strictlysupreme Chapter 960 The Demonic Dragon Soars Through the Sky
Chapter 960 The Demonic Dragon Soars Through the Sky
Chapter 960 The Demonic Dragon Soars Through the Sky
When Rumi led his personal guard to the top of the city wall, even though he had prepared himself mentally, he was still taken aback by the huge crowd surging in below.
These were refugees driven here by the Tatars' swords, and now they flowed like a great river, recklessly filling the narrow waterway and completely blocking the valley passage below Hovezan.
Looking around, the once peaceful and tranquil village, located on the banks of the Karen River, has been completely burned to the ground, with flames soaring into the sky and thick black smoke billowing.
The cries of people, their wails and pleas for help, mingled with the incessant laughter of the Tatar butchers, made it feel as if one were in hell.
"Retract the drawbridge! Close the city gates! No one is allowed to approach!"
Governor Rumi gave the order without hesitation.
The refugees, driven in wave after wave, lost their only way to survive and began to plead desperately towards the city walls.
"Please, please lower the drawbridge! The Tatars are still far away!"
"Ali, let me in, for my father's sake."
The soldiers guarding the city walls had tears in their eyes. They all knew that once the drawbridge was lowered and the city gates opened, it would be impossible to close them again. The Tatars would follow the refugees in, and the entire city would become victims of their swords.
But many of these refugees outside the city were their relatives, friends, and neighbors, some even their parents, wives, and children. Who would be willing to sit idly by or even kill them with their own hands?
Someone shouted at them, "Turn around and fight those demons who are slaughtering you! Don't come any closer! The city gates will never be opened!"
But no one listened to him. The refugees were terrified by the Tatars behind them. Those in front stopped in the moat, but those behind continued to push and shove, causing people to be thrown into the moat like dumplings being dropped into boiling water.
If this moat hadn't been fed by the turbulent Karen River, any living person who fell in would have been swept away very quickly, and the bodies of the refugees could have filled the entire river.
A man dressed as a refugee suddenly drew his bow and aimed an arrow at Ali, which he narrowly dodged.
Governor Gazi, who had participated in the holy war, gritted his teeth and roared, "Fire! Don't hold back anymore! Their fate is sealed. There are Tatars mixed among these refugees. We can't let these people get any closer to the city walls!"
These Tatars are such skilled archers; they're using the refugees as shields, firing arrows indiscriminately. A decision must be made.
"I will bear all the sins myself. Do not hesitate, retaliate immediately!"
His voice was shaking.
Howezan is a fortified city, its lifeblood being agriculture and its foundation being labor. But now, its wheat fields are being trampled, its villages are being burned, and its people have become tools of the enemy, about to die at their own hands.
Many of the villagers who were wailing and pleading were familiar faces to him.
The Tatars' fighting style remained unchanged: they used their swords to drive the people, with conscripted soldiers following closely behind.
In the Tatar military system, even the lowest-ranking conscripts could be promoted to high positions based on their military achievements. They also enjoyed the distribution of spoils of war and the right to plunder after conquering cities.
This gave the conscripted soldiers a considerable fighting spirit, and some of the higher-ranking conscripts were even as capable as the soldiers of the Tatar main force.
In addition, each conscripted army of one hundred households had a Tatar supervisor overseeing the battle, including even higher-ranking conscripts like the Ivan tribe. The Tatars had a firm grip on the entire army.
This is why Jochi was able to command this army, composed of people from different tribes, races, and faiths, as if they were his own limbs.
Behind the refugees, a group of conscripted soldiers, fully armed and carrying ladders, soon appeared.
On the rugged mountain walls on both sides, dozens of Tatar archers suddenly appeared. Guided by their guide, they had followed the upper reaches of the Karen River upstream and found a narrow path that was only wide enough for one person to climb, leading to the mountain walls on both sides. Their sudden appearance was like divine intervention.
"Fire arrow!"
The Tatar commander leading the team shouted an order, and they tied oil-soaked hemp fibers to the arrowheads, lit them with a whoosh, and shot them down at the city wall from their high position. Soon, the wooden fortifications were set ablaze, and a raging fire broke out on the city wall.
The defending troops were forced to retreat step by step by the raging fire, and the conscripted troops below the city took the opportunity to carry up the simple siege ladders, set them up on the moat and began to attack the city.
Although the walls of Howezan were made of rammed earth and were far less sturdy than the stone walls of Hamadan and Isfahan, their location against the mountains and in a narrow river valley made it difficult for the Tatars to deploy their massive siege weapons.
Instead, carrying ladders and using the most primitive method of swarming to attack the city became the only option.
Soon, more than ten conscripts, under the cover of archers on both flanks, gained a foothold on the city wall.
However, the passage was narrow, and even though these conscripts had already secured a place on the city wall, the supply of additional troops was still slow. Meanwhile, the Howezan defenders, who had gradually extinguished the fire, also launched their attack.
The Tatar archers on the mountain wall quickly ran out of fire arrows. The mountain path was difficult to traverse, and they had limited ammunition and no packhorses to transport them. They could only pick up stones from the mountain and swing slingshots at the city walls.
Nomadic peoples lacked iron tools, and the Tatars were no exception before they conquered the Western Xia and the Jin Dynasty.
Many nomadic tribes, despite having numerous cavalry, were hardly considered formidable enemies because they mostly used bone arrows, which were ineffective against armored cavalry and were regarded as a rabble.
Therefore, the sling, a weapon made of simple materials, requiring only animal hide rope, plant fiber, and readily available stones as ammunition, became a weapon that almost every grassland herder knew how to use.
Stones rained down on the defenders' heads, some suffering minor bruises and swelling, others with broken heads and bleeding profusely, and some simply collapsing to the ground unconscious.
Although the territory occupied by the conscripted soldiers on the city wall was completely surrounded by the defending army and could not be expanded, the overwhelming number of defending soldiers could not submerge this "isolated island".
And the number of enemies on this isolated island is increasing.
As more and more conscripted infantrymen amassed on the city walls, they launched their first probing attack. The conscripted soldiers at the front row, carrying huge square shields, exerted all their strength with their burly bodies, while the conscripted soldiers behind them pushed against their backs and charged forward. For a time, the town militia could only retreat step by step under their offensive!
"These Tatars are so fierce in their initial battles?"
Rumi was greatly surprised. In his opinion, the strength of these Tatar infantrymen was no less than that of the Frankish knights who had fought against them before. No wonder these Tatars were always successful in attacking cities and capturing strongholds.
Little did he know that the first group to climb the city walls were none other than Ivan and his personal guard.
These were elite infantrymen trained according to Mamluk standards. They could shoot and charge on horseback, and even when off their mounts and clad in double-layered heavy armor, they were still top-notch infantry.
"Hold on! We have no room to surrender. If we are defeated, we will all be slaughtered by these devils from the grasslands. Surrender or fight, we will all die. If we are going to wait to die, why not die for our country?"
"Our wives and children are behind us. We have nowhere to retreat. Hold on! The new king is coming, and the reinforcements are coming!"
The noble officers of the defending army could only keep trying to boost morale by mentioning the impending arrival of reinforcements.
Although Howezan had a considerable number of troops, he lacked an elite force capable of leading the charge in critical moments.
Faced with the current situation, the defending troops, lacking experience and coordination, and with an absolute disparity in individual strength, are simply unable to leverage their numerical advantage.
The narrow terrain not only limited the Tatars' huge numerical advantage, but also restricted the defenders of the city.
"Step back, throw firecrackers, launch rockets, burn these bastards to death!"
Governor Rumi, enraged, disregarded the ongoing entanglement between the two sides and ordered his soldiers to light fire arrows like the Tatars. He preferred to set the entire city ablaze with torches rather than allow the Tatars to gain a foothold there.
One by one, earthenware jars filled with kerosene mixed with bitumen, sulfur, and other substances were thrown at the feet of the signatory soldiers.
Ivan, who was completely encased in iron armor, suddenly changed his expression. These Sassanid bastards had gone mad. Did they not even care about the lives of their own people?