Facing Ottoman's anger, the soldier who came to report the news replied with a trembling voice: "Your Majesty, we are not Persians here."
"It was dozens of Persian fireships that suddenly appeared upstream,"
"Those ships will spit fire! Our fleet on the river cannot stop them..."
Osman was furious: The traffic artery between himself and Ctesiphon suddenly disappeared like this!
What ship breathes fire?
The soldiers responsible for guarding the pontoon must have been slack and the Persians took advantage of it!
But at this moment, Osman did not have time to ask in detail how the pontoon bridge was suddenly bombed.
Because he found that Tang Jun was rushing over!
This time, the Tang army should have completely given up their plan to attack the infantry in the west, and all rushed towards them. The artillery and baggage troops behind them were all moving north.
Osman felt that the infantry and baggage troops that he had left behind in the west should have been evacuated, and there was no need to continue to drag the Tang army here.
So Osman led his 10,000 elite cavalry to escape the pursuit of the Tang army and quickly retreated towards the main camp in the west.
When Su Chen saw Osman withdrawing, he ignored it and let the army continue to advance north.
The small hill five miles southwest of Hilla City has been occupied by the Ottomans. It is now an Ottoman camp outside the city. Su Chen had no choice but to choose another place to camp near Hilla City.
This time, Su Chen chose to be six miles southeast of Xila City. It was flat and open facing Xila City, with the Xila River to the east and a small hill running from northeast to southwest to the south.
This kind of terrain is not a good terrain for the Tang army. It can easily be blocked by the river by the cannibals.
However, Su Chen chose that place to lure Osman to take the initiative to lead his army out of the city to fight him decisively.
Of course, Su Chen was not blindly confident. He had just received a report from the scouts: Liu Jingren and Xue Rengui had succeeded and almost destroyed all the Ottoman artillery!
Moreover, the hot air balloon also found out that the pontoon on the Gila River was indeed bombed!
Seeing that Osman had gone far away with his cavalry, Liu Jingren and Xue Rengui were chasing after him.
Su Chen immediately said to Master Sun Ren: "Bring thermite incendiary bombs and quickly attack the cannibal camp northwest of Shila City!"
Sun Renshi led two thousand cavalry and immediately headed northeast.
"Rapupasu, this is a wonderful achievement!"
Su Chen said to Lapu Pasu beside him.
This time, the blowing up of the pontoon bridge on the Shira River was entirely done by the Persians alone. The Tang army did not participate, but Su Chen provided them with some equipment.
When Su Chen chose to march towards the city of Hilla, everyone discussed the possibility of blowing up the pontoon bridge on the river and cutting off Osman's road back to Ctesiphon.
But at that time, everyone thought it was impossible. The pontoon bridge was too important to the Great Eater, and the Great Eater would definitely send heavy troops to protect it.
But Rappasu said he could give it a try. His reason was that the cannibals might be wary of the army of watchers destroying the pontoon, but attention should be focused on both sides of the bank and downstream.
If a small group of elites is sent to launch a surprise attack from the upper river, it is still possible to succeed.
Su Chen thinks it makes sense, but this matter can only be left to the Persians.
It is almost impossible for the Tang army to sneak to the upper reaches of the Xila River and prepare to launch an attack without being discovered by the giant eater.
If the Persians had the help of local people, they would be somewhat sure of success.
So when the army left Diniva and headed north, a hundred Persians crossed the Hira River and quietly sneaked upstream from the east bank of the Hira River.
As Rappasu said, the Ottomans did send heavy troops to guard the pontoon bridge, but most of their attention was focused on the downstream direction. After all, the enemy was coming from the south.
After Su Chen arrived near the city of Shira, he never got any news about the Persian team and thought they had been exposed.
As a result, three days ago, when the Persian army in Basra was heading north to join the main army, Rappasu came and told Su Chen:
The team that infiltrated into the upper reaches of the Gila River had news, and with the help of locals on the shore, they had found more than 20 small boats and were ready for a raid.
There happened to be 10,000 Persians gathered together, and Su Chen's manpower and ammunition supplies were greatly supplemented.
So Su Chen and everyone discussed a strategy:
Deliberately pretending that the army was going to cross the Shira River and march eastward, it lured Ottoman to come.
When Osman saw that Su Chen was going to lead his army across the river, of course he would not give up such a God-given opportunity.
Not only did he rush to the river with his elite cavalry, but he also sent the army from Qiaotou Camp to the east bank of the river to destroy the Tang army that had already crossed the river.
Just as the big cannibals from the Qiaotou camp were chasing the enemy troops on the other side of the river through the pontoon bridge, the Persian assault team upstream took action.
Twenty-five small boats rushed down the river towards the pontoon on the river.
The boats collected by the Persian team were very small, the kind commonly used by ordinary people to cross the river, less than four meters long, but they could go down the river at a decent speed with two people paddling.
The Great Eater protected the pontoon very tightly, with troops stationed on both sides and boats patrolling the river.
Although the big cannibal's attention is all in the downstream direction, there are also twenty or thirty ships upstream, and they are much larger than the small boats that the Persians found temporarily.
However, this section of the Shira River is only sixty or seventy meters wide, and it is deep inland. The cannibal ship is not a big ship, except for a crossbow and no high-end weapons.
Several decent warships are all downstream of the pontoon!
In fact, Da Shiren did not think that the Tang army would attack the floating bridge from the river.
It was so deep inland that it was impossible for the Tang army to carry their own ships, and all the ships on the nearby river had been captured long ago, so the Tang people could not find any ships to attack them.
The facts were indeed similar to what Big Eater had expected. After three days of searching near the lower reaches, Lapu Pasu collected dozens of small boats, most of which were small wooden boats less than five meters in length.
When Osman came to the river and saw the Tang army using dozens of small wooden boats to slowly cross the river, he almost laughed out loud!
Therefore, the Persian team upstream was able to find more than 20 small boats, which was the result of the strong help of the Persians on the shore.
However, these twenty-odd small boats have become a nightmare for giant cannibals!
Seeing so many small boats suddenly appearing upstream, they rushed down quickly, and the large ship hurriedly stepped forward to intercept them.
The ship's crossbow fired in one round, and the thick crossbow arrows directly sank five or six Persian boats.
However, the Persian boat also quickly approached the large food ship.
The big cannibal on the ship did not panic. He drew his bow and shot arrows while preparing for a boarding battle.
In their view, these small boats less than four meters long are simply looking for death.
However, when the great eater found that his bow and arrows were shooting at the Persians and could not penetrate the opponent's armor at all, he knew that he had encountered the elite of the enemy.
