By 8 May, the mercenaries had been assembled and the artillery had arrived. Pen? Interesting? Pavilion wWw. ｂiquge。 ｉｎfo

The brigade commander was preparing to launch an assault on the fortress of Nizwa on 9 May.

While waiting for the army to assemble and the artillery to arrive, the mercenaries occupied the area around the town of Nizwa, drove away all the inhabitants of the oasis and the natives who had fled, and occupied the city behind the castle.

The brigade commander was very cautious, the brigade commander who attacked Hanoi rashly attacked, causing heavy casualties to the mercenaries, and was demoted by 3 levels afterwards, and informed the whole army, he should take warning; After assessing the castle, he felt that it would be difficult to occupy it without artillery, and that even the capture of the castle would pay a heavy price, so he did not hastily order the troops to attack rashly, but waited until the artillery arrived.

According to the plan of the military department, the capture of Muscat, Nizwa, and then Salalah, the Muscat Sultanate would be equivalent to the destruction of the country, and if the Sultan and other members of the Saif royal family could be captured or killed, the result would be even more perfect.

On the morning of 9 May, the mercenaries launched an attack on the castle of Nizwa, first shelling the castle with four 65mm mountain guns of the artillery company.

The 65mm mountain gun's shells fired rapidly and fired 100 shells in a row in just over a minute.

"Bang, bang, bang......"

Shells exploded on and around the castle walls, obscuring the view from the smoke and dust, and the deafening explosion scared many of the defenders into peeing their pants.

The Sultan was even more frightened and cowered in the castle, not even daring to look at it, let alone other middle- and low-ranking officers and ordinary defenders; How had this experience been experienced in previous tribal wars? Even the Portuguese and British armies came to attack, mainly relying on naval guns, far from the inland by the sea, and had never been ravaged by such fierce artillery fire.

After being frightened, it was discovered that the cannons of the Xia Empire had not blown up the ancient castle, which made the defenders let out a burst of cheers.

It seems that the artillery of the Xia Empire's army is nothing more than that, and the defenders suddenly have the confidence to win.

Sultan Said shouted happily: "Haha, the artillery of the Xia Empire is nothing more than that, protected by centuries-old castles, the enemy can't attack, so I will stick to my post and start shooting, and I can't let the enemy get close." ”

With the protection of the castle, all the officers and men were greatly emboldened, and they scattered on the firing ports of the castle according to the division of labor, preparing to block the enemy attacking the castle.

With a height of 100 feet and a diameter of 120 feet, Nizwa Castle stands majestically on the commanding heights of Nizwa. The castle is a mud and stone structure, the wall is more than 2 meters thick, the whole castle is divided into 7 layers, only a team ladder that only allows one person to pass through; Each floor has a half-metre-thick wooden door with iron nails nailed to it, and there is a skylight in front of each door that leads to the top platform of the fort; When the enemy attacked the gate, the defenders on the top of the fort fell from the skylight and boiled oil or threw stones, and the enemy could not climb the castle no matter how fierce they were.

From the binoculars, the mercenary brigade commander found that the power of the artillery fire was too small, and the explosion on the city wall only blew up a small crater, and did not cause structural damage to the ancient fortress at all, even if all the shells were fired, it might not be able to blow up the fortress. The bullets fired from inside the castle made the brigade commander afraid to continue the attack.

Judging by the number of troops deployed and the weapons they were equipped with, as well as the interrogation of the natives from the oasis outside the fort, the brigade commander estimated that the sultans of the Muscat Sultanate and members of the royal family were all hiding in the fort.

So the brigade commander had to order the army to surround the castle and begin to dig trenches around the castle to prevent the defenders from breaking through; And immediately report the situation to the military department, hoping to get the support of the military department's howitzers or send airships to support.

For the Xia Empire to value the lives of every mercenary officer and soldier, it is forbidden for them to carry out pig rush charges when it is not necessary, and they must ask their superiors for artillery support when they encounter blockade, which makes all the mercenaries very moved.

The military headquarters of the 9th Army received a telegram from the mercenaries asking for help, and decided that it was necessary to eliminate the Sultan and the members of the royal family, and in order to save a lot of trouble in the future, it immediately sent airships with heavy grenades and incendiary bombs to support.

Seeing that the Xia Empire did not attack the ancient castle, the sultan and others were relieved, a large amount of food, fuel, and water were stored in the ancient castle, and there was sufficient weapons and ammunition, as long as the Xia Empire was willing to confront each other, they were willing to accompany them.

May belongs to the dry season in West Asia, the temperature is hot, the temperature can reach 40 degrees at noon, as long as the enemy can not hold on, they will retreat, the Sultan and others are full of confidence in the war, and the officers and soldiers are full of fighting spirit.

The commander of the mercenary brigade could only order the defenders of the front line to take turns on duty, otherwise the officers and soldiers would be exhausted before the castle was captured in such hot weather.

The airship came very quickly, and flew to Nizwa at 2 p.m. on the 9th, and after contacting the commander of the mercenary brigade by telegram, the commander of the airship did not ink and immediately ordered the bombing of the castle.

First of all, the 250 kg heavy grenade was used to bomb the castle, the effect was very obvious compared to the mountain artillery, but the progress was still a little slow, so the 500 kg grenade was used to continuously bomb the top of the castle, but less than 10 grenades were released, and the inside of the castle was blown up in a mess, afraid that there were still survivors, and 6 incendiary bombs were released in the castle, and they were thrown directly into the castle from the top of the collapsed castle.

The inside of the castle immediately became a sea of fire, the fire produced a high temperature of up to 1,000 degrees, and the oxygen in the castle was consumed, and the people in the castle were either scorched or suffocated to death.

This bombardment came too suddenly, these natives never dreamed that the Xia Empire, which they despised them, would bomb them from the air, and this bombardment was too violent, first the ancient castle was blown through from the top of the fort to the bottom of the fort, and before they could fully react, a raging fire ignited, and they were instantly buried in the flames.

The fire lasted for more than 1 hour, and because the temperature inside the castle was too high, the mercenaries did not dare to approach it, so they could only wait for the temperature to cool down.

The commander of the mercenary brigade sighed that they were standing on the same front with the Xia Empire's army, if they were enemies with the Xia Empire, how many Japanese troops would not be enough for the Xia Empire to burn.

It was not until evening that the mercenaries entered the castle and conducted an examination, and found that there were less than 5,000 bodies in the castle, and it seemed that there were still fish that had slipped through the net.

The brigade commander then ordered a battalion to be left to guard the place and tidy up the fort, while the remaining troops continued southward.

Although the castle was occupied, the mercenaries did not have much joy, because the castle was not directly captured by the mercenaries, and secondly, there was no valuable loot in the castle, and some members of the royal family and the army were evacuated in advance.

Due to the news of the Xia Empire's policy of robbing light, the expelled people were brought to various castles and oases around the area, so that when the Xia Empire army had not yet arrived, the locals began to migrate, which made the later Xia Empire army march a lot smoother, and the people left behind in each ancient castle were very few, and most of them were older and unwilling to stay away from their homeland, but stayed behind to buy time for the migration of the tribe, so it didn't take much effort to break through these small fortresses.

Each of the natives' wars of resistance was small, but they were frequent, and there were so many fortresses scattered in the vast desert oases, each tribe had at least one fortress, large or small, and a great deal of time was spent on the march of troops.

Marching in the hot season was also a severe test for the troops. (To be continued.) )