On the side of the Venetian battleship, Captain Conrad looked at the severely overloaded Greek ship in front of him with great interest. The corners of his mouth could not help but curl up. Next to him stood a ragged Greek man with dirty clothes.

A blanket was wrapped around the body to keep out the cold.

"Dirty Greeks." The Venetian sailor on the side held the scabbard of his sword tightly and asked in a threatening tone: "Are you sure that the boy from Komnenos is on that ship? If you lie, hum, God doesn't like lies.

Believers don’t like you as a heretic even more.”

"I...I'm sure! I promise to God, I saw him and the Roman...Greek soldiers boarding the ship with my own eyes!" the poor man replied in panic.

"Soldier, don't scare this Greek. Greeks are like frightened deer. Any slightest disturbance can scare them half to death. It's their nature to be weak. What if you scare this Greek to death?

?I don’t want my precious warship to be contaminated by the blood of inferior races." Conrad said jokingly, which immediately caused a large number of crew members to laugh. Only the Greek blushed and finally asked shamelessly

: "Then my bonus..."

"No problem." Conrad put down the tea cup in his hand and gestured to a soldier beside him. Upon seeing this, the soldier threw the bag in his hand to the Greek. The Greek couldn't wait to take the bag.

He untied the rope and was immediately elated when he saw what was inside.

That was a bag of gold, enough for this Greek to lead a prosperous life and live the rest of his life carefree.

"Thank you, Your Excellency! Thank you, Your Excellency! God will bless you." The poor man grabbed the bag and held it in his arms, fearing that a gold coin would fall from the crack. Little did he know that a soldier behind him had already raised a sharp scimitar.

In an instant, the soldier's knife slashed hard on the neck of the Greek traitor. His head and body "moved" in a moment, and the bag full of gold coins fell heavily on the deck. Many fine coins fell heavily on the deck.

Golden gold coins rolled down in every corner of Class A.

"Inferior Greeks, I have fulfilled my promise." Conrad looked at the tragic situation in front of him without blinking, and then continued: "But I never said you could leave my ship alive! Hahaha

, in front of the noble Venetians, these self-righteous Greeks are all stupid pigs."

After speaking, Conrad pulled out the sword tied to his waist, pointed in the direction of Alexius, and shouted: "Capture Komnenos alive! Throw the rest into the sea to feed the fish!"

"yes!"

…

On Alexius' side, he finally organized some effective resistance forces:

6 ordinary swordsmen, one of whom had a slight leg injury.

There were 5 professional archers, but not many arrows were missing. Alexius searched the entire ship and only found 19 arrows.

There are 5 shield and spearmen, only one of whom has combat experience.

The militia consists of fifteen young people who volunteered from the refugee group, equipped with a small amount of armor, and the weapon is a simple spear or stone...

Fortunately, there was also a member of the Varangian Guard on board, and his weapon was a dual-wielding axe. Alexius planned to use this elite as a reserve.

The Varangian Guard is an elite force obtained by the Eastern Roman Empire through diplomacy and alliances with Eastern Europe, Northern Europe and other countries. In the early days, the Varangian Guard was mostly composed of Rus (descendants of Vikings), and later it was also integrated into the Normans.

People, English, etc., generally speaking, it is a final force comparable to the Imperial Armored Cavalry.

However, despite this, the Varangian Guards, who mainly fought on foot, were unable to withstand the fierce attacks of the Crusader Knights in the Battle of Constantinople. Although these warriors with Viking ancestry repeatedly inflicted heavy losses on the Crusader Latin Knights

.

After the fall of the city, these imperial elites also met a miserable end. Some members were forced to become pirates to make a living, and some members managed to escape back to Eastern Europe. Many years later, they were likely to end up being killed by the Mongols. Some members

Caught by the angry Crusaders, the outcome was usually brutal. Some members fled to the empire's exile regime to continue serving, fighting with their former compatriots.

The empire's other elite Imperial Holy Cavalry was wiped out in the Battle of Manzikert in 1071. Now, due to the continued deterioration of the empire's finances, there is basically not much left of this elite.

It was not enough to assemble this pitiful resistance, so Alexius reorganized his army. He gave all the few arrows he had left to the best archer on the ship, who trained him

Yousu comes from the beautiful island of Crete, which is rich in excellent archers.

This archer was placed in a relatively hidden place, and the angle of incidence was sufficient to support the east and west sides of the deck. I considered placing this archer at a commanding height to maximize the number of Venetian sailors, but after thinking about it carefully

The Venetians also have many archers. Isn't placing this archer at the commanding heights looking for death?

The remaining four freed archers naturally became melee soldiers. They had to give up their bows and choose swords and wooden shields. (Influenced by the Turks, the archers of the Eastern Roman Empire also quickly became Turkic.

Not only are they equipped with bows and arrows, they are also equipped with shields like the Turks. Some elite archers even quickly transform into elite melee soldiers after shooting arrows, and their combat effectiveness is not inferior to the latter.)

The spearmen were placed on both sides of Squad A. Equipped with shields, they could resist the Venetian arrows to the greatest extent. Behind them were swordsmen who were also equipped with shields. Swords and spears, spears and shields, shields and swords cooperated.

You can attack or defend, advance or retreat.

The remaining militiamen were placed in secret places and were also used as reserves. After all, the combat effectiveness of these militiamen was really worrying...

Perhaps what stimulated their fighting spirit the most was not Alexius' exciting morale-boosting words, but the generous rewards, land, military rank and status.

The Pope also used this confusing method to attract a large number of down-and-out knights and poor people to organize the First Crusade. In his propaganda, the land from the east was full of milk and bread, and recapturing Jerusalem would bring

The Lord's blessing and so on. And now, he is also using this method. As long as he is protected back to Trebizond, these people who could only hide in the slums and eat black bread every day can get a piece of milk and bread.

land, as well as countless wealth and status.

After adjusting the fighting position, the Venetian warship was only a hundred meters away from itself. If it weren't for the wind and rain, the opponent's face could be seen from such a short distance.
Chapter completed!