The value of unity will only be well known in the face of the enemy.

- Kazakh proverb

Uncle Ahmed picked up a ball of pilaf with his trembling thumb, forefinger, and middle finger, put it in his mouth and chewed it a few times, then took a sip of tea, wiped the droplets of water dripping from his black and white beard, and continued:

"In the spring of 1219, Genghis Khan personally led a Mongol army from the banks of the Krulun River in the Mongolian steppe. His four sons, the eldest son Jochi, the second son Chagatai, the third son Ogedei, the fourth son Tuo Lei, and the general Subutai, Jebe, and the great judge were accompanied by him.

Since Mongolians live in places with cool climates all year round, they cannot tolerate the scorching heat. Therefore, after crossing the Altai Mountains, they stopped their advance and settled down on the banks of the Irtysh River for the summer.

Genghis Khan held a solemn and solemn oath-taking meeting on the flat Deren Mountain (now Pingdingshan in Beitun, Xinjiang). Standing on the platform of the generals, he impassionedly stated to many soldiers the great historical significance of the Western Expedition, and inspired the soldiers to fight bloody battles and create brilliance for the prosperity and strength of the Great Mongolia.

The thunderous cries of the Mongol soldiers echoed across the ancient wasteland.

The reason why Genghis Khan attached so much importance to this war was that the Mongols, who were in the ascendancy, could not accept such humiliation, and on the other hand, they believed that after many years of conquest, our country had a vast territory and a solid treasury, and as long as we conquered it, we could take advantage of this huge and valuable inheritance.

When the weather cooled, the Mongol army passed through Beshbali (present-day Jimsar in Xinjiang) and Bole, passed through Temur Confession (present-day Guozigou in Ili, Xinjiang) to Alimali (present-day Huocheng, Xinjiang), crossed the Ili River in the west, and advanced rapidly towards China through Haijili (present-day eastern Kazakhstan).

Several countries that Genghis Khan passed through on his western expedition knew that they were not opponents of the Great Mongolia, and they saw the wind and took refuge in the big tree of Genghis Khan.

The Kingdom of Gaochang founded by the Uygurs and the Kingdom of Alimari founded by the former Qarluqs, renamed the Hazaru people, were the first to voluntarily submit to Genghis Khan and sent armies to participate in the Mongol expeditions.

The Aerkhun people in the area from the Seven River Valley (located in present-day Kazakhstan) to the Chu River valley heard that the Mongol army was about to march westward, and hurriedly sent people to curry favor with Ghis Khan, and also formed the Aerhun army to participate in the war against our country.

Only the stubborn Bai Gaoguo refused to send troops.

The strength of the Mongolian army is about 100,000 to 150,000, and it is known to the outside world as the 60 army, the purpose of which is to first deter and intimidate our country in terms of momentum.

Strategically, the Mongol army could choose two routes to attack:

First, they started from the Altai Mountains, crossed the valleys of the Ili River, the Chu River and the Taraz Valley, crossed the Karatau Mountains along the northern foot of the Tien Shan Mountains, and waged war with our country in the middle reaches of the Syr Darya River and in the area of the city of Mudara, where the Mongol spies were killed.

The second is along the southern foot of the Tianshan Mountains, starting from Kashgar (now Kashgar, Xinjiang), the last capital of the former Karaqidan, in the northwest corner of the Tarim Basin, and crossing the Tianshan Mountains into the Ferghana Basin in the upper reaches of the Syr Darya River.

These two routes are actually the main lines of the two trade routes since ancient times, namely the New North Road and the North Road, the former was opened by the Han Empire, and the latter was opened by the Tang Empire.

The Mongols eventually chose to walk the two routes separately.

The main force of more than 200,000 led by Genghis Khan took the Tianshan North Road.

Jebe led the 5,000 cavalry that conquered Karakhitan into the Ferghana Basin in advance.

In order to defend against the attack of the Mongol army, China changed all the walls of major cities into stone structures, heightened and thickened the city walls, and built blockhouses at certain intervals in the city. Civilians in the city were allowed to legally possess weapons and undergo regular military training to make every Khorezmian a brave warrior.

We have also made a well-planned war plan.

A total of 400,000 troops were mobilized to the front, leaving only a small number of troops to defend the city, and most of the troops took the initiative to attack. Ismaili sent light cavalry scouts to grasp the movements of the Mongol army in order to formulate countermeasures.

He sent part of his forces to set up an ambush in the path of the Mongol army, and then used part of his forces to pretend to attack, and when the main force of the Mongol army reached the predetermined area, he began to ambush. The tactics of interspersed encirclement were also used to disrupt the military movements of the Mongol army. In the end, the most elite troops were sent to rob and kill Genghis Khan.

If the ambush fails, all the remaining troops will be withdrawn to Afghanistan, and the Mongol army will be ambushed in the deep mountains and forests, and they will be dragged back and forth with them.

If the Mongol army does not pursue our army and besieges the city, we will disperse our forces and send various armies to support the defenders in the city and intercept the Mongol army's logistical support forces. Usually the families of the Mongol army stayed not far from the battlefield, abducting or exterminating their families and dampening their will to fight.

However, there are two strategic factors that are very unfavorable to us.

First of all, Khorezm is a new empire with a loose internal structure and many ethnic groups, and the cohesion of the people is not strong, and it is difficult to form a situation in which the whole people share the same hatred and hatred for the enemy and share the same external situation. On the other hand, although the rise of the Great Mongolian State was also very short, based on its own geographical attributes and pre-war ideological guidance, the country had a natural attraction to the nomadic Mongols, and the national unity was very strong.

Secondly, although the total strength of our country is far greater than that of the Mongol army, there are many strongholds that need to be fortified in our country, and the forces are bound to be very scattered and easily broken by the enemy. On the other hand, the Mongol army had the advantage of moving quickly by horse, and could concentrate its superior forces to sweep through the city as quickly as a hurricane in the desert.

Our king, Mahamat, following the advice of the Ismaili ministers, lost his way and made a misjudgment and sent the main force of the mobile forces to the city of Ferghana. As a result, Samarkand and Urgench gathered half of their forces and became the focus of our defenses, while the oasis castles from the Kalatau Mountains to the Fergana Basin were stockpiled with enough supplies to exhaust the patience of the Mongol army with the intention of using a protracted war.

When the Mongol army reached the vicinity of the city of Rathara, they did not attack the cities of Ferghana, Samarkand, and Urgenzi, as the Ismaili minister had imagined, but instead marched in four directions.

Genghis Khan's sons Chagatai and Ogedai led an army to besiege Ngaracheng, and the battle lasted for six months, causing more than 30,000 casualties among our defenders.

The Second Route Army, commanded by his eldest son, Jochi, captured Sygnak (present-day Chiyl, Kazakhstan), Yudi (present-day Kazil Orda, Kazakhstan), and Yangjigan (present-day Kazarinsk, Kazakhstan) along the northwest of the Syr Darya River.

The Third Route Army, commanded by the three generals of Arahe, Suyikvul, and Taha, attacked southeast of the Syr Darya River and attacked Bernakert (southwest of present-day Tashkent, Uzbekistan) and Kuyu (present-day Leninabad, Tajikistan).

Soon after, the First and Third Route armies of the Great Mongols joined forces outside Samarkand.

Genghis Khan and his youngest son Tulei led the main army in the middle and reached the banks of the Syr Darya River with Subutai as the vanguard, but they could not find a wooden boat to cross the river. The Mongol soldiers wrapped the branches in the cowhide as a leather bag, put their swords and clothes in it, tied the leather bag behind their backs with ropes, and followed the horses across the Syr Darya River by grasping the tails of the horses swimming in front of them with both hands.

They quickly crossed the 600-kilometer-wide Kigilkum Desert, detoured back to the Amu Darya Valley, and occupied Sernuk (present-day northern Samarkand, Uzbekistan) and the city of N'er (present-day Nurata, Uzbekistan), and approached the central city of Bukhara, the center of our country.

The Mongol armies continue to inflict heavy losses on our army. It took only three months for Jochi and other three-way army horses to clear the oases in the middle and upper reaches of the Syr Darya, including Ferghana, and occupy all the cities on both sides of the Syr Darya.

Genghis Khan's Middle Route Army occupied Bukhara, the cultural center of Islam, slaughtered a large number of soldiers and civilians in our country, and then looted the city's belongings, and then completely destroyed Bukhara with a fire. The ancient city with a thousand-year-old history, the precious 10,000-volume books, and the exquisite and magnificent buildings were all destroyed in one fell swoop! ”

When Ali heard this, he interjected angrily: "These vicious Mongols are too bad! Let the eagle peck them blind! Let the hungry wolves bite their flesh! ”

A few tears fell from Uncle Ahmed's dim eyes, and he continued:

"I also heard that when the Mongol army was massacring the civilians of Bukhara, an old woman knelt in front of her horse and pleaded for herself.

With tears in her eyes, she said, 'Don't kill me, I just swallowed a string of pearls in my stomach and will soon die.' My sons are all businessmen, and they have a lot of money. Leave me a whole corpse, and I will give you all my possessions. ’

The Mongol soldiers let the old woman lead the way to the place where the treasure was buried. Not only did they break their promise and kill the old woman, but they also cut open her stomach and took out the string of pearls she had swallowed.

The Mongol commanders, who had lost their minds, thought that every Khorezm man had a treasure in his belly. So he ordered all the Khwarazmians he had caught to be disemboweled.

The task of the massacre was assigned: each soldier had to cut open the bellies of 24 Khorezmians. How many of our compatriots did 50,000 Mongol soldiers have to slaughter? They kept killing and killing, killing with scimitars, piles of corpses, rivers of blood, and the sun and moon were discolored......"

Uncle Ahmed said this with a tone of desperation, wiping the tears from his face with his sleeve.

Ali's mom and dad turned their faces away, unwilling and afraid to face this terrible reality, only to sigh there.

Ali really doesn't understand how our country, which was yesterday's glorious and prosperous empire of the people, has become weak and vulnerable today.

Uncle Ahmed got up to go home. After telling Ali's parents to take care of their bodies at the door of the small courtyard, he hunched his back forward and walked away silently. His figure left a long shadow on the cobblestone-encrusted streets.

Later, Uncle Ahmed was too busy to get out of the war and the country, and never came to Ali's house for dinner and tea.

Ali's family didn't have a chance to hear detailed and accurate news about current affairs, and their ears were full of rumors of defeat, death, and the massacre, and their hearts were even more panicked.

The situation in the city of Samarkand is becoming more and more tense. When the common people met, they no longer greeted them in a loud voice, but greeted them silently with melancholy eyes, as if they were a herd of lambs waiting to be slaughtered in the apocalypse.

King Mahamat of Khorezm woke up from his arrogance in the face of a fierce and powerful enemy, and held several military meetings overnight to analyze Genghis Khan's strategic intentions with senior generals, study the countermeasures of the empire, and finally determined the policy of fortifying the walls and clearing the wilderness and holding the city.

Mahamat gave the task of garrisoning the capital city of Samarkand to a total of about 100,000 Iranians recruited from the Iranian plateau and Turks recruited from the northern steppes, and then fled with his family and loyal guards to the empire's new territories, Khorasan in the northeastern part of the Iranian plateau, and the Indus Valley in the southern Hindu Kush Mountains. Ali's second brother, Musa, was in the ranks of Mahamat.

The Mongol army was unable to carry heavy weapons due to the long journey. Genghis Khan set up an arsenal on the front line, and ordered the skilled craftsmen of Khorezm who had captured him to use local materials to imitate Khorezm's siege weapons, as well as oil cylinders and poison canisters and smoke bombs with grass charcoal as the center of the lamp and mutton fat as oil.

When the Mongol army had completed all the siege works, Genghis Khan decisively ordered the attack on Samarkand.

The defenders of Samarkand fought valiantly against the invading enemy with canisters of fire and with bows and arrows.

At that time, there were 110,000 defenders in the city of Samarkand, of whom 60,000 were Turkic Khamli. At this time, there were more and more Kangli people who advocated surrender. They were lucky enough to think that they were of the same species as the Mongols, and that they would be treated with kindness and preferential treatment. As a result, more than 30,000 Kangli people fled the city and surrendered to the Mongol army.

The Mongol army kindly accepted them, arranged for them to rest and sleep in their tents, and then burned and killed them all while they fell asleep.

The brutality of the Mongol army shook the hearts of the defenders of Samarkand.

After a day and a night of fierce fighting, the soldiers and civilians in the city were terrified when they saw that the Mongol army was still fierce and continued to attack the city.

The defenders, who had no intention of fighting, surrendered voluntarily......

The first target of the Mongol army to occupy the city was the imposing and richly decorated imperial palace.

Since the elite guards defending the palace had fled with King Mahamat, the Mongol army stormed the palace with little resistance. They didn't care whether they saw guards or slaves, military generals or civilian officials, and they killed anyone they saw.

Uncle Ahmed is sorting through the paperwork files. He heard the sound of slaughter outside the palace, and knew that the countdown to the empire to which he was loyal had begun. The old man has no power to return to heaven, so he can only abide by his duties.

Two Mongol soldiers rushed into the archives and saw an old man with a fluttery beard calmly cleaning up the papers, staring at the slender eyes and yelling, but seeing that the old man ignored him at all, he stepped forward to arrest the old man with murderous anger.

Uncle Ahmet suddenly picked up the teacup on the table and threw it at the Mongol soldiers.

Enraged, the two Mongol soldiers raised their sharp knives and stabbed Uncle Ahmet in the chest.

Uncle Ahmed cried out in misery, and lay in a pool of blood with his eyes open with flames of hatred......