "representatives of the people" again to ask Anna to fulfill the previous promise of assistance of 4,000 soldiers. Because the rebels have been getting rumors that Venice's huge fleet and army will join Emperor John's camp to carry out a brutal and bloody suppression on them.

Before the representatives of the people entered the scarlet tent, Anna was receiving other people from various holy sea islands. Now Samos and Chios have been pacified by the army she sent, most of Lesbos has been captured, and even Patmos, where Gawain stayed when he traveled through time, has been included in the bag. In addition, the naval fleet of the Attalia Fortress was also quite successful in encircling Rhodes Island, so Anna, as the real Caesar, asked this group of people, "Select capable sailors and boatmen from various islands as soon as possible and join the city of Attalia. I will give them the charter to cut down trees, and use them to build our fleet ships!" Anna has a grand plan, that is, to set up a large number of holy beneficiary estates in Attalia and Samos County, recruit 6,000 to 10,000 sailors and boatmen, give priority to building a large number of light ships, and in order to prepare sufficient oarsmen, she also wants to buy 5,000 slaves from Adygea and Crimea. Now this little tyrant has no moral burden to do such a thing, but the latter plan failed to be realized because the sea route was blocked by the hostile Trabzon and Georgia.

"Now a quarter of the light warships have been manufactured, and six chariot ships have been launched in Seleucia, so we can immediately implement the blockade of the Prusa sea channel." After finally explaining the grand plan, Caesar Anna proudly raised the golden wheat ear scepter that was taller than her body, waved it, and spoke to many representatives with great momentum.

Next, when the Cretan representatives got the opportunity to meet, Anna, who sat back in her chair, was a little embarrassed.

"Supreme Queen Caesar, please send the team you promised to cross the sea to reinforce us as soon as possible, because we have received news that the Venetian fleet will soon come to help the false emperor John to deal with the rebels."

"Ahem." Anna coughed twice crisply, quickly covering up the abnormality of her face before. She was very smart and understood that it was completely impossible to withdraw 4,000 elite soldiers to help Kurtatsis right now, but she couldn't let them feel desperate, which would damage the credibility and dignity of the Tarsus royal family. Anna calmly said to the representatives, "Please follow me."

Behind Caesar were the ladies dressed in fancy clothes and the guards of the palace armed with spears, and the Cretan representatives followed her respectfully, walked out of the scarlet tent with various flags hanging, and walked to the north cliff of the hill overlooking the entire siege position. There was a small forest there, and there was a thin tree in it. The upper part was broken and bent, and the branches and leaves were scattered all over the ground. When two or three ladies saw this, they couldn't help but blush and smile.

Anna was mentally strong. She pointed at the huge turtle fortress lying in front of her and said to the Cretan representative, "That fortress is where my husband is commanding the siege, so I'm sorry he can't come to receive you in person."

As soon as she finished speaking, the two huge cannons behind the gun position of the turtle fortress roared with an earth-shaking roar. Two comet-like stone balls flew over the ground full of trenches and hit the walls of Prusa in front of the astonished Cretan representative. White gravel exploded in the sky - now the wall and tower in the southeast corner of Prusa were almost flattened.

"Oh, it's amazing, it's just like a giant throwing stone balls for fun." The Cretan representative rubbed his hands and couldn't help but admire the powerful weapons of the Tarsus Guards, and said in surprise in the local dialect.

Then, in front of the fortress, and even further ahead behind a long blockade made of boxcars, many small artillery positions fired a volley of rounds like a torrential rain, shaking the entire Prusa and burying it in a thick cloud of gunpowder.

"This is just routine artillery pressure." Anna smiled with extraordinary confidence, puffed up her small chest, held the cane in one hand and supported her waist with the other hand, and showed off to the representative.