The two sides prepared their troops, set up their formations and marched, and this took a day. At night, both sides set up camp again, with great vigilance, but neither of them had the idea of ​​a night attack. In this way, on March 5, 1015, on the desolate Gobi Desert outside Jerusalem, this great battle that affected the entire Near East began, and a battle that decided to rule the overlord of the Near East began.

The Norman army arranged the troops into neat teams of thousands in their style and manner. Even the most unruly French prodigal sons had to obey the calls of the officers at this moment, and had extremely strict standards for advancing and retreating. The horns kept ringing in the army. Marshal Ers issued orders continuously, and finally adjusted his army to its best state.

The Norman army spread his formation. Marshal Ers placed his main infantry sequence on the front of the battlefield with a strong bow and crossbow to press the formation, and used the Norman new army's super spear square formation to stabilize the formation. At the same time, he paired with twelve twenty-four-pound infantry cannons and twenty four-inch caliber mortars. Yuanshu used his most trusted main force as the strongest shield and sharp sword.

The array of these professional troops is relatively high. They will withstand the enemy's first round of fiercest attacks. At the same time, they will also become the strongest spearhead in the attack.

On the two wings of the 30,000 Norman professional troops, each of them was 30,000 soldiers from Flanders, South Flanders, Lombardy and Naples. These soldiers occupied two dunes on both wings of the battlefield. Although the soft sand was not suitable for garrison positions, they still tried to bury some wooden stakes.

In order to make these wooden stakes more stable, they also nailed a horizontal wooden board underground to make the entire wooden stake a t-shaped shape. This way, even in the soft sand, it can block the opponent's cavalry well.

Cooperating with these soldiers were the Italian shield spearmen who were also recruited soldiers, as well as the hook-axe soldiers, halberd soldiers and swordsmen from Flanders and South Flanders. The equipment and training levels of these troops were a little worse than those of the Norman professional troops. However, compared with the same level in the Middle Ages, they were still first-class elite troops.

Behind the nearly 100,000 troops in the front was the second array of the Normans and the reserve team. A total of 80,000 recruits were lined up in two rows of forty thousand men, each waiting to join the battlefield as reinforcements.

The elite Hussars and Norman Knights, a total of 3,000 elite cavalry, as well as more than 5,000 Italian heavy cavalry and French heavy cavalry from Italy, were deployed separately by the marshal on both wings of the battlefield.

Opposite the Normans was the Ilhan team with nearly 300,000 claws. Surrounded in the center were Ilhan Hulagu, the Khan Guard Cavalry built by the Mongolian heavy cavalry, the Qiexue Army and the Proton Army. These soldiers were elite veterans who had been killed here from the Mongolian grasslands. Hulagu spared no effort to arm them into the deadliest killing machine.

These Khan Guards rode the best Mongolian war horses wearing heavy scales and were equipped with two layers of composite armor - this armor is different from traditional scale armor. It is a composite armor improved by Middle Eastern craftsmen based on the Norman Empire's plate armor craftsmanship.

In order to obtain armor technology that can fight against Norman plate armor, these Arab craftsmen have been working hard under the threat of the Mongolian butcher knife, and finally made this armor.

They added the specifications of the armor sheets and inlaid large rectangular armor on heavy chain armor to create a thicker and more defensive, Arabic-style composite armor. The arm armor and granite simply use the plate armor technology.

Only the helmet is in Arabic style, with chain armor hanging around it, but it is worth noting that the helmet's nose guard is in the shape of a Mongolian style anchor. This armor is quite similar to the four mirror armors of later generations. It can be said that it is the best armor that Hulagu can obtain.

The Khan Guards equipped with such armor could hardly see the shadow of the oriental style, but were completely Arabic. Their weapons were also Damascus scimitars praised by the Arabs, spears and maces used by Arab cavalry. It seems that Mongolia, this ancient and backward nomadic people, soon learned from the locals after entering a higher level of civilization society. This is the case in the Central Plains and the same is true in the Arab world.

These Khan Guards are Hulagu's strongest troops. Compared with this super-heavy cavalry that looks extremely fierce, the troops around him seem a little unimpressed.

It was a huge number of Arab troops wearing Arab robes, veils and turbans, and shields, and shields. They came from all over Syria, Palestine, and Arabia. They were a mixture of conquered Levants, Bedouin, Kurds and a few Egyptians and Persians. These desert peoples were relatively wealthy and even wore chain armor, scale armor or leather armor in their robes.

These soldiers formed the main body of the huge army of the Ilkhanate. In addition to the shield spearmen, there are also unknown number of archers, swordsmen and javeliners. Their tactics were greatly influenced by Rome. There were even some elite troops who could form some slightly scattered Roman formations with shield spearmen, swordsmen and javeliners. Of course, the actual combat effectiveness of these soldiers and the formations they used remains to be discussed.

In front of the Arab army with scattered formations and uneven combat powers, there are the secondary heavy cavalry of the Il Khanate.

These noble armed forces from Armenia, Egypt, and Persia, mercenary cavalry, and the remaining forces of the Arab Empire were used to the maximum extent by Hulagu. A total of 5,000 to 7,000 heavy cavalry wearing various heavy armors - heavy chain armor, heavy scale armor, heavy ring armor, heavy chain composite armor, heavy armor... formed the first attack array of the Khanate.

Hulagu's attitude was very clear. He wanted to use these soldiers as cannon fodder. With the charge of these heavy cavalry, he would destroy the number, morale and physical strength of the Norman army.

Of course, in front of these heavy cavalry, there was a group of more cannon fodder troops. They were Arab civilians who were forcibly recruited. These people had almost no decent equipment, farm tools, wooden sticks, kitchen knives, daggers, and even those with empty hands.

If Hulagu wanted to use the elites of foreign race to destroy the number, morale and physical strength of the Normans, then the purpose of his deployment of these soldiers was only the last two - even the second one was difficult to achieve. He could only hope that these scum would waste some of the Normans' physical strength.

The elite light cavalry that started the Mongolians, as well as a large number of Arab cavalry, were deployed on both wings of the army by Hulagu. These soldiers equipped with light chain armor, prick armor, riding Arabian horses and Mongolian war horses were ordered by Hulagu to attack the two wings of the Normans with harassment tactics. It is necessary to drag the elite Hussars and knight troops on both wings of the opponent. These Normans are proud of and have strong impacts to fail to play a role.

Both sides have their own fighting methods. General Ershi chose the defensive counterattack tactics that the Normans were best at. He used the advantage of long-range firepower to kill the advancing enemy to the slag. Then he completely defeated the enemy with a fierce attack. The Ilkhanate army cooperated very well and hoped to consume the Normans with continuous attacks. In the end, he made a contribution with the elite of the main force.

Neither of these two commanders was ordinary. After looking at the arrangements on the other side, they knew what the other party was thinking. They thought to themselves secretly: "It's just what I want."

So the war officially began. Under the coercion of the Mongols, the Arabs, Christians, Orthodox people, Jews and other Near East residents who had to join the war reluctantly moved towards the Norman array. Behind them was a group of Mongolian supervising teams.

The Mongolian Yan, who was in charge of this mission, frowned, as if he felt that the speed of these slave soldiers was too slow. So he waved his hand and the Mongolian soldiers beside him set off their bows and arrows, firing a rain of arrows behind the slave soldiers.

The slaves without armor defense were naturally helpless when facing the attacks launched from behind. Many of them screamed and were shot against each other by the powerful compound bow of the Mongolians and fell to the ground.

"Run, run! You bastards! Hurry up and charge! rush over!!" The Mongolian man shouted loudly, turning his head to the slave soldiers who looked at him with incredible eyes. Then he pointed to the twitching corpses and said, "If you don't run, this is your end!!"

Under the threat of the brutal Mongols, these slave soldiers had to run with all their might and rushed towards the Norman camp. After seeing this scene, Marshal Ers frowned - he was not disgusted with the massacre of civilians or similar things. Instead, he felt that this method was too indecent.

"These Mongolians are really...at least, they are such a big country. But they have to fight in such a despicable way. It's really a shame."

Marshal Ers commented, waved his hand and issued an order: "The artillery and pulley crossbow are not used for the time being, the longbow is used for three rounds of rapid shooting. The two-wing crossbow shoots freely."

This marshal did not take the opponent's troops seriously at all. He wanted to save his most elite long-range power. He just used the longbow troops to suppress it.

However, for a large number of troops with low defense, a longbow with extremely fast firing speed and low lethality is indeed a good choice. Marshal Ers has two thousand professional longbowers under his command, and three rounds of volleys are six thousand feather arrows, which is enough to shoot all the slave soldiers rushing in the front into hedgehogs! (To be continued)!~!
Chapter completed!