Chapter 28: The Siege of Smyrna (Part 2)

Moving our siege crafts forward as well as the cannons, we began to settle in for the night once more. But not all men got to sleep this night, as we have a separate crew of miners that will be working through the night, as well as half our siege cannons. I plan to destroy the defender's morale by constantly battering the walls even through the night, we will also have a 1000-man group pound their shields and our tribal drums making at least half the defenders stay awake to guard the walls.

I plan to improve my army's siege skills and capacity with every chance possible testing military theories I have read or come up with, and using well-known and approved tactics as well to see what is the most successful, I do not want my armies to become too predictable. Waking up after a good night's rest for me, while it may not have been all that great for others... Mainly the defenders, getting started for the day the first thing I did was receive and read reports, mainly the naval reports, and the mining progress reports.

Our navy is performing exceptionally well over the past 2 days, these sailors led by Evrenos have given a great boon to my state. First, they seized a Hospitaller fleet of 12 ships, this fleet full of thousands of gold and silver coins meant to be paid to the garrison, obviously they most likely doubled their pay to boost morale and give them the will to fight. That is not all, they destroyed another small Genoese fleet leaving Chios Island, they destroyed the fleet near the coasts of Anatolia, very close to Smyrna port.

Last but not least the final fleet was also Genoese and probably meant as a sale instead of support if they sent two fleets, but this Genoese fleet was larger a fleet of more than 25 ships, half were sunk and the other half captured along with the survivors of the sunken vessels. I don't believe this small garrison will receive any more support than this, I doubt Venice will help as they are further away. The only reason anyone sent help anyway was that this port is one that the Italian city-states believe can support Aegean piracy as proven in the past.

The next report described our progress in mining throughout the night. Our miners managed to reach the walls in the main shaft but were intercepted by a countermining shaft by these oddly determined defenders. A small battle broke out where we saw our guards take the upper hand at the beginning of the fight because we had muskets in the shaft managing to kill a few attackers. But this wasn't enough crossbow bolts were shot in our miner's direction, leading to a few miners dying this was one of our first casualties in this campaign, and 2 musketeers were injured also. But with the Janissary infantry there to guard these knights were pushed back out of our mine shaft.

But that was useless, as the soldiers were required to retreat had they made any contact with the enemies. I gave the order for fear of an entire mining group being eliminated, and indeed I thought correctly as this mine shaft was flooded with Greek fire and rubble as my soldiers exited, they could see this flaming hell. I truly did not expect them to find the mine shafts, nor did I see them countermining to close the mining operation because they haven't received payment I assumed their surrender would come soon. My misconception was that these men weren't real catholic knights, because they are focused on Rhodes, I misjudged the situation well I can learn in the future.

Well, no big losses were taken, and we still have two operational mines that will reach the wall today, so our final assault is forthwith. Whilst reading my men for an all-out assault we decided that the skirmishers should move forward with the smaller cannons to apply pressure to the enemies on the walls like the first wall. while all this was playing out our miners continued to work twice as hard now that they have reached the final stretch and that constant threat of Greek fire hanging over their heads too helped push them to work harder.

Soon the miners can be seen dashing from their entrance holes with haste they both succeeded in reaching below the walls, and successfully lit the barrels of corned black powder. *BOOOOOOOOM* *BOOOOOOM* two ridiculously loud explosions sounded back-to-back, Showering the entire wall and front of the walls with smoke, dust, and rubble. With the chaos masking our charge, the assault squad launched themselves into the fray! Following our attacking tactics the infantry followed behind the Assault squad, followed by the Skirmishers.

Luckily for us, the garrison lost at least 50 nights to injury or death when the walls fell, and with the men killed underground they only had about 120 men left. Just our elite Assault squad of maniacal warriors has numbered over a thousand men in this assault. Just when the walls fell the knights formed up in the center of the conventional port castle, waiting to fight their final battle it seems not one of these men expect to live so they will fight like madmen it seems. The chosen commander of the assault squad noticing this and thinking back to the Greek fire moved the naphtha throwers he had in the squad forward to launch their bombs onto these mad defenders.

The musketeers were also moved to the front to fire a volley into the enemy's tight ranks, this volley was truly deadly killing or maiming at least 10-15 men in one go. Before the smoke from the barrels had the time to float away, pots began to fly through the air and into the enemy ranks *tink tink tink* *Swoooooooooosh* hearing these pots break over the enemy's heavy mail and plate armor the fire spread quicker than anyone's eyes could follow. After men began to run and scream as they burned to death, my crazed assault squad showed no fear the same as the knights left with less than 70 men. Both the knights and my men both charged at each other, which is a sight to see as more than 200 assorted janissaries collided with the 70 knights.

*Crash Crash Crash* *Spink Spink Tink* my men collided with the knights holding their shields forward! A line formed of about 200 men slowly began to send these brave knights to the afterlife as their flanks are being attacked because they do not have enough men to hold the line. After a few minutes, the knights counted less than 30 men and were surrounded. Seeing these men had no grand scheme with the Greek fire, the commander on the scene told these knights they can surrender, as they have already fought enough to prove themselves. The knights refused and stated they will kill more than three men per knight left, hearing such bold words the commander stepped forward with his chosen group of fellow crazies and then they showed their skill while slaughtering the knights with less than 15 attackers.

These knights who are much better suited to calvary formations and open battlefields had no chance to kill three men each, my janissary infantry is a well-trained and equipped unit, that is all equally martial maniacs. I finally walked into the fortress after a few days of siege, the longest siege so far, I believe. After having everywhere checked for traps, and having my men prove the safety of the buildings I searched the fort with my men... And that is where we found why the knights fought so hard, there is a horde of gold and silver. There is treasure strewed about in the vault of this castle, but none of the items in the vault are Catholic except the armor and weapons all the treasures are from Anatolia, this must be the loot quarried during the crusade for Smyrna.

Seeing this beautiful glistening sight, I had my men start to transfer these items to our camp in the Acropolis in the city. After receiving the system notification, I started to queue the buildings that needed to be constructed. Seeing that the port needs a few days before it can be repaired by the system, that means we must wait around this area so no one can come and retake our hard-earned gains. I would just leave a garrison but without walls, it will take a small army to fight against anyone here, so it is better to not leave far away from the port.

After settling in my room for the night, I began thinking... Shouldn't I with the time I have whilst waiting for the wall to be constructed, secure the islands nearest my new port, and the port fortress and their fleets that stop me from trading directly with Smyrna from Thessalonica? I mean I will eventually war with Genoa anyways, why not just take what is given I know for a fact these islands are mostly run by the Greek inhabitants and the Genoese just tax the citizens and use their ports, so in theory, I could gain these islands with a few quick sieges, and some may even just expel the small Genoese garrison in favor of me.

Thinking further, I must take Caffa if I am too slow or even stop the plague from spreading so isn't it in my best interest to kick the Genoese out of these islands now since I will have to fight them in Crimea anyways? Yeah though it may cause some backlash, I can use their enemies the Venetians to smooth things over with the catholic world. One less rival is absolutely worth getting crusaded against.

-Authors note- I was super busy today so chapter is short and may possibly have some issues comment anything you find wrong I will fix it. Thanks for reading