Balkh: Wild Goose Chase (29)
Posted by: adonis49 on: November 28, 2008
Balkh: Medium-term plan 1
(fiction, ch. 29)
The First Queen of the Son-God Incarnate Artax was from a district located in the north-eastern parts of the Empire, in Mazar Al Shareef and close to the current Central Asian States; she was not at all friendly with the usurping Monarch.
Artax made his move to establishing a presence in the city of Balkh, a center for learning and commerce in north Afghanistan and close to the Central Asian Estates. He dispatched his wife, clandestinely, to her home district along with countable numbers of security officers and a regiment of the army clothed as civilians in a routine caravan trip.
She was to re-affirm the loyalty of her people and exhort youth to travel east and join Artax army. He ordered the Queen never to be guarded by more than 6 formal soldiers and 12 soldiers in civilian attires as front and rear guards during her displacement throughout the district because the smaller the number of personal guards the more confidence she would convey to her people.
The Monarch told the Queen: “Good impressions are worth an entire division of an army.”
Southern Desert: Medium-term plan 2
One of his liked viziers named Khorsheed and from the southern desert like parts of the Empire, expressed the desire to return home and investigate the possibility of securing a base there.
The vizier was dispatched to his district, accompanied with a security officer and another regiment. The same strategy of taking firm hold of parts of the Kingdom in every direction ensured destroying the capacity of the usurping “Magnificent Khosro” to focus and concentrate his forces at one area.
In order to maintain presence in the desert region, frequent supplies were to be delivered from the sea. Consequently, it was necessary to navigate the Indus River and secure a port and ships.
The town of Deb was then the ideal port. Two old merchant ships were purchased and refurbished to play the dual task of supply and soldier carrier tanker: it was essential never to mix business with military exigencies.
The refurbished ships were not meant to belong within the business unit. These small ships received the order to just reconnoiter the Persian sea shores for unusually military and trade activities for advanced intelligence; they also had the mission to listen to the complaints of the suffering villages and towns on the shore.
Two larger merchant ships were secured in the process of taking to the sea as back up resources and the landing of a whole regiment if needed.
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