Chapter 6209 Friends of the Tribe

The big sandstorm failed to kill them all because of their experience in surviving in the desert. After surviving the sandstorm, both Lin Rui and Yelena lay at the bottom of the sand dune, exhausted. Half of Lin Rui's body was still in the sand, he closed his eyes, adjusted his breathing, and entered into a deep rest. Yelena leaned against the camel.

The next morning, the two continued their journey with the camel.

Walking alone on the bare sandy plain, with a few clouds floating overhead.

Dry and furnace-like temperatures robbed the earth of all life, and the glare shone relentlessly on them.

At dusk, the sand gives way to gravel, and the sun hides below the horizon as the gravel gradually becomes coarser.

The cold came suddenly again.

Lin Rui lost the sense of time and space, and only knew to keep moving forward, leaving footprints one after another on the sand, the short-lived traces of human contact with the desert. Fantastic and unreal world.

In the dim afterglow of the sun, the new moon shyly reveals a gentle fairy posture.

After walking for a while, Lin Rui exclaimed excitedly, "We're here! We're here!" He quickened his pace and led the camel forward.

Yelena followed him and looked as far as the eye could see, and it was still the drearily monotonous horizon of the desert, which seemed to appear and disappear in the twilight.

An hour later, they came to a dry river with a bed of blue-black slate.

Lin Rui walked southwest along the slate.

Two hours later, it was completely dark, and under the guidance of the crescent moon, we reached the end of the slate.

Lin Ruihuan cried out.

A green garden loomed before my eyes, grass and shrubs teeming with living things.

Birds are circling in the sky, butterflies are flying in groups. This is a small oasis.

At the heart of this oasis, there is a waterhole, low but high enough to delight trekkers.

They ignored the animal droppings that were all over the puddle, jumped down and drank water. Grasshoppers hopped over them.

That night, they sat contentedly lying on a grass field more than ten meters away from the puddle, looking up at the stars in the sky.

The universe is magnificent and moving. Camels are grazing leisurely.

Yelena looked at Lin Rui and said, "What should I do next?"

Lin Rui said: "No matter what, we have to leave first, to leave the Sahara. To be honest, this time was really an accident among accidents. We were supposed to meet up with Zhao Jianfei in Chile.

I didn't know that so many things happened halfway. "

Yelena looked at Lin Rui and said, "This is a desert, how do we leave?"

Lin Rui sat up with a smile and said: "Tell you, you don't know your blessings when you are in the blessing. I am familiar with the desert, follow me, and you don't have to worry about anything. No matter where the birds don't shit, there will be people. Look at this oasis, See that animal **** over there?

It was from camels and horses, and it was still fresh. This suffices to say that there must be tribes of Tuareg people nearby. "

"The Tuaregs, they are indeed a nation that lives in the desert. But they are not good men and women. Usually they are not only called nomads, but also called bandits in the desert." Yelena reminded.

Lin Rui smiled, "Even if they are bandits, the Tuaregs in this desert will never be my enemy. Because they belong to Abdullah Azam. Remember? ?He owes me a big favor."

"The Tuareg rebel leader?" Yelena couldn't help shaking her head. "You actually believe that this kind of person will return your favor?"

"Of course he won't, but this guy is ambitious. He hopes to unify all the Tuareg tribes and complete the establishment of an independent country. Guess how this kind of person will treat a mercenary leader like me?" Lin Rui sighed. "I bet it should be congenial."

"That's right, if they really want to make trouble, they have to ask us for help. They shouldn't do anything to us." Yelena nodded.

The Tuareg are a nomadic people in the Sahara, and they still live a nomadic life, which also makes them isolated from the world and has little contact with the outside world. They still carry spears, swords and arrows, and shields that symbolize majesty, and they still distinguish nobles and commoners as in feudal times, as they have been used to for centuries. Their caravans still carry salt to Sudan from the Deni region, Gal and Kawar, maintaining the original caravans. Such caravans now play a small but still important role in the economy of the entire Sahara.

They are supposedly descended from the Numidians, the ancient herders of North Africa. From around 200 BC, their status as "desert lords" began to decline. In order to maintain their living habits, they lived a nomadic life.

In the desert area, the Tuareg people basically cannot engage in agriculture, they only have herding, but the desert is also not a good pasture. Therefore, the economic life of the Tuareg people is scarce, and it is impossible to survive completely relying on grazing. Under such circumstances, on the one hand, the Tuareg collected transit taxes from caravans traveling to and from the Sahara Desert—actually protection fees; on the other hand, they simply armed and robbed passing caravans or neighboring settled countries. Sometimes the Tuaregs themselves were involved in the trade, although their goods were generally looted.

The Tuareg’s robbery of the caravans in the Sahara Desert follows a principle of “sustainable development” and neither destroys the caravans nor robs them every day. Looting, but sometimes you can still avoid risks, as long as you make a profit, sometimes you will rob some if you are robbed, and if the remaining goods are sold well, you will not lose money. Therefore, even though the Tuaregs have been rampant in the Sahara trade routes for a long time, they basically did not cut off these trade routes.

In addition to robbing caravans in history, the Tuaregs also harassed and plundered neighboring countries. The Mali Empire and Songhai Empire in West Sudan and the Ganem-Bornu Empire in Central Sudan have long been subject to their control. threaten. Only when the empire was very stable and the rulers were very strong did the Tuaregs stay safe.

The Tuareg rebellion in Mali began around January 2011. This is the fifth Tuareg rebellion since 1960.

The Tuareg is a semi-nomadic ethnic group distributed in Niger, Mali, Algeria and Libya. They are descendants of the Berbers in North Africa, originated in the Fezzan region of Libya, and later expanded to other Sahara regions and were assimilated by the peoples of the southern Sahara. The Tuaregs have always considered the Malians in the south to be invaders who want to create their own independent state.

Because after the fall of the Gaddafi regime in Libya in 2011, the Tuagré tribal armed forces that once fought with Gaddafi’s subordinates returned to northern Mali and merged with local religious extremist armed forces to fight against the Mali government.

However, Mali was originally relatively peaceful. At first, the domestic conflicts were caused by the poverty of the northern minorities, and the purpose was to get some money from the government. Due to poverty, some idlers from the north went to Libya, east of Mali, joined Gaddafi's armed forces, and received good training. After the fall of Gaddafi, these people withdrew to northern Mali with their weapons. They were well-armed and stronger than the government army, and they occupied the mountains in the north as kings.

A Tuareg rebellion brought to an end 20 years of democracy in Mali. Junior military officers, dissatisfied with the government's inability to deal with the Tuareg rebellion, staged a coup. The resulting chaos led to the collapse of the Mali army in the north, with organized troops under commanders falling to the rebels.

The junta in Bamako narrowly escaped a "second coup" by paratroopers loyal to the democratically elected government. Within a few days, a group of young men stormed into the presidential palace and beat up the president supported by the military government. Since then, the Mali military government and its president have decided to accept foreign military aid in an effort to eliminate the rebels. The Tuaregs, under the leadership of Abdullah Azzam, formed the National Liberation Movement of Azawad. Long-term confrontation with government forces.

When he was in Mali before, Lin Rui and the Tuareg had intersected, and the relationship between the two parties was pretty good.

Because Abdullah Azam was originally a mercenary, and although these desert nomads were cunning and brave, they also admired warriors the most. After working with Lin Rui several times, Abdullah Azam admired Lin Rui and other mercenaries very much.

And Lin Rui also maintains a good relationship with them. In some desert missions, he even hires these blue knights who gallop across the desert.

With Abdullah Azzam's influence, no Tuareg tribe in this desert dared to make an enemy of him.

Lin Rui's expression changed suddenly, he pulled Yelena and said, "Someone is here."

Yelena blurted out, "Are those the attackers?"

Lin Rui listened and snorted, "No, I'm not sure if it's those people, but there are many, many people and camels."

Yelena listened carefully, but there was no sound at all.

Lin Rui has received special training, and has the same ability as his teacher Quentin, who can detect the movement of people and animals in the distance.

Yelena was puzzled and said, "Are we going to escape? What if these people are the previous attackers?"

Lin Rui shook his head and said, "I can't escape. They are surrounded from all directions. They must be the organized Tuareg camel caravan. Only they can follow the footprints in the desert to find the caravan and attack."

At this time, there were bursts of noise from the south. After a while, there were voices from all directions.

It's the hoofbeat of a camel. Agitated in the distance of the oasis.

Lin Rui said: "Remember, I will answer everything. They don't know me, and they don't know you either."

Yelena nodded and said, "Do you understand Berber language?"

Lin Rui replied: "Over the years, I know a little bit, which is enough to deal with general conversations."

Yelena said: "That's good." Following the change of her face, she shouted: "Not good! this camel. "

Lin Rui was shocked, remembering that the camel belonged to the hijackers. If these Tuaregs attacked the hijackers before, would they also be regarded as the hijackers' accomplices?

But it was too late to hide the camel.

They soon fell into a tight siege.

A variety of weapons, from state-of-the-art automatic rifles to primitive rifles, are aimed at a man and a woman circled in the center.

Their camel was led aside.

The oasis is full of Turea's fighters, at least more than 200 people.

The people around were silent, their eyes were fierce and murderous.

A big man riding a particularly tall, powerful and ornately decorated male camel stepped into the circle leisurely, and the surrounding big men were separated. The big man stopped in front of the two of them and looked down from a height.

This man was about forty years old, full of energy and strength, his eyes gleamed fiercely, his face was much longer than ordinary people, and his face was green and white, which made people feel that he would not be soft when he killed people.

His waist and spine were straight, as if they were formed by a mixture of cement and steel bars.

The big man shot a serious look in his eyes, looked at the two of them, and finally stopped on Lin Rui's face, and said in broken English: "Who are you, with those hijackers?"

"Those are not important. The important thing is that I am a friend of the Tuareg people." Lin Rui nodded.

"There are many Tuareg tribes in this desert. Maybe you are a friend of a certain tribe, but not mine." The AK47 in the big man's hand pointed at Lin Rui.

"Just ask Abdullah Azam." Lin Rui shrugged. "If you can reach him, then tell him I'm here."

The big man changed his expression, slowly put down his weapon, stared at Lin Rui and said, "Who are you?"

"A businessman, he has done a lot of business with you." Lin Rui shrugged.

"So, what about her?" The big man pointed to Yelena and asked.

"My wife." Lin Rui nodded, "We encountered a sandstorm and needed a place to rest and replenish food. You can also use this time to ask Abdullah Azam to verify our identities."

The big man looked at them silently, finally put away his weapon, waved his hand suddenly, and said in a deep voice: "Take these two people with you." After speaking, he turned around and ran away on the camel.

The two left the oasis under the hostage of the Turea people. Go to the endless desert.

Every morning when we set off, the sand is always as cold as frost and snow, but two hours after the sun comes out, the sand is scorching hot immediately, scorching everyone who dares to trample on it like a steam oven.

One cold and one trend makes people physically and mentally exhausted. From the second day onwards, the brigade stepped up one after another continuous and undulating sand dunes, and the speed began to slow down.

No matter from any direction, there are sand dunes rising one after another, as if the world has always been like this.

When camping on the third night, Lin Rui was summoned to the Tuareg tent.

Yelena was not invited, perhaps in the eyes of these people, she was just an innocuous woman.

The tent is sewn with rectangular gray and white cloth, with eight columns and four beams to make a supporting structure.

The inside is very spacious, enough to accommodate more than ten people.

The floor is so thickly carpeted that one forgets the wearisome grains of sand beneath.

A man in an Arabian robe sat cross-legged in the middle of the tent, and a man squatted in a corner of the tent, making tea for him.