In September, in Syria, the last armies of the Crusaders began to return. At the same time, Aetius, the new Roman governor of Babylon, scolded his cheating father and fought desperately, commanding the Roman legions and the Mongol cavalry to fight to the death. The two sides fought bloody battles again and again, but for a while, no one could help anyone. So, the cowardly did not spend and changed the tactics. Attack Aetius with the usual raiding and harassing tactics of the Mongols. Once again, the land of Babylon suffered. The barbaric and ferocious Mongols were indistinguishable from the Crusaders in terms of ruthlessness. And the destructive power is even more excessive. Once again, the entire region of Babylon was enveloped in bloodshed.

This time, this kind of thing can't be said to have nothing to do with Egil. In fact, this incident attracted the attention of Egil - the Mongol rangers broke into Syria more than once, slaughtered, set fires, and set the capital to the capital. Angry, Egil scolded "bastard bastard". But I don't want to think that I don't have to do this thing too often......

So, in order to prevent the Mongol iron cavalry from continuing to invade westward. At the same time, it is also intended to suppress and deter the Arabs in Syria. A strong, numerous army, and a strong line of defense. It's very necessary.

This time, Egil was ruthless, distributing nearly 100,000 bonds, and at the same time recruiting Christians who had converted to Christianity in the locality, among the natives of Syria. There were also stragglers, mercenaries, and crusaders who did not retreat. They were organized into an army.

This army is arguably the most powerful of all the garrison legions. The number is more than 20,000. And there was a lot of new equipment - Egil left them some of the heavy guns that were not easy to transport.

The backbone of the army was a guard knight of a hundred. Redeem for bonds. A total of 10,000 bonds were spent. Its combat effectiveness is excellent. The rest of the bonds were exchanged by Egil for three thousand-man Norman hoplites and one thousand-man Norman phalanx infantry (new spearmen, equipped with three-quarter plate armor, a mixture of spears and halberds, and no shields). As well as a thousand-man longbowmen, three hundred-man Emperor's Wrath elite crossbowmen (equipped with Egil's Wrath repeater, half-body plate armor, round shield, scimitar. ）

This was the regular army of this garrison corps - much more powerful than the average standard garrison corps of 5,500 men. Although it was not equipped with hussars, it did add phalanx infantry, longbowmen, and elite crossbowmen of the Emperor's Wrath. Egil believed in order to strengthen the defense of the array. With a solid phalanx of spearmen, longbowmen and crossbowmen, it will also have the strength to fight when facing the Mongol cavalry head-on.

Of course, this does not mean that Egil will give up the hussars. In fact, after hearing that the elite light cavalry of the Mongols also had the strength to fight in front of the hussars they had painstakingly assembled. Egil became more interested in this force. The formation of a strong light cavalry force in this garrison corps was inevitable. And Egil actually did the same.

The natives, the native Syrian inhabitants who were skilled in mounted archery, were recruited by Egil. Egil hopes that in a short period of time, these good and brave men will be trained into qualified soldiers. Even if it is not as good as the professional hussars, it is better to be able to fight the Mongols.

In response to the Mongol superiority in cavalry and archery, as well as the superiority of the Mongols' mobility, these short-term training quasi-hussars, or secondary hussars, also strengthened their preparations in this regard.

A total of 5,000 native Syrian Arabs, soldiers who had converted to the Christian faith, were individually planned as a hussar regiment, known as the Fourth Hussar Regiment in the Norman military sequence. ...,

These hussars are different in equipment and tactics from ordinary melee hussars, hussar regiments mixed with light archers. They uniformly wore the light blue capes of the Norman Empire to shield them from the scorching sun of the Arab region. The cape, on the other hand, is equipped with a silk shirt that is flexible, can block the flow of arrows to a certain extent, and can easily pull out arrows. The legion was armed with a short compound bow, two pots of feathered arrows, a scimitar and a round cavalry shield, and rode the Norman Warhorse No. 3.

Egir was convinced that this army, though in close combat, could not match the Norman hussars in a large-scale battle. But the scout warfare of stealing, scouting, harassment, and chicken and dog, as well as small-scale light cavalry operations, the performance of these cavalry in the Near Eastern desert is definitely worth looking forward to.

And those mercenaries, as well as the Christian crusaders who did not leave for various reasons, as well as the crusaders of other countries. Egil organized them into a third legion. This regiment had the largest number of troops. There were 8,000 of them. At the same time, there were more than 300 heavy cavalry, and nearly 500 light cavalry. However, this is a cannon fodder force through and through. Unorganized and undisciplined. Egil didn't retrain them to make them look more like that.

This regiment did not even have a full formation, uniform dress and uniform equipment. The mercenaries wield either two-handed swords or extra-long spears. They were not willing to follow the orders of career officers. In their place were the leaders of their own small groups. They also replaced the regular army with small groups of mercenaries.

And those crusaders were slightly better. Of course, it's not much better. Their commanders were those noble knights. Or some young aristocratic kid who wants to get ahead. There were also ascetic monks who followed the orders of the chief priest of their order. And in terms of equipment, they are not as good as those mercenaries

-- The vast majority of the crusaders who had made a fortune had already left. These are the people who don't have a lot of money. So, their outfit is no different from when they came to the Holy Land. Farm implements, sundries, sticks...... The mess, and the other things, were the captures of the war, the scimitars and maces from the Arabs, and the compound bows—of course, very few of these malnourished fellows could wield such strong bows, and the accuracy and speed of fire were not flattering.

Egil's purpose was very clear - this legion was cannon fodder. Absolute cannon fodder. They are the worst treated in peacetime, and they are the first to die in battle.

In this way, a regular regiment of more than 5,000 people, a quasi-hussar regiment of about 5,000 people, and a cannon fodder regiment of more than 8,000 people. In a very short time, before the end of September, Egil had raised a garrison of nearly 20,000 men, which can be described as rapid.

On the other hand, the war in Babylon also entered a new phase. The cowardly tactic of not spending money on plundering everywhere worked. Forced to helpless, Aetius, who didn't want his territory to be ruined anymore, finally plunged headlong into the cowardly pocket array with his eyes on fire. After a large-scale battle, the Roman legions suffered heavy losses, but Aetius was also a famous general, and finally fought his way out with the remnants of his army, and then fled in disarray and fled back to Baghdad, the capital of Babylon.

After that, the Greek army could not hold out. And the cowardly army that did not spend was also suffering a lot of losses. After much thought, the Mongol general decided to temporarily halt his advance and plunder, loot, and collect supplies and rations nearby. The main force stopped under the city of Baghdad, assuming the appearance of a long-term siege, and at the same time sent messengers to report the victory to Genghis Khan, who was still in Central Asia, and also asked for instructions on the next move. ...,

The persecuted Greeks, under the command of Aetius, began to fortify the city. The Greek army, having lost too much baggage, had no choice but to plunder the Arabs in the city for the sake of food. This made the Arabs, who had just sent away a group of hungry wolves of the Crusaders, cry without tears.

This set the Greek defenders against the city's natives. The Arabs, who were already dissatisfied with foreign rule, are now in a position where they will riot at any time. In desperation, Aetius had no choice but to continue his perverse actions, suppressing the Arabs more brutally, controlling, supervising, white terror, massacres, and forcing the people to help defend the city...... Although this action temporarily stabilized the situation in Baghdad, it also completely lost the support of the people.

"Many disasters and many difficulties...... Aetius, who was originally ambitious and wanted to make a name for himself in Babylon, no longer has this idea. The hapless Roman general now wanted nothing more than to return to his country in peace, to Constantinople, even if Basil II was furious and demoted him to a commoner. However, this also seems quite difficult.

"Send a messenger - send someone to break out of the siege and call for help in other Crusader territories......"

Defending the dry city was not an option, so although it was obvious that it was unreliable, Aetius still sent messengers, sending his elite cronies to break out and ask for help from other Crusader territories.

"At least they should know how to die with cold lips......" At this time, Aetius had to think so optimistically.

However, he was destined to be disappointed.

"Just say I'm not there—no, I'm gone. ”

Looking at the Greek messenger weeping blood, Egil coldly ordered his knights of the guard - jokingly, this was not the time to compete with the Mongols. Losing his army for the Greeks?! Egil is not a fool. In his opinion, the only reason for the existence of Aetius, and the remnants of the Greek army, was to buy himself enough time to arrange a solid line of defense that could hold off the Mongols.

In this way, the army of the Greeks looked rather dangerous. At the thought of Basil's unfortunate appearance of stealing chickens and rice, and not reaping any benefits in Babylon, but losing tens of thousands of elite soldiers, Egil felt a sense of schadenfreude......

*J