Mount and Blade Central Asia

After meeting Veresa, Parisa was really happy for a while. Otherwise, if Li Rufeng was not in Aleppo, she would have no one to talk to.

Although Parisa had few friends since she was a child, she still had a few peers to communicate with, and some nuns in the monastery were willing to listen to her girlish thoughts and grievances.

But since the rise of the Black Sheep, Parisa has completely regarded herself as a warrior, especially after her father died in Tabriz, the loneliness brought about by this forced independence has become even stronger.

Parisa is not a flower raised in a greenhouse. On the contrary, after receiving a rare elite education within the Khanate, Parisa's overall quality is terrifyingly high.

The founder of the Timurid Khanate shocked the world with his military achievements, so the descendants of that great conqueror naturally cannot do without various military educations.

There was no shortage of swordsmanship, horsemanship, and tactics classes. In addition, Parisa was a girl, so she had to learn all kinds of etiquette classes, intelligence gathering, and even bed skills.

Many of the maids around her were sent by the Komnenos royal family to please the great conqueror. Since its existence, the Komnenos royal family has been famous for producing high-quality "hostesses".

Parisa was raised according to the standards of a Komnenos princess, so she knew more clearly what it meant when her father led his troops to attack Tabriz instead of Mosul.

At least in her father's heart, reputation is much more important than her.

Parisa had never had any expectations of her father since she was a child. They even rarely met each other, so there was no family affection at all.

But when her father didn't care about her life or death at all and her closest brother chose to ignore her existence in the face of power, Parisa really needed a psychological support.

Li Rufeng is this person. He suddenly appeared when Parisa was in desperate situation. He not only rescued her from the black sheep, but also freed her from the constraints of the magic sword.

To be honest, the first meeting between the two was not pleasant, and judging from their performance alone, it was obvious that Brother Mengjiang was much more brave than Li Rufeng.

But how can I put it? Judging from his appearance alone, it is difficult for Brother Mengjiang to become the emotional support of Her Royal Highness the Princess. After all, love at first sight mostly starts with lust, and Brother Mengjiang... the saying that being too brave can only attract the same sex is very suitable for him.

During Parisa's childhood, her father, Maharaja Milansha, had always been a person who mixed family affection with fear. Moreover, in terms of bravery on the battlefield, Haishar was far inferior to Maharaja Milansha.

In other words, if a girl's father is Arnold Schwarzenegger, it would be difficult for her to fall in love with a bodybuilder...

Parisa was the most suitable candidate Li Rufeng could think of. Although appointing a woman as governor was somewhat unorthodox in this era, it was not unheard of.

Moreover, with Parisa's identity, she can also stabilize the centripetal force of the surrounding areas to a great extent, so as to alleviate the subtle impact brought about by Li Rufeng's massacre of nobles in Malikiya.

In the end, with the help of Vereesa, Parisa's personal luggage filled two carriages, including all kinds of items such as food, clothing, housing and transportation. Compared with what she had owned before, these things undoubtedly seemed a bit shabby.

But this is the result after Li Rufeng tried his best to collect it, and it is also based on the result of the continuous prosperity of Aleppo's business.

Parisa's trip this time was not just to go to Malikiye to serve as governor, she also had to escort a batch of armor, weapons and other supplies.

After Li Rufeng left Aleppo and started a fierce battle with the Black Sheep People, a large number of arms orders made the blacksmith district in Aleppo prosper rapidly. Many skilled "wild blacksmiths" came here hoping to get a share of the pie from Li Rufeng.

The most significant result is that Aleppo now not only has the spare capacity to support Li Rufeng's army to continue to expand its territory, but can also transport merchant ships loaded with armor and shields to Anatolia for sale.

After the steam forge hammer had been running continuously for a month, several people from the Ahch Brotherhood secretly became the Steam Brotherhood and kept poaching people from the Ahch Brotherhood. Of course, the whole process was carried out in secret, and Li Rufeng had no idea that these technical geeks under his command had such strong subjective initiative.

Not only that, Old Rokan and his team are also selecting suitable candidates from among the blacksmiths to join their organization. Of course, this requires a long probation period. After all, most of the blacksmiths in the blacksmith district of Aleppo City are not skilled enough, and their knowledge is far from enough.

In the words of Old Luo Kan, instead of recruiting those blacksmiths, it would be better to look for beautiful jade among the apprentices selected by Li Rufeng. After all, uncontaminated white paper is easier to apply as a base color.

Against this backdrop, the quantity of "arms" that Princess Parisa was to escort was quite considerable. It consisted of two thousand sets of chain mail, and these were modified with whole metal plates added to key parts, a new type of armor somewhat similar to the Ottoman disc armor.

Li Rufeng did not want his military technology to advance all the way to plate armor. They were far behind in metal processing technology, and the cost of that thing was too high. Without decades of technological iteration, it would be impossible to popularize it to the soldier class.

From the perspective of warhorse breeds and climate environment, the plate armor favored by European knights is not suitable for use in Asia. It is hard to imagine that anyone can maintain physical strength while wearing full metal plate armor under the scorching sun at temperatures over 40 degrees.

In fact, the horse breeds they have now can hardly bring as strong an impact as the plate cavalry. Constantinople has inherited the heavy war horses used by the armored paladins during the Roman Empire, but the Mongols do not have the corresponding horse breeds.

The Arabian horses that the Mongol people under Li Rufeng are familiar with are more like a "perfect warhorse" that is balanced in all indicators and has no shortcomings.

For Mongolian cavalry, Arabian horses are big enough, strong enough, fast, stable in temperament, and have good endurance and physical strength for their weight. Most importantly, this type of horse has a good appetite. It is best to have concentrated feed, but if there is no concentrated feed, it will not be too bad if it eats grass alone.

Chapter 533: Surrender

(I will correct the typos in today's chapters later. I've been too busy this month and the updates are a bit slow. I'm taking a day off today to catch up.)

Although Li Rufeng was in Malikiya, he knew about the Black Sheep people's deeds on the same day because of the existence of his personal guards who were classified as his direct soldiers by the system.

From this incident, he could see that the Black Sheep King finally regarded him as a real opponent this time, rather than some wild tribal chief who suddenly emerged from a corner.

Although the reaction was more than a beat slow, it was obvious that this had proved that the Black Sheep people's retreat in the inland area was premeditated. At least the Black Sheep King consciously used space to exchange for time.

It is a very simple strategy. It looks simple and is actually not complicated to implement. The only important thing is when the other player can realize it.

Of course, based on the not-so-harmonious relationship between the dark wizard and the Dark Demon King, Li Rufeng had no doubt that the Dark Demon King was consciously using his own hands to clean up the dark wizard's power.

Mosul... What on earth did those dark wizards do there that made the Black Duck King finally decide to completely cut ties with them?

In all the intelligence that Li Rufeng could obtain, Mosul was like a black hole. No news could come out of it. For those businessmen, there was a possibility of disappearing as long as they passed by there.

To be honest, Li Rufeng was really afraid that those dark wizards would go crazy and turn Mosul into a dead city. After all, he had seen what those black warriors had done in Batman from the perspective of the strategic map.

Mosul is a big city, and Li Rufeng does not want the same thing to happen in Mosul, both emotionally and logically.

According to the information he had, there were at least 30,000 to 40,000 people there before the Khanate withdrew from Mosul, a huge human resource group that Li Rufeng had been dreaming about.

Those were not 30,000 to 40,000 farmers or herdsmen, but 30,000 to 40,000 urban residents. The urban population of this era represented a large number of craftsmen, a large number of businessmen, and a large number of free people who were not bound by the land.

Under Li Rufeng's management, such a city with a large population can quickly transform human resources into real productivity.

But if these people have now become another "spell material" in the hands of the black wizards and are used for meaningless bloody sacrifices, Li Rufeng swears in the name of Changshengtian that he will skin and bone all the black wizards, soak them in salt water for two or three days, and let them wail and starve to death!

The distance from Malikiya to Abu Zaher is not far, only about 60 kilometers. After resting, the army continued to collect news about the city.

Unlike the two cities that Li Rufeng had occupied before, there were still Black Sheep military forces in Abu Zahir. According to the intelligence brought back by the scouts, there was an army of more than 1,500 people stationed there.

Li Rufeng was not familiar with the Black Sheep Army, but the scouts were sure that this army was much better equipped than any Black Sheep Army they had encountered before.

The most obvious evidence is that the soldiers of this army wore armor robes of uniform color, a brown armor robe with the black sheep symbol painted on it.

This is enough to prove that the Black Sheep Army currently stationed in the city of Abu Zahir is the elite in the hands of the Black Sheep King, and these troops should have been stationed on the defense line further east.

Chapter 534 The Elite of the Black Sheep

Hussein Abu, a middle-aged man who looks a little vicissitudes of life, has a sturdy build, high cheekbones, deep eye sockets, and a rough beard that makes his facial features very three-dimensional.

He was wearing a traditional brown robe, which looked like the smock that ordinary soldiers wore over their armor. He leaned on the soft couch in a lazy posture, with his scimitar at hand, ready to use at any time.

There was a pile of various fruits and snacks in front of him. A girl with exposed clothes and a frightened look on her face carefully fed him the food one by one.

He was the commander of this Black Sheep army and a very prestigious general under the Black Sheep King. He originally had three thousand men under his command, but because those damn Iranian emirs launched an dishonorable sneak attack on him, he finally withdrew only half of his men.

This made Hussein very angry, but the order of the Black Sheep King could not be disobeyed. The Black Sheep King asked him to withdraw from the front line to fight against the Mongols who attacked them from behind, so he had to withdraw, even if he lost half of his brothers and sisters.

But until now Hussein still doesn't know why the territory they conquered has become like this. The leaders of those big tribes are all fighting for power and no one cares about the war that is so close.

Didn’t they know that Timurid Korea’s army was right on the border and could take back everything they had seized at any time?

As for those black wizards, Hussein had long known that they were unreliable, but he did not expect that they would be so bold and presumptuous. They actually turned the entire Mosul into their hunting ground.

What made Hussein even more unbelievable was that the great king actually let those black wizards go. Hussein felt that everything was a little wrong. He thought that if he tried his best to help the great king return to the throne, the glory and peace of the black sheep people would return again.

Obviously he was wrong. The war never stopped and became more and more intense. He and his men had been fighting for four years. Among the old brothers who came out of the tribe at the beginning, he was the only one still alive.

This kind of life made Hussein a little confused. It was not what he wanted, but it was the fact and he had to accept it.

Just as Hussein did not want his troops to kill in Abu Zaher, but he eventually gave the order, the world does not operate according to his will.

If he didn't let his men kill, Abu Zahir would not be able to gather enough food to feed the army, not because Abu Zahir didn't have enough food, but because they didn't want to give it.

They felt that they had already given, but there was no such good thing in the world. The things they had given before did not reach Hussein, and the soldiers under their command were still hungry.

Since they were robbing and killing people everywhere, why not let go and let these warriors who had survived hundreds of battles have some fun? Hussein glanced at the woman serving him and smiled contemptuously. These idiots thought they had the right to negotiate with people holding knives?

There must be something wrong with their brains, he has been living too long.

"Wine!" Hussein pointed to the wine bottle on the table. The woman picked up the bottle tremblingly, but accidentally dropped the bottle on the ground and shattered it.

Chapter 535 Change of plan

Li Rufeng was waiting for the city of Malikiya to restore normal order. This order was not only in terms of public security, but also in terms of public sentiment. He also wanted the people of this city to fully realize that they had returned to the control of the once extremely powerful Khanate.

He wanted to set an example here and make everyone realize that his rule and the rule of the Black Sheep people were two completely different concepts.

All the Black Sheep people do here is ask for things, nothing else. They want food, wealth, human resources, and everything, which makes them unable to provide anything. This is one of the main reasons why these cities are unwilling to resist.

In fact, they cannot even provide the most basic security guarantees. The ruler of Malikiye alone has changed three times in the past two years. Basically, whichever tribe is stronger will get a better and more prosperous jurisdiction.

The city of Malikiya is just a piece of chicken ribs. It is not big enough to satisfy the appetite of large tribes, but it is located on the trade route and is coveted by many small and medium-sized tribes.

With each new ruler, the city's wealth was reaped.

These black sheep people obviously haven't learned how to distribute benefits in a subtle way to satisfy everyone. In Li Rufeng's opinion, their methods are a bit too crude, and no one is satisfied with the plunder.

But Li Rufeng is different. He doesn't care about Malikiye's superficial wealth. What Li Rufeng wants to do is to make the existing cake bigger, and he can also bring direct wealth injection to the city.

As Li Rufeng's army has been stationed here for more than a week, many adventurous merchants have ventured into the city.

Every time a war begins and ends, a large amount of unowned wealth appears in the city, and these merchants are chasing this war wealth.

First of all, the most valuable things are those unowned goods. Although transporting these goods also carries high risks, they are still popular goods that can be quickly converted into cash.

Li Rufeng had no chance to obtain this kind of war wealth when he was in Mardin City before. That was because Mardin City was too poor, and their last robbery was too thorough. After the Black Sheep People came, they almost stripped off the walls and left nothing valuable.

The scale of Qamishli was a little too small, and the leaders in the city were too sensible and surrendered quickly, so no war wealth was generated.

But Malikiya is different. It is large enough, and Li Rufeng has killed a large number of nobles and businessmen. The time is ripe.

These businessmen who came to Malikieri to pursue wealth are all experienced in this business. They would not come here foolishly with money, as the risk would be too great. If they happened to encounter a grassroots officer with bad intentions, they might not even be able to enter the city and be robbed.

Therefore, the hard currency brought by these merchants is basically grain. The newly occupied cities need grain to stabilize people's hearts, and the army needs grain for reserves. Grain is undoubtedly the most suitable currency here.

Compared with those goods that can be quickly converted into cash, the high-quality vacant real estate in the city cannot be sold so quickly, and it falls into the category of venture capital.

These merchants who came after him could indeed take this opportunity to buy at the bottom and bet that Li Rufeng could hold on to the city firmly, but this land has witnessed too many cities become depressed because of war over the years.

Even big cities like Mosul and Baghdad seemed so fragile in the face of war, and the commercial order was almost destroyed.

Li Rufeng spent three days exchanging all the accumulated wealth in his hands for grain. To be fair, the price these merchants paid for the goods from him was almost 50% lower than the normal market price.

But even Li Rufeng would find it difficult to evaluate and sell this kind of free wealth, after all, these merchants brought food.

Instead of piling up these useless goods in the city and waiting to sell them at a fair price after order is restored, it is better to exchange them for food at half the price in exchange for the rapid restoration of order in the city.

The degree of pain and credibility shown by Li Rufeng in this transaction made a few businessmen who were chasing war take over some real estate with the idea of ​​investment, which was an extra gain.

Li Rufeng, who had enough food in his hands again, almost immediately began to implement a policy of using work to support the city, making everyone in the city, young and old, men and women, busy.

In this transaction process of exchanging labor for money, the lord's credibility and majesty were gradually established, and it could also effectively prevent the civilians from having any random thoughts.

Against this backdrop, the scouts from both sides of the war started skirmishes again, but Li Rufeng was waiting for his logistics team to arrive, and the Black Sheep People... Li Rufeng didn't know what they were waiting for.

Perhaps even the Black Sheep People themselves did not know what they were waiting for. During the battle between the scouts of both sides, Li Rufeng had already spread his scouts to the farther reaches outside the city of Mosul. He was eager to know what was happening in the city.

The guards who led the team shared the same vision with Li Rufeng. From a distance, this towering city built on the slopes on the east bank of the Tigris River looked normal. It just looked lifeless, with the city gates closed.

The good news was that Li Rufeng could see that there were still a large number of civilians active in the city, and those dark wizards did not turn everyone into sacrifices to their evil gods like they did in Batman.

The bad news is that they seem to be preparing for this. In front of the famous Al Noor Grand Mosque, a small group of people were herded together by soldiers and slaughtered in an orderly and brutal manner.

The once sacred temple was polluted.

As the massacre began, dark clouds from nowhere slowly began to gather over Mosul and soon obscured Li Rufeng's vision.

This was the first time that Li Rufeng encountered such a thing after obtaining the strategic map perspective. He had encountered rainy days before, but normal rainy days would not obscure his vision.

Obviously, this was a reaction made by those dark rooms in Mosul to block his sight. No matter what means or channels they used, they have now confirmed that Li Rufeng can use some ability to make the battlefield one-way transparent.

This change made Li Rufeng feel very uneasy. His intuition told him that he had better eliminate those dark wizards as soon as possible, otherwise something big might happen.

Therefore, Li Rufeng had no time to play games with those black sheep people. He wanted to catch them all in one fell swoop.

Chapter 536: Out of the City for a Decisive Battle

Hussein's new camp is located on a pasture ten kilometers outside the city of Abu Zaher. It is located on a bend formed by a tributary of the Tigris River and is already lush and green in May.

According to the tradition of herders, when faced with newly sprouted grass, they will not graze it in the same place for too long to prevent the war horses that never know restraint from digging out the grass roots and eating them.

After all, it may take three or four years to restore a completely destroyed pasture, but obviously no one would pay attention to these things during the war. They were only stationed here for three days, and the entire playground looked like the hair of a patient with alopecia areata.

They brought enough food and fodder from Abu Zaher, but Hussein did not intend to waste the fodder prepared in advance for the sake of protecting the environment. He knew that he was at a disadvantage in numbers, and once the war started, he would soon lose the initiative and lose his supplies.

Although the Qara Qara Qara assured him that the black wizards in Mosul would provide sufficient supplies, Hussein did not trust those black wizards. If possible, he did not want to drink even a sip of water brought from Mosul.

He also doubted how much control the Black Sheep King had over the Dark Wizards. How could he guarantee that they would obey his orders? He couldn't even discipline the chiefs of the Black Sheep Tribe.

This kind of thinking is somewhat dangerous. It is not something Hussein should think about. After all, he is a direct faction of the Black Sheep King, and all his soldiers are directly loyal to the Black Sheep King.

But after experiencing so many wars and the death of so many brothers, Hussein couldn't help but fall into thinking. He gave up almost everything, but could he really get what he wanted in the end?

Or perhaps the question should be asked this way: Does the Black Sheep King truly have the ability to provide the Black Sheep people with a stable life, allowing the entire nation a chance to recuperate? And are the other surrounding forces willing to give them this opportunity?

Hussein was just a soldier. He didn't understand politics or people's livelihood, but he at least knew that many small tribes were already poorer and their lives were worse than during Timur's rule. The Black Sheep People got so many things, but those things were concentrated in the hands of the big tribes.

In addition, they fought too many wars that should not have been fought, like the siege against the Aries. Hussein didn't know why the Black Sheep King launched two wars in two completely different directions at the same time, and eventually put himself in such an unfavorable situation.

But if his guess is correct, this should be another typical political compromise. In this protracted war, there will always be people who feel that the piece of cake they get is not big enough or sweet enough, and they will keep asking the person who cooks the cake to make the cake bigger in order to get more cake.