Chapter 1052 The Last Calm Before the Storm
"Palmiro!" Penilence called softly.
"Here!" Palmiro woke up from his grief. This time the loss of the Fifth Skylark was really too great.
"Notify our troops over there to reduce the intensity of the siege, turn around and set up defense lines on the spot, and advance steadily over there." Penilence sighed. The pure white army directly cut off his thoughts of scouting towards the east, and simply set up defense lines on the spot.
"Mobilize the 15th to 19th Eagle Flag Legions and advance there. Notify the frontal siege troops to increase their siege efforts and strive to break through the Taixifeng city wall before the Han army!"
Penilence issued orders one after another. The speed of the white horses was too fast, making it impossible for him to judge the specific location of the Han army.
The only thing that is certain is that the Han army should have arrived nearby, and the pure white army nearby would not alert the enemy and appear in such a place.
"Seize the opportunity and take over the important city passes east of Ctesiphon?" Penelence stared at the map. It should be said that their limit was to reach the vicinity of Media.
If there was no Han Dynasty, they could still try to send people to garrison in Ctesiphon to control the entire Parthia, but if the Han Dynasty existed, they would not be able to defend Ctesiphon.
It is not a good idea for the imperial army to go back and forth, and in the end it can only choose to plunder Taixifeng and then leave it all to the Han Dynasty?
However, Rome had no pursuit of land, so dividing Parthia seemed to be a good choice under such circumstances.
At this time, Penilence felt a little regretful. He should have signed an alliance with the Han Dynasty to divide Parthia into two. Under the current situation, no one would benefit, and another fierce battle would be inevitable.
In the best case scenario, Media would be taken by the Eastern Han Dynasty, the area to the west to the first fifty miles of the Zagros Mountains would be made a jointly managed commercial area, and then the Western Roman Empire would take over.
However, now that the Han Dynasty has deployed three legions of gifted speed, how could it allow Rome to occupy the Zagros Mountains? As long as the Zagros is blocked, Parthia will become the Han Dynasty's private territory.
Rome did not value land and could not understand the Han Dynasty's pursuit of land, so in their view, when the Han Dynasty's army was dispatched, it would certainly not be possible for them to just occupy a small piece of land and be done with it.
Without sufficient distribution of benefits, the Han army would never stop.
War is the continuation of politics, politics is the distribution of interests, and ultimately everything has to be profitable. What the Han Dynasty lost was Parthia, its trading partner.
Even if they could continue to trade with Rome, the profits would drop significantly as the distance increased, making it a completely losing business.
So in Penelence's view, the two sides must fight and divide Parthia's interests with fists.
But can Rome really fight the Han Empire after destroying Parthia ?
Penilence himself had a question mark in his mind.
But after all, he was in a high position and had great power, so Penelence soon calmed down and decided to take down Ctesiphon first.
If the Han Empire cannot even conquer Ctesiphon, it is not impossible that it will then collude with Parthia.
No one will pass up the opportunity to kick a fallen dog.
The news that the intensity of the Roman siege had slowed was quickly delivered to Vogelius V.
"Hahaha!" Voggis V laughed like a night owl. "The Han Dynasty is finally here!"
He is actually extremely regretful in his heart now. If he had not , but instead given them as a gift to the Han Dynasty, would they not have reached this point today?
However, as a monarch, he also knew that the past could not be reversed. Since he had come to this point, he had to move on.
"Ahem!" Fars Sassan coughed and stood up. "Your Majesty, now that the Han Dynasty has arrived, should we start the next plan?"
"That's right. Let that death squad be ready. Once our army starts to fail, immediately deliver this document to the Han Dynasty!" Vogelgis V took out a document coldly.
The content is very simple, that is, to directly recognize Parthia as a vassal state of the Han Dynasty, and the Han Dynasty has the right to own everything in Parthia.
Rather than letting Rome, the enemy, take away everything in Parthia, it would be better to give it to the Han Dynasty directly.
"Here!" Holding the document, Fars Sassan burst into tears. Their family had many ideas, such as rebellion, powerful officials, and becoming the new nobles, but the only thing they did not have was the idea of the country being destroyed and the family being ruined.
And now Parthia has come to this point. This last straw on the edge of the cliff made this old man, who had been a soldier all his life, unable to hold back his tears at this moment.
"Go down and make arrangements. We don't have much time left!" Vogygis V walked out of the palace and looked at the starry sky. There was no expression on his face, neither sad nor happy.
Only the strong fighting spirit in his eyes revealed the anger in Vogtgis V's heart.
Since the destruction of the country and the family is inevitable, Rome, don't even think about having an easy time!
The flame of revenge burned in Voggis' body. All the emotions such as hatred, anger and unwillingness became nutrients and began to burn fiercely.
Vogelgis V stretched out his hand as if he had sensed something, looked at the little glow of the monarch's talent in his hand, and smiled self-deprecatingly. He did not expect that when the country was on the road of strangers, he could actually make further progress.
But that’s also good, because this way, the probability of success of the plan can be higher.
"Rome!" Vogelges V whispered the name of his enemy, and the flames on his body turned more and more into something tangible.
The next day, the Han army arrived near Taixifeng.
"Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen, nineteen..." Yue Fei looked at the flags in the distance, frowning and thinking.
"What's wrong, Pengju? Why do you suddenly look troubled?" Guo Hao asked with a smile when he saw Yue Fei's strange expression.
"General, the Iron Pagoda soldiers who defected to our army have fought against these Eagle Flags. According to them, these legions are quite strong and are all elite troops!"
Yue Fei said, pointing at the flag in the distance.
"Well, I remember Yue Yun submitted relevant intelligence reports. They should all be legions at the top level of the Imperial Guards. They can be considered a strong army!" Guo Hao nodded. He knew the situation.
"Marshal Yue, what you mean is that these soldiers are all barbarians!" Li Ru said lightly.
"That's right, it shouldn't be difficult to defeat them!" Yue Fei said calmly. In his eyes, the five eagle flags and the barbarian army were vulnerable. This was his confidence.
"The problem is that it is difficult for our army to guarantee that when we attack the barbarians, the Parthian army will not escape from Ctesiphon?" Shen Pei continued.
"Rome wants to shift this problem to us. It seems that Rome does not intend to occupy Ctesiphon. All they want is all the wealth west of Ctesiphon, that is, plunder!" Shen Pei calmly said the answer that Yue Fei found difficult to express.
“That’s really hard to decide!”
Guo Hao rubbed his chin. This move by Rome was really vicious. It was obvious that they wanted to exchange the barbarians for benefits. Even if these barbarians died, Rome might even applaud.
After all, the church was a group of powerful barbarians, and their death was a great benefit to Rome. Moreover, they died in the war, so everything was so reasonable.
What the Han Dynasty had to face was not only the hatred of the barbarians, but also the trouble of the army breaking out from Taixifeng.
Let's destroy them, even if it hurts their bones. After all, they are the elite of an empire. This is why they wanted to drag Rome into the water before.
Let's not suppress them. The territories they have occupied now all belong to Parthia. It would be easy for this large army to review these places, and we would have to suppress them later.
Anyway, after Rome looted and left, the big pit was thrown to the Han Dynasty again.
This was equivalent to Parthia taking advantage of the Han army for free, forcing Rome to retreat, and also defending the territory east of Ctesiphon. If there were no Han Dynasty, these places would not have escaped the Roman looting.
It can be said that the moment the Han Dynasty appeared, Rome was already prepared to take only the interests west of Ctesiphon.
"Haha!" Li Ru sneered, "Don't worry, Parthia won't keep us waiting for long!"
"We have deployed some people inside Ctesiphon, and Vogelges V wants to take one last gamble!" Li Ru calmly said something that made the people around him shudder.
"That's impossible..." Shen Pei retorted subconsciously, then frowned.
"One of the seven nobles of Parthia?"
"Of course, Parthia is not a monolithic entity. They were willing to side with Rome before, so they are naturally willing to side with us now!" Li Ru sneered twice.
He has been in the Western Regions for so long and has controlled the trade routes for so long. It would be incredible if he did nothing.
"What a good trick!" Shen Pei sighed and once again thought of the incident at Hulao Pass. At that time, Li Ru and Jia Xu were on their opposite sides, and they lost for no apparent reason.
Before, he had always been in the dark. He only knew that Li Ru and Jia Xu were not simple people and were definitely among the top counselors.
But now he understood more clearly that Li Ru and Jia Xu were good at scheming.
Being able to influence the choice of an empire, he didn't know how much effort Li Ru had spent on this.
"Without Jia Wenhe's help, I couldn't have done this. Jia Wenhe's Shadow Guard is really useful!" Li Ru said calmly.
He glanced at the expressions of Shen Pei, Ju Shou, Tian Feng and others, and nodded with satisfaction. This was exactly the deterrent effect he wanted. Only by starting planning with these top counselors could he give enough deterrence to those aristocratic families after they went abroad.
This deterrent cannot be spread by him alone, it must be endorsed by Shen Pei and others, only in this way can the effect be maximized.
"So, all we have to do next is wait?" Yue Fei was not paying attention to Li Ru and the others' plans. His eyes were now focused only on the battlefield.
"Yes, wait!" Li Ru said affirmatively.
"Let's wait. This will give the soldiers a good rest!" Guo Hao decided, "Leave behind the regular night defense force and let the soldiers recuperate. The final battle will be in two days!"
