Just as Byron thought, all the good news came back from Salander in the next few days. Although Hakim Sultan successfully defeated a thousand-strong Bedouin camel cavalry and many slave rebels when marching on the road, when they began to go deep into the desert to the land in the east, problems began to appear. First, a large-scale sandstorm broke out suddenly, which caused serious problems in logistical supplies and army marching. Then a well-equipped mercenary raided the transport team that was out of touch with the army due to the weather, looted and burned the food, and took them away. All high-quality weapons and armor that can be taken away. It wasn't long before the equipment appeared on those worn by former gladiators and slave soldiers.

And what annoys the Sudan even more is that these slaves are not only gathering more and more, but have been marching away from them. The commanders of these mobs obviously understand that once the armies of the two sides come into direct contact, their seemingly huge army will be like a hammer under a hammer. It was smashed like an egg. Sudan believes that someone must be passing information to them, and maybe there is a ghost in his army. But now the situation is urgent. This huge slave army conquered many oasis towns by relying on their numbers and local slaves. Dozens of tribal elders and relatives of two chiefs were killed by angry slaves. Naturally, their families There is no escape from bad luck. Women were raped, children were held at gunpoint, and unruly armies ran across the country, looking for easy targets to move around and bypassing big cities and fortified forts.

Did the local chiefs not resist? Of course not, the chiefs immediately concentrated their soldiers, and some chiefs put aside hundreds of years of grievances and united against the slaves of the revolution, but their number was too small, and most of the main force had already followed the Sudan to launch the war. After the expedition, the largest coalition of chieftains did not exceed 1,000 people, and when they saw angry slaves twenty times their size, their confidence that they did not have much collapsed completely. You know, there are not only slaves in the slave army, but also more than 350 cavalry and 1,200 heavily armed soldiers, from slaves or captives who have certain combat capabilities. Although this cannot change the fact that they are an uprising slave army that is inferior to a group of mobs. Even Byron's battle group and the Amira militia can win against them, but this is still not a mixed army of hundreds of thousands of people. It can be defeated, especially when those soldiers are not even mutually exclusive, and they can't be called loyal.

In Salander, the power of the sultan is the same as that of Kujit Khan, far stronger than the kings of Western countries. They can arbitrarily appoint and dismiss officials of the kingdom at will, formulate and amend laws, and even remove a person who is not loyal to themselves. ministers, and destroy his tribe. But even so, the sultan still needs the support of the most powerful chiefs in the kingdom, the recognition of the sect, and the recognition of his authority by most of the tribal elders and little chiefs, otherwise even the sultan will not be able to sit still seat, his enemies either disobeyed his orders, or simply stood up and tried to kill him.

So many tribal elders were killed by slaves, and even some chiefs suffered huge losses. After all, the supplies needed by tens of thousands of slaves are not much less than that of the regular army. The goal.

There were more and more voices of dissatisfaction, and Hakim Sultan relied on his power to suppress these voices, but this did not solve the problem. The Sudan is not afraid that these losses will affect his rule, but he is worried that the continued expansion of slavery will bankrupt his idea of ​​going west. Because if he suppressed this riot too late, then when the army should go out, the chiefs' army would be reduced by at least half, and their reasons would be irresistible. "We need to leave the army to guard our land, family, property, and slaves, lest they suffer unnecessary losses." Hakim Sultan hopes to concentrate as much power as possible, and he will definitely not only bring his own army to Assault on Swadian and Rhodok lands, even where their fortresses are in ruins.

Therefore, Sultan Hakim temporarily put down his plan for the western expedition, and concentrated his military forces to suppress the slave riots everywhere. His methods were cruel, and the heads of slaves were piled all over the streets, used to warn those slaves who still seemed to be peaceful. He then offered a high price for information about the slave thugs, and promised the gods that the slave who told him about the slave army's location would be pardoned, his family would be safe, and he would get freedom and a pocket of gold. For those slaves who had no hope of victory in the uprising, such promises were of course very tempting.

But for more than a week, Hakim Sultan made no progress. He was a little puzzled, because it was impossible for those lowly slaves to be so united. But soon, his spies discovered that something was wrong. Some slave rebels who wanted to surrender disappeared before they met, and some turned into corpses and were discovered by them.

At this time, Sultan Hakim fully understood that it was no wonder that those properties that could walk and talk could last until now. This was not just a slave uprising at all, and those slaves were backed by other more organized forces. This was not an accidental slave rape, this was a dastardly plot against him by his enemies!

The Sudan guessed right. In fact, the slave army was very loose~lightnovelpub.net~ It was almost collapsed on the battlefield. According to the normal development, this slave uprising would be forcibly suppressed by the chiefs of various places before it formed a sufficient scale.

But an organization called Assassin, after uniting with someone, has been secretly instigating slaves everywhere, helping their leaders to match up, deal with unsuitable and uncooperative guys, and forcibly sending dozens of scattered slave rebels Assemble into an army. They also dealt with the traitors of the rebel army in the most direct way, and assassinated the guard captains and defense officials of the towns they wanted to attack, so that the rebel army continued to grow bigger. Later, a woman called Pearl of Light relied on her reputation to secretly persuade some powerful elders and even local little chiefs who were dissatisfied with the Sudan, allowing them to be neutral in this slave revolution and even secretly support the slave army. position. He also relied on someone's support to organize a large-scale experienced mercenary force to help the slave army fight and train those slaves who could handle knives and guns. In the end, it all required someone's financial support, and that someone, a fool knows who.

That Swadian lord called Byron, he's always willing to throw big dinars on it. And those who knew him knew that he had a far-sighted vision than many lords, and he was willing to invest in things that were a few months or even years away thousands of miles away. Moreover, he really has spare money to spend...

Hakim Sultan still doesn't know the specific behind-the-scenes pushers, but it's not difficult to figure out the general situation, and he immediately included Byron among the behind-the-scenes pushers, and decided that he must pay for it during the Western Expedition. cost.

But even after figuring this out, Sudan still understands that he needs time to disintegrate the enemy's conspiracy and suppress this riot. And all of this takes time.

And time is what Byron needs most now