Eagle Byzantium

"It turned out to be a man from Gawain. I often exchanged letters with him. When he was king in Tarsus, he was famous for his justice, generosity, severity and kindness. He was also stoic and strictly followed the path of loyalty to his wife. Seeing his military appearance now is like witnessing his own appearance. So majestic. And you, Gregor, as an Orthodox Christian in Antioch, you can tolerate everyone begging for help here without asking about his ethnic group and belief, which shows that you are a generous and upright general. "Gerrard held the opponent's sword hilt, moved and pleased.

Then he helped Gregor up and said to the dome and cross of the church that this place is full of the holy relics of Christ. It is surrounded by monasteries, church halls and inns. There are Catholics and Orthodox people living in them. Christians, various people of the Armenian Church Everyone has occupied their own area in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for such a long time. Disputes and estrangements have lasted for too long. "I hope that the sword of kingship of Godfrey and Gawain can protect everyone here so that everyone can View the place where Jesus ascended freely and conveniently.”

True to their word, the Gimakis Brigade set up the silver flag on the square in front of the church. All the infantry armed with bucklers, spears and bows and arrows guarded the surroundings of the church and controlled several forts. pool, and opened up an abandoned bell tower as the commander's residence, and sent teams of mules and horses from the outside camp. Food was brought from the fields to help the refugees, which won Gerald's praise. He immediately wrote a letter to the Holy See, in which he greatly praised the rigor and generosity of the "Religious Guards" in Tarsus. , "The majesty of the Lord and the angels shone on their helmets, swords, and shields."

Under the auspices of Gerald, the Orthodox, Catholics, Armenians and Crescents of the Holy Sepulcher Church each elected four representatives, who were responsible for rationing food, appeasing the refugees who managed the entire place, and providing information to more people entering the city. Negotiate and plead with them to put down their butcher knives and restore order and peace to the city.

But this was only the case in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Near the old wall, Baldwin's army soon broke out in a fierce and short battle with an enemy army.

This enemy was all cavalry. After the Franks captured the Tower of David, they galloped over and happened to fight Baldwin face to face. The other side's soldiers wore white turbans and black chainmail, and their mounts were African war horses and wore golden helmets. The silver bit, holding the flag of the golden palm leaf, "is a pagan in Egypt. Sure enough, Evdel broke his oath and secretly sent an army to aid the Turks!" Baldwin He was so furious that he personally mounted his horse and wielded his sword, and killed two Egyptian cavalrymen. Seeing the Frankish infantry approaching fiercely, and seeing the streets and houses all around, the other cavalrymen turned around and rode towards the Temple Mount. Baldwin's column pursued them relentlessly. Finally, at the intersection of the Old Wall and the Tower of David, the group of 400 cavalrymen abandoned their horses and fled on foot towards a huge tower there.

The pursuing Baldwin troops began to set up ladders to attack the tower, but soon discovered that the target was not simple. In addition to the 400 Egyptians who had escaped, there were 300 Turkic soldiers guarding the tower, and the top commander of the city guard, Suo Su, was guarding the tower. Kerman is in there too.

After the battlement fell, Sokman fled here under the protection of the guards. This tower is located exactly at the corner of the old wall and the Tower of David wall, and is made into a square inner arch along the high wall, so that in The soldiers inside can shoot arrows and stone pellets from four directions. There is also a water source in the courtyard. It is connected to the city's Lebanese Forest Palace reservoir through exquisite underground channels through underground channels, and water is continuously drawn.

After attacking several times, Baldwin and others failed to capture it. They only captured many abandoned horses, saddles and bridles outside the tower.

But on the other hand, under the guidance of two Turkic traitors, Tancred invaded the Temple Mount from the west!

It took almost no effort: the two Turkic traitors persuaded the garrison soldiers at the west gate to surrender. Then Tancred's men got the key and twisted the bolts of the city gate, pushed the door open with their weapons, and swarmed in!

Then the appalling massacre unfolded. Tancred was unable to restrain his men and had no intention of restraining them. He just asked his trusted followers to guard the entrances and exits of the Temple Mount and not allow other pilgrims to enter. Then the crazed Normans began to kill all the people who had taken refuge in the two mosques. They beheaded wave after wave of people on the walls and steps. Finally, the heads and corpses were piled almost as high as the walls of the temple. Gao, many adults were slaughtered in front of their children. The children saw their parents and relatives being brutally killed. They screamed and cried with mental breakdown, like rats being scalded by boiling water, but soon the sword blade stabbed them. them.

The tower pillars, inner halls, steps, atriums, and arches were all filled with corpses, shocking corpses. Many Normans stood among the corpses and cut open their stomachs with swords to look for the gold and silver they had swallowed during their lifetimes. According to reports, It is said that Jews like to do this very much.

Because less than half of the people who died here were Crescent Christians, and most of them were Jews, Greeks or residents of other ethnic groups.

At this time, Baldwin, who had given up the attack on Sokman Tower, also led the crowd to rush to the Lebanese Forest Palace. This gate palace used to be the ordnance warehouse where King Solomon stored weapons. In front of it was a huge water reservoir. The pool is called the "King's Reservoir": It is a deeply dug underground pool and is also the water source for the entire city: the roof is flush with the ground, and many small holes are dug on it. People can lead their animals to the holes to draw water with buckets, or they can walk down. Climb the long steps to the large underground reservoir to drink water directly.

Now all the city residents who failed to escape to the Temple Mount were driven here by the Franks. The massacre was also unfolding here. Many residents fell into the reservoir from the small holes due to the crowd and panic and drowned or fell to death. More people were stabbed and hacked to death by the Frankish soldiers, and fell layer by layer on the huge roof of the King's Reservoir.

The originally clear sky was gathering with dark clouds. The knight Lithold, who was the first to climb the battlement, held a captured crescent flag and stood there gazing at the horrific atrocities inside and outside the Temple Mount from a bird's eye view. In Lithold's eyes, the gray crowd like ants was killed by swords, axes and spears, and red blood kept flying out, and then the blood quickly gathered into a pool of blood, and the pool of blood gathered into a river of blood, entwining the Temple Mount. From the height, it looked like a giant cross.

The blood flowed down the steps, and then on the roof of the King's Great Reservoir, it poured down from the water holes everywhere, like a waterfall, and then flowed to every residence, every canal, and every square in the holy city.

The whole Jerusalem was really soaked in blood, and it was not a literary exaggeration.

"May God have mercy on our crimes today." Lithold trembled and said such a sentence. (To be continued ~^~)