Su Chen nodded and said: "Liu Rengui is right. We must be prepared to deal with failure in the war. If the war goes unfavorably and too many Persians are defeated, our own formation will be disrupted!"
Li Chengqian sighed and said: "In other words, including the Persians, the maximum number of troops we can use is just over 10,000."
Su Chen smiled bitterly and said: "Actually, the main force is still our less than 6,000 marines. Even if the Persians are elites carefully selected, it is impossible for them to actually mix with us and charge together."
"We will prepare in advance according to this plan now, and we will make detailed arrangements when we arrive in Basra."
"This time may be the most difficult battle we have to face, so everyone must be mentally prepared!"
After everyone ended the meeting, they began to prepare individually.
Su Chen personally found Lapu Pasu and asked him to start selecting Persian elites.
Explain clearly to Rappasu the tasks that the Persians need to undertake in this attack on Basra, as well as the various requirements.
Su Chen told him that this time the demand for personnel required quality, not quantity, and he was asked to rather have a shortage than an excess.
Rappasu patted his chest and assured Su Chen that he would select six thousand elites for Su Chen. Although they were not as good as the main force of the Great Cannibal, they were definitely more elite than the local defenders of the Great Cannibal.
The army rested in Shahr for five days and then set off towards Basra.
During the five days, Su Chen and Lapu Pasu released the scouts hundreds of miles away to make sure that there were no large-scale cannibals around.
The distance was less than 150 miles, and the army easily reached the east bank of the Karen River in two days.
On the way, we met several groups of cannibal scouts. It can be seen from their equipment that these scouts are different from the previous cannibal scouts.
"Look at the arrow clusters. They are almost catching up with our light-feathered arrows. The cannibal's iron smelting technology has improved!"
Su Chen took a closer look at the large man-eating feather arrow handed over by the scout. The arrowhead was obviously different from the ones he had seen before.
"The quality is indeed much better than what we have seen before. It probably hasn't been popularized yet. It is only equipped with elite troops."
Liu Rengui also looked at it carefully.
Yuchi Baolin carefully inspected the scout's armor and said to everyone: "It's okay, fifty steps didn't cause any damage!"
"Even if they make progress, it is limited."
Due to the light weight of aluminum alloy, the scouts of the Tang Dynasty all wore armor, which was simpler than normal armor and focused on the protection of key parts.
This is much superior to the cannibal scout without armor. When the scouts of the two armies meet, the cannibal will lose his life if he runs a little slower.
The army on the shore camped on the east bank of the Karen River,
Su Chen, Liu Rengui and others carefully observed the terrain and the defenses of the Big Eater at the mouth of the river.
In the end, it was decided to attack from the sea as the main offensive route.
Just as Su Chen said, the defense of Basra was arranged according to the old defense thinking. The cannibals built water forts and a large number of fortifications on the river bank.
But the defenses along the coast are much sparse.
However, the cannibals were not unprepared. They deployed a large number of troops behind several easy landing beaches on the coast.
Su Chen ordered to take advantage of the darkness to pick up the people on the shore and take them to the sea.
At dawn the next day, ten hot air balloons took off from the east bank of the Karun River and flew over the Karun River at a very low altitude.
Then pour kerosene over the Great Shiren Shangshui Village.
After obtaining the method of making Greek fire from Byzantium, Su Chen asked the Persians to produce it day and night. Coupled with the seizure from Medina, the Tang army already had a lot of this stuff in stock.
Two thousand kilograms of Greek fire were sprinkled from the sky, and the man-eating water village immediately turned into a sea of fire!
The ships in the water village, as well as the large water army, were reduced to ashes before they had time to react!
While the big man-eating water village was on fire, six galley warships and twelve frigates were sailing upstream along the Karen River, followed by twenty or thirty small boats.
The oar warships and frigates soon arrived near the Big Eater Water Village not far from the entrance to the sea, and began to eliminate the Big Eater ships that luckily escaped from the water stronghold.
There were not many boats in the water village, but most of them were burned by a fire, and the rest were quickly cleaned up.
The Great Eaters defended themselves on the surface of the Karun River and were easily eliminated by the Tang army.
Then twelve frigates lined up on the west bank of the Karen River, dropped their anchors close to the river bank, and fixed themselves to the shore.
After the defenders on the shore saw that the water stronghold was destroyed, the Tang people actually docked the big ship on the west bank of the Karen River.
So what are you waiting for? Hurry up and destroy the Tang people's ships on the shore.
So the Dashi troops stationed on the shore, whether cavalry or infantry, rushed directly towards the frigate.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The sound of gunshots from the mouth of a bowl sounded intensively,
Under the bombardment of cannonballs, the approaching giant cannibals fell down in rows.
The six oar warships and the following small boats began to shuttle back and forth on both sides of the Karun River, and began to transport the Tang and Persian coalition forces to the other side of the river.
The artillery fire on the frigate was so intensive that the cannibal could not get closer than 50 meters to the river bank for a while.
Watching helplessly, the first batch of coalition troops were transported to the West Bank.
When the Tang Dynasty and Persian coalition forces arrived on the west bank, they immediately started shooting with bows and crossbows, and gradually moved forward, trying to form a formation on the half side.
The Great Eater found that the enemy was transporting troops across the river, so he had no choice but to transport them to the gaps between the frigates. The troops were very scattered.
Moreover, for fear of accidental damage, the artillery fire on the ship could not provide fire cover for the enemy troops ashore.
After all, the shotgun fired by a bowl-mouth gun has a range of only a few dozen meters.
So the Great Eater simply gave up the frigate and rushed directly towards the Tang and Persian coalition forces on the river bank.
The frigate immediately stopped firing shotgun shells and instead used solid shells to cover the landing personnel on the shore.
In fact, the bowl-mouth blunderbuss loaded with shotshells is almost finished firing, and the next ones will be filled with solid bullets.
The range of solid bullets is longer, but the lethality is greatly reduced, and it is impossible to provide sufficient cover for people who have just landed on the river bank.
A large number of giant cannibals rushed to the river bank,
In the Tang Dynasty, which had just crossed the river, the Persian coalition forces could only rely on giant shields, spears, crossbows and gunpowder bombs to resist the cannibals.
The big eater rushed up, first threw a round of gunpowder bombs from a distance, and then rushed forward to engage in hand-to-hand combat.
The coalition forces that had just crossed the river immediately suffered heavy casualties and fell into a bitter battle!
Moreover, the trebuchet at the rear of the Great Eater is ready, and the situation is very critical!
Another hot air balloon flew over, flew over the Great Man-Eating Trebuchet, and dropped kerosene directly.
The large man-eating trebuchet position that had just been prepared to launch an attack on the river bank immediately turned into a sea of fire.
Su Chen tried using a hot air balloon to drop bombs on the ground. The accuracy was too low, and its killing effect was far inferior to that of dropping kerosene on the ground at low altitude.
Especially against the enemy's dense formation, the lethality of a large area of fire is very terrifying.
The effect is also good against the trebuchet at the back. That thing moves slowly and is large.
