"The Afghans won't go back on our word and surprise us halfway after we've left the outpost?" Yan Shaowu, commander of the 3rd Mixed Battalion, looked at Yu Wanping, who had rushed from Bushehr Port, and asked in disbelief.

"Probably not." Yu Wanping said firmly: "At this time, the main target in the eyes of the Afghans is Isfahan, the Shah of the empire, and the countless riches accumulated in the city. At a time when the Persians are about to collapse, Mahmud should not attack us rashly. Commander Luo of your 106th Regiment has led two companies of dragoons and three battalions of Mozhou servants into the port of Bushehr, and if the situation changes, you can rush to the rescue. ”

The situation has changed, when can we rush to help?

This is a very simple remark, if the Afghans have evil intentions, it will be difficult to deal with the sudden surprise attack after our officers and men have withdrawn from the trading station. After Chief Luo heard the news, he led the troops to come to the rescue, I am afraid that the bones have already decomposed.

"Won't Minister Zhang and other diplomats in Isfahan evacuate with us?"

"Minister Zhang is on a diplomatic mission of the empire, and he has not been summoned by the local people, how can he leave at will?" Yu Wanping shook his head and said, "Including the dozen or so black guards in the city, they are all temporarily staying in Isfahan with the legation to wait for the final evolution of the situation of the Safavid Dynasty. …… They may come together on my behalf to reach out to the Afghans informally to see if they are worth dealing with. ”

Yan Shaowu listened, sighed slightly, did not say anything more, and immediately ordered all the personnel of the merchant station to pack up, organize the materials, and prepare to evacuate.

Whereas, the horses and camels used as means of transport in the trading post were used as food during the siege and into the bellies of the people. The Qi people then bought more than 260 horses and camels from the Afghans at high prices, as well as necessary grain, forage and other materials.

On 29 September, the gate of the trading station, which had been closed for nearly seven months, was slowly opened, and after more than 100 horse-drawn carriages rushed out, they immediately formed two columns, surrounding more than 200 heavily armed army officers and soldiers and nearly 300 trading station personnel and their families, and cautiously marched southward.

More than 1,000 Afghan tribal cavalry hung far behind, staring at the evacuated Qi people.

On 2 October, the convoy arrived in the small town of Mubarak and joined up with the Persian convoy of trading houses and tribal mercenaries who had come to meet them.

After a day's rest in the town, the convoy sailed south toward the port of Bushehr.

"Nasid, my dear child." In a wide and comfortable carriage, Prince Abbas Mirza sat on the wall of the carriage, looked at his daughter with a lonely and sad face, and sighed softly: "Do you know that sending you to the country of Qi is a very painful thing for my father. From the moment you were born to the present, I have regarded you as a shining treasure and poured all my heart and soul into it. But, very unfortunately, we are all facing a great catastrophe in the Empire, and the entire royal family will also suffer the greatest crisis in hundreds of years. ”

"Because of the Shah's incompetence and cowardice, the beautiful and rich city of Isfahan will eventually fall into the hands of the Afghans. With their brutality and greed, the royal family, including the Shah, will be mercilessly humiliated, hundreds of thousands of civilians will be slaughtered, and the governors of the local provinces will use this to plot to establish themselves and no longer be loyal to our Safavid dynasty. ”

"In this situation, as members of the royal family, we need to stand up bravely to save the Safavid dynasty, to save the failing empire, and to save millions of poor and helpless people. My dear child, are you willing to take on this responsibility? ”

"Father......" Princess Nasid Mirza burst into tears, biting her lip tightly, looking at her father with an expectant expression, her heart was full of trepidation, "Father, I will go to the Qi country according to your wishes...... Marry into their royal family. ”

"Nasid, my dear child." Prince Abbas looked at Pear Blossom and Yu's daughter, and his heart ached, so he couldn't help but take her in his arms and kiss her forehead gently, "Qi is a very rich and powerful country, and their royal family is naturally very civilized and open, and they will definitely choose a handsome and gentle prince to combine with you." I am sure that your life will be ...... later It will be very happy and satisfying. God will bless you forever, my dear child! ”

Just after Qi and his party evacuated Isfahan, the atmosphere of despair in the city also reached its extreme. During the long and brutal siege, countless people died tragically due to hunger and disease. Wave after wave of rescue soldiers and horses were forced back by the Afghans one by one, and Prince Tahmasp, who had high hopes, has not been heard from so far.

When the governor of Thun and Tabas provinces, Malik Mahmoud al-Sistani, led thousands of cavalry under the city of Isfahan, in the face of the ardent expectations of countless citizens, gave up the rescue and went straight to Khorasan, and everyone, including the imperial Shah Sudan Hussein, immediately fell into unprecedented despair.

And the selfish Qi people, after taking all the people and supplies stranded in the trading station, also abandoned the poor and helpless Persians, and returned to the port of Bushehr without looking back.

In this situation, Shah Sultan Hussein finally decided to give in to Mahmoud and prepare to surrender to the Afghans.

According to Persian tradition, when a Shah was about to end his reign, he would walk through the streets dressed in black in front of the people of the city and mourn his unfortunate fate.

On 23 October, Shah Sudan Hussein rode a horse borrowed from the Afghans and went out of the city to surrender himself, riding all the way to the river, where the streets were littered with dead corpses, and the surviving people simply watched their king indifferently and went out of the city to accept the humiliation of the Afghans.

It is said that when Shah arrived at the palace of Farahabat, which he once loved, he was told that Mahmoud was taking a nap and ordered him to wait outside the palace.

It was only after this humiliation that the Shah met Mahmoud and the two sides politely exchanged greetings.

Mahmud lazily lay on a fine and soft Persian carpet and watched as the Shah bowed his knees in submission.

Sadhanh Hussein sadly removed the feather ornament from his turban, which symbolized royal power, and presented it to Mahmud, and put it on his turban with his own hands, as a sign of passing on the position of the imperial Shah to him.

Subsequently, Mahmoud's close associate and former army commander Amanullah Khan led 3,000 Afghan cavalry into Isfahan, sealed off the palace, and replaced all the Persian guards with Afghans. The people of the city, driven by Afghan soldiers, began to clean up and carry the corpses in the city in preparation for Mahmoud to enter the capital in style.

During the eight-month siege, Isfahan, which once had a population of 550,000, ended up with only more than 100,000 people, and most of them died tragically, except for a few lucky people who escaped from the city. This splendid city has been severely damaged and struck by in hundreds of years, and it will never be seen again.

On 5 November, less than 10 days after the imperial Shah Sudan Hussein announced his abdication and passed the Shah's title to Mahmoud, Prince Tahmasp, who was in Qazvin, declared himself the new Shah of the empire and demanded that the governors swear allegiance to him and fight the Afghans.

On November 12, Prince Abbas Mirza, who had been missing from the city of Isfahan for a long time, suddenly appeared in the port of Bushehr and angrily denounced his brother, the Imperial Shah Surtan Hussein, for his incompetence, which plunged the empire into its deepest crisis. Subsequently, he was declared the new Shah, vowing to save the Safavid dynasty from precariousness and rebuild the empire to its glory.

The Governor of Fars Province, where the port of Bushehr is located, swore allegiance to Prince Abbas and, in response to his call, began to requisition troops in preparation for the march to Isfahan.

The other provinces of Persia, after hearing of the fall of Isfahan and the abdication of the Shah, set themselves up as kings and watched for further changes in the situation in the empire.

In mid-December, as soon as Mahmoud had stabilized the situation in Isfahan, he sent two detachments of troops to attack Qazvin and Shiraz.

Without the effective support of the powerful factions around him, the weak Tahmasp was soon expelled from Qazvin and fled to Azerbaijan, where he could not gain a foothold and was invaded by the Ottoman Empire, so he had to flee to Mazandaran on the southern coast of the Caspian Sea to seek protection from the local Qajar tribes.

The governor of Fars Province was defeated by a strong attack by the Afghans and was forced to abandon Shiraz and move towards the port of Bushehr in order to gain refuge from the Qi people.

Towards the end of 1722, the entire Safavid Empire was in a state of extinction. The Afghans occupied almost one-third of the empire's territory (including the previously de facto independent province of Kandahar) and controlled Isfahan, the center of the empire.

Most of the northern and western territories of the empire were occupied by the Ottoman Empire and Tsarist Russia, and Georgia, Armenia, Sylvan and Azerbaijan fell almost entirely.

The Ottoman Empire's Baghdad Pasha is also mobilizing militarily and is about to threaten the western provinces of Iraq-Ajam, Kurdistan, Luristan, and Arabistan in the western part of the empire.

Abbas III, who had just declared himself the Shah of the Empire, formally requested the state of Qi to borrow troops in order to save the empire from a critical situation.