Mount and Blade Central Asia

"Everyone! Torches! Forced march!" Hadanerba shouted and took the lead in galloping away on horseback.

At once, nearly a hundred torches illuminated a gap in the darkness, and at the same time, in Li Rufeng's strategic map perspective, the area shrouded by the fog of war was cleared.

Hadanerba was like a candlelight in the darkness, breaking through all obstacles and bringing another observation point to Li Rufeng.

The best case scenario is of course that Li Rufeng leads the army in person, as the plug-in he brings with him has the widest and most intuitive field of view... But Li Rufeng finds that it is actually very difficult for him to maintain a strategic map perspective while moving. Just maintaining a normal walking state will make him feel dizzy, not to mention galloping on horseback.

Chapter 464 Testing

Strictly speaking, Abdurehman is not a pure-blooded Black Sheep man, but fortunately, whether in the Black Sheep group or in the entire Turkmen group, they do not have such high requirements for bloodline.

After all, after the Mongol conquest more than a hundred years ago, there are not many ethnic groups on this land that are qualified to talk about bloodline. The Mongols crushed everything on this land like monsters, from culture to language, from bloodline to race.

Isn’t there a saying that goes, “If Genghis Khan had not died early, the world would have become like the Mongolian Plateau.”

So although Abdurehman had a Mongolian face, he was still a Black Sheep. When the army of the great conqueror Timur crushed them, this face did not bring him any preferential treatment. Similarly, after the Black Sheep King restored his country, this face did not bring him any extra trouble.

Abdurehman himself is a very devout Muslim. He observes the precept of not drinking alcohol for twenty-two days every month and maintains the habit of praying five times a day. Those who can do this are already better than most of the Black Sheep people.

This night, Abdurehman was no exception. He stopped his troops before the start of Maghrib. Only about half of the Black Sheep were Muslims, and even fewer could perform the five prayers a day.

In this situation where most people usually don't have enough to eat, the restrictions on worship have become very loose. At least Abdurehman himself did not intend to force his followers to strictly abide by it. He only required strictness on himself.

“In the name of Allah, I perform the Sunnah prayer.”

...

“In the name of Allah, I perform the Sunnah prayer.”

...

"In the name of Allah, I pray as commanded." When the afterglow of the setting sun completely dissipated and night finally fell, Abdurehman had completed three prayers of Maghrib.

He raised his head and glanced at the moon which was already high in the sky. He always felt a slight uneasiness in his heart. As a veteran soldier who had experienced too much, Abdurehman felt that this was a reminder from God.

"Tell Bulgan to keep his men farther away tonight, double the number of people on night watch, and send someone to contact Abiram and the others early tomorrow morning to determine our distance." Abdurehman said to his guards while putting on his armor again.

"Yes, sir." The guard left as ordered, and Abdurehman rode his horse and inspected the temporary camp again. After making sure that everything was normal and there were no mistakes, he returned to his tent.

He knew that the Mongols had been scouting them, and that the enemy at Urfa Castle was waiting for them.

But the Black Sheep King's order was for them to recapture the castle as quickly as possible and teach the Mongols a lesson, and they had to complete this order.

Otherwise, once the Mongols finished repairing Urfa Castle, it would cost several times more lives to recapture the castle.

Abdurehman didn't know how the Mongols had the courage to provoke them. After all, even the son of the great conqueror had died outside the city of Tabriz.

Chapter 465 Enjoy the Victory

August 1409, 3, night.

Facts have proved that Li Rufeng's cheat may be slightly better than that of the Black Sheep. When night fell, when the five teams of 100 people he sent all arrived at the designated location, Abdurehman's team of 1,000 people, which was half-surrounded, did not make any response.

Even if the Black Sheep were feigning deception, they had already lost the initiative.

On the battlefield, even the most valiant and skilled army would be afraid of being ambushed at night, because most soldiers of this era were accustomed to completing assigned mission objectives under the command of officers, which is commonly known as taking one step at a time.

They do not have a complete worldview. In the eyes of time travelers like Li Rufeng, many soldiers in this era were raised like livestock from childhood to adulthood. The only difference between them and animals is that they can speak and use tools.

If you ask those soldiers who they are fighting for and why they are fighting, probably more than half of them will not be able to answer, and the few soldiers who can answer will probably give you the answer that they are fighting to have enough food to eat.

This is also the reason why the Mongols have been in absolute dominance for the past one or two hundred years. Although they are few in number, they at least have a belief that they can fight for.

The mission Genghis Khan gave them was to conquer the world!

What's more, we have to consider the existence of night blindness. The soldiers under Li Rufeng's command do not have night blindness because they are elite soldiers gathered by the great conqueror Timur who insisted on using the land that could feed hundreds of millions of people to feed millions of people.

As for the quality of life that Li Rufeng had lived through in the past few years, he was a "stranger" with no roots who only relied on the old shaman's face, but he never lacked meat in the tribe.

Sometimes he even felt that he ate meat more frequently after traveling through time than before. After all, before traveling through time, he had to pay attention to a balanced diet and healthy eating, but after traveling through time, he was completely faced with the "miserable" situation of either eating meat or going hungry.

Sometimes the tribe would run out of food because of failure to harvest grass and grain in time, and there would be a shortage of vegetables due to the changing times of year, but meat was never out of stock.

But the Black Sheep people, well, how can I put it? Li Rufeng estimated that if he had traveled to the Black Sheep people's side, he would have instigated people to rebel. He could not bear it for a day. If he succeeded, there would probably be no Black Sheep King later.

And now, the wolf-like and tiger-like rangers have surrounded Abdurehman's thousand-man team from the east, west and south directions as Li Rufeng requested, leaving only a gap to the north.

Surround three sides and leave one side open is Li Rufeng's most commonly used tactic. Both sides are cavalry, and it is rare to fight an encirclement and annihilation battle. When the cavalry start to move, there will always be a gap, so it is better to take the initiative to make way for a direction and let the enemy move in the direction you hope they escape.

Among the three directions, the west direction where the Hadanerba Centurion Team was located was the main attack direction. Li Rufeng placed three Centurions Teams in this direction, but they were separated by a distance of one kilometer.

In the other two directions, there will be a team of 100 people each cooperating in the feint attack. They will launch the first attack to cause chaos among the Black Sheep People, and then Hadanerba and his men will penetrate the Black Sheep People's camp like spears!

Including the personal guards who had been tracking and investigating Abdurehman's thousand-man team, there were now a total of six personal guards on the scene, lighting up the location of Abdurehman's thousand-man team from different directions. The range formed by the intersection between them illuminated the entire Black Sheep camp, allowing Li Rufeng to easily see the Black Sheep people's arrangements.

Abdurehman was a very experienced officer. After the troops started to set up camp, he not only divided the troops into light and dark sentries and sent out scouts, but also asked the new recruits in the team to start digging horse traps around the camp.

This insidious but very useful trick was learned by them from the Mongols. Those experienced Mongolian cavalrymen could even use special tools to leave horse traps of suitable sizes while riding, and their speed was incredible.

Abdureheman's men couldn't do that, but compared to other defensive methods, this little trick was still the most efficient...

Unfortunately, he underestimated Li Rufeng's reaction speed. When the new recruits were holding torches and working hard to dig holes under the supervision of veterans, the sound of horse hooves suddenly came from the distant horizon.

Under Li Rufeng's remote control, the cavalry centuries in the east and south did not approach in a charging posture. They approached the Black Sheep camp at a very leisurely pace before the Black Sheep scouts returned, with only a dozen people lighting torches in front.

Judging from the number of torches, the number was about the same as the scouts sent out by the Black Sheep People. It was not until they approached within 500 meters that the veteran who was supervising the recruits digging the pits realized the danger by hearing the wrong number of horse hoof sounds coming from the ground.

As the veterans shot sharp arrows, the cavalrymen who emerged from the darkness approached them. Then, these Mongolian cavalrymen completely ignored their existence and bypassed the trap area from both sides.

Even if the old soldier wanted to mount his horse to intercept, it would be too late. By the time he mounted his horse and sped up, he would have missed the opportunity. The only good news in the old soldier's mind was that the enemy coming for the night attack were small in number...

When they were about 200 meters away from the camp, the two centuries-old teams completed the first round of mounted archery using projectiles.

All the knights used lighter, longer lanceolate arrows. Because the knights' archery skills varied, and the arrows were shot in the dark, less than a third of them fell into the Black Sheep camp.

Although this type of arrow is highly stable, its penetration is average. If you are lucky, everyone hiding in the tent will be safe.

But this was the time when the Black Sheep people were preparing dinner, so more than a dozen unlucky guys were shot and screamed. Abdurehman caught the hint of something unusual almost at the first time and rushed out of the tent.

At this time, the cavalry attacking from both sides of the camp had approached a distance of 2 meters, and the cavalry had completed preparations for the second round of projectiles while advancing.

It was still lanceolate arrows, but this time most of the arrows fell accurately into the Black Sheep People's camp, which was gradually becoming chaotic!

At once, the wounded, several times the number of before, began to howl together, and the camp was suddenly in chaos!

"I am Abdurehman! Put on armor! Get on horseback!" Abdurehman had experienced such attacks before, and he could accurately judge that the number of attacking enemies was not large, but the most important thing at this time was that his own people should not panic.

If there is chaos, it is a camp roar...

However, Li Rufeng, who had already seen the Black Sheep people begin to fall into chaos, gave Hadanerba a signal.

In the darkness, the cavalry of the three centuries all lit the torches in their hands. Each of them held a torch in each hand, and the saddles of the spare horses that had no knights riding them also had lit torches. For a moment, the three centuries illuminated the area where they were.

Abdureheman saw the light of a large number of torches in the distance, but he had no idea how many people were there, and he was very panicked.

The area occupied by the camp of nearly a thousand soldiers was not small. Abdurehman could see the surroundings clearly because he was a thousand-man commander. The location of his tent was a small hill, so most soldiers could not see the threat from the west at all.

They only knew that they were under attack, and the arrows shot from the darkness threatened everyone's life. They frantically looked for something to use as cover, and the kicked-over brazier soon caused a small fire in the camp.

Abdureheman had reserved a reserve force in advance. They slept with their horses and were ready to attack at any time without removing their armor. But now, facing the "large army" coming from the west, Abdureheman had to make a choice -

Should we let this reserve force charge out like this, using their lives to block the enemy and buy time for the entire thousand-man team, or let them protect us while we evacuate?

It seemed like a simple choice, but for Abdurehman it could very well be the difference between life and death. He knew that the enemy might have used a trick and the actual number of people was not that large, because they had used this trick before.

But does Abdurehman dare to gamble?

"Switch to light arrows! Ignite!" At this time, the two hundred-man teams that were already one hundred meters away from the camp had switched to light arrows that were heavier than lanceolate arrows and had more stable trajectories. The backs of these light arrows were wrapped with oilcloth, and they were ignited by torches and thrown into the camp. If they hit a tent or carriage, it would be another source of fire.

The fastest cavalrymen were close enough to start using heavy arrows to target the armored guards. The archers who kept moving at high speed had too many targets to choose from.

The deep-seated contempt for the Black Sheep People made them even dare to get less than ten meters away from the Black Sheep People's camp and throw the torches in their hands directly into the camp!

Abdurehman finally did not dare to gamble, because these Mongolian cavalrymen were too powerful. They did not look like they were here to harass them, but to destroy them!

"Retreat!" Abdurehman looked at the chaotic camp and the cavalry group less than 400 meters away from them. He finally gave up the idea of ​​fighting to the death. He turned around and galloped towards the area where the reserve troops were, not caring at all about the soldiers blocking his way along the way.

Li Rufeng, who was in the perspective of the strategic map, naturally could not see such details. He only knew that the enemy had not organized an effective counterattack until now. They should have no chance of counterattack in this battle, and it would be time for massacre next.

So the final instructions Li Rufeng gave to Hadanerba and the others were a bit cruel. He said - enjoy the victory to your heart's content, we don't need prisoners.

Chapter 466 Let's First Make the Thousand-man Captain Suffer

The night battle lasted for a full three hours, but except for the first twenty minutes, it was all a one-sided massacre. When the Black Sheep officers fled far to the north under the escort of the reserve troops, the Black Sheep people in the camp completely lost their organization and became lambs to be slaughtered.

When Hadanerba and his men approached the camp, the Black Sheep People collapsed without much resistance. The few brave centurions tried to organize their men, but ultimately failed under Hadanerba's attack.

Hadanerba led his hundred-man team to charge back and forth in the Black Sheep People's camp four times. It felt like they were punishing a village that did not pay taxes, except that this time some people in the "sheep flock" were holding knives and could bare their teeth at them.

He didn't remember how many people he had killed, but when Hadanerba was about to charge again, the camp was already on fire. It was the blazing flames that stopped them.

In order to save time, these black sheep people carried a lot of hay, which became the best fuel and engulfed all the black sheep people who did not have time to escape from the camp.

The enemy's screams continued for more than an hour in the flames, accompanied by the smell of meat in the air. Even a veteran like Hadanerba felt a little nauseous.

As for those Black Sheep people who were lucky enough to escape from the camp, except for a few lucky ones who found horses in the chaos and chose the right direction, most of the rest were killed on the way.

In order to prevent the "plug-in" used by the Black Sheep People to detect the scouts from being used again during the day, Hadanerba and his men had to give up the plan to collect the spoils. They gathered together overnight, dragged their tired bodies, ran more than 20 kilometers south, found a small village, and forced themselves into it.

Li Rufeng, who was far away in Aleppo, stayed up all night and finally fell asleep with a smile on his face.

Early in the morning, Butubasin's son, Wulusi, who was one year older than him, stood by Li Rufeng's window and brought him hot water for washing his face and breakfast.

This young man, who might really possess the blood of the Golden Family, still seemed to have maintained the innocence of a child. He looked at Li Rufeng expectantly, as if he wanted to learn from him what his father should have taught him - war.

Because of the Oulus bloodline, Li Rufeng has always deliberately maintained his relationship with Lady Medinatah. He can see that the woman is very ambitious. Maybe in the future he will use the charming widow to gain favorable conditions, but he doesn't have such a big appetite now.

During this period, Oulus had been living with his mother and usually went to school at Bater's place. Both the Li Rufeng tribe and the Taierba tribe respected Oulus, so the little boy actually developed a bit of nobility, which was something he had never had in the Taierba tribe.

As Li Rufeng's power expanded, he now had an essential difference from other tribal chiefs. The resources he could mobilize far exceeded the scope of a tribe or even an ethnic group.

If he won the war, it would be okay to call Li Rufeng the Sultan, so Mrs. Medinatah has been deliberately promoting the "special" relationship between herself and Li Rufeng.

But the woman was very smart. Through repeated tests, she found the boundaries that Li Rufeng could tolerate and would not cross that line easily. But after this line, she still had a lot of room for maneuver.

Li Rufeng could undoubtedly tolerate having his son follow him as an attendant, and to be honest, he also had a good impression of this handsome and perceptive child.

As Bater's burden became heavier, Beren also took on the responsibility of a teacher, and he really lacked such an attendant.

Li Rufeng couldn't expect a rough man like Huluchirjia to think of making water for him to wash his face every day, and he couldn't always bring his maid with him when he went out to fight.

It is true that many tribal chiefs do that, but Mr. Li is a man of dignity after all... In fact, he is almost regretting it now. He should have brought Satuya with him.

"Lord Rufeng, Captain Badak is waiting for you in the hall." Orus said timidly as he looked at Li Rufeng who was in a state of contemplation.

He had been following Li Rufeng for some time, but Li Rufeng suddenly became a great lord. Every day he either lived in the lord's mansion in Aleppo or went out and no one knew what he was busy with. He and Bater and others were all demoted to the academy.

But Bartel became the principal and Bell became the teacher, but he was the only one who got worse and worse, and became classmates with a bunch of kids, learning to read and write every day...

Although Lady Medinatah was born in a minor noble family, due to the limitations of the times, she did not receive the education that Li Rufeng wanted to popularize. In addition, the Mongol tribe could not produce educated people, so even Oulus only knew a few more words than those wild children and could barely spell his own name.

Therefore, the process of learning knowledge in school during this period has caused the former chief's son to have some self-confidence undermined.

Chapter 467 The Fleeing Boy

"Is Qinggelinayan's brother a fool?" Chief Aseleng asked with a frosty face while riding a horse.

"If he wasn't a fool, how could we have tricked him here so easily?" Baoledebagen's expression was not that ugly. Instead, he looked very open-minded.

Not far behind them, the man with his head down and seemingly lifeless was the fool they were talking about, Dangertai.

This grassland tiger, who had been raised by everyone since childhood, was like a sick cat at this time. He had just suffered a devastating defeat that almost destroyed his worldview.

As he said, Dangertai relied on his hard-earned appeal to build an "army" that looked quite real.

Although many of the soldiers under Dangertai's command were just ordinary herdsmen before, and had hardly ever picked up a sword or arrow in their lives, and their horse riding skills were not very good, their presence still made Dangertai feel as if he was floating in the sky.

Because although he had led the Mongol army before, those warriors were ultimately loyal to his brother, Qinggeli Nayan.

Dangertai would never forget how those centurions who were usually kind to him like brothers secretly disobeyed his brother when he first took over the power from his brother.

The young Dangertai cannot yet understand the cruelty of the adult world. He does have the opportunity to become the next Na Yan, but that requires him to fight for it bit by bit, just like the young Geli Na Yan did when he came this far.

On the grasslands, power has never been inherited through blood. In this regard, even the descendants of the Golden Family are not immune to the clichés.

But now, that loose "army" is loyal to Dangertai himself. The pleasure of holding power makes Dangertai unable to stop.

Of course, in addition to the desire for power, the opium paste also contributed to his feeling. In order to control this young man, Aslen and Baoledebagen did not hesitate to add extra ingredients to Dangertai's drink.

But they did not expect that under this dual influence, Dangertai actually aroused the arrogance in his heart. After choosing to go alone between him and his brother, he went alone again in Asleng's territory.

Baoledebagen watched helplessly as Dangertai led his "army" to war, and then encountered Mongke on the grassland.

For a moment, Baoledebagen even felt that he was very lucky, because if Dangertai had not acted alone, he might have been the one to face Mongke directly.

Among all the "centurions" under Qinggelinayan, Mengge has always been the strongest and most ambitious one.

He never even concealed his ambition and had long ago declared that he wanted to be the next Nayan, but Qinggeli Nayan tolerated this ambition tolerantly and even deliberately gave Mengge some privileges, allowing him to plunder caravans to expand his power.