Over the past forty days, Emperor Constantine XI has attempted several attacks on the city of Bursa, but to no avail.

First, in order to win as many troops as possible without a fight, Emperor Constantine XI tried to send emissaries to persuade the Turks in the city to surrender, and promised to protect them from leaving safely - similar tentative negotiations had been made several times before Turahan Pasha led his troops into the city, and although the price offered by the two sides was too different, it was nevertheless negotiable, but it was a constant bargain.

However, after Turahan Pasha led his troops into the city, the envoy of the Eastern Roman Empire who was in charge of the negotiations was blasted out and cut off an ear, and he could no longer talk. What's worse is that the Turks in the city, who were originally scattered, were also boosted by this guy's fighting spirit and morale, and they were quite efficiently integrated. Although the plague has not yet dissipated, all resources have been devoted to the defense of the city.

Emperor Constantine XI had no choice but to organize a siege of the city, first by ramming the gates with giant logs and by setting up ladders in the weakest parts of the city walls, under the cover of an overwhelming array of arrows and bows, but these most primitive methods were obviously unable to break through the old capital that the Turks had painstakingly managed. After several fierce and bloody battles, the Eastern Roman Empire army left hundreds of corpses outside the city walls and reluctantly retreated to their attacking positions.

Emperor Constantine XI then gathered all his artillery, most of which had been captured from the Turks, and launched a long bombardment of the city of Bursa, trying to encroach on the walls bit by bit. However. The artillery carried by the army was not large enough and not powerful enough, although these dense shells did cut numerous pitted scars into the tall city walls. But it never came crashing down. At the same time, the Turkish artillery continued to return fire at the head of the city, blowing up several siege mortars that were too far forward.

Emperor Constantine XI saw that the walls could not be destroyed for a while, so he ordered the construction of a strong siege tower ladder. The size of this siege tower ladder can be called huge, the height of more than ten meters and the base of dozens of meters are enough for hundreds of people to climb the city wall at the same time. The tower was covered with three layers of thick cowhide, and the cart was filled with artillery fire and archers, as well as a ladder raised and lowered by pulleys. The top can firmly grasp the head of the city and not be pushed away.

After the completion of this majestic siege tower, the soldiers of the Eastern Roman Empire were full of hope that they would be able to win by surprise.

But what everyone never expected was. The Turks in the city sent a surprise party to take advantage of the night to knock down the ladder with a wooden pole and throw torches dipped in pine resin at it, causing it to burn brightly. This masterpiece of engineering has not yet come in handy. and it was burned.

Seeing that the assault was really impossible, Emperor Constantine XI scratched his hair, which looked greasy because he had not bathed for a long time, and decided to learn from the experience of the Eighth Route Army in bombing the devil's turret, and adopted the stupid method of digging tunnels to bury explosives and letting the Turks take the Turkish planes. The ground is too solid to be excavated in winter. In these years, civil engineering relied entirely on manpower, and the engineering troops just recruited by the Eastern Roman Empire were relatively rusty. So. It took more than 20 days to dig this tunnel to complete...... However, it was fortunate that it was not destroyed by the Turks.

The Emperor then asked the Russian werewolves to place more than 800 kilograms of modern TNT explosives inside. Detonate with a timer and detonator...... Then, with a loud "boom", a huge cloud of smoke and dust rose from the head of the city of Bursa, and sand and stone and wood chips fell. By the time the dust cleared, the walls had been blasted open with a ten-meter-wide opening, and countless Turkish soldiers were lying on the ground around them, all stunned.

In this siege and defense of Bursa, this is by far the closest the Eastern Roman Empire army has ever come to success.

- Immediately after the breach in the wall, Emperor Constantine XI threw all his forces into it, rushed through the gap with great vigour, and in the blink of an eye slaughtered all the Turks who were still gasping behind the breach.

Next, the excited Eastern Roman Empire army, leaving a part of the soldiers to suppress the few defenders on the city walls with bows and crossbows, the main force continued to penetrate along the streets, and soon captured a city gate, let their own cavalry in, and engaged the Turks in street battles on the streets.

Until this time, the emperor thought that he was in control, but he did not anticipate a very serious problem - there were not enough troops under his command!

According to the Art of War, the attacking side needs to have a tenfold superiority in strength in order to attack the city. However, at this time, the troops gathered under the command of Emperor Constantine XI were only more than 10,000 people, even if all the miscellaneous troops and the militia volunteers who had just been pulled up.

And after receiving Turahan Pasha's 2,000 fresh troops, the total number of Turkish soldiers guarding the city was almost 10,000.

The reason why the Eastern Roman Empire army had been pressed and beaten by the Eastern Roman Empire, which did not have a clear advantage, was that the city of Bursa was tormented by plague and chaos, and the people were panicked, and there was no leader who could convince the people, and it was unable to effectively mobilize the manpower and material resources in the city to fight.

-- As the saying goes, "There is no really useless garbage in this world, only misplaced resources."

However, after Turahan Pasha entered the city of Bursa with 2,000 fresh troops, it not only temporarily stabilized the morale of the army in the city, but also mobilized all kinds of liliang in the city of Bursa. Although there are still many difficulties in taking the initiative, it is still certain to hold on to resistance in the city

As a result, the Eastern Roman Empire troops that invaded the city soon encountered unprecedented resistance and backlash between the streets and alleys:

The city's Muslim citizens, armed with door panels, scimitars, and crude spears, formed an ancient phalanx in the narrow and winding alleys, resisting to the death. The women threw stones and earthen pots from the windows of the buildings, causing the Eastern Roman soldiers to bleed and their eyes glazed on the spot.

A small number of Turkish cavalry constantly launched counter-charges in the squares and streets, each counterattack capable of trampling a large area of the messy Greeks. A limited number of Turkish archers occupied the commanding heights such as rooftops and towers. Accurately harvesting the lives of the attackers with a rain of arrows. Even Turkish children used slingshots and slingets to sneak up on the shields and helmets of Eastern Roman soldiers.

- The city of Bursa was once the capital of the province of Bithynia in the Eastern Roman Empire. But by this time it had been occupied by the Turks for more than a century, and thousands of Turkish nomads had descended the arid and barren Anatolian plateaus into the humid and densely vegetated western coastal ports. The inhabitants of the city of Bursa have long since been purged and replaced, from a Christian city to a Muslim city.

Although the Ottoman royal family was dead by this time, the Turks, who had been brought to the shores of the Aegean Sea by the Central Asian steppes after hundreds of years of long conquests, still refused to give in. They were originally fierce and bloodthirsty nomads. Now that it has been cornered, it has exploded into 120% combat effectiveness. Even women, children, and the elderly use stones, sticks, and fists. He even fought to the death with the Eastern Roman Empire army with his teeth.

There is no way, occupying the traditional territory of the Greeks and cleaning the aborigines, the hatred between them is already higher than the sky and deeper than the sea. There is no room for turnaround. Once defeated, it is the saddest end. Therefore, under the encouragement and call of Turakhan Pasha, these Turks are all dead pigs who are not afraid of boiling water, and they will fight to the end no matter what, and they would rather die than pull a few Christians on their backs.

Whether it's a mercenary fighting for money or a fanatic who fights for his faith, he is a little powerless in the face of this dying throe.

Because, at this time, the Turks were fighting for survival. This is the most instinctive and pure driving force of battle.

In the face of the national resistance of more than 100,000 Muslims. The Eastern Roman army entered the city several times, and was beaten out several times in disarray, but it was never able to make any meaningful progress except for the destruction of a few gates and the blasting of the walls to the point where holes were everywhere.

Zuihou, the red-eyed Emperor Constantine XI, ordered the city to be set on fire - as the Greek flamethrowers entered the battlefield, one after another fire bombs were thrown into the buildings on both sides of the street, causing wisps of flame to rise from these buildings, devouring all the combustible materials to strengthen themselves. The Turks, who still had the courage to try to put out the fire, were all hindered by the Christians who took advantage of the chaos to attack.

As a result, the gradually spreading fire caused a terrifying hot wind in the dense cluster of buildings in the city, pushing the flames faster and more violently. The black smoke over the streets turned the day into dusk, and black ash drifted around like snowflakes......

Due to a lack of prior planning, the fire quickly spiraled out of control, and both Muslims and Christians were caught in a sea of scorching fire, and the fear of the flames caused people to rush through the streets like a tidal wave. No one knows where they are going. Some were so frightened that they could only cry out, others ran for their lives along the streets, trying to stay away from the smoke and flames, and still others struggling to the docks in an attempt to get out of the city.

The Eastern Roman soldiers, who were exhausted and burned to the brim, had no choice but to flee through the open gates and the gaps that had been blown up, in order to avoid the flames chasing behind their buttocks, and even the officers who were overseeing the battle could not restrain them at all.

At this point, the closest Eastern Roman Empire attack on the city of Bursa was successful, and finally ended in a failed retreat.

Sadly, the Turks inside the city blocked the breach and repaired the walls with astonishing speed, leaving the emperor with no choice but to do anything for a while.

In fact, if it weren't for the constant incurrence of the plague in Bursa, where many people died every day, and the fact that the Eastern Roman Empire had modern medicine to keep them safe, the Turks would have launched a full-scale counterattack to expel the newly defeated Eastern Roman army.

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Recovering from the frustrating memories of the last failed siege, Emperor Constantine XI stretched out his hand and rubbed his temples, got up and lifted the curtains, facing the howling cold wind, looking at the walls of Bursa, which were dilapidated and scorched everywhere, but still standing majestically in the distance, and the Eastern Roman Empire military camp that surrounded the city walls and stretched from the foot of the mountain to the sea, and couldn't help but sigh deeply.

It is only one foot away from the expected strategic goal, but it is stuck here. If you can't triumph for a long time, it's hard to survive.

For the Eastern Roman Empire, whose national power was extremely weak, the war had reached this point. It's already a dilemma.

The emperor knew very well that these armies under his command, although they seemed to be magnificent and imposing, were in fact a rabble that were hastily pulled up, just mixed with good equipment, and could not endure hard fighting, but also difficult to fight for a long time. Discipline and military literacy are also problematic.

After the initial wave of religious fanaticism had gradually ebbed, the Eastern Roman army had begun to become war-weary, and many people wanted to go home with the spoils of war. Instead of continuing to die outside of a city full of stubborn infidels and a terrible plague.

And the side effects of his previous breakthrough of the moral bottom line and the use of modern bacteriological weapons to spread the plague are now slowly becoming apparent.

In general, this kind of trick of losing the discipline is like the "Seven Wounds Fist" in martial arts novels. Although it does hurt people. But it hurts you even more.

Although this series of overwhelming plagues greatly weakened the survival of the Turks, the army of the Eastern Roman Empire, which was purely a rabble, was able to easily recover large swaths of lost territory. But it was for the same reason that the territories that the empire had just regained, whether it was Thrace in Europe or Bithynia in Asia, were all barren and sparsely populated by plague and war. At least this year's harvest is not to be counted on.

The same truth spread to Italy and all over Western Europe. Although the great plague that led to the ascension of tens of millions of people to heaven to see God avoided to a certain extent the interference of the fleets of Italian city-states such as Venice and Genoa in the Eastern Roman Empire's reconquest operation, it also caused a rapid reduction in the number of merchant ships that were originally active around the Mediterranean, and maritime trade was almost cut off, which dealt a great blow to the trade hub of Constantinople.

In this way, although the Eastern Roman Empire army looted a lot of gold and silver coins, it could not be exchanged for all kinds of urgently needed materials, especially vital food - not only the huge amount of food consumed by the big city of Constantinople every day was difficult to procure, but even the food supply of the front-line army became a problem, and if it were not for the "interdimensional supply line" from modern Japan on the other side of the wormhole, this siege would have been impossible to fight.

The most terrible thing is that this traverser emperor can rely on the thickest golden thigh that can turn the table, and there are also some signs of unreliability.

-- According to the latest information available, China, Russia, India, and Europe all like to bury nuclear waste deep in no-man's land for later reuse; And the Americans' nuclear waste also has to support their tank depleted uranium armor or depleted uranium bomb manufacturing industry. In this way, after you time travelers have disposed of Japan's nuclear waste and radioactive waste, there will be no more nuclear waste to discard.

As a result, the value of this plant, which was originally intended to be a nuclear waste dump, has inevitably shrunk dramatically. Naturally, their support for Emperor Constantine XI was also declining significantly - specifically, they were no longer willing to help the emperor in his wars.

Thanks to the plundering of the army some time ago, Emperor Bixia of Constantine XI looted a lot of gold, silver and jewels from the hands of the Turks, as well as precious cedar and cedar wood. With these rewards as bait, the frightened Russians were able to make another cameo appearance in the "Varangian Guard", helping him to plant explosives at the end of the tunnel and blast the walls of Bursa...... Unfortunately, in the end, it fell short.

But Constantine XI also knew that he had nothing to complain about - for now his food, medicines, spices paid to mercenaries for military pay, crude oil for the production of Greek fire, and even black powder for bronze cannons, all depended on the support of his fellow travelers!

Therefore, the mentally stressed emperor sighed melancholy, opened his diary, and wrote down a few lines of his latest thoughts.

“…… The most valuable soldiers for a country are not the knights who have been trained how to kill since childhood. Although these knights are well-equipped, well-trained, and powerful, the training cycle is too long, and the resources consumed are too much. Moreover, once these expensive knights suffered too many casualties, many years of hard work of the kings would be wasted, and it would not be possible to replenish them in a short time.

As for the mercenaries who pay for their lives, they are even more unreliable, they only care who gives more money. A group of people who do not hesitate to sell their lives for money cannot place absolute trust in them, because no one knows whether they will be bought by the enemy. On a battlefield where the situation is changing rapidly, as a commander who shoulders the lives of thousands of people, in addition to considering the threat of the enemy, he must always be on guard against possible mutinies of his own people, which is really a very sad thing. Even if these mercenaries are just disobedient and don't work hard, they are deadly enough in many cases......"

When he was done, he threw away the quill and rubbed his sour eyelids while muttering to himself that he had made his final decision.

“…… Anyway, when Lucas comes in with reinforcements, let's try to attack again! ”

A few days later, Grand Duke Lucas, commander of the Imperial Navy, arrived at the battlefield of Bursa with 7,000 fresh troops and the entire fleet of the Eastern Roman Empire, and once again injected a boost into the siege force, which was already somewhat demoralized and languishing.

Taking advantage of this momentum, after ordering the fleet to block the sea lines of communication in the city of Bursa, the emperor once again ordered a general attack. After blasting open the filling of the gaps in the walls with artillery, some 20,000 Eastern Roman soldiers poured into the city, firing arrows, stones and javelins at the Turks, and engaging the defenders in long hand-to-hand combat with spears and scimitars...... But after a day of onslaught, he was finally defeated.

So, in order to end the war as soon as possible, Constantine XI had to pinch his nose and write an edict.

“…… Alas, it really makes people feel angry that they can force me to this point...... Thankfully, while Turahan Pasha is a fierce rival, it's not his home turf. At this point, he has nothing to support Liliang to mobilize, just waiting for a general collapse! (To be continued.) )