The East is an ancient and amazing land. Let's take a quick look, but then, I think, the dear reader does not understand everything in the realities about which he is reading. First, let's turn our attention to the question of power as the most important. On the territory of Syria and the areas adjacent to it, where our hero operates, there were four major political groups that tried to share a delicious pie of this land among themselves. Of course, we are talking about the very end of the twelfth century and the beginning of the thirteenth, that is, about 1190-1210. The first was the most vivid and aggressive group of associations, which are often called the Crusader states. At that time there were only three of them: the Kingdom of Jerusalem (its remains, since Jerusalem had already been beaten back by Muslims in 1187), the principality (duchy) of Antioch and the county of Tripoli. They occupied the entire Middle East coast. Very interesting group, which had two traditional diseases, which eventually destroyed it. The first was that they constantly experienced shortages in the troops, and the second consisted in a strong and bright internecine strife that tore this territory. The internal struggle for power and the traditional disunity, characteristic of feudal society, greatly weakened this group. The second group was the land that was formerly called the Byzantine Empire. In 1195, Alex III Angel ascended the throne of Constantinople. One of his first cases was the dissolution of the army as completely unnecessary. Almost immediately, his possessions are beginning to disturb neighbors who are doing everything they want there. First of all, of course, they rob. His power is in such a deplorable state that in 1204 the crusaders come to visit him, who have strayed off the road to Egypt, and therefore very hungry. Not wanting to drink a glass of tea with absolutely lost "concrete boys", he fled the city, which they later came in, trying to find under the benches and in the baskets of the local master. Alas, but the owner was not there, and therefore, seeing so much unimportant property, they very quickly found an application for him. First of all, of course, in the role of cargo for their pockets, so that those in the wind are not very fluttering. The poor Byzantine Empire did not survive such an accident and collapsed into a lot of small states, the key ones being the Latin Empire with its capital in Constantinople and the Nicene Empire with its capital in Nicaea. You understand that the role played by this group in local, regional affairs was, first and foremost, amusing and entertaining. The third group was represented by Sunni Muslims. First of all, these are the Seljuk Turks and various Arabian emirates, such as Mosul or Homs. The fourth group, you guessed it, is the Shiite Muslims, who were represented by the Egyptian emirates and the lands of Palestine. Between the third and fourth group was an interlayer in the form of monophysites, but they were few and lived mainly in the territory of the first political group - the lands of the Crusaders. A key feature of the last two groups was that they were in a state of profound feudal disunity and could with great difficulty act as a common front in some cases. True, in both groups was on the Sultanate, but those were still too weak. By the way, the sultan is an analogue of the word king or king, that is, the sole ruler, and the emir is a nobleman, and very high-ranking. Thus - in the third group there were two young and fragile kingdoms and many relatively independent feudal lands between them, which could, in principle, formally be subordinated to someone. The first kingdom is the Egyptian sultanate, which most recently founded Salah ad-din, that is, Yusuf, the son of Ayyub, the second is the Iconium Sultanate, which existed for a long time.

Let's go further. You understand - these groups were engaged in the most traditional business for the temporary workers - they sawed the local budget. And also, sought to gain control over financial flows and industrial centers in the region, in order to taste better and softer. The peculiarity of the financial well-being of the district was based on three pillars. The first whale is a zone of traditional farming along the floodplain of the river, which created enough food for a large number of people. The second whale is the trade routes that passed through these lands. The third whale is a people, most of whom were poor and dependent on feudal lords. The level of enslavement of the population was, in comparison with Europe, simply fantastic. The third whale allowed the feudal lords to receive more, since almost all the people could work for food. You understand what "mighty" warriors can grow from such a people. That is why there was a very dynamic redistribution of zones of influence. Let's look at what the Middle Eastern army of Muslims represented. As in other traditional feudal societies, the core of the army was the feudal cavalry, in this case it is the sipah. That is, mounted warriors, who in exchange for the service of their suzerain (sultan or emir) received a certain amount of land. Of course, with this method of organization these guys tried to improve in the noble art of murder and robbery, and therefore were quite serious force. Alas, but they had the same traditional callus as a weak spot - there was not much land to have a large number of similar warriors with the current level of technology. So, like the European knights, they were, as a rule, very few. The scale is the same, that is - 300-400 sipahov is a huge force, which must still be looked for. Actually, only they were warriors. The rest of the people with weapons treated different forms of militia, which could neither fight nor shoot arrows but nothing at all. If there were 100 sipahs and 10,000 mounted militiamen, then it came to a hilarious thing - in the first group there were more soldiers than in the second. Literally like in the famous movie about the Spartans. There are various legends about how famously all Muslims fired from the bow. These are simply touching legends, since it is more difficult to think and compare facts than to believe in such nonsense. See for yourself - archery was not a vital necessity because the Middle East is not a traditional hunting zone; most of the population works from morning till night to eat, and is working on physically hard work. When they learn to shoot from a bow and what forces, they are exhausted for a working day to the extreme? Add here is the fact that in that region was spread almost exclusively glued composite bow, which was made by craftsmen and was worth more than the average peasant could afford. Often it cost more than a good horse. So it turned out that only sipahs, and sultans with emirs had opportunities for exercises with onions, and in general with weapons, and almost all the militia that from time to time was going to be armed with the most traditional weapon of the militia of that time - with spears. The funny thing is that even with these spears they, alas, did not really know how to own, in short - random people in the war. Especially it is necessary to say about the armed servants - they were and were armed slightly better than the militiamen. The majority had even sabers! About the fact that they could not fight, and no one taught them this case, it is clear from their name. They served with their masters, in order to serve them in campaigns and deeds. Something like Trufaldino from Bergamo, only with weapons. Armed them in order to be able to call for order and obedience to the bulk of the peasants who did not have weapons. The east is east, but Europe, before the first technological leap in the Renaissance, differed little from it. Is that a climate.

But back to our hero. Eric entered the tent and saw a completely frightened little girl of about 14, who was huddled in a pile of clothes and looked out with huge green eyes full of tears and horror. Did our esteemed sultan prefer little girls? After all, he was already solid. In general, his curiosity was bursting eerily, and so he decided to check. He went to the girl, pulled her out of a heap of rags and piled on the carpet, which was covered with a couch. The girl ceased to squeak and break away. He looked at her. So it is, the poor thing is unconscious. All the better. Strange this case - this girl was virgin, it means - she needed the sultan for something else. Deciding to figure it out later, he straightened her clothes and rolled it into the far corner of the bench. After that, he began to lay out on the vacant place valuable things that he came across in the tent. A small trunk with coins was found, and there was gold besides silver. And a lot. Ten minutes later, he looked at what was going to be assembled - not bad. Not bad. Kucheryavo lived the deceased - did not deny himself anything and carried many valuable things with him. But we will rejoice later, because we need to swallow the piece that they have bitten off more quickly. He approached the girl, turned her on his stomach, tied his hands in elbows with a wide ribbon of silk fabric, not tight, but she could not pull out her hands. Then he tied it with the rest of the tape to a massive chest, which she could hardly have dragged. Then a pair of slaps took her out of a faint and, demonstrating the fetters, sat him down on the pillow so that it did not get stuck. Then he left the tent to his men. He found them in a completely broken state. Apparently, the sight of that bloody porridge that they created with their own hands, and the sounds of those dying of them were taken out of a state of mental equilibrium. Even Rudolph and that one was a little greenish in appearance. Eric had absolutely no choice but to arrange a fraudulent beating for these infamous children of an illegitimate camel. He loudly barked: "Rise! " and kicked his foot into the stomach of the nearest of the crossbowmen lying on the ground, bringing him a life-giving pain from that terrible state into which he fell. Of course, he howled and began to respond to the events. Very quickly joined Rudolph with Morrigan, which was stronger than all these men and very staunchly endured the horrors of the war, which later lay tons of pink snot in paperback. Literally a couple of minutes later his people were on their feet and more or less adequately understood the words.