Volume 3: Confrontation! The Run of Civilization Chapter 540 Osman's Counterattack
"Coutinho, there are no gunshots outside today."
"Fernando, I'm listening. If my guess is correct, the reinforcements outside will not attack for the next few days."
"Well... should we try to attack in the next two days?" As a civilian general promoted by Rudolph, Fernando was willing to cooperate with Coutinho's ideas, so his 20th Division had always been advancing and retreating with Coutinho's 19th Division. But now, he felt that he could no longer control the situation.
Humans are very fickle creatures. When the officers and soldiers of the 19th and 20th divisions were first dragged out of the warm Crete to pursue the Ming Dynasty's 6th division, they were full of reluctance. But when they approached Jerusalem, their morale was high. When they entered Jerusalem and became the restorers of the holy city, they were all excited to the point of madness.
Therefore, when they just entered the city and Coutinho asked them to prepare for defense, everyone threw themselves into their work with great enthusiasm and said: I will not leave here. If those pagans want to desecrate the holy city again, they can only step over my dead body!
And then...
The siege lasted less than a month, and the morale of the defenders inside the city began to plummet: outside, 100,000 enemy troops and 100,000 civilians began to dig trenches. The trench diggers didn't feel anything, but the defenders overlooking the city walls felt a great shock.
The Temple Mount and Via Dolorosa are just like that. After going there to worship and pray, you will be excited for a day or two, and then there will be nothing left. In addition, you are trapped in a deserted city, and the actual area of the city is only about 1 square kilometer, with more than 20,000 stinky men crowded together. The smell, tsk tsk tsk...
In short, after the excitement wears off, you will feel irritable, then panic, and then naturally, anxiety.
On August 20, after Maurice began to lead his troops to attack Richelieu's defense line, the morale in the city was boosted. It's not that no officers suggested that we take this opportunity to break out, but they were all rejected by Coutinho and Fernando on the grounds that the holy city needed to be guarded - what a joke, we can see clearly through the telescope that the Ottoman encirclement has no signs of being broken. If we break out at this time, what will happen if we get trapped? Wait a little longer, wait until both sides are exhausted.
But today, September 2, the sound of gunfire that had been going on for more than ten days stopped. Naturally, the defenders in the city had an illusion: Did the friendly forces outside abandon us? Or were they killed? What should we do?
If this kind of collective anxiety is not handled properly by senior officers, problems can easily arise!
Therefore, Fernando suggested that we should find a way to fight, otherwise the soldiers below would become extremely anxious and cause a camp cry, which would be terrible.
"I agree." Coutinho nodded and said, "I don't know who the commander outside is, but I think it's either Maurice or Frederick. Their command level is good and they are also good at calming the soldiers. I estimate that the suspension of attack starting from today will definitely last more than one day. If my guess is correct, the soldiers should at least be able to rest for three to five days."
"Yeah, that's right. If I were to command the outer attack, I would arrange it almost the same way."
"So, Fernando, how about we set the time for our counterattack on the evening of September 4th?"
"Okay, three days to let the soldiers prepare properly. Damn, this place is too small, the troops can't deploy at all. After so many days, it's really suffocating. It would be good to get out and move around."
Just as Coutinho was preparing to rush out of the city, outside the city, inside the Ottoman Empire's Jerusalem Front Headquarters.
"There is no doubt that the Spanish are exhausted. The heavy casualties will inevitably cause dissatisfaction among the soldiers. So Sir Morris must temporarily stop the attack to allow his soldiers to catch their breath. This is our chance to counterattack."
"Mr. Civil Affairs Secretary, when will we launch our counterattack?"
"Well, haha, generals, Pasha, we have worked together for so long, you should know that I am very bad at specific tactics. So, you still need to come up with a solution in this regard."
"Hmm..." The real commander of the front, Ibrahim, was the Arab general Hussein who was recruited when he served as the Governor of Baghdad in the Mesopotamian region. After thinking for a while, he said, "I think today is the first day that the enemy stops attacking. They will definitely maintain a certain level of vigilance , so it's best for us not to move. Let's launch the attack on September 4th, at night on the 4th. By then, the enemy will have rested for three days. Even if the enemy commander is still preparing to rest, he will have to start thinking about attacking again. At that time, there will definitely be some new adjustments on the enemy's front line, and we can take this opportunity..."
"Hussein Pasha's words make sense." Seeing that the senior officers attending the meeting were nodding, Richelieu naturally followed suit: "Now that the time has been set, let's start preparing. The artillery should be quietly concentrated, and then attack one point of the enemy. Then break through one point, and then break through the entire line."
"Your Excellency is right. This time we will only hit the other side a little bit when we fight back."
"Well, everyone, you can decide among yourselves which specific point to attack. I only have one last question."
"Mr. Secretary?"
"We must send troops to watch over the more than 20,000 Spaniards in the city in advance."
"..." No one thought that Richelieu's suggestion was unreasonable: although the more than 20,000 Spaniards in the city seemed to be asleep during this period and had no intention of rushing out, they were still more than 20,000 troops after all, and they could still kill people if they got angry.
"Well, Mr. Secretary, how about we ask the Chinese to help us guard the enemy troops in the city? They have not participated in the battle for more than 20 days. They eat our food and use our things. They have rested well enough."
"Well." Richelieu pulled his beard. There is no doubt that the other party was very upset after the truth was revealed to him by the Hepan. If they were not waiting for the messenger from China to confirm the location of the fleet, the troops would have left long ago. Is it time to ask someone to watch over your retreat?
However, this counterattack is very important. We must mobilize as many troops as possible to defeat the enemy in one fell swoop. Therefore, we must also make use of the nearly 10,000 elite Chinese forces.
"Let me try my best to persuade them. But no matter whether they agree or not, we must keep the Azerbaijan Division and guard our rear."
"agree."
…
September 4, 11pm.
Jerusalem has a typical Mediterranean climate, with warm and rainy winters and hot and dry summers. This is the time when summer is about to end and the rain is about to come but has not yet arrived: anyone with a little experience knows that this kind of weather is the most uncomfortable.
When he was young, Morris often led the charge and ate a lot of black powder lead bullets, which often caused him pain all over his body. Now, as the seasons are about to change, he is even more irritable. So, even though it was almost midnight that night, he was still tossing and turning in bed in pain, unable to fall asleep.
Damn it, I hope the rainy season comes earlier, so that my body can feel better sooner.
Anyway, he couldn't sleep at this moment, so he simply put on a single piece of clothing, walked out of his command post, and climbed up a mound.
Under the mound, many of the Spanish army positions within a radius of dozens of miles were brightly lit: the offensive would be launched again tomorrow, and the reorganized troops were entering the attack positions, and the logistics soldiers were quietly transporting ammunition to the front line. And this time, Morris was ready not to drive the soldiers to launch a group charge again: it was still the old trick, artillery plowing the land! It was a bit slow, but the casualties were small.
As for the friendly forces in the Holy City? Humph, these cowards, I don't care if they die! In order to save them, our soldiers who died in the periphery have exceeded the defenders in the city!
This battle must be fought slowly, and we can't... Eh? Why is there such a bright fire five or six miles away, dyeing half of the night sky red?
He didn't need to think much, as the other side soon gave him the answer: the sound of countless artillery shells whizzing through the air clearly told him that the Ottomans were firing fiercely at their own positions!
"Oh no! Is there a traitor among us? Why did the enemy bombard our positions just when we were transporting ammunition to the rear tonight?"
However, the shells that had already been fired did not give him time to think further. In a few breaths, hundreds of shells fell on the front and back of the Spanish positions. The huge explosions, the large amount of dust stirred up by the shells, and the very lucky few shells that happened to fall into the Spanish positions, causing the soldiers to scream, immediately made the Spanish positions, which were busy but orderly just now, chaotic!
However, this army was trained by Rudolf after all, so even though they were hit hard, officers at all levels soon stood up and called on soldiers everywhere to restore order and take up their battle positions.
However, before they could see much effect from their work, the second round of bombardment came. Then came the third round, the fourth round...
This was the largest group of troops that the Ottomans had deployed to fight this time, and it was originally deployed with the purpose of fighting an annihilation war. Therefore, in this corps, Ibrahim gritted his teeth and equipped these 100,000 people with 200 cannons: Even a place as important as Istanbul did not have so many cannons!
So, when Hussein divided these heavy artillery into two groups and fired in turns, it really made the Spaniards feel endless fear.
From 11pm until the early morning of September 5, the fierce bombardment finally stopped after an hour. However, the entire Spanish position was already full of broken limbs and blazing flames of varying sizes...
Just as the Spaniards took a breath and the surviving officers struggled to get up and prepare to call on the soldiers to reorganize the battle line, they all felt a violent vibration under their feet!
“%%…￥%￥!”
"ANLA AHM AKBAR!"
Ten thousand Persian cavalrymen, shouting in unison, launched a desperate charge towards the Spanish positions! Behind them were even more Persians, Ottomans, and Arabs holding rifles and carrying light machine guns!
