Summer 1214 AH.

At this time, far away on the banks of the Amu Darya River, 80,000 Mongol cavalry was passing over the pontoon bridge that spanned the two banks. Led by the founder of the Mongol nation and the legendary hero Temujin, once again conquered the Persian lands.

At this time, Temujin did not know that the Great Zhou Republic was piecing together a network of sieges against him. Therefore, his second invasion of the Western Liao Empire had nothing to do with the Temujin encirclement network.

The reason why he invaded Western Liao again was only to open a passage into Europe.

Temujin of this time and space did not grow up in the Mobei grassland, but in the camp of the Guards Youth Corps in Tabriz.

So he, like Zhilugu, had a dream of conquering Rome!

If he hadn't lost power in the internal struggle in Western Liao and was forced to return to the Ural River valley to develop. He is now mostly a high-ranking official such as the privy deputy envoy of Western Liao, and he may have led the Dashi Guards to attack Constantinople!

Although he is not a courtier of Western Liao now, in the nearly 20 years of the Dashi Guard, he still made the conquest of Constantinople his life goal.

And to accomplish this goal, it is necessary to take Persia and Asia Minor, which are ruled by Western Liao!

In addition, there was another reason that prompted Temujin to invade Western Liao again.

That's the Bright Sky Doctrine!

Temujin's siege of Baku and the capture of the Holy Maiden of Light was not a whim, nor did he want to become a public enemy of the entire Illuminati world.

He did this for the sole purpose of seizing the rule of Persia with the help of the influence of the Illuminati Religion.

After more than 80 years of continuous propagation, Mingjiao has been resurrected in Persia. Although the number of believers is still less than that of the Heavenly Fang Sect, there are still millions of Light believers.

In Temujin's view, these millions of people could be turned into his own basic plate.

With their support, the population of Greater Mongolia will be able to jump from a million to 10 million, and it will also have a fairly developed industry, commerce and agriculture.

With this support of the population and industry, commerce and agriculture, he was able to cross the Bosphorus and become the master of Constantinople!

As for the Golden Horde in the north, Temujin didn't care much.

For in his view, the conquest of Europe was the conquest of the area around Constantinople, Greece and Italy, and at most part of Spain.

It was the core territory of the Roman Empire in history.

Everywhere else, in his opinion, was a wild place. If he is only 40 years old now, then it will be okay to conquer it so-so. But he was born in 1162 AD. This year is 1214 in the Western calendar, and Temujin is already 53 years old.

There's not much time to waste on blonde European barbarians......

Therefore, after completing the initial conquest of Central Asia, a place of military material and technology export, Temujin did not even spend much energy on the Western Song army that marched westward, but only let his eldest son Jochi use scorched earth tactics to perfunctory. He led 80,000 Mongol warriors to invade Persia again.

For the terrain of Persia, Temuzhen was all too familiar. So he did not stay long in the desert on the south bank of the Amu Darya River, and after a little sweeping, he quickly advanced southwest, reached the southern bank of the Caspian Sea in less than 20 days, and captured the religious shrine of Rai (later Tehran, called Rai before it was destroyed by the Mongols), less than 250 miles from the Caspian Sea. The city is a sacred place created by the god of light, a Zoroastrian god who was also introduced by Manichaeism, and thus became one with the Bright Heavens. Therefore, the Mongols who converted to the Bright Heavens in this time and space will not destroy it.

After the capture of Rai, Temujin "consecrated" the city to the holy Maiden Moqisi, who accompanied the army, and turned Rai into the new Roof of Light.

Later, under the auspices of Moqisi, Temujin was crowned Emperor Genghis of the Great Mongols and King of Persia in Rai.

This move also meant that Temujin's rule over Persia was recognized by the Holy Maiden of Light!

Although Zhilugu had already discussed with Wang Yongji of the Golden Horde about the establishment of another saint after Moqisi was captured. But there is no precedent for such a thing, and both Wang Yongji and Zhilugu want to put their favorite candidate on the throne of the Holy Maiden. So the two did not reach a consensus for a while. As a result, Temujin got the first step and turned himself into the king of Persia.

And the coronation of Temujin as king of Persia also meant the revival of the Persian state, which had been extinct for centuries – even though Temujin himself was not a Persian. But he became king of Persia under the coronation of the Holy Maiden of Light, who was a Persian.

Compared with the Western Liao Empire, the Persian Kingdom always had a greater sense of belonging to the Persians.

It can be said that Temujin hit the death hole of Zhilugu at once.

If he had been hiding in Asia Minor and not daring to send troops, the Persians, whether Bright Heavens or Celestials, would have regarded Temujin as their own king—the caliphs of Baghdad and the Seljuk sultans of Iraq, as well as the Ayyubid sultans, all hated the Great Stone Empire, and of course wanted to see the Great Stone Empire unlucky.

At the same time, Zhiluku was also under pressure from the Khitan nobles in Tabriz and Brusa.

A Great Liao emperor who lost all or most of Persia was not what they wanted.

As a last resort, Zhilugu couldn't wait for the arrival of the aid of the Great Zhou Republic, so he led the Dashi Guards and an army composed of Khitan noble knights to attack Rai.

On August 16, 1214, a 100,000-strong Western Liao army from Asia Minor and Tabriz hurried to fight a decisive battle on the southern outskirts of Rai.

In this battle of Rai, Zhilugu put on a traditional phalanx.

That is, the pike formation composed of the Khitans was used as the "city wall" to cover the guards armed with muskets to shoot, and at the same time, a large number of artillery guns were used to fire long-range, and the cavalry was used to cover the flanks and rear of the large array.

This style of play, similar to the "Spanish phalanx", has been the standard pattern of warfare in the past few decades.

In this mode, the defending side always has a certain advantage, and the side that attacks first always loses. So wars often start with endless shelling, until one of the parties can no longer stand the damage of artillery fire and takes the initiative to attack.

Temujin, however, took a different approach.

He first sent his cavalry to make a roundabout feint, pretending to attack the flank of the Liao army. The purpose was to lure the Liao cavalry to attack, and then the Mongol cavalry pretended to be defeated and diverted the Liao cavalry from the battlefield.

Then Temujin sent his own trump card, the Cowardly Army, and he sent his own Cowardly Army, an elite unit modeled after the Oishi Guard! Each warrior also has to master a number of skills, including musket shooting, melee hand-to-hand combat, archery on horseback, and horse impact.

The 20,000 soldiers of the Cowardly Xue Army formed a horizontal formation and spread out a large front that could encircle the Liao people from three sides. The cowardly Xue army held arquebuses in their hands, and under the cover of their own artillery fire, they advanced against waves of Liao artillery. It was forced to 40 paces away from the Liao army's formation, and then opened fire.

Because the Mongol cowardly Xue army had a wider front and a denser formation, the firepower that could be put into fire was more fierce. The Oshishi Guards attached to the spear phalanxes were scattered and did not form a horizontal formation, so they could not exert their maximum firepower. As a result, heavy losses in musket fire!

Seeing the heavy losses of the Guards, Zhilugu immediately ordered the pikes to charge.

Seeing this, Temujin's cowardly Xue army immediately retreated, leading the Liao army's pikemen towards a large wood.

The woods are certainly not a place for the spear phalanx to exert its power. The pikemen of the Liao army were not stupid to this extent. When the Oishi Guards were preparing to storm into the woods and fight the Mongol cowardly Xue army. A group of Mongol cavalry somehow got rid of the entanglement of the Khitan cavalry, reflexively returned to the battlefield, and launched an assault on the Chinese army where Zhilugu was located.

The Oishi Guards guarding Naolugu's side were caught off guard and had to escort Naolugu to transfer.

This was nothing, and Naolugu only needed to transfer a little to continue commanding.

However, the movement of this formation caused panic among the Khitan pikemen, whose morale was not high.

At this moment, the cowardly Xue Jun, who had retreated into the woods before, suddenly appeared at the edge of the woods with more than a dozen bronze cannons!

With a roar, a dense stream of shotguns knocked down the guards and Khitan pikemen at the front in rows. The cowardly musketeers also turned back to the line of fire and fired with muskets.

The Khitan pikemen collapsed in an instant, rolling backwards like the ebb tide of the sea. Naorugu, who was moving his camp, was frightened by this scene and blindly gave the order to retreat.

Disaster suddenly befell the Khitans, and the 100,000 army collapsed on all fronts!

After the First Battle of Rai, all of Persia soon fell into the hands of Temujin, with the exception of Tabriz and the island of Abadan (belonging to Ahvaz, located on the Shatt al-Arab, with ports, trading markets, and citadels).

Just when the Dashi Empire was at a critical juncture of life and death, in the Broken Leaf Mansion in Central Asia, the expeditionary Song army was in a predicament of insufficient supplies.

The Western Song Dynasty army is an expedition of 10,000 miles this time! In terms of the distance of the troops, it is definitely a miracle!

But no matter how strange it is, the Western Song Army is still an army of an agrarian nation, and it is impossible to drive cattle and sheep with the army like nomads.

Therefore, those who supported the westward expedition of the army were actually the military tuns operated by the kings of the Gaochang and Shule domains in the Ili River Valley.

The ancient Ili River was located in the middle of the territories of the two feudal domains of Gaochang and Shule, so it was jointly occupied by the two feudal towns.

Fortunately, it was Zhao Huan who used the method of dividing the feudal kings to guard the western regions of the border, and the feudal kings also sealed the county kings, county dukes, and pavilion marquis, and brought a certain number of military households and criminals to build and reclaim the city on the land where the water and grass were still abundant. Finally, it took seventy or eighty years to operate a place like the Ili River Valley, which is located on the border of Chinese civilization.

However, the developed Ili River Valley area is also more than 1,000 miles away from Shaye Province.

Transporting grain for thousands of miles has always been a taboo for soldiers, and the grain in the Ili River Valley is also limited. It is impossible to supply an army of 200,000 for too long.

Originally, he thought that he could get supplies in the important town of Xiliang, but the Mongols destroyed the entire Broken Leaf Mansion into scorched earth ruins.

Not only that, but small groups of Mongol cavalry were also operating around the Broken Leaf Mansion, waiting for an opportunity to attack the logistics line of the Song army.

Although Guo Baoyu, the commander of the Song army, also had trump cards in his hands, that is, "shooting targets and showing talents" and "shooting targets and lifting people", letting them follow the activities of the scout cavalry, which could cause certain casualties to the small group of Mongolian cavalry.

But the blow to the Mongol cavalry could not be turned into a real supply, and the main Mongol forces were never visible (in fact, they were no longer in Central Asia). Guo Baoyu, who did not find the main Mongol force, did not dare to continue to advance towards the Ferghana Basin - after all, he shouldered the life and death of 200,000 troops.

Therefore, after holding out in the Broken Leaf Mansion for a month, Guo Baoyu, who was facing the end of food, had no choice but to lead his troops to retreat to the Ili River Valley.

"Liangchen, we have defeated this battle, right?"

The commander of the "Eldest Son's Western Expedition" initiated by the Western Song Dynasty, Zhao Huan, the king of Broken Leaf County, was also among the retreating brigade.

He is the eldest son of Zhao Xin, the son of the Western Song Dynasty, in his thirties, half of the Hu blood, with sunken eye sockets, curly hair, and a high nose, very handsome. His mother was the "Bright Maid" who was dedicated to Zhao Xin by the previous generation of Bright Saint Maiden Yelupu Suwanjin.

So he is not only a concubine, but also a Hu species, and has a background in the Bright Heaven Doctrine. Therefore, he was excluded from the selection of the crown prince from the beginning.

Fortunately, the Western Song Dynasty no longer raises the prince as a pig - now the military attache class is becoming more and more unreliable, so each generation of Western Song Dynasty emperors has to support the royal generals to restrain the officer group.

In addition, the expansion of the Western Song Dynasty was also very powerful, occupying many wild places, which were not suitable for governance by liuguan, and could not be without big officials. Rather than setting up a feudal town, it is better to cheapen the descendants. Therefore, the Western Song Dynasty began to crown the king in the frontier.

And if you want to divide the frontier king, the prince can't understand military strategy. Therefore, the prince's enlistment in the army gradually became the practice of the Western Song Dynasty.

Zhao Huan, who was not qualified to inherit the throne, became a candidate for the king of Sai, and received harsh military training since he was a child.

Therefore, he, the commander of the Western Expeditionary Army, is not a complete decoration, but really has the ability to command on the spot.

It's a pity that he and Guo Baoyu's skills didn't even have a chance to play, so they were forced to retreat by Jochi's strong wall Qingye.

"Your Highness," Guo Baoyu frowned slightly, "Victory or defeat is a common thing in soldiers...... The Battle of Broken Leaves has just begun, and it's not yet time to talk about victory or defeat. Now there is just no possibility of a quick victory, and it seems that there is a long-term plan. ”

"Do you want to settle in the Ili River Valley?" Zhao asked.

"Must be tuntian!" Guo Baoyu said, "If we don't tuntian ourselves, the two feudal domains of Gaochang and Shule will not be able to supply us for a long time no matter what." ”

Zhao Wei nodded slightly, "It seems that we can only fight a protracted battle with the Mongols." I don't know, how long will it take? ”

At this time, Zhao Jian and Guo Baoyu never thought that this war would eventually last for a hundred years!

Because the Western Song Dynasty is no longer facing a nomadic empire, but a superpower with a vast territory and nomadic, agrarian, industrial and commercial attributes.

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