On the small Acropolis fortress outside Kyiv, the Russian soldiers armed with long-handled axes smashed forward with great force, and the Ottoman Sultan's own soldiers armed with Turkish scimitars fully demonstrated their knife skills honed in a hundred battles.

In close combat, the long-handled axe used by Russian soldiers is gradually improved from the logging axe, which is simple to use, has a long attack distance, and has great lethality.

This kind of long-handled Russian axe will be used even by a Russian farmer who has just put down his farming tools, after all, most Russian farmers have experience in using a logging axe to chop firewood, and the replacement of a larger, sharper long-handled axe is just a replacement of the firewood object with a human, and the human target is obviously easier to chop than firewood.

This makes Russia's militia army, which has not undergone much training, only needs a certain amount of courage and morale support after going to the battlefield to play a good combat effectiveness!

Because of this, the Russian army is very rushed to brave and melee hand-to-hand combat, with the simple operation of the musket equipped in large numbers, the Russian army even long-range firepower this short board has also been paved, this is the Russian army in modern history in the country's economy has always been not high combat effectiveness but the fundamental reason has been good.

However, the melee advantage of the Russian soldier's long-handled axe is also compared to ordinary enemy soldiers, and it is a bit inadequate when facing the elite of the Ottoman Sultan's own soldiers with flexible combat experience.

The Ottoman Sultan's own soldiers not only have good personal combat skills, but also cooperate with each other to kill the enemy, but they only know that the Russian soldiers who are rampage and use axes to cut people are obviously not at any advantage in front of them.

I have to say that the city of Kyiv has not fallen so far, and the melee combat ability of the Ottoman Sultan's own soldiers is inseparable, if you take out the Ottoman Sultan's personal soldiers and the elite musketeers of the Taiping Army one-on-one hand-to-hand combat with knives, the victory must be the Ottoman Sultan's personal soldiers, although the loyalty of the elite musketeers of the Taiping Army is high, but their combat skills are more reflected in the skilled use of muskets, and the melee ability is stronger than that of ordinary soldiers.

On the other hand, the Ottoman Sultan's own soldiers, the level of muskets can only meet the queue standards of salvo and rotation, and the best thing is the ability to fight hand-to-hand combat, which is related to the prototype of the Ottoman Janissaries in history, because at the peak of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, the decisive and losing stages of the war were all during hand-to-hand combat, and as the most elite corps of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, it naturally paid more attention to the hand-to-hand combat level of the soldiers.

The Ottoman Sultan's own soldiers, of course, are also the best in melee hand-to-hand combat, their only deficiency is that the Turkish steel scimitar they use is relatively weak against the thick knight's plate armor, however, the muskets in their hands are enough to make up for this weakness, you know, the soldiers wearing heavy plate armor move very slowly, the Ottoman Sultan's own soldiers are enough to kill before they get close, not to mention, with the large-scale allocation of firearms, the heavy infantry units that bloomed everywhere in the Middle Ages have been abandoned by various countries, In front of the armor-piercing muskets, the slow-moving hoplites on foot were the targets of the living coffins.

Therefore, the only restraint of the almost all-powerful Ottoman Sultan's personal soldiers may be the heavy armored cavalry troops wearing knight's plate armor, but in the city defense war, this kind of heavy armored cavalry can not go to the battlefield at all, and can only be dismounted as heavy infantry use, obviously, let the expensive heavy armored cavalry dismount to attack the city, and lose in front of the cheap lead bullet shot down from the city, which is a very cost-effective measure.

Moreover, the infantry wearing heavy armor is too slow to ascend the city, both in terms of cost and efficiency, it is not as good as the lightly armored cannon fodder militia troops, the city defense of this era is completely different from the Middle Ages, and the various firearms at the head of the city are enough to make ninety percent of the shields and armor become a layer of blank paper.

Therefore, the Ottoman Sultan's own soldiers in hand-to-hand combat at the head of the city faced only Russian soldiers wearing leather armor and light nail armor smocks, and the largest number was actually the Russian militia cannon fodder with a linen robe, and the Turkish scimitar made of stainless steel was enough to easily break through the defense and cut the enemy.

As a result, the Russian troops who attacked the last line of defense of the Acropolis fortress outside Kyiv once again retreated without accident, and this bloody offensive and defensive battle has lasted for more than a month, and the two sides are only competing for the will to fight and the number of troops lost.

In terms of troops, the Russian Imperial Expeditionary Force on the attacking side had a great advantage, but in terms of the will to fight, the Ottoman Sultan's own troops were superior, coupled with the geographical advantage of the city defense that could not deploy too many troops, undoubtedly made the battle between the two sides reach a certain balance of attrition, and this balance is also the norm in the history of resolute willpower offensive and defensive battles.

This is one of the reasons why siege warfare was classified as one of the most difficult battles before the invention of high-powered artillery, except for a few cases of successful capture of city gates and surprise attacks due to internal reasons of the defenders, there are often only two methods of conventional siege warfare: siege until the food and grass in the city are extinct, and the defenders collapse on their own; The constant attack consumes the life and physical strength of the soldiers defending the city, as well as the most important mental energy, commonly known as morale!

It is absolutely impossible for the grain and grass to disappear, whether it is the top of the Russian Imperial Expeditionary Force or the commander of the main Polish force, it is clear that the Taiping Army will never sit idly by and watch the city of Kyiv be besieged for more than a year, and they can only use the second way to take the city of Kyiv, and in the months of fierce fighting, the will of the Ottoman Sultan's own soldiers gave the Russian Imperial Expeditionary Force and the main Polish high-level a big 'surprise'.

Now they have only one way left to consume the lives of the enemy to achieve their goals......

As for the way to break the city such as digging tunnels and blowing up the city wall, in a military fortress, as long as the defender is prepared in advance, such as sending someone to listen to the movement of the underground at all times, digging a hole when the opponent is digging the tunnel, and then destroying the opponent's tunnel with smoke and fire, burning and flooding, etc., you can prevent a large amount of black powder from blowing up the city wall.

The way of bombing the city under the city wall is also a high-consumption and low-efficiency way for the fortress with a three-dimensional cross-fire multi-layer parapet wall and a large city with a complete city defense system, which is the essence of the star-shaped fortress.

The advent of artillery has also diversified the human city walls, and there have been corresponding changes, such as the simple city walls that can be destroyed by black powder in the Middle Ages, which are no longer good for the newly renovated military fortresses and large capitals in modern times.