Chapter 379 Defeat of Persia

Shahbaz had never seen such a weapon before; after a series of thunderous roars, their camel Cavalry, which had swept across the Eurasian continent without ever meeting a match, was mostly turned into fragments of flesh and blood.

The remaining camels were also frightened and scattered out of control. Even the Savaran heavy Cavalry behind them was affected, their charging momentum visibly slowing down.

However, once Cavalry begins a charge, there is no more time for hesitation. In a mere moment, their horses' hooves trampled over a Shura field filled with the flesh and blood of their comrades.

"Boom... Boom... Boom..."

Unsurprisingly, the second round of shelling arrived. This time, the unlucky ones were those swaggering heavy cavalrymen.

Faced with the Red-Coat Cannonss, even the three layers of heavy armor worn by the Beiwei Army would be useless, let alone these cavalrymen who only wore relatively light chainmail; the difference in defensive power was not just a little bit.

After three rounds of shelling, those Savaran cavalrymen who had once swept across the Eurasian continent had already become a scattered mess. Only then did Yue Fei give the order.

"Relay the command to stop the shelling. Deploy the Iron Pagoda and the Xiaoguo Army."

What Gao Yuan valued most in this battle were actually those warhorses; if they were all blown to bits, Yue Fei would have a hard time explaining himself upon his return.

Furthermore, relying solely on the Red-Coat Cannonss to bombard them would, at most, scare the enemy away; it could not annihilate their effective strength. If handled that way, the Persians could quickly make a comeback after returning.

Shahbaz had originally wanted to show the opposing Qian Army what true Cavalry was, but he didn't expect that a short time later, it would be the Qian Army teaching him the meaning of a Cavalry charge.

Both men and horses were covered in Iron Pagoda armor, and the soldiers even wore three layers of heavy armor. The weight of the armor alone exceeded one hundred and twenty catties; such Cavalry charging truly resembled heavy tanks.

Those panicked Savaran cavalrymen were no match for the Iron Pagoda. Their chainmail could not stop the lances carrying immense kinetic energy, and they were skewered right through the heart.

"The Savaran have lost! The Savaran have lost!"

The Persian light Cavalry in the third echelon were completely dumbfounded. When had they ever seen the Savaran being slaughtered by others like chickens, without any power to fight back?

Without giving them time to hesitate, the Xiaoguo Army had already flanked them on both wings in the blink of an eye.

"Swoosh, swoosh, swoosh..."

The bolts fired from the repeating crossbows poured into the Persian Cavalry ranks like a dense downpour, followed by wave after wave of miserable screams.

The Persians, already reeling from the Savaran's defeat, were now in complete chaos. They began to flee recklessly in all directions, to the point where comrades frequently collided with one another.

Although he was very unwilling, Shahbaz knew clearly in his heart that he had lost. If he didn't retreat now, his entire army would be wiped out.

Those who become famous generals are all ruthless characters. Shahbaz decisively ordered the abandonment of the Cavalry and for the infantry to retreat immediately; he had to pull back to stabilize the defensive line.

If he allowed the enemy to wipe out his entire army in one charge, the inevitable result would be being pushed back all the way. At that time, not only would the fruits of battle be lost, but even the Persian homeland itself might be breached.

If such a situation occurred, it wouldn't just be a question of whether he could become a governor; whether he could keep his own head on his shoulders would be another matter entirely.

"They're running quite fast. Order the whole army to pursue! The Cavalry will divide and surround them, and the infantry will go up to finish them off. Capture as many as you can!"

"Yes!"

Xia Luqi had been feeling a bit desperate. After the Red-Coat Cannonss' chaotic bombardment and the Cavalry's slaughter, the enemy had collapsed. Seeing that he might end up just being a bystander this time, how could he not be anxious?

Now that he saw Yue Fei finally give the order, he couldn't wait for a single moment and began to advance in large strides with the Beiwei Army infantry.

Once Cavalry loses its momentum and falls into an infantry encirclement, they become sitting ducks, especially when their scimitars and spears cannot break through the infantry's defense, making them even more powerless.

As for the fleeing infantry, they were even more helpless against the pursuit of the Cavalry, only able to watch as their comrades were shot down one by one or pierced through the body by sharp lances.

Shahbaz watched this scene with a heart like it was being cut by knives, yet he was powerless. He could only constantly urge his soldiers to retreat, to retreat regardless of everything.

This was a battle that was destined to be unequal from the start. Later, when Shahbaz returned to his station to review the battle, he discovered that the mysterious weapon had actually not caused that much damage.

It was just that this never-before-seen weapon had frightened him and his warriors out of their wits. The loss of courage to charge was what caused such a collapse.

If Gao Yuan knew about this thought of his, he would definitely give him a thumbs up.

The artillery of this era was actually quite poor in terms of actual lethality; its deterrent effect was far greater than its killing power. It wasn't until the popularization of machine guns and tanks that Cavalry truly lost its place and completely withdrew from the stage of history.

Therefore, after returning, Shahbaz began to focus all his efforts on training soldiers and warhorses, hoping that the next time they encountered the Great Qian Army, they would no longer fear that terrifying weapon.

The battle began in the early morning, turned into a one-sided massacre by the morning, and by dusk, with the return of the last pursuing squad of the Xiaoguo Army, the great battle was declared over.

The work of clearing the battlefield and counting the spoils lasted for three days before the final results were placed on Yue Fei's desk:

Over four thousand intact warhorses, all of them tall and majestic Central Asian breeds, among which there were even seven extremely rare Ferghana Horses.

Those five hundred camels had all been blown to pieces; there were only a few dozen intact carcasses, which just happened to let the soldiers taste the deliciousness of roasted camel that evening.

There were over ten thousand prisoners, all tall and sturdy Persians. These were clearly high-quality slaves with great strength, definitely not comparable to those short mughal people.

As for the captured chainmail and half-plate armor, Yue Fei also ordered it all to be collected and taken away, not leaving even a single armor plate for the mughal people.

The Great Qian Army left, but the deterrent force brought by this great battle was far from over.

They had experienced the prowess of the Great Qian Army before, but they never knew it could be powerful to this extent:

Those black iron tubes that could emit world-shaking roars, those cavalrymen like iron towers, and those powerful crossbows that could easily shoot through Persian chainmail.

Was such an army really something they could resist?

This question tormented the heart of every Mughal person; even Humayun felt a sense of not daring to resist in the depths of his heart.

Such thoughts soon brought benefits to Gao Yuan. Not long after the battle ended, in the eighth month of the twenty-fifth year of Great Qian, the Mughal King Humayun personally came to Panyu City to have an audience with the Great Qian Emperor Zhao Xiyao and the Prince of Tang, Gao Yuan.

Zhao Xiyao officially received Humayun in the Lizheng Hall and accepted his homage.

At the grand court assembly, Humayun submitted an official state document expressing his willingness to become a vassal state of Great Qian, offering annual tribute and visiting every year, only hoping that Great Qian would send troops to help if the Mughal were invaded.

There was no reason for Gao Yuan not to agree to such a request, especially since the contents of the annual tribute they promised were very generous:

Five hundred beautiful women, one thousand cattle, and various goods worth about one hundred thousand strings of coins. If troops needed to be dispatched, the cost of the deployment would be calculated separately.

Most importantly, Gao Yuan could withdraw his elite troops and fully prepare for the Northern Expedition; this was the point he valued the most.