Lao Luo didn't make it to the garrison of the Cavalry Academy in the end, because Alke's intelligence was crucial.

In this era when there is no satellite remote sensing, no radar monitoring, no reconnaissance aircraft and no electronic monitoring equipment, and even Lao Luo does not even have a biological intelligence system such as the legendary flying pigeon transmission and flying eagle transmission, all intelligence sources and transmissions can only be solved by manpower, so the accuracy and timeliness of intelligence must be grasped in the shortest possible time, he can only order Alki to take people to the cavalry school to check and then report back with Gonzas, as for himself, You have to go back to the camp and ask Alker for battlefield information.

When he hurriedly returned to his military tent, he found that in addition to Alke, Cheng Shouru, Li Xuan and Siedek Nord were all there. Alc had nothing clean all over his body, his hair and beard scratched, his tired face, and the black eyeshadow he liked to wear, which looked no better than the scruffiest of the tramps.

Seeing Lao Luo enter the tent, several people stood up and were about to salute, Lao Luo waved his hand, "Sit down, Nuralman will go and ask someone to get some food and drink for Alke." ”

Just looking at his complexion, Lao Luo knew that Alke, a Visigoth, had hardly rested in the past few days, and it was estimated that the diet was not normal, and the Turkic-style leather robe had several cracks on it and were crudely strung together with leather ropes, and there were some brown-black traces at the corners of his clothes, which was obviously a battle.

After a while, some dim sum and boiled herbal tea were loosened, these were made by some Tang people who had originally opened a restaurant in Sylfan in the main camp, and in their spare days, they did not go to help dig fortifications, and made a lot of snacks and other food, which were basically for the soldiers who were on duty at night.

It wasn't until Alker had gobbled up a bite before Lao Luo withdrew a map from behind him and spread it on the table in the middle of the tent, "Is it better?" Alc, tell us about what you learned this time! ”

"Yes, Lord!" Alker replied in a half-hoarse voice, and took out a parchment notebook from his dirty robe, "There is more information this time, I have written it all down." ”

Lao Luo didn't look at his messy notebook, and besides, the things written on it with various symbols and other things could only be understood by Ark himself, "You say, let's refer to the map, and Nuralman is in charge of the record." ”

"Yes, Lord." Alker wiped his mouth with a sweat towel, then approached the table, spread his notebook on the edge of the map, and said as he gestured on the map, "I have taken fifty men and scattered them this time, and the farthest is here, which is the position of Mahmud's elite soldiers, a total of eighteen thousand. ”

The map on the table was drawn by Lao Luo from memory, but the place names on it were marked by the insights of many people in the Tang camp, and the location of Alk's finger was Herat (1), a place that was famous even in later generations, and at this time, needless to say, was once the most important hub for the Arabs to rule the whole of Central Asia, and was only more than 300 kilometers away from Mashhad.

"However, when we arrived, we scratched a few tongues and learned that the Ghaznavids had sent troops not from Herat, but at Balkh (2), supposedly mainly to defend against the Qarakhanids (3) to the north." Alk didn't need to be urged, and continued to speak in a hoarse voice.

"Balkh?" Lao Luo is a little strange about this place name.

"It's Lan City, where Ali's tomb is located." Li Xuan remembered the name of the place on East Road very well, although he probably hadn't been there.

Lao Luo heard that it was Ali's tomb, which was the tomb of Ali Caliph, the son-in-law of the Green Religion Muhammad, and the city there was called Mazar-i-Sharif in later generations, and the place where the Afghans called Mazar-i-Sharif and the Afghans called Magyars, was one of the node cities on the Silk Road.

"Ark, according to your gains, the emir of Ghaznavid has not mobilized his own army, and is still attacking the Gurs in the south (4)?" Lao Luo was a little puzzled about the relationship between that mahmud and the Qarakhanid kingdom, but the cooperation between the two families brought down the rule of the Samanids at the beginning, and now it is normal to compete for the right to speak in the entire region, and there are many similar political relations in later generations.

"General, the tongue we caught is not of high level, and we can't provide such high-level information, but we have heard from the merchants on the road that the battle between Mahmoud and the Gur is at a critical moment." Alc's news is a rare deal, at least in this day and age where there are no more ways to do it without spies.

"Well, I see, you go on." Lao Luo did not make judgments.

"In addition to these eighteen thousand, the Ghaznavids have gathered from here, as well as some tribal warriors of merchants, and I have heard that they set out from the banks of the Murghab River, but there is no time to verify, and the total number is about fifty thousand." Alker pointed to the map and said in detail.

The few places he pointed to were settlements near Herat, and the terrain around them was close to the eastern mountains, with a large amount of alpine water, which was considered good pastureland.

Lao Luo frowned and didn't speak, just thought carefully according to the information provided by Alker and compared it to the map.

Several people around gasped, 18,000 elite soldiers plus nearly 50,000 auxiliaries said that there were nearly 70,000 people, and there was no resistance to the combat power of the Donggui team at all, but with the lesson of Cheng Shouru being whipped a few days ago, no one dared to say anything discouraged, but they were all thinking about how to deal with so many enemies in their hearts.

"General, the Ghaznavids are moving very slowly, and the personnel are not yet in place, but their messengers are already coming to us," Alk saw that everyone was a little silent, and then told him the news he had received, "I don't know what the decision of the general is, we didn't dare to rob and kill the messengers, so we had to return early." ”

"Emissary? Leave it alone. "Lao Luo doesn't care about the envoys, the envoys at this time are either here to persuade them to surrender or to try to hook up the camp or possible moles, anyway, it's not a good way," tell me about their weapons, horses, and grain and grass configurations. ”

"Yes, Lord!" As long as Lao Luo is not chaotic, everyone will have a backbone, and Alke is the same, this promise is much more exciting.

Alker and his scouts had a really hard time, not to mention the long distance, but also to hide the traces, and at the critical moment it was inevitable to wield a knife to kill people, at this time, Central Asia was more than the guns of later generations did not need to let much, it can be said that merchants, bandits, and herdsmen were mixed together, and outsiders could not tell the difference at all.

From the news obtained by Alke, Lao Luo summarized and learned that the elite soldiers in the north mobilized by Mahmoud did not carry many heavy weapons because of the distance, such as stone throwers, and the 10,000 elite soldiers were mostly scimitars, spears and bows and arrows as the main weapons, and even large crossbows were very few, and the only thing that could be called elite was because they all had relatively complete armor, and the general who led the troops was a man named Abdu. Massoud's generals were among the more famous generals in the northern part of Ghaznavid to defend the Qarakhanid kingdom.

As for the supplies for the march, the Ghaznavids mobilized an army that carried less than ten days' worth of food and grass, perhaps because they thought that with Herat as a backup, and the Tang people heading eastward did not have many warriors, an army of nearly 70,000 men was enough to quickly defeat and annex this migratory team.

Lao Luo smiled coldly, "It seems that the Ghaznavids still don't take us seriously, there are enough soldiers, but aren't you afraid of starving to death on the road?" ”

"General, you mean?" Cheng Shouru's eyes lit up when he was looking down and thinking about it, and he raised his head and asked.

"Yes, we do have few people, but war is not just a matter of numbers, this Abdul . Massoud had brought men from Balkh and had traveled a long way, and he must have been tired, and he had not brought enough food and grass, and he had not yet had heavy weapons, so our camp was so easy to breach? Lao Luo said with some disdain.

"That's right, if our camp doesn't cost tens of thousands of people, they don't want to attack it!" Cheng Shou was like a garrison, and the outer defense of the camp was built under his watch.

"But what about the Turks, in addition to 18,000 elite soldiers, and 50,000 tribal warriors?" Li Xuan, who was listening, couldn't help but interject.

"Brother Xuan, don't worry, 50,000 tribal warriors? It's just 50,000 livestock to be slaughtered," Lao Luo couldn't help but comfort the general manager of the people, "In the valley on the other side of Dhamgan, we killed nearly 10,000 people in one night, and there is nothing wrong with the next." ”

"But ......" Li Xuan wanted to go on and say that it was a fluke, how could it be that every time the enemy was so accidentally attacked?

"No, Brother Xuan." Lao Luo looked at him with firm eyes, "With the military discipline of the Turks, 50,000 people are just a rabble, and killing them is no different from slaughtering cattle and sheep!" ”

Sidd Knord and the others who were listening never interjected, since they followed this tall Seris all the way east, they have never been disappointed, and there are more than 5,000 thieves who have been slashed and killed all the way, or only more than 100 people, and now there are nearly 2,000 people in the cavalry school alone, and there are 70,000 enemies, so what's so terrible? It's a big deal to kill a few more days.

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(1) Herat, a historical city in the northwest of present-day Afghanistan, about 600 kilometers west of Kabul, was first built in the sixth century BC, was ruled by Cyrus II of the Persians, Alexander the Great of the Macedonian Empire, there was a long period of Hellenism, and later was ruled by the Abbasids and became part of the Abbasid Kingdom. Then the Mongols carried out massacres here, and the Turkic Timur occupation also followed the Mongol tradition of massacre, and it was not until the accession of Shaharu to the throne in the early 15th century that the modern urban foundations were found here.

(2) The ancient city of Balkh, named after the Balkh River in the Hindu Kush Mountains, is now part of the city of Mazar-i-Sharif (Persian, sacred cemetery), and is now called Magyar by Afghans, and the mausoleum of Muhammad's son-in-law Ali Caliph is located here, which is a holy place for the Shiites of Islam, because it is located on the key road and is an important node of the Silk Road.

(3) Qarakhanid, Qarakhanid Dynasty refers to the Kiniq, Qiniq tribal clan of the Tiele Uighurs and Qarluqs in the early 9th ~ 13th century, in Central Asia Uzbekistan, southern Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and present-day Xinjiang Kashgar, Aksu, Hotan, Ili and other regions established a Turkic dynasty that believed in Islam

(4) Gul people, Gul dynasty (Sulaa Ghuriyya) refers to the Muslim dynasty (1148~1215) established by the Turks in Afghanistanstan and northern India in the 12th ~ 13th centuries. Also translated as "Gur Dynasty", also known as the Gul Sultanate. The Ghur region is located in the north-central northwest of Afghanistan and includes the upper source of the Farah, Hari and Murghab rivers, which corresponds to the eastern part of the Parupamisus Mountains. It is a place with high mountains and mountains, inconvenient transportation, and long-term isolation from the outside world

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