Fighting Rebels in own lands
The battle against Roger was fought by Alberto d'Ottavio, a great knight and general.
Roger's army had the higher terrain and outnumbered the Sicilian Army 2 by 1, so Roger hired a few mercenaries, but the Rebels were still outnumbering them.
Alberto decided to surprise the enemy with an attack during the day, as the Rebels expected a night attack because they outnumbered the Sicilians.
The Sicilian attack was a huge surprise for Roger, but his mercenary-crossbowmen were killing many of the Sicilian mercenaries, so Alberto decided to storm the hill.
Mailed Knights and the Bodyguard killed the crossbowmen during Roger stood around and did nothing except watching the battle.
His infantry was fighting for the death as they were completely surrounded. Sicilian Bowmen shot Roger's Bodyguard and, afte he had only one man left of his bodyguard, he decided to take part in the battle and he attacked the Sicilian Bowmen down the hill.
He got killed soon after this screen was taken and this was the first victory for Sicily on the lonbg road to old glory.
Soon after the victory, an alliances to the Pope, the venetians and the Lega Lombarda were made.
The siege of Reggio
Reggio belonged to those cities in Southern italy that were once Sicilian and got independent after the deaath of King Roger II.
Reggio was strategically important, as the ruling of this small town would grant control of the road of Messina to the Sicilians, so this was important for trade and would bring money.
Alberto d'Ottaviano was sent there with a reinforced army.
Reggio had no real port, so Alberto decided to let the fleet simply blockade the Road of Messina, which made the fleet beaching its ships near Messina, as Alberto's siege engines needed so much place.
Alberto built 2 rams and started the attack after one year of siege.
One ram should break through the gate and another one should brek through the wall a small distance left to the wall.
It worked and the cavalry broke through the gate during the infantry made its way through the hole in the wall.
The enemy units were concentrating on the Sicilian Infantry and so the cavalry didn't have ay difficulties in reaching the town's plaza and conquering it. This made the Rebel infantry storm back to the plaza where it met the Sicilian cavalry in their front and the Sicilian Infantry in their back.
Nearly no Rebel survived the battle and Sicily had won a bit of its old glory back!
The Rest
It isn't that exciting to talk about the rest of the reconquest of Southern Italy. The Rebels in Bari and Brindisi were already decimated by Venetian forces which tried to conwuer the both towns and didn't get it done.
Guaimario Chiaromonte, a new general, led these battles but he wasn't less successful. He used the same strategy as ALberto had and the Rebels got caught by it, even whent the 2 remaining Rebels of Reggio had warned tham and the attack was at night....
So Bari fell to the Sicilian Empire and Brindisi followed a few years after.
What next?
Through the wars against the Rebels, Sicily lost much of its money.
So the aim for the next years was taking control of the entry to the Adrian Sea, which meant conquering Durazzo and defeating the pirates of Kerkyra, then the Sicilians wanted to conquer all the islands in the Western Mediterranean to get control of the Sea and to prepare for a huge Invasion of the Moorish lands.
(the grey zones should be controled by Sicily, look at the minimap!)
But then, one year after the start of the Preparations for that, the Pope called a Crusade to Narbonne, the city of the godless heresian that call themselves Kartharians. Sicily decided to take part on the crusade, as Narbonne would be a good position to influence the western meditarranean even more.