The Patna region of Bihar, the eastern border province of the Mughal Empire, was the main battlefield of the Mughal confrontation with the Bengali rebels.

Bordered to the west by the Mughals and to the east by Bengal, on the southern bank of the Ganges Valley, was the gateway for the Mughal army to enter Bengal, and at this moment, the royal army had marched eastward, but the fortress was still under siege.

While the elite soldiers of the royal army entered the land, the Mughal king Akbar was anxiously waiting for a reply from the Ming Dynasty, and at this moment he did not know that an elite scout team under his command pursued the rout army into the heart of Bengal and almost killed the abbot of Western Shaolin from the Ming Dynasty on the battlefield.

At this time, Akbar, who proclaimed himself the King of Justice, was not mentally prepared to attack the Bengali nobles who were supported by the 'Ming merchants' - his Portuguese advisers explained to him the situation in the Indian Ocean, and also let him know that the Portuguese who had worked closely with him in the past were not reliable at this time.

Paradoxically, Akbar of the Mughal entered into an agreement with the Christians to give them access to the Mughals, but the purpose of the agreement was to provide safe passage for Portuguese ships at sea to protect the holy sites of Mecca.

Now the Portuguese could no longer achieve the purpose of Akbar, and without the permission of the Western military government, they could not even guarantee their own safety when they left Goa; What's more, even if he was allowed to travel by warrant from the Minister of the West, the navigation of the Red Bay was in the hands of another Ming man, the old capital of Lin Feng, the king of the Ming and Han dynasties.

Without the protection of the Portuguese, most of the ships that sailed into the Red Bay would be able to pay taxes according to the heads of passengers and the weight of the cargo, but if the Portuguese ships were allowed to protect them, even the people and goods would be eaten and wiped clean.

Of course, this was only a hypothesis, and no Portuguese would dare to sail to the pirate-infested waters of the Han Kingdom.

The Portuguese, who once fought with Spain in the deep sea with a small country and great ambition, did business to carve up the world, colonized and destroyed several countries in the South Seas, was forced by Lin Afeng to become a little daughter-in-law on land, and could only be active in various battlefields in the subcontinent as a hired foreign gun team.

At this time, the fortress of Patna, which was at the forefront of the battle between the two armies, was still in the hands of the leader of the Bengali rebels, and the local Afghan lord had died on the way out of the city to meet the battle, and it was a close confidant of the late lord, an old black man from Ethiopia named Hajim, who was born as a slave.

Afghan lords or tribal chiefs from Persia ruled the countries of India, and the long period of maritime trade led to frequent movement of ethnic groups, and the local military system was heavily dependent on black slave armies from Albania.

These blacks were sold into slavery by Arab traders to Indian or Persian aristocrats, and most of the men were raised as warriors from an early age, receiving a share of the money and eventually being loyal to their masters.

What is special is this 'life' is the life of its master, who will be free when he dies and retain the right to continue to serve the army.

Although they are unlikely to become the new nobles, they still have the opportunity to become the new military governors of a country, city-state, or tribe, and since the Indian military governors of this era have only one word, they will be called captains for the time being.

Hajim is a second-generation westerner from the Indian subcontinent and has lived as a soldier since he was a child, taking over the fortress and defenders left behind by his master. However, due to the frustration of his master's attack out of the city, most of the defenders had fled eastward, and now there were less than 400 slave troops left in the city who wanted to avenge their master.

The situation was not in Hakim's favor, and a few days earlier he had watched the Mughal army from the city sweep through Patna to the east, they had lost the opportunity to retreat eastward, and the Mughal royal army had burned the oarboats placed on the south bank of the Ganges, and they had nowhere to flee but to hope that the Bengali nobles in the east would repel the Mughal army and push the line back to Patna.

But there are two prerequisites, one is that they can survive until that time, and in order to prevent them from attacking the baggage route on the Ganges, the Mughal royal army specially left two thousand captains to dig trenches outside the city to block the fortress.

Second, in Hajim's mind, the Bengali nobles could not defeat the Mughal army, and the Bengali rebel army was almost immediately crushed on a hundred-mile front.

The main force of the Mughal army was very elite cavalry and a large number of local conscripted infantry wearing trousers and wielding short swords and axes, as well as a small number of elephants and artillery.

In the past, the elite Mughal cavalry was feared on the battlefield, and the Timurid knights, who were all dressed in armor, were skilled in riding and archery, and could fight and charge; However, in recent years, due to the poor relationship between the ruler Akbar and his cousin Mirza, the proportion of Turkic horsemen in the army has been decreasing, and the Rajputs of northern India have been the main source of Mughal cavalry.

The new Mughal cavalry was more concerned with the speed of the charge, and the slightly poorer than the Turkic riders prevented them from purchasing Mongol-style armor for themselves and their horses, but they also possessed high helmets, chain mail, and goggles, and were as brave as the Turks on the battlefield.

Moreover, the Mughal infantry also had well-made muskets and artillery from the Ottomans, and even if the war elephants and artillery were dragged east by the royal army to attack more important towns, the Mughal infantry and cavalry left outside the fortress would still bring disaster to Hajim's more than 400 slave soldiers in the field.

In contrast to the Mughals, the eastern city-states could only use war elephants and hand-to-hand combat, as the post-rebel trade environment left them short of gunpowder.

In the west, there were pirates of the Yu Han Kingdom, there were no longer Arab merchants here, and even the entire coast of India became the forbidden territory of the Ming merchants, who sold finely woven cotton cloth, silk, porcelain, tea and all kinds of countless hardware and crafts, and even influential people in the southwest Eryang military government such as the abbot of Tianshi would also sell a small number of well-made Franco cannons and arquebus guns.

But in the Ming Dynasty, gunpowder and raw materials are absolutely embargoed, and no one dares to touch them except for the Siyang Military Government.

So, what's the use of selling more artillery?

Without the Chinese snow of the Arabs, the Chinese salt of the Persians, and the sulfur of the east side of the Strait of Malacca, the charcoal sticks could not have exploded.

Day after day of the siege, the Mughal cavalry outside the city often rode their tall and slender Arab horses across the trenches and shouted loudly, and the city ran out of food, much to Hajim's great sorrow.

That night, Hadhim, who had fallen asleep with his sword scabbard in his arms, was awakened by the noise of the city, and the anxious captain reported to him that someone had shot a letter to the city in the dark with a bow and arrow tied to the torch at the head of the city.

The letter, written in Bengali language, asked him to distribute plain turbans to his men early tomorrow morning, to invite the besieging army to fight, and to shake the torches on the north wall of the fortress after seeing the letter, so that reinforcements would be received by the Ganges after the battle.

The slave soldiers stood suspiciously at the head of the city, and Hajim held the shaft of an arrow engraved with the Chinese character for 'Shaomuro Monk' with a knife, and lit a torch and looked north.

After a brief, suffocating calm, they saw the countless lights of the boats flickering in the dark Ganges River in the northeast night, and in the great shadows of those fleeting moments, the long banners of the ships were faintly visible.