Chapter 48 Jadeite Gem (19)
Battle
Leshert gasped and pulled the sword out of the corpse with great effort. He wiped the blood and mud off his face and found several thin cuts on his fingers. He stared at the small wounds that were still bleeding and found that he could not remember where he was injured.
This is easy to understand. There are many strange injuries on the battlefield. When Leshert went to patrol yesterday, he saw a wounded soldier sitting on the bed with his teeth grimacing. Other knights said that when he kicked a door open, he misjudged the opening and closing direction of the door and tore his ligament.
Ah, this is such a sad and unspeakable pain for a man.
Leshert casually wiped the blood on his hands on his clothes. The humid summer wind with the breath of the ocean blew on his face, dispersing a lot of the strong smell of blood and making his breathing much easier. ‖
The Knight Commander stood on the hill, looking at the city in front of him - the gate of this port city had been smashed open by artillery fire, and the ancient city walls were full of mottled gaps and smoke. Some of the pungent-smelling gunpowder had not yet burned out and was still hissing, while emitting large amounts of smoke and dust.
Countless corpses were piled on the ground, hung on the city walls, and blocked in the trenches. The horses that were not yet dead let out mournful neighs, and then had their throats slit and were killed.
Wounded war horses were of no use, and were inconvenient to carry during their intensive marches. The most merciful way was to let them die with their owners.
Knights wearing the badge of the Knights Templar on their chests were dismantling the catapults and loading them onto the carriages of steam locomotives in batches. Many soldiers were also installing rails with hammers - iron was a precious resource, and the rails that could be used to run locomotives were easy to dismantle one section at a time. The tracks were laid on the required sections and removed after use. This was a very popular method. Of course, this method also made it impossible for the tracks to be too long, and steam locomotives could only travel short distances. If the tracks were to be long distances, they would need to be carefully designed and built over a long period of time.
However, it is already very satisfying to have such transportation support during the march.
The soldiers carrying the sleepers came over with smiles on their faces, and everyone greeted Leshert loudly or bowed to him as they passed by. No matter how many people came to greet him, Leshert could accurately call out their names and respond to their greetings seriously.
The city in front of them, which was slowly waking up in the smoke of gunpowder, was their last stop. Its lord, Lucresa Bianchi, controlled this fertile land near the ocean, which had plenty of sunshine and was suitable for growing grapes. It was also very close to the port, and countless vineyards of all sizes had taken root here, extracting nutrients from the soil and turning them into red gold flowing in wooden barrels. These wines, known as liquid gems, would be transported to every corner of the world by ships that traveled day and night.
But their will to resist is also stronger than ever before.
Compared to the cities where the lords surrendered without a fight, Bianchi City is the toughest bone after the Russo family, and Russo...
Thinking of this word, Leshert's gentle and generous green eyes couldn't help but sink.
The Russo family, like their deceased leader, had a cruel and vicious nature. They would rather destroy the entire city than hand it over safely. Leshert could understand their extreme ideas, but when he really faced the evil deeds they committed, he still felt extremely angry and sad.
They seemed to be very aware that they could not defeat Leshet, so before Leshet arrived, they carried out a frantic looting of the entire city.
In the extreme fear and disorder, an unprecedented chaos occurred in the city-state of Russo.
Innocent people who resisted the Russo family's looting were nailed to the wall by the guards. All entrances and exits were guarded. Those who wanted to leave were heavily searched, and in the end they didn't even have a complete set of clothes to keep. In order to save more money, they began to find ways to hide their belongings, such as swallowing coins, hoping to get them back after leaving. This made them unable to swallow any food afterwards, and their bodies swelled due to hunger. Once their stomachs burst, the soldiers would find the money hidden in their bodies.
The guards began to cut open people's stomachs while they were still alive to see if they had anything inside, and armed bandits - who had been docile civilians the day before - roamed around, stabbing their victims' rectums with sticks to force them to reveal where their valuables were hidden.
Everyone has become a madman who has lost their mind, being swept forward by the frenzy in the city. There is no one who cannot be robbed, no place that cannot be gone. Only those who are crazy enough can survive this catastrophe. Innocent and kind people can't find a safe place to hide themselves. They find that their once kind neighbors have also turned into demons in human skin.
God had abandoned this city.
The poor formed teams and rushed into the nobles' neighborhoods, looting, killing men, insulting women and children, lighting empty rooms with candlesticks, knocking off gold and silver ornaments on doors and windows, and melting gilded decorations - causing several fires. The taste of power and the sense of hunting in the extreme chaos made them completely lost. They morbidly learned to put on makeup and dress themselves up as women like the nobles, strode in the streets wearing exquisite and gorgeous cloaks, and killed anyone who blocked their way.
Under the cover of this extreme chaos, no one noticed that the Russo family members who caused the chaos had taken the opportunity to escape secretly.
After looting the entire city and causing a frenzied chaos, they deliberately set fires everywhere, then quickly left with their trusted aides and the loot, leaving behind only a groaning and crazy city.
This was the scene Leshter saw when he arrived.
Everyone had lost their minds. Life had become the most insignificant thing here. Bloodstains could be seen everywhere on the road. The dead stared at the sky with bulging eyes. Rotting corpses lay on the cobblestone road, becoming horrific decorations. Of course, there would never be a single piece of clothing left on the corpses.
The soldiers who were waiting for the battle with high morale fell into indescribable fear. They were not afraid of fighting, but this behavior that was purely due to the evil of human nature was unacceptable to anyone.
Hell tamed the devil.
The gangsters who have become a mob will not be happy to accept Leshet's amnesty. They are busy enjoying the short-lived power and wealth. And Leshet... from the bottom of his heart, is unwilling to let such a group of people who have completely thrown themselves into the arms of the devil return to their previous lives in a seemingly innocent manner.
Anyone who has eaten a human being will never forget the taste of it. Anyone who has enjoyed killing will eventually repeat the same mistake.
Here Leshert's army was in a bitter fight.
The people in the city unscrupulously used various methods to reap lives. They did not cherish the city, so they dared to use any despicable and reckless means, and even threw innocent people off the city wall, because they heard that the Knights Templar led by Leshent had an extremely devout belief, and the doctrine stipulated that "one day of mourning should be observed for seeing the blood of innocent people" - they thought that this would make Leshent temporarily suspend his offensive, but in fact such brutal behavior aroused the anger of everyone.
After a tough tug-of-war, Leshet finally stepped into the city. The streets were covered with blood that was higher than his ankles. Only one in ten people survived in the entire city, and what was left was almost a completely destroyed empty city.
Leshet sent people to search everywhere, and finally found the fleeing members of the Russo family at the port. They were planning to leave the Papal States by boat for Calais. Leshet's people brought them all back, hanged them in the central square of the city, and finally managed to bring the chaotic city back to normal.
Leshert was not very willing to recall what happened during the period of city reconstruction, and he just briefly mentioned it in his letter to the Pope. Although he knew that the monks accompanying the army would report everything they saw, he still insisted on this thin tenderness.
He walked back to his tent, took off his armor which had some dents in it, combed his messy blond hair with his fingers, and his emerald green eyes were like two quiet pools in the forest.
Bianchi's lord's mansion was luxurious and comfortable. As an occupier, he obviously had the right to live in it. However, as a believer who adhered to the rules and regulations, Leschert rejected the proposal and continued to live in the camp built outside the city with his soldiers.
A timid and gentle voice sounded: "Sir, do you... do you want some water?"
Leshert was stunned for a moment. He put down his hand that was rubbing his forehead and saw a young girl standing at the door of the tent, about fourteen years old. She was lifting the curtain with one hand and holding a little girl of five or six years old with the other hand. The little girl was holding a silver kettle. Both of them were wearing long robes that covered their bodies and hoods, and they were looking at him eagerly.
Leshert quickly gave a gentle smile: "Thank you very much, Miss Lucreza, Miss Ingrid."
His acceptance obviously made both girls feel relieved. The girl named Ingrid loosened her hand and gently pushed the little girl on the back. The little girl held the kettle and staggered to Lesherte's side. She carefully lifted the kettle up. The knight took the kettle and put it on the table, smiling at her: "Miss Lucreza, how have you been these two days?"
The little girl hesitated for a moment, looked at the girl beside the tent, and received an encouraging look from the other person. Both of them had very similar brown eyes, as gentle as newborn lambs. Their clothes were not so gorgeous, showing a deliberate low-key attitude, but one could still tell from their smooth long hair, fair and soft skin that they must have very good family backgrounds.
"Thank you, sir. We are all doing well, and the people here take good care of us." Lucreza's voice was soft, like the wind blowing through the lilies of the valley, and not at all aggressive.
——Completely different from her mother.
The thought briefly crossed Leshert's mind.
The female lord Lucresa Bianchi who died in Florence was called the "She-Wolf of Bianchi". The fact that she was able to fight her way out of a group of brothers and gain the position of lord of Bianchi showed that she was not a good person. Such a fierce woman, after learning that she had entered a losing game, immediately found Raphael. She was also the first to hand over all the territory and wealth of Bianchi to the Pope in exchange for a promise.
A promise to always protect her children.
Lucresa Bianchi, who has the same name as her mother, is her only child. She is six years old this year. Logically, she would be the next lord of Bianchi, but obviously, her personality is not suitable for being the leader of Bianchi surrounded by wolves, so her clever mother quickly found a new way out for her.
Lucresa's husband was killed by the lady of Bianchi because he coveted the lordship of Bianchi. The child who lost all protection must have a strong enough guardian, and the lady of Bianchi chose Pope Saint Sistine I for her.
When you think about the fact that she participated in that secret meeting in order to gain more resources for her children, you can't help but sigh that fate is simply a farce.
Leshet received a letter from the Pope and deliberately delayed the time of war. On the night before the battle, the black monks who secretly sneaked into Bianchi "stole" the little girl from the lord's mansion, and also brought a bigger child with her - Ingrid, the little girl's cousin, the niece adopted by the female lord because her parents died. She tried hard to protect her little cousin who had lost all her support, and Lucreza also cried and didn't want to abandon her sister, so the two were taken away together by the monks.
Leshet promised to send them to Florence as soon as the war was over. Bianchi's new lord obviously didn't care about the two little girls. They didn't even notice that someone was missing in the lord's mansion and were still concentrating on resisting Leshet. When the artillery roared, the two girls stayed together in Leshet's tent.
"The war is over, and someone will take you to Florence soon," Leshert said to the little girl.
Hearing about Florence, Lucreza's eyes sparkled: "What does Florence... look like?"
The handsome knight thought for a moment and said, "That is the most beautiful city in the world, a place that God loves. You will like it."
"Then..." Lucreza hesitated for a moment and asked softly, "What about Your Majesty?"
The little girl's voice was trembling. Obviously, she was not completely ignorant of what happened to her mother in Florence.
Leshert was stunned for a moment, then looked back at Ingrid. The girl's gaze was fixed on the ground, as if a rare and precious flower had bloomed there.
"It's complicated," Leshert finally answered. He squatted down to make his eyes parallel to Lucreza's. The knight took off the little girl's hood, put a few strands of hair that were not tied into the pearl hairpin behind her ears, and looked directly into her round brown eyes. "How to judge a person... This is a very, very difficult proposition. No matter what others say, it is just their own opinion. Good people may kill people, and bad people may save people. If you want to know, go and see it with your own eyes, Miss Lucreza."
The handsome knight smiled, and his emerald eyes seemed to be rippling with deep lake water. In the quiet and dark forest, the sun occasionally fell at noon, and scattered a glittering light like broken gold on the lake surface: "... follow the guidance of your heart, and no one will not love him."
He heard the sound of a steam carriage, the hot and boiling gas in the pipes was suddenly released, a long hoarse and high-pitched sound, a black-robed monk walked up to Ingrid, nodded to her, and gestured to Leshert in the tent.
The Knight Commander then carefully controlled the strength and touched the little girl's head. He was very unfamiliar with this action. Obviously, he had never had such close contact with the opposite sex before, even with a young girl.
"Go, Miss Lucreza. May God bless you and may you have a smooth life under the protection of the Holy Father."
The upright Knight Commander sent his sincere blessings.
The two girls were put on a carriage to Florence, escorted by several black monks and soldiers assigned by Lesherte. Raphael met them at the Papal Palace a week later. Lucreza was obviously a little afraid of him, which was understandable, but the girl still kissed his ring respectfully.
"Don't be afraid," the handsome Pope stretched out his hand and gently pressed it on Lucreza's head. The little girl looked back at him in a daze, and couldn't help but indulge in his lavender eyes that were like a sea of gems. He was more beautiful than any character in any painting or story. Even a young child could feel the beauty that transcended reason. "I will protect you, just like your father."
The hand of the overly handsome Pope on her head was a little cold. Lucresa listened in a daze, unable to understand the weight of this promise. But in her future life, she would think of this day and this moment countless times, and think of the Pope's hand on her head, which was not so warm but unshakable.
The author has something to say:
The Papal War will be briefly mentioned and will end soon, and a new plot will follow! Baby Rafa is going on a trip abroad! ! !
References to the city looting content in this article:
Simon Montefiore. Three Thousand Years of Jerusalem[M]. Beijing: Democracy and Construction Press, 2014.
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