Letting the Saudis, or forcing the Saudis to commit more troops, and to participate in the ground battles on the front lines, at least have to take on the task of maintaining order in the occupied areas, is not something that this 30-year-old chief of staff of the coalition forces, who has just been promoted to brigadier general, can do.

Returning to King Khalid Military City, Ding Zhennan immediately went to find Shi Zhiliang.

The two then took a helicopter to Riyadh.

After arriving at the palace, Shi Zhiliang left Ding Zhennan outside and went to see the king of Saudi Arabia alone.

As for whether Shi Zhiliang can convince the king of Saudi Arabia, Ding Zhennan has no idea in his heart, or he just hopes that Shi Zhiliang will come forward in person to help.

After coming to Saudi Arabia for more than two months, Ding Zhennan has a deeper understanding of the country.

If anything, before the outbreak of the Posha Bay War, he basically knew little about the Saudis, after all, the Crescent region where the Saudis were located was not under the jurisdiction of the Western Theater of Operations.

To put it simply, relying on the abundant oil resources and the huge profits from the export of oil, 30 million Saudis have been able to live a prosperous life, and the dominant Saudi royal family has been able to sit firmly in the Diaoyutai without facing internal turmoil one after another.

Crucially, Saudi Arabia's national security is also based on wealth.

Over the past few decades, Saudi Arabia has been the world's leading arms importer.

According to unofficial statistics, after the end of the Second World War, independence from the colonial rule of the Kingdom of Bran, and the official establishment of the state, that is, for more than 40 years, Saudi Arabia was the world's largest arms importer. Based on the 150-year currency system of the new calendar, Saudi Arabia has imported about 800 billion gold dollars of arms in the past 40 years, which is equivalent to spending 20 billion gold dollars on arms in a year.

That's not a small amount of money.

In the 149th year of the new calendar, only 11 of the nearly 200 countries in the world spent more than 20 billion gold dollars on their military, while less than 50 countries had government budgets of more than 20 billion gold dollars, and about 100 countries did not reach 20 billion gold dollars in terms of gross national product.

Crucially, the Shaudi did not only import arms from the Liangxia Empire.

For decades, Saudi Arabia has adhered to a policy of diversifying the import of weapons and equipment, that is, importing weapons and equipment from several countries, including the three superpowers, at the same time.

For example, while purchasing "Zhan-11" fighter jets from the Liangxia Empire, Saudi Arabia also plans to import F-15s with comparable performance from the Nuland Republic. It was only in the end that because the Liangxia Empire promised to export the "Zhan-11AG", Saudi Arabia did not introduce the F-15A with completely overlapping performance. Presumably, in order to "compensate" the Republic of Nuland, Saudi Arabia still imported a batch of M109A3 self-propelled howitzers.

In fact, when Saudi Arabia imports arms, the first thing it considers is a "balance" policy.

To put it simply, several super-hegemons have to be taken care of.

For example, after importing tens of billions of gold dollars in arms from the Liangxia Empire, Saudi Arabia purchased dozens of medium-range ballistic missiles from the Empire at a unit price of 100 million gold marks, even though these missiles have been mothballed since they entered service and have never been used.

During the Iran-Iraq war, this "balancing" policy of the Saudi authorities played a key role.

To put it mildly, the Hussein regime in Iraq has acquired a lot of weapons and equipment from the Eastern Bloc through oil-producing countries such as Saudi Arabia.

The most representative is that through Saudi Arabia, Iraq acquired hundreds of ZT-80 main battle tanks of the Liangxia Empire.

These tanks played an extremely crucial and irreplaceable role in the later stages of the Iran-Iraq war, especially in the battle for the Lianghe Delta region.

Without these main battle tanks, Iraq might have lost bus X.

If this is the case, then the Iran-Iraq war will certainly not end in 148 A.D.

At that time, the Military Intelligence Agency conducted a mysterious investigation.

It turned out that this batch of tanks was produced in Pakistan Railway, which was supposed to be equipped with Pakistani Railway's armored forces, but it turned out to be sold to Saudi Arabia at a high price.

It's just that, that's nothing.

In any case, the Saudis were quasi-allies of the empire at the time, and more important than many allies, and had a very close relationship with Pakistan.

The problem is that the empire did not approve the sale of arms to Iraq, especially the main battle equipment.

Since the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war, the imperial authorities have declared their neutrality and imposed strict sanctions and embargoes on both warring sides.

Of course, the main target is arms.

Immediately after the results of the investigation, the imperial authorities added Saudi Arabia to the embargo list.

Because it was unable to purchase ZT-80 main battle tanks from the Liangxia Empire, the Saudis had no choice but to find another way, and finally purchased a batch of AMX-30 tanks from the Rock Kingdom of the Western Continent Group for emergency purposes. However, before the end of the Iran-Iraq war, these tanks were removed from the Royal Saudi-Saudi Army. With the exception of a few that were gifted to friendly countries, the rest of the AMX-30s were mothballed by the Royal Saudi Army.

It's just that the Royal Saudi-Syrian Army has no intention of reactivating these tanks.

It's not because of trouble, but because the performance of the AMX-30 is too poor, not only is it not as good as the ZT-99AG, but it is a lot worse than the ZT-80.

By the standards of the Imperial Army, the AMX-36, with a total combat weight of 30 tons, could only be considered a light tank.

It was only because of this incident that Saudi Arabia included the F-15A of the Republic of Nuland in the procurement list when choosing advanced fighters.

This situation lasted until near the end of the Iran-Iraq war, when the Liangxia Empire lifted the military embargo on Saudi Arabia.

As for the batch of ZT-80 main battle tanks sold to Iraq by Saudi Arabia without authorization, most of them were destroyed before the end of the Polish-Iraqi war, and the rest were returned to Saudi Arabia after the war. Because they were not in very good condition, mainly because they were not maintained, all these tanks were later sent to Pakistan as aid equipment. Some of them are still serving in the Pakistani Railway Army, and they are still in good shape.

From this, it is not clear why Saudi Arabia insists on a "balanced" policy.

Fundamentally, the Saudi's policy of "balancing" is actually buying security with money, that is, currying favor with the three superpowers through arms purchases.

Of course, this situation came to an end after the end of the Iran-Iraq war.

Don't look at the Saudi royal family during the Iran-Iraq war, it has always been unswervingly supportive of the Hussein regime in Iraq, but the fundamental reason is not that the two sides have friendly relations, but that the Hussein regime is used to resist and attack the Boyi state in the north and weaken the threat from the north.

Saudi Arabia, an oil-producing country, has always regarded Poland as their number one enemy.

Among other things, the Boi state gained its independence through revolutionary wars and overthrew feudal dynasties, while oil-producing countries such as Saudi Arabia were all "dynasties".

From this point of view, Saudi Arabia and other oil-producing countries on the southern shore of Posha Bay were the initiators of the Iran-Iraq war.

Without the assistance of oil-producing countries such as Saudi Arabia, what will the Hussein regime use to buy the weapons and equipment needed to wage war?

According to folk rumors, just the Saudi royal family sent tens of billions of gold dollars to Hussein's regime in the three years before the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq war. All of this money was used to purchase weapons and equipment, and it was used on the battlefield soon after, helping the Iraqi army to win a great victory after the start of the war.

However, after the end of the Iran-Iraq war, the threat from the Polish-Iraqi state has become less obvious.

On the contrary, the threat of Hussein's regime has become more prominent.

If nothing else, the sovereignty claim to Kuwait poses a serious threat to Saudi Arabia and other countries, because Kuwait is also an oil-producing country, and it is no different from other oil-producing countries such as Saudi Arabia in terms of national capital, and it also uses money to buy security, but it is much smaller than Saudi Arabia.

If Iraq can annex Kuwait, it will also be able to overthrow the Sauditian royal family.

It was against this backdrop that the Saudis' national security strategy began to tilt toward the Liangxia Empire.

This also has a lot to do with the restoration of the strength of the Liangxia Empire and the transformation from strategic defense to strategic offensive.

After the end of the Polish-Iranian War, the prestige of the Liangxia Empire fell to the bottom, and the post-war strategic expansion came to an end and turned to strategic defense.

After more than ten years of adjustment, especially after Zhou Yongtao came to power, the empire re-embarked on the road of expansion.

In addition, Saudi Arabia has no better options at this time.

In the Posha Bay region, Iraq has the full support of the Manman Empire, while the Boi State has long defected to the Nuland Republic, and the Saudi and other oil-producing countries have always been friendly with the Liangxia Empire. If the protection of the Liangxia Empire is lost, oil-producing countries such as Saudi Arabia will inevitably be unable to protect themselves.

Among the many incidents here, the most representative is the procurement of advanced fighter jets.

In the year after the end of the Iran-Iraq war, Saudi Arabia issued a tender to the world to purchase 150 heavy fighter jets for 10 billion gold dollars.

If anything, this is also the world's largest arms trade after the Iran-Iraq war.

Because the Iran-Iraq war has ended, the era of arms companies lying down and making money has passed, so fighter manufacturers around the world are paying close attention to this deal.

Including the "Zhan-9B" and "Zhan-11A" of the Liangxia Empire, a total of 7 heavy fighters participated in the bidding. The other five are the F-14A and F-15A of the Nuland Republic, the ADV and Tornado of the Tempest of the Empire, and the MG-31 of West Luosha.

The last 3 are actually just to make up the numbers.

Not only is the performance not advanced enough, but also the political level, and the last thing the Saudis need to please is actually the West Continent bloc that is secretly supporting Iraq.

As for the first 4 types, the first to go out is the F-14A.

The reason is also simple, such fighters are already equipped with the Polish Air Force, and the Saudis clearly do not want to use the same fighters as potential adversaries.

Subsequently, the "Zhan-9B" of the Liangxia Empire was also swept away.

The main thing is that the maintenance and maintenance of this fighter is very troublesome, and it is necessary to purchase support equipment for naval aviation, and the performance is not necessarily very good. From the standpoint of the Royal Saudi Air Force, there is actually no need for a heavy fighter to carry out interception missions.

In the end, there were only two types of fighters left for the Air Force.

If anything, Saudi Arabia almost chose the F-15A.

It's not that the "Zhan-11AG" that the empire put up for bidding is not advanced enough, or that the price is too high, but that it has trouble applying for an export license.

At that time, the fighter was sold to only three countries, namely the number one ally, the Kingdom of Goju, and the Imperial Kingdom of Narrow-mindedness and Austria, which faced the Guia Ocean.

The former has nothing to say, and as for the latter two buyers, there is mainly such a demand.

To put it bluntly, the Imperial Kingdom and Austria, facing the Northeast and Southeast Guia respectively, bear a relatively heavy operational burden and need heavy fighters with huge combat radius, such as the "Zhan-11", and there is no way to replace them with light fighters.

In fact, the number of purchases from both the Imperial Kingdom and Austria is not large, and they are both around 100 aircraft.

Because the country is long and narrow, there is no depth of defense to speak of, so even Pakistan Railway did not purchase the "Zhan-11" and used the relatively cheap "Zhan-10".

On the issue of whether to export heavy fighter jets to Saudi Arabia, the top echelons of the empire have been hesitant.

As a result, it was not until the Saudi authorities made it clear that if the Liangxia Empire refused to export the Zhan-11A, it would have to purchase F-15A from the Nuland Republic, that the empire's top brass made concessions and approved the export contract for the Zhan-11AG, completing this politically significant arms deal.

It's just that the "Zhan-11AG" exported to Saudi Arabia will not be delivered until 155 years after the new calendar.

The biggest impact of this arms trade was actually to determine the identity of Saudi Arabia's allies, and also to determine the empire's overall strategy in the Posha Bay region.

Over the next year or so, the Saudis signed several arms trade contracts with the Empire.

For example, 1,000 "ZT-99AG" main battle tanks were purchased from the Empire for 8 billion gold dollars, and they were spot traded, that is, these tanks were in the inventory of the Imperial Army, and the main guns were only replaced as needed before being exported, and they were replaced with a more powerful air conditioner.

Crucially, these tanks were all delivered to the Royal Saudis Army before the outbreak of the Posha Bay War.

Because of its outstanding performance, especially in actual combat, the Saudi authorities issued a second purchase list before the outbreak of the global war, preparing to expand the equipment capacity of the "ZT-99AG" to 2,500 units to replace other tanks, and also hoped to establish an overhaul plant in the country.

According to the final negotiation results, Saudi Arabia will buy the production license of the "ZT-99B" together with Pakistan Railway and build a tank factory in Pakistan Railway. However, the Saudis were mainly responsible for providing the funds, in exchange for the right of first refusal and the promotion of the tanks to other countries.

All in all, the Saudi authorities have been consolidating their relations with the Liangxia Empire through the arms trade.

Of course, this policy is also reflected in army building.

In the Saudi-like royal army, almost all the generals and high-ranking officers are members of the royal family, or have some kind of kinship with the royal family.

Even among the rank-and-file troops, there were many officers from the royal family, and only the infantry was mainly civilians.

Crucially, the Royal Saudi Army, especially the Royal Army, has several elite units dominated by mercenaries.

Most of the officers and soldiers of these units are from Pakistan Railway!

Today, almost 200,000 of the approximately 500,000 officers and men of the Royal Saudi Army are mercenaries from Pakistan.

In fact, this is also a means used by the Saudi authorities to maintain relations with Pakistan and the railway.

To put it simply, it is to gain the trust and support of Pakistan and the Railway through close military cooperation, so as to establish a bilateral relationship with the Pakistan Railway that goes beyond the alliance.

As for the reason, it's actually quite simple.

Pakistan is the most populous Mu'a country, and what Saudi Arabia lacks is actually population, or human resources.

As long as the close relationship with Pakistan can be maintained, then the position of the Saudis in the Mu'a state will be guaranteed enough, and its national security, or more precisely, the dominance of the royal family, will be strong enough.

However, the resulting problems cannot be ignored.