Eagle Byzantium

On the way, the other armed groups also attacked fiercely. They seemed not to be Armenians at all, and there was no friendship between them. Some blocked the road and robbed horses, and some ambushed in the dense forests and bushes to shoot cold arrows. Saliki's troops were constantly attacked, and the cavalry suffered heavy casualties, losing more than 100 people, and took 300 horses. The horseless cavalry ran behind and retreated in embarrassment...

After the war, all the villages that contributed to the war received gifts of money and food. At the same time, 200 red-handed cavalrymen who returned victoriously quickly surrounded a village of an armed group that did not contribute to the aid. Then, an infantry detachment of the Red Hand Brigade also rushed in like a whirlwind after hearing the news. After the other party surrendered, they drew lots and selected 20 people from the village, all of whom were beheaded for the crime of hesitating and not advancing. Since then, all the Armenians in the entire eastern valley have been terrified and each of them has been desperately defending the village.

In addition, Saliki, who retreated to the Marash Castle, was furious. He planned to invite other like-minded nobles to organize an army of 4,000 to 5,000 to ruthlessly sweep Gawain's territory east of Vanka City. However, the fact is that most of the Armenian nobles are defending the area around Lavodra, facing Bohemond's army across the mountains. They want to rescue Samosata, but they cannot break through the clever deployment of the shrewd Lord Antiochus, and naturally have no power to support Saliki's military operations.

At this time, Pope Urban, who was on his sickbed in Rome, also sent a letter. Although he believed that the military attack launched by the pilgrim lords such as Gawain and Bohemond against the Kingdom of Reuben in Lesser Armenia was "excessive and excessive", the Pope angrily criticized the "Greater Armenian Empire" for colluding with the Danishmond Turks, saying "This is simply a deal with the devil. I really can't think of a reason to do so." He also urged the Armenian Apostolic Church to play a role and make the warring parties make peace as soon as possible, otherwise the Pope might withdraw his previous promise of "brotherly states".

After receiving the Pope's letter, Bohemond, who held the banner of morality, worked very hard. He appointed Count Hartmann to lead all the Frankish warriors, and took Prince Sven and the vassal armies of various ethnic groups to surround the city of Samosata. He set up a "five-bar gun" imitating Gawain's (Bohemond did not learn the technology of the large Plani gun) and bombarded the city walls day and night. He and Tancred personally led the main force and camped in several military camps in the northwest and northeast valleys of the castle and the north road, waiting for Merik to come.

Gawain was not polite: "Since the bandit Saliki from Marash is not coming, we will take the initiative to attack." At the end of February, Gawain personally took charge of the northern camp in Vanka City, concentrated the forces of two brigades and took all the cavalry, and attacked the Marash area in several directions. At that time, the elite of Armenia were concentrated in the Samosata line, and the rear was relatively empty: As a result, Gawain's troops galloped freely, and Saliki came to rescue with the only cavalry, but they were repeatedly defeated by the spear formation of the Red Hand Brigade and could only hide in the Marash Castle to defend themselves.

So Gawain's army rushed in with all their might, still following the tactics used against Prince Reuben before, with infantry surrounding and attacking the reinforcements, and cavalry advancing and looting rapidly. Within 15 days, they burned and looted dozens of towns and villages, robbed tens of thousands of people, thousands of livestock and countless grains, and even the beehives in the Armenian villages (Princess Anna later declared in her diary that "I heard that the girls of the Ani like to use beehives as dowries, and they will treasure them as inheritance to their daughters after they die, so why can't these beehives be made into dowries for the girls of Seleucia and Cilicia? It can also cultivate their virtues of labor, but beehive breeding is not popular here, so let the invincible army bring some back from the mountains of Marash.").

As a result, more than half of the agricultural products in Marash and Tubercena were destroyed, which seriously affected the spring ploughing next year, causing the father and son of Parkard on the Samosata front to almost go crazy, and letters for help were sent to Merick like snowflakes.

Merick did make great efforts. He assembled a full 20,000 troops in Melitene. At this moment, the first and last companies began to move south, first looking for Gawain for a decisive battle, but when he advanced to the streets of Marash, most of Gawain's infantry and cavalry had withdrawn and retreated to the Vanka City Fortress, leaving only a ruin and scorched earth.

The helpless Emir of Danishmond could only continue to move south and confront Bohemond across the valley. Both sides were looking for opportunities and chances to defeat the enemy, and time was slowly passing.

After the battle, Gawain ordered the Gimmegis Brigade and the Guard Brigade to stay in the area of ​​Vanka City for rest and garrison. "The whole army is under the charge of Branas and Gregor. The defense is handled by themselves. The attack must be approved by me." Then, Gawain announced that the Vanka City Camp "has successfully completed the duties of establishing a new order and sweeping out the evil and stubborn, and can be successfully withdrawn." He brought the Red Hand Brigade and the entire Red Hand Cavalry Company to the Ternzak Castle at the junction of the mountains and the plains.

But in Ternzak, Gawain did not do nothing. His eyes and skills have been focused on a very important link: the iron ore problem here.

Iron is the most abundant element on earth and the most useful element. It accounts for more than one-third of the mass of the earth and has a wide range of uses. Agricultural tools, weapons and many engineering parts cannot do without it. Although the amount of iron is large, its distribution is not uniform. To some extent, it is "delicate" like precious metals and is often distributed in areas with intense crustal and magmatic activity (similar to copper and gold). For Asia Minor, the most important iron ore distribution area is located at the junction of Anatolia and Mesopotamia, which is also a valley, basin and earthquake-prone area.

Fort Tranzak is located at the top of a semicircular basin where mountains and rivers meet. Although Gawain's memory of that era shows that the reserves are definitely not as good as those in Melitene, it also has several good mines and deposits.

In short, according to Gawain's estimation, it is still barely enough to supply an army of 20,000 people and equipment for hundreds of thousands of people. "As long as we can be self-sufficient in iron, we can save a lot of money and no longer have to buy iron ingots from Giliki Arslan. What's more, his current situation is also shaky." In the castle, Gawain ambitiously expressed the iron mine plan to the little sunfish and the two heralds, "We can't get it in Melitene for the time being, so let's do it here in Tranzak! We can't stop or hesitate. No matter what, in one or even two years, I want to see the products forged by our own furnace." (To be continued ~^~)