Mount and Blade Central Asia

However, as their arrows and physical strength were depleted, these jihadists soon lost their defense. The nobles and merchants in the city simply piled gold and silver treasures at the gate of the mosque and rewarded every brave enough soldier on the spot.

These peasants had never seen so much wealth piled up together before, so their eyes immediately turned red and they rushed forward fearlessly in waves. These nobles and businessmen also realized that if they didn't shed some money today, they might not have a tomorrow, so each of them took out nearly half of their net worth.

Malikiya is a city within the radiation radius of Mosul's business circle. It can be said that they are really determined to join Li Rufeng. After those damn black wizards occupied Mosul, they actually blocked the famous commercial city and kept detaining passing caravans.

So far, there has been only inflow and no outflow. Countless rumors have spread around the world through the mouths of businessmen, almost completely cutting off Mosul's commercial potential.

Malikiye has also been greatly affected. Many people have had no income in the past six months and have been relying on their past foundation to survive. Now someone has finally stood up to restore order. In fact, they hope that the Mongols can recapture Mosul as soon as possible. At least the Mongols need money, right?

There will always be brave men when there is a big reward. Soon cheers were heard in the mosque. A brave soldier smashed the window of the mosque and climbed in with his fellow villagers, causing the jihadists in the mosque to panic and directly seized control of the gate.

A group of nobles saw that the sounds of fighting inside had died down a lot, so they walked in. They were surprised to find that Imam Muhayya, who was in charge of the mosque, was still alive. He just looked a little embarrassed. Not only was he covered in blood, but he was also holding a short-handled sledgehammer covered in brain matter in his hand.

"Allah is great. It was thanks to you devout believers that we were able to drive away these robbers who dared to break into the mosque tonight!" As soon as Muheya met the nobles, he directly defined what happened tonight.

Many of the nobles and merchants in these small cities have not figured this out and are still foolishly asking Muheya how they became devout believers. Didn’t they attack the mosque?

Fortunately, Malikiye still had some noble descendants, and they directly followed the steps given by Muhaya and defined all the jihadists in the mosque as bandits.

For a moment, the entire mosque was filled with the atmosphere of Islam, and both the guests and the hosts were having a great time. Only the bandits who were as hard to kill as cockroaches were still resisting in the corner.

However, their fate was already sealed. The moment Muhaya killed the jihadist leader named Alban, these people had become abandoned.

Alban never dreamed that Muheya had waited a whole night just for an opportunity to kill him with one blow, because Alban was wearing armor and Muheya only had one chance.

"Take me to see the Emir of the Khanate quickly. On behalf of the Muslims in the city, I want to welcome him to bring order back to this chaotic land." After all, Muheya was a ruthless man who had been trained in the core circle of the Khanate. He didn't care about the various expressions that flashed across the faces of the nobles and merchants, and went directly to meet the Mongols outside.

Chapter 527 The Secret of the Zhu Family

Just as Muheya himself said, his situation was miserable, so miserable that even Li Rufeng felt that the Imam in front of him was like the male protagonist in a Korean drama.

The first half of his life was full of ups and downs. In terms of luck, he was just like the protagonist of a legendary Middle Eastern novel. He was born into a civilian family, his parents died early, and he was abused by his cousins ​​and stepparents who came to inherit the family property. He had no choice but to escape at night, and then was adopted by an ascetic and entered a seminary.

In order to complete his studies in the seminary, he had to go wherever the hardships and dangers were, so after graduating from the seminary, he was sent to take up a position in a mosque near Samarkand. When Muhaya just graduated, it was the most unruly era of the great conqueror.

No one knows what plans the great conqueror has for the future of Islam in this land. On the one hand, he claims to be the most devout believer in the Muslim world. On the other hand, he upholds the Mongolian Great Yassar ritual and actively tries to win over Mongolian princes.

Today he might be happy and build a new mosque, and tomorrow he might be unhappy because of a small matter and burn down a mosque. All major Islamic sects and factions can only cautiously test the mind of the great conqueror.

This testing process was destined to be bloody, because the great conquerors were always cruel and tyrannical when dealing with religious people who controlled large tracts of land and great wealth.

Muhaya was one of the first people to defect to the Great Conqueror's camp. When the Great Conqueror ordered that the saint's portrait be painted using his own face as a reference, the mosque where Muhaya worked was the first to produce a finished product that satisfied the Great Conqueror.

In Muheya's opinion, no matter how brutal a dictator is, he is better than a hundred kind and generous rulers of small countries. This view became more firm after his contact with the envoys from the East.

When the Great Conqueror led his new troops on the Eastern Expedition, Muheya had tried to persuade the Great Conqueror. He understood those Orientals. The Great Conqueror had kept them under house arrest for ten years. Although they had not done anything that was beneath the dignity of the country, as long as the Great Conqueror himself had such intention, there were many people willing to teach those Orientals a lesson.

But what is the result?

Those Orientals spent ten years breaking all the claws that stretched out to them, from the Mongol princes who died in unclear circumstances to the street groups that were not even worthy of mention and disappeared in entire gangs. They even established a "Chinatown" in Samarkand, opened schools to teach their language, and deeply engraved their own culture in the city.

From that time on, Muheya knew that they were two completely different civilizations and they would never be able to defeat such a civilization.

This has been confirmed with the death of the great conqueror, and what was the first thing the newly succeeded Sultan Khalil did after taking office?

He wrote a special letter and personally handed it to Ambassador Fu An, admitting his grandfather's mistakes and expressing his hope to restore normal diplomatic relations with the Ming Dynasty. He then sent troops to escort the entire delegation all the way through the Mongol territory before he felt relieved.

So when Muheya saw Li Rufeng's oriental face, what flashed before his eyes was not Li Rufeng and the Changshengtian belief behind him, but the shadow of a long red dragon.

"Let's be frank. Are you a general sent by the Emperor of Ming?" As soon as Muheya opened his mouth, he spoke in a strange Chinese accent with a southern accent, which made Li Rufeng's CPU burn out.

Chapter 528 Establishing an Intelligence System

Pepper Mari was once a small merchant in Aleppo. No, calling him a merchant would be an insult to the profession. In the eyes of most merchants, he was just a peddler walking around the streets.

But now no one dares to call him that. Pepper and Ma Li are a thing of the past. People now call him Mali Master. Even Saduddin now calls him my respected friend with a smile on his face.

The rise of Marinus, along with the prosperity of Aleppo's commerce, has even spread to other cities and other countries. He is a symbol and a sign of Aleppo, representing the unlimited opportunities of this rising commercial city.

Recently, Marinus has been worrying about one thing: he is considering whether he should buy a ship.

If there is any place in this land that has changed more than Aleppo, it must be its subsidiary port of Alexandria. The port looks different almost every day. The scale of the port is constantly expanding, but the dock workers work day and night but can never keep up with the number of merchant ships coming and going.

The only thing that restricts the scale of port business now is the pitifully small volume of land-based commerce compared to maritime commerce. Because of the poor maritime environment on the Eastern route, especially the Mamluks' tolerance of piracy, the vast majority of maritime trade between the East and the West ends at Hormuz near the Persian Gulf.

The delivered goods required merchants on land caravans to go through great pains and hardships, crossing most of Iran and the entire Iraqi region before reaching Syria, and finally flowing into the Mediterranean trade circle.

Even without considering the profits that merchants pursued at great risk of their lives, the transportation costs alone caused the prices of many Eastern goods to skyrocket.

Marinus had always been eating up what others had left over, but recently he had seized the opportunity of Aleppo's commercial boom and made a lot of profit by buying at high prices and then selling at even higher prices.

But it is obvious that a qualified businessman is destined to pursue higher profits, and higher profits lie in being closer to the source of the goods or the market terminal.

This posed a problem for Marinus: should he buy a sea ship to bring his goods closer to the Western market and get involved in the Mediterranean trade, or should he invest in building a trade route eastward to connect with the source of the goods?

The choice between the two options was like a life-and-death dilemma facing Marinus. The money he had was only enough for him to make one choice. If he made the wrong choice, he would die, and if he didn't want to choose, he would die too.

It is true that businessmen are a major source of power for the progress of civilization in this era. They are one of the few groups that have completely broken the inherent regional and ideological constraints, but they have broken them a little too thoroughly.

If they are given the opportunity, they will become more greedy.

For example, right now, Master Saduddin in the city has obviously got some evil intentions and is constantly raising the prices of goods he purchases. On the one hand, he wants to squeeze out rising stars like Marinus who have grown up locally and have great potential but lack the foundation; on the other hand, he wants to clarify his own ecological position in the "market".

Merchants from Iran and Iraq have been trying to establish their own guilds in Aleppo, while Venetians, Cypriots, and even Genoese who came ashore from the Mediterranean have also tried to extend their hands.

How does that saying go? For every extra meter you go ahead of your competitors on the trade route, your profits go up by one percent and your costs go down by one percent.

If circumstances permit, Marinus also hopes to settle down for a few more years, but unfortunately reality does not give him this opportunity.

What lay before him were the pirates surrounded by the Mediterranean Sea and the entire inland ravaged by war. There were too many uncertainties. Any slight fluctuation would have Marinus back to his original form and turn him into Pepper Mali again.

But in the end, Marinus still chose to continue to believe in that lord. Shaman Rufeng's army had already moved eastward all the way to Mosul, the city that cast a huge shadow on Marinus. Perhaps he didn't need to be so radical and could temporarily expand the caravan there, and then it wouldn't be too late to take it slowly.

Thinking of this, Marinus no longer wasted time. He took the available people around him and headed east to investigate the feasibility of the trade route.

He now has more than twenty cavalrymen under his command, who will be the main force for escorting caravans in the future. Most of them are Kurds who are looking for work, but because of the friendship between Marinus and that adult, he was lucky enough to hire a veteran from Li Rufeng's army.

The other party was over 40 years old and no longer fit for the battlefield. He was also unwilling to teach those young people in the tribe every day. He just came out to relax and was taken advantage of by Marinus.

Marinus didn't need the Mongol's fighting ability. His face alone could save his future caravans a lot of trouble. If you also take into account his connections in the lord's tribe, the price of two large gold coins per month was definitely worth it.

So Marinus set out with his own men. He wanted to establish a complete trade route instead of just a caravan, which meant that he needed to have his own base in every city and town of sufficient size along the way. The base did not need to be too large, but at least it had to have warehouses and storefronts.

Marinus has a strong character and always has the courage to take risks when necessary. This is the key to his rise from a small businessman to where he is today, and he has no intention of losing his strengths.

And in order to fight against the increasingly powerful Saduddin, he also had to force himself to take bigger steps.

Of course, on the other hand, Marinus also wanted to take this opportunity to expand his business of transporting food and fodder for that adult. He was currently only responsible for the logistics supply mission from Aleppo to Mardin, but this section of business alone had already made Marinus a lot of money.

In this regard, the gentleman never spared his money. If his reputation among the merchants was converted into gold, it would probably fill an entire ship.

You know, he once promised to reduce taxes for one year in the city of Aleppo, but in the end not a single copper coin was collected for the entire year. Even though the lord fought two wars during this period, he still kept his promise.

This made many businessmen willing to accept the condition of delayed payment when doing business with that adult.

Marinus resolutely followed the footsteps of that adult, so his first stop was Qamishli, where he planned to acquire some real estate and recruit some local personnel.

After all, compared with Aleppo and Mardin, the human resources in Qamishli are much cheaper. Although the population of Aleppo has been increasing, there are many places where people are needed.

Chapter 529 Bloody Night

After taking over the mosque in Malikiye, there was nothing in the city that could stop Li Rufeng from taking complete control of it, and everyone submitted to Li Rufeng.

And because Muheya stood solemnly beside Li Rufeng and endorsed him, the nobles who were forced to attack the mosque also smiled.

Li Rufeng even saw that some bold nobles had begun to secretly dismantle their private soldiers and began to transport back the gold, silver and jewelry placed at the door of the mosque bit by bit.

Under the pressure from the officers, the soldiers, covered in blood, could only pretend not to see this scene, as if the promises made by the nobles before were nothing but bullshit and had never happened.

To be honest, even an occupier like Li Rufeng could not stand this shameless behavior, and he also looked down on the control of these small nobles over the grassroots.

After Muhaya opened his heart and surrendered, the nobles established by Malikiya were really useless. In Li Rufeng's view, he was merciful for not hanging them all one by one.

So Li Rufeng simply rode his horse forward, letting the warhorse that had become accustomed to his temper stand up in front of the pile of wealth, and kicked a private soldier who was carrying gold coins away with one kick.

"I heard you promise to share these riches with the brave. Why do you want to go back on your word and break the agreement now?" Li Rufeng asked loudly and righteously.

He didn't know whether the system brought him a hidden bonus, but Li Rufeng did notice that when he was about to give a public speech, his voice was unusually loud, so loud that people on the whole street could hear it clearly.

"I am the chosen shaman of Changshengtian, and I am the protector of the brave. You are trampling on the dignity of Tengri!" Li Rufeng timely drew out his public opinion multiplier - the magic sword from the Scarlet Wind, and with the cooperation of the warhorse, he posed in the classic pose of Napoleon riding a horse.

It's just that because Li Rufeng is taller and the fire of the magic sword is so dazzling in the dark night, the overall composition is more oppressive than the original version, and the noble private soldiers guarding the treasure pile almost immediately dispersed.

The dejected wounded soldiers suddenly felt a great sense of identification with their new master. This could be seen from the fact that they subconsciously stood up straight and stretched their necks to look in the direction of Li Rufeng.

"No, sir, we are not..." The nobleman closest to Li Rufeng tried to explain something, but Li Rufeng was not willing to give him a chance to explain. If these nobles behaved honestly, Li Rufeng would have to find ways to make trouble for them. What's more, now he was given the opportunity to take over?

The army under Li Rufeng's command are not "chaste and heroic women". On the contrary, they are man-eating beasts.

Urfa Castle is a fortress. There is nothing you need in it and there is nothing to rob. I robbed Mardin City once when I came here last time. There is basically nothing valuable in the city. It is boring.

Qamishli was an exception. Several leaders were both good at dealing with people and doing things. They managed Li Rufeng's army from top to bottom clearly. Although they failed to completely satisfy the appetite of this army, everyone could see that they had tried their best.

And now, Li Rufeng has once again conquered Malikiya, a real big city. To be honest, not to mention the Mongols under Li Rufeng, even the Golden Arrow Mercenary Group from Genoa is a little hungry and thirsty.

Chapter 530 Betting

When the sun rose again, the smoke of war in Malikiya had dissipated, and the once magnificent streets were now covered in blood and mud. Under the pressure of Li Rufeng, the nobles were too eager. They promised huge profits to make the soldiers fight for their lives, but because they were too greedy, they did not fulfill their promises, and their already limited reputation was completely consumed.

So when the Mongols started to take action, they encountered almost no resistance. The armed and armored soldiers, slaves, private soldiers, and servants almost collapsed at the first touch. No one was willing to work for their masters.

Strictly speaking, these nobles who attacked the mosque were all enemies of Muhaya, but now the Imam looked at the devastation with pity, his heart full of emotion.

The great conqueror of that time was also so adept at manipulating people, playing with everyone in his hands. The Mongol princes, the emirs, the various religious factions, and even his enemies were all like blindfolded donkeys, being hooked by the carrot hanging in front of them that they could never eat.

Muheya could see that Li Rufeng's methods were still a bit immature, but it didn't matter. Muheya helped him make up for it. Those dead nobles were labeled as apostates and their names were widely publicized. Not only that, Muheya also specially communicated with Li Rufeng and spared several nobles.

Although he was exiled here, as a big shot who emerged from the political power center of the Khanate, Muheya only took a week to get a clear understanding of the entire Malikiye background.

What Li Rufeng needed was a city that was completely under his control, but it was obvious that the newly rising lord did not have that many available people under his command, so Muheya helped him leave behind several nobles with good reputation and real talents.

These survivors not only demonstrate Li Rufeng's kindness, but also give the massacre a beautiful packaging. Their survival proves that the Mongols were not killing innocent people indiscriminately, but were selectively eliminating apostates, and they were doing so under the authorization of the local Imam.

Everything is so reasonable and legal. The dead will not say much, but the survivors must humbly thank Li Rufeng for his kindness and prove their "loyalty" with practical actions.

Muhaya has lost the opportunity to return to the center of power of the sect. The distribution of interests has been completed both with Khalil and with Shah Ruul, but Muhaya saw a new opportunity in Li Rufeng.

The enemies who sent him here to die knew some details about Li Rufeng, and Muheya naturally knew it as well. He knew that Princess Parisa was by Li Rufeng's side, so Li Rufeng nominally had the right of inheritance. The great conqueror had given too much power to the identity of son-in-law that did not belong to him.

In this way, he seized the legitimacy of the Golden Family. Now that the big tree planted by his predecessors has borne fruit, Muheya only needs to carry out a little bit of public opinion manipulation to shape Li Rufeng into the third heir to the Khanate.

The great conqueror had more than one grandson, Khalil, and more than one son, Shah Rukh, but why were they now competing for the position of Sultan?

Because only these two heirs held military power, one of them firmly grasped the military power of the "Expeditionary Force" in his hands and refused to disband it, so he eventually sat on the throne of Sultan, while the other relied on his many years of accumulation in the fiefdom and his deep connections in the army to clearly oppose the legitimacy of the Sultan.

Chapter 531 Religious Dispute

Li Rufeng is willing to cooperate with Muheya. In this land, he has no power to fight against Islam or the Muslim world because it is itself part of the Muslim world.

But the good news is that the Muslim world is not a whole. Just like Islam, it is divided into pieces by religious sects, and the conflicts between them may be greater than external enemies.

Everyone knows that Islam is composed of Sunni and Shia. The only difference between them is that Sunni believes that the four caliphs of the Arab Empire are the legitimate successors of Muhammad, while Shia believes that only Ali is the legitimate successor of Muhammad.

Ali was Muhammad's cousin, adopted son and son-in-law, and one of his earliest loyal believers. The dispute between the two factions was somewhat similar to the difference between the abdication system and the inheritance system.

The great man obviously did not care about the disputes between these factions, so under his notice, although Sunnis were the main sect, Shiites were not suppressed too much, and Sufis belonged to Sunnis.

The reason why Sufism is mentioned specifically is that in the territories of the great conquerors, Sufism occupied a dominant position in the religious field.

Sufism is a new sect that emerged after Sunni Islam developed to a certain extent and explored the mystical realm. It is far more tolerant than the factions of Sunni Islam in the fields of law and doctrine.

The most obvious example is that most Sufi sects have a tolerant and accepting attitude towards primitive beliefs.

Another characteristic of Sufism is the mendicant monks. The entire sect is dominated by the mendicant monks, and one religious group after another is established around the mendicant monks.

Completely different from other Islamic religious sects, it has a secondary organization called the sect under the sect, and power is more concentrated in specific people, which makes it naturally anti-traditional and anti-formalistic.

In addition, due to the mystical nature of Sufism, it focuses more on spiritual practice and mystical rituals, and does not pursue complicated scriptures and hadiths too much, so it can be easily accepted by the lower-class civilians who lack cultural knowledge and the nomadic peoples on the grasslands.

These characteristics allowed Sufism to expand rapidly, and for a long time, it overshadowed all other sects. However, its expansion was so rapid that it somewhat shook the foundations of the traditional Muslim world.

To give a simple example, during the Ilkhanate era, most of the Mongols who converted were Sufis, but Sufism "compatible" with the belief in Tengri, which made Sufism impure.

But because there were many Mongols who converted to Sufism at that time and they were strong in fighting, they spoke loudly. Those who spoke loudly were naturally orthodox, which made traditional Islamic factions a little uncomfortable...

To put it simply, Islam at that time felt that the nomadic peoples in Central Asia were barbaric and uncivilized, and were inferior to itself. Many missionaries who went there were rejected after just a few days. In the end, it was discovered that a group of mendicant monks who practiced spiritual practices and pretended to be gods were particularly effective in their missionary work, so Islam began to vigorously support these monks to expand its religious influence.

Chapter 532 The Princess Entrusted with an Important Mission

"Princess Parisa, do you really want to travel thousands of miles to such a far place just for a letter? What if you encounter some danger on the way?" A middle-aged woman who looked like a maid asked with some concern, but she was still packing various luggage and did not stop what she was doing because of her doubts.

"Sister Vereesa, he'll send someone to escort me all the way. I won't be in any danger," Parisa said, patting the longsword she was oiling. "Besides, I'm not completely defenseless. I'm very formidable."

"I know you are very powerful, but... forget it, I won't say any more." Wenresa smiled bitterly and shook her head. She wanted to ask Parisa to maintain her ladylike reserve and not be so proactive, but when she thought of Parisa's experience, she softened her heart.

She came all the way from Diyarbakir to Aleppo because she heard that Princess Parisa was here. When Parisa was young, Veresa taught her court etiquette in a monastery in Mosul for more than two years.

Later, for some other reasons, Vereesa left the monastery in Mosul and lived in seclusion in a monastery closer to Trabzon.