Although the Persians stepped on the corpse of the Rest Empire to ascend to the hegemony of Western Asia, they also carried on the tradition of Ansabbatical confrontation with Rome, and waged-for-tat struggles with Rome on the borders of Armenia, Asia Minor, and Syria.

In 231 AD, Ardashir I of Persia sent a letter to the Roman Emperor Severus, demanding that Roman power withdraw from Asia, and the 400-year Roman-Persian War officially began.

In 232 AD, Sassanid Persia fought against Rome, defeated the Roman army, and gained Armenia through a peace treaty.

In 260 AD, Sapol I fought with the Roman army, defeated the Romans, and captured the Roman Emperor Valerian. Near Pasaypolis there a cliff carving commemorating this victory, which depicts Valerian kneeling to saddle Sapol I's horse in a huge relief.

After this war, the Sassanids occupied Cappadocia in northeastern Asia Minor for a time. But the dispute between Sassanid and Rome was as sharp as it was during the Sabbath Kingdom. Subsequently, the Roman emperors Diocletian and Constantine led expeditions to Persia, but did not achieve significant results.

In 286 AD, Rome instigated an uprising in Armenia, and the Sassanids, whose strength had been weakened by internal strife, were forced to retreat, and later lost the land west of the Tigris River, and Armenia gained independence.

In the early days of Shapur II's reign, Persia was limited to its own problems, and the western front was forced to switch to a defensive strategy, turning to the eastern front to compete with the Central Asian Otsuki clan for control of the land Silk Road. On the Western Front, the main Persian combat operations shifted to Armenia, which was not a powerful but serious threat to the Persian hinterland.

Armenia is to Persia, roughly equivalent to the later Manchurian Tunguska to China; Not enough to threaten the power of Persia. But condescending enough to threaten the heart of Persia. Therefore, the main aim of Persia was to force Rome to abandon its support for Armenia and eventually conquer Armenia, so that all its forces could be freed up against Rome.

Persia is to Rome, similar to the later Jin to the Ming Dynasty, Armenia is roughly equivalent to North Korea in the relationship between the two, and Armenia is much more threatening to Persia than North Korea is to Hou Jin!

The Persian war against Armenia was hard. The region was not suitable for cavalry warfare, which the Persians excelled at, but could be reinforced from Rome through the Black Sea, and the Roman army was constantly cooperating with Armenia, making it difficult for Persia to concentrate their forces. Thus cutting off Roman support to Armenia. It was the main goal of Persia after winning the strategic initiative.

When the world war broke out. The Persians first cooperated with Shile to destroy the Dayue clan, and then turned against Shile because of trade issues, and they had to choose to form an alliance with Shile's old enemy, the Great Jin. When the Great Jin Expeditionary Force arrived in Persia, the Persian vassal Psidor immediately formulated a joint battle plan. The aim was to seize Armenia.

Lin Feng served as the supreme commander of the fleet. He had the privilege of attending the military council of the Persian state. At the meeting. The Persians hoped that the Great Jin Expeditionary Force would participate in the battle. When Lin Feng learned about the Persians' military plan in detail, he frowned, not that this plan would not work. Rather, it was that Persia would have to pay a huge price if it was to fully realize the goals planned in the plan.

In Lin Feng's opinion, such a heavy loss was a bit more than worth the loss for the current Persians. Despite its strategic importance, Armenia's situation is very similar to that of successive Chinese empires against the Tunguska region, and its logistical distance and forest environment make it difficult for the region to be brought under the centralized power of the central empire at low cost.

In later generations, even if it was strong in Tang (Wu Zhou) to suppress the Khitan rebellion, it took three years to lose more than 20 thousand soldiers, and Youzhou fell; In the end, it was only by relying on the Turkic Khan to attack the Khitan lair that the defeat turned into victory! Therefore, Lin Feng also thought that with the strength of today's Persia, instead of spending a huge price to conquer Armenia, it was better to leave strength to deal with the Romans, and as for Armenia, as long as it won the neutrality of the other party.

"Why is General Lin not optimistic about this plan? Or are you unwilling to join the operation? Seeing that Lin Feng didn't reply for a long time, Pusidore frowned and fell into long-term thought, and couldn't help but feel dissatisfied.

"Lord Deputy Eunuch is too worried, the Great Jin and Persia are friendly allies, since His Majesty the Emperor sent us here, there is no intention of standing idly by, we will definitely participate in this operation!" Lin Feng smiled and promised, before coming, Sima Shu had repeatedly explained to them that they must have a close battle with the Romans, which was very important for the Great Jin to investigate the military strength of the Romans.

Hearing this, Pōsidore's face softened a lot, he stood up and walked to the center of the main hall, raised his hands and proudly proclaimed: "The Great Jin and Persia are the two great empires of the East and the West, this is the first joint battle between us, I hope you can sincerely cooperate to win Armenia in a war, and then drive the Romans out of Asia!" ”

"I wonder if General Lin is willing to participate in that operation?" Due to the independence of the expeditionary force, Pucidore could not forcibly arrange the expeditionary force to participate in the war, and he had to fully respect the will of the commander of the Great Jin Expeditionary Force, and of course hoped in his heart that the expeditionary force could take on the burden of sniping the Roman army.

However, what did Psidore not expect was that Lin Feng had no intention of going to Armenia at all, and he put the target of war on the Romans from the beginning. The Romans would certainly not sit idly by on this Persian expedition to Armenia, so cutting off the connection between Armenia and Rome became a top priority.

"Lord Deputy Supervisor, General Ben is willing to lead an expeditionary force of 3,000 to be responsible for sniping the Roman army together with your army." Lin Feng said the result that Pucidor wanted to see the most, and he happily called the Jin people worthy of being the staunchest allies of Persia. It's a pity that he didn't know that only positional warfare could give full play to the power of the Jin army's firearms.

After returning to the camp, Lin Feng immediately summoned his subordinates to discuss the issue of cooperating with Persia this time, and after learning that Persia planned to seize Armenia first, the generals of the expeditionary force were not much surprised. Most of the people present knew the history of the war between Persia and Rome.

The Sassanid military force was also very strong, but their westward expansion was largely fruitless, and the main reason for this situation was that Rome had a geographical advantage, and Rome had always controlled Armenia-Eastern Anatolia. The mountainous terrain was rugged, and with its fortified cities, Rome's heavy infantry superiority was fully exploited, while the Persian heavy cavalry was useless, so Armenia-East Anatolia became a meat grinder that Rome made for Sassanid.

Situated on the upper reaches of the Two Rivers, Armenia was a towering position on the Persian capital of Ctesiphon, and a Roman-controlled Armenia was a choke for the Persians. Armenia was as important to Persia as Jingzhou was to Soochow, so if the Persians wanted to gain an advantage in the war against Rome, they had to deal with Armenia first.

"It seems that our task this time is not light! The Romans will never give up Armenia! "Look, General, Armenia happens to be on the flank of the main road from Ctesiphon to Antioch, which is flat and undefendable. Without the flank threat of Armenia, the Persian army could capture Antioch and enter the Mediterranean without hindrance. Once Rome lost Syria, Persia would be able to cut off Asia Minor from Egypt, and Rome's African provinces would certainly not be able to be saved. ”

"It is not wrong to join the army, in history, whether it is Shapur I or Kuslao I, they have lost Armenia so that they could not hold even if they captured Antiochus, and they had to obediently retreat to Persia. This time, our main task was to snipe the Roman reinforcements, as long as Persia could successfully take the Armenian-Eastern Anatolian line, the situation in the West would change in an instant, and the whole of eastern Rome, including Egypt, could be lost. At this time, even Lin Feng had to marvel at the ambition of the Persians.

"General, don't we worry that the other party will be the dominant one when we are so hard to help the Persians?" Joining the army suddenly raised another concern.

"Ladies and gentlemen, you don't really think that with our help the Persians will soon be able to seize Armenia, do you? Even if we hold off the Romans on the southern front, in the north the Romans can still come to the aid of Armenia through the Black Sea. ”

"Historical experience tells us that the war between Persia and Rome generally follows the following process: the Persians first start the war, invade Armenia-Dong'an, Rome implements elastic defense, and after a hard battle, Persia exhausts the manpower and financial resources stored before the war, and the treasury is empty and the army is tired of war, so it negotiates and withdraws its troops to prepare for the next round."

"According to the general, this operation still cannot escape this fate. This kind of mountain defense warfare is very unfavorable to Persia, there is no geographical advantage, relying on human flesh, Persia's heavy cavalry advantage cannot be brought into play at all. So in the end, Persia will definitely be dragged to death, and even Rome will be dragged thin. ”

"Remember to Ben that the expeditionary force was only three thousand men, and your main purpose was to find out the fighting strength of the Roman army in order to plan for the future. Don't do anything beyond our capabilities, or you'll be expelled from the military as soon as you find out! Lin Feng's eyes flashed with a cold light, and he sternly admonished.

"No! Please rest assured, the lowly rank will not dare to start a dispute! The generals said they would not take it upon themselves to expand the war.

"Ladies and gentlemen, Rome is stronger than Persia, they have just ended civil strife in their country, there are no hidden worries in their country, and it is time to unite and work hard. Moreover, the Roman army had just experienced the baptism of war, and its combat experience was very rich. I hope you will not take the enemy lightly. ”

Lin Feng finally warned a few words, he would not participate in this expeditionary force operation, so he was worried that the people below would act to harm the interests of the Great Jin Dynasty under the excitement.

This kind of behavior of front-line generals privately revising battle plans for various reasons can be seen basically everywhere in history. Lin Feng didn't want the people below to damage the interests of Dajin because of their momentary actions, (to be continued......)