Western Liao, Samarkand.
After a week, the newly appointed Thousand Commander Ivan had successfully cleared out the large bandit forces entrenched in his territory and gained a foothold there. But they now faced a new threat: Khwarazm, once dominant in Samarkand and renowned throughout Central Asia.
His territory had been placed directly west of Samarkand, entirely as a buffer zone.
Western Liao was now precarious, with the land it directly controlled reduced to the corridor from Samarkand to Bukhara. Vassals such as the Kara-Khanids were also growing restless. Fortunately, Western Liao's elite main forces still remained, so Thousand Commander Ivan did not have to start wondering when to jump ship the moment he came aboard.
Recently, after taking in numerous bandits, Ivan's forces had swelled to more than ten thousand men.
From among them, he carefully selected five hundred trusted followers and trained them into armored heavy cavalry using Mamluk methods, while assigning a thousand Light Cavalry as Ivan's unit's mobile force.
Unfortunately, he had only been established here for a short time. Whether Khwarazm's ghulams or Egypt's Mamluks, both needed to be raised from slave boys, requiring a great deal of time to teach them martial skills as well as the spirit of "fight for the sacred flame" and "fight for one's master."
Beside him, Baron Fulk, drenched in sweat after just finishing training the Mamluks in couched-lance charges, squatted down and said, "Samarkand's grain prices have risen quite a bit lately. The weapons and warhorses sold by the Sogdian merchants have doubled in price too. We don't have much time left to rest and regroup."
Ivan smiled unconcernedly. "Hey, what's there to fear? How are we supposed to earn merit without fighting?"
Hadn't he poured all his hard-earned money into military supplies precisely to prepare for war?
Fulk