I'm the Dauphin in France

Chapter 1053 General Zubov's Ability
Damgan, an important city in northeastern Persia.

Agha Mohammed watched the executioner execute the kneeling rebels one by one. The smell of blood wafted in the breeze, making him squint his eyes in pleasure.

More than two thousand corpses were neatly laid out on the wasteland outside the city, and nearly a thousand more people were about to die nearby.

These people are the remnants of Shah Rukh.

After their death, there was no trace of the Afsharid dynasty in the entire Persian Empire, and no one dared to question that Agha Muhammad was the true "King of Kings"!

At the same time, this counter-insurgency operation shocked all the tribes in the Khorasan region, allowing him to recruit three to four thousand Turkmen cavalry from these tribes.

He will return to Tabriz with the momentum of a great victory and an even stronger army for a decisive battle with the Russians.

This time, he will not take it lightly and give the Russian army a chance to ambush him. The Caucasus region will surely belong to Persia again.

When the execution was nearly over, an officer with cold sweat on his forehead moved to the side of Agha Mohammed, saluted, bowed his head and said: "Great Shah, General Khalil is asking for help! The Russians attacked Tabriz! The situation there is critical..."

A week later.

Tens of thousands of Persian troops passed through Tehran and hurried westwards towards the fortress of Tabriz.

Agha Mohammed looked back at the spires in the city, his eyes filled with coldness.

He originally planned to return to Tehran to preside over the capital relocation ceremony, and then go to the Western Front to fight, but he did not expect that the Russians had already launched an attack.

This made his kingdom always unjustified.

As the sun set, the sound of Turkmen horns came from the front, which was the signal to set up camp.

Not long after, the "King of Kings" was soaking in a medicinal bath in his tent, feeling irritated by a series of recent setbacks, when he heard the guards whispering outside the tent, occasionally with a low laugh or two.

Agha Mohammad was immediately furious, but a smile appeared on his face, and he shouted, "Who is making noise there?"

If anyone who knew him saw his expression, they would be terrified - it meant that the Shah was going to kill someone.

The voice outside the tent disappeared instantly. An officer came in and saluted, saying, "Your Majesty, it's your servants Bayezi and Weli. They are talking about the battle in Damgan..."

Agha Mohammed waved his hand gently: "Dismember the body."

"Yes, the great Shah."

Just as the officer was about to turn around and leave, the new commander of the Holy War Knights, Sadiq Khan, bowed his head and walked into the tent, and whispered, "Your Majesty, today is Jubilee Day."

Friday is a holy day in Islam and executions are not usually carried out.

Agha Mohammed was somewhat uninterested: "Then let's do it tomorrow."

Sadiq Khan came out of the tent and saw several guards trying to take Bayeji and Weili away. He immediately said in a deep voice: "It is their turn today. They must stay here until dawn."

The guards looked at each other, let go and retreated.

Agha Muhammad's military discipline was extremely strict, and anyone who interfered with the guards' duty would be severely punished.

late at night.

Bayezi and Weli stood outside the Shah's tent, feeling hopeless, knowing that they would be torn into dozens of pieces the moment the sun rose.

At this moment, Sadiq Khan signaled the other guards to step back, leaving only the two of them.

Ten minutes later, a scream was heard from the Shah's tent. The Persian hero, the king of kings, had been stabbed through the heart by two guards. Sadiq Khan immediately ordered his confidants to light torches, mounted their horses and shouted: "The tyrant has been punished by God! Everyone listen to my order, return to Shiraz immediately after dawn and restore the glory of the empire!"

Agha Muhammad was a cruel man. His soldiers would be tortured or even killed if they were not careful, so they all lived in fear.

When they heard that he was dead, cheers instantly resounded throughout the Persian camp, and no one wanted to catch the murderer.

But not many people heeded Sadiq Khan’s call.

Most of the Persian soldiers followed their tribal leaders back to their hometowns after daybreak. Persia is mountainous, so the tribes are very independent, and only a strong man like Agha Muhammad can suppress them. His death instantly turned the tribe into a mess.

Two days later, the news of the Shah's assassination was brought back to Tehran by the fleeing Persian soldiers.

Agha Muhammad's nephew Fateh Ali Shah, with the support of the Qajar tribe, quickly succeeded as the Shah of Persia, and immediately issued an order to pardon the rebellious army and allow them to continue to assemble in Tabriz.

In Tabriz, Gudvichi commanded 20,000 Russian troops, and after nearly a month of non-stop bombardment, they finally blew open the three-layer stone wall of the fortress.

The Cossacks were the first to rush into the gap. The Persian morale was very low due to the news of the death of the "King of Kings", and most of the soldiers abandoned the city and fled to the southeast.

Valerian Zubov did not expect the war to go so smoothly, so he hurriedly sent someone back to St. Petersburg to report the good news. At the same time, he recalled Gudvich and led the army himself to continue marching towards Tehran.

Although the new Shah, Fateh Ali Shah, was not as good at fighting as his uncle, he was a steady person with considerable political skills.

He integrated the political forces in Tehran as quickly as possible, and then sent people to Shiraz to appease the Bakhtiari tribe which dominated there and rewarded a large number of tribal leaders.

When Sadiq Khan arrived at the old capital of Shiraz with his remaining 2,000-odd soldiers, there was no grand welcome ceremony as imagined, but instead the army of the Bakhtiari tribe.

Then, the leader of the Bakhtiari tribe read out the Shah's order in public.

Sadiq Khan's men had little loyalty to begin with, and they began to flee immediately.

Ten days later, Sadiq Khan's body was transported to Tehran.

At this time, the Russian army had arrived at the city of Zanjan, an important town in western Persia.

……

Central Asia.

Bukhara, the capital of the Bukhara Khanate.

Fort Jacques Royal Palace.

The "Grand Emir" Masan Shah Murad looked at the Russian envoy in front of him with some caution, and spoke after a while:

"Dear Count Kozlovsky, thank you for your kindness, but we do not need your country's help for the time being."

The Russian who suddenly appeared just told him that he was willing to send troops to join forces with Bukhara to dismember the Khanate of Khiva, and they only needed to provide some logistical supplies to the Russians.

Bukhara is the area of ​​Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in later generations, while Khiva is Turkmenistan further west.

The two sides have been fighting for decades for the important trade route - Murf City, and have developed a blood feud.

Bukhara never stopped hoping to destroy Khiva, but Murad was also extremely wary of Russia, which had established a foothold on the eastern coast of the Caspian Sea and had infiltrated the Kazakh region on a large scale.

Murad found it hard to believe that the Russians had no other plans for this trip.

(End of this chapter)