Crown Prince of the Empire, I quit!

Three distinct teams of Western Region envoys were "invited" to the high cliffs of the valley. The surrendered minister of Kucha looked pale, the prince of Khotan wore a solemn expression, and the old king of Cheshi, having wavered earlier, was tied to a flagpole. At the bottom of the valley, the Black Armored Cavalry stood in a solemn forest. At the center of the formation, the three cannons, "Sweep the Bandits," "Split the Earth," and "Chase the Sun," reflected a cold, hard light in the chill wind. At the valley's edge, two thousand armored war elephants captured from the Arabs were herded into formation, their noses wagging in agitation.

"Look carefully," Qin Ming said, standing on the clifftop. His voice penetrated the biting mountain wind. "Today, watch how I slaughter an elephant!"

Thunder breaks the silence of the plateau!

The "Bandit-Slaying" artillery volleys fired! Visible shockwaves swept across the valley floor, and the foremost twenty war elephants, like being struck by invisible hammers, their armor dented and cracked, fell to the ground with wailing cries, blood foam gushing from their mouths and noses! Before the smoke had cleared, the "Earth-Splitting" artillery fireballs plummeted into the depths of the elephant formation like meteorites, exploding into balls of crimson flames. The intense heat sent the lumbering beasts into a frenzied run! In an instant, the elephant formation collided with each other, trampling like a landslide! The "Sun-Chasing" crossbows gave their final whistles, and a storm of iron sand enveloped the scattered elephant soldiers within a hundred paces. The elite Arab cavalry and elephant drivers fell like straw, their screams drowned out by the explosions!

Less than a cup of tea had passed. The smoke cleared, and the river valley had become a swamp of blood and flesh. Elephant carcasses piled high, and the surviving war elephants fled, wailing and dragging their broken legs. Ahead of the Black Armor Army, only a scorched earth remained.

A deathly silence fell on the clifftop. The Kucha vassal collapsed to his knees, and the jade ruyi in the hands of the Khotanese prince fell to the ground and shattered. Beneath the flagpole, the old king of Cheshi gurgled in his throat and fainted.

Qin Ming brushed off a speck of blood dust from his shoulder and looked towards the direction of the Arab Empire: "Send a message to the Governor of Khorasan. His elephant soldiers are gone."

Three days later, the Arab envoys stumbled into the governor's palace in Mulu City. Khorasan Governor Abbas smashed his favorite jade wine jar. The main force of the elephant army he had painstakingly built over a decade was crushed to a pulp during a military exercise! The fear in the eyes of the envoys from the Western Regions was far more terrifying than the battle reports.

A fortnight later, on the Pamir Plateau, amidst howling snow and wind, Qin Ming personally led five thousand elite cavalry in black armor, armed with improved triple-barreled cannons and kerosene crossbows, across the frozen pass and launched a surprise attack on the Arab outpost of Barikhai. During the siege, after only five rounds from the "Dangkou" triple-barreled cannon, the iron-clad wooden gates of Barikhai, boasting a three-month resistance against heavy artillery, shattered! The shards, etched in flames, pierced the defenders, and the "Chasing Sun" crossbows followed closely behind to mow down the remaining enemy forces.

By the time Abbas hurriedly led his main force to the rescue, a black battle flag with a golden dragon on a black background had already flown from the walls of Barihei. Qin Ming stood atop the ruined enemy tower, the scorching smoke from the muzzles of his "bandit-sweeping" cannons swirling like black dragons behind him. Amidst the blizzard, the black-armored cavalry formed a mountainous formation, their cold blades drawing arcs of death in the snowy light, aimed directly at the Arab army, which had halted in panic in the dust and smoke to the west.

A north wind swept across the snow line of the Pamir Plateau, blowing the ice crystals on Qin Ming's black cloak into fine silver mist. He reined in his horse and stood atop the ruined watchtower of the Barikhe Fortress, gazing at the gradually clearing line of dust at the western junction of heaven and earth—the thirty thousand Ghulam cavalrymen, led by Abbas, the governor of Khorasan, surged towards him like a black tide.

"Your Majesty," Meng Zhi, his armor stained with blood, pointed at the large halberd embroidered with a crescent moon in gold thread in the enemy's formation, "Abbas placed the center of the army behind the camel formation, while the cavalry on both wings are unusually lagging behind by three miles. Something seems fishy."

Qin Ming's eyes swept over the enemy formation, his fingertips lightly tapping the cold battlements. "It's just bluffing. His real killer move isn't in the battle." Before he finished speaking, an explosion suddenly sounded in the northeast corner of the fortress! A section of the city wall collapsed in the smoke—it turned out to be a breach blasted by lurking Persian engineers with gunpowder!

"Report!" The scout stumbled over. "Cheshi rebels suddenly appeared in the northeastern valley, joined by Persian engineers, and are storming the breach!"

Almost immediately, a cloud of dust rose from the southwest. Thousands of cavalrymen, dressed in the uniforms of the remnants of the Kucha tribe, circumvented the fortress and cut off its connection with the rear. Abbas's grim smile seemed to penetrate the snow and wind: "Qin Ming! This plateau will be your burial place!"

Enemy on three sides, their retreat cut off. A slight commotion erupted among the Black Armor Army. Qin Ming suddenly chuckled, turned to Meng Zhi, and said, "Send the signal smoke signal and follow the third strategy."

Three crimson smoke columns shot skyward! Instantly, countless dark figures surged from both sides of the southwest valley like an avalanche—unbelievably the Khotanese heavy infantry who had feigned a rout earlier! Armed with massive iron-clad shields, they instantly cut off the Kucha rebels' retreat like a moving wall. Almost simultaneously, a deafening roar echoed from the northeast. The wolf-head banner of the Left Guli King of the Black Khanate suddenly appeared behind the Cheshi rebels—this fierce general, once suppressed by Qin Ming's schemes, had defected at the last moment!

"Governor Abbas," Qin Ming's voice echoed across the battlefield through a specially made copper tube. "Have you agreed on the price for bribing the Cheshi and Kucha people?"

The Arab army was thrown into chaos! Abbas's face turned pale. He never expected that Qin Ming had already seen through his strategy of forming alliances and even used his trick to rebel against his key chess piece.

The wind and snow intensified, and Qin Ming slowly raised his sword. Behind him, fifty "bandit-sweeping" short cannons, modified for plateau adaptation, simultaneously raised their muzzles, the antifreeze felt wrapped around the barrels rustling in the wind.

"The charge of the Guram cavalry," he said in a voice as cold as an ice blade, "must be baptized in blood."

Artillery fire ripped the earth apart! Improved shrapnel shells blasted clouds of blood through the dense enemy formations. Buckshot, specifically designed to counter heavy armor, mowed down the charging cavalry like a scythe of death. Abbas was forced to deploy his elite camel cavalry. As soon as these chainmail-clad behemoths emerged from the smokescreen, they were met by hundreds of "fire dragons emerging from the water" suddenly deployed by the Black Armor Army. These improvised rockets, made of bamboo tubes wrapped in gunpowder and attached to arrows, swarmed over the camel formation like locusts. The frightened camels frantically trampled their own infantry!

By dusk, Abbasid's 30,000-man army was completely routed. As the governor fled westward in panic, flanked by his personal guards, Qin Ming halted his pursuit. He rode to the center of the battlefield and, leaning over, picked up half of a burnt gold crescent flag from the snow.

"Tell Abbas," he said, throwing the remnant of the flag to the ground, his boot soles crumpling over the embroidered crescent moon, "I'm waiting for him in Samarkand."

Ten days later, at the gates of Samarkand, the most prosperous city in the eastern part of the Caliphate, the city's gates were sealed. The defenders watched in horror as Qin Ming, commanding tens of thousands of captured Caliphate soldiers and Western Region civilians, toiled day and night in the icy snow to build three rammed earth watchtowers, each ten feet tall. Atop these towers, bronze "clairvoyants" provided a panoramic view of the city's defenses. Even more terrifying was the hidden gunpowder chambers at the towers' bases, capable of blasting entire sections of the wall into the air at any moment.

On the third day of the siege, twelve hereditary noble families of Samarkand jointly surrendered the city! It turned out that Qin Ming had bribed a Silk Road merchant caravan and spread the rumor that "resistance would be massacred, and surrender would be spared." As the remnants of the Abbasid army retreated into the city and attempted a final resistance, the nobles' private soldiers suddenly defected. Under attack from both inside and outside, the Arab defenders collapsed in an instant.