The Sun and the Lion

Mosul, siege camp. The exhausted Turkmen army was still persisting in the siege. Murad, who was far away in Baghdad, faced the menacing Ahmed and the Mosul garrison who asked for help. He urgently assembled the army and asked for help from the Musa Shah Order, but the army still failed. Outside Baghdad, there was no departure.

The surrender of Erbil without a fight gave Ahmed and his men great confidence in the beginning, but as the difficult and painful siege continued, no matter how high the morale was, it would be worn away.

At the entrance and exit of the camp, carriages loaded with grain and grass were making their own ruts on the dirt road. The quartermaster was counting the number of carriages, while Ahmed, who was standing at the door of the big tent, focused on On the envoy.

The food consumed by the army was not only transported from the rear and purchased from merchants, but in order to save money, Ahmed also blackmailed three nearby Kurdish emirs and demanded food and money in the name of collecting tribute. Mir was afraid of the Turkmen army under Mosul and obediently paid the protection fee.

"Your Majesty, the letter from Tabriz is written by the Grand Vizier." After Ahmed received the three emir's envoys in the tent, a guard who stopped the messenger handed the letter to Ahmed.

Ahmed opened the letter, and Mohammad Zakaria briefly wrote down the news of the massacre of the mission and the fall of the Armenian region. And, although he didn't say it, Ahmed could still feel that Tabriz was threatened.

"Son of a bitch..." After reading the letter, Ahmed folded the letter into a ball of paper. After torturing the ball in his palm for a while, Ahmed planned to throw it out of the tent. But then he changed his focus, re-opened the sweat-stained letter, placed the crumpled letter next to the map on the table, and studied the situation.

Then Ahmed found that he was completely surrounded. Unless he could conjure tens of thousands of troops out of thin air that did not require military spending, he would have no chance of winning except asking for help and could only linger among the conflicts between other forces.

But who to turn to for help? Mamluk Sultan Qatebey was seriously ill and had only a few years to live. The sultan, who had defeated the Ottomans at Adana, saw his rule significantly shaken in the last years of his life. Poor health and a corrupt bureaucracy brought factional strife back to the surface. The plague of 1492 devastated Cairo and The authority of the Sultan and the central authority continued to decline, which significantly weakened the national power of the Burgi dynasty. It can be said that the storm is about to come.

Apart from the Mamluks, the only major power capable of intervening in the war was the Ottomans. But Ahmed, a descendant of Uzon Hassan, said he refused to cooperate with his sworn enemy.

After realizing there was nothing he could do, Ahmed chose to wait and see.

Armenia, near Nakhichevan, a medium-sized red-headed cavalry is stationed here, waiting for the surrender of local officials.

The matter of Ismail did not delay Ibrahim much time. A few days after the massacre of the envoys, the religious group organized all the troops on hand to attack Ahmed's territory, but Ibrahim did not Instead of directly besieging Tabriz, sweep Armenia first to clear a road.

Prior to this, Turgut had used alliances to develop a spy network in Ahmed's territory. By sending personnel, buying off bureaucrats, etc., apart from Anatolia, almost every city in Armenia and Azerbaijan had a spy network. Regiment of spies. To this end, Ibrahim also spent a lot of money, including a lot of financial support from Ahmed. This wave of operations can be regarded as being taken from Ahmed and "used" by Ahmed. Virtue.

The city gate opened, and the scouts monitoring the city gate hurried back to the camp and reported to the officers.

The city's consul arrived at the camp with sincerity in surrender, and the officer responsible for receiving it readily accepted it. Then, under the watchful eyes of the Armenians, the red-headed cavalry rode in two rows on the slightly narrow streets, taking control of the city. All important buildings.

With the fall of Nakhichevan, there were no strongholds north of the Aras River that could block Ibrahim's advance into Tabriz.

However, Ibrahim did not rush to march south. Instead, he stopped in Yerevan for a while, calmed these Armenians a little through military suppression, and stabilized the presence of the order here.

These bureaucrats who were loyal to the new master seemed very cooperative, and Ibrahim also tacitly agreed to keep the bureaucracy as it was, as long as taxes could be paid on time and no rebellion would occur.

After arranging the completed affairs, Ibrahim, who had recovered some blood through the Georgian spoils and the Yerevan treasury, turned his attention to military expansion. The first is the bow holder. The number of people looking for Shuyuan www.zhaｏshuyuan.com has been expanded from 500 to 1,000. They are still selected from various tribes, but Ibrahim has expanded the recruitment scope to include non-red-headed tribes. The recruitment scope was limited, but due to religious reasons, there were very few people willing to serve for the cult, so in the end they still poached a lot of corners.

The size of Gulam has not changed. After all, there are no new prisoners of war imported, and Ibrahim has just conquered half of Armenia, so it is difficult to recruit locals.

As for the red heads, although they have been recruited for half a year, there are still a lot of new blood coming every month. In a month or two, the number of red heads will exceed 10,000 again.

After ordering his troops and finding that his military strength exceeded 10,000, Ibrahim became bold and prepared to directly claim the title of King of Kings after taking Tabriz.

South of Tehran, Alwand stepped on the ruins of Rey City, which was completely abandoned due to the Mongols, and looked northward at this emerging commercial town. It cannot be said that there are no city defenses in Tehran in the distance, but compared with famous cities such as Tabriz, they are like nuts and tall nuts covered with pumpkins and covered with ground thorns. Who can stop more zombies? Moreover, Tehran's city walls have already A gap was created by the trebuchet, and Alvand's soldiers were pouring into it through the gap.

After taking Tehran, Alvand's army will go straight to Tabriz. Alvand was pleasantly surprised when he heard that Ahmed's main force was no longer in Tabriz. He wished he could go to Azerbaijan immediately and become her master. .

However, Alwand's competitor is much closer to Tabriz than him. If the dervish who destroyed Shirwanshah in one battle captured Tabriz before the army arrived, then the fat man would Instantly turned into bones.

Alvand weighed it up and decided to march into Azerbaijan quickly. After leaving a small number of troops to maintain stability, the army broke camp and headed west.