Half a month after the first batch of money borrowed by the Great Food Kingdom from the Western Qin Dynasty arrived in Baghdad, Mahdi immediately commanded the army to attack Syria from two directions.
Attis led the army from all the way.
Berroea attacked into the hinterland of Syria, and another, led by him personally, set out from Baghdad and crossed the desert to attack the Jordan area.
Mahdi's army is mainly composed of Guards, tribal troops and believer warriors.
Among them, the Guards serve as the main combat force.
In the past two years, Mahdi has expanded the overall strength of the Guards to 200,000. , far exceeding the previous 125,000 people.
Although the combat effectiveness has declined, due to the increase in military strength, Increased, the overall combat effectiveness is still improved than before, at least the combat effectiveness of these Guards is much stronger than the tribal army and believer warriors, and the armies of several of his brothers are mainly composed of tribal troops and believer warriors, and There is no professional army, which is also his trump card for daring to take the initiative to attack several other brothers.
Mahdi's two armies had strong combat effectiveness and were unstoppable along the way.
The army commanded by Attis successively conquered Raqqa, Deir ez-Zor, Homs, and Ashtrit in Syria.
The army was only a stone's throw away from Damascus.
The army personally commanded by Mahdi quickly captured the Amman area in northern Jordan after crossing the desert, and then crossed the northern shore of the Dead Sea and entered Jerusalem.
The Mahdi knew that Jerusalem was a hard nut to crack, not because its city defenses were strong, nor because there were many defenders in its city, but because this city was a holy city, a holy place for many sects, and there were many There are many famous religious buildings where Romans, Greeks, Byzantines, Syrians, Arabs and others lived here.
The Rabbindos and Persians, however, these people who usually would be hostile or attack each other when they meet, live in peace in this city.
They all carefully maintain the peace and tranquility of the holy city.
When enemies come, When attacking, they can put aside their prejudices and deal with powerful enemies together to protect this holy place in their hearts.
Mahdi was mentally prepared to attack Jerusalem and implement a long siege if a quick attack failed, but he did not think that the time to capture the Holy City would be longer than the three-year siege a hundred years ago.
It was difficult because for him and the Baghdad regime, the political significance of taking Jerusalem was extraordinary.
On May 12, the siege battle had been going on for two months.
The defenders in the holy city were still resisting and had no intention of opening the door to accept surrender, but Mahdi had no idea about it.
In the camp ten miles outside Jerusalem, Mahdi was a little irritable.
He had a bad feeling in his heart for the past two days, but he couldn't say what was wrong.
In the evening of that day, after the siege battle ended, a large number of corpses were left on and off the city walls.
Mahdi's men slowly retreated upon hearing the sound of retreat trumpets.
After the siege army returned to camp, a group of cavalry galloped towards them from the northwest, ten of them.
A few people, the lookout post at the camp gate found out that it was their own people and waved a few flags to the soldiers inside the camp gate.
The camp gate quickly opened, and a dozen cavalrymen galloping from the northwest ran non-stop.
After entering the camp, the camp door quickly closed again.
The captain of this team of knights hurriedly came to the Chinese army’s tent to pay homage to the Mahdi: “Sir of the believers, General Attis sent me to deliver a message to you.
The Eastern Roman Empire sent troops to attack our Antioch area.
We have attacked the Eastern Roman Empire in advance.
They were unprepared.
They attacked very quickly and had already captured the land of Antioch.
The northern areas of Syria around the area and Berroea are now attacking southward.
When we received the news, the army was besieging Damascus.
In order not to be attacked by the Byzantines in the back, General Attis had to withdraw his troops from Damascus.
Leading the army north to resist the Byzantine attack."
This time the Eastern Roman Empire's army attacked too fast.
Mahdi knew the reason after a moment's thought.
The Arabs were not good at defense.
The Byzantines built a large number of fortresses in the Antioch area, but the Arab army did not take advantage of them.
These fortresses were used to defend against the attacks of the Eastern Roman Empire, but the Byzantine attack was successful.
Using these fortresses, under the leadership of Leo, the armies of the Eastern Roman Empire used these fortresses as springboards to continuously advance rapidly.
However, the Arab generals guarding this area immediately gathered their troops to fight the attack after discovering the attack of the Eastern Roman army, but failed.
Finding that all the Eastern Romans were hiding in the fortress, they immediately organized troops to attack the fortress, but were defeated.
Facing the attack of the 3,000 heavy cavalry of the Eastern Roman Empire ambushing outside, almost the entire army was wiped out.
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Leo easily captured the Antioch area and quickly sent his army south to attack Beroea.
The castle was originally an extremely strong and tall castle.
It was not easy to break it, but the Arab defenders were not prepared.
Sudden, they were attacked again, and were captured by Leo's army in a single encounter.
After the strongest castle in northern Syria was captured, the Arab army was almost defenseless in northern Silia, and other surrounding towns soon followed.
The fall of Damascus forced Attis to end the siege of Damascus and lead his army north to face Leo's army.
In the past few years, Mahdi has been tempered and his military talents have improved a lot.
He should have been very angry that Attis contacted the siege of Damascus without his consent and led his army to the north to fight against the Eastern Roman Empire's army, but he Knowing that Attis's approach of killing first and then telling the story was right, the war was too urgent.
Attis must not have waited for his order before leading his army north, because once the Eastern Roman Empire's army came to kill him, he and Attis Both armies are in danger.
But Attis's sudden withdrawal put Mahdi and his army in a dangerous situation.
If the Damascus army that was besieged by contact came south to fight, he would have no choice but to flee in embarrassment with his army, because he and his army It is likely to be attacked internally and externally by the Damascus army and the Jerusalem army.
After a night of thinking, the Mahdi ordered the entire army to break camp and move north before dawn.
After dawn, the defenders of Jerusalem waited for a whole day without seeing Mahdi's army come to attack the city.
It was not until the next day that they sent people out of the city to explore and found that the camp was It was deserted.
Leo's sudden attack took advantage of him, but he was not greedy for success.
When Jean learned that Attis, the commander of the Guards of the Kingdom of Great Food, had lifted the siege of Damascus and led his army northward, he stopped going south and After returning to Berroea, he organized a large number of manpower to re-reinforce and repair the castle in Berroea.
Berroea was a strategic location.
As long as it was held here, the Arabs would not dare to attack the Antioch area from the north.
After the news that Leo had captured the Antioch area, Beroea and a large area in northern Syria reached Constantinople, it immediately caused a huge sensation.
The whole government and the people in the city were very concerned about Leo's shared rule.
The emperor was very optimistic, and his reputation rose for a while.
The calls from the government and the public to increase troops in the Antioch area and reinforce Beroea became louder and louder.
Constantine V was also very happy.
In order to consolidate the Antioch area and northern Syria, he immediately ordered the emergency transfer of 20,000 horses to the Antioch area for Leo to command.
After Attis learned that Leo had led his army back to Beroea, he immediately led his army to catch up.
However, he was a cautious man and was very careful during the march, for fear of being ambushed by Leo.
It took a full twelve days on the way , which gave Leo enough time to strengthen the fortifications of Berroea Castle.
Leo raised sufficient city defense equipment, food and grass, and asked his general Belos to lead an army of 3,000 and 5,000 slaves to defend Berroea.
He led his army back to the city of Antioch to take charge.
After the siege of Damascus was lifted, the defenders and residents in the city breathed a sigh of relief and relaxed for a few days.
However, they did not expect that the Mahdi army suddenly came from the south on the morning of the fourth day.
The defenders and residents of Damascus were unprepared.
It fell after three days of fierce attack by the Mahdi army.
After Damascus was captured, other surrounding towns quickly surrendered to the Mahdi.
At this point, except for the northern part of Syria that was captured by the Eastern Roman Empire army, all other areas of Syria were captured by the Mahdi.
The sudden attack by the Eastern Roman Empire made the Mahdi very angry.
This was simply taking advantage of the situation.
If the Eastern Roman Empire did not cause trouble behind his back, he could pat his chest and promise to quell the internal rebellion and unify the Arab world within a year.
However, he was defeated by the Eastern Roman Empire.
Behind the scenes, all his plans were disrupted.
The Byzantines are very good at defending the city.
Over the past few hundred years, they have been trained by the barbarians in the north.
Constantinople has been besieged not once or twice, but has been besieged and attacked several times for several years. , which allowed Byzantium to find ways to improve its defense techniques and tactics.
The general of the Eastern Roman Empire, General Belos, led 3,000 troops and 5,000 slaves to guard Beroea for two whole months without moving at all.
Attis's army was unable to do anything to the castle guarded by the Byzantines.
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You must know that he originally Taking this castle was easy.
There was no other way.
Attis could only send troops to surround Beroea, and then send troops to attack other towns in northern Syria.
Fortunately, the defenses of other towns were not so strong.
After all the northern areas of Syria were recaptured by Attis's army, Berroea became a lonely castle.
However, Attis soon received news that 20,000 reinforcements from the Eastern Roman Empire had arrived in Antioch.
These 20,000 people were nothing to the 50,000 Arabs under Attis, but the Antioch area had a large number of Fortress, 20,000 troops plus a large number of fortresses, Attis's 50,000 people really have no advantage if they want to attack, Attis had to send people to ask Mahdi for more troops.
At the end of August, the Mahdi, who had besieged Jerusalem again, received a request from General Attis for additional troops, but he did not agree to Attis's request.
He believed that the Eastern Roman Empire had no intention of engaging in a large-scale war with the Arab world.
Otherwise, we wouldn’t have added 20,000 troops.
Instead, he increased his troops by 100,000.
Since the Eastern Roman Empire was not a concern for the time being, he should first resolve the civil strife.
So he gave Attis an order to confront the Eastern Roman Empire's army and maintain the offensive momentum and pressure, etc.
He quelled the civil strife and then dealt with the Eastern Roman Empire
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