At first, Alexios thought that defeating the invading nomads would end the nomadic invasion, but after he did it, he suddenly discovered that this was just a small beginning.
In June 1090, after nearly two years of fierce fighting, Alexios cooperated with General Pecheneg's troops and finally surrounded the Pechenegs, the main force of this nomadic invasion.
The Pechenegs formed a strong defense line with their nomadic carts, but even so, their demise was only a matter of time.
Although they are several times larger than the surrounding Greek army, that is because most of them are old, weak, women and children, and have no fighting capacity on the battlefield. What's more, after this period of fighting, they are still short of food and clothing.
, the fate of being eliminated is not far away from them.
Alexios was preparing to hold a grand celebration ceremony to celebrate the victory that was bound to come next, but at this moment, the situation changed drastically.
The Polovets, or Cumans, crossed the Danube in large numbers and attacked the emperor's camp at night before the emperor's army could react.
Due to the long-term siege, all the troops in the camp became slack. Faced with such a surprise attack, they were completely caught off guard and were beaten into a panic. They collapsed without much resistance.
That night was an extremely terrifying night for the Greeks. The entire imperial army collapsed, even the Varangian Guards, which had always been famous for their bravery and prowess in combat, were no exception.
There were deserters everywhere, and people were scrambling to escape for fear of being captured. The news about the nomads' cruel treatment of prisoners of war had been spreading in the military camps, and now it was working.
But how could two legs outrun four legs? Many people were eventually captured unwillingly, and many more were mercilessly killed. The imperial army totaling 20,000 was finished like this. This is...
The strength that Lexius had managed to cultivate over the years was gone.
Even the emperor himself had to flee alone. Alexios was once frantically chased by the Cuman cavalry, and was finally forced to strip off his armor and jump into the river. He swam to the other side amid a hail of arrows, thus escaping the pursuit.
Alexios was awakened by some memories that he had forgotten. They were memories of him being chased by the Normans. At that time, he was extremely embarrassed. Now he didn't expect that these nomads actually reminded him of the situation at that time.
The emperor rushed all the way to Adrianople before stopping. Here, Alexios was able to regroup his troops and wait for other fleeing troops to join together. Three months later, Alexios sadly discovered that
The 20,000 troops originally in hand have now shrunk to less than 5,000.
One thousand of them are the Varangian Guards. The losses of the Rus's this time are also huge. The number of the Vasily Guards has been fluctuating in the past few years, and now the number has stabilized at around 4,000. Although the number of the Rus's is gradually decreasing,
But it is still the main body, and in this battle, the Varangian Guard lost 3,000 people, which can be said to have damaged the foundation.
Vasiliko's escape was also extremely difficult. Although he was not forced to jump into the river like Alexios, he was forced to disguise himself as a fellow Greek and ride a donkey to escape.
When Vasiliko ran to Adrianople, the subordinates who had arrived before him could not imagine that the old Greek farmer in front of them, who was in simple clothes and with bare feet, was actually their captain of the guard.
This also shows how huge the losses were this time. Even a victorious general like Vasilko encountered such a situation. Needless to say about others.
The defeat shook the situation of the empire. The last such disastrous defeat was five years ago. At that time, the emperor lost consecutive battles under the lances of the Normans. But fortunately, the situation was finally reversed. In the past five years, the empire has been defeated one after another.
A victory came, and various places gradually returned to their previous production and life.
But just when everyone thought the empire would be peaceful, the emperor suffered such a disastrous defeat in the north, and the impact was naturally disastrous.
However, those who had some conditions were seeking refuge in nearby cities, while those who had better conditions were running to the capital with all their strength. The natural result was that the land that had finally regained production was abandoned for farming again, and the land began to become barren again.
The actions of the nomads further aggravated the situation. Originally, the nomads did not expect that they could achieve such a victory, but after their victory, they did not remain stunned for long and immediately began to plunder the empire's territory.
The nomadic cavalry used their rapid mobility to plunder the empire's lands like locusts during the three months when Alexios assembled his army in Adrianople. Nomads could be seen everywhere from the Danube to Adrianople.
military activities.
The nomads were like wild bulls, rampaging across the land of the Eastern Empire, turning the villages and towns in front of them to ashes one by one, and then leaving behind patches of skull forests - composed of skulls on wooden stakes.
A forest of heads.
They also formed an alliance with the Pauline heretics. With the cooperation of these local people, their looting and destruction went more smoothly and they caused more panic.
In fact, in terms of pure killing, whether it is the Pechenegs or the Cumans, they did not create very many, but the panic that a massacre can create is countless, and this is exactly the effect the nomads want.
Each time they massacred, they spared enough survivors to spread the word.
The Pauline sect also assembled a large army during this process. This heretical sect that was moved from Armenia has been insisting on begging and preaching in the Balkans for hundreds of years. In fact, there are Paulist believers all over the Balkans. In the past, they were
The official forces of the empire were isolated from each other, but now they can be connected smoothly.
Paulist believers are especially numerous among the Balkan Slavs. In the mountains of the Balkans, there have always been many Slavs who have retained their self-awareness despite being Hellenistic. Now, under the banner of the Paulists, there are many clans
He left the mountains and came to join the Pauline army.
Together with the people and the families of the believers, the number of the Paulist army soon exceeded 30,000. Now they are like the Pechenegs and Cumans, rampaging on the land of the empire, because no matter in the Balkans
Everywhere, they have the cooperation of Slavic mountain people or local people, so their harvest and sales are very terrifying. Everywhere they go, they eat up all the land and then rush to the next land.
It can be said that the threat posed by the Paulists is no less than that of the nomads, and in a sense, they are more terrifying, because the Paulists understand the empire and know how to truly dismantle the empire, unlike the nomads who only know how to destroy the empire.
Loot.
Faced with this situation, Alexios could actually only do one thing.
Regroup the troops.
With the five thousand men on hand, Alexios was able to eliminate some small-scale tribes and Paulist elements, but if he wanted to deal with the tens of thousands of armies, this number of men was still too few.
Alexios sent his family members to gather troops in the more peaceful areas of the empire, such as the coast of Asia Minor, Thessalonica, the Greek Peninsula and other places, and tried to send people to Constantinople as soon as possible.
At the same time, he also worked hard to recruit foreign mercenaries. At this time, Alexios suddenly discovered that the mercenaries who used to be cannon fodder were now valuable.
In fact, when he first came to power, he actually had such a dilemma, but at that time, there were people from Russia who came to send mercenaries, but this time there were no people from Russia who came to send mercenaries.
There was no other way. After Alexios quickly hired all the foreign mercenaries stranded in the capital, he quickly wrote to Rostislav, hoping that he would send such a group of people as soon as possible in accordance with the agreement.
Due to the stability of the situation, Alexios began to end the agreement. The number of foreign mercenaries on hand was completely sufficient, and as the number of Greek soldiers increased, they could also be reduced.
As for now, he is just glad that he did not abrogate the agreement with Rostislav.
Before the army regrouped, facing the chaos outside the city, Alexios could only let it develop, which meant abandoning many people, but he could only do this now.