C31 (1/2)

”Skeleton Society... What is it? ” I've been numbed tonight by words I've never heard before.

”It's a very mysterious organization. Rumor has it that it's a branch of the Temple Knight Regiment …”

I helplessly looked at the Taoist. He was stunned for a moment before he shrugged his shoulders as if he had woken up from a dream and made a gesture of surrender.

”Ugh …” The Temple Knight Regiment... And this is something that I have to start from, King Solomon … ”

The Taoist grabbed a cushion from the sofa and loosened it. Then he leaned it against the arm of the sofa, took off his shoes and lay down on the sofa. He gave a comfortable groan, cleared his throat, and began his long and strange narration.

In the late stages of the reign of King Solomon, the Jewish kingdom split, the northern tribes broke away from their kingdoms and established the kingdom of Israel, and Jerusalem became the capital of the southern Jewish kingdom. Over the next 400 years, the holy city was conquered by Assyrians, Babylonians and Persians, and the vast temple was repeatedly destroyed by the flames of war.

When the Roman Empire occupied Jerusalem and the Roman Emperor Hadrian rebuilt it, the Jews were allowed to enter the city only on the ninth day of the month of Aphrodite, the day on which they could weep in front of the western wall. This western wall was what was now known as the Wailing Wall.

Until the seventh century A.D., when Jerusalem became a part of the Arab Empire, the Middle East was not as prosperous as it is now, as the two great centers of the world. As a nation and a nation, as long as they were prosperous and strong, they were basically tolerant, and the Arab Empire and Islam, with equal tolerance, allowed the Jews to settle in their holy city of Jerusalem.

But the good news was that in 1096, in the name of helping the Byzantine emperor, Alexei I, the then Catholic emperor Urbain II, summoned Christians from the Western world and launched the first Crusade. The barbarian criminals, the bankrupt, and all sorts of malevolent people shouted for the recapture of the Holy City, the expulsion of the infidels, and the liberation of the Islamic dominion, and in 1099 he invaded Jerusalem. They massacred Muslims and Jews throughout the city, wrote a surviving chaplain in his diary.

Inside the city, the streets were piled with hands and feet. I had to find my way between the man and the horse. But compared to what happened in Solomon's holy temple, this was just a small matter. It was a place where religious rituals were performed. But now? If I told the truth, no one would believe me. Let me say at least this much: in Solomon's shrine and porch, blood ran all the way down our knees and pedals as we rode. Indeed, it was the justice and judgment of God that filled this place with the blood of the infidels, for it had endured so long their blasphemy. The whole city is full of bodies and blood...

After that, the robbers who had tasted the sweetness began the nine crusades of two hundred years, the most turbulent years in the long dark medieval history of Europe, and the thousand years of hatred between Christians and Muslims.

The Templars were an organization that had appeared during the first Crusade. After the Catholic Volunteers took over Jerusalem, Christians in Europe went on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to visit the tomb of Jesus. The roads were unsteady, and pilgrims were robbed or killed from time to time. At the time, nine knights from France and Flanders, including today's northeastern France and the greater part of Belgium, came before King Dubois II to plead for the voluntary protection of Christians along the way. DuBoan II agreed and stationed the knights a corner of the Al-Aqsa Mosque on the Temple Mount, built on the site of the legendary Solomon Temple.