At the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty

"Yes, grandson will never forget it in his life."

Guo Chengzhi, along with Guo Peng, set his sights on the far west—the battlefield between the Roman Empire and the Parthian Empire.

The war that was profoundly affecting the economic production activities in the western part of the Wei Empire was coming to an end.

Caracalla has successfully breached the capital of the Parthian Empire, and that war is over.

Artaban V has been a complete failure.

The army he led fell apart under the offensive of the Roman army, and the Parthian Empire, which was exhausted to the extreme, was unable to provide more strategic materials to the Parthian army.

And Aldaban V was unable to ask for money from the dignitaries, nor did he have the prestige to let the local powerful factions support him to continue fighting, so naturally he could not continue.

In fact, he knew very well that this war could not go on. Right now, he was just holding his breath and didn't want the Roman army to attack the capital Ctesiphon again.

Back then, Caracalla's father, Severus, had invaded Ctesiphon, which had greatly insulted the Parthian Empire.

If Caracalla continues to invade, and two generations of father and son invade Ctesiphon one after another, the prestige of the central government of the Parthian Empire will really be lost. By then, the local powerful factions will see clearly the decline of the central government, and they will be ambitious.

Those Persians have never been honest, and their yearning for the majestic Persian Empire established by their ancestors has never disappeared.

At that time, Rome will not be the most important enemy, but the internal centrifugal forces will be the most terrible enemy, and those Persians who are ready to move will be the real crisis of the Parthian Empire.

Caracalla, on the other hand, can use this to establish her complete succession to her father-we have all invaded Ctesiphon and become conquerors.

His prestige will be greatly enhanced, and his prestige as an emperor will be greatly condensed, thereby further integrating the power he can use and increasing his threat.

Against this background, Artaban V really dared not lose.

But he still lost.

The elite cavalry of the Parthian Central Army was defeated by the Roman cavalry, and the Roman infantry also defeated the resistance of the Parthian infantry. Artaban V was defeated and injured on the front line.

He was shot in the shoulder with an arrow, and even half of the guards were killed. He fought hard among the chaos and tried his best to escape and returned to the capital.

As a result, they were quickly chased up by the Romans and attacked the city.

He tried his best to defend the city, mobilized all the troops to defend the city, went into battle to boost morale, and resolutely refused to admit defeat.

After persisting for more than ten days, in the end, he still failed to keep the capital that his ancestors finally regained, and the capital fell again.

The Romans swarmed in, the Parthian army collapsed, unable to carry out street fighting, and Ctesiphon fell again.

Unfortunately, he didn't even save the last bit of face.

In order to survive, he had to flee to the east of the empire on the advice of his cronies, trying to reorganize his strength and then fight against the Roman Empire.

It's just that it's hard to say how much appeal he still has in the local area after losing all his capital.

How much dignity does a leader who has been defeated by the enemy and lost even the capital have?

All I can say is, I hope there is still a little life left.

If those powerful Persian factions still have a little respect for him and won't take advantage of his illness to kill him...

In short, with the retreat of Aldaban V, the building of the Parthian Empire is gradually approaching the reality of collapse.

Compared with the abjection and fear of Aldaban V, Caracalla is proud of himself.

He led the army into Ctesiphon, proved his ability, proved that he could inherit his father's position, became the great military emperor, and led the imperial guards to get promoted and get rich together.

The negative impact of killing Macrinus disappeared with the breach of Ctesiphon, and those who still had Macrinus in their hearts also forgot everything in front of Cetsifon's gold, silver and jewels.

The guards plundered in Ctesiphon, searched for treasures, plundered the people, took everything in Ctesiphon as their own, and tried their best to desire, while Caracalla smiled triumphantly at the peak of desire with.

He knew that from now on, he would become a powerful king like his father, and he would be able to have a series of dominance over the Imperial Guards. The prelude to realizing the dream of centralization.

The Parthian Empire lost its troops and land, was completely defeated, the capital fell, and everything that should be lost was lost. Caracalla originally wanted to take advantage of the victory and attack several important cities in the central and eastern parts of the Parthian Empire.

For example, Trajan and his father Severus did not conquer the fortress of the Parthian Empire. If he could conquer it and go further into the hinterland of the Parthian Empire, he would definitely be able to further damage the Parthian Empire.

However, most of his entourage generals opposed such aggressive advances.

The reason is that their army has a total of only 5 people, and it is difficult to do what Emperor Severus' 10 people could not do.

Moreover, this expedition itself was speculative in nature, and it was not prepared for a full-scale war. If it wanted to launch an attack east of Taixifeng, it had to be prepared for a full-scale war.

The east of Taixifeng is the real core area of ​​the Anxi Empire. A large number of local powerful factions gather there. A single emperor is nothing at all, but if the entire Anxi local powerful faction is offended, this battle will still be fought.

chapter 1530 one thousand 450 what Cao Chongzhi saw

Caracalla's generals are telling the truth.

Having been enemies for many years, no one knew the Parthian Empire better than the Roman generals.

The emperor of Anxi can no longer reproduce the glory of the year. He cannot represent the real Anxi Empire at all, and even the capital Taixifeng cannot represent the Anxi Empire.

The capture of Taixifeng has been done by seniors, but this does not change anything.

The reason why the Parthia Empire still exists is that the capital is more like a fortress of war. In order for the Parthia Emperor to face the threat of Rome more directly, it is logical to take control of the military power to deter local powerful factions. The meaning is like Zhu Di moving the capital to Beijing.

It is all to allow the supreme ruler to directly control a large number of troops to frighten the whole country.

The rulers of the Parthian Empire were not of the same race as the large number of Persians in the empire. The rulers were outsiders, and the Persians were locals.

The conflict between natives and foreign rulers has a long history.

The Persians themselves once established a huge and powerful empire, which greatly shocked the "Western world" at that time.

So the Persians didn't think they were born to be ruled.

Up to now, the local Persians had gained considerable autonomy, and the Persian nobles were scattered in the wealthy provinces, eyeing the central imperial power of the Parthian rulers.

Eliminating the Parthian ruler may not necessarily conquer the entire Parthian Empire.

The Persians under the Parthian Empire were the real enemy.

Moreover, the real support points of the Parthian Empire are cities such as Hekatompilos and Ecbatan, which guard the key points of the Silk Road.

As long as the Romans could not occupy these key points, the rulers of this area could use the method of raising the price of Chinese goods to recover the losses from the hands of the Roman dignitaries.

In fact, Rome has repeatedly attacked the Parthian Empire for this reason, and it does not want to buy such expensive things.

It's just that the empire's attack power is limited, and its logistics extension ability is also limited. It can't penetrate the Parthian Empire.

Now is the time for this vicious circle to return to its original point.

It's just that in the current situation, whether to continue to attack the interior of the Parthian Empire is actually driven by no hard conditions.

Apart from Caracalla's personal pursuit of glory and prestige, there was no need for the Romans to teach the Parthians a lesson.

the reason is simple.

The Maritime Silk Road from the southeast coast of the Wei Empire to Egypt has been opened up by the Wei Empire. Although it takes a long time, the journey is relatively long, and there are dangers along the way—isn’t it the same on land?

Moreover, the Wei Empire and the Roman Empire have established equal and friendly diplomatic relations, and realized equal and direct transactions between the two parties.

Although it is not cheap to buy things directly from merchants in the state of Wei, it is much cheaper than buying from merchants in the second way. When they first traded with the people of the state of Wei, the Roman nobles were ecstatic.

so cheap?

I'm so overwhelmed!

The desires of the Roman dignitaries were greatly satisfied, and the trade with the Parthia Empire no longer involved the commodities of the Wei Empire.

Whether to attack the Parthian Empire to open up trade routes is actually not the point.

The Maritime Silk Road gave the Roman Empire a better choice. With such a good choice, why did they send out a large army to attack the Parthians?

Isn't it money to spend so much military expenditure on militarism?

The generals persuaded, and Caracalla thought about it, and felt that it was right.

Trajan stopped Cetsyphon and did not go on, and his father stopped Cetsyphon and did not go on.

As far as he was concerned, the goal of catching up with Trajan and his father's prestige was achieved.

For the [-] troops at the moment, it is not a simple matter to go deep into the Anxi Empire.

The Parthian emperor of the Parthian Empire was easy to bully, but the local Persians were really hard to mess with. Those Persians were really fierce in fighting.

This Roman army was not ready to fight them. Once he rushed forward and failed, his previous efforts would be in vain.

After much deliberation, Caracalla weighed the pros and cons, and decided to stop Tessifon, teach him this lesson, and then go back to do some big things.

Before that, as a sign of his superiority over his father, he resolved to set fire to Ctesiphon, to destroy Ctesiphon utterly, and to destroy all buildings, as a testimony of his eternal deeds.

With his order, the [-] Roman soldiers were like having a party, enjoying themselves and looting as much as they wanted.

They regard everything in this city as their own, and let go of the strong desires that have been accumulated in their hearts for a long time.

They do all kinds of evil here, robbery, murder, rape, all the evil things that humans in this era can think of, they can do it, and they will carry it out to the end.

They released the most primitive animal nature in their hearts.

The dignitaries and people who rested in Taixifeng were devastated, and they were attacked and killed extremely thoroughly and brutally.

Men were killed for fun, and women were kidnapped and tortured by Roman soldiers in the barracks, even the elderly and children.

What's even more ironic is that in order to compete for trophies or women, Roman soldiers would also face each other with swords, kill each other, and plunder each other's trophies, just to get more for themselves.

All these are too numerous to enumerate, and what you see is a human world that is not like the human world.

As a complete bystander, in Cao Chongzhi's memory, only the book "Ping Huangjin Jilue" compiled by the official Wei State has been recorded in Cao Chongzhi's memory.

This book was compiled by the historian of the State of Wei in accordance with the order of the then emperor Guo Peng—in order not to let the world forget the disaster.

The content of this book adopts a large number of official records left by the Han Empire, and created a more groundbreaking way for historians to interview the parties who are still alive to obtain more details.

In the preface of this official semi-historical book, the historian claimed to have interviewed veterans, military officers, and officials who were still alive, and obtained many details from them that they saw with their own eyes and could not forget.

Therefore, some additional details can be added when the relevant facts are introduced.

This book has a great reputation in the history circle of Wei State.

It is because of this kind of interview that not only the veterans and officials were interviewed, but also the emperor Guo Peng who personally participated in the suppression of the Yellow Turban War and made great contributions to making a fortune and became a famous general.

Guo Peng allowed the historian to interview him, and said many details of the war in his memory.

Therefore, when this book was compiled and circulated within Taixue and Jiangwu Hall, it attracted great attention.

Many people scrambled to pass it on and read it, especially the clips of the interview with Guo Peng, which were copied by many people for inheritance.

Of course Cao Chongzhi was among them.

What impressed him the most was the battle that Guo Peng personally described in which he participated in attacking Guangzong City under the leadership of Lu Zhi.

In his memory, the battle was very tragic, the Han army desperately attacked, and the Yellow Turban army desperately resisted. In the end, Guo Peng entered the city first, surrounded and successfully captured the first horn of the Yellow Turban bandit, disintegrating the fighting will of the remaining Yellow Turban army.

Then came the ugliest scene in the world.

The army at that time was different from the current Wei army. The Eastern Han Empire did not retain too many standing troops. Once the Yellow Turbans rebelled, they had to temporarily recruit troops to conquer the Yellow Turbans.

At that time, except for a few direct-line elite troops, the rest of the Han army were soldiers recruited temporarily. Their purpose was simple-to make a fortune.

The imperial court promised that after conquering the city, they would be able to plunder everything in the city. Using this as a bait, many people joined the crusade under the restriction of self-financing equipment without paying military salaries.

After the war, Guangzong City was plundered, and all the people in the city were killed, robbed, raped, and in the end, few people could even stand and live, and they were all ruined.

The corpses in Guangzong City piled up like a mountain, and the whole city became a dead city, but most of them were not Yellow Turban soldiers.

Guo Peng said that that battle had too profound impact and influence on him, so after he established the Wei Army in the future, the first thing Wei Jun should abide by was the strict military regulations and military discipline. .

He would never allow a similar scene to appear before his eyes again.

Text descriptions are two-dimensional, and it is difficult to construct a three-dimensional image in people's minds, unless the creator has extraordinary talent.

Either Guo's description was not vivid enough, or the historian's literary talent was not enough, Cao Chongzhi still could not understand what Guo Peng saw in that day and year.

But now, he thinks he saw that scene.

Crossing time constraints and space dimensions, he seems to have traveled through time and space and returned to the seven years before Han Guanghe, and witnessed with his own eyes what kind of purgatory Guangzong City was after being captured by the Han army.

If there really is a purgatory in the world, then it is right in front of you right now.

Cao Chongzhi felt that he had seen the ugliest and vicious scene in the world. Nothing in the past or in the future could be compared with Taixi Fengcheng at this moment.

He has killed people, seen blood, received a very strict education, seen strong winds and waves, seen the assassination of the emperor, and personally participated in an exciting mutiny and war.

It can be said that his psychological quality is very good.

But when he saw this scene, within two days, he turned around and left Ctesiphon.