Chapter 215 Siege

Chapter 216 Siege

Three days after the Tunisian rebels surrounded the city of Tunisia from the north, west and south.

Jamil looked at the magnificent Tunisian city from afar, raised his hand and pointed at the Royal Guards formation under the city with a stern look: "Order, launch a general attack!"

The melodious trumpet sounded in the surrounding area for several miles, and more than a dozen rebel formations moved forward slowly and silently under the command of their respective officers.

Koca, who commanded the Royal Guards to defend the city, stood on a high ground in the west of the city, holding a telescope, frowning and whispering to himself:

"That cursed fire... Is the great Royal Guards going to end here?"

If it was a normal battle, even if the rebels had twice as many people as himself, he would have the confidence to defeat them.

However, more than half a month ago, the armory in the city of Tunisia caught fire accidentally, perhaps it was the Berbers in the city who set the fire.

In short, more than 70% of the weapons in the armory were burned.

Previously, the guards had to return to live in Tunisia, but because of the assassination of the Bey, they were not allowed to bring weapons into the city, so they handed in their weapons and stored them in the armory.

After the fire, half of the soldiers faced a lack of weapons and equipment.

At that time, the rebels in various places won victory one after another and began to gather towards Tunisia.

When the pampered guards in the city learned that the army lacked weapons, they packed up their wealth and fled to Tripoli or Egypt, which in turn affected their soldiers.

"In less than a week, there are thousands of deserters. These cowardly wastes!"

Koca shook his head and sighed: "With the accumulation of more than a hundred years of the Guards, if they had resolutely and bravely cleared out the rebels, how could they have ended up being surrounded in the city today?"

"Pasha?" The adjutant beside him saw him in a daze and hurriedly reminded him in a low voice, "The enemy is approaching."

Koca nodded and waved his hand casually: "Fire."

"Yes, Pasha."

In front of the Tunisian Guards' defense line, a dozen cannons roared, and the shells, with a sharp whistle, penetrated into the crowd of native soldiers.

"Ah--"

Amid the screams, several bodies shattered by shells turned into pieces of meat and blood foam and shot everywhere, and the already messy native army formation immediately became more chaotic.

Those native army officers who were farmers and peddlers not long ago tried their best to suppress their fear, waving their scimitars and shouting to restrain their men: "Keep the formation!"

"Don't be chaotic, and don't retreat!"

"Don't stand there, keep moving forward!"

With their efforts, the attacking team barely kept moving forward. However, the cannons of the Guards sounded again.

In fact, this kind of solid shells can't cause too many casualties. Even if it hits the army directly at the best angle, it can kill at most a dozen people. In most cases, it takes away one or two lives, or even fails to hit.

But the deafening sound of the cannons and the fear of being shattered by invisible shells at any time are extremely testing the willpower of the soldiers.

These native soldiers who have not received formal training do not have this ability at all.

After enduring four or five rounds of artillery fire, most of the soldiers began to turn around and run away uncontrollably-especially those who were covered in blood and brain paste, who ran faster than anyone else.

After a round of scolding, the officer in charge of them found that he could not control them at all, so he also ran back.

A few soldiers would get excited, shout the title of the prophet and the Lord, and run towards the enemy position ready to fight to the death, and what awaited them was the volley of the guards.

Two days later.

Jamil listened to the officers reporting the casualties with a gloomy look, muttering in a low voice: "More than 20,000 soldiers, more than a dozen rounds of attacks, and not once could they get within 50 steps of the enemy..."

He originally thought that it would be like the previous battles, and he would soon be able to enter the city of Tunisia. Unexpectedly, more than 400 people died in the past two days, and they had not even touched the first line of defense of the guards.

"Cannons! Those damn cannons!" He suddenly gritted his teeth and yelled, "If we also have cannons, we can definitely crush those devils!"

The officer next to him took two steps closer and whispered, "General, maybe we can try Ishak Pasha."

After becoming the leader of the rebels, the generous "Master Zaganos" has restored his real name and became Ishak Pasha.

At dusk, the dim light caused both sides of the war to stop temporarily, and the soldiers returned to the camp to prepare dinner.

Zemil brought several main officers to the residence of Ishak Pasha, the leader of the rebels.

"Cannon?" Ishak frowned and shook his head, "This kind of thing is not something you can get casually."

Zemiller begged anxiously: "Pasha, the enemy's cannons pose a great threat to us. If we don't have equal weapons, it will be difficult to win. Please think of a way..."

"At present, only the French have cannons in the whole of Tunisia." Ishak pondered and shook his head, "It's just that this is the hatred between us Tunisians and the Ottoman Guards. It has nothing to do with them. They may not be willing to provide help."

Zemiller immediately said: "How can this have nothing to do with them? We are all Roman brothers of the same clan. I believe that they will not sit idly by!"

Several officers next to him also nodded in agreement.

Ishak seemed to be convinced by them, and reluctantly said: "Okay, let's go find the 'Roman compatriots' and try.

"By the way, it's best to ask Elder Alayi to go with us. His extraordinary reputation should be helpful."

"Okay, I will beg him personally!"

The next day, a Tunisian indigenous "delegation" of more than ten people arrived at the Guards Corps' station, and Berthier warmly received them.

Elder Ala'i is now the religious leader of the Tunisian indigenous people and gained extremely high prestige and status during this uprising. Regardless of whether he was willing or not, he was now firmly bound to the interests of the rebels, and he had long since stopped pursuing the matter of someone falsely using his name to publish prophecies.

Instead, he will now actively work in the interests of the rebels.

After he explained the difficulties he faced on behalf of the rebel army and asked for help from his "comatriots," Berthier also said to him very sincerely: "Don't worry, we will do our best to help our compatriots in their suffering.

"Not only cannons, I can also send officers to help you direct the battle. I believe their experience will be put to use."

This was part of Joseph's plan. The purpose is to let the Tunisian indigenous people understand that the Guards will never be defeated by their own strength. Without the help of their "fellow Romans," they would not have been able to achieve victory.

Hearing this, Zhemele burst into tears of gratitude and took the lead to bow deeply and excitedly: "We will never forget your kindness! We will never forget the help of our French compatriots!"

The officers who came with him and many of the most prestigious indigenous tribe chiefs also saluted Berthier and said various sincere thanks over and over again.

Outside Tunisia.

Two Guards regiment artillery companies have set up six eight-pound guns on the preset positions, and ammunition boxes are neatly arranged in several rows not far behind them.

"Load!"

"aim!"

Under the command of the gunners of each artillery, the artillerymen quickly completed preparations for firing.

"fire!"

There was a roar, and six artillery shells flew straight towards the Guards' artillery position.

With the addition of the cannons of the Guards Corps, the situation in the battle immediately took a huge turn.

Although the number of their artillery was not as large as that of the enemy, the level of their artillery was several miles ahead of the Ottomans.

After a few rounds of simple calibration shots, one artillery shell accurately hit the enemy's artillery more than 700 steps away.

The huge impact of the shell knocked the barrel off the gun mount, killing several Tunisian artillerymen behind it, and finally landed on a rock more than 20 meters away. The cannon body has been deformed and can no longer be used.

As shells continued to fall near the Janissaries' artillery positions, the Ottoman artillerymen were so frightened that they did not even bother to drag the guns away and scattered away.

"Thank you Lord!" Zhemele was ecstatic when he saw this scene in the telescope. He turned to the officer on the side and said, "Send the order and prepare the entire army for a frontal attack!"

"I'm afraid it's inappropriate for you to attack in such a hurry." The French officer who came with him immediately stopped him.

"Ah? What do you mean?"

The French officer did not explain too much to Djemel, but directly passed him and asked his herald to issue one order after another.

The flag-talking soldiers kept waving flags to convey orders, and the French mid-level officers in front began to quickly mobilize the rebel troops.

On the frontal battlefield on the west side, a thin infantry line slowly approached the Guards position - without the threat of enemy artillery, they walked much more steadily.

At the same time, dozens of rebel columns appeared on the south side of the Guards' defense line, running toward their flanks at extremely fast speeds. The French artillery also turned its muzzle and began to carry out auxiliary bombardment towards the flanks of the Guards.

"What are they going to do?" Koja put away the telescope and was secretly surprised. The rebels had ceased fire for a few days, but why did they suddenly start fighting in an orderly manner?

After a quick analysis in his mind, he felt that the enemy forces in the front were just for containment, and the main attack direction was his left wing.

So, he immediately turned to his adjutant and said, "Send the order to move Orhan's men to the left wing to strengthen defense."

"Yes, Pasha!"

More than a thousand of Orhan's troops were in the frontal formation, and after receiving the order, they quickly formed a team and moved to the left wing.

At this moment, a rebel army of four to five thousand people appeared on the right wing of the Guards, forming six rows of infantry at the front and rear, and slowly pressed towards them.

Koja was suddenly shocked, frowned and said to himself: "These cunning guys, it seems that this is their main force!"

He immediately separated more than 500 people from the front, and at the same time transferred half of the reserve army to the right wing. He himself also moved the command position to the north to facilitate command at any time.

However, the rebel infantry on both wings never reached within fighting distance. Instead, a group of more than 300 cavalry suddenly jumped out and took advantage of the chaos caused by frequent mobilization of the front troops of the Guards and quickly attacked them. Several artillery positions galloped away.

Although the cavalry composed of these herdsmen knew nothing about formation, chopping and other techniques, their riding skills were still very good.

They came to the Praetorian Guards' artillery at great speed and dismounted.

The leading officer loudly ordered his subordinates according to the order he had received in advance:

"Mehemet, take your men to destroy the cannon! Others are on guard around, be careful of enemy infantry!"

"yes!"

More than forty soldiers immediately lined up around them with scimitars raised, and they were on alert. Another dozen or so people surrounded the cannon, stuffed the nails prepared in advance into the ignition port, and then hammered them down hard.

These nails were made of wrought iron and were extremely difficult to pull out. The cannons with blocked firing ports immediately became scrap metal.

After doing all this, they jumped back on their saddles and returned to their own camps like the wind.

A few dozen minutes later, the rebels in three directions retreated one after another without engaging in a firefight with the Guards. It was not until this time that Koca finally received a report from his men that his cannons had been destroyed by the rebels.

Jamil was stunned by the command of the French officer - there was almost no direct fighting, and the casualties were negligible. It took only more than half an hour to destroy all the cannons of the Guards!

This is comparable to the god of war Saladin [Note 1]!

If I had known that there were such powerful compatriots, would I have given them orders blindly? Maybe the Guards bandits would have been driven out of Tunisia a few years ago!

If the French officer knew what he was thinking, he would probably be a little ashamed. These were all common tactics he used during his training at the Paris Police Academy. At most, he arranged and combined them according to the battlefield situation, and he was "named" the God of War...

After losing the cannon, the Guards began to become extremely passive.

The rebels continued to bombard them with cannons. Although the casualties caused were not large, the blow to morale was extremely serious. After all, it is difficult for anyone to maintain a mentality without collapsing when they encounter such a situation where they can only be beaten but cannot fight back.

Finally, after being abused by cannons for 5 days, Koca concentrated all his forces before his morale was completely lost, and launched a desperate breakout against the rebels.

The rebels had already formed a very dense defensive formation under the order of the French commander.

Although these native soldiers had poor military qualities, they could still stand still and shoot.

With a huge numerical advantage and the support of cannons behind them, they finally showed courage in the face of the enemy's crazy counterattack and beat the enemy back with dense shooting.

Behind the position, the French officer looked at the scene in the telescope and breathed a sigh of relief.

He also prepared a reserve force of more than 3,000 people in the back, fearing that none of these recruits would be penetrated by the enemy.

"It seems that they can still be trusted." The officer smiled and turned to the messenger beside him and said, "Perhaps, the enemy's attack is too slow."

Jamil listened to the translator beside him translating the officer's words to him, and hurriedly stepped forward and said respectfully: "No, respected Pasha, I think this depends on your superb command ability!"

[Note 1] Saladin: Saladin ibn Ayyubid (1137-1193) Kurd, an outstanding military strategist and politician in the Middle Ages, and the founder of the Ayyubid Dynasty in Egypt. He is famous in the Christian and Muslim world for his military talent and leadership style in the Islamic civilization's fight against the Crusades. The West praised him as a "king with chivalry"; the Egyptians and Arabs gave him the honor of "national hero".