It was not until January 1799 that the Tang Army, which was originally stationed in Tianfang, launched an offensive against Iraq. In the anti-piracy operation in the Persian Gulf two years ago www.biquge.info, Datang had eliminated the Emirate of Kuwait, which had been established for less than 30 years, and had mastered Iraq's access to the sea. This time, the Don Army sent troops directly from Kuwait and integrated into southern Iraq, that is, the Turkish province of Basra. In addition, the Tang army also instigated the newly armed Tang Persian division to launch an offensive from the east, detoured back to the rear of Basra, and completely cut Basra out.

The local armed forces were not resolute in resisting the Tang Army, and in fact, when the Iraqis saw a large number of Tang Army armored units attacking, they had lost the will to resist. The Don army did not carry out any decent artillery bombardment most of the time, and basically rushed and struck, and the local defenders were scattered. The Turkish officials guarding Basra wanted to fight the Don Army and held out until reinforcements arrived. It's just that his thought only lasted for a few dozen minutes, and the Tang Army's heavy artillery quickly blasted away the only decent fortress in this area.

At this time, the fortifications built by the Turks were not of a high level, and many of them were even deliberately designed to cater to religious needs, which was very unreasonable. For many years, the Datang artillery has been training regularly to attack fortifications, and it is almost invincible to be equipped with armor-piercing shells that are specially designed to deal with such fortifications.

After the Tang army conquered Basra, it did not commit any offense against the local people. A large number of Turkish officials were arrested, but that was all. Soon, Datang's civil servants replaced the functions of Turkish officials, cooperating with Datang's forces to maintain order in the area.

The Don army continued to advance upstream along the two rivers, and on the fifth day it advanced to Baghdad. This speed is not the limit speed of the Tang Army, but it is also very impressive. What's more, the Turks did not respond properly at all. Telegraph lines were not even installed in the backward areas of Iraq, and even news of the fall of Basra had just arrived, and the Don Army had already arrived here.

The combat forces of the Don Army were not large, in fact, there were only two mechanized infantry regiments, as well as an infantry brigade consisting of Persians. To maintain the normal operation of Datang's mechanized troops, it is very difficult to maintain logistics. The local road conditions are acceptable, which allows Datang's logistics troops to transport large quantities of supplies to the front line by trucks, and advance together with the armored forces.

As in Basra, the Turks tried to resist, but the artillery fire and charges of the Don army made the Turks understand that it was in vain. In the end, Baghdad surrendered to the Tang Dynasty, and the Tang Dynasty successfully captured the largest city in Iraq.

The Don Army, after a slight adjustment in Baghdad, continued its offensive to the north, and at the end of February finally had an encounter with the troops of the Turkish army hurrying in. Turkey's temporary mobilization ability is certainly not comparable to that of the Tang Dynasty, nor is it as good as the European powers, more than 20,000 troops of various races temporarily put together by the Turks were defeated by the Tang army near Mosul, and even some foreign cannon fodder troops defected on the battlefield and surrendered to the Tang army.

Major General Zhang Min, who commanded the battle, had just been transferred from the European theater to the Middle East, and this situation was not surprising. Turkey has always regarded these vassal armies as cannon fodder, and basically arranged to do the most dangerous work at the front line, and these vassal armies were basically destroyed by the Tang Army as soon as they met, and they had no choice but to surrender to the Tang Army.

Turkey's domestic ethnic composition is complex, and the ******** is also prominent. In the end, the Ottoman Empire did not complete the national integration well, and in the final analysis, the ruling ideas of the Turks were somewhat similar to those of the Manchus in the East. The deliberate emphasis on the dominance and high status of the Turkic peoples, and the trampling of other peoples as miscellaneous servants and slaves, is not conducive to the integration of peoples. When the Ottomans were strong, there seemed to be no big problem, but when the Ottomans also encountered an enemy that they could not defeat, almost all the vassal peoples were interested in jumping out and interfering with the Turks at this time.

Zhang Min, a major general who commanded the Tang Army, finally discovered a phenomenon that made people laugh and cry, the army he led to crusade against Turkey actually fought more and more, and this situation became more and more obvious in the future. The regular Tang army he led was actually less than a brigade, and the troops brought from Persia were about the size of a division. Later, however, he also sent an Indian division and a Yamato division to standby, ready to enter the battlefield at any time.

Unexpectedly, a war was fought with Turkey, and as a result, half of the Turkish army turned into enemies of Turkey. Then today, the Kurdish tribal armed forces came with scimitars, saying that the wise and powerful Tang general, give us a bite to eat and we will fight the Turks with you. Tomorrow, it will be the Armenians from the Caucasus Mountains, saying that the Turks have bullied us too hard, and I heard that the Tang Dynasty treats the colonial people more gently, and we hope that the Tang Dynasty can replace the Turks. Then the Iraqis who had been captured also swore that let us Iraqis go to war and prove our bravery and good fighting.

Zhang Min actually didn't want to accept this group of people, at least half of them didn't even have muskets, and they followed Tang Jun just to rub off food, fight a tailwind battle when they needed to fight, and then loot the spoils of war. However, Zhang Min couldn't just disband this group. Another face: After the Iraq War, Midi disbanded the Iraqi army, and in the end, a considerable part of this group of soldiers who had nothing to do became an unstable factor, causing great trouble to Midi. Now that this group of guys has been disbanded, it may not be serious for them to harass the locals, but they are afraid that they will become loyal troops of Turkey again, and even come to harass the Tang army, which is all trouble.

So in the end, Zhang Min had to use Datang's own supplies to support this group of troops, but these people couldn't be happy for a few days. After the end of the war, Datang will incorporate these armies into special corps and train fiercely. And the disobedient local tribal forces will obviously be cleaned up.

Under such circumstances, Zhang Min led the army to cut through the eastern part of Asia Minor from northern Iraq in more than a month, during which he fought three battles with the Turkish army, annihilated as many as 100,000 Turkish troops, and successfully captured the Black Sea coastal city of Trabzon, exceeding the scheduled task.

The rapid progress of the Dons frightened the French and immediately increased their forces to capture Syria. According to the agreement between Datang and France, the Euphrates valley in eastern Syria and the provinces of Aleppo, Raqqa, Hasakah and Abu Kemal in the other area were owned by Datang, and the rest of Syria and Lebanon were owned by France. (To be continued.) )