When the fleet of the Great Song Expeditionary Force went up the river and was still more than ten miles away from the city of Bosaro, they saw thick smoke billowing in front of them, as if something big had happened. When the fleet arrived, he found that the lord of Bosaro, Misuti, had fled back to the city in defeat, thinking that the enemy was coming, and his own forces were exhausted and it was difficult to resist, so he simply abandoned the city and fled.

Fortunately, the Song army chased closely, Misuti walked in a hurry, and the canals and waterways in the city crisscrossed into a natural firebreak, so the fire had not spread to the whole city. The fleet marched into the city along the canal and quickly took control of the Doge's Palace, quickly extinguishing the fire, but Misuti swept away only the most valuable items, and snatched a lot of good things from the fire, especially the shiny gold coins that filled the warehouse, which simply blinded everyone.

The Governor's Palace is an independent castle, as luxurious as the Imperial Palace, with a large area and mostly stone structures, plus half of the mansion can be used in time, and the temporary marshal's palace is located here. Subsequently, Cheng Xishou dispatched troops to control the estuary wharf, occupy the main transportation route, and execute the robbers on the spot while the fire was exposed, which quickly quelled the riots in the city, and the people in the city also spontaneously organized to extinguish the fires in various places in the city.

The next day he summoned the officials, religious leaders, and chamber managers who had not escaped from the city, and explained that the Great Song Navy did not want to harm the people here, and that they wanted to ask them for the Great Khan. As long as everyone performs their duties, keeps to themselves, and does not attack the Song army, they will be fine, if they do not cooperate and try to make trouble, they will not be polite, what can these people say under the coercion of knives and guns, most people choose to cooperate with the Song army. So these former government officials and religious figures formed the Provisional Government. They continued to take charge of the city's affairs. This reduced the mood of resistance and the situation in the city was quickly stabilized.

Although it went overboard. After all, the city of Bosalo is also an important city on the main transportation routes, an important market at the intersection of East and West. The developed commerce made the materials very abundant and abundant, which provided convenience for the Song army to raise supplementary materials, and also provided sufficient material guarantee for the continued northward advance. In this way, they gained their first foothold on Seljuk land, and the city of Bosaro became a supply base for their advance into Baghdad.

The Tigris and Euphrates are two famous rivers in the Western Regions, which have special significance for the Arminian Plateau in the arid zone, giving birth to and irrigating the Mesopotamian Plain, which has long been a fertile and rich land. In order to open up the water and land passage between the plain of the two rivers and the Persian plateau, the Arabs dug a canal at the "Khoram Shahr", where the Karen River and the Shatt al-Arab River intersect, officially opening up the two major water systems.

The canal made it possible for ships to navigate through the channel in the middle reaches of the Tigris to the port of Bosaro on the banks of the Shatt al-Arab. The Song army was also able to continue to sail north to attack the Seljuk capital of Baghdad. But now that the expeditionary force has entered the interior, the roles of the navy and the army have also changed. The infantry cavalry who have watched the drama for such a long time will become the main force in the next battle, and the navy will be reduced to an auxiliary force to help them.

Due to the shallow water level of the Tigrus River ahead, the Goyue-class and God-class warships were tall and had a deep draft, making it impossible to navigate in inland rivers, and at the same time, the hurricane season was coming, and the strong winds in the Persian Gulf made it impossible for ships to go to sea. More than a dozen capital ships had to stay behind with the equally useless commander Cheng Xishou to serve as the garrison of Bosalo City. lest the enemy take the back road......

In Persian, the word Baghdad means a God-given place. At the beginning of the 8th century, the second king of the Abbasid dynasty, Alifa Mansur, found that it was a key point of land and water, and the climate was pleasant, so he used 100,000 skilled craftsmen and laborers on the basis of the original town. After four years, a magnificent new city was finally built on the west bank of the Tigrus River. It was officially designated as the capital of the Abbasid dynasty, and was once named 'Medina?' Seran'. It means the City of Peace, but it is still customary to call it Baghdad.

The seventh and eighth centuries were the heyday of Baghdad. Construction was carried out in the city, and buildings with Arab style appeared one after another. Mansour built another palace on the outskirts of the city, the Eternal Palace, and built a barracks, mansion and mosque for the crown prince on the east bank of the river.

In the mid-8th and 9th centuries, the city of Baghdad was expanded again with mosques, madrasas, libraries, observatories, inns, inns, inns, markets, bathhouses, and municipal transportation facilities. At the same time, scholarly activity was also very active, and scholars of all sects, under the patronage and patronage of the court, wrote books and lectures, and made great achievements in the study of the Qur'an, Hadith, jurisprudence, kellam, literature and art. These made the city enter its heyday, becoming the political, economic, trade, cultural and religious center of the Caliphate Empire, and was known as one of the three most famous cities in the world at that time, along with Chang'an, the capital of the Tang Dynasty of China, and Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire.

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The road to the march became more and more unstable, and at a distance of 200 miles from the city of Baghdad, the fleet was constantly harassed from the shore and from the water, so that it had to stop several times to disperse the incoming enemy with naval guns. Faced with the current situation, Ma Wei and several generals consulted, and the infantry cavalry abandoned the boat and landed on the shore, marched in formation along the river bank, captured the castle along the coast, and swept away the enemy strongholds outside the city.

The infantry cavalry chose a place with open water and a gentle river bank to land and form a formation, and the dragoons cruised on the outer edge of the group to reconnoiter the enemy and drive away the small groups of enemy troops close to the brigade; The hussars were arranged in the middle to form a solid partition to provide support for the dragoons; The infantry were on the inner side of the array, but they relied on 'requisitioned' vehicles along the way to avoid the pain of marching in the heat and to keep up with the cavalry, while the fleet accompanied the army and provided fire cover and baggage. Li Gong

In fact, what bothered the Song army the most was not the harassment of the enemy army, but the scorching heat here. During the day, the sun scorched the earth all day long, and people sweated profusely even at night, and even in the early hours of the morning, it seemed to be about the same, but fortunately, the roads were by the river, so that they did not have to worry about finding water.

In order to maintain combat effectiveness, Ma Wei ordered that except for the troops in charge of vigilance, soldiers could take off their leather armor and act in single clothes, but their weapons and equipment could not be separated from their bodies. and scheduled the march after sunset and before sunrise, and camped in the woods on the shore during the day. When camping, it is strictly necessary to dig trenches, build fortifications, and arrange light and dark sentinels, and the camping must be within the effective range of naval guns.

Since the landing of the infantry cavalry, the number of direct confrontations with the enemy has also begun to increase, and Seljuk often chooses to attack the Song army brigade when the Song army is marching. The cavalrymen wore conical helmets with clusters of colored horsehair on top, chain mail, a round shield on their left arm, and a long cape over the armor. The head, neck, chest and other parts of the war horse are also hung with vests, and spears are inserted in the stirrups, and spear flags are floating on the guns. He carried bows and arrows, long knives, and some had battle axes or iron bones hanging from the saddles

Looking at the dress of the enemy cavalry, it can be basically judged that they belong to the heavy cavalry, but the movements of these people do not seem to be affected by the heavy armor, and their horses are very powerful, carrying the knights in heavy armor can still run quickly. When they appeared, they often approached the squad of rangers who were the first to attack the perimeter guard, and they could shoot five or six arrows in a matter of breaths, but the range and accuracy were not flattering.

Even so, it can make the Song army rangers busy, and the enemy cavalry takes the opportunity to get close to the Song army rangers under the horse, if there is an opportunity they will quickly attack the Song army brigade on the march, once it is counterattacked or intercepted by a large group of cavalry, immediately turn around and flee, and do not contact, the Song army has the intention to pursue, but often because the speed of the war horse is inferior to the other party, and worried about being ambushed by the enemy, they can only watch it escape and helpless.

"General Li, what do you think?" After being harassed repeatedly, and the Song army was often unable to hurt a single hair, which made the whole army very breathless, Ma Wei personally planned an ambush, captured three alive, killed five, and allowed them to get to know their opponents up close.

"The equipment of these people is no less than the iron floating map of the Jin army, and they should belong to the elite!" Li Quan said, fiddling with the armor he had pulled from the enemy. The chain mail of these people could cover most of the body from the neck to the thighs, with iron-clad combat boots under their feet and shin armor on their calves; Iron gloves were worn on the hands and wrists, and only the arms were not armored, presumably to maintain flexibility in the use of weapons.

"Well, these people are much more difficult than Tiefutu, they are heavily armored but move quickly, in addition to the excellent war horses, I am afraid that they have been trained since childhood, otherwise let alone put on armor to go into battle, even if they wear such a body on a hot day, they will be roasted!" Wang Gang kicked the armor on the ground and said, it is said that a good armor is often regarded as a treasure by military generals, but it is not of much use to the Song army, the firearms they hold are generally far away to solve the problem, and I am afraid that I don't need to kill the enemy when wearing such a body in hand-to-hand combat, and I am tired to death.

"Yes, these may be the elite of the Seljuks, not only the armor is exquisite and strong, but the weapons are also very sophisticated and diverse, they should be professional soldiers!" Ma Wei picked up a handful of garlic iron bones and weighed it very heavy, this is obviously used to break armor, and it is very well maintained, shiny and smooth, but from the marks of bumps on it, it can also be seen that these weapons have years, and this can only be done by professional soldiers...... (To be continued......)