Usurpation of Mongolia: My father-in-law is Genghis Khan

Chapter 125: An army of surrounded Samarkand, the predecessor of Xiangyang!

Zhao Shuo's declaration of "God's disaster" not only caused great fear to the Khwarezmians, but also had many unexpected effects.

For example, those signed soldiers who were sent back to their hometowns by Zhao Shuo keeping his promise.

Believers in the true God believe that the God of Christianity is actually the true God, but he just calls him by a different name.

Some of the soldiers, still filled with lingering fear, couldn't help but wonder: since even the most learned men in Bukhara had endorsed Zhao Shuo, his reputation as "God's scourge" must be true. If so, wouldn't joining Zhao Shuo's army be obeying the will of the true God?
The Mongolian army was so powerful. If we surrendered to the Mongols, we could indulge in burning, killing and looting, and obey the will of the true God at the same time. This would be a two-pronged approach.

As a result, local powerful people, accompanied by dozens or hundreds of people, came to see Zhao Shuo again and asked if they could serve as the son-in-law.

Of course, we can’t let them be soldiers who bring their own food anymore, they have to share a certain amount of spoils.

Of course, Zhao Shuo wouldn't mind having too many cannon fodder.

Moreover, most of these Khwarezmians who voluntarily joined the army were the original standing army of Khwarezm, and their combat power was actually quite considerable.

He reorganized the more than 3,000 Khwarezmians who had defected to him and formed three thousand households of the Khwarezmian Zhenghong Banner.

The spoils obtained by these three thousand households were temporarily set at 40% of the regular Mongolian army's share. Once they had proven their strength, their share would increase further.

Wu Xian was completely withdrawn from the Bordered Yellow Banner and became a Wanhu of the Plain Red Banner of Khwarezm. In addition to the 1,000 elite Han troops under his command, there were these three Khwarezmian troops.

Zhao Shuo planned to adopt a similar model in Khwarezm.

One thousand-household Han army led nine thousand-household Khwarezmian troops to form a flag.

The Eight Banners of Khwarezm, which consisted of 80,000 regular troops, were enough to guard his fiefdom in Khwarezm.

For example, the craftsmen captured from Bukhara.

According to Mongolian rules, craftsmen were given preferential treatment. They did not have to join the army, and their women were not included in the gifts given to Mongolian soldiers.

Bukhara was a capital of commerce, learning, and the arts, boasting over ten thousand artisans of all kinds. Cotton weaving craftsmen were particularly suited to Zhao Shuo's needs; they would later serve Zhao Shuo in his vassal state of Khwarezm, supporting the more advanced cotton industry he had transplanted from the East.

There were more than a thousand craftsmen in Khwarezm who made catapults.

During this attack by the Qian army, Zhao Shuo was deeply impressed by the excellent performance of the Khwarezmian catapults.

Not only did he directly incorporate these more than a thousand craftsmen into the engineering battalion, he also asked Arisa to comfort them.

Arisa, worthy of being called the "most outstanding scholar" in Bukhara, was eloquent. He not only argued from various angles for the authenticity of Zhao Shuo's title of "God's Disaster" and the legitimacy of the Khwarezmian craftsmen working for Zhao Shuo, but also repeatedly compared the plight of these craftsmen with that of ordinary citizens in Bukhara, urging these craftsmen to be grateful for Zhao Shuo's kindness.

Coupled with the good treatment of the engineering battalion, a craftsman named Abbas Shiraz soon offered his full loyalty to Zhao Shuo.

"Hmm? A new type of catapult? One that uses heavy objects as power instead of human power to launch rocks?"

Counterweight catapult!

The famous "Xiangyang Cannon" in history is a counterweight catapult!

Zhao Shuo looked at Abbas Shiraz with interest.

The man looked no more than twenty years old, his face sleek and rounded, though his nose already had the sharp, straight lines of a Persian. His hair was shaggy, and his eyes were bright. Tucked diagonally into the pocket of his not-so-clean linen gown was a measuring tape, its surface meticulously and regularly embossed with letters and symbols.

"Yes, yes, actually... and no."

Abbas Shirazi was visibly nervous, beads of sweat covering his forehead. He stammered, "No... I dare not deceive you, my Lord. This type of catapult has actually already appeared. It's just that Khwarezm doesn't have it yet."

Xin Lu acted as an interpreter and translated Abbas Shirazi's words to Zhao Shuo.

Ariza was there to accompany him.

Zhao Shuo asked, "Where is that?"

"The Ayyubid dynasty to the west of Khwarezm is the kingdom founded by the great hero Saladin." Abbas Shirazi explained carefully, "I heard that during the siege of Acre more than 20 years ago, the craftsmen of Acre invented this new type of catapult.

They lifted heavy objects using a winch, releasing gravity and converting it into throwing force, driving the throwing arm to launch stone bullets.

The Ayyubids named this type of trebuchet the slave trebuchet, so named because the capstans were operated by slaves. The slave trebuchets were incredibly powerful, launching fire pots and boulders daily, inflicting heavy casualties on the Franks.

Later, the Crusaders captured the city of Acre, and the Franks mastered the technology of the catapult.

However, both the Ayyubid dynasty and the Franks regarded this technology as top secret.

No one knows how it is made.

I would like to ask the Prince Consort to provide me with some people and materials to research this mysterious weapon."

Zhao Shuo nodded in satisfaction and said, "Very good! I will allocate 500 craftsmen from the Engineering Battalion to you, and give you 1,000 slaves from Bukhara City and 3,000 taels of gold to research this catapult. If you succeed, I will promote you to a centurion in the Engineering Battalion."

Abbas Shirazi was overjoyed. He knelt on the ground and kowtowed, saying, "Thank you, my Lord! I will do my best."

"Get up! Finish building this new type of catapult. It's much better than kowtow to me. Oh, right..." Zhao Shuo frowned slightly and said, "Your clothes aren't very clean! And you don't have a woman yet?"

"Uh... I'm still young and haven't married yet."

"Arisa, find a young and beautiful slave girl from Bukhara and give her to Abbas Shiraz to take care of his daily life."

"Yes." Arisa quickly agreed.

However, Arissa had already made up his mind: he would definitely tell Abbas Shirazi that young men should not be greedy. If he indulged in pleasure and delayed his mission as a consort, no one would be able to save him. On the other hand, if he successfully completed his mission as a consort, he would gain more than just a centurion position and a beautiful slave girl.

"Thank you, Prince Consort!"

In fact, Abbas Shiraz is a pure technology geek, and his enthusiasm for technological research is not necessarily less than his interest in women.

Now that I have money, a woman and a helper, I am extremely satisfied and ready to work overtime tonight.

Of course, this counterweight catapult is not so easy to develop.

According to historical records, the Mongols had only heard of the counterweight catapult when they conquered Bukhara. It wasn't until the conquest of Samarkand, where they gained access to more skilled craftsmen, that they began developing the device. It wasn't until the siege of Yulongjiechi that the counterweight catapult was first used on the battlefield.

Several decades later, Alawadinn from the Mufali people in the Western Regions and Yismain from the Xulie people in the Western Regions invented the famous "Xiangyang Cannon".

Zhao Shuo was not in a hurry anyway, because Genghis Khan and his sons had not been successful in attacking the three cities on the border of Khwarezm.

It is mainly a felt city.

The reason why Zhao Shuo didn't have to spend much effort to attack Bukhara City was not only because Wu Xian was very effective in managing the army, but also because of the defender of Bukhara City, Gushulu Khan.

This man was a groom of the Khwarezmian Sultan. He lacked both military talent and willpower, leading the main force of the field army to abandon the city and flee. This escape not only dealt a severe blow to the morale of the Bukhara defenders, but also greatly weakened the Bukhara defense force.

However, the chief general of Khwarezm's defense was named Timur Mekri, who was one of Khwarezm's most powerful generals.

Not only that, a large river was divided into two halves by the terrain, and the city of Zhan stood on a small hill in the river.

Moreover, Timur had already destroyed all the large rocks within fifteen miles of the city of Zandi, and had mobilized the local residents to throw them into the river. As a result, the stones needed for the Mongols' catapults had to be obtained from fifteen miles away.

How to fight this?
For such a large natural river, it was not realistic to use soldiers to fill it up. They had to build ships to attack, which was too difficult for the Mongols.

After several days of attack without success, Ogedei and Chagatai suggested to Temujin that they should just lay siege to the city for a long time without launching a forceful attack.

This was also a common strategy used by the Mongols to attack cities.

However, Temujin sternly rejected Ogedei and Chagatai's proposal. After all, there was the even more difficult Samarkand ahead, and leaving such a strong city behind would be too dangerous for the Mongol army. Furthermore, failing to capture even the border towns of Khwarezm would greatly boost the morale of the Khwarezmian defenders.

Then fight.

Ogedei and Chagatai sent troops to search for nearby small cities and towns, gathered 50,000 soldiers, built thirteen ships, and attacked the city of Zhende.

After Subutai defeated Edala and Temujin defeated Yangjigan, they also came to reinforce.

With so many soldiers and horses, the city of Zhan is bound to be broken, but when it can be broken is still a question.

Therefore, Temujin ordered Zhao Shuo not to march into Samarkand now. After they had conquered the city of Zhende, they could then send out the entire army to encircle Samarkand.

So Zhao Shuo stayed in Bukhara for two months.

During these two months, Zhao Shuo was deeply involved in the development of the counterweight catapult.

Although he was a layman in mechanics, his knowledge of mathematics was comparable to that of a great scholar of his time. Zhao Shuo's understanding of parabolas was unmatched by scholars of his time.

In addition, Bukhara is a capital of scholars and art, so it is not difficult to mobilize a few scholars proficient in mathematics to participate.

In Zhao Shuo's engineering camp, skilled craftsmen from the Jin Kingdom were also able to contribute a lot of mechanical wisdom.

Finally, a month and a half later, the first counterweight catapult was manufactured.

Although the power of this counterweight catapult is far from comparable to the famous catapults of the future, it has surpassed all human-drawn catapults.

Zhao Shuo quickly ordered the craftsmen to work overtime to manufacture the key components of the counterweight catapult.

This catapult was too large to be moved long distances, so the only option was to build the key components first, and then build and assemble the bulkier parts before attacking a city.

Another half month passed, and news came that Temujin had conquered the city of Zhande. Zhao Shuo had already built the key components of twenty counterweight catapults.

He led a large army out of Bukhara and headed towards Samarkand.

Zhao Shuo has 150,000 regular troops and 80,000 contracted troops under his command!
Temujin felt the difficulty of attacking the city, and greatly increased the number of Baru camps and the number of signed troops. Now he had an army of 200,000 and 130,000 signed troops!

A total of 560,000 troops surrounded Samarkand.

Such a large army has exceeded the last time when "a million troops surrounded Zhongdu".

However, after Temujin led Zhao Shuo, Jochi, Ogedei and Chagatai around the city of Samarkand, they still felt it was quite difficult.

"This Samarkand city is going to be tough!" Temujin frowned. "It's thirty miles in circumference, surrounded by a moat, and boasts twelve gates. It's practically a miniature Zhongdu. The defenders are quite motivated, and they've even dug four trenches outside the moat. Clearly, they're planning to use these trenches as a base for a field battle."

Jochi also said, "According to the intelligence we have, there are 110,000 troops in Sarmaqand. 60,000 of them are Khwarezmian field troops, and 50,000 are elite Persian infantry drawn from various regions. It seems impossible to take advantage of the lack of defense in Zhongdu and capture Samarkand, as Asho did last time."

Ogedei and Chagatai were equally gloomy.

The last time they were in the city of Feldkand, they were already traumatized psychologically, let alone the current city of Samarkand?

Chagatai looked at Zhao Shuo and said, "Ashuo, do you have any good ideas?"

Zhao Shuo said calmly, "There's definitely no perfect solution. However, I think conquering Samarkand may not be as difficult as we imagine."

"How do you say this?"

"The key lies in those four trenches." Zhao Shuo snorted and said, "The Khwarazmians are still digging trenches outside the moat. Their courage is indeed commendable. However, the soldiers in these trenches must be the elite of the Khwarazmian army, right? In my opinion, we should rest for seven days first, and then attack these four trenches day and night."

"This is a very good plan."

Temujin understood instantly and said, "Attack the four trenches day and night to pin down their main field forces. The more elite troops we eliminate in the trenches, the easier it will be to attack Samarkand later."

Zhao Shuo said, "Also, from what I understand, Khwarazm is different from the Central Plains dynasties. Its citizens are very powerful. As long as we eliminate enough Khwarazmian field forces and put enough pressure on them, they may turn against us and help us."

"Sufficient pressure? Ah Shuo, you've erected white tents, red tents, and black tents in Bukhara. I think that's a good idea." Temujin said, "As long as we persist, the deterrent effect of this method will surely become stronger each time."

The "white tent, red tent, black tent" strategy was actually invented by Temujin in history, but that was two years later.

Now that he knew that Zhao Shuo was going to attack Bukhara, Temujin followed his lead and adopted the same policy.

While building siege weapons, white tents were erected and announced to the people of Samarkand.

However, now they have only captured the city of Bukhara.

At first, Samarkand was not greatly affected.

During the seven days when the Mongolian army erected the white tents, the defenders of Bukhara even went out of the city several times to attack at night and harass the Mongolian army.

Although the Mongolian army did not suffer any losses and even chopped off the heads of more than a thousand Khwarezmian soldiers, Temujin was still furious and sentenced these Khwarezmian soldiers to death.

(End of this chapter)