"David Drake - Belisarius 6 - The Dance Of Time" - читать интересную книгу автора (Drake David)

extension of Hindu India; and, throughBuddhism ,India would have a major impact on the societies of
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theFar East . Still, no Indian ruler in that timeline ever attempted to conquer the world in the manner that
the Malwa Empire was doingтАФusing methods of conquest that were even more savage than Genghis
Khan's, with an end goal that had none of the Mongols' tolerance as actual rulers.

But the ruler of the Malwa Empire was not a man or woman, to begin with. The real ruler of the empire
was not the official emperor, Skandagupta. It was Link, a machine, amonster , which the "new gods"
had sent to change the past and bring their bleak future into existence. If the Malwa armies defeated
Belisarius and his outnumbered forces here in the angle of the Indus and Chenab Rivers, the losers would
not only be the citizens of the Roman Empire but also all other humans in all times.

Belisarius glanced to the side, where theJustinian was slowly steaming. The gunship was keeping a
distance from the mine-laying activity, but it was still close enough to come to theVictrix 's support in the
unlikely event that the Malwa tried to launch an attack on the fireship.

The veryunlikely event. TheVictrix herself had already proven to the Malwa, several times, that she
could destroy any wooden riverboats sent against her. And the one time the Malwa had sent down a
partially-armored boat, theJustinian had blown it into wreckage in less than a minute. For the past
several weeks, there had been no Malwa incursions on the river at all. From the reports of spies, the
enemy had apparently decided to wait until their new heavy ironclads were finished.

Furthermore, if Justinian and Eusebius were right, even those wouldn't do them any good. The Malwa
had no way to build completely iron ships; none, at least, that would have a shallow enough draft for
these rivers. Their ironclads were just that:clad in iron. The underlying boats were still woodenтАФand
even these small mines would be enough to break such hulls in half.

"To tell you the truth, General," Eusebius commented, "I don't even understand why the Malwa have
kept building those ironclads. There's no way to lay these mines secretly, even working at night the way
we've been doing. By now, they must know we've got both rivers saturated with them."

Belisarius had wondered about that himself. Link had just as much knowledge of future warfare as Aide
did. The effectiveness of mines against warships in any constricted area of water was so well established
in that future that he couldn't imagine Link having any real hope his ironclads could bull their way through
a large and well-lain mine field.

Your theory's the right one, I think,Aide said.Link is shifting to the defensive.

Yes. I hadn't thought it would, not this quickly. I'd expected the monster to try a massive assault to drive
us out of thePunjab , before we could get really settled in. But... It's not. And if it waits much longer, it'll
be too late.

Too late, indeed. The Romans and their Persian allies were slowly but surely gaining control of the Indus
and both of its banks all the way from the Sukkur Gorge to the Iron Triangle, after already having
conquered theSind south of the Gorge. So the spearhead that Belisarius had driven into thePunjab during
the course of his campaign the previous year would soon be well-supplied. The fortifications across the