The Sun and the Lion

Just as Gaurabeli was preparing to defeat the Marash dynasty in one fell swoop, something happened on Ibrahim's side. Alwand, the owner of Shiraz, took advantage of Ibrahim to send out all his troops. A large army raided Tabriz.

The name of Alvand's expedition was not just for the throne - thanks to Ibrahim's oppression of Sunnis, the Sunni clerics in the surrounding regimes were full of resentment towards him. They continued to encourage their monarchs and Ibrahim is an enemy. Alvand's expedition received widespread support from the clergy, allowing him to get help from almost all mosques in raising military expenses and recruiting troops, and also gave this military operation an aura of jihad.

Although Tabriz has not yet been conquered, Alvand has already built a camp, raided the surrounding countryside, captured all the Shia priests he found, and gathered them in the siege camp.

Idle was idle. Before the siege equipment was completed, Alvand wrote a letter to provoke Ibrahim: "You are a beggar heretic dervish, a Kurdish bastard who has stained your family bloodline. You are too honest." Stay in Buriz and watch me send the Lord's warriors one by one to liberate the cities enslaved by heretics!" Alvand had no intention of persuading him to surrender. First, the priests had already incited anti-Shia sentiments in the army. Many of them Officers also became fanatical jihadists.

The second is that he is very disgusted with the Safavid order, and feels that everyone knows that he cannot tolerate Ibrahim. Unless Ibrahim is crazy, he will not believe his words of persuasion.

In the palace of Tabriz, after Ibrahim saw the insulting letter, he just crumpled it into a ball of paper and threw it out: "Meaningless garbage, that's how I treat garbage." Then he began to write a reply.

"My dear cousin, why do you still refuse to recognize my rule and convert to the true faith today? Instead, you want to fight with your brothers? Did you lose not enough warriors and wives in Wuyang? The Lord does not want to see his fellow brothers. Killing each other and flowing into rivers of blood, you should think about it carefully, put down your sword, send away those false believers, and then return to the embrace of the Lord and submit to my rule..."

After sending this fruitless letter of persuasion to surrender, Ibrahim had to face the problem of weak city defense forces.

The red heads were given to Golaberi and Romruhan Mustafa, and the Georgians followed Heraclius to attack Urmia and Van. The only regular troops he could call upon were bowmen and Armenians.

His first thought was to bring the army back, but there was no choice. The defenders in the direction of Mosul could not withdraw. The battle report sent by Romru Khan showed that Ahmed, the "orthodox Sultan" of the Aries Dynasty, had returned to the army. It gathered all the forces in its hands and continued to attack Mosul and Erbil, not even caring about Armenia and Kurdistan.

The Georgians under Heraclius had already built a siege camp, and the supplies they needed had been transported out. If they were to recover them, not only would all their efforts be wasted and time be wasted, but the army with a large amount of military supplies would not be able to run fast, waiting for them To relieve the siege, next year’s Nowruz is probably over.

The only option is to go to Gaolaberi in Tabaristan. He has a strong military force, so recalling him at this time does not mean that all the efforts have been wasted.

After letting his servants take Ismail away, Ibrahim asked Kamran to invite the great emir and the two khans who were staying in the capital to the study to discuss the plan to defend the city.

Hussein first asked his attendants to take out a map of Tabriz and the surrounding areas, and then began to repeat the military information that everyone present knew, but he emphasized the geographical location of Tabriz.

To the north and south of Tabriz are mountains that cannot be passed by the army. There is only one avenue running roughly northwest-southeast through the city. To the west is Lake Urmia, and to the east are the mountains of Azerbaijan.

In short, Alvand's army only set up camp east of Tabriz because there was no passable road and he could not block the road to the west.

Therefore, there is nothing to worry about in this siege.

But necessary work still needs to be done. Hussein's task is to coordinate the city's defense. Find Shuyuan www.zhaoshuyuan. com Ibrahim authorized him to mobilize citizens to form a militia, and the two khans used their status to recruit warriors from nearby Turkmen tribes.

The letter to Gaura Beli was also sent out quickly, and Ibrahim even arranged the marching route for him: leaving Tabaristan from the mountain road south of Rasht, to Qazvin, and then along the The main road goes west, reaching Uyan before Alvand notices, so that Alvand and his army can be blocked in the narrow mountain road between Tabriz and Uyan.

This section of the journey is nearly 500 kilometers, which is less than a week for the cavalry. Adding in the time it takes for the messenger to deliver the message, Ibrahim only needs to wait less than two weeks to end Alvand's political life with the reinforcements. and biological life.

At this time, the guard guarding the door of the room reported to Ibrahim: "Your Majesty, the herald of the bow bearer has arrived."

Everyone in the room was a little curious, and Ibrahim ordered the herald to come in.

"Your Majesty." After the herald came in, he first saluted everyone, and then said in a tone trembling with anger: "Those heretics want to torture and kill the teachers..."

Upon hearing this, Ibrahim laid his hand on the scabbard. Although the herald only said one sentence, it was enough to make people understand the whole thing; his own priests were to be publicly executed by the enemy in the city in retaliation.

"Since the enemy wants to achieve some goals by executing priests, we cannot let the enemy succeed." Ibrahim looked a little ugly. For him who lacked clergy, any loss would be very huge.

"Do you want to go out and make a raid to rescue those priests?"

"Go to the city head first and take a look." Ibrahim drank the drink, then stood up and went to the city wall under the guidance of the guards.