章節 34: Chapter 34: Ottoman vs Aydin Alliance (Part 2)
A few minutes later the enemy horse archers began to look ragged, the bodies of their comrades lying about the fields. But they still launched a last charge but this time, not alone. The entire enemy formation began to move when they noticed they could not force us out of our fortified position by way of annoyance.
Watching the left formation, which is my biggest worry, as they have many fully armored Christian knights. These heavy shock cavalries can truly change a battle from defeat to victory in one charge this is proven by the unit's track record. I decided to move my third line forwards on the left, to fight these knights the pike squares shall be crucial, and this is a great testing ground.
I need to know how effective a pike square can be against enemy cavalry charges, how many casualties they can cause, and how many we take. But the most important is testing my important tactic, I will have the pike square units stop the enemy's charge in its tracks, and my Sipahi and some lighter Kapikulu will attack the cavalry once they are stopped.
I need to verify the effectiveness of such a tactic. On the right, I have been practicing another very simple tactic. This is to crush the light horsemen with Sapahi's half their number, but with superior armor, horse, and experience, I will use the enemy's choice to use lightly armored men throughout an entire wing against them.
Light horsemen like this should be used for raids, or in battle to attack the enemy's flanks when they are unaware. But to send these men to charge is a mistake even if they outnumber us. I screamed the orders out "All horsemen on my left shall strike the enemy's right wing.
-And the enemy's left-wing charge shall be dealt with by the Janissary pike squares, with support from the horsemen on my right-wing... The right-wing horseman is to swing out wide and only strike once the enemy's flanks are clear to you! The janissary infantry is to stay in the center to support our missile forces if anyone attacks."
Watching the battle begin to play out in real time, I noticed something on my left and the enemy's right. Their light horseman has no support on their flanks, just like the knights, giving me a chance to crush this horde before anyone can send any support for them. Wasting no time I said to my Kapikulu corps near me "Men ready yourselves we will launch a charge soon on the lefts flanks! I want to see a brutal charge, one that will make many widows weep in pain even miles away!"
Looking over the battlefield the first to arrive were still the horse archers firing upon my infantry and missile units cannons included. But still avoiding any close combat, but this is to be expected these men are just keeping my cannons and center busy with their constant harassment. The enemies want to destroy my wings and move to crush my center last, but this is simply dreaming.
The first hand-to-hand combat was on my left wing the Sipahis and light Kapikulus are mainly horse archers, but they can fight hand-to-hand with the best of knights, they are no slouches. Whilst crashing into each other's ranks my men took the upper hand but not by much, they are pushing these men back slowly with a high-intensity melee, something a light lancer is just not trained or outfitted for.
On my right, the knights are closing in on my pike squares who slowly moved to a defensive position waiting for the enemy's charge... *Rumble Rumble* I can now see why knights were so feared, with four thousand heavy shock troops covering the horizon and shaking the ground with their large horses. Screaming prayers to their god, this is very frightening to witness honestly, I have to reward these pike men for their bravery if they manage to survive this charge.
I wish to attack the flanks on my left, but I first must make sure the pikemen are secure on the right. Watching the knights finally crash into our pike formation I was surprised. This pike square is not just pikemen but pikemen outlining a square and inside the square are skirmishers and melee men. These skirmishers killed a good bit of knights once they closed in on the pike men these crossbows are better than I thought.
Then once they crashed into the pikemen... *Crash crash crash* Formations of pike squares lined across half a mile, over twelve thousand men took this charge head-on! They were successful in stopping the enemy's charge, and very successfully at that, the enemies were only able to break the lines of a few pike squares, and when they did, they were attacked inside the formation by spears, axes, and swords that tore into their horse's innards, and they were then stabbed by a random soldier once dismounted.
I am not sure about our casualties just yet but watching from here it is definitely over a few hundred, but this is acceptable to trap a cavalry formation of that size. Hearing the horns blaze on our side I knew the horsemen were coming to support the pikemen as well, possibly sealing the fate of those Hospitaller knights.
Now is the time to focus on my job now, I need to rush these light horsemen on my left. Forming into one extremely large wedge formation made of four thousand two hundred fully armored cataphract horsemen... This is a deadly formation or folly I don't know which just yet, but I hope it works out well because it looks very good, with me at the tip of the formation spearheading such a large horde of men.
Running slowly at first and gradually picking up speed we arched out wide to have room to spearhead our way through the enemy's flanks. *RUMBLE RUMBLE* as we closed in on the enemies, I could hear men screaming "NO ENEMIES AT OUR FLANK!" another said "RUN MEN! RETREAT!"
But before any of these sentiments could take hold we crashed directly into their chaotic formation. Being in the front of this wedge I am alone in front with men following behind me only, I could only see endless horses and men... A sight to behold these battlefields, I screamed "SHOW NO MERCY! LET THE SLAUGHTER BEGIN!"
*Splash Spink Slash cut crash* Many noises blocked my hearing there are just too many men fighting at once, but I can still see decently. Riding my horse I cut my way through their entire formation horizontally, exiting out the other side with my men close behind me. But when I was going to give the order to regroup and charge again.
I could see the Bey's command group wide open for an attack! I simply cannot leave such a chance, the horseman here can handle the leftover enemies here. I organized my ranks and reset the formation and screamed "Men we stand at the precipice of victory! The opponent commander's incompetence has left him wide open for attack. Now we strike show me your ferocity men!"
Once more we charged... The enemy commanders are indeed alone, but there are still the horse archers freely running about harassing my center, they could return anytime and attack my rear so we must be quick here, slaughtering the commanders and their retinues in a timely fashion.
*Rumble Rumble* Hearing our horse's hooves shake the world once more my confidence was boosted, and I sped up even more. The enemies noticing our presence almost immediately after we charged, formed up and launched a charge of their own as this was the only choice as we are just too close to run away.
Both formations are getting closer and closer to each other, until finally *Crash crash crash* our men began to crash through their lines with me at the head, Impaling the enemies onto our lances! After the lance broke we began to slice our way through the enemies... We are harvesting their lives at an alarming rate! Some enemies even tried to make a break for it, but this was of course denied by our swords.
I prefer the mace as my secondary weapon instead of the sword, as I feel I can easily smash men rather than work extra hard to slash them. I am in the deepest midst of the battlefield swinging my large gold-plated mace about smashing all who cross my path, I notice my horse is struggling to move. But I was surprised to see why my horse is surrounded by dead enemies on all sides and even many dead or dying horses. I first thought it was mud, but I was wrong it is a mess of carcasses.
Looking out onto the rest of the battle it looks to be dying, the enemy alliance leader's formation has been defeated! I had my men form up again as the position we are in is behind the enemies and we need to try to stop as many from retreating as possible, I believe the main focus is the knights as they are for sure our enemies! But the Turks can be brought over to our side soon after this battle as I will own the lands in which they live.
Reassembling our formation once more we charged out this time with less ferocity as our men and horses are tired. Moving closer and closer to the fight, we finally slammed into the rear of the Hospitaller knight's formation. *Crash crash* I screamed to our forces in the area "Fight men, this is the final stretch, kill the infidels! leave no man alive!"
After a few minutes of bloody slaughter, these knights can only be described as dead bodies. The light horsemen fighting my left wing, and the horse archers from the center have both retreated, but it was not organized and seemed to split into factions as they ran. Seeing these men retreat I gave the order to clean the battlefield and sent the scouts to watch the retreating enemies in case they form a rebel group.
Slowly walking back to the camp, I viewed the battlefield once more, then went into my tent. An hour later I began to get figures about the battle, like how many casualties we suffered and how many of the enemy died in battle. My commanders are assuming all the beys and their commanders died in battle, and this is based on the fact we slaughtered their command units, and their retreat was a race for life, not an orderly retreat.
I am now at this point going to take a week to enforce my claim on the lands these beys left behind, destroying such a large army is enough to cow their heirs into submission. But I will not do that I am going to take these lands for the Sultanate, their families can join the sultanate's armies and work to become part of the government like the rest of my people.
I just now can expand my influence over three Beylics' in one go. leaving only the Karamanids and the Eretnids as beylics capable of defending their lands, other than these two I don't see anyone else in Anatolia that can block any ottoman army. Thus, concluding my conquests in eastern Anatolia, and allowing me to start moving west! Mainly my focus will be bringing the Ahi's republic in Ankara into my fold.
I have taken a few detours from my original campaign objectives. Though I have gained some extra lands, these only create more of a consolidation problem, I would need more educated men to govern these lands, more judges more garrison troops, and police officers. I have prepared the necessary number of men for the lands I prepared to conquer but the extra lands make governing them problematic. I may have to just keep an army in the area until I can fill the open positions later.
Moving to the west also have to wait whilst I bring these lands into my grasp, there will still be wives and heirs of the beys left over in their lands, and we must irradicate them and secure these lands with force. This process can take up to a week or more, then I can properly march my army toward Ankara.
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