Chapter 49: Rise of a new scourge of god? (Part 6)

After finishing the man off I screamed "since you all kept your word during our duel I will give you a chance to surrender or even join my ranks... You make your choice now!"

The Genoese mercenaries here began to squabble amongst themselves for a moment, but soon they agreed to join my ranks but they wanted a decent payday. Not much more than what I pay my own experienced soldiers so it makes sense, but they told me this is but a unit of their mercenary company, they said in total they have one thousand eight hundred soldiers.

So I would say fighting this guy was an overall benefit for me, I gained a new unit in my military. These men fought primarily with bills or spears, they had six hundred men at arms cavalrymen as well. Putting this behind me, I ordered these men to leave the walls and surrender themselves to my main camp no weapons allowed.

Once this was dealt with I ordered "mount you horses we ride with all haste we are late!" Moving with the speed of a cheetah we sped into the distance leaving the mercenaries in our dust. Soon after rounding the corner, we could see the fierce battles on the walls... I could see in the distance our cavalry already attacking the rear of the defenders guarding the gap in the wall.

So we formed up the best we could with the tight space, I decided to split into fifteen groups who will charge alternately in line. By doing this we can continuously use our advantage of heavy charges on the flanks of the enemy, we can unceasingly pulverize their flanks.

I organized the first group rather quickly and sprinted right on into the enemy's flank... *Crash ahhh swipe swipe ahh!* Smashing into their side we through the first men into the air with the horses and pierced someone with our lance with the remaining energy we squashed some more soldiers then we began swinging our swords for a few moments harvesting a few more lives.

After this, we turned and left back to seamlessly move through the next charging group of kapikulu sipahi. This continued for a short while, I believe we only managed to send four charging groups before the enemy tried to flee unsuccessfully I might add. I had Omar lead the other half of our troops that way for a reason, as this would cut off any retreat as well as allow our horses to charge from two directions.

Our Kapikulu units began cutting down the undefended and separated soldiers with ease. We used the tightness of the streets to our advantage by blocking the exits, giving no quarter to the enemies we continued to cut them down for a time. Soon there were no more defenders to fight in the area, I ordered some of the janissary units to support our men fighting on the walls as we need our rear to be secured to move on.

After the battle ended here messengers began coming through as there was nothing to fear on this side except accidental friendly fire near the area of the walls with the siege tower. The swivel cannons mounted on the tower were firing rather consistently so some of their munitions were flying off of the walls and hitting the streets nearest the walls where we traveled through to get here.

So, other than that we made the area particularly safe, leading to my messengers seeking me out to deliver information. Through this, I was made aware of the state of our siege progress, on the other side of the walls, we were in a similar situation... On the walls over there, the battle was still raging on, the skirmishers and heavy infantry defenders on the walls were fighting fiercely never asking for surrender and fighting to the death making this siege much harder as with suicidal men it become a slugfest.

The same as here the battle for access to the gap in the wall was won by flanking the enemies... But this time it was infantry flanking them, but just like with our cavalry they were still not able to retreat. This was because our infantry is primarily pikemen. So blocking the exits with a group of pikes is the easiest way to deny an enemy retreat.

I sent messengers to the Janissaries on the other side to also support the war for the walls... Once we secure the walls we can move forwards on at least three sides blocking the enemies in and forcing either surrender or fight to the death. I do not have an update yet on the Navy's progress, but if they can secure the ports and block access to the port and sea walls we can truly attack the enemies on all four sides giving them no way out.

After a brutal hour of fighting the walls were finally secured on the sacrifice of our soldiers. Also, I have gotten news from the navy saying they did not secure the walls, but they just bombarded the walls into rubble... Leaving a very scarce amount of wall left standing according to the news the fleet crushed the enemy's fleet and secured the port and bombarded the sea walls until the officer in charge was satisfied.

Then they secured the small port city and its entrances... After getting this report I had nothing to say, nothing at all... I mean what the hell? Who gave them orders to destroy the wall in full and not secure the walls... Whatever it is done it is done... I cannot change it, I will just have to put wall construction on the top of the system building queue in the future.

So now we cannot attack from four sides, but three is enough because at least the seaside is secure not allowing anyone to leave the city by way of a ship. To attack from three sides I needed to move my cavalry back to the eastern walls. Once this was done, I ordered that the signal be sent up, and soon the firework exploded in the sky the loud *pop* awakening the tired minds of my soldiers.

Leaving our horses in the care of the skirmishers now on the walls, we moved forwards on foot. Continuing forwards through the many assorted and sort of confusing streets... We eventually reached what some would call the city's center, but this was just the outskirts and it was guarded by many militiamen.

Where we are walking now is a marketplace near the outskirts of the wealthy inner city, this market is a wide open area, with a patchwork of abandoned merchant stands. But standing in our way, stopping us from moving through the market is about a thousand lightly armored spearmen. There are also many bowmen and crossbowmen dotting the rooftops.

Clearly, they planned to trap us here, I can assume the other three groups will run into similar situations... I ordered the troops to put the shields up, and we retreated backward slowly, I refuse to walk into this situation without a proper skirmisher corp. Sitting still at the opposite entrance of the enemies we waited for the arrival of a group of skirmishers I sent a messenger to bring here.

After about five minutes of silence, the enemies began to get impatient, and the skirmishers began moving closer to our position but remaining on the roofs. Moving backward would mean losing our formation as the streets are too tight, so we must hold out until our skirmishers arrive... *Spink Spink tink tink tink*

The enemies began loosing projectiles upon us, luckily in this shield wall, we consistently guard against them for now... But soon someone will be unlucky and I will lose one of my most important soldiers the kapikulu sipahi, a unit that is just as expensive as a carrack ship. *Spink spink* "Damn" I could hear my troops complaining and cursing the enemies, but there isn't much we can do for now.

This is my fault I moved hastily, I couldn't even explain how I managed to secure many cities without using my skirmishers heavily once inside the city... Well you live and you learn, and today I am learning my lesson. For an entire five minutes, the enemies sprayed us with projectiles, but we did not lose our focus and no one died, but there are casualties some men are injured enough they cannot move forwards and needed treatment soon.

My goodness, where are the skirmishers... Just when I was about to lose all hope and just rush the enemies, the musketeers and bowmen and the beautiful crossbowmen began to fire from the surrounding rooftops countering the enemy's skirmishers. YES! I screamed to my men "Now all men rush the enemy!"

Running out at a manageable speed we soon reached the enemy's spear wall, and to counter their spears we used our shorter melee weapons and maneuverability. Some crazy men used their metal-plated shields to block the spears stabbed in their direction and then bum rushing into the enemy's lines... Some soldiers were chopping off spearheads with their axes, and others like me were stuck standing still laughing at the oddity.

Soon the spear wall was broken, and a close-quarters melee fight began. *Tink tink tink* Leaving my horse behind to move on foot this time, I decided to use my customized mace. This weapon is not sharp anywhere and is flared out and the mace head is huge compared to the smaller ones that are more common. I used this weapon to enter the melee knocking enemies from side to side.

I find using the mace much easier than a sword or even an axe as I find it like using a heavier bat. So using my mace I moved through the crowd of enemies waving this monstrous mace cracking skulls, breaking ribs, and crushing arm bones this is the outcome of a direct hit from this mace. Soon I and the crew moving with me cleared out a good bit of enemies and had a small break to look around only to notice our buddies were also done cleaning out the enemies.

Now with no one blocking our way forward we marched all the way to the rubble-filled city center. After days of mortar fire the city's center is fairly ruined, not totally as the mortar is just not numerous or strong enough to level a city just yet. But moving about is a task, to say the least, there are many giant pieces of rubble blocking the streets and when we go to move them we are sometimes ambushed by small numbers of militants.

Sometimes there are skirmishers in support of the ambushers, sometimes they come alone... This has become a shit show, with crazed defenders moving about the city it has truly become a hassle to remove them from the city or force a surrender. But regardless of the pressure the enemies added with their suicidal attacks, we moved closer and closer to the main government building the senate.

Now I am sure they have their own name for the senate or their own type of republic different from others but I don't really care as it seems it will disappear today. We finally moved our way through the ambushing rubble zone, and now have a clear view of the city's center and its defenses... But the remainder of our troops have yet to arrive so we hid the majority of our forces so as not to be attacked by the bulk of their forces before we have help.

...Sometime later, our forces were gathering around the senate building mostly hidden by the building and rubble we were able to move a large force of skirmishers into the area as well, even a few smaller cannons were brought into the mix. Once messengers brought information to me claiming all the forces were ready to go, I gave the universal signal to begin firing on the enemy a loud firework was shot in the sky. *POP!*