Of course, Ang Li will not let the Tang Empire have things that will be regretted by future generations, what he has to do is to make other big countries regret, such as making Arabia never unified, making slightly larger countries smaller and weaker, making small countries smaller, and making disobedient countries more and more obedient, in short, everything is in the interests of the Tang Dynasty, and the interests of other countries must be in line with the interests of the Tang Empire.

This time, Ang Lee sold a large number of weapons to Artik, in addition to getting the city of Aden and the Canal Peninsula, there was also a purpose, which was to let Artik and Mansur balance each other, so as to split the Arab Empire, so that the Arab Empire could never be unified.

And when Artik and Mansur were in a fierce war, Ang Lee could also act as a mediator, asking for benefits from both sides, and finally let the two forces recognize each other, so as to officially achieve the goal of splitting the Arab Empire.

In Ang Lee's view, Artik and the Mansur group will soon be exhausted, after all, in the process of replacing the Umayyad Dynasty, the entire Arab Empire has been battered, industrial and agricultural production has suffered great losses, and the food stock is not much, especially the core Khorasan region, which is the top priority of the Umayyad Dynasty's defense, for which more fierce battles have also taken place, and caused very huge damage to the industrial and agricultural production in this area, greatly weakening the agricultural output in this area, A large number of professional soldiers consume food, but they do not produce food, so the food crisis in Khorasan is very serious, and this is why Ang Lee is so confident.

As long as the food production is insufficient, the pressure on Abu ***'s huge army will be greater, and if they cannot win quickly, the logistical pressure will crush this large army, and as long as this happens, the war will not be able to continue.

The Changping War between Qin and Zhao, the two sides confronted each other for a year or two, and almost the entire national strength was hollowed out, the national strength of Qin was slightly stronger, while the national strength of Zhao was relatively weaker, and the food in the treasury was not enough to eat for a long time.

If Zhao had enough grain and grass and did not worry about running out of food, there was naturally no need to risk attacking the powerful Qin army, thus dragging the Qin army to death step by step.

But there is no if, Zhao ran out of food before Qin, and in the case of insufficient food, he could only choose to take the risk of attacking, which was a choice that had to be made.

The current situation in Khorasan is estimated to be similar to that of Zhao, they maintain a large army all year round, and the productivity has been greatly damaged, and the pressure on the food supply is very huge.

At the same time, Li An has long helped Artik train mobile and flexible cavalry and archery small units, these small units can play a role in harassing and interfering with the enemy's food routes, large-scale enemy transportation of grain and grass, may not be able to eat in one bite, but small-scale transportation of grain and grass, can still be carried out, in this way, small victories into big victories, for example, can further increase the logistical pressure of Khorasan, resulting in them unable to fight.

The premise of all this is that Artik can hold the city of Maia and not be defeated by Abu ***, if it is easy to be defeated, everything is impossible to talk about.

In order to allow Artik to withstand the attack of the elite army of Khorasan, Li Ang not only provided them with the cold weapons of the Tang Dynasty, but also sent an elite team to support them, and even sent an advisory group to teach them how to transform the defense facilities of the city and how to effectively defend the city.

As long as they strictly follow the methods taught to them by Li An, they will definitely be able to block the attack of Abu ***'s elite army, thus dragging the war into a long-term confrontation war, so that it will be completely impossible to fight.

Tall city walls, catapults and bed crossbows with good attack power, as well as moats and urn cities, as well as drawbridges, horse rejections and moats.

Such a complete defense facility, for example, can greatly offset the combat power advantage of Khorasan's elite soldiers and horses, making the Khorasan cavalry look at the city and sigh.

The Mongol Empire of later generations, when the western expedition conquered the city, the cattle could not do it, but in the process of attacking the Great Song Dynasty in the south, they did suffer repeated setbacks, and even, their powerful Great Khan was killed because of the defensive counterattack of the Great Song Dynasty, which is enough to show that a strong city defense is very important to resist the enemy, as long as the Khorasan cavalry does not master the artillery technology, it is unlikely to attack the well-defended city, unless they have ten times the strength of the army, with the lives of the soldiers to fill.

"Big brother, since the time has not yet come, then we are waiting, however, there should be no problem on the Ottoman side, I heard that he has occupied the whole of Egypt, and the number of soldiers and horses under his command has grown to 80,000, and the ruling population exceeds one million, so you can let the Ottomans send some people to help first."

Li Feiyu said.

Li An nodded approvingly: "Feiyu, you're right, we should let Osman give back to us, immediately send someone to contact Osman, tell him about the construction of the canal, and ask him to send some laborers over, the more the better." ”

"Yes, big brother, I'll send someone to contact Osman later."

Li Feiyu said.

Li An nodded, took out a drawing, and said, "Look at this bridge, it's magnificent enough!" ”

After speaking, he handed over the drawings to Li Feiyu to appreciate.

This drawing is the drawing of the canal bridge designed by Li An, before the excavation of the canal, the first thing is to build some bridges, after all, when the canal is dug through, the land connection on both sides of the canal will be disconnected, which is obviously not conducive to the progress of land transportation, and will also seriously affect the development of the economy, so before the excavation of the canal, the canal bridge must be built first.

And although the width of the canal cannot be too small, it will not be very wide, at least, compared with the Yangtze River and the Yellow River, it is far worse? The canal was dug to allow merchant ships to pass, and who would be idle and have nothing to do, digging the canal as wide as the Yangtze River, isn't this looking for guilt

According to the normal width of the ships, the width of the Datang Canal designed by Li An is about 100 meters, it is enough to have this width, no matter how wide it is, it doesn't make much sense, anyway, as long as it can stagger two merchant ships, it is enough.

Normal merchant ships can have a width of 20 meters is considered very good, more than 10 meters and a few meters of merchant ships abound, can reach more than 30 meters of width of ships, is already a very large ship, so, a width of 100 meters is absolutely enough, of course, in some places with ports, the width needs to be increased, it is also feasible to get a width of two or three hundred meters, and the location of the bridge must be the narrowest position of 100 meters, after all, the wider the river surface is the more difficult it is to build a bridge.

Because the width of the canal has been calculated to be 100 meters, the width of the bridge designed by Ang Lee is 300 meters, and in addition to the 100 meters erected above the canal, the approach bridges at each end have a distance of 100 meters.

This distance is not long at all, and if a railway bridge is to be built, it will have to be increased by a factor or two.

In addition, the terrain of this point chosen by Li An is relatively high, more than 30 meters higher than the sea surface, so 100 meters each of the approach bridges is enough, if the height of the two sides of the bank is very low, about the same as the sea level, then the approach bridge must be pulled very long when excavating, otherwise, either the ships cannot pass through the bridge hole, or the vehicles on both sides need to climb the steep slope.

"Big brother, this is the smallest bridge! You'll definitely have bigger bridge designs as well. ”

Li Feiyu glanced at it and spoke.

"Oh, how do you see that?"

Ang Lee asked.

"Big brother, this is an ordinary crossing bridge, there are no railroad tracks, if you add rails, the bridge will be even more magnificent."

Li Feiyu said.

Li An nodded with satisfaction and said: "You are right, this is the smallest bridge on the Datang Canal, and the larger bridge is still being designed, but the canal bridge is so wide, and the scale must not be compared with the Yangtze River Bridge in Datang." ”

"Big brother, this canal hasn't started digging yet, why build a bridge first? Shouldn't there be a river now, and then a bridge? ”

Li Feiyu asked suspiciously.

Li An smiled and said: "You are right, this is the truth, however, the canal will be built sooner or later, and once the canal is dug and then the bridge is built, the difficulty of construction will be greatly increased, and the connection between the two sides of the strait will be delayed, you should know that the construction of the bridge needs to be underwater, and this is very difficult, if it is directly dug in the soil for construction, it will be much easier, so, in order to reduce the difficulty of construction, and in order to be able to build bridges more cost-effectively, we should first build bridges, Then go and dig the canal. ”

"How many bridges does the eldest brother plan to build over the canal?"

Li Feiyu asked.

"For the time being, you don't need a lot, it's almost the same to build five or six first, there are three cities at the head and tail and in the middle, naturally each needs to build one, and one more in the middle of the three cities is about the same, so that every two bridges are forty or fifty miles apart, which is not too far in length."

Li An said.

"Ah Lang, the coconut milk pheasant is ready, it's time to eat."

Yuna came over and shouted.

"It's time for dinner, let's eat some together!"

"Good! Eat some. ”

Li Feiyu was not polite at all, and he didn't understand what kind words were.

The news of the failure of the attack on the city of Maia soon reached Khorasan, and Mansur was the first to learn about it.

Mansur was very annoyed by the successive failures of the attack on the city, in his eyes, Artik was just a wealthy and mercenary businessman, and there were very few soldiers and horses under his command, even if it developed in a short period of time, it was just a group of rabble who had just put down their hoes, such an army should be very poor in combat effectiveness, it should be crushed at the touch of a button, he originally thought that he only needed to send an elite Khorasan army to attack, and he could defeat these rabble in one fell swoop, but he didn't expect, The attack plan was far from being as easy as he imagined, Abu *** and Ziyad, the two generals he valued very much, did not even capture a city, and moreover, he lost a lot of soldiers and horses in vain, and even, even the main general of Abu *** was injured, so he could only choose to recuperate, and handed over the military commander to the subordinate general Qiyad.

What's even worse is that the pressure on logistics is getting bigger and bigger, with the consumption of food and other materials by the army, the pressure on the food supply in Khorasan is getting bigger and bigger, not only the food ration of the front-line soldiers must be reduced, but at the same time, a large number of officials and left-behind troops in the rear must also reduce the supply of food, but in this way, it will reduce the morale of the army, if you can't eat enough, you will have no strength to work, and your mood will be very bad.

Therefore, Mansur desperately asked Ziyad to win the war as soon as possible and end the war, and if the war dragged on for a long time, he would not be able to guarantee the supply of the army.

"It's really infuriating, the two guys Abu *** and Ziyad can't capture a city after attacking for so long, and they have lost a lot of soldiers and horses, and if this continues, the army's food and grass will not be supplied."

Mansour said angrily.

One of his subordinates spoke: "Caliph, it's not the generals' fault, Artik has the support of the Tang Dynasty, and the weapons they use are better than ours, and our elite soldiers and horses are best at field combat, and are not good at attacking cities, so it is naturally difficult to win quickly, but my subordinates believe that as long as the soldiers go all out, they will definitely be able to capture the enemy's cities." ”

Mansur angrily ordered: "What can you do with the support of the Tang Dynasty, immediately give an order to Qiyad, let him capture Maia City as soon as possible, and capture Artik and Ibrahim alive, the sooner the better." ”

"Yes, caliph, my subordinates will give orders."

The subordinates had no choice but to go forward to convey the order.

After the failure of the tunnel siege, Abu *** was recuperating from his injuries at ease, while Ziyad focused his energy on building siege equipment, and asked his soldiers and horses to build as many siege equipment as possible, the more the better.

Because through the previous attack on Ar City and this feint, Qi Yad has deeply realized that only by building a large number of siege equipment can he minimize his own casualties and cause greater damage to the enemy, and without the heavy weapons of the siege, he will not be able to capture the city smoothly.

In addition to creating conventional ordinary siege equipment, Ziyad also continued to think about it, and once again invented and improved a variety of weapons.

For example, in order to defend against fire attacks, many large siege equipment have been treated with fire prevention, and even if they are attacked by fire in the city, they will not be damaged. There are also a large number of ladders that have been modified to be very strong, and even foldable, and many vehicles have been built to protect against the rain of arrows, and they also have the function of fire prevention.

Of course, performance is one thing, but more important is quantity, and only with a huge number can you counteract the counterattack of the defenders in the city, so as to capture the city of Maia in one fell swoop.