Viscount Hervad walked slowly on the steps of the castle of Alijoe. He walked very carefully, as if he was measuring the land under his feet with his steps instead of walking.

Sometimes he would stop and frown as if he was recalling something and then continuing to walk. Sometimes he would look up somewhere and look carefully, as if he was looking for something that had already blurred in his memory.

The Alijoe Castle was both familiar and unfamiliar to Herva. He had not returned here for many years, and he had forgotten many things, but when he walked back into the castle, those memories of the past surged in his heart like a tide.

Alexander's figure flashed not far away, and Herva raised her head and looked over there, and at the same time, a strange feeling arose in his heart.

Alexander was the key figure in helping him regain Zagreb, or if there were no Alexander, he would not be who he is now, but Herva knew in his heart that his relationship with Alexander was obviously not as harmonious as outsiders, or that from the beginning they had just cooperated with each other, and now he had what he needed, it was time for him to pay.

But he still doesn't know what Alexander wants, and because of this, he feels even more nervous.

The cherishment of gain and regain is more real than the pain of gain and regaining. At this time, Helva could hardly imagine what would happen if he lost the thing he got again after so many years of suffering. He felt that he might really go crazy.

Alexander walked over and after bowing slightly to Herva, he walked slowly in the castle with Herva.

This was the fourth day back to Zagreb. Two days ago, the castle on the right bank finally announced its surrender. In fact, they had to surrender. Although there were still some troops in the castle, almost all the nobles with status went to the Alijoe Monastery, and the few little nobles left in the castle could not command or influence the officers at all.

Alexander brought many people to Zagreb. Although he was with Herva, he was not too careless, especially those great nobles in Zagreb who dared to plan to murder Duke Signachi, he did not believe that those people would still be concerned about Herva. So when he decided to take advantage of the St. Cyril brothers and you, he was ready to take the opportunity to take the opportunity to take the city.

So when he led his men to guard the monastery, the hunting guards who entered Zagreb with him also quietly surrounded the castle of Alijoe.

It can only be said that people in this era generally seem to be not familiar with secret combat, and perhaps they do not think that a few people can play any role, so Zagreb is unaware of the hunting guards and Bosnians who are infiltrated and infiltrated.

For the Alijoe Castle, which was suddenly surrounded, what really made them fuss was the emergence of the nobles later. The army blocked and unable to come out of the castle had to fight hard with the enemies on the street not far from the castle. However, the enemy relied on the convenience of the street and the sharpness of the firearms that made them difficult for a while.

Then the aristocrats appeared. Looking at those people, Alijoer finally chose to surrender, and the right bank only lasted for two more days.

But perhaps because Alexander's attack was so successful, many people, including Herva, couldn't help but have a strange idea, that is, who conquered this city?

Seeing Herva's silent appearance, Alexander knew exactly what he was thinking.

In fact, this is not uncommon, and another person would think so.

"Viscount, I may not be able to attend your coronation as scheduled," Alexander said with a smile to Herva, "and forgive me, I cannot help but remind you that there is not much time for you to prepare for a grand coronation."

Herva nodded gloomy face, which was one of the reasons why he could not get better even though he finally regained Zagreb.

The situation of Ottoman soldiers was in panic, and Herva discovered that what awaited him, the Duke of Zagreb, was not glory and cheer, but messes.

After the joy of the initial dynasty changes, one day of troublesome things followed one after another, and what he had unexpectedly expected was the appearance of an Ottoman.

That person was probably the secret messenger sent by the Sultan who was rumored in the city. However, the scene of the man appearing in the castle without any scruples at all, which surprised Alexander somewhat.

Although the confidentiality awareness in this era is very weak, the secret envoy who appeared publicly without any scruples still opened his eyes.

The news brought by the secret envoy is no longer a secret.

The conditions that had spread on the streets and alleys as early as when they first entered Zagreb were indeed not fake, and Herva was also facing the difficult choices faced by the great nobles before, but before it was the same class of great nobles in Zagreb, but now he is facing this dilemma himself.

"Sultan wants Zagreb to publicly support him in expedition to Bucharest." Herva looked at Alexander. "What do you think I should do?"

"You are the master of the city and will be crowned soon."

Alexander's answer made Herva dissatisfied. Although he was unwilling to let this person make a decision for him, he knew very well that he would not be able to stand here without this person. As for crowning, it would be even more joke. Now he has taken back Zagreb as he wished, but at this time he realized that he was actually facing greater difficulties and difficulties than when he was in exile.

"What should I do, am I going to be the first Duke of Zagreb to be crowned only to sign a surrender?"

Herva's words made Alexander smile slightly, and he couldn't help but think of a future king. The unlucky guy only had ten minutes before and after the crowning of the abdication edict, and even the unlucky king said a rather sad sentence to the masses: "Give me more time and let me be the king for ten minutes."

"You won't be a short-lived duke."

Alexander's voice was very low, but it immediately attracted Herva's attention. Viscount's eyes became sharp in an instant. He stared at Alexander with a pair of eyes full of passion.

"Tell me what to do. I promised you that you will repay you. Now I am willing to promise you more promises, as long as you can help me."

Looking at the viscount's excited expression, Alexander nodded and turned around: "In fact, this is also the reward I want to give you. I hope you can resist the Ottomans."

"What?"

Herva looked at Alexander in shock, and his confused gaze couldn't help but look up and down for a while. It seemed that he didn't understand the meaning of the other party's words.

"You helped me just to resist the Ottomans?"

"I'm not that great," Alexander laughed, and seeing Herva's more puzzled look, Alexander thought for a moment and decided to say something useful to him in order to convince him "Viscount, do you think the Ottomans would be satisfied with just conquering a Bucharest?"

"Of course not, they are going to conquer all the countries here, and if possible, they will probably conquer the Vatican and even the entire Europe," said Herva, a little excited when speaking of the Ottomans. "Even behind my father's death, there was an Ottoman plot, because as far as I know, those who murdered my father had colluded with the Ottomans a long time ago."

"You are right. The Ottomans are going to conquer everyone. Since this way, even if you choose to compromise with them this time, you can guarantee that they will not be completely annexed by them in the future," Alexander nodded in agreement. He noticed that although Helva looked very excited just now, he seemed discouraged, and his expression became hesitant before. "The Duke tells me what is your greatest wish in your life?"

"Take back everything that belongs to me." Herva said excitedly, then looked around a little confused. For him, many of the things here were just familiar with them, and then he had to face the difficult choice of giving all this to others.

"You don't need to feel sad, you have already got what you need." Alexander ignored Herva's slightly sad expression, but made a gesture to invite him to walk towards a platform a little higher.

It was a small platform built on the mountain. It was not high and there was a very steep slope outside the wall. The wide view made it a good artillery position. Two artillery muzzles with faint light faced the city below.

"Sir, please allow me to ask you the wisest question, who is the Duke of Zagreb?"

Herva looked at Alexander in surprise. He was a little annoyed and even almost burst out of anger, but Alexander's serious appearance forced him to force himself to suppress his anger.

"Are you going to insult me? My father, Signachi, is the former Duke of Zagreb, and I am the only legal heir to the Duke of Zagreb."

"In fact, anyone who sits on the throne of the duke can be the Duke of Zagreb."

As soon as Alexander said that, Herva couldn't help but be furious!

His hand was used to holding it to his waist, but then he realized that there was no sword around him. At the same time, his eyes quickly looked around. When he found that there were no one else except the few followers in the distance, the hunting guards who were obviously more crowded than him, the Viscount's face became ugly.

"Don't get me wrong. If I were to do something bad for you, I would have taken action long ago." Alexander walked over from Herva to the end of the platform and leaned slightly down to look down. "Vissue, I want to tell you that the throne in Zagreb is meaningless. If you compromise and surrender to the Ottomans, then even if they still allow you to sit on that throne, it will be just a puppet."

Herva slowly relaxed himself a little, and he looked at Alexander in confusion and didn't understand why he was saying this to him.

For Herva, it was obviously stupid to be an enemy of the Ottomans. Although his people kept attacking the Ottomans during exile, when he was about to become a duke, he would no longer do such stupid things that would obviously anger the behemoth. But now Alexander seemed to be inciting him to confront the Ottomans head-on, which made him wonder in his heart what the intention of this person was.

Alexander ignored the slightly cold look on the Viscount's face. He just continued: "When you were escaping, you were only looking forward to returning to this city. Now your wish has come true, but the Ottomans will come soon. I think you are very clear that if you choose to compromise, what is waiting for you is just a title of a ten-minute king in history. Of course, your Duke's crown must be longer than ten minutes."

Then Alexander explained the origin of the "Ten Minute King" to Herva. When he saw that the viscount's face had already had a layer of gray because of its ugly expression, he said with a serious expression: "So are you going to be a hero to the Zagreb people or just a signator of a surrender?"

"Do you want me to fight against the Ottomans? But do you know how terrible the Sultan's army is?" Herva stared at Alexander strangely. "I don't know what you want to do, or you want to be a hero yourself, but you must know that this is seeking death."

"I don't want to be this hero either."

Alexander said helplessly. Of course, he knew how terrible the Ottoman army was, and that it was much more than the person in front of him. But he had to find some trouble for the Ottomans to delay their advancement. Think about it, if they really surrounded Bucharest and he didn't have time to take Sophia away from there, it might be a tragedy. After all, Joan of Arc in history was not a good end, but even if she was not burned to death by the British, with the treacherous situation of the French court at that time, the country girl from the French countryside would definitely not be able to fight those nobles who eat people and don't spit bones, and her ending would never be much better than in history.

What Alexander had to do was to bring Sophia out of the vortex of Bucharest, and the premise of all this was to prevent the Ottomans from siegeing Bucharest too early.

"Vissoc, I know that your army cannot fight against the Ottomans, and in fact no one can compete with their army. The Ottomans have the most powerful army of this era, their new army has much more powerful firepower than other armies, and their cavalry is now sharp, even the Mongolian cavalry was just like this."

Herva asked with an ugly face: "Since that's the case, why do you still want..."

"But don't forget that they are foreigners after all," Alexander looked back at the shadow of the mountains in the distance in the faint mist. "You used to be looking forward to becoming a duke, but now you are about to become a duke but are facing the loss of Zagreb and your dignity. I know this is a very painful thing for you, but it is not important than exile before."

"Not important?!" Herva finally couldn't bear it anymore. He walked back and forth on the edge of the platform in anger, holding his hands together with force. "Do you know what I was thinking every day at that time? At that time, I even thought that as long as I could become a duke again, I could sign an agreement with the devil. I could not tolerate others wearing my duke's crown, nor could I tolerate a murderer sitting on the throne my father sat on before his death. But now I was about to succeed and was threatened by the Ottomans, but you are here to tell me that all this is not important?"

Looking at Herva with an excited expression, Alexander shook his head indifferently. His seemingly relaxed expression even more stimulated the Viscount. He stared at Alexander's face fiercely, and a trace of anger flashed slightly in his eyes.

"I feel flattered by your hostility, and it would be better if you could treat the Ottomans like this," Alexander said, "Vissoc, the throne that is very important to you is actually just a meaningless chair. What you want has been obtained. After being crowned, you are the legal Duke of Zagreb. By then you can command your army to fight against the Ottomans."

"But how is this possible? You must know that even your army can capture this city so easily."

Herva said in frustration that he did not notice that Alexander's cheek twitched slightly after hearing this, nor did he hear Alexander's secret curse in his heart: "What does it mean that even my army is like a fool."

"Vissue, don't forget what I just said, the Ottomans are foreigners," Alexander looked up at the city in the distance. "You can strengthen the walls and clear the fields and prevent the Ottomans from getting a piece of food. You can organize troops to fight guerrillas with the Ottomans in this mountain range, attack every single Ottoman, rob their transport team, intercept the orders and intelligence they sent to send, and ambush those Ottomans who may be nobles. In the past, you were just a fugitive nobleman living in the jungle with your followers, but now you are the Duke of Zagreb, so that you can legally command any noble, soldiers and farmers, and you can even give up the city to live in the jungle, but it is no longer the camp of the fugitive but your palace, but it is still the undisputed duke of Zagreb. This is the true meaning of what I just asked you."

Herva looked at Alexander blankly. He didn't know how to digest it for a moment, but Alexander did not give him any time but continued: "The Ottomans would occupy this city, but it was impossible to occupy the entire territory of Zagreb. Soon they would find that everyone here might be civilians or soldiers. Soon they would be exhausted by being harassed. They would become extremely cruel because they fell into the Scene. This cruelty would make your people hate pagans even more. And you would become heroes because of resistance to the Ottomans. Think about it, your roar could awaken those timids, not only Croatia but also Bosnia. Those nobles would regard you as their leader, and the people would regard you as their savior. How far do you think the crown of Bosnia would be from you? Perhaps you could create a dynasty with just one hand."

Herva looked at Alexander blankly. He didn't know if he had a stroke, because he felt that his body seemed to have completely lost consciousness due to numbness. When he finally recovered from the tremor that made him palpitations and wanted to speak, he heard Alexander standing on the edge of the platform again.
Chapter completed!