In the winter of the sixth year of Zhenguan, when the first snow fell in the Western Regions, the Tang Dynasty army had already occupied a full thirteen cities in this area of the Western Regions, connecting the cities and a line, isolating the Tang Dynasty from the Western Regions, like a Great Wall, sheltering in the western territory of the Tang Dynasty.

And these thirteen cities, connected together, each city has tens of thousands of Tang troops stationed, under the guard of these tens of thousands of Tang troops, the number of death squads composed of various ethnic groups in the Western Regions is not a few, although it cannot be compared with the Tang army, but if it is connected together, there are also 300,000 people.

Such a force completely gathered all the forces of the vast majority of the tribes in the entire Western Regions, and in this war, they were rushing to the front line, resisting the most fierce enemy resistance, rushing to the city, opening the city gate, and introducing the Tang army into the city.

In this battle, the Datang army can be said to have not fought at all, which is also the meaning of the existence of these death squads, directly replacing the Datang army to take these cities, without a single soldier of the Datang Dynasty. These thirteen cities fell into the control of the Tang Dynasty, and these death squads should be credited.

However, after taking these thirteen cities, it is not so easy to advance to the west, because at this time, the two countries in the west that are inseparable from each other have also reacted at this time.

At this time, the Byzantine Empire was attacked by the enemy and completely lost the initiative on the battlefield, but they still did not give up, because this was originally their territory. And the alliance of the twelve kingdoms was also very heavy at this time, because they knew that their enemy was not actually the Byzantine Empire, but an army from the east.

They had not expected this enemy of the East to appear so soon, didn't it mean that the Easterners were not warlike people? Aren't they all just passive defense? It will not take the initiative to invade other countries. Why is it here all of a sudden?

But they knew that the enemy they were facing this time was far beyond the strength of the Byzantine Empire, because the other side had a strong man who was beyond the power of manpower to compete with on their own side.

After the Tang Dynasty Divine Soldiers descended on this area, whether it was the Twelve Kingdoms Alliance or the Byzantine Empire, they began to pay attention to this sudden enemy, and they began to collect all the information of the other party.

When they obtained the information they wanted to know, at this moment they found that the enemy was far stronger than they expected, not only because of the record of winning thirteen cities in one fell swoop, but also because of the iron blood of the Tang army in this battle.

Although the Tang army did not fight on the battlefield, after ruling these cities, it showed their iron blood, and no one dared to do anything without the permission of the Tang soldiers, even if they went out to the toilet, they needed to make a report, and then they were under the custody of the soldiers. Because this is a strange place, these people are a strange people, not my race, and their hearts will be different.

In this regard, the Tang generals made up their minds to detain all of them in a centralized manner, and implement a joint sitting system, one person makes a mistake, all of them are punished, so that the civilians and prisoners of war in these cities can be completely guarded, as long as one person makes a mistake, then everyone around him will be punished, if you don't want to be punished, then report it when others have not done anything wrong.

So even if there is basically no Tang army on the battlefield, no one can ignore them. Even if they did not fight the enemy in this battle, they did not kill the original inhabitants of the city. But the role they played in this war, whether it was a death squad or an enemy, shocked no one to ignore.

On the battlefield, the Tang army only sent a team of soldiers, about 1,000 people, and divided into several squads, set up trebuchets, and fired some iron balls towards the walls of these cities.

But the power brought by these iron balls is directly the most sensational on the entire battlefield, and the iron balls that collide with the city wall cause a violent explosion and completely destroy a small section of the city wall, which is the reason why the death squad can quickly break through into the city, and there is not much damage in the battle.

Therefore, this new weapon of Datang has made all the enemies who have seen it unforgettable, and even as long as those who have experienced this kind of bombardment, they cannot raise the idea of being an enemy of the Datang army in their hearts, because their beliefs have been directly destroyed by this explosion.

"This army, known as the Great Tang Dynasty, actually won thirteen cities in such a short period of time, and they still have such a powerful new weapon in their hands, how can I deal with it?" The imperial capital of the Byzantine Empire, Constantinople. As the last resistance commander of the Byzantine Empire, 'Umar, a disciple of Muhammad, was questioning his subordinate ministers.

He was the second Alifa, who had been with Muhammad for many years and had been taught by the Prophet, but he was faced with the breaking of the mountains and rivers and was powerless. He envied Alifa Abu before him, because he died, in battle with the Europeans. But at that time, the Byzantine Empire had not yet reached such a point of exhaustion.

But after he ascended to the throne, he faced a two-sided attack from the coalition of European kingdoms and the army from the Eastern Tang Dynasty. This pressure made Ommel's brows tighten, and he could only watch the ground divine kingdom established by the teacher fall little by little, watch Allah's people being mutilated by the enemy, and watch the mountains and rivers shatter, but he could not do anything.

"Chief, we cannot go on like this, we must organize the people of Allah to defend our territory." Said the minister below.

"But what do we have to defend our territory? The enemy is far more powerful than we can handle. Did Allah really abandon His people? A minister said.

"No, Allah will not give up any of His children, and this is the greatest crisis facing Allah before His Kingdom comes to earth. It is a test from Allah, who needs us to overcome the enemy. The ministers of the kingdom, who were talking a lot, were divided into two factions at this time, oscillating between actively responding to the battle and passively giving up.

"For the sake of our kingdom of God, for the sake of Allah, we must overcome our enemies, even at the cost of our lives." At this point, Omer said, he could only fight the enemy at all costs, rather than grovel to these two powerful enemies.

"Call up all the people of Allah to fight against the enemy from the East and the West. Let all the people, bathed in the divine light of Allah, resist spontaneously. This is a holy war, a test for all the people of Allah. "Omer issued a final call for jihad, bringing all the subjects of the Byzantine Empire to a state of war.

This holy war summoning order will bring about the demise or rise of the nation, 'Umar himself does not know, but he will not give up, this is the kingdom of God of the great Allah left by their prophet Muhammad, even if it dies, it will not be handed over to the enemy.

After this call was issued, all the enemies of this land felt the terrible power of faith. The power of this completely brainwashed fanatic outburst far exceeded the deterrence of the army, and the real war had just begun, and the Byzantine Empire, which was originally thought to be only a foil in this decisive battle, actually became a force to be reckoned with by a third party.

This force does not belong to the real high-end combat power, but it is pervasive, in this land that has been painstakingly arranged by Muhammad for a long time, the entire nation under the call of faith, regardless of sacrifice, in exchange for the Tang Dynasty and the twelve kingdoms of Europe allied forces have been dragged into the quagmire of war.

It is impossible for people like Lu Hanyang and them to deal with these people specifically, because ordinary people really don't pose any threat to them, and if they can't even conquer the stubborn Byzantine Empire, their evaluation of their own troops is the real disappointment.

At this time, the small team led by Lu Hanyang, as well as the team on Arthur's side, were waiting, waiting for the arrival of the Armageddon, waiting for the final collision between each other.

And the war of ordinary people also had a complete change at this time, and the Byzantine Empire began to launch a thorough confrontation against the Tang Dynasty army and the Twelve European Kings. Countless Byzantine civilians became armies at this moment, armed with rudimentary weapons and without even armor, and killed their cattle, sheep and camels, skinned and wrapped around them.

Such an army had no organization, no discipline, and no unified arrangement, but it brought deep trouble to the Tang army. Of the thirteen cities garrisoned by the Tang army, the first to encounter this crisis was Tochar, the westernmost city.

This city is the westernmost of the thirteen cities, and it is also the city that penetrates the deepest into the Byzantine Empire, where 50,000 troops of the Tang Dynasty are stationed, and there are almost 30,000 death squads.

Here, whether it is the Tang army or the death squads of various ethnic groups in the Western Regions, they are not the most. Most of them are civilians here. There are more than 100,000 of them, but they are all imprisoned here, and the high-pressure policy of the Tang Dynasty makes everyone here dare not move, they can only be locked up in a corner of the city, and receive only enough food and water from the Tang army every day to sustain their lives.

That all changed when a prisoner was brought in by a death squad, not a real prisoner of war, but a civilian like the vast majority of people held here, but who brought the latest news from outside, a call to jihad from Allah.

So the corner of this city, which was equivalent to a prison, was turbulent, and an undercurrent was brewing in it, waiting for the day when it would erupt.

And this outbreak came faster than expected, and on the night of the first winter snow in Tochar, the Byzantines in the city began to act completely, and with the help of this cold weather, they began to act. They knew more about the city than the Tang Dynasty and the death squads of the Western Regions, so through a hidden passage underground, these people began to act.

From the very beginning, the small-scale attack on the daredevils, the seizure of their weapons, the blood began to flow. On this night, all the Byzantines who were able to participate in the battle were dispatched, and some of them were divided to guard the women and children who could not fight, and the rest were all groped in all directions.

One by one, the daredevils were quietly taken down, and then the leather armor on their bodies and the weapons in their hands were taken away, and they even touched the camp of the death squad and attacked the camp of the 30,000-strong death squad.

Their actions were discovered when the Byzantines stormed the camp, but by this time it was a little late.

The entire Tocharian City was in a state of war at this time, and the death squads that had already rested all hurriedly got up at this time, grabbed the weapons around them, and rushed out towards the outside of the camp. At this time, they didn't know that this was an enemy situation, and they could have died completely.

Of course, the loss of the opportunity has made the death squad fall into passivity, and many people have been killed at this time, and the smell of blood fills the air, but it has also aroused the ferocity of these daredevils. Being enslaved by the Tang Dynasty and being used as cannon fodder already made them feel very angry, and now these rebels in the Western Regions actually dare to break ground on their heads.

So the death squads no longer have a hand on these natives, before they surrendered, they were just civilians, and now they take up arms to resist, that is the enemy. And it is absolutely unforgivable to kill so many brothers on his side.

So at this time, the sword was raised, and the whole city fell into a scuffle. The death squads began to suppress these rioters. The entire city of Tocharian fell into a sea of swords and fire, and the sword light shone, and countless people were beheaded in different places, and blood was splashed, so that the ground of the entire city was soaked in blood.

And at this time, the Datang army was also dispatched, because these rebels not only attacked the camp of the death squad, but the camp of the Datang army was not spared. But because the camp of the Tang army was far away from the area where the prisoners were kept, when these rioters arrived, the camp of the death squad in the distance had already exploded.

This Datang army had time to prepare, and when they came to the edge of the camp, they were directly discovered, and then a burst of horns and screams directly reminded all the Datang soldiers.

So when these followers of Allah came to the Tang camp, they were ready to be greeted by the Tang army, dressed in armor and armed with sharp weapons, spears, and horizontal knives. Let these moths who are desperate for their beliefs be like real moths to a fire, all of them have no return.

The Mo Dao team stood on the outside, all of them were stout, the muscles on their arms were high and bulging, and every time they swung the long Mo Dao, they would bring a bloody storm. At this moment, all the mercy and all the mercy have disappeared, because these people are no longer ordinary civilians, they are enemies, so the Tang army directly killed without sparing.