"Send someone to inform the Marshal immediately that the Arab Empire's army has moved."
Just when the Arab Empire's army began to reorganize, Tang Dynasty spies had already observed them. They were around the city of Samarkand, and now everyone has basically guessed what was going on.
The armies of both sides would understand the surrounding situation and conduct sweeps around the military camps from time to time, but it was obvious that the Arab Empire was a little slow in doing so, allowing the Tang Dynasty spies to develop around the military camps.
In addition, the Tang Dynasty army is willing to spend money. In addition to these regular troops, there are dozens of spies recruited from the local area. We pay a lot of money, and there are people willing to do it even if it means losing their heads.
What's more, the Arab army was unpopular. They killed countless people in the surrounding area. Many people hated them to death and wished they would be defeated by the Tang army. So when the Tang army came looking for them, some people even refused to take any money and volunteered to be spies for the Tang army.
After receiving the news, Cheng Chuliang also prepared his troops and told them not to travel long distances to find this group of people. They only needed to send out five small teams and have them keep a close eye on them. We are not stupid enough to go to your place.
In fact, the army of the Arab Empire did not need to take the initiative to attack. They just needed to stay in Samarkand City honestly, and then the Tang army would have to find a way to attack. However, Prince Salaman was impatient. He was about to return to the Arab capital. He had to win a battle before going back. If he did not have any Tang prisoners, how could he go back?
In the military structure of the Arab Empire, prisoners can be said to be a very important part. It is not enough to just say that you have won the battle. You must have enough prisoners. If you do not have enough prisoners, then what you say may be a lie and not very credible.
And the prisoners had to be alive. There was once a general of the Arab Empire who, in order to make others believe what he said, actually cut off the heads of 8,000 civilians around him, and then transported these heads back to the capital. The Arab Empire held a grand celebration for him.
Just when the celebration party was held, another great nobleman of the empire stood up. It turned out that his son was among the 8,000 common people, and a slave had also run back. The great nobleman did not want his son to die in vain, so he told the story.
Sure enough, after investigation, everything he said was true and the general's entire family was executed, but this incident also left a bad impact.
From that moment on, no matter how great your victory, you had to take prisoners, and the number of prisoners had to be close to what you claimed. If you annihilated an army of 100,000 men but didn't take 10,000 or 20,000 prisoners, who would believe it? Did you kill them all?
This is what Prince Salaman thought this time. Even if he did not occupy any territory, he must capture a bunch of living prisoners. These prisoners must be pure troops of the Tang Empire, and not troops from various countries in the Western Regions, because these troops would not cause much sensation after being brought back.
The Arab Empire had already systematically investigated the countries in the Western Regions. Although there were many of them, none of them had strong comprehensive national strength. If you captured the captives from these countries and brought them back, would you be able to convince the people?
I guess those people will mock you, saying that you have never fought against the Tang army and only look for weak targets. Prince Salaman will never give them this opportunity.
According to the customs of the Arab Empire, His Royal Highness the Prince must ride a warhorse and walk with the soldiers. Of course, he does not need to walk in a too conspicuous position. Although they are arrogant, they are not stupid. His Royal Highness the Prince was injured last time.
So this time Prince Salaman also rode a warhorse, but hid in the team. No one thought that the prince was afraid of death. The last time the prince was injured, the entire army was almost lost. There was no coordination between the commanding troops, which allowed the Tang army to find an opportunity. Fortunately, they escaped quickly, otherwise how could they have lost only 20,000 people?
This time everyone learned their lesson and did not put the more than 200,000 troops together. Instead, they formed three armies: front, middle and rear. The 20,000 people in the front army were all Arab cavalry, and they were also the most elite people under the prince.
If anything goes wrong, these people can flee in all directions at an extremely fast speed, so there is no need to worry about their safety.
The middle group is also the largest. These people include people from various Central Asian tribes, with nearly 100,000 people. These people are used as cannon fodder, but they cannot be placed on the front line. If they are placed in the front, I am afraid these people will flee as soon as they see the Tang army. Their combat effectiveness is the worst.
As for Prince Salman, after his failure, this guy did not show any improvement. He led 80,000 soldiers of the Arab Empire and walked at the end of the entire team. If the middle legion was defeated, the people behind would go up and kill them, and let you guys know that anyone who disobeyed orders would not be able to walk out of the battlefield alive.
This is like a pig team, letting the people from other tribes see clearly that they should not think that they can run around after entering the battlefield. In fact, they have been watching them for a long time.
The action plans of the three armies soon reached Cheng Chuliang's hands and they began to study how to deal with this army. According to the situation monitored by our personnel, there are more than 200,000 troops in total. Once we defeat this army, we can directly occupy the city of Samarkand.
Although Samarkand is still in their hands, after the loss of this army, those who return will definitely be remnants and defeated generals. When our army appears in Samarkand, they may surrender without a fight.
The Arab Empire, like the Tang Empire, was very far away from the battlefield, so it was difficult to quickly obtain replenishment after losses. Even if it could recruit soldiers again from the tribes around the Governor-General of Anton, the number would not be too large. After all, this time they had already fought for everything they could.
"We don't just have to defeat them. The most important thing is to annihilate this vital force. The more people they kill outside the city, the greater advantage we will gain when we attack the city in the future."
Facing the sand table, Cheng Chuliang said this.
