From September to October of the fourth year of the Great Min Dynasty, the protracted war of Fujian and Arabia Yarmouk fought fiercely and bloodily in the wilderness not far from the confluence of the Yarmouk River, a tributary of the Jordan River, on the shores of the Galilee Sea in Western Asia.

The Fujian army is numerous and well-equipped, and this kind of positional warfare is the strong point of the Fujian people, and in the daily duel, it is often the Fujian army that penetrates the Arab trench position for one or two miles, and often kills the Arab army and almost loses its position.

However, before the critical season of danger and danger, the strength of these desert powerhouses will burst out, and the light cavalry will hedge against the heavy armored cavalry, and the rangers hovering outside the formation of the two armies are strangling each other like dragons, forcing the Damin commandos who have penetrated into it to retreat.

The cruelty of the war and the accumulated hatred have also reached the extreme, every time the Fujian army leaves prisoners of war in the Arab army, those tribal chieftains who have killed the red eyes always directly order the slaughter, but the strange thing is that the Arabs captured by the Great Min, if the king of Min knows, are all released.

This couldn't help but cause dissatisfaction among the officers and men of the Fujian army, until one day, Sheng Lianshan, who was full of complaints, pestered Li Jitang, the secretary of the military department, and his old man was about to have irregular menstruation, and the annoyed Li Jifang reluctantly said a word.

"What's wrong with letting those poor Arabs have a few more mouths to consume their food?"

This sentence made the army's heart calm, and when the Arab captives who had not pulled off their underwear were released, every general would gloat and curse: "Eat you poor devils!" ”

It is true that although the battle with the Arabs is fierce now, the decisive winner is who can survive to the end, laugh to the end, fight is a war, but fight for national strength, and then there is a deeper reason Li Ji did not explain.

The Arabs' treatment of prisoners of war is becoming more and more cruel, the more they can arouse the hatred of the soldiers under their command and the will to resist desperately, they will die anyway, and the release of Arab prisoners of war is to weaken the other party's will to fight to the death.

However, this reason is too cruel for his own soldiers, and Li Ji will not announce it no matter what.

During the day, the commandos of the Fujian army kept rushing into the Arab trenches to weaken the other side with fire oil and bombs, and at midnight, Li Rang's black night raiders touched the vicinity of the opponent's position, beat gongs and drums, set fire to kill, and sometimes used tiger squat artillery to shoot indiscriminately at Hussein's trench.

The lethality of this kind of night attack is quite limited, and a few Arab soldiers have not been killed for a month, but the blow to morale is amazing, after a brutal bloody battle during the day, the soldiers are nervous, and at night they have to worry about who is likely to be stabbed in the neck of the blade, the bomb that fell on the head, in the continuous battle for more than a month, many Arab soldiers have a nervous breakdown, some no longer listen to the command during the day, regardless of the madness to the Fujian army trench, until they are killed by the Fujian people, such a madman corpse has accumulated a layer in the trench.

More are deserters, the Arabs are so free in life, endure cruel bloody battles, often fight when they fight desperately, but they can't endure hard fighting, the history ****** great expansion of morale, in addition to the siege, the big decisive battle is hardly more than a week, and the previous siege of Constantinople, the Romans swore to resist to the death, but often the Arabs were defeated, and the empire did not capture Constantinople for hundreds of years.

Hordes of deserters, even entire tribes fleeing back to Mecca and Medina, demoralized, lacking supplies, and plagues plagued the Arab armies all the time, and on several occasions the chieftains and elders gathered to demand a decisive battle with the Great Min, but the caliph Hussein never led his troops.

Hussein's delay made it seem possible for the war to drag on indefinitely.

However, an accident from thousands of miles away broke the deadlock.

…………

Soldiers, the major events of the country, the place of life and death, and the way of survival, affect the whole body. This is vividly reflected in today's Damin. On the front line of the Yarmouk River, millions of troops are fighting, but the busiest are the various coastal ports in the Syrian provinces, especially the important naval base of Cyprus, which has just been received by the Great Min Naval Division, but has passed through the hands of several empires.

Although the port left by the Arabs was burned once by the Royal Navy of Constantine IV, the stone foundation of the port was not destroyed, and the dock had to be rebuilt on it.

Although it has only been repaired for a few months by the Great Min Navy, the port of Cyprus has become one of the busiest ports in the Great Min, even busier than some ports on the coast of the Persian Gulf and Tianzhu, second only to the port of Suez, the port of Fuzhou, and the port of Quanzhou.

Because the trade of the entire eastern shore of the Mediterranean is concentrated here, the port conditions here are so good, the first island arc fortress that guards the coastline, the sea is stable and the reefs are scarce, and the goods transported here by sea ships from Rome, from North Africa, and Spain can be unloaded on the spot, and then transported to Damascus by small boats, saving a small half of the journey.

Recently, the most prosperous is the grain trade, supplying millions of soldiers to fight on the front line, the grain and grass needed is undoubtedly astronomical, if it is Li Shimin's era, the country estimates that it needs to prepare for more than ten years, and then transport the mountains to the front line at the cost of tens of thousands of dollars per day, this method is cumbersome, old, and the cost is extremely high, and during the conquest of Goguryeo, if it were not for Li Jie's help to transport grain, Li Shimin's army would not have to starve until the New Year.

In the territory of Great Fujian, almost all grain was purchased by the state, and then handed over to a trusted chamber of commerce at a higher price to be trafficked, sold to the metropolis or other provinces where food was scarce, or transported to the front.

The businessmen's budget-conscious transportation is much stronger than the people's rough and rough transportation, and the hands and feet of eating and carrying are much stronger, which greatly reduces unnecessary losses.

At the beginning, the Great Min only negotiated with Egypt to buy the wheat produced in the rich land of the Nile, and the commercial houses in the Great Min were responsible for transporting it, and every load of military food arrived in Hong Kong, and even the officials of the Great Min did not need to give money, and directly issued some other commodity tax exemption documents or licenses such as salt and iron quotations were enough to make many merchants happy.

This preferential policy also attracted some windfalls, knowing that the Great Min needed military rations, even the merchants of the enemy countries such as Carthage in North Africa and Athens in Greece also gathered and brought a whole shipload of grain to support the war in the Great Min, which caught the officials in charge of collecting grain at the port a little unprepared.

Originally, I was afraid that there would not be enough food to eat, but now I have a feeling of buying too much.

"Stick this way! Stop here! ”

Early in the morning, on the side near the eastern Mediterranean, the ships on the shore formed a long line, so that the port patrol team had to wave small red flags like the uncle in the bus stop, and arrange "parking spaces" for these ships.

The clinking of anchors on the board, the chattering of merchants and tax collectors, the shouting of porters carrying heavy boxes into the warehouse, this scene of life sketches full of market atmosphere is full of fun, and if there is a certain opera artist who squats here every day, perhaps many popular life comedy will be mass-produced by a dozen.

It is a pity that Lu Ning, the ambassador of Cyprus, is a rough man, and he has no artistic cells at all, and the chaotic port does not attract the slightest interest to him, standing in front of the window on the second floor of the town guard's mansion, a pair of binoculars are always staring at the boundless sea level.

Lu Ning's heart was very worried, the last time, the Roman Empire's Athenian fleet attacked the outer port of Antioch, rescued Constantine IV, not to mention, and burned more than 120 large and small merchant ships, for this reason, the Admiral of the Navy, his immediate boss Liu Renliang transferred a 50-meter Sea Soul-class Qi ship from the Cypriot Naval Division base as the flagship, more than 30 30-meter Fu ships, and the Qi ship formation established the Antioch fleet, which weakened the strength of the Cypriot Naval Division by almost a quarter.

Originally, this was nothing, because in the Mediterranean, the Suez, the most powerful fleet of the Great Min, was not far from Cyprus, and the two places were horns of each other.

However, just a few days ago, the Athenian navy of Eastern Rome appeared again on the coast of Asia Minor, less than three hundred nautical miles from Antioch, and the last time it was resented by Constantine IV, Admiral Liu Renliang almost led the force of the nest to pursue, this is the fifth day that the main force has gone, and no news has been transmitted back at all, which makes Lu Ning, who is the guard of the frontier, very uneasy.

The sea seemed to be forever unchanged, the vague sky and water were rippling with waves, and after looking at it for an hour, Lu Ning's eyes were dizzy, and he had to put down the binoculars, sit back at the desk and rub his eyes.

"My lord, let's have some tea."

The treatment of the sailors is obviously much better than that of the army, the fleet cruises between the oceans, and a little entrainment of some private goods is enough to fill the small treasury of each detachment.

The female secretary handed over the teacup, if it was in the past, Lu Ning, the boss who was born in a rough background, would definitely tell two yellow jokes, and the provocative female secretary's face was crimson, but today he really didn't have any thoughts, he just sighed for a long time, and the short-term teacup taste was poured with chewing wax.

"Does Admiral Liu have any news back?"

The female secretary, who was rarely relieved, was surprised by the rare honesty of her boss, and answered dutifully.

"Report to my lord, Admiral Liu has no news today, but a fleet from Huanggang has greeted me in advance and arrived at my West Cyprus port around noon today."

Huanggang is the port built by Zhong Huang in the original location of Venice, although it is not specified, the identity of this graceful beautiful woman Min Wang's mistress is still an undisclosed secret in the upper echelons of Da Min, Zhong Huang's fleet is coming, and he Lu Ning also has to go to meet it in person, which makes the already upset Cypriot town guard even more irritable, and waved his hand impatiently: "Got it, you go first." ”

glanced at her boss in surprise again, and the female secretary retreated with interest.

Sending away the female secretary, Lu Ning once again picked up the binoculars and looked at the vast sea, this time, the sea was no longer so monotonous, a rather magnificent Greek Mondello sail oars and boats slowly appeared in sight, centipede-like rows of oars in the sea water rowed white waves.

"Shopkeeper Zhong's net worth is solid enough." Rubbing his eyes jealously and muttering, Lu Ningxuan turned his attention elsewhere, looking forward to Liu Dashuai's fleet returning sooner.

didn't look at it for a while, Leng Buding moved the telescope, but a piece of golden light suddenly shook into Lu Ning's sunken eye sockets, stabbing him and covering his eyes suddenly, but immediately, regardless of the tears gushing out, Lu Ning stared at the Zhong family's fleet again.

In front of the ship, Zhong Huang's phoenix flag was right, fluttering in the sea breeze as if it had come to life, but on the top deck of the ship, patches of metallic luster were constantly reflected, and after being stunned for a few seconds, Lu Ning angrily slammed the telescope to the ground.

"******, it's a warship!"

The Cypriot envoy hurried down the wooden staircase, and in a moment the shrill sirens rang out throughout the harbor, shaking the seagulls on the masts in fright............