Mount and Blade Central Asia

With the arrival of summer, the snow on the distant snow-capped mountains in the north melted, and the flow of both the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers began to gradually increase, and the tributaries relying on these rivers also regained their vitality.

The Jeja River is one of them. During the Khanate's rule, there was a complete post road system here, which did not affect traffic in either the flood season or the dry season.

But it was obvious that the Black Sheep people who had once been stationed in Qamishli made some preparations before abandoning this land. They dismantled the wooden bridge on the river and burned the few boats along the shore used for crossing the river, leaving Li Rufeng with only a mess.

The Jeja River is not a big river, but if the cavalry takes a detour, it will be easier for the cavalry, but the following civilians will suffer a lot.

Their next target was Malikiya, a city less than a hundred kilometers away from Qamishli. Li Rufeng hoped that he would not encounter any decent resistance there, but if they were delayed on the road for too long, the Black Sheep would always respond correctly.

Chapter 518 An unexpected gain

Li Rufeng didn't care whether Suhrab really had any connection with the Black Sheep People. He just wanted to set an example for other Qamishli people to see what would happen if they continued to collude with the Black Sheep People.

In this regard, Li Rufeng does not have too much moral cleanliness. Although from the perspective of universal consciousness, Li Rufeng is like a saint compared with other nobles and lords, it is obvious that there are almost no innocent people in the traditional sense among the rich families who can complete primitive accumulation in this era.

What's more, Suhrab was a slave trader. If the slave trade was not the general trend of the times and productivity could not keep up, Master Li would have shouted for the liberation of slaves all over the world and started to reap reputation.

However, it would be a good idea to use such a slave trader to test Sarah Shahi's ability, so Li Rufeng left one of his personal guards and a team of ten people to Sarah, and asked her to investigate Suhrab in Qamishli, or to be more precise, interrogate him, to see if she could dig out anything useful.

Those ten soldiers were all selected from the army for their meticulousness and age. Almost all of them were new recruits added after the last war and had not had time to prove themselves on the battlefield.

Li Rufeng hopes that Sarah can train them in the way of the Muciyi sect and let them take a path that is completely different from that of warriors. He already has too many rough guys under his command and needs a few guys who can play tricks and use daggers and poison instead of hammers and bows and arrows.

As for whether Sarah Shahi is hiding a deeper secret or represents other troubles, Master Li doesn't care much. After all, the Mulanyi sect used assassinations to intimidate most of the European continent and the entire Arab world, but could not do anything under the iron hoof of the Mongols. What threat can the remaining remnants pose now?

Li Rufeng doesn't have to worry if they jump out, because there are Mongolian nobles with the title of Mongolian princes to fight them to the death. Those people are much more afraid of death than Li Rufeng. Moreover, Li Rufeng has an extra trump card, the system. If there is really an assassin approaching him, it can be seen from the relationship automatically determined by the system.

From this point of view, Li Rufeng never had to worry about someone planting a secret agent around him. Why did Mengge, the powerful centurion of the Mongol people who had first cooperated with Li Rufeng, never get the power he wanted? It was because the system's assessment of his relationship with Li Rufeng was always less than 40 points, far lower than that of other people around Li Rufeng.

Even Bardock still has 52 points, so if Mengge wants to wait for promotion, he has a long time to wait. Li Rufeng doesn't even need to deliberately suppress Mengge, as long as he doesn't give him the opportunity to reap military merits.

For example, before, Mongke had no chance to fight against the Black Sheep People on the front battlefield. He led his subordinates to chase Danggertai all the way and did things that offended people. Although Danggertai was finally brought back alive, how other Mongol people viewed Mongke and whether Qinggelinayan would retaliate against Mongke in the future can only be told with time.

Before he traveled through time, Li Rufeng was neither a conspirator nor an official. He was just the heir of a small dental clinic owner who changed his career path. At his peak, he only managed six people, including the cleaning staff. Among them was a formal dentist who was hired at a high price and mastered "high-end technology". He was a "lord" who only obeyed orders and not announcements.

But some things are deeply rooted in the bones of Oriental people. The education Li Rufeng received since childhood was to train him to be a "ruler". From politics to society, from basic science to international situation, he just didn't have the opportunity to deeply explore the potential of the skills he learned.

The longer Li Rufeng lived in this world, the more adept he became.

From the initial few hundred tribesmen who were dubbed as Li Rufeng's tribe, to the current territory spanning hundreds of miles and inhabiting tens of thousands of people, Li Rufeng felt more and more relaxed, and the decrees he issued also continuously gave him the most realistic feedback -

Chapter 519: Mamluk Guards

While Li Rufeng was expanding his territory with great strides and secretly rejoicing in the prosperity of his career, other rulers in this land were not content with the status quo.

In addition to the troubled Black Sheep King, the situation on the battlefield suddenly changed. The Aries King, who had turned the tables and became the master, had gathered a legion of 4,000 people and stationed them on the west side of Batman City. His strength was not enough to force Batman out of the city and surround it on all sides, and he did not want to fight a fair siege.

The strength of the White Sheep Tribe is far inferior to that of the Black Sheep Tribe. They have much fewer people and do not have enough prestige among the Turkmen group. After this battle, if the Black Sheep people win the final victory, it will take less than two years for them to make up for their losses from other Turkmen tribes.

As for the Aries tribe, they may have to wait a whole generation before they can make a comeback, so the Aries King is now surrounding but not attacking in order to put pressure on the Black Sheep people to give up Batman City on their own initiative.

The Mongols did not attack the city with him as he wished, which made King Aries a little disappointed. But he did not think he could convince the Mongolian shaman at first. After all, he did not put up any capital at all, and all he promised to the other party were expected returns that only existed in the future.

The Aries King's current plan is actually still based on the pressure that the Mongols put on the Black Sheep. Those Mongols are now heading straight for Mosul, which is a big city and very different from Batman. The Aries King thinks that the Black Sheep will not sit idly by.

Therefore, as long as the pressure brought by the Mongols to the Black Sheep people is great enough, the Black Sheep people in Batman City will always have to make choices. The Aries King feels that he has the temperament of a wise general who can respond to changes with constancy, so after stationing his troops outside Batman City, he behaved particularly calmly.

As long as his ambition is small enough, no one can make him the position!

But the Aries King didn't notice that his cowardice and conservative attitude had greatly displeased the Aries generals, especially those whose pastures had been invaded by the Black Sheep and whose relatives and friends had just been slaughtered by them...

This is a land of war, and the first thing men who grow up here learn is to grab whatever you want!

Moises was probably the person who could best understand the Aries King. For the stable life they had today, they had served the great conqueror for nearly twenty years. Of the men who had ridden into battle together back then, only seven or eight out of ten had the opportunity to return to their hometown and enjoy family happiness with their families.

But understanding does not mean approval. An ordinary herdsman who only needs to take care of his own family can live and work in peace and contentment without fighting or competing, but the leader of a nation cannot.

So whether the Aries King is willing or not, undercurrents have begun to surge within Diyarbakir and even the entire Aries tribe.

South of Aleppo, Li Rufeng's Mamluk lords, who had been suffering from the plague, did not get any respite. It was not until early March that they finally recovered from the impact of the plague.

A large number of people died in the plague. In many villages, even entire villages, not a single survivor was found. Even the soldiers in the army suffered huge losses.

The ones who suffered the least in the entire plague were the slave owners and nobles who owned manors and castles. They had enough food and clean water wells. However, the plague occurred too suddenly and the epidemic itself was too serious, so the infected civilians did not even have time to organize a resistance before death came.

In addition to reducing the war potential of the entire Syrian emirs, the plague also created a greater rift between them and Cairo, the power center of the Mamluk Empire.

The emirs were not fools. Although the plague knights who went on the expedition to Aleppo came and went in a hurry, they still left enough presence in this land. Everyone knew that it was that team that spread the plague.

People with darker minds might even doubt the true purpose of that force. Rather than saying they were going to attack Aleppo, it would be better to say they were coming to spread the plague. After all, the Syrian emirs and Sultan Nasir have never been of the same mind.

More obvious evidence is that during the plague, these emirs once asked Cairo for help, but the Sultan did not respond at all. He just watched the plague spread across the land quietly.

What ultimately saved this land from the plague was the Mongolian shaman's herbal medicine... Although I don't want to admit it, the fact is that those believers who were willing to convert to Changshengtian had much more obvious results when taking the herbal medicine.

So although the emirs were reluctant to admit it, the fact was that the Mongolian belief in Tengri had spread to the Syrian land. Whether in Damascus or Ashtrit (renamed Beirut in modern times), there were a large number of Tengri believers.

These fools don't even know the teachings of Changshengtian. Just because devout Changshengtian believers found that taking herbal medicine was more effective during the plague, it was enough for them to place all their faith on the vast Changshengtian.

After all, although the doctrine is unclear, Eternal Heaven is indeed a simple and easy-to-understand religious concept. Both immortality and the sky are the eternal pursuit of mankind. Combining the two into one, the meaning contained in it is easy to interpret.

On the other hand, thanks to the Mongols' reputation for brutality, just as the people of this land understand Christians, they also have some basic understanding of the Eternal Blue Sky that the brutal Mongols believe in.

Even among the nobles, many people secretly worshipped Changshengtian. The plague was like a filter, filtering out those who were not "devout" enough.

Because he was the obvious beneficiary, some of the Syrian emirs had questioned whether Li Rufeng was the mastermind behind the spread of the plague.

But soon they no longer had time to speculate, because Sultan Nasir began to interfere in Syrian affairs.

Just as he had done before, after the plague settled, the Sultan sent a new governor to replace Governor Ashtrit who died in the plague.

Accompanying him was a full 200-man Mamluk guard, which was almost one-fifth of the most elite force in Sultan Nasir's hands.

When these Mamluk guards landed in batches from the ships, the strong smell of spices instantly filled the port, and the fishy smell that originally dominated was diluted.

Mamluks have always had the habit of taking poppy and using spices. This is their privilege as Mamluks, and it is also a necessary pastime to relieve the pressure of their careers.

But apparently, the Mamluk guards around the Sultan had a bit too high a demand for spices. They seemed to have been soaked in a pile of spices. Just looking at the poor new acting governor standing upwind with a pale face, breathing in the fresh air, you can tell how difficult it was for him on this journey.

What made the Syrians feel even more inexperienced were the Mamluks' war horses, which were led out of the cabin by servants, fully covered in horse armor.

You know, although the distance from Cairo to Ashtrit is not far, it is still a day and a night. No knight would let his horse spend the journey in the cabin wearing armor.

If it was just to intimidate the local Syrian emir, this behavior would be too deliberate. After all, war horses are not humans. It is difficult to get them out of the cabin or get them in. It is even more difficult to allow war horses wearing horse armor to step onto the dock smoothly. Doing so is obviously not worth the cost.

Moreover, those sharp-eyed sailors also discovered that the horse armor of these Mamluk war horses were all specially made, and even the limbs had corresponding cotton and linen leggings for protection... or was it just to make the war horses look more majestic?

After all, cotton and linen materials do not have much protective ability. Rather than saying it is a protective measure, it is more like wrapping the warhorse tightly.

The same was true for the Mamluk guards. They either wore heavy metal helmets or hoods, with black iron masks under the hoods, which looked quite scary.

All in all, these Mamluks, the Sultan's guards from Cairo, looked strange, but they attracted everyone's attention on the first day.

Chapter 520: Targeting from Local Bullies

Malikiya, a town that looks unremarkable, has developed only because there is no other place around that is more suitable for building a city. It is located near the bank of the largest freshwater lake within dozens of miles.

The name of the lake literally means Weaver Lake. As the name suggests, textile is also the pillar industry of Malikiye. But like other cities conquered by the great conqueror in this land, the great conqueror took away the best weavers, the best tailors and the best dyers in the city.

This almost destroyed Malikiye's textile industry. After all, it was not a very large city, and many crafts were in the hands of a few families. For the sake of business and power, the technology they mastered was rarely spread beyond blood relatives.

Therefore, until now, Malikiya has not recovered its former prosperity, but this is no longer a frontier area of ​​the Khanate after all, and the Emir who ruled this land at that time hardly put up much resistance in the face of the military might of the great conqueror, so the city was not massacred.

After all, there are only a few strong cities like Aleppo that integrate urban fortresses. When Li Rufeng approached Malikiye and could see the city from his strategic perspective, he found that the city was only protected by a circle of things that could barely be called city walls.

The city wall was so simple that except for the city gate, most areas were no more than two meters high, and it was a mixture of stone and wooden walls. It was obvious that the city was formed very recently, and the real defense core was near the castle on the west side of the city.

Li Rufeng could see dozens of soldiers inside the castle hurriedly lining up near the main gate of the castle, and two noble-looking men seemed to be arguing about whether to send troops.

One of them was a man in a silk robe standing inside the castle with an angry look on his face and a scimitar slung at his waist, while the other was wearing armor and standing outside the castle with less than ten soldiers around him.

Zooming out, Li Rufeng could also see small groups of soldiers scattered throughout the city, near large houses that looked fairly sturdy. They had no unified command and seemed to be planning to fight on their own.

The largest group of troops gathered near the mosque, which seemed to be the most easily defended and difficult to attack in the city except for the castle. Judging from its luxury alone, the mosque was the most worth-grabbing place in the entire city.

A group of about 500 soldiers were praying under the leadership of the local Imam. Judging from the armor they were wearing, they were obviously the most determined group to resist in the entire city.

This was a little beyond Li Rufeng's expectations. He didn't expect that a "small" mosque would have so many soldiers, and they all seemed to be wearing armor, and they were very elite.

Strictly speaking, Li Rufeng's arrival at Malikiye was actually a kind of "recovery". The great conqueror had obtained the legitimate rule of this land in many senses. There was no reason for them to fight with Li Rufeng, unless these soldiers were all defenders left by the Black Sheep People.

But from a personal perspective, Li Rufeng's current behavior is clearly an offense to Islam. He is a shaman of Changshengtian and a legitimate Kafir...

The cities that Li Rufeng had conquered before had more or less benefited from the great conqueror. In the city of Aleppo, there were not even a few organized religious personnel, let alone those who formed a system.

Urfa Castle was a military fortress with a small population. After the great conqueror visited there, the mosque there became deserted and even ascetics were unwilling to preach there.

As for the city of Mardin and the cities further north, they are areas of mixed beliefs. Islam is not the only dominant religion, and they also have to compete with Christianity for faith. Under the threat of war, they cannot take care of Li Rufeng's religious invasion for a while.

After all, in the land of the Khanate, the belief in Eternal Heaven is considered a legal belief, no matter how small. If you say that the most serious thing that Islam has learned in the past two hundred years is to mind your own business with the Mongolian master, as long as you are beautiful, he will naturally come to you on his own initiative.

The only city in Li Rufeng's territory with an orthodox Islamic organization was Hama. However, the mosque there was destroyed by the Plague Knights, but it was Mr. Li who was kind enough to help them hold a decent funeral.

But now, the Imam of the city of Malikiyah is a hardliner, and he is obviously ready to resist the invasion of Kafir.

The scouts soon brought back more detailed information. Just as Li Rufeng had thought, Malikie had no intention of fighting to the death with Li Rufeng for the Black Sheep People.

The Black Sheep chief who actually controlled Malikiye, like the new master of Qamishli, retreated to Mosul in advance, intending to have a decisive battle with Li Rufeng there.

Only seven or eight days had passed since the Qara Qoyunlu retreated, hence the chaos in Malikiye. The nobles and dignitaries within the city had yet to elect a new, prestigious interim mayor. The only eligible Imam was a staunch jihadist intent on waging war against the Mongol army outside.

The wealthy businessmen in the city wished they could stick their heads in their belts and stay away from the mosque. They had heard the news early in the past few days that Qamishli had just spent some money to get rid of these Mongols, and there was no need for a fight at all.

Now, if a fight really breaks out, no one can say for sure whether the Mongolian masters who enter the city with swordsmen will rob the city.

However, due to religious prestige, these merchants did not dare to directly attack the imam in the mosque. If they did so, the soldiers under their command might mutiny.

They now only hoped that when the Mongolian army arrived, they would be able to figure out who was resisting them. So when Li Rufeng's army marched to a location 500 meters outside the city of Malikiya and began to set up camp, messengers sent by merchants in the city began to arrive continuously.

Li Rufeng thought there were too many of them, so he ordered the cavalry to arrest all the messengers one by one and meet them together again an hour later.

The messengers were left awkwardly locked together, staring at each other in bewilderment. Many of them knew each other; they were either the noble's sons or the caravan's stewards. Just a few days earlier, these same people had patted their chests in the mosque and pledged their unwavering loyalty to the Imam.

Finally, when Li Rufeng planned to meet them, there were already seventeen or eighteen people squatting densely in the tent. Someone who was paying attention roughly counted and found that almost all the famous and promising families and businessmen in the city had sent representatives, without missing a single one.

The demands put forward by this group of people were also very unified. They just wanted to show Li Rufeng before the war started that the soldiers who insisted on resisting on the scene were the Imam's soldiers. Most of those soldiers had entered the city not long ago, and the Black Sheep People had not left yet!

They are all good citizens, this matter has nothing to do with them!

This news made Li Rufeng think about it. It sounded like a provocation against him and the Changshengtian belief that he represented?

But Li Rufeng felt that his style of doing things was no different from that of the old shaman. He had not even taken the initiative to spread the belief in Changshengtian for fear of provoking those Muslims. As a result, they still targeted him. Was this considered going too far?

Chapter 521 Winning Ma

"Lord Muhaja, the Kafir army has arrived outside the city, and their numbers are large." A man wearing white pilgrim clothes and a scimitar at his waist walked into the Imam's room from the prayer square.

In the room, the Imam, known as Muhayya, was also performing a prayer. This was a prayer to pray to God for victory before the war began, and it might also be the last prayer in his life, so Muhayya showed unprecedented piety.

Although it is a bit unhalal to say this, the fact is that before today, Muhayya was not a completely "pious" imam in the secular sense. After all, a truly virtuous imam would not be exiled to the impious city of Malikiyah.

As the great conquerors conquered this land, the Muslim world was artificially divided into several parts. The Holy Land Sect headed by Mecca and Medina was naturally not disturbed by the outside world and remained the most important spiritual holy place in the Muslim world.

But in other areas, those territories considered core by the great conqueror Timur and the fiefdoms of the princes adjacent to the Transoxiana region were the real centers of power in the Muslim world.

Since ancient times, this land has had a tradition of integrating politics and religion. Its power center will change with the change of rulers. Even Jerusalem, where countless Allah's warriors shed their blood, will gradually cool down with the departure of power.

Muhaya was an abandoned child who failed in the internal struggle of the Sufi sect. He was originally the imam of a large mosque in the Central Asian region. But it is obvious that the consequences of failure in such internal religious struggles are very tragic. It is a blessing from God that Muhaya did not lose his life in vain.

The great conqueror Timur had an impact on this land in many aspects. If we don't count his arrogance and arrogance in his old age, Timur actually fits the fantasy of the people of this land about the caliph very well. He was invincible and ambitious externally, and he had his own plans internally.

During the time of Timur, many Islamic factions accepted the great conqueror with a very humble attitude in order to preach in a wider area, and expanded their influence with the help of the conqueror's secular power.

Culturally, Timur also almost ended the chaotic situation of the Chagatai Mongol regime and achieved amazing development in all aspects. For example, in terms of writing, Timur almost single-handedly promoted the Chagatai language to enter the mature stage of literary language. In addition to a large number of Persian classics being translated into Chagatai, many original works in Chagatai were also produced.

He even extended his power tentacles into Islam. The Sufi Savi Order and the Naqshbandi Order became tools in his hands. While Islam relied on the secular power of the great conqueror, he also actively used the power of religion to expand his ruling authority.

The most notable example is that from 1396 until now, within Islam, which has always prohibited idolatry, many images of saints with faces that are very similar to Timur have appeared, including divine images...

This obvious act of usurpation was widely ignored in the Central Asian region, because many believers and scholars who grew up in the core territory of the Great Conqueror were accustomed to the greatness of the Great Conqueror, and in their opinion he deserved all the glory in the world.

Although Muhaya was not a native of Transoxiana, he had served as the Imam in his diocese for more than ten years. What he saw and heard made him completely side with Timur.

At the beginning of Timur's rise, he received support from the Sheikhs of Samarkand (prestigious Muslim elders, higher in status than the Imam) and the Sayyids (descendants of the Prophet) of Termes (now Termez), so he also gave generous rewards to the upper echelons of Islam.

But soon, Timur's ambition exceeded the limits of what those "big men" could tolerate. Since then, the great conqueror began to support those impious Mongolian princes, using secular power to check the power of theocracy.

Timur used this tactic to balance the power in his hands. When he conquered the Ottomans and defeated the Mamluks and no longer had any competitors in the Muslim world, he finally no longer needed to play this power game.

As a high-ranking figure in the pro-Timur faction of the Sufi Savi Order, Muhaya once had the honor of meeting the great conqueror. At that time, he was sitting on his golden throne, holding a transparent crystal cup in his hand. Even from a distance of three or four meters, Muhaya could see the blood-red wine in the cup.

He held the wine glass high, as if holding supreme authority, and said to the crowd in a slightly teasing tone, "This is power, and I will drink it, one cup, two cups, three cups, until I can't drink any more. Anyone who goes against my will, I will not only kill him physically, but also completely erase him from history."

As Timur spoke in a frivolous tone, a sheikh's head fell. In the following month, Timur used practical actions to prove to those present that the threats he spoke were not just threats.

Timur killed every descendant of the Sheikh's family. Even distant relatives who were five generations apart were mercilessly hunted down and killed one by one on the roadside. He also erased all books and letters that recorded the Sheikh's name and executed his friends and neighbors.

Later that day, Mu'er, in the same slightly frivolous tone, once again teasingly mentioned the Sheikh's name, and then asked, "I almost forgot who he was. Does anyone of you still remember him?"