Crusade against the Pope

Chapter 264: Battle of Tumubao

There are two completely different concepts between a wooden fort and a stone fort. In fact, a wooden fort was nothing in this era.

Quite a few small country lords would try to build one for themselves to suppress the local peasants.

But once the stone wall was built, the nature of things began to change.

City walls are the core part of fortifications. Whether in the East or the West, the design and construction of city walls are influenced by terrain, military technology, resources and cultural traditions, so they have significant differences.

Western city walls are mostly made of stone. The walls are tall and thick, and are often equipped with arrow towers (or towers) to provide shooting vision.

The walls were usually topped with battlements to protect archers or crossbowmen.

The city walls of the Celestial Empire were mostly made of rammed earth, with some parts covered with bricks and stones. The walls were relatively thick, and the tops were wide enough for carriages to pass through.

There are corner towers at the corners or important nodes of the city wall, and enemy towers at intervals on the city wall to store supplies or improve defense.

In terms of defensive effectiveness, the Celestial Empire’s city walls paid more attention to comprehensive defense, and were often combined with political centers and administrative regions to maintain local stability.

European-style city walls, on the other hand, focus on short-term resistance to siege warfare and are mostly the core of autonomous cities or aristocratic castles, adapting to the scattered feudal separatist environment.

Transjordan built a stone wall castle outside the city of Madaba, which also meant expanding the "fiefdom" northward.

In fact, Madaba is not a big city. If it was just a threat to Madaba, Saladin would not be so anxious.

But with this stone wall castle as a transit station, Transjordan, as an independent system, once again made further advances towards the northwest. After arriving near the Jordan Valley, it began to build a second castle.

Hundreds of craftsmen and thousands of soldiers marched openly beside the city of Medeba.

Then they built earth walls and mined stones.

When he heard the news, Saladin took a few deep breaths before calming down.

After the tragic loss of Acre, he heard this news again. In his view, this was the aggressiveness of Christians, a repeat of the incident of Jacob's Ferry Castle ten years ago.

It was exactly eleven years ago, in October 1178, when Saladin was only one year removed from the disastrous defeat of Montgisard.

The fear of being chased by the Crusaders had not yet faded, and he was even robbed by a Bedouin tribe when he was down and out.

At that moment, following the orders of the Leper King, the Kingdom of Jerusalem reached an agreement with the Knights Templar.

They joined together to build a fortress east of the Jordan River, between Hula and the Sea of ​​Galilee, at a place called Jacob's Crossing.

Over the next six months, the foundation was dug and a city wall of "amazing thickness and sufficient height" began to take shape.

The reason why the Leper King built a castle and a fortress at that location.

On the one hand, there are strategic considerations, and on the other hand, there are religious factors.

It was here that Jacob, the ancestor of the Jewish people, wrestled with an unknown being and was given the name Israel.

The stories in the Old Testament are followed by both Christians and Muslims, and Muslims even call this place the "Ferry of Sorrow."

It is also strategically important. It is an important ferry connecting the road between Acre and Damascus, part of the "Coastal Road", and a key transit point on the Silk Road.

As luck would have it, the location of the second earthen fort built in Transjordan happened to have similar characteristics to the Jacob's Ferry Fortress.

It is also an important river crossing point and is only one day’s march away from an important city (Jerusalem).

Once the fortress was completed, Saladin believed that with the help of this fortress, the enemy forces from Arnon would be able to attack Jerusalem and the third holiest place for Muslims at any time.

In Islam, Jerusalem (Al-Quds) holds an important religious status, particularly because of its association with a number of key events in the Islamic faith.

The first verse of the 17th chapter of the Quran, Al-Isra, explicitly mentions Jerusalem (the "Al-Mosque") and the Prophet Muhammad's night journey and ascension:
[Praise be to Allah, who takes His servant on a journey at night from the Sacred Mosque to the Farthest Mosque, the perimeter of which We have blessed, that We may show him Our signs. He is the All-Hearing, the All-Seeing.]

——The First Section of "Night Walk"

The "Grand Mosque" refers to the Kaaba in Mecca, and the "Far Mosque" is generally interpreted as the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem.

In addition to the Quran, the importance of Jerusalem is also mentioned in the Hadith.

Muhammad once said:

There are only three mosques worth traveling long distances to worship: the Haram, My Mosque (the Prophet's Mosque in Medina), and the Far Mosque (the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem).

——Sahih Bukhari

Although the pilgrimage to the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem is not a religious obligation for Muslims, the Hadith of Ibn Majah clearly states that "praying in the Al-Aqsa Mosque is equivalent to a thousand prayers in other mosques."

Due to Muhammad’s repeated emphasis, Jerusalem naturally has a special status in the Islamic world.

Saladin's fame now comes from retaking Jerusalem, so naturally he cannot tolerate losing Jerusalem again.

"The destruction of the Franks is coming down from heaven. Now is the time to smash their crosses. They would not have built the house of mourning if their death was not near."

When facing the Jacob's Crossing Fortress, Saladin was still calm, so much so that he could say: "Let them build the castle, and then we will uproot it and make it disappear without a trace."

And then, he actually did it.

In that battle, the Leper King survived, but the Grand Master of the Knights Templar was captured, the Grand Master of the Knights Hospitaller was captured, and even Balian was captured...

The Franks took more than half a year to build a solid castle fortress, but Saladin only took less than 6 days to destroy it.

The flames rising from the towers of Jacob's Fortress and the traces left by the tunnels were all proof of Saladin's military strength.

He allowed the Franks to build fortresses, not because he was arrogant, but because he was well aware of the limits of his own strength and the limits of what the Franks could do. He turned a simple military battle into a psychological warfare on the political and religious levels.

Whenever the Franks in the Kingdom of Jerusalem read the chapters related to Jacob in the story of Genesis in the Bible, they would remember the great deeds performed by Saladin at Jacob's Ferry, where Jacob wrestled with God.

[Jacob was left alone. A man wrestled with him until daybreak.]

——Genesis 32:24
[The man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.”]

——Genesis 32:28
However, Saladin once dared to do so, but he can't do it now.

The enemies he had faced before had gone with the wind when he conquered Jerusalem, and now he was fighting a group of real religious lunatics who had mastered the art of gunpowder.

So much so that Saladin started writing a diary and complaining.

"If a fortress is equipped with thirty cannons, then all siege machinery is meaningless. Siege towers can no longer be advanced, catapults are useless, and tunnels must be dug from hundreds of steps away."

"In the end... the attackers can only keep getting rid of the ants, or find a way to blast open the city walls... or at worst spend dozens of days digging tunnels and burying gunpowder barrels under the city walls."

Although Saladin could understand why a hole was broken in the wall of Acre, he could not understand why the wall of Acre was blown up so quickly.

All I can say is that he suspected there was a traitor in Acre, or there was a tunnel in Acre that he didn't know about, leading to the bottom of the city wall.

No one had expected that it would be Garys who would carry two barrels of explosives, rush directly to the wall under the cover of night, and dig a hole on the spot manually.

Because of gunpowder, fighting around city walls has changed.

The gap between the two sides in a battle depends not only on the number of people, but also on the difference in firepower.

Unfortunately... most of his artillery were destroyed by Barbarossa.

They could only take a risky move and cut off the hand extended from Transjordan.

Saladin sighed again. No matter what the current situation was, the war would continue.

When he left Tiberias and arrived in Jerusalem with part of his army, the Mamluk Corps in Alexandria further south also began to move north, carrying a small number of artillery.

……

On the other hand, Old John personally escorted the supplies to the construction site of the Jordan River Fortress.

Besides him, even Simon and George are actually here.

As the Sheriff of Arnon, Old John actually also served as the Governor of Transjordan and had temporary jurisdiction over Karak County and Montreal County.

As for Simon, he is currently the highest-ranking Paladin in the order and actually leads the order's organization in the Transjordan region.

Needless to say, George is the Kingdom's Field Marshal.

These three people represent the civil government, the religious order, and the military respectively, and can be said to be the three giants in Transjordan at present.

It can be said that the three giants of Transjordan are all gathered here.

It is enough to show that they are determined to gain this place.

When the materials were unloaded from the carriage and sent to the construction site, Old John still shook his head and sighed for a long time.

“I always feel that this is a bit unfair.”

Over the past period of time, Transjordan's progress has gone beyond just expanding its territory.

Gairis has devoted nearly two years to Transjordan, not only to building an administrative team and a religious system.

In fact, he also wrote a large number of notes on natural sciences, which were organized and placed in the library and used for teaching in schools.

Some of these things are too profound to be replicated, but many times just a little inspiration can bring about a leap that people of this era have never thought of.

Coupled with the handicraft production capacity based on the river valley hydraulic workshops, the emergence of many things is no longer just fantasy.

"In war, do we need to care about the means of winning?" George acted quite indifferent.

"That's right. Now that we are on the battlefield and the fight is about to end, it is not appropriate to say that the victory was unfair. The most important thing is that Saladin has almost assembled his troops in Jerusalem. Since we don't plan to give up this outpost, we must use the fastest and most efficient way to strengthen the defense here."

John sighed. Looking at the progress of the times and the advancement of killing weapons, as an old man, he was still very uncomfortable.

George, on the other hand, seemed much more cold-blooded.

As a front-line commander, he is responsible for the lives of his comrades. All he has to consider is how to kill the enemy more effectively and save his own people.

As for what methods and weapons were used in this process and what cruel killings were committed, we should reflect on them after the war to see whether we have not done enough and whether we need to make further efforts.

"This batch of materials and weapons mainly includes 4 10-pound cannons and 8 5-pound cannons. Each cannon is equipped with 50 solid shells and 100 shotgun shells and corresponding brown gunpowder cakes. The rest is basically cement."

"For the next batch of supplies, do you have any special needs? For cement, do you want to bring more?"

Cement is actually not new, its history can be traced back thousands of years.

Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia used a mixture of gypsum and lime to bond stones around 2000 BC.

As for the most famous ancient cement, Roman cement, made from a mixture of volcanic ash and lime, was used to build projects such as the Pantheon and the Roman aqueduct, and its strength was amazing.

Although medieval people relied more on natural stone and traditional plaster.

But with Garys' emphasis and foresight, the Transjordan region is naturally going to undergo a "Renaissance".

Hearing John's words, George licked his lips and said:
"Cement? No need. With the current situation on Saladin's side, I won't have the opportunity to build too many permanent fortifications. The war will probably start in a few days. If possible, it would be better to add some more barbed wire in the next batch of supplies as a backup."

Listening to George's words, John nodded.

The reason why he had to be involved in escorting supplies was that this batch of supplies was too important and could not afford any mistakes.

Now we are racing against time and have to set up our position before Saladin attacks.

After completing the exchange, John looked toward the construction site.

It can be seen that there are actually no obvious tall castle walls here, but only some earth walls or trenches to prevent cavalry from crossing, or many incomprehensible wooden stakes.

The soldiers were pushing the artillery he brought to the arranged gun positions.

In fact, this place is far from being a castle. Even the foundation of the city wall has not been built.

(End of this chapter)