"What does it smell like?"

In the shade of the tree, the sleepy sentry leaning against the trunk of the tree sniffled and stood up abruptly.

"Zhao Guang! Fuck you, won't you go a little farther to pee? ”

The sentry walked over with a horizontal knife and scolding, and when he looked through the window, his face immediately changed.

"Brothers, it's not good! People ran away! ”

Several gendarmes woke up and ran quickly.

The door of the carriage was open, and it was empty, only a cloud of water, but Zhao Guang had disappeared.

"Fuck it, that grandson ran away!"

"I before I ran!"

The gendarmes led by them were extremely nervous, and they got on the war horses with a loud roar, and several gendarmes did not dare to slack off, so they got on the war horses one by one and picked up the Yuan Rong crossbow, and rushed out with the captain.

The oasis was extremely quiet, only the deafening sound of horses' hooves, and the gendarmerie captain left two people to watch in place, rushed out of the oasis with the rest of his robes, and searched everywhere for Zhao Guang's figure, but the yellow sand was vast, but there was no one to see.

After going around the small oasis a few times, I still didn't find anyone. The captain of the gendarmerie looked gloomy, and rushed back with his people, rushing into the village to search door to door, and for a time there was a lot of trouble.

I searched the entire oasis, but I still didn't find anyone. The gendarmes returned to the carriage with very depressed expressions.

"This kid probably wanted to run away for a long time!"

"What now? How do you explain to the general when you go back? ”

The captain of the gendarmerie sighed and said in a deep voice: "What should I do? Keep looking! If you can't find it, you can go back and get a stick! So many people escorted one person, and it was gone! - Lao Zhao, what are you eating! ”

The gendarme, who had been a sentry, was red-faced and silent. After all, he was in charge of the sentry. If someone loses him, he is naturally the most responsible.

It was all robes, and the captain of the gendarmerie didn't say much, and everyone divided into two groups, left the oasis again to expand the search area, and continued to search for Zhao Guang's whereabouts. However, the yellow sand is vast, and it is impossible to find where Zhao Guang is.

I searched around here for three days in a row. The gendarmes did not find Zhao Guang, and in the end, everyone had to choose to give up.

This is undoubtedly a very humiliating thing, but the matter has come to this point, and the only way to return to the army is to receive punishment. There were no prisoners in their hands, and there was no need to go to the city, so the gendarmes abandoned the carriage and hurried back.

If you lose the prisoner, you lose face. The Fengsui horse shop and camel shop that I have visited along the way are all directly crossed, and there is no face to stop at all. Even when you arrived at Shabul City, you didn't go in, but went around the city and rushed into the vast salt desert.

While the gendarmes were trudging through the salt desert, Isfahan, outside the half-built new city, was full of people and horses. More than 10,000 New Army athletes have bright armor. Sitting on a war horse, tens of thousands of Turkic soldiers also sorted out their clothes and armor. In the valley, there was a scattered formation, following the new army athletes.

It's early autumn, and Anxi athletes, who have been resting for a long time, are about to set off again. This time, they will cross the Zagros Mountains and re-enter the fertile plains of Mesopotamia. It is different from the last time I entered the two river basins. This time, it is to officially include the fertile soil of the two river basins in the Tang Dynasty.

To the west of the Zagros Mountains, from Basra in the south to Mosul in the north, a large area has been planted with the battle flag of the Tang Dynasty. Kufa and Ctesiphon were all owned by the Tang Dynasty, and the local Dehegans had already expressed their submission to Niu Xu. Now Niuxu's fleet is parked near Kufa. The sphere of influence, however, encompassed most of the plains of Mesopotamia.

In the entire valley of the two rivers, only a small part of the upper reaches of the region, the local lords have not yet come to show their submission. Many lords in the province of Syria are still waiting, but there is also a large area that has already planted the battle flag of the Tang Dynasty.

Since there were basically no more Dehgans coming to Isfahan, Ma Lan also decided not to wait any longer, and directly crossed the Zagros Mountains to start the next conquest. The surrendered Dehgans will be protected, while the lords who are still on the sidelines will pay the price.

14,000 Anxi new troops, temporarily leaving Tian Mingyuan's 2,000 men to stay in Isfahan, and 5,000 Turkic miscellaneous soldiers left for him, as well as some of the staff responsible for building the city, these people will stay here for the time being, watching the Persian coolies completely build the new city. This must be done before winter comes.

The order has been passed back, and now tens of thousands of Anxi troops have crossed the Green Mountain, and began to occupy Dashi in a step-by-step manner, Mulu, You Shabul, and Herat have garrisons, along the post road built by the Sassanid Empire and the Umayyad Dynasty, the beacon horse shop and camel shop responsible for transmitting information are rapidly spreading. It won't be long before the Tang Dynasty's ruling order in the Zagros Mountains will be basically established.

When an army arrives in Isfahan, Tian Mingyuan's 2,000 men will also cross the Zagros Mountains to join the main army and join the expanding army.

The development is the business of the new army in Anxi, and the defense of the city is handed over to the ordinary Han army of the four towns, but even the ordinary Han army of the four towns will be sent after they are all equipped with crossbows.

Hunting in the autumn wind, the flag is blowing, and Ma Ling sits on the back of the Qinghai skull, and he is also in high spirits.

The territory now occupied, in the words of later generations, has included the whole of Iran and most of Iraq, things are going extremely smoothly, Hu Da's sphere of influence has been compressed step by step, leaving a lot of space for the Han civilization to fill, this time after crossing the Zagros Mountains, one is to formally establish the rule of the Tang Dynasty, the second is to urge the Dekhgans to step up the disposal of the Arabians and Yemenis in the territory, including the Mawaris who are the most devout and unwilling to change for Hu Da, and the third is to conquer the area that has not yet been Tang, Destroy the last caliph.

These things are not difficult, now the Tang Dynasty soldiers are strong and strong, and the army will push it over, all it takes is time.

After saying goodbye to Tian Mingyuan and the others who stayed behind, Ma Ling gave an order, and the mighty army left Isfahan and headed towards the depths of the Zagros Mountains.

Twelve thousand new soldiers, more than 30,000 Turkic miscellaneous soldiers, followed by a mighty caravan, marched into the Zagros Mountains in autumn and set out on the road to the plains of Mesopotamia.

The areas passed along the way were all fluttering with the banners of the Tang Dynasty. The ancient Dehegan family in the mountains has fallen to the Tang Dynasty, and when the army comes, they use various ways to express respect and submission.

The march was remarkably peaceful, with almost no killings. These places are already the territory of the Tang Dynasty, and the prestige of the Tang Dynasty has been established, so naturally there is no need to slaughter again, all the Dehegans need to do is to pay their taxes on time. The military supplies of the army were supplied by the merchants, and the trade was extremely fair, and the merchants profited very well from it, and the Anxi army no longer needed to follow the long line. The Dekhgans along the way were not disturbed, and they did not need to be supplied by the large army, which was actually an unexpected thing for them.

There are also more than 10 million dingkou in the Great Food, and it is impossible to kill them all, and if the Han people refuse to come, this kind of rule has no meaning. The Arabians and Yemenis represent the Hu civilization and must be completely eradicated, while the Persians, who are the most numerous, can only establish a symbiotic relationship with them, gradually integrating them into the system of Han civilization.

To the west, it crossed the Zagros Mountains, and to the west of the mountains was still the territory ruled by the Dehgans, who had fallen to the Tang Dynasty. Because the Tang army was too famous, the Dekhgans were actually extremely worried when the army passed by, but the army did not have any intrusion on them, and the Dehegans gradually relaxed their hearts.

Soon after, the army officially entered the fertile valley of the two rivers.

Both the Tigris and Euphrates rivers originate in the northern mountains and flow in a southeasterly direction, creating a vast alluvial plain known as the Mesopotamian Plain. The two great rivers were abundant in water, and when they reached the lower reaches of the river, they merged into one, and after the merger was later called the Shatt al-Arab, they flowed together to the Persian Gulf.

This large area is an important part of the so-called "fertile crescent", and the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers are the most developed areas of agricultural civilization.

The agricultural peoples are the most coveted by foreigners, and the two river basins have been invaded many times in history, and the local population has changed many times, and now the owners of this area are mainly Persians, and the capital of Sassanid Persia, Ctesiphon, is on the Tigris River in the east.

And now the fertile valley of the two rivers is once again under the iron hooves of foreign invaders. This time, the invaders were not the surrounding barbarians, but another agricultural people, the Tang people who came from afar.

As a result of this large-scale invasion by the Tang people, the history of the entire Lianghe Valley will be completely changed.

In fact, there has been a change, the Persian Gulf into which the two great rivers flow has been renamed the Tang Sea by the Tang people, and the two big rivers after the merger have also been named "Tang River" by the young general of the expeditionary force. As for the part before the merger, the Euphrates River on the west side was named the Western Tang River by the young general, and the Tigris River on the east side was named the Eastern Tang River by the young general.

And this plain is known as the Tang River Plain.

The name given to the calf is really a bit vulgar.

Immediately surging on the banks of the Tigris River, Ma Lan thought to himself, and a smile appeared on the corner of his mouth.

The Tigris River, renamed after the calf, is now called the East Tang River.

The names are indeed very vulgar, but if you think about the names you have come up with, "Tang Hai", "Wannian City", "Xihai City", "Dingxi City" and the like, they are actually not much better.

However, as a conqueror, he is naturally qualified to be named, and no matter how vulgar the name is, the Persians have to endure it.

Not far away is a city called Ctesiphon, located on the east bank of the Tigris River, the former capital of the Persian Sassanid Empire, and today it is also one of the most prosperous cities in the valley of the two rivers.

Further to the northwest is a place that is more famous in later generations, the capital of the Abbasid dynasty Taizong al-Mansur, Baghdad.

Of course, at this time, Baghdad was just a small village. (To be continued.) )