After listening to Backer's introduction, Wang Gang's expression became extremely strange, and he fell into confusion. If it weren't for the fact that the emperor had been fooling around with him since childhood, I really wondered if the emperor who was seven or eight years old at the time had ever been abducted here by human traffickers to serve as a slave soldier, and had received harsh 'ghulam' training since childhood. Otherwise, the previous incident can be called a coincidence, so how can this explain the emergence of a cavalry of the Sultanate of Rûm that fights almost the same way as their dragoons?

But now Wang Gang can't care about this problem, because the enemy army in front of him is constantly gathering, and the expeditionary force has been progressing smoothly since entering the Persian Gulf, and has not encountered stubborn resistance, but where did a large army in this small city come from......

Things have to start with their capture of the castle of the Grand Duke of Fechia, at first the bigwigs who lived in Baghdad, the capital of the Seljuk Empire, did not pay attention to this sudden appearance of the eastern army, thinking that they might just loot some property and retreat, but they did not expect that they would attack the city and plunder the land all the way to the imperial capital, and the team is getting bigger and bigger! Now they were scared, and immediately asked Sultan Sanjar, who was out on the expedition, to quickly lead his troops back to help, but things were not so simple.

The caliphs of Baghdad, though they had lost their political power many years earlier, were under the tutelage of the Seljuk 'sultans' to rule the empire. The sultans still have respect for the Caliph, the successor of the Prophet, and remain nominally the leader of the entire Arab Empire, the prefect of the Muslim believers, the symbol of the Arab Empire, and Baghdad remains the center of the Empire.

But at this time, Baghdad, which was at the center of the empire, had long been assimilated into the Persian civilization, and the vices of the Persian court quickly became the fashion of the empire. In the gorgeous palace, there are countless eunuchs, palace maids, female slaves, and male slaves. Unlimited partiality, countless freaked romances between half-brothers and half-sisters, terrible jealousy, intrigues everywhere. A life of luxury, frequent drunkenness, and vague succession to the throne all depleted the royal family's vitality. Such a leader simply does not have the ability to take on the heavy responsibilities of the country.

The wilting royal family and aristocrats still live a life of extravagance and drinking. And their behavior is imitated by large and small separatists. Since the state cannot open up new sources of revenue, it can only exploit ordinary people, and the people's lives are becoming more and more impoverished. The weakening of the national power has led to problems in the maintenance of the canal system, and much of the arable land has been forced into wasteland. In war-torn places, the number of people has declined dramatically, and the remaining people have left their homeland because of lack of security, creating more wasteland. Frequent wars have also led to epidemics of infectious diseases, causing an otherwise small population to decline even faster.

The war also disrupted normal commerce and industry, and the national economy suffered a severe recession. Then there was the decline of national culture, and the fruits of civilization created in the early days of the empire were gradually lost. The declining state is also surrounded by all kinds of quarrels, between Arabs in the North and the South, between Arabs and non-Arabs, between Arab Muslims and new Muslims, between Muslims and non-Muslims, between various sects, and religion can no longer unite them into an organized whole.

The empire's territory had been divided among the great and small dynasties, and the caliphate, under the control of the Sultan, was nothing more than a puppet at the mercy of others, who could not mobilize troops to resist in the face of the approaching enemy army, and could only ask for help from the Sultan Sanjar who was on the march. Let him return to the rescue.

Sanjar received an urgent letter that the imperial capital was under attack and asked him to quickly return to the army to rescue, but he could not escape. In order to maintain the unity of the imperial situation in these years, he had to lead his army to fight everywhere under the banner of Islam. It is hoped that the decline of the empire will be delayed and the former authority will be restored. Now, in the process of conquering the Black Khanate, there is another incident of Khorezm's independence. He had to send troops to suppress it in order to maintain the unity of the empire, which kept him in the northeastern part of the empire. It was difficult to return to the army for a while.

But his old nest is in danger, and he can't help it. In the name of the Sultan of the Great Seljuk Empire, Sanjar ordered the Sultanate of Rûm and the Kerman to send troops to the aid of Baghdad and to destroy the invading enemy army......

The cavalry of the Roma Kingdom lined up in a formation that stretched for several miles, estimated at 50,000 people, and the middle of the line was thick and thin on both sides, and it was in the shape of a concave crescent, which was actually their 'glaive formation'. Wang Gang understood that this formation was based on the Chinese army as the main force, and the two flanks outflanked them and besieged them in the middle and annihilated. In the face of the serious situation, Wang Gang regretted his carelessness a little, and did not send a scout cavalry to search closely, so that he could make a decision, but regret was useless, and he had to make a decision as soon as possible whether to fight or retreat.

When the dragoons were first formed, Wang Gang clearly remembered what the emperor said, and the reason why they charged in a strict and dense formation was also a last resort, because even if the cavalry living in the Great Song Dynasty underwent strict training, their riding and archery skills were not as good as the nomads who lived on horseback since childhood, they were born knights; In addition, the nomads were strong and good at hand-to-hand combat, and the Song army could only rely on advanced weapons and appropriate tactics to restrain their strengths, and rely on collective strength to win the victory.

The Roma cavalry in front of him is not only burly and tall, according to Bakir, these cavalry are particularly good at swordsmanship, and can slash a date hanging in the air when galloping, and the world-famous Damascus scimitar makes its cavalry more powerful and unstoppable in close combat. That is to say, compared with the enemy facing the current Song army, the physical strength, war horses, swords and troops are at an absolute disadvantage, and the advantage of the Song army is gone.

"Withdraw!" Wang Gang faced the enemy forces coming up from three sides, and the panicked co-followers had already begun to appear, and he gave the order. But turning around and running must have been a heavy loss, he ordered the Blak army to open its flanks, with its good guerrilla tactics to prevent the enemy's encirclement from closing, the Atar army divided into two teams to cover the Song army's dragoons to establish a blocking position and retreat alternately, and at the same time sent people to quickly send a message to the rear, asking the brigade to answer.

The only advantage the dragoons had at the moment was the firearms they were equipped with, and they were divided into two parts, first dismounted with one to choose favorable terrain to establish a blocking line, and once the enemy attacked, they used guns, wheelers, and a few artillery pieces to carry out long-range strikes; The other division again established a defensive line behind it to cover the retreat of the front army and block the enemy. It's a slow solution, but it's a safe one. The Roma cavalry also launched several rounds of tentative attacks, but failed to break through the line of resistance under heavy fire.

The fire and loud noise emitted by firearms, not to mention the war horses, even the people showed great fear, which made the Roma cavalry dare not get too close to the blocking line. Instead, they harass with small squads of cavalry, trying to find out the opponent's weaknesses, or make them panic and cause confusion, and then find an opportunity to break through. However, the Song army was in a tight formation, and even if a small group of enemy troops approached, they were driven away by the co-conspirator army, so that they had no gaps to take advantage of, so they retreated more than ten miles step by step and gradually separated from the enemy and withdrew from the battlefield, and the enemy army was also worried that there were ambushes and did not chase after them.

Although they returned safely to the main camp, the crisis was not resolved, and the Sentinels reported that another light cavalry army of about 70,000 men was approaching them in the northeast of the expeditionary force. Faced with the sudden appearance of two enemy brigades, Ma Wei decided to retreat to the river to join the sailors anchored on the banks of the Tigrus, so as not to be divided and surrounded by the enemy. That night, the whole army withdrew from the battlefield, and the enemy did not seem to want to let them go, so the two armies quickly surrounded them and pursued them!

…………

Ma Wei learned that the enemy troops who came to help him were several times larger, and all of them were brave and good at fighting, and they were new to morale, so he decided to lure the enemy deeper, and then counterattacked with the strong fire support provided by the naval warships. After two days of marching, the expeditionary force fought and retreated, retreating to the banks of the Tigris, a bend in the river where the impact of the river for thousands of years had formed a vast bay on the west bank of the river, and the support fleet of the naval division was stationed in it.

The enemy did not know that the Song army was deliberately showing weakness, so they followed in their footsteps and soon found the warships anchored in the inlet. A light cavalry of the Kerman State chose a place where the water was calm to erect a pontoon bridge to cross the Tigrus River and fortify it on the east bank, so as to prevent the Song army from escaping to the east bank. The Roma State lined up outside the inlet, built a camp to block the road to the west of the Song army, and sent heavy troops to the two flanks to defend the pontoon bridge, so that the two armies could come and go to support and cut off the Song army's water access.

Finding themselves surrounded by enemy forces in the bend, the expeditionary force was briefly panicked, especially those who assisted in the army. A detachment of sectarian troops of the Brak Army, intending to break through by force while the encirclement had just formed, made a surprise attack on the weak but prominent left flank of the Roma camp with nearly 2,000 men. And they were immediately hit by a volley of bows and arrows from the front and from the side, and suffered heavy losses.

The desire to survive triumphs over fear, and the worship of faith unites them. The 'Brak' sect army shouted 'Allah is great' and rushed forward bravely in the face of waves of bows and arrows, regardless of casualties, and some soldiers were still screaming forward with several arrows in their bodies, and the scene was very tragic. Their life-for-death charge made the defending Roma cavalry tremble and chill. But the flesh and blood could not resist the arrows as sharp as rain, and soon all fell on the way to the charge.

The battle for the breakout of the sect army was short and tragic, and even if the expeditionary force wanted to come to the rescue, it was too late. However, they were not senseless sacrifices, which made the enemy also cautious and did not rush to charge; And the Song army's co-servants were also frightened enough, and they no longer dared to flee without permission, and wholeheartedly followed the masters to build fortifications, actively prepare for war, and wait for the coming of the big war...... (To be continued......)