The Sun and the Lion

The failure of the first siege was still within the expectations of the Safavid generals. Piri and Aqi were not frustrated, and just asked military engineers to come up with a plan that could quickly destroy the city's fortifications.

But the biggest problem is that they have no artillery, gunpowder, and engineers, so they cannot rely on the power of gunpowder. In terms of traditional siege equipment, they were also poorly prepared. Ibrahim, who already had an artillery unit, would no longer spend resources ordering craftsmen to build parts for ballistas and trebuchets. This also led to the lack of equipment for this Safavid army. Currently, Kabul's entire inventory of siege equipment is being used.

The military engineer could only put these current situations in front of the two generals: "Please forgive me, General, and Huda. With the current situation, I really can't give you any good plan. For our army at present, even if it is drained, Blood may not be able to shake the walls of Kunduz. The best way to win is to ask His Majesty to send artillery."

Hearing these words of the military engineer, Pili frowned and asked again: "If we gather all the trebuchets and ballistae to cover our soldiers' landing on the city..."

Before he finished speaking, he stopped and looked at Archie and the military engineer. Both of them understood what he meant.

"Based on today's situation, the enemy has a lot of ballistae, and they are still condescending and have the advantage..." the military engineer continued to dissuade.

"I think we might as well give it a try." Archie expressed his opinion briefly. After all, he was only a deputy general. If he failed at a huge cost, Pili would be the one to bear the main responsibility.

At this point, the military engineer also shut up. Facing the general who had the power to make the decision, he had already given the best advice he could think of and completed his job faithfully.

Piri looked at the several thousand captains attending the meeting, and seeing that there was no objection, he ordered: "Then do as I say tomorrow. All the ballistae, trebuchets and archers will be ready to cover the first step. Warriors. Dismissed."

In the castle of Kunduz, Huslao was much more relaxed. In his opinion, the Safavid army had used a lot of tricks in the past few days, but when it came time to officially attack the city, he found that the companions could easily block it. The first round of offensive.

According to the engineer's report, except for the partial filling of the moat, there was basically no damage to the city defenses. The army suffered almost no losses, and the city's warehouses were still well stocked.

Moreover, the defenders probably do not need to defend all sides. There is a river not far to the west of the Kunduz city wall. The natural river is not far from the city wall, and it is difficult to deploy troops in such a narrow area.

Faced with such a situation, Huslao and Burke both believed that it was not difficult to deal with the enemy forces under the city. They only needed to wait until the reinforcements from Hisar arrived, and the two armies would surely make the enemy retreat.

The two sides entered the next day with such completely different mentality.

…………

The Safavid army launched several ballistas and trebuchets early in the morning, and dealt a heavy blow to the defenders at the top of the city.

The defenders responded quickly, and stone bullets began to fall on the Safavid positions. Immediately, a ballista was damaged by a direct hit by a stone bullet. The Safavid army's efforts to fight back failed to suppress the long-range firepower of the defenders.

The stone bullets and arrows traveling rapidly through the air not only caused trouble for the deployment of siege equipment, but also slowed down the pace of the infantry.

Several groups of soldiers carrying long ladders were shot and killed on the spot. The Afghan soldiers who lacked armor were at a disadvantage facing the archers on the city wall. They could only use shields to cover their upper bodies as much as possible.

Fortunately, the support from the red heads was timely. The defenders were too densely positioned, and the arrows from the Safavid army hit many archers who were not protected by the battlements.

Taking advantage of this gap, the Afghan soldiers, whose pressure was suddenly reduced, successfully put up a long ladder on the city wall, pushed the corpses and damaged equipment left over from the previous day to both sides, and poured them directly into the moat.

"These madmen..." The archer looked through the shooting hole in the tower at the Afghan soldiers climbing up the city. He fired another arrow, hitting the torso. He watched the enemy fall weakly from the ladder to the city, and then Being dragged away by his comrades.

The arrows fired from the tower towards the side of the siege could not stop the Safavid army that was constantly surrounded by ants. However, just like the previous day, when they climbed to the top, they would be attacked by multiple swords, guns, swords and halberds at the same time. There was no way to fight back.

It seemed like everything would be a repeat of the day before.

"Mr. Burke, should we burn these long ladders with kerosene like we did yesterday?" the junior officer who was accompanying his superior to watch the battle said carefully.

"No, this way we can kill more enemies." Burke, who was responsible for the defense of this section of the city, said while looking at the siege tower that was getting closer to the city wall.

In his view, limited resources should be used for higher-value goals.

Due to the lack of materials, the siege towers owned by the Safavid Army were not only small in number, but also looked very crude. They did not seem to require strong external impact, even if more people stood on them, they would collapse.

Suddenly, a stone bullet hit the battlement. Several of the companions responsible for blocking the attack were killed on the spot. An Afghan soldier took the opportunity to gain a foothold at the top of the city.

But after climbing up the city wall, it was still difficult for him to defeat four people with just two fists. It didn't take long for the warrior who climbed first to be killed. But his heroic success inspired his comrades behind him, and more Afghan cannon fodder struggled to climb the wall and were killed.

However, their sacrifice was not meaningless. Although there were almost no casualties among the Guregani army due to cannon fodder's swords, they attracted almost all the attention after all.

The archers were relieved to attack the defenders behind the shield, because the stone bullets destroyed the battlements, and in the area where the cannon fodder had set up ladders, there was no cover in front of the defenders, which created a suitable environment for the archers' output.

Just when a stalemate had formed at the city wall, the red heads were finally thrown into the battlefield. Their way of entering the battlefield was through the siege tower, which was a more convenient attack channel. Find Shuyuan www. zhaoshuyuaｎ.com

The archers on the top of the tower began to fire arrows to clear out the defenders after approaching a certain distance, but with little effect.

However, Burke, who was observing the battlefield, was not blind. After seeing the siege tower, he asked the rear to send a batch of kerosene, and sent his own soldiers to hide in the dark with these kerosene cans to observe the siege towers.

Before the suspension bridge was lowered, the ignited kerosene was thrown towards the siege tower. Fortunately, the military engineer directed the craftsmen to make fire prevention measures in advance, and the first ignition did not light up.

The companions quickly changed their tactics. After the suspension bridge was lowered and dozens of red heads filed out of it, they threw a second round of fire oil cans. The flat suspension bridge and the unprotected interior of the siege tower were their targets.

Facing the unknown object thrown at him, the red head at the front subconsciously used his shield to block it. The flames and high temperature quickly attached to the shield, causing him to suffer as well.

The red heads still jumped on the city wall one after another, but after all, the number was too small, and under Burke's supervision, the defenders resisted desperately.

The most critical thing is that the tower's ballista destroyed the siege tower, cutting off the red heads' access to reinforcements and retreat, which turned the siege force into a lone army.

In the end, these dozens of red heads who successfully climbed onto the city wall were "pushed off the city wall" by enemies several times their size.

The frustration of the Safavid army's attack was seen by everyone. The morale of the defenders became higher and higher, while the red-headed and Afghan soldiers who participated in the siege lost their initial vigor.

The sound of bugles and drums coming from the siege camp behind conveyed the order to retreat to the front line. The Afghan soldiers who had no intention of fighting were the first to leave the battlefield and ran towards the camp like a broken army.

The red heads responsible for the assault also retreated together with the archers, and the new round of strong attack failed again.