Artik knows very well that the soldiers and horses under his command have a few catties and taels, and these soldiers and horses can still win battles in the face of weak enemies, but if they encounter the elite Khorasan cavalry corps of Abu ***, they will lose the battle, so he must expand his strength as soon as possible and occupy more cities as soon as possible, so as to have a fairly large number of troops and occupy multiple cities before Abu ***'s soldiers and horses arrive, and use the city wall to offset the advantage of the Khorasan cavalry.

Of course, Abu *** himself also has to form a cavalry unit, after all, the mobility of the cavalry is incomparable to the infantry, on the way to the north, he forcibly recruited a large number of horses, and formed a cavalry unit, but the training time is too little, resulting in the combat effectiveness of these cavalry units is not very satisfactory.

The saddle and stirrup required for the horses were not a difficult task, which Artik was able to solve on his own, while the weapons of the cavalry consisted mainly of spears, swords and bows.

When the enemy army is far away, the bow and crossbow are used against the enemy, and when the two armies are engaged together, the spear has room to play, if the spear is broken, or the spear is thrown out in order to kill the enemy, then it is necessary to attack the enemy with the sword.

Spear weapons are not difficult to manufacture, as long as there are no excessive requirements, it is easy to manufacture, swords consume a lot of iron, and in the era of limited steel production, it is indeed expensive to make swords.

The cost of the bow and crossbow is also not small, although most of the bow and crossbow are bamboo and wood, but the arrows are metal, and a big war needs to consume a lot of arrows, and all the arrows on these arrows add up, which is also a lot of iron metal.

However, Artik did not need to worry about this, because most of the arrows used by his troops were provided by Ang Lee, and the number was extremely large.

In addition, the Fuyuan crossbow and repeater crossbow provided by Datang are indeed powerful weapons, so the cavalry formed by Artik is the main weapon with bows and crossbows, and even chooses to give up the spear as a weapon in order to bring more arrows.

Under the premise of not equipping armor, Artik's cavalry must have traveled much faster than ordinary cavalry, so that they could attack the enemy cavalry with bows and crossbows while retreating quickly, so that the enemy could not chase, this is the cavalry tactics, and it is also the main tactic of the Mongolian cavalry's westward expedition that year.

At the time of the army, the cavalry under Artik was only 2,000 horses, and now, after many days of development, the cavalry under Artik has reached 10,000 horses, and the number of horses is actually more, but some horses are too stupid to be used to pull carts, and cannot be transformed into war horses in the short term.

The biggest harvest of war horses was when the Khorasan cavalry camp was captured, at that time, there were nearly 10,000 war horses in the camp, although six or seven thousand were robbed by the Ottomans, but Artik also obtained 3,000 horses, these are very good war horses, and the supporting war horse equipment is also very complete, as long as there are people who can ride horses, they will soon be able to form a strong cavalry.

The Ottomans did not expand as fast as Artik, but the quality of the soldiers was better, and he paid more attention to cavalry, 20,000 of his 30,000 soldiers and horses were cavalry, and only 10,000 troops and baggage, and there were many horses in this 10,000-strong army.

Artik is now thinking more about how to deal with the main army of Abu ***, which is about to go south, and he knows very well in his heart that Mansur will not sit idly by and watch his southwest country be occupied by others, and will definitely send troops to seize it, and he must be ready to deal with it, ready to meet the Khorasan cavalry at any time.

Judging from the current situation, Artik is inferior to the Khorasan cavalry in terms of strength and combat effectiveness of the soldiers, but Artik is not worried, because he has the support of Datang behind him, and he can get the support of Datang's advanced weapons, such as the Fuyuan crossbow with a long range, and the repeater crossbow with an amazing frequency of firing, which the Khorasan cavalry does not have.

He also sometimes wondered what could be done to restrain the mighty Khorasan cavalry. The advantages of cavalry are mobility and strong impact power, while cavalry also has disadvantages, that is, the target is relatively large, and the defense is relatively inferior to the infantry.

In this way, the use of bow and crossbow weapons provided by the Tang Dynasty seems to be able to be used against the Khorasan cavalry, especially the light cavalry with the bow and crossbow, which seems to be able to contain and harass the Khorasan cavalry.

Of course, Artik has not used this method of warfare, and he does not know what such tactics will be, and the light cavalry equipped with strong crossbows and repeaters can cause much damage to the enemy army and whether it can influence the situation of the battle, these are unknown, however, his cavalry combat effectiveness is weak, and if he adopts this method, even if he cannot annihilate many Khorasan cavalry, the light cavalry is faster, and he should still be able to protect himself, so Altic made a bold decision to form a cavalry unit.

Because the training of cavalry is very insufficient, therefore, the scheduling and operation of large-scale cavalry archery troops, it is very likely that there will be problems, in order to avoid this problem, Artik with 500 people as a force, the cavalry archery troops are dispersed, so that they can maneuver and flexibly fight the Khorasan cavalry, if they can fight, if they can't fight, then retreat in time, saving their lives is more important than anything else.

And Artik's overall strategy is to use the main force of soldiers and horses to defend the fortified city in the north, offset the advantage of the Khorasan cavalry, and use these flexible and mobile cavalry as harassment soldiers and horses, so that they can harass the Khorasan cavalry everywhere, and annihilate the living force of the Khorasan cavalry, and even raid the enemy's logistics supply line, so that the Khorasan cavalry, which has a large number of troops, can only lose supplies, so that even if the combat power is strong, the Khorasan cavalry can only be defeated and retreat.

Artik quickly gathered a few of his subordinates and asked them to study with him how to divide his troops to garrison the northern city, and how to use small cavalry and archery forces to harass and wear down the approaching enemy.

"City lord, in order to avoid being completely surrounded, our 40,000 infantry must be stationed in at least three cities, and the three cities here in the north are less than a hundred miles together, which is a zigzag, as long as we hold these three cities, the enemy will not dare to continue to move south, otherwise, their logistics supply will be cut off by our army, and no matter which city they surround, the rest of the cities can send soldiers and horses to harass from behind, so that the enemy army will lose the other."

"That's right, our cavalry should also be dispersed, so that they can go out and harass the enemy more flexibly, and they can also go to other cities to get supplies at any time, and if one city is suddenly surrounded, the cavalry can also go to the next city, so as not to be too passive."

"Three cities are too few, and these two cities in the south are also very important, and defending a few more cities is more conducive to the flexibility of cavalry."

"The three cities in the north are each deployed with 10,000 soldiers and horses, and the two cities in the south are each deployed with 5,000 soldiers, and the cavalry is deployed in turn, going out to harass the enemy at any time.

"Lord, how can we forget about Ottoman? I heard that the number of soldiers and horses under his command has grown to 30,000, and if his soldiers and horses are in the west, our defense will be even more perfect. ”

Several subordinates said.

Artik listened to the opinions of his subordinates and felt that there was some truth, but he didn't like Osman, and said: "We are not all the way with Ottoman, the whole peninsula is our land, this is what the Tang Dynasty promised us, Osman is going to Egypt, we can't pin our hopes against Mansur on Osman, we have to rely on our own strength to fight Mansour, you must understand this." ”

"What the city lord said is, however, at the moment, our strength is too weak, it is better to unite with the Ottomans to win, and when our strength is greater, it is more reliable for us to rely on our own strength."

"Yes! City Lord, our plan is relatively tight, but the gap in strength is still a bit big, in case the five cities are attacked one by one, it will be too late. ”

"We don't know how many men al-Mansour will send against us, but at least not less than 50,000, maybe 100,000 troops, or even more."

"If al-Mansur sends an army of 100,000 to come and attack with an army of 100,000, will we really be able to defend the city with only 10,000 soldiers and horses in each city?"

"An army of 10,000 defending a city is under a lot of pressure in the face of a tenfold stronger enemy."

"What are you afraid of, we have bows and crossbows supported by Datang, recently Datang has supported our army with a batch of heavy crossbows to defend the city, it takes four or five people to control, this guy is much more powerful than Fuyuan crossbow, the shooting distance is very far, the lethality is huge, enough to deal with the enemy army besieging the city, the deployment of twenty units in each city is enough to deter the enemy army of the project, besides, we still have so many crossbows and arrows, as long as the city is strengthened and a moat is dug, it is enough to resist more than ten times the siege force."

Several subordinates talked.

Artik spoke: "That's right, we have the heavy crossbow supported by the Tang Dynasty, and we will definitely be able to thwart Mansour's army, as long as we unite and train our troops well, there is no invincible enemy, Ottoman is willing to help us in the battle, of course, it is the best, if he is not willing to help us, then we will not force it, we can't count on our former enemies to help, we have to rely on our own strength." ”

The subordinates all nodded in support, feeling that what Artik said was very reasonable, and they really couldn't pin their hopes on Osman, otherwise, if Osman didn't come to help, wouldn't it be the end of the game.

"Good news, city lord! Ibrahim fled Khorasan and entered the city. ”

A henchman hurried over.

The so-called Ibrahim is Ali's great-great-grandson, the legitimate leader of the Arab world recognized by the Shiites, who fought against the Umayyad dynasty for hundreds of years in order to bring Ali's descendants to the position of caliph, but for so many years, this wish has not been realized.

"Ibrahim? This is really great news, let's go and welcome it together! ”

Artik said excitedly, and ran with his men to meet Ibrahim.

There are many descendants of Ali, not only Ibrahim, nor only Ibrahim is the most qualified to inherit the position of caliph, but Ibrahim's legitimacy is at least much stronger than that of Mansour and Abdullah, at least, they are the descendants of Ali, and Mansur and others are full usurpers.

In short, in the hearts of Shiites, Ibrahim has a higher status than Mansur and is more qualified to become a caliph.

Artik is now the de facto leader of the 50,000-strong army, and according to Ang Lee's vision, as long as he controls the peninsula, Artik can completely proclaim himself sultan and become the founding monarch of the peninsula.

But Artik is a Shiite, he has to support the descendants of Ali, he can't be a usurper like Mansur, so he doesn't mind handing over power, or he can control the military, but the power supports Ibrahim to the caliphate.

"It's been a long time, Ibrahim, and it's great that you're leaving that rebellion in Mansour."

Artik met Ibrahim and shook hands with him very warmly.

"Artik, I heard in Khorasan that you defeated Mansour's elite cavalry, and you have captured many cities along the way, however, Mansur has been transferred back to the main army in the north, and it is estimated that troops will soon be sent south to deal with you, I am riding a fast horse to inform you, you must be prepared, at most a month, Mansour's elite army will be in the city."

Ibrahim spoke.

Artik nodded, "Don't worry! This situation is similar to what I guessed, we have made all preparations to withstand the elite main army of Mansour, by the way, we have grown to 50,000 troops, and of course, we can continue to recruit troops and expand the army to 80,000. ”

"Oh, is it? That's great, let's expand our army quickly! Don't wait for Mansour's main army to arrive. ”

Ibrahim spoke very directly and was scared casually.

"If you can come to me, we will already win most of the victory, and if the soldiers hear that Ali's son Ibrahim is here, their morale will be high, haha!"

Altic said half-jokingly.

Ibrahim laughed, "Oh, that's great, I didn't think I would have such a big effect, so I won't leave." ”

"Great, you are very welcome to stay, Ibrahim will rest first, and in the evening, we will drink together."

Altic said politely.

Ibrahim was worried about the pursuers along the way, so he fled quickly, at this time, he was indeed very tired, and after listening to Artik's words, he took his entourage to rest, he wanted to sleep well and replenish his spirit.

And Artik distanced his henchmen to discuss how to arrange Ibrahim, after all, Ibrahim's status is relatively special, and he can't just be a guest!