The main force was on Qu Tushou's side and there were two other groups of people to deal with, so although they had won the victory, except for leaving 10,000 Gaochang soldiers to guard the prisoners, the rest had to march eastward immediately.
This kind of large-scale mobilization is indeed quite difficult for the soldiers who have just experienced a fierce battle, but the Tang Dynasty soldiers have exceeded their physical capacity since the day of training, so this kind of mobilization is just a drizzle for them.
Li Chengyi soon learned that Qu Tushou's victory had already made him somewhat impatient. Wasn't it just 20,000 Arab cavalrymen? He had a full 10,000 troops under his command, including 4,000 Gaochang troops. However, these Gaochang troops were not new recruits; they had already been fighting in the Western Regions for nearly a year. So when Qu Tushou won, Li Chengyi immediately sounded the clarion call for the attack.
This guy also conducted a careful reconnaissance of the surrounding situation, but because the Arab army was stationed in the wild, when Li Chengyi's army launched the attack, the first batch of them also suffered heavy damage, but there was no obstruction around, so the Arab army immediately fled.
This is also the situation that Li Chengyi fears the most. The 20,000 troops only killed less than 6,000 people, and the rest all fled in all directions. We can't catch up with them at all. Even if we throw away our armor, we can't catch up with them. We have never been trained in this kind of light equipment, so we are no match for them at all.
What's more, our army has long been accustomed to heavy-armored combat. Even if we catch up with the enemy, without the protection of armor, we will probably feel a little afraid in our hearts and may not be their opponent.
Cheng Chuliang, who was in the central army, immediately knew the situation on both sides. He did not make any criticism of the situation on Li Chengyi's side. Even if he was there at that time, he probably would not be able to change the outcome.
This is the biggest advantage of the Arab cavalry. If we want to solve it, we can only drag them into the city to fight, but the losses will be too great for us. Anyway, there are only more than 10,000 cavalrymen, and they may not be our opponents.
The biggest piece of cake is these ragtag troops in the middle. Prince Salaman has gathered the labor force of all the Central Asian countries. There are more than 100,000 people among them. After the front and rear armies were defeated, these ragtag troops in Central Asia immediately panicked. They also wanted to flee in all directions. Unfortunately, this place is too far away from their country. If they flee in all directions, few people can hold on.
When the Tang army appeared in the east and west, these people only engaged in some small-scale fighting and immediately calmed down. They were no match for the enemy at all. Not to mention the Tang army, even if they met the Gaochang army, they had no hope of winning, so they could only choose to surrender honestly.
In this era, the largest recorded surrender was that 110,000 troops from Central Asian countries laid down their weapons at the same time. When Cheng Chuliang saw the dense crowds of prisoners in front of him, he had a headache.
At least you guys should have fought. If you had fought, it would have reduced the number of people and we wouldn't have needed to gather so much food. Now that you bastards have surrendered directly, where are we going to find so much food?
Although the west also needs to build roads, it simply doesn't require that many people, so we can only bring them to the major cities in the western region as quickly as possible, and then sell them at a relatively reasonable price. This is the most important thing to do now. Otherwise, with so many mouths to feed, we are likely to go bankrupt.
Knowing that they could never return home and might be sold as slaves in various places, some people thought about escaping, and some thought about fighting to the death. However, after killing more than a thousand people, these people became obedient and did not have much resistance. Seeing the people of the Tang Dynasty raising their swords and killing people, weren't these guys afraid?
It took about a month to finally resolve the threat from the Western Regions. Although he did not find the prince, he emptied the Governor-General's Office of Anton.
If there were not so many prisoners, Cheng Chuliang would definitely not sit idle here. He would definitely order his troops to continue westward until they occupied the city of Samarkand. But now he cannot move at all. The total number of prisoners is nearly 200,000. Although more than 20,000 have been dealt with, it is still a big trouble.
He has already written a letter to the court, hoping that the court would approve him to take out military rations from various places in the Western Regions, otherwise these guys would soon cause trouble. Of course, it is impossible to let them eat too much, but they must not be allowed to starve to death.
The Western Regions are different from the Central Plains. In addition to eating, drinking water is also a very important thing. Now these people are walking towards the water source. If they don’t find a few oases, they would probably have died of thirst.
Li Xiang's instructions came quickly. These are extremely important labor forces, not only in the countries of the Western Regions, but also in some more dangerous places within the territory of the Tang Dynasty. We need to build roads and bridges, and we can't let our own citizens take risks. Aren't these a good labor force?
Therefore, Li Xiang allowed Cheng Chuliang to use all the resources at his disposal to ensure that these people survived and transported them back to the mainland in batches. The countries in the Western Regions only needed to retain 40,000 slaves, as they could not afford to support more than that.
But the situation is different in the Tang Dynasty. A large amount of arable land has been opened up in many places, and our labor force seems to be a little insufficient. If these people come here, it will indeed be able to alleviate the pressure.
Moreover, some of them can be persuaded to surrender and sent to the southern battlefield, or to Goguryeo and Fuso, for cross-management. This has always been the policy implemented by Li Xiang.
These captives had no choice but to obey the arrangements of the Tang Dynasty court. After all, the Tang Dynasty army would not reason with them. Apart from a steamed bun and two meals of rice soup with no rice grains in them every day, they had no strength left.
The Western Regions countries that participated in the war also made a lot of efforts. They can now live a better life and each of them sees their own future. As long as they work hard with the Tang army, we will be able to have a good future.
As for following the Arab Empire?
Only a fool would make such a choice. Didn’t you see that they have hundreds of thousands of prisoners?
