While a farce was going on in Constantinople, in the east, Alexios, the monarch of the empire, was going through a bitter battle.
The opponents in this bitter battle were two people, one was Kirill Arslan, Sultan of Rum, and the other was the conqueror who rose in Transcaucasus, the military adventurer known as Monomakh.
In Alexios's expectation, this was a battle that would end quickly. As long as the main force of Roma was eliminated, Monomach would have to withdraw his troops. However, the reality turned out to be a bitter battle.
The Turks continued to deal with the Greek army in the dry valleys of Anatolia's interior. Arslan directly broke his main force into pieces and continued to conflict with the Greeks. As for the tribe's women and children, all supplies were handed over to the front line.
Monomach's Army.
Alexios couldn't capture the Turkic army at all. As for defeating Monomakh and defeating the arrogant emperor, it was even more difficult. On the battlefield in Anatolia's interior, whoever attacked would always suffer, even if it was
Alexios' current army has been trained in the battles of the past few years, and he does not dare to attack rashly.
Alexios has never distinguished himself in battle. This emperor has always been doubtful about his battlefield abilities. After fighting for so many years, he has never won a large-scale battle, let alone the opponent.
There are more troops than him.
Monomach on the opposite side also had the same idea. He had been fighting in the Anatolian mountains for a while, and he already knew the characteristics of this land, so he did not launch an attack and just fought with the Greeks.
Consume.
For Monomakh, his first priority is to preserve the Sultanate of Roma, so it doesn't matter how long it takes. He can completely afford it now. The large tracts of conquered land have brought him huge resources, allowing him to
It can maintain the existence of the army for a long time.
Alexios was particularly troubled by this situation. The opponent had already realized that he was not good at fighting, so Alexios had no choice but to retreat. Unexpectedly, after retreating like this, the opponent continued to push forward.
As much as Alexios retreated, Monomach advanced. In this way, this Rus adventurer encroached on many lands that had just been recovered by Alexios. Many towns that had just returned to the empire now fell in front of the adventurer.
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The emperor realized that he could not retreat anymore. If he continued to retreat, he would lose a lot of the territory he had finally recovered during this period. Monomach was forcing him to fight, and even forcing the emperor to fight him.
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Alexios saw through the opponent's thoughts at a glance, but unfortunately he could only act according to Monomach's baton. The Russian seemed to be well prepared this time and was eager to give him a good blow.
But Monomach's idea was actually very simple. He just wanted to regain more territory for the Sultanate of Roma and increase the buffer strength of the Sultanate of Roma. It would be great if he could push his power directly to the city of Nicaea.
Monomakh's dispatch of troops was entirely due to geopolitical considerations. If the Sultanate of Roma was destroyed, then he, the "Emperor", would naturally be the next target of the Eastern Empire. Facing threats from the Eastern Empire and those who had recently recovered from the civil war
Without a certain stability of the Seljuq Empire, this is simply a geological disaster, and Monomakh cannot allow such a situation to occur.
For this reason, Monomakh plans to hand over a large number of Turks scattered in the lands he conquered to Sultan Rom. There are hundreds of thousands of Turkic nomads in Armenia and Azerbaijan. He will hand these people over to Al
The strength of the Sultanate of Silan and Roma recovered instantly.
However, the migration of these populations takes time, so the Sultanate of Roma must be preserved. If this sultanate ceases to exist, then all of this will be meaningless.
So the two emperors could only consume each other on the Anatolian plateau, and a full 50,000 people gathered in Paphlagonia to confront each other. The only advantage for Alexios was that he was the one here.
He is quite familiar with the terrain here, and the locals are very supportive of the Komnenos family.
However, the two sides are in a stalemate with each other on the plateau, but this does not mean that they cannot do other things. In fact, in other strategic directions, their roles are continuous.
In the small Armenian Kingdom in the north of Cilicia, Monomakh used the newly migrated Turkic tribes to squeeze the living space of these Armenians, occupy their mountainous areas, and tried to control this important passage from the Eastern Empire to the Near East.
King Constantine of Little Armenia was directly killed in the battle, and his people began to flee again. As for the remaining Armenian forces, they took refuge in the defenders of Cilicia.
But for Monomach, the goal has been achieved. Now his army occupies the mountainous area from a high position. If he wants, he can rush into the plains of Cilicia.
Alexios was a little slow in sending reinforcements in this direction, so the Greek army there was completely unable to save the situation. Alexios failed in the game here.
The recovery time for the southwest and southern areas of Asia Minor was still too short, and it was difficult for the emperor to mobilize these resources in time, which made him at a disadvantage in the competition with Monomach.
At the same time, Monomach began to assist a young man named Baldwin, who had just occupied Edessa. Monomach was keenly aware that his presence could contain the troublesome Seljuk Near Eastern lords.
Nowadays, the Seljuk Empire can be divided into two parts, that is, east of the two rivers under the rule of Sudan, and Syria under the rule of various warlords and emirs. The power of those Syrian lords is not small. After they united, they once gave way to
Monomach is disgusting, so something has to be done here.
So he ordered Anton to lead his army into Edessa and help Baldwin control this separatist area centered on Edessa.
And this strategy was extremely successful. With the help of Monomach, the completion of the County of Edessa was completed less than a month after Baldwin took control of Edessa.
But the most important thing is Baldwin's own ability. After seeing what this man did, Monomakh thought of Svyatoslav. Rostislav once mentioned a sentence to him before, "Be brave and good in battle and survive accidents."
Those who don’t care about getting their hands dirty are the ones who can become heroes.”
Rostislav said this about his second uncle, and Monomakh said this about Baldwin. He felt that Baldwin and he were the same kind of people.
After the establishment of the County of Edessa, to a certain extent, the road for the Syrian Seljuk forces to move north was blocked.
But this does not mean that Alexios has nothing to do. He has been trying to contact the current Seljuk Sultan Bakiyaruk. This sultan who grew up in fighting and conspiracy at a young age is not a weakling.
Aware of the threat from Monomach.
He had recently issued an order to the Seljuk lords in the west, ordering them to unite to deal with those damn Crusader heretics, and now that the letter from the Greek emperor had arrived, the sultan decided to do something.
He wanted to gather the power of the Seljuqs while the main force of Monomakh was in the west to recover the imperial territories in the north. Those territories were very important to the empire. Persia had a large population in just a few areas, and he had to go and get them.
Going down there will be of great benefit in curbing the power of Monomach and restoring the glory of the empire.
In this way, another round of strategic struggle came to an end, the players from all sides completed their arrangements, and the chess pieces also began to take action.
It was also at the moment when the chess players were still paying attention to their old opponents that before they knew it, another chess player quietly entered the game, and the beginning of this entry happened because of something that no one was paying attention to.
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In the besieged Antioch, the Russian Crusaders joined the Crusaders in the siege. The arrival of the new Crusaders made the army very excited. Volorida and Valorida, who had not seen each other for many years because of the war,
Sirico also met.
After the joyful welcome banquet, Volorida took out a letter he had hidden in a secret place and gave it to Vasiliko. The content of this letter contained some of Rostislav's new arrangements regarding the situation in the Near East.