Rasul's biggest regret is that he has no autonomy, everything has to be reported to the top, and he is still reported by a young and warlike general Ziad.

Ziyad is the number one general under Abu ***, and even slightly better than Abu *** in terms of tactics, Abu is a leader-type figure, with natural virtue and the ability to respond to everything, Ziyad is a real master of tactics. It's just that the masters have some stinky problems, they like to be arrogant, and they prefer to set rules for people, as Ziad's subordinate, he must strictly follow his words to execute, no matter what he does, he must report it first, and he can only implement it with his permission.

Therefore, if Rasul wanted to attack Ningyuan, he had to get permission from Ziyad, who was now in Samarkand. He immediately wrote a letter to Ziad, giving many examples of the new commander of the Don Army, and the new commander was a miscreety. He also forwarded to him the letter sent by Li Siye, and waited hopefully for the order that Ziad gave him.

Half a month after the letter was delivered, Ziyad of Samarkand finally replied, and a small team of messengers arrived on camels and handed Rasul a parchment roll in a wooden tube.

Rasul pulled open the wooden tube and pulled out the parchment scroll from it, and on the huge scroll was only a few words: Do not do anything, wait for me to come. ”

His ambition was suppressed by Ziad at once, and he was not allowed to move, wasn't he afraid that he would threaten his position after he made great achievements? This is how veterans suppress new players who are ready to come out.

Rasul did not dare to move, so he had to wait patiently, and a month later, General Ziad finally arrived in Talas, and the garrison of the Great Food here finally reached 50,000.

Although he expressed contempt for Ziad's order, he did not dare to show it on the surface, and could only use certain sophistry words to disguise his true purpose. So he once again proposed to Ziad to attack Ning Yuanguo, an ally of the Tang Dynasty, and he used such a tone.

"General Ziade, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity has been placed at our feet, the generals of the Tang Army are afraid of war and seek peace, and take the initiative to propose to us to divide the territory, how can we miss such a good opportunity. The generals must not be intimidated by the recent victories of Gao Xianzhi and the Tang army, as far as I know, they never dared to fight us, and during the Umayyad dynasty, they did their best to avoid clashes with our army. All this is enough to show that they only dare to deal with some small countries in Shiguo, and in the face of such a strong us, their battle may lose the four towns of Anxi. ”

Rasul's bright prospects did not convince Ziad, but instead were seen as telling the truth. The other party rode on a camel and asked coldly: "Have you ever fought with the Tang Army?" Have you ever won? What is the battle loss ratio? ”

This question can be asked by Rasul, in fact, I have already done it to Tang Jun, but you won't let me.

Taking advantage of Rasul's speechlessness, Ziad then said, "Never despise your enemies unless you have defeated them many times. When facing an army that has never been defeated, and you don't know their details, you must regard it as a great enemy. ”

Rasul still considered himself very reasonable, and asked Ziad: "The Lord is the soul of an army, and their Lord has written peace letters to us, what do you think they have to fear?" ”

Ziad added: "Seeking peace is not necessarily a fear of war, perhaps he is really peace-loving and opposes war, which does not mean anything." ”

For the next few months, the two sides faced each other between Talas and Thirsty City, with Li Siye maintaining a force of 10,000 men, and another 10,000 led by Duan Xiushi carrying grain back and forth without interruption. In addition to food, their munitions also include a high explosive called Fierce Fire Thunder.

Li Siye ordered a battalion of the Tang Army to equip it with this kind of thing, and let them train bomb throwing techniques, ready to go into battle as a surprise soldier at any time.

At this time, the numerical advantage was evident at the stage of confrontation between the two sides, and the army jointly sent by Anxi and Beiting was only 20,000 people, and the pressure on supplies was much less. The strength of the Great Food Army sent to Talas in two times was 50,000 troops, and the supply pressure of these 50,000 people was unprecedentedly huge, and the militia in the rear was required to continuously transport grain and grass.

Li Siye continued to send people to spread false news, and some merchants from the east spoke ill of the Tang army, saying that they were oppressing the people and idle, and that they were simply a rabble of garbage.

Ziad didn't believe this rumor, a year ago they also went on an expedition to the country of Qianshi to defeat their opponents, although the size of small countries and large countries is naturally different, but the Tang army should not be as simple as he imagined.

Until a piece of news that he had no hope came out, he completely made up his mind to attack Ning Yuanguo and attack the Tang army.

He repeatedly sent emissaries to Qarluq, using money and land as bait to induce Qarluq to give a sudden rebel attack when the Tang army was fighting fiercely. No one can prevent this ruthless move, this is the real hole card for him to win.

In July of the 10th year of Tianbao, Ziad led an Abbasid army of 50,000 to the south and launched an attack on the Tang army stationed outside the city of Thirsty Sai.

On this day, the weather was unusually clear, the visibility of the air was very high, and standing on the hill on this side, you could see the cavalry and infantry on the opposite side combined with the surging army, they held black flags in their hands, like a black cloud, pressing towards the direction of the thirsty city.

The Tang army led by Li Siye formed the Six Flowers Formation, and they appeared on the gentle hillside. Li Siye ordered Bi Sishen to wave the command flag and give orders to each phalanx, changing the Liuhua Array into a Fish Scale Array, with the cavalry of the Tang Army in the rear of the Fish Scale Array, the cavalry of Ge Lulu on their right flank, and the army of Ning Yuanguo on their left flank.

The Great Eclipse Army was lined up in nine phalanxes, two of which were Sogdians recruited from the Nine States of the River, and their cavalry on Arab horses accounted for two phalanxes, totaling more than 10,000 men.

Ziad was the first to order the infantry phalanx to move forward, and his initial plan was to first engage the infantry with the Don army into a stalemate, and then send the cavalry to outflank from the flanks.

As soon as the low sound ended, a strong suona sound sounded in the array of the Tang army opposite, and the officers and men of the Anxi army let out a shout of killing, and the muffled thunder rolled on the horizon.

The Great Eclipse Army began to march forward, separated by a meadow in the land of three arrows. Their attack was not chaotic at all, and they remained in formation, with the front row soldiers holding large shields in their hands to provide cover and protection for the archers in the rear.

Li Siye saw that the other party entered the range of the Fuyuan crossbow, and immediately ordered the military formation to push the Fuyuan crossbow to the front row, lined up in a spectacular long column, each Fuyuan crossbow had two middle-aged men wound with waist strength, and the crossbowman adjusted the direction to aim at the slowly approaching big food army formation. The guards raised their swords in the air.

"One, two, shoot!"

The sound of the crossbow string vibrating was sharp, and the first wave of feathered arrows was thrown into the sky, and then fell from the sky like hail swept in parallel.