Chapter 282 Response
The alliance formed by the eleven countries was naturally not hidden from Rome's eyes, and Constantinople held an emergency meeting to discuss countermeasures.
"Your Majesty, the addition of Florence and Aragon will directly affect the empire's future maritime strategy. Both countries have quite good fleets, which is a pressure on our navy."
"Not only that, even the Bishop of Rome has joined. If he says he wants to launch an Eastern Expedition, I'm not sure the empire is ready."
The various ministers kept talking about the power of the Venice Alliance, and the more they talked, the more outrageous they became. Mircea was so angry that she rang the bell as hard as she could.
"Look at you, an alliance that doesn't even have a big empire is frightened. Yes, they are all countries with good fighting capabilities, but don't so many countries have weaknesses?"
Mircea was troubled by this new alliance, and it also fueled his own ambitions. If the Venetian alliance could be defeated, Roman power would be able to directly come to Western Europe.
Mircea once again issued an order to recruit part of the army across the country. The shipyards were at full power. They must not scrimp on the army, at least for now.
Peter also received the news, and now the expansion of the war is a foregone conclusion. It seems that the expedition will be launched early.
"Eleven countries, it seems that the Eastern Alliance has allowed Rome to enjoy it in advance."
Peter smiled, his father's orders and troops were in place. We will be able to set out soon, but we have to postpone it due to weather conditions.
Taking advantage of these few days of leisure, Peter began to rehearse the future siege of Venice. Venice is different from other cities in that it was built on an island. On the left is the Venetian Lagoon and on the right is the Adriatic Sea. There is only one main road in the city that connects to the outside, so a navy is needed to blockade it.
Peter and the generals rehearsed it more than a dozen times, and finally came to the conclusion that a navy was necessary to ensure the capture, otherwise relying only on the army would lead to death.
If Venice doesn't work, let's start with Austria. Peter decided to capture the Austrian Duchy of Carniola and open a passage to northern Italy.
Now that it has joined the alliance, Austria has also begun to gather troops to defend important cities such as Vienna. Ljubljana, located in the south, has also sent heavy troops to defend it.
The Count of Tyrol, who belonged to the same family, also rallied his soldiers to serve his relatives. This was not a matter of flesh and blood, but that his territory would suffer after Carniola was captured.
The most important thing for Rome now is the construction of its navy. If there are not enough ships, they can get them from merchant ships; sailors can be recruited from fishermen and coastal residents, which can always meet the demand.
----Dividing line----
Now, the war on Rhodes Island is attracting the most attention. The duel between the Orthodox Knights and the Catholic Knights made religious fanatics look forward to it. The Knights Hospitaller protected the port and harvested a large amount of food for support. There was still water in the city and they could defend it until their death.
After the Dragon Knights landed, they began to make large siege equipment. The Diocese of Athens provided transportation of goods to the Order, and the Patriarch of Constantinople gave the Order the meaning of holy war. The Knights trained their troops while using trebuchets and artillery to attack Rhodes City.
The Knights Hospitallers could only rely on the city walls for defense, hoping that Venice or someone else could bring troops to rescue them. Until then, they still have to hold on here.
The Venetian fleet in Crete attempted to rescue Rhodes, but was forced to retreat due to the threat of pirates. The Venetian navy was forced to be divided into several segments, and each segment was attacked by Rome.
While the alliance was still gathering its armies, Mircea took action again. He issued an edict announcing the abolition of the golden edict issued by Alexios I that granted privileges to the Venetians. The privileges granted to Western merchants by subsequent emperors were also abolished. Rome forbade merchants from trading with countries allied to Venice, and offenders were exiled.
Mircea's actions caused heavy losses to some merchants. They were all trading with the West, and most of them were members of the Venetian Alliance. It would have been difficult to do business when the war started, but now it was directly interrupted.
However, this also caused the Roman maritime merchants who originally competed for trade share to the west to squeeze the territory of the Crescent merchants to the east. Because after the edict was promulgated, Mircea issued a second order: giving tax incentives, even tax exemptions and subsidies, to merchants trading to the East for one to three years.
This was to lure them to expand to the east, and a large number of maritime traders began to flock to Antioch, Ashkelon, Alexandria and other cities. Gradually taking control of local commerce by trading with local merchants, this also dealt a blow to local industry and commerce.
The small fleets of Venice and Genoa suffered another disaster. They discovered that in addition to artillery and jet Greek fire, the Roman navy also had throwing Greek fire. They put the raw materials in clay pots, lit them and threw them out, directly avoiding damage to their own homes. Ship problem.
The flashy firearms frustrate the Western fleet for the first time. Not only that, they also used a large number of fire attack weapons such as bolide and Greek fire, which caused heavy losses to the Western fleet. There were even three Roman ships against 15 Venetian and Genoese ships. The result of a complete victory for the ship.
After Aragon joined the alliance, he quickly mobilized navies from Barcelona and Sardinia to assist. Sicily was also preparing to invade Naples. Fortunately, Laszlo had already prepared, and the two countries faced off in the Strait of Messina.
Laszlo also saw more and more hostility towards Naples. In this case, he no longer pretended. Laszlo officially announced in the Square of Naples that he would expel the Papal State's envoys and declare war on the Papal State.
This made Boniface IX panic. Who would have thought that he would be serious and declare war just like that? Quickly invite mercenaries, remember, it is best to be from Switzerland.
Aragon joined the war, and one country became angry. The Kingdom of Castile originally planned to cooperate with Aragon and capture Granada in one go. Now that he has joined the war, the plan can only be postponed.
Also angry was France, whose protectorate went to join the war. If the other party attacked Genoa, would it join the war or not? The country had not yet recovered from the war with England.
Although these are the countries that have joined, there are quite a few who are participating in the war in the name of their families. It was the same reason as the Crusaders. The family had a large population and other sons needed to work hard to obtain territory to survive. Various principalities, counties, and manor territories asked their other sons to go out and earn territory, because they thought that hundreds of years ago, their ancestors also obtained territory through the Eastern Expeditions, and now they wanted to expand the family's influence through war again. force.
A noble crusaders were gathered. They were mainly from the Shinra. They had different horses, different armors, and some even came here on only two legs. This shows how uneven the level of this noble army was.
However, Venice still promised everyone that after defeating Rome, it only needs three-eighths, and the rest is still yours. This is a severe stimulant for everyone.