Chapter 301 The Lion Heart is in Egypt
When Gerris entered the city of Jerusalem, the war between the Crusaders did not stop.
The front line of the Ayub dynasty was divided into two, with the two brothers Saladin and Adir defending against the enemy in both north and south directions.
Eden turned his focus to Damascus, trying to open a passage from here to the old land of Edsaber.
The city of Damascus is actually not unfamiliar with the Crusaders. During the Second Crusade, the target of the Crusaders was this city.
At that time, the bloody Zanji destroyed the Edsaber country, triggering the second wave of crusades. However, the Crusaders did not target the dynasty left by Zanji, but instead turned their greedy eyes to Damascus, and there Previously, the Kingdom of Jerusalem had a friendly relationship with the Brid dynasty that controlled Damascus and even nearly allies.
Bloody Zanji is their common enemy.
This move directly led to the subsequent alliance between various Muslim warlord forces and the unanimous hostility towards Catholicism. It can be said that it was the Second Crusade that promoted the unification of the Muslim world in the Middle East in later generations.
The Crusaders at that time attacked Damascus from the west, and the orchards there provided a continuous supply of food for the Crusaders, but the orchard direction was not suitable for the large army to march, and they suffered a long setback during the attack.
So the Crusaders adjusted the direction of their attack to the east, but this choice caused a decrease in the food supply of the Crusaders, which led to conflicts breaking out within the coalition, and then retreating, resulting in the second Crusaders being in a terrible way.
Now that the third wave of the crusade was launched, the Crusaders and the Kingdom of Jerusalem not only recovered the old land of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, but also once again turned their attention to the city of Damascus.
Surveying a city with a population of hundreds of thousands is destined to be a long and boring thing. However, it was at this moment that the generals of the Second Kingdom confirmed a news, namely, Lion Heart. Has landed in Egypt and captured Damietta.
…
For Lion Heart, war is one of the few entertainment activities he is willing to devote his efforts in this world. Some people are destined to be when they come to this world. The winner, and the ordinary successes are difficult to satisfy them and cannot bring them a sense of accomplishment.
There are actually this reason for the various rich second-generation prodigality in later generations, and the Lion Heart is actually similar. As the prince of England and the lords of large territories such as Aquitaine, the stimulation of fighting on the battlefield is Nothing else can match.
Even Lion Heart can say loudly: What is a woman? A woman will only affect his speed of drawing his sword!
When besieging Damietta, Lionheart bought a batch of artillery on the island of Cyprus with the money he received from robbing Sicily.
These artillery include the meticulous works of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, as well as the inferior goods seized by Barbarossa from Saladin.
When time returned to Geris's first entry into Jerusalem, hundreds of ships from Genoa were rampant in the Mediterranean Sea, with not many of them being galloping warships, and most of them were ordinary heavy sailing ships.
Due to the wind direction, the speed of the sailboat was limited, but the Ayubic dynasty, or Egypt, did not have enough navies to intercept such a huge fleet.
In fact, Damietta's defenders could not even prevent the Lionheart's troops from landing.
The Lionheart took three days to land, and built a solid camp, and took another three days to transport the cannons on the ship to the city of Damietta, when everything was ready When it was ready, a whole week had passed. During this period, Lionheart's troops were only attacked by a small number of cavalry and did not encounter many decent enemy troops.
"Robert, it can be seen that in order to save his holy city, Saladin drew too much power from Egypt that even a decent resistance could not be carried out."
< br>Liuxin was checking his troops and said casually to the followers beside him.
And Robert, as the highest-level military commander under the Lion Heart, nodded. From the beginning of their landing, their crusaders couldn't help but sigh at the wealth of Egypt. The fertility and large population here are beyond the bitter and cold places like England.
However, in such an area, there were no thousands of defenders to resist the attack of their crusaders. Instead, they chose to shrink into the city and let the crusaders rage the countryside and block their retreat. This shows that Egypt is the only one who can see that the crusaders are in trouble. The lack of troops.
"Robert, have you ever thought about settling down here? Or getting a fiefdom?"
"I haven't thought about it yet, but sir, what I said, I'm actually Having a lot of interest."
Robert was quite honest. He knew what kind of person Lion Heart was, and knew that Lion Heart would not test others' loyalty roughly. If Lion Heart said that Robert could get a fief here, it would be true.
This kind of cheerful attitude towards life that is trustworthy towards his subordinates is also the source of his personality charm.
Lion Heart first glanced at the sky, then wiped the sweat from his body and continued: "I don't like this place. It's too hot, making me feel uncomfortable. Compared to the rich Egypt , I actually like the bright sunshine of Aquitaine more."
Literally speaking, Robert didn't say anything. He didn't miss his hometown very much. He was not a lord in his hometown, although he was also Being considered an old knight, but there are too many people like him.
"I don't mind selling this land in Egypt at a good price. Your loyalty is the best price."
Liuxin smiled and patted Robert on the shoulder, then quickly Step out of the artillery position.
In a while, the artillery he owned would be fired at the walls of Damietta. Considering Barbarossa's experience, Lionheart felt that it was more appropriate to be conservative.
In fact, although the principle of artillery is not complicated, Lion Heart can understand that this is not a devil's trick, he still has a little awe.
The power of the early stone shooting cannons was limited. This incident was mentioned in the previous article. The early large-caliber stone shooting cannons were actually designed as the upper-level replacement of the trencher. The cannon smashed a bigger stone at someone else's castle.
This kind of artillery has a limited rate of fire, and the texture of the stone is fragile. It looks fierce, but its power is not very good.
But because of the emergence of Garys, the development route of artillery did not go through the stage of stone shooting cannons at all, and directly jumped to the idea of small-caliber metal shells.
Metal shells have a harder texture than the city walls of this era, and proper gunpowder can give the shells strong kinetic energy. When such shells hit the vertical city walls designed to stop infantry climbing in this era, the effect is quite impressive.
If it is an earth wall, then a piece of earth will be smashed out in one shot. If it is a brick wall, the bombardment effect will be more intuitive.
Medieval walls, whether in the East or the West, were mainly intended to prevent infantry from climbing, as well as to stop cavalry charges, and to provide a condescending shelter protection for the defenders.
In this case, the higher the wall, the greater the advantage, the more difficult the wall is to climb, and the greater the advantage.
Although the higher the wall, the more difficult it is to build it, the more fragile the wall will be.
But before the arrival of the firearm era, humans actually lacked the way to quickly destroy walls.
Although using a catapult can also cause a certain impact on the durability of the city wall, the efficiency...and the shooting distance...
Sarisons will like to destroy the city wall by digging tunnels. The way to create gaps in the weak spots.
But there are enough ways to block the enemy from digging tunnels.
So in most cases, the fragility of the wall itself is actually not a big deal.
No mistakes, one poem, one post, one content, one in 6, one book, one bar, one read!
And the city wall should be as straight as possible, which is even more of a pursuit.
As for walls that are close to right angles, they are more likely to be subjected to kinetic energy, what are you going to worry about?
Is it possible for infantry to push down the wall with their fists?
Wait... Actually, it is not impossible. There are always some cases that make people think about how outrageous the tofu project of ancient city walls.
For example, during the battle of Hongdu siege in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty, Chen Youliang's troops relied on simple equipment to open a hole in the city wall.
Or people like Garys appear...
Of course, such cases are a minority after all, and it is precisely this kind of wall design that has never considered the efficient damage of infantry soldiers. After the arrival of the Firearms Age, I fell into an embarrassing situation.
The higher the city wall, the weaker it is, and the closer to the vertical wall, it is difficult to deflect the shells.
Except for those places where marble strips are used to repair the city walls, ordinary city walls will lose their durability quickly under the bombardment of stone-shooting cannons.
And just so happened that Lion Heart is the first general on this timeline to truly put artillery into the siege battle, and the first general to deliberately use artillery to destroy the walls.
As for Damietta, it was honored to be the first city to be damaged by the bombardment of the borehole artillery.
Robert is a military commander. Although he has various superstitions and prejudices of this era, he even naturally believes that this is a world with God and that Jehovah controls the fate of all things.
But long-term military practice activities prompted him to look at everything more objectively and try to summarize the reasons for his victory or defeat.
If he is not objective enough and just blindly pins victory or defeat on God's blessing, then he will not be able to reach this point alive.
"So seven parts of saltpeter, one part of sulfur and charcoal, when they are mixed together and filled in a confined space, can create real art, and if a hole is opened, a metal ball is added , you can use it to kill the enemy and destroy the city walls. "
Robert whispered to himself as he looked at the scene of the roar of artillery.
The principle of the war artillery is so simple that Robert can summarize it in just one sentence.
It can be imagined that when this new war technique is passed back to Europe with the crusaders returning to their hometown, the world will accelerate in an unpredictable direction. Take a few steps.
Garys is actually very happy about this development direction. Anyway, the things that Robert talks about are at best just a summary of the principle level, and the real devil is hidden in the details.
Those devilish details are precious wealth that takes hundreds of years to obtain.
And Robert could also feel the gap caused by these details. "The artillery made by Cyprus is far better than those shoddy imitations made by Saladin. Cyprus' artillery can fire a thousand steps long-range shots, while the artillery made by Saladin is difficult to hit half the distance."
"Soldiers were afraid of those Saladin artillery. If the gunpowder was filled with too much gunpowder, it would easily explode. If the gunpowder was filled with too little gunpowder, it would lack strength and even fail to hit the city wall. The gunpowder that can be filled with cannons can be filled with. The number is not consistent, and the amount of explosive power these artillery can withstand can only be determined when they explode. "
"The artillery produced in Cyprus is different. Those trained coaches will clearly tell us what kind of gunpowder is the best proportion. How many times a gun is fired continuously requires rest, and will also tell us if we want to The distance they shoot is the amount of muzzle angle that needs to be raised. "
"Those professional knowledge is priceless wealth, and when combined with the cannons they produce themselves, they can hold the throat of war. ”
At Robert wrote these words, the Lionheart artillery had already smashed a wall gap that was almost ten meters wide in the horrified eyes of the citizens of Damietta.
As the knights charged on foot, a large number of heavy infantry followed closely, and a cold weapon's ground meat burst was about to explode.
(This chapter ends)