These Khorasan cavalrymen were the elite soldiers of the Apus dynasty. They were quite strong, but they were caught off guard, so they were a little panicked.
Once they were organized, their fighting power would immediately explode. Unfortunately, they were surrounded by strong enemies, so it was impossible for them to organize a resistance. The only way to survive was to escape as soon as possible, then think of a way to regroup. The best way was to retreat to the city at the back, then obtain all kinds of battle resources from the city, defend the city, and ask for help from the Khorasan.
Simply put, it was more important to escape as soon as possible. As long as they escaped, they would have a chance to turn the tables. If they resisted, they would definitely be wiped out. There was no doubt about that.
The defensive facilities of the camp were still passable. Although they were no longer able to stop the enemy from attacking from three sides, it was impossible for the enemy to pour into the camp from the few gates that were not too wide in such a short period of time. This bought them a bit of time to retreat.
The generals in the lead gave the order to have a portion of their men block the enemy troops from entering the camp, while they had more men retreat from the north gate. They had already observed that the enemy troops outside were attacking from three directions, and only the north was free of enemies. In addition, only by retreating from the north could they reach the nearest city at the rear more quickly, so that they could recover their strength as soon as possible.
There was no time to wear the armor, so they could only leave it as spoils of war for the enemy. As for the weapons, they could only take whatever they got. Those who did not get any could only escape empty-handed. However, in order to escape faster, many soldiers rushed to the stables and prepared to escape on horseback. However, because the enemy was too fierce, only a portion of the generals and soldiers had time to go to the stables to get the horses. Most of the soldiers could only escape to the north, and in a short time, the north gate was filled with people.
The soldiers who were lucky enough to squeeze out of the gate ran for their lives, while the soldiers who did not escape were cursing and telling the soldiers in front to run faster. If they did not run now, they would not be able to escape anymore.
And it was at this time that the cannons also ran to the north gate to join in the fun. In order to avoid hurting their own people, the five cannons aimed all their firepower at the north gate where the enemy was escaping. This made the escaping soldiers suffer. Many of the soldiers were killed by the cannons before they could even escape the camp. The situation instantly became even more chaotic.
Fortunately, the North Stockade Gate was facing the opposite direction, and the defense there was the weakest. The standard of the stockade wall was also much lower than that of the other directions. When the soldiers were anxious, they used their swords and sabers to chop down the wall. As such, a large number of soldiers began to flee on a large scale, and the soldiers and generals on horseback were able to escape even faster.
Another thing that made them rejoice was that the Ottoman army that had broken into the camp was not very active in killing the enemy. Only a portion of them were at the front cutting down the enemies in the camp, while the rest of them rushed to the granary, armory, tents, stables, and other places of the camp. They took these abandoned items as their spoils of war and even began to transport them back to their own camp. In any case, the enemy camp had plenty of supply wagons and warhorses that could be used to transport supplies. In short, the main force of the Ottoman army was busy fighting for the spoils of war.
Altik's troops had received orders to do their best to kill as many enemy soldiers as possible. However, only the troops under Altik's direct command were able to carry out orders well. Most of the mercenaries saw that the spoils of war in the camp could not be moved, so they did not care about military orders and all ran to snatch the spoils of war. They snatched anything that was valuable, and anything that was suitable for carrying gold coins was the focus of these mercenaries.
To the north was the fleeing Khorasan cavalry. Behind them were three thousand Altik's troops and two thousand Ottoman's troops. The remaining troops were all fighting for the spoils of war in the enemy camp. They had even reached the point of fighting each other for the spoils of war.
Fortunately, the enemy camp had a lot of spoils of war, and both sides were not weak. If a fight really broke out, the one who would benefit in the end would be Mansur's group. Thus, after scaring each other, they split the spoils according to the number and strength of each side. The Ottoman army received sixty percent of the spoils of war, while the mercenaries received less than forty percent. Who asked them to not be on the same side? They could only take a little less.
The fleeing Khorasan cavalry looked at the five thousand soldiers behind them and felt great pressure in their hearts. They did not have time to wear their armor, and they did not have a complete set of weapons. Many of them were unarmed, so they were not a match for the pursuing troops. The only advantage they had was that they did not carry as much weight as the pursuing troops, so they could run more smoothly. Furthermore, because the well-equipped pursuing troops carried more weight, their speed was not very fast. This gave them hope of escaping successfully.
In order to increase their chances of escaping, some of the generals killed the injured soldiers along the way and used the corpses to block the pursuing troops. There were also soldiers who threw away all the gold and valuables they had on them so that the pursuing troops would be busy picking up the money. This would slow down the pursuing troops and increase their chances of survival.
In the face of life, everything had to give way. In order to preserve one's life, one had to give up everything that should be given up. If one could not even preserve one's life, then what was the point of keeping money? Once one's life was gone, money would become meaningless.
Although it was night, the moonlight in the sky was still bright, and the gold coins scattered on the ground were still very obvious. After the pursuing troops saw the gold coins on the ground, they all had the intention to snatch them. However, the discipline of these troops was not strong enough, so it was natural for them to snatch the gold coins. Even if Artek personally supervised the troops, he could not solve the problem of the soldiers being greedy for money.
However, fortunately, Altik was very familiar with the details of the battle. He knew that Osman's troops were lying in ambush somewhere in front of them. These fleeing troops were destined to not be able to escape.
In the ambush area in the north, Osman had split up his three thousand soldiers. One thousand repeating crossbows were placed on the left, one thousand volt crossbows on the right, and four hundred archers on each side. The last two hundred archers were placed in the narrowest area to prevent any fish from escaping the net. Moreover, they had opened up quite a distance so that they could attack more enemy soldiers at the same time and achieve greater results.
The fleeing Khorasani cavalry quickly entered Osman's meticulously designed ambush, but they did not realize that they had entered the encirclement. They believed that they were about to break free of their pursuers. After all, they could see that their pursuers were getting farther and farther away, and the gold coins they had thrown around had slowed them down.
In a more open area of the ambush area, the Khorasan cavalry stopped fleeing and rested for a while. They were too tired from running all the way and could not walk anymore. If they forced themselves to continue, they would break their legs. They had to wait for the soldiers behind them and wait for more people to gather before continuing.
Many of the thirsty soldiers drank water from small puddles by the roadside to quench their thirst. There were even more tired soldiers lying on the ground, not caring about the soil and the small insects that crawled into their bodies. It was as if these had nothing to do with them.
Some of the injured soldiers were busy tearing off their clothes to bandage their wounds.
The generals gathered together to discuss which city to go to the north and who was responsible for the sneak attack. They even cursed Osman and Artik angrily, wanting to kill the two of them.
Osman, who was lying in ambush halfway up the mountain, smirked. He was not in a hurry to attack. He wanted to wait a little longer until there were more enemy soldiers in the ambush circle. Only then would he suddenly launch a rain of arrows. Only then would he be able to achieve greater results.
The speed of the pursuers was not very fast, but they were getting closer step by step. Therefore, these soldiers who were taking a nap could not stay for too long. Before 15 minutes were up, they got up again and prepared to head to the city in the north.
"General, they are leaving."
Osman sneered and ordered, "Immediately release the arrows."
"Whoosh whoosh whoosh …"
A large number of arrows flew towards the enemy soldiers, causing the soldiers who had just relaxed to face a calamity.
They really did not expect that there would be an ambush halfway up the mountain. Moreover, this ambush was rather patient. They actually waited for a full 15 minutes before launching their ambush.
Due to the high firing rate of the crossbows, the Khorasan soldiers under attack had the illusion that there were tens of thousands of archers lying in ambush on both sides of the mountain. In reality, there were less than three thousand archers. However, the high firing rate was enough to create this illusion.
The fleeing soldiers didn't have much fighting power to begin with. Many of them didn't even have weapons, and those who were wearing armor were even rarer. How could a weary army withstand the attacks of a large number of crossbows? After a few rounds of attacks, there weren't many soldiers left who could still move. The soldiers who had just arrived at the ambush site had nowhere to go. They didn't know what to do.
Osman immediately began persuading the Khorasan soldiers to surrender. As long as they surrendered, they would have a chance to live.
Because they had nowhere to run and were also afraid of the large number of archers on both sides, the remaining soldiers, including those who were injured, all surrendered. They threw away all their weapons and raised their hands in surrender, becoming Osman's captives.
Just like that, Osman relied on his perfect ambush strategy to achieve great results. These captured soldiers and all the resources they carried all belonged to Osman. In fact, these soldiers themselves would become part of Osman's army.
Artek's troops quickly caught up and met up with Osman's ambushing troops. Soon, the two of them met up.
Seeing Osman in his martial attire, Altik knew that he had been deceived. This fellow was clearly Osman himself, but he had pretended to be Osman's deputy. He was not honest enough.
"City Lord, we meet again. This battle was truly satisfying. We wiped out all the elite Khorasan cavalry, hahaha!"
Osman laughed arrogantly.
Altik smiled faintly. "So you are General Osman. My eyes were blind. I did not recognize you last time. My apologies."
"Who I am is not important. We are friends now, aren't we? I am helping you conquer the world. You should thank me. "
Osman laughed loudly.
Altik smiled. "I will remember General Osman's friendship. When you are managing Egypt, if you need any help, I will do my best to help. Hahaha!"
"Good, that's great. With the City Lord's words, I'm relieved. Now that our army has won a great victory, we should immediately send troops to capture the cities in the north. With these captured armors and these surrendered soldiers, we should be able to open the city gates. Why don't we each occupy a city and then continue to attack and advance towards the north?"
Osman suggested.
Altik agreed. He took out a map and said, "The Khorasan cavalry's ten thousand main force has been wiped out. There are no strong enemies on the peninsula. Since General Osman wants to develop in Egypt, why don't we attack the western cities? Go north, then west, and conquer Egypt. Our army will attack the eastern cities. What do you think?"
Osman laughed. "Good, of course. As long as our army can gain a foothold in Egypt, we will slowly withdraw from the peninsula and give it to the City Lord."
"Good, let's reorganize the troops! We will march in two hours. Before dawn, we will each take a city. "
Altik gave his final suggestion.
Osman nodded in agreement and immediately sent messengers to gather the army to take over a city in the west. At the same time, he ordered the remaining soldiers to move the spoils of war and all the items in their camp to a city in the northwest. With this city as a base, they would expand to the northwest and finally take over Egypt.
Because Osman and Artek were carrying out the mission according to Li An's strategy, the cities that Osman occupied in the early stages would be returned to Artek in the later stages. Therefore, Osman was naturally unwilling to properly manage the cities that he occupied. Instead, he was more willing to demand the resources of these cities. As for the destruction of these cities, Artek could slowly clean them up in the future. Osman did not care too much about that.
They had to let Ang Lee know that they had wiped out ten thousand enemy soldiers. After winning the battle, Ang Lee sent a few people back to Aden to report the details of the battle to Ang Lee.
They couldn't disturb Ang Lee's rest, so they could only tell the other generals first. As for Ang Lee, they would have to wait until he woke up.
"Chirp chirp chirp …"
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