Mount and Blade Central Asia

But if he fails, there will be no trace of Ali in this world, and everything he has will be happily swallowed up by the blue wind.

Under such a gamble, Li Rufeng appeared. First, the accidental death of Azadirim made Ali's best tool man, and then the treasure was plundered.

Chapter 565 Forming a formation!

As the number one Armenian under Li Rufeng, Marcelino had a natural sense of responsibility towards the young men he recruited, so he also stayed on the city wall with the centurion team that served as the defenders.

When the changes in Mosul just surfaced, Marcelino was gathered with several officers to study the map of Mosul by firelight. The map was delivered by the personal guards of that adult in the afternoon. With the advantage of the strategic map perspective, Li Rufeng could easily draw a flat map.

Several young men who had studied map-making with Bell for several months had come with the supply team led by Princess Parisa. Compared to Bell, who had studied with his teacher for seven or eight years, these people had only mastered the basics and could not even figure out the scaling.

But these people could at least copy the map drawn by Li Rufeng, and Marcelino was holding such a copy.

Marcelino frowned at this time. He really didn't have much education, but as he was promoted by Li Rufeng all the way, he was forcing himself to keep learning. Under Li Rufeng's instruction, Badak taught him a lot.

The battlefield is undoubtedly the best school, because every mistake you make will be conveyed to you in the most bloody way, especially when the dead soldiers are compatriots recruited by Marcelino himself.

So Marcelino could understand a lot of things from the map, for example, the city of Mosul did not have only one wall. Since the Zengid Dynasty, every new ruler would build a new wall. In addition to the outer wall, there were two segmented walls in front of them that were once outer walls and are now incorporated into the city.

As a captain of a thousand men, he was estimating whether, if there were defenders on the two city walls, they would take a detour or attack head-on. Then he heard the exclamations of the soldiers on the city walls and the sound of whistle arrows shot into the sky.

"What's wrong!" Marcelino did not take off his armor. He knew that tonight would not be peaceful, so he deliberately left here the team of veterans who had fought with him all the way from Aleppo. But at this time, those veterans who were as experienced as him and had experienced the plague war became as panicked as the recruits, which made Marcelino a little unhappy.

He was not blaming these old brothers, he just didn't want the Mongols to look down on him. Next to them was a team of 100 people composed entirely of Mongols, and they were the only two armies left in the city of Mosul.

As the largest military force under Li Rufeng outside the Mongolian group, regardless of whether Marcelino could adapt to it or not, he gradually understood the so-called power struggle. Marcelino was very clear that he had seized a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, and those Mongolians obviously did not like Li Rufeng's tendency to improve the treatment and status of Armenians in the military.

However, based on Li Rufeng's prestige, this competition is still benign. The Armenians are trying desperately to prove that they are worthy of Li Rufeng's reliance, while the Mongols want to do better in all aspects to prove that Li Rufeng's choice is wrong.

Looking in the direction the soldiers pointed, Marcelino quickly understood the reason for their panic. In the distant sky, a large group of dream demons flapped their wings and flew high, gathering into a dark cloud in the air like a swarm of insects, and this dark cloud was moving towards them.

Within the "dark cloud", some strange-looking things appeared from time to time, but disappeared again before people could see the full picture.

What made Marcelino feel relieved was that the Mongolian team next door did not perform better than theirs. Those Mongols were also shouting, but some of these Mongolian soldiers who were proficient in riding and shooting had already taken out their bows and arrows and were estimating their range.

Chapter 566 Dreaming Again

Those dream monsters were just appetizers. Although Ali could only connect the two worlds to a limited extent because the four wizard towers connecting the two worlds were not completed, the power of dreams was infinite, especially when the citizens of Mosul were still in the city, providing continuous energy for the entire dream world.

Ali didn't want to reveal his cards so early, but that damn Mongolian shaman accidentally wanted to dig up his roots. If there was no one left in Mosul, the dream kingdom would collapse, and what Ali had spent dozens or even hundreds of years planning would no longer exist.

In fact, Ali originally wanted to go to Baghdad. After all, that was the real remains of the Round City, and there were more anchor points that could be used in the present world. But... that damn great conqueror went too far when he occupied Baghdad last time. He almost made the Round City repeat the scene of being burned by the Mongols, but this time he did not set fire.

When the defenders on the city wall scared off the timid nightmare monsters with sharp arrows, the first wave of panicked refugees poured out of the streets. They had been lurking here during the day, but out of distrust of the Mongols, they did not dare to be taken out of the city by the Mongols.

Although the dream monster is terrible, the Mongols are no less powerful. The people of Mosul and Badakhshan have the same unforgettable memory of the great conqueror.

But now, as the dream monsters have returned, the fear of the unknown things in the bones of human beings still prevails. They would rather risk being slaughtered by the Mongols and want to leave the city.

Fortunately, the south gate remained open, and the soldiers guarding the gate did not respond to the approach of the refugees. On the contrary, they lit torches that had been prepared on both sides of the road to illuminate the way out of the city for the refugees.

As an occupier, Li Rufeng has regarded the people of Mosul as his own wealth. He has always regarded people as one of the most valuable resources. This attitude has more or less influenced some of the more intelligent officers.

For example, Badak, Huluchirga, Marcelino, and some lower-level officers. Most of them witnessed Li Rufeng's rise with their own eyes and knew what kind of wealth these human resources could be transformed into in Li Rufeng's hands.

"Piano, it's time to show your worth. My gold isn't easy to come by," Li Rufeng ordered the leader of the Golden Arrow Mercenary Group. "Protect the refugees along the city's main thoroughfares. For every hundred people who make it out of the city, you'll receive one Florin gold coin."

"Two gold coins, sir. There's something fishy going on in this city, and my boys need a little extra encouragement." Renzo Piano had never been a qualified officer or soldier, but he was definitely an excellent businessman. He was one of the few people of this era who treated mercenary work as a serious business.

In Piano, each of his mercenaries has his own price. As long as the profit gained can exceed the price of their lives, it is a good deal enough for them to die.

Piano only takes a small commission, which is why he can quickly expand the size of the mercenary group. Of course, the price of the veterans who have been working with him is much higher than that of the "new recruits", because that is the basis for him to control the entire mercenary group.

"One and a half, this is my final offer, otherwise I will let the Malikiye United enter the city." Li Rufeng did not continue to bargain with the other party. Just as he said, although the Malikiye United had low morale and poor organization, they were also an option.

"One and a half gold coins is a good price, but we want heavy gold, not Florin gold coins!" Piano made his last effort. The gold content of Florin gold coins has been declining more and more in recent years, and he was very sure that Li Rufeng did not have that many Florin gold coins in reserve. Asking for heavy gold directly was a very tricky bargaining tactic.

"Okay, but if fewer than two thousand of you successfully leave the city, you can only get half of the commission." Li Rufeng didn't really care about this little bit of spending, but he had become accustomed to the cunning of these Genoese during this period of time. Without sufficient punishment and restraint, they would never try their best.

"Deal, I'll lead the team myself!" Renzo Piano had an expression of unspeakable loyalty, but in fact, the veterans under him only cared about what deal he had negotiated and the price of the deal. As for whether he would lead the team himself, it didn't affect morale at all.

Although Piano did not develop good battlefield skills, he did have a good reputation and hired several experienced mercenary captains. Most of these people had impressive previous service records and were well suited to adapting to such a complex and changing environment.

Chapter 567 Sneak Attack

Li Rufeng was also impressed by the group of dark wizards in the city. He had to admit that he had certain expectations and quite deep prejudices towards dark wizards and this group.

The first dark wizard he came into contact with was a top six wizard. Azadirim had been entangled with him on and off for nearly a year, and he was really wholeheartedly devoted to him just to make things difficult for him.

From then on, every black wizard Li Rufeng met was basically doing this kind of weird thing. For example, in the city of Martin, those black wizards were performing blood sacrifice rituals, and in Batman, those black wizards were performing blood sacrifice rituals. Li Rufeng really couldn't understand these black wizards. Did they believe in the blue wind or the scarlet wind?

And now, these dark wizards have finally done something different in their base camp, Mosul, but the result is still the same old routine. They have to tie up those innocent Mosul people and treat them as expendable materials to pave the way for their own plans.

Honestly, this disappointed Li Rufeng greatly. He had originally expected to see a more efficient education bill, perhaps one that used miraculous power to impart knowledge, transforming an illiterate person into a learned and accomplished evil wizard. Or perhaps a dark wizard invented a fuel that could increase the temperature of flames, allowing them to efficiently smelt metals and quickly equip large numbers of fully armed soldiers.

The Blue Wind is known to the outside world as the Wind of Wisdom, the Voice of Enlightenment, and the Paradise of Knowledge, but in the end, this is the result?

"Move the cannons forward two hundred meters," Li Rufeng ordered Diobiya. "Give me plenty of gunpowder and shells. Tear down that city gate."

Diobbia nodded vigorously and shouted loudly to get the well-fed apprentices to move. The young and strong lads were so excited by the stimulation of the battle achievements so close to them that they didn't even use the carriages. Several people formed groups and carried the cannons forward for a distance of 200 meters.

At this distance, Diobbia didn't even need to aim himself; his old friends and the most studious apprentices could complete the preliminary aiming work.

A few minutes later, the sound of the first round of firing loudly interrupted the silent night. One of the three shells hit the target, and the other two shells all hit the city wall near the city gate, causing the hearts of the defenders on the wall who had been on guard to tremble.

"Hit the target, damn it!" The centurion of the Mongolian hundred-man team on the city wall shouted loudly and rudely. Most of those artillery apprentices were young people from Li Rufeng's army. He cursed in several languages ​​​​mixed together, and he didn't repeat himself for three minutes.

From the perspective of the strategic map, Li Rufeng could see very clearly that Mosul, shrouded in the fog of war, was a complete prototype. This deliberately shaped closed circle was too obvious to Li Rufeng.

The first time he witnessed the power of miracles, he came into contact with the knowledge of the closed circle. The smell of its trap was already overwhelming. Li Rufeng would never let himself enter the enemy's territory.

Since those dark wizards wanted to sit back and wait, he would cut down the trees and demolish the city gate first. If he still couldn't break the closed circle, he would have people dig pits outside the city wall and bury gunpowder to directly destroy the entire wall.

At this time, compared with Li Rufeng's steady and cautious approach outside the city, the situation inside the city was much worse.

Piano is a very sensitive person, or to put it more down-to-earth, he is a very timid person who has always had a very keen sense of danger. The moment the change happened, he sensed something was wrong, so he decisively gave up the second intersection they occupied and led his men to retreat all the way to the first intersection.

This place was less than a hundred meters away from the city gate. He could even hear the voices of Armenians and Mongols on the city wall behind him. The feeling of being able to help each other with friendly forces made Piano relax a little.

At this time, the entire street was densely packed with Mosul people who were in a state of sleep. There was no place to step. The soldiers of the Golden Arrow Mercenary Group had to carefully avoid those sleepers when moving back and forth to prevent themselves from tripping.

In addition to them, there are more than one hundred armed militiamen from the Malikiye League also trapped in the city. Of course, these people are now all crowded at the city gate, trying to squeeze out from the one-person-wide gap like a swarm of bees.

If it weren't for the few guards in charge of commanding them who drew their scimitars to force these people to disperse and stay away from the city gate, the artillery fire just now would have caused casualties among them.

Driven by the force of gunpowder, the stone bullets weighing several kilograms hit the wooden city gate with a metal grille, causing the entire gate to scream and shake.

It is unknown what force was keeping the city gate half-open. Without a bolt to secure it, the gate was able to withstand the impact of the artillery shells instead of being blown open by inertia.

In Piano's words, this place is a bit weird, but not too dangerous...When the Genoese and Venetians fought the most intense naval battles at sea, every time they captured the opponent's ships, they would choose to massacre them completely, leaving no one alive.

Having experienced wars where the goal was to completely annihilate the enemy, those naval officers didn't even blink an eye when faced with a scene like today.

Finally, Piano, who could no longer bear it, sent a few people over to force the soldiers from Malikiya City to form a team and move all the sleeping people on the road to both sides to avoid fighting and causing trouble.

Although these armed citizens were slightly dissatisfied, looking at the ferocious mercenaries and the personal guards of the lord who also had cold expressions, they finally did not dare to say a word and just did the hard labor honestly.

Then, the enemies lurking in the dark in the city finally showed their fangs.

Piano saw a whole column of soldiers in blue robes suddenly appear less than thirty meters away from them. He swears to God that he had been looking in that direction a minute ago and there was nothing there, not even a building that could hide so many enemies.

Unless these enemies appeared out of nowhere, there was no way they could hide from his eyes.

But the fact was, those soldiers in blue robes were already standing there, ready to throw their weapons - each of them held a short spear suitable for throwing, and in an instant more than thirty short spears were thrown over.

Long-range weapons like javelins were unfamiliar to the Genoese. Adept at using crossbows and gunpowder weapons, they had long since eliminated these inefficient weapons. But today, they learned the hard way...

Chapter 568 A better choice

Piano's eyes suddenly turned red as he saw at least ten people falling down around him.

He is the leader of a mercenary group. He goes to war for profit. If any of these soldiers die, he needs to pay a pension. If they become disabled, he also needs to compensate them with commissions equivalent to three wartime missions.

This time, the mission they took on had not yet started to generate much profit, but they had already suffered a huge loss.

"Crossbowmen!" Piano hid behind a shield and swung the sword in his hand towards the enemy. The well-trained crossbowmen immediately found the enemy in the direction he pointed.

This group of crossbowmen, numbering only fifty, was an elite unit that Piano had snatched from his peers at great expense. Although they only comprised one-tenth of the entire mercenary group, they enjoyed a quarter of the total spoils of war.

These crossbowmen were once the guards of the glorious Genoese Senate. Unfortunately, after the defeat in the war with the Venetians, Genoa no longer needed to maintain such a large army, which led to the "good thing" of these crossbowmen being demobilized and returning to the countryside.

Piano has been increasing the proportion of crossbowmen in his mercenary group. In total, there are about two hundred people carrying crossbows, a long-range weapon, but most of these crossbows are ordinary horn crossbows made of wood, animal horns and a few metal wires.

But these elite soldiers are different. They use winch crossbows, which are more than half a person's height. With the help of metal winches and pedal rings, the stringing process can be completed quickly.

Following the target indicated by Piano, more than 20 crossbow arrows were shot straight at the crossbowmen who had been arranged in a scattered formation before, and half of them did not have time to adjust the angle.

At this distance, with the power of the capstan crossbow, even an iron-studded shield would be shot straight through. In fact, this was indeed the case. Half of the enemy team was wiped out on the spot!

But the other half disappeared in a puff of mist in full view of everyone. If there were not more than a dozen corpses left on the ground, they would even think they were hallucinating.

"God bless! These pagans are fighting the devil!" Some recruits dropped their weapons on the spot and turned to run towards the city gate, which had remained open.

Piano glanced at the deserter, gritted his teeth, and shouted, "Today's commission will be paid at double the wartime allowance!"

He was the leader of a mercenary group, and the kind of leader who was more like an agent. He could fire the deserter and then make him bear a huge debt, but he could not kill the deserter with a single blow as cleanly and neatly as Li Rufeng.

No mercenary would like to kill his own leader, and no mercenary would like to be driven to carry out a mission from which he cannot retreat.

"Are those things more brutal than the Venetians?" Although the Piano man hid behind his shield, his mouth was not idle.

A quarter of them were veterans, and these veterans didn't need him to boost their morale at all. As long as they could get paid, they would dare to swing their swords at the devil even if the real devil stood in front of them.

But the rest were either new recruits who had only participated in a few missions, or young men who had just picked up weapons and walked out of their homes. Except that they were better equipped and learned some battlefield rules from the veterans along the way, they were no different from the armed citizens of Malikiya.

After all, Piano also has to consider the cost-effectiveness. If all 500 people are veterans, he can only choose to plunder a city alone to make a profit. Hiring people to fight is not cheap these days.

At this time, several more cannon shots were heard outside the city. The seemingly indestructible city gate shook twice in a row. After a test firing, this round of artillery fire achieved a good result of two out of three.

But they still did not completely destroy the city gate. The reason why the inside and outside of the city could still communicate was because the gap had not been closed yet. It was the last gap in the entire closed circle, and it was also Ali's invitation to Li Rufeng.

Marcelino and his soldiers stood on the city wall and could naturally see farther. He saw lights gradually lighting up in the dark city in the distance. Those were not lights illuminated by torches, but a mist emitting a faint blue light.

"What the hell is that!" The Mongolian centurion standing next to Marcelino took off his helmet and smashed it hard on the city wall. He was very frustrated at the situation that he couldn't find any enemies to shoot.

But soon they were no longer lonely, as countless nightmares flew out of the mist, most of them wearing armor, holding weapons, and their bodies were stretched to the size of adult humans.

Marcelino even saw two or three nightmares rushing into the mercenary group, pulling an armored soldier two or three meters into the air before throwing the unfortunate soldier onto his companions' spears.

But in the next second, the crossbow arrows shot by those crossbowmen made the dense group of dream monsters become sparse. Unfortunately, no matter how fast the crossbow was loaded, it could not catch up with the flexibility of these flying monsters.

In the blink of an eye, the nightmare monsters rushed into the mercenary team and fell into a melee, leaving the crossbowmen no chance to launch a round of horse archery.

Fortunately, these crossbowmen from Genoa were all veterans, and they were not much inferior in close combat. They relied on their shields supported on the ground and used one-handed swords to drive away the nightmare monsters.

Piano was protected by several veterans. These nightmares were not as strong as the big human soldiers in terms of pure strength, but their appearance was very different from that of humans, which made the recruits more panicked than each other. Even with the veterans holding the formation, it became chaotic.

If these nightmares hadn't vanished with a puff when hit by weapons and torches, the mercenaries would have been scattered in fear long ago.

Li Rufeng couldn't see what was happening in the city, and his connection with several of his personal guards in the city was also greatly affected, which restored the essence of the war to what it should be in this era.

He could only understand the battle situation in the city through the loud voices of a few Mongolian men on the city wall. Although there was only a city wall blocking his view, the battlefield situation became a scene "on the other side of the mountain". This was the time that most tested a commander's mentality and ability.

Should he use all his strength, or continue with the previous plan at the cost of consuming the lives of the soldiers?

One day was not enough for Li Rufeng's soldiers to chisel a hole in the city wall large enough to hold enough gunpowder. The wall of Mosul was the strongest wall Li Rufeng had ever seen, except for Aleppo.

When Aleppo was first built, it was built as a war fortress. The reason why it later developed into a city was because its innate conditions were good enough. Its city walls covered a large enough area, and its geographical location was advantageous enough, as it was located on the main trade route.

So even if Li Rufeng ordered people to blow up the city wall right now, it would take many attempts...

"Continue to bombard the city gates until the cannons explode and the gunpowder is used up!" Li Rufeng frowned as he looked at the city of Mosul a few hundred meters away. He could now see with his naked eyes those flying monsters that suddenly flew over the height of the city walls and broke through the archers' firepower network, pulling one soldier after another away with screams.

In the intervals between artillery bombardments, soldiers carrying the wounded kept coming out from the gap at the city gate. These soldiers were basically from the Malikiya Regiment. Li Rufeng's personal guards only allowed those carrying the wounded to pass through.

This passage, which had not yet been cut off, barely maintained the morale of these armed citizens, but Li Rufeng no longer intended to throw them into the city. He had a better choice.

Chapter 569: Master Li draws talismans

"Are you sure this will work, Lord Rufeng?" Muheya asked in a puzzled tone while preparing the ritual items.

In order to maintain the Malikiye City League, Muhaya had to follow the army to the outskirts of Mosul. As a religious figure who failed in the power struggle and was expelled, he had few cards to play. No matter how strong the armed citizens of Malikiye City were, they were at least a good card.

Moreover, Muheya was also happy to spend more time communicating with Li Rufeng. The trust between him and the great conqueror was not established overnight.

Li Rufeng was fiddling with the yellow paper in his hand. He also had a brush in his hand dipped in cinnabar ink mixed with the blood of soldiers, and was thinking about what to write on it.

From the first time he saw the closed circle, he knew that his exorcism ritual, which mixed a lot of elements, whether legitimate or not, was effective in the end, so he planned to repeat the trick this time.

As it stands now, the city of Mosul is nothing more than a closed circle with a larger scale and a larger scope. What he needs to do is to prepare a ceremony of the same scale to break this closed circle.

Li Rufeng actually didn't want to fight with those dark wizards for control of the city in the dark, but it was obvious that those dark wizards did not intend to surrender, giving him enough time to gradually eliminate the pollution they left in Mosul.

Judging from the information passed back by the guard station that had infiltrated the city in advance, the dark wizards had great ambitions, and their erosion of the city and its residents was deepening step by step.

Li Rufeng's sudden arrival obviously disrupted the rhythm of the dark wizards, forcing them to take risks and embark on a more radical path.

The dark wizards have begun to suck the life out of the sleepers through their dreams, and they no longer regard them as a resource that can be sustainably harvested.