In the early morning of the next day, the battle in the castle ended, because it was not clear what happened in the castle, what caused it, and the siege was not ready, Zhao Ziliang did not act rashly.

Unexpectedly, just after breakfast in the morning, a white flag was erected on the arrow tower at the main gate of the castle, and the white flag kept shaking, and it didn't take long for the main gate of the castle to open, and several big cannibals walked out with swords hanging swords on their waists.

Zhao Ziliang and the generals and officials glanced at each other, and their eyes showed surprise and surprise.

These big cannibals have words engraved on their foreheads, they are all slaves of the Eastern Romans, it turns out that the internal strife in the castle last night was caused by the slaves, and the slaves fought with the Eastern Roman defenders.

The slave who walked in front of Zhao Ziliang came to Zhao Ziliang and saluted Zhao Ziliang according to the etiquette of the big cannibal, and said: "Respected King of Western Qin, Your Majesty the Regent of the Tang Empire: The villain is Delihera, the Byzantines came here to kill our relatives, plunder our property, rob our fields, and turn us into slavery and slavery. A few days ago, we learned that His Majesty sent someone to send the contents of the letter of persuasion, we do not want to die, so we rose up last night to rebel against the enslavement of the Eastern Romans, and now all the Eastern Romans in the castle have been killed by us, and all the castles are under our control, and we all feel that we can surrender to your honorable Majesty after discussion, but I wonder if Your Majesty will be able to fulfill the promise you made in the letter of surrender? ”

After listening to the words of the translator, Zhao Ziliang couldn't help but sigh in his heart, but he didn't expect that he inadvertently asked Li Muchen to write a letter of persuasion to surrender, but he was able to make the slaves in the castle resist and kill all the Eastern Roman troops, and turned his head to recruit Li Muchen, Li Muchen hurriedly beat his horse and walked to Zhao Ziliang's side.

"What conditions did you promise them in your letter of surrender?"

Li Muchen thought for a while and said in a low voice: "My lord, I said in my letter of persuasion that as long as they surrender, they can all return home safely, and the slaves can also restore their free status, and they can return their taken land and property to them, just these few conditions!" ”

Zhao Ziliang was relieved, and said to the big cannibal: "De Lihera, right? As long as you open the city and surrender, of course this king will fulfill his promise, about the integrity of this king, you can ask the people near these castles such as Deir ez-Zor and Kara Castle, they also became slaves of the Byzantines, and it was the arrival of this king and my Western Qin army that allowed them to regain their freedom and return all the land that originally belonged to them! ”

De Lihera whispered a few words to a few slaves around him, and then saluted Zhao Ziliang again: "Okay, respected majesty, we surrender to you!" ”

The next thing was simple, De Lihela and a few people around him returned to the castle, and then the castle gate was opened, and all the slaves put down their weapons and lined up in several columns to walk out of the castle.

Everyone didn't expect that this castle, which was originally difficult to attack, would be taken down so easily, even Zhao Ziliang felt a little incredible, but in the eyes of the ministers and generals, Zhao Ziliang's move of "attacking the heart first" can be described as superb.

Previously, in order to fight Zhao Ziliang, Niserous had evacuated the garrisons around Beroeia and other places in northern Syria, and now that Beroeia was taken, the Western Qin army occupied northern Syria without much effort, and its sphere of influence unanimously extended to Iskenderen on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean, which was already in the territory of the Antioch region.

It took only half a month for Zhao Ziliang to send troops to occupy northern Syria and part of Antioch, completely cutting off the land communication channels between the Eastern Roman Empire and Syria and Canaan, leaving only the sea communication channel.

In view of the limited military budget for this war, Zhao Ziliang did not waste any more time, and after the rest of the army, he decided to lead his army to attack southern Syria, but before that he had to deploy the defenses of northern Syria.

On the tenth day of February, Zhao Ziliang convened the generals and officials of the army to discuss the matter.

"In view of the limited military expenditure for this war, we can no longer delay time, and there is no need to delay, during this time, the soldiers basically received the territory smoothly and did not fight any battles, so this king decided to lead the army south in two days, but it is necessary to leave some troops here to guard against the Anatonian garrison and the Antioch garrison of the Eastern Roman Empire! I wonder which general would want to stay? ”

For generals, the coolest thing in the war is to lead the army to attack, as for defense, no one wants to do this kind of drudgery, defense is equivalent to passive beating, even military generals who are good at defense are generally unwilling, because they have been defending too aggrieved.

After half a ring, no general stood up to take over this task, Zhao Ziliang looked at it, his face was a little unhappy, so he had to order: "Fifteen, you are Lao Jiang, you have rich experience in leading troops in combat, and you are old and heavy, so lead the troops to stay in the town, leave the opportunity to the young people, this king will give you 10,000 horses, guard here!" ”

Xuan 15 was ordered by Zhao Ziliang, so he had to stand up and agree: "Yes, king!" ”

On February 12, Zhao Ziliang led the army along the south of the Assi River, due to the huge number of troops, Syria is full of deserts, deserts and salt, many places can not find a drop of water for several days, so it is necessary to march along the water source, which is the principle that must be followed in the desert area.

Just when Zhao Ziliang led his army south, the Syrian governor Niserus finally returned to Damascus, which can be said to have escaped death, but he soon received the news that Beroeia had fallen and the main force of the Western Qin army was heading south, which made him like a hot ant again.

Nisserus is not a fool, nor is he a person who sits idly by, he knows that with the strength of the garrisons in southern Syria now, they will only be broken by the Western Qin army, and there is no power to resist at all, if you want to fight against the Western Qin army, the only way is to concentrate your forces to have a chance of winning, otherwise you can only be attacked by the Western Qin army again under the city of Damascus.

At the suggestion of his subordinates, Nisserus quickly ordered the garrisons to abandon the towns and fortresses they had been stationed in, and assemble at Damascus to prepare for another large-scale battle with the Western Qin army.

Zhao Ziliang soon got the news, and he ordered the army to increase the speed of its march, intending to engage Niserus before he gathered all his forces, so that the Western Qin army would face much fewer enemies, and if it waited for Niserus to gather all its forces, the Western Qin army would inevitably suffer much greater losses in the battle with it.

The speed of the Western Qin army's acceleration was quickly noticed by Nisserus, he knew that the Western Qin army must have guessed his plan, in fact, he gathered all his troops to Damascus and couldn't hide Zhao Ziliang at all, as long as there was a normal person in the Western Qin army, he would guess his plan from the emptiness of troops from all over the country, for this reason, he had to order to speed up the assembly again, and strive to gather all the troops before the Western Qin army arrived.

Damascus.

"The army that came from all over the country has reached 18,000 people, but this number is far from enough, the Western Qin army has a main force of 20,000 people, and a large number of servant troops, the number of these servant troops is only 50,000, only a lot more! In addition, they also have a partial division, the general of the army is called Li Siye, who has now captured the hungry Amman region, although there is no big threat to us for the time being, but if they and the men and horses of the King of Western Qin attack us from two directions, we have almost no chance of winning! I think we can send troops to defeat Li Siye's partial division before the army of the King of Western Qin arrives, and then concentrate our forces on dealing with the army of the King of Western Qin! A subordinate general reported to Niserus.

Niserus was noncommittal about this plan of battle, asking: "How many more people have come from all over the country?" ”

The general replied: "At least 20,000 more!" ”

"The speed of the assembly is too slow!" Niserus frowned, and his worried look made the generals unhappy.

At this moment an official quickly approached from outside and saluted Niserus: "Your Excellency, from Constantinople has sent the will of His Majesty the Emperor!" ”

Niserus involuntarily stood up, and the others also cheered up, "What is the will of His Majesty the Emperor?" ”

The official took out an order and said: "His Majesty the Emperor has already known about the Western Qin army's attack on Syria and Damascus, in view of the fact that Constantinople is now being attacked by the Bolgars, and the siege has been going on for a long time, the Eastern Roman Empire must preserve its strength, and it cannot fight on two fronts, nor can it be fully developed with Western Qin for the time being, so His Majesty the Emperor orders your Excellency to immediately lead the army to withdraw to Constantinople from sea and land, and try to take away everything that can be taken away, and abandon what you can't take away, and quickly withdraw from the sea before the arrival of the Western Qin army!" ”

When Nisserus heard this, he was about to announce to his generals and officials that he would immediately prepare to retreat back to Constantinople from the sea, but he immediately swallowed back the words that came to his lips, and he thought of a question and asked: "Even if we withdraw, the Western Qin army will not necessarily return to a truce after occupying all of Syria and Canaan, if they continue to attack the Anatonian region north, then won't our retreat be tantamount to ceding Syria and Canaan to Western Qin?" I'm afraid that Xi Qin won't necessarily appreciate it, right? ”

The generals and officials nodded when they heard this.

But he saw that the official said: "His Majesty the Emperor has already considered this matter, and has made arrangements, Your Excellency does not need to worry about this, what you have to do now is to lead everyone to retreat from the sea back to Constantinople." Moreover, Syria and Canaan have been chaotic places since ancient times, there are too many tribes, too mixed beliefs, and the local people are fierce, even if the Western Qin army occupies this area, they must make great efforts to govern it, this is a rich and fertile land, but also a huge quagmire, they may not be a good thing for them to occupy this place, they will not have time to go to trouble with my Eastern Roman Empire! ”

At this time, the Western Qin army had already captured the city of Homs, and Zhao Ziliang stood up in surprise after receiving Wang Can's report: "What? You say that the Eastern Roman army, led by Nisserus, was advancing rapidly towards Beirut on the Mediterranean Sea? ”

Wang Can said: "Yes, and they also carry a lot of baggage, our spies in Beirut found that a large number of sea ships are gathering on the seashore, and after inquiry, these ships have been forcibly recruited to the Beirut seaport!" ”

Zhao Ziliang was stunned for a while, "It seems that Niserus is going to lead the army to withdraw to Constantinople by sea, although he is the governor of Syria, but if he wants to give up Syria and withdraw to Constantinople, he will never dare without the will of Leo IV, so he is only afraid that this withdrawal is an order from Leo IV!" But that's fine, since Leo IV knew each other so well, how could this king not accept his affection? Pass the order to go down, speed up the pace and take Damascus as soon as possible! ”

"No!"