Crusade against the Pope

Chapter 301 Lionheart in Egypt

When Gelis entered the city of Jerusalem, the Crusaders' fighting did not stop.

The Ayyubid dynasty's battle line was divided into two, with the brothers Saladin and Adil respectively resisting the enemy in the north and south directions.

Eden turned his focus to Damascus, trying to open a passage from there to the old territory of the County of Edessa.

The city of Damascus was actually not unfamiliar to the Crusaders. During the Second Crusade, this city was the target of the Crusaders.

At that time, Bloody Zengi destroyed the County of Edessa, triggering the second wave of Crusades. However, the Crusaders did not target the dynasty left by Zengi, but instead cast their greedy eyes on Damascus. Before that, the Kingdom of Jerusalem and the Burid Dynasty that controlled Damascus even had a friendly relationship that was almost like an alliance.

Bloody Zangi is their common enemy.

This action directly led to the subsequent unification of various Muslim warlord forces and their unanimous hostility towards Catholicism. It can be said that it was the Second Crusade that contributed to the unification of the Muslim world in the Middle East in later generations.

At that time, the Crusaders attacked Damascus from the west. The orchards there provided the Crusaders with a steady supply of food, but the direction of the orchards was not suitable for large-scale advances, and the offensive suffered long-term setbacks.

So the Crusaders adjusted the direction of their attack to the east. However, this decision caused a reduction in the Crusaders' food supply, which led to conflicts within the coalition forces, and then they retreated, causing the Second Crusade to start well but end badly.

Now, after the Third Crusade, the Crusaders and the Kingdom of Jerusalem not only recovered the old territory of the Kingdom of Jerusalem, but also once again turned their attention to the city of Damascus.

The siege of a city with a population of hundreds of thousands was destined to be a long and boring task. However, it was at this juncture that the generals of the Second Kingdom confirmed the news that Lionheart had landed in Egypt and captured Damietta.

……

For Lionheart, war is one of the few recreational activities in the world that he is willing to devote his energy to. Some people are destined to be winners when they come into this world, and ordinary successes can hardly satisfy them and cannot bring them a sense of accomplishment.

This is actually the reason why various rich second-generations in later generations squandered their wealth, and the same was true for Lionheart. As a prince of England and lord of large territories such as Aquitaine, the excitement of fighting on the battlefield was unmatched by anything else.

Even Lionheart could say loudly: What is a woman? A woman will only slow down his speed of drawing the sword!

During the siege of Damietta, Lionheart used the money he obtained from looting Sicily to purchase a batch of cannons on the island of Cyprus.

These cannons ranged from fine pieces made by the Kingdom of Jerusalem to inferior pieces captured by Barbarossa from Saladin.

Back to when Gellis first entered Jerusalem, hundreds of ships from Genoa were roaming the Mediterranean. There were not many galleys among them, and most of them were ordinary bulky sailing ships.

Due to the wind direction, the speed of the sailboats was limited, but the Ayyubid dynasty, or Egypt, no longer had a sufficient navy to intercept such a large fleet.

In fact, the defenders of Damietta were unable to even prevent Lionheart's troops from landing.

It took Lionheart three days to land and build a solid camp, and another three days to transport the artillery on the ships to the city of Damietta. When everything was ready, a whole week had passed. During this period, Lionheart's troops were only harassed by a small number of cavalry and did not encounter many decent enemy forces.

"Robert, it is clear that Saladin has withdrawn too many forces from Egypt in order to protect his holy city, so that even a decent resistance cannot be put up."

Lionheart spoke casually to the followers beside him while checking his troops.

As the highest-ranking military commander under Lionheart, Robert also nodded. From the beginning of landing, their crusaders could not help but sigh at the richness of Egypt. The fertile land and large population here were incomparable to the bitter cold land like England.

However, in such a region, there were no garrisons of thousands to resist the attack of the Crusaders. Instead, they chose to retreat to the city, allowing the Crusaders to ravage the countryside and block their retreat. This shows the lack of military strength on the Egyptian side.

"Robert, have you ever thought about settling down here? Or getting a fiefdom?"

"I haven't thought about it yet, but now that you mentioned it, sir, I am actually quite interested."

Robert was quite honest. He knew what kind of person Lionheart was and knew that Lionheart would not crudely test the loyalty of others. If Lionheart said that Robert could get a fief here, it must be true.

This cheerful attitude of keeping his word to his subordinates is also the source of his personal charm.

Lionheart first looked up at the sky, then wiped the sweat off his body and continued:

"I don't like it here. It's too hot and makes me feel uncomfortable. I actually prefer the bright sunshine of Aquitaine to the rich Egypt."

Listening to Lionheart's words, Robert remained silent. He did not miss his hometown very much. He was not a lord in his hometown. Although he was considered an old knight, there were too many people like him.

"I don't mind selling the land of Egypt for a good price. Your loyalty is the best price."

Lionheart smiled and patted Robert on the shoulder, then quickly walked out of the artillery position.

In a short while, the artillery he had would fire at the walls of Damietta, and considering what had happened to Barbarossa, Lionheart felt it was better for him to be conservative.

In fact, although the principle of artillery is not complicated, and Lionheart can clearly see that it is not a trick of the devil, he still has a little awe.

The power of early stone-throwing cannons was limited, as we have mentioned in the previous article. Early large-caliber stone-throwing cannons were actually designed as a superior substitute for catapults, that is, using cannons to throw larger stones at other people's castles.

This type of artillery has a limited firing rate and the stone is fragile. It looks powerful, but its power is not very good.

However, due to the emergence of Garys, the development of artillery did not go through the stone-shooting cannon stage at all, and jumped directly to the idea of ​​small-caliber metal shells.

Metal shells have a harder texture than the city walls of this era, and loading the appropriate gunpowder can give the shells strong kinetic energy. When such shells hit the vertical walls designed to prevent infantry from climbing in this era, the effect is quite impressive.

If it is an earth wall, then one shot will knock off a piece of earth. If it is a brick wall, then the effect of the bombardment will be more intuitive.

The main purpose of medieval city walls, whether in the East or the West, was to prevent infantry from climbing, to block cavalry charges, and to provide defenders with a commanding cover protection.

In this case, the higher the wall, the greater the advantage, and the harder the wall is to climb, the greater the advantage.

Although the higher the wall, the more difficult it is to build, the wall will also be relatively fragile.

But before the advent of the age of firearms, humans actually lacked a way to quickly destroy walls.

Although using a trebuchet can also cause a certain impact on the durability of the city wall, its efficiency... and the shooting range...

The Saracens would have liked to create breaches by digging tunnels to undermine weak points in the city walls.

But there are enough ways to prevent the enemy from digging tunnels.

So in most cases, the fragility of the wall itself is not a big deal.

And the city wall should be as right-angled as possible, which is even more of a pursuit.

As for walls that are close to right angles, they are more likely to be exerted with kinetic energy. So what is there to worry about?

Could infantrymen even push down a wall with their fists?

Wait... Actually, it is not impossible. There are always some cases that make people think about how outrageous the shoddy construction of ancient city walls was.

For example, during the siege of Hongdu in the late Yuan Dynasty and early Ming Dynasty, Chen Youliang's troops relied on simple equipment to open a hole of more than ten feet in the city wall.

Or maybe someone like Garys appears...

Of course, such cases are few and far between, and it was precisely this kind of wall design, which was not designed with efficient infantry destruction in mind, that found itself in an awkward situation after the advent of the firearms era.

The higher the city wall, the weaker it is relatively, and a nearly vertical wall will find it difficult to deflect artillery shells.

Except for those places where marble strips are used to repair the city walls, the durability of ordinary city walls will fall rapidly under the bombardment of stone cannons.

Coincidentally, Lionheart is the first general in this timeline to actually use artillery in siege warfare, and the first general to deliberately use artillery to destroy walls.

As for Damietta, it also had the honor of becoming the first city to have its walls damaged by muzzle-loading artillery bombardment.

Robert is a military commander. He certainly has all the superstitions and prejudices of that era. He even naturally believes that this is a world with gods and that Jehovah controls the fate of all things.

But long-term military practice prompted him to look at everything more objectively and try to summarize the reasons for his own victory or defeat.

If he was not objective enough and just relied on God's blessing for victory or defeat, he would not have been able to survive to this point.

"So seven parts saltpeter and one part sulfur and charcoal, when mixed together and filled in a closed space, can create true art. And if you make a hole and add a metal ball, you can use it to kill enemies and destroy city walls."

Robert whispered to himself as he watched the scene of the roaring artillery.

The principle of artillery as a military art is so simple that Robert was able to summarize it in just one sentence.

It is conceivable that when this new art of warfare was spread back to Europe along with the Crusaders returning home, the world would accelerate its pace and take a few more steps in an unpredictable direction.

And Garys actually welcomes this direction of development. After all, what Robert keeps talking about is at best a summary of principles, and the real devil lies in the details.

Those devilish details are the precious treasures that take hundreds of years to obtain.

Robert could also feel the difference caused by these details.

"The artillery made in Cyprus is far superior to those crude imitations made by Saladin. The artillery made in Cyprus can fire as far as a thousand steps, while the artillery made by Saladin can hardly fire half the distance."

"The soldiers were afraid of Saladin's cannons. If they were filled with too much gunpowder, they would explode easily. If they were filled with too little gunpowder, they would lack power and could not even hit the city walls. The amount of gunpowder that could be filled in each cannon was different, and the only way to determine how much explosive force these cannons could withstand was when they exploded."

"But the artillery produced in Cyprus is different. The professionally trained instructors will clearly tell us what is the best ratio of gunpowder for each artillery, how many times a cannon needs to rest after continuous shooting, and how much we need to raise the muzzle angle if we want to shoot at a certain distance."

"That professional knowledge is priceless wealth, and when combined with the artillery they produce themselves, they can control the throat of the war."

As Robert wrote these words, Lionheart's artillery had already smashed a nearly ten-meter-wide gap in the city wall in front of the horrified eyes of the citizens of Damietta.

As the knights charged on foot, a large number of heavy infantry followed closely behind, and a battle of cold weapon slaughter was about to break out.

(End of this chapter)