The Luti Desert (i.e. Lute Desert) is the hottest place in the world, sometimes the temperature can reach more than 70 degrees during the day, and it is endless as far as the eye can see, no beasts and humans can survive here, but not every day the temperature can reach this high, if you are lucky, you can also cross this desert when the temperature is not high. Pen & Fun & Pavilion www.biquge.info Marco Polo once recorded in his travelogue that through this desert, birds and beasts are extinct, not an inch of grass grows, and the water source encountered in the desert must not be drinkable, otherwise it will cause severe diarrhea, if you are unlucky to encounter high temperature weather, even if the army is fully prepared in this desert may be roasted alive.

Ziad was about to leave, and Boshilin stopped him: "Wait! ”

Ziad paused and saluted Boshilin: "Is there anything else the general has to explain to me?" ”

And Bo Xilin West Road looked at the other ministers and generals in the hall, and said to Ziade: "Crossing the Luti Desert is not a joke, if you are unlucky, it is very likely that all the brothers in the army will be buried in the desert, before setting off, you must send someone to find out the temperature in the desert these days, and you must also observe and feel the temperature changes at any time during the march, once you find that something is wrong, you would rather go back than never take risks, this is a full 20,000 elites!" This is number one; Second, the Oriental people's combat thinking is completely different from ours, in order to defeat them, we must understand their military thinking, the military thinking of the Tang people on the whole is still more than defense, insufficient aggressiveness, which is determined by the nature of civilization they have, but the Western Qin is different from the Tang people in the Central Plains, the Western Qin's army composition is mostly cavalry, a small part is infantry, but they are different from the nomadic tribes who have no fixed residence, they have a fixed residence and a strong city, so they are full of offensive and strategic, but the defense is not weak, I heard that the gates of all their cities are never closed, but it is a time of war, and Zaheidan is a border town, maybe they will temporarily change the rules, about this, I think you can take advantage of it, if you can use their habit of not closing the city gates, it would be best if the raid was successful, if they change their habits, you can only think of other ways, in short, you have to act at the opportunity! We use the Eagle to contact and report any situation to this side immediately! ”

"Good!" Ziyad nodded in agreement, and then asked, "After I capture Zaheidan, when will I lead the army to fight with you against the army of the King of Western Qin?" ”

And Bo Xilin said: "After you capture Zaheidan, quickly report the news to this side, and then tell you when you will attack the army of the King of Western Qin together!" ”

"Understood!" Ziyad saluted Caliph Mansur and left.

The Ruti Desert is the territory of the Great Cannibals, and when there will be high temperatures and when it will be relatively safe, the Persians who live around can still find some patterns, although it is not so accurate, but it is still possible to draw some conclusions through subtle observations.

On the 26th of September, Ziyad led an army of 20,000 men from the castle of Behedashir and marched eastward, the road was not easy, although everyone rode horses, but in the western desert area of the Ruti Desert, the speed of the march could not be fast in any way, once the speed was accelerated, the horses and men could not stand it, and the temperature was significantly higher than in other areas.

In the first three days after the departure of the journey, Ziad and his 20,000 great food army went well, there was not a single lake on the way, there were some scattered drought-tolerant trees on the way, and occasionally a few salt sawa appeared, the water of the salt sawa looked cool and clear, but in fact it could not be quoted, there were many great food soldiers who did not believe in evil and quoted the water in the salt sawa, and the diarrhea did not stop, and in the extremely harsh environment of the Luti Desert, severe diarrhea occurred, which was simply fatal, and many people died in the following days.

Three days later, Ziad led the Great Eater Army into the heart of the Luti Desert, which was full of severely weathered parallel ravines that stretched for more than three hundred miles, some of which were more than twenty feet high. Along the way, lakes of various sizes appeared, and some trees grew around the lakes, which could be used by the army to rest and fetch water.

Ziad and his army were lucky, they did not encounter hot weather, and on the way they tried to rest and replenish water by the lake, a one-day march could cover more than 100 miles, and the 300-mile desert center was completed in two days.

For the next two days, the road was full of sandy beaches, like the Sahara Desert, some of which were dunes as high as 100 feet, and the city of Shulgaz was directly south of this beach.

On the seventh day, Ziyad and his 20,000 Great Food Army finally crossed the Luti Desert and arrived at the border between the Great Food Kingdom and the Western Qin State, and Zaheidan was fifteen miles east of the border.

Zaheidan is only a small border town, there is no tall city wall, the city wall is only two long high, but the city wall is made of fired red bricks, the city gate tower, arrow tower, watchtower, archery hole, wall battlement, hidden soldier hole, city defense equipment warehouse and other facilities are readily available.

Although from the current situation, the Great Food Army is not capable of fighting here, but this Zaheidan City has strengthened its vigilance, the original rule of never closing the city gate whether it is day or night, this time has also changed, the city gate is closed from the evening, and the city gate is only opened when the sun comes out the next day, and the city wall has also strengthened the garrison, there were no soldiers standing guard at the city gate, but now there are soldiers standing guard, and there are also patrols on the city wall, and there are soldiers patrolling on the watchtower.

Ziyad led his army to a halt at the edge of the desert thirty miles away from Zahedan, and ruled out the rangers to go to the vicinity of Zahedan to investigate the garrison of the Western Qin army in Zahedan.

After a day of exploring, Ziyad obtained the military disposition of Zahedan, and he summoned his lieutenant Daoud and several other generals to discuss how to capture Zahedan, and then waved his army to attack the Qin army in the southwest of Shulgaz City.

Adjutant Daoud said: "According to the news from the rangers, the Western Qin army is very well garrisoned in Zaheidan, and the vigilance is very high, after all, this is an important transit point on their supply line, it is difficult for us to sneak attack during the day, far away from their lookout post can find the figure of our army, if you want to achieve the purpose of the sneak attack, it is best to be at night, but there are many inconveniences in the night sneak attack, many times it is difficult to distinguish between the enemy and me, once the fight starts, it is likely to cause their own people to kill each other, in addition, We need to build siege weapons, and it will take time! ”

Ziad thought for a moment and said: "Our strength is more than six times that of the Western Qin defenders, but we don't have enough time to besiege the city, and a strong attack will cause us a lot of casualties and it will be time-consuming, so if we want to capture Zahedan City, we must use the method of sneak attack!" This is learned from the people of Western Qin, we have never had a precedent of sneak attack on the city in the past, this is really crazy! The sneak attack must be at night, otherwise it will not succeed! How many artisans did we bring? ”

The lieutenant Daoud said: "There are twenty people! ”

Ziad immediately ordered: "Okay, gather all of them to build siege engines, there are quite a few trees here, which can just come in handy." In addition, a large number of rangers will be sent to intercept and kill all the pedestrians and caravans who come to Zaheidan from other directions, of course, we can't let go of the pedestrians, caravans and supply teams of the Western Qin army from Zahedan, we must block all news here, but we only have one day at most to build siege equipment and one day to capture Zahedan, the longer the time drags on, the greater the possibility that the King of Western Qin will find that there is a problem with the supply line! Daoud, you can arrange these two things personally! ”

"Okay!"

In the past twenty years, Daoud, who had been defeated several times in the hands of Zhao Ziliang, has now become an old man, if he hadn't fought with the Western Qin army, I'm afraid he wouldn't have appeared here.

Daoud was the governor of Khorasan Province during the Umayyad Dynasty, fought many battles, and had a lot of experience in commanding troops, and his talent in military command may not be as good as that of Ziyad and Bohelin, but his talent in training, arming defense, and arranging other military affairs was incomparable to that of Ziyad, the generals of the Great Food Army, and he arranged the two things that Ziyad ordered properly.

On the fourth night of the first month of October, more than fifty ladders, the necessary siege equipment, had been built, which was enough for a sneak attack, and only when this thing was carried could it move quickly and would not be too troublesome.

In the middle of the night, Ziad personally led 10,000 infantry to quietly touch the city of Zahedan, originally Daoud wanted to lead troops to sneak attack, but Ziad did not agree, he only personally led troops to sneak attack to rest assured.

The bright moon is shining tonight, which is not good for a sneak attack, the moonlight is very bright, and there is a large area of sand around Zaheidan, and the radiation of the sand can easily expose their figures, Ziad is very lucky, knowing that more than a thousand people carrying fifty engineering ladders quietly touched the foot of the city wall, and the Western Qin soldiers who were napping on the city wall did not find it, and the remaining nine thousand infantry behind them also quietly approached the city wall.

But things will not always be smooth sailing, just when the front of the 1,000 big food soldiers was climbing the siege ladder, a big food soldier accidentally stepped on the air, slid down from the ladder, and smashed the two big food soldiers who were climbing up below, and the three of them screamed together and fell to the ground, the sound was too loud, and immediately alarmed several Western Qin soldiers standing guard on the city wall, they put their heads out of the wall battlements to see, I dropped the sky, the city was densely packed with figures, and there were a large number of siege ladders, Those who climbed to the top were almost at the top of the city wall.

"Enemy attack—" A terrible roar instantly spread over the entire western city wall.

"Dangdangdang······" There was a warning gong of the enemy attack, and the sound of the gong immediately sounded continuously on the city gate tower.

Ziade, who was commanding at the foot of the city wall, chuckled in his heart, knowing in his heart that the sneak attack had failed, and the only thing he could do now was to take advantage of the fact that the defensive forces of the Western Qin army were not yet in place, and immediately launch a strong attack, otherwise it would be useless to wait for all the defensive forces of the Western Qin to board the city wall.