Sorry for being late. I was not satisfied with the completion of yesterday's chapter, and this chapter has been rewritten in its entirety......

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Such a scene reminds Louis of the painting of LeBlanc and others for no reason, as if this kind of painter with the support of a whole country behind him never spares paint, they use a shovel-like spatula to pick up a ball of paint and throw it on the canvas, and then delicately spread it, and finally use the brush to retouch, sometimes, some colors and shapes do not meet their expectations, they pick up more new paint, use them to cover the original color.

The coalition and the Ottomans seem to have done the same, with groups of slaves and mercenaries being driven into battle, no one cares about their lives or deaths, no one cares about the outcome of the battle, and everyone knows that this kind of battle is meaningless, in the words of an awkward sentence: "I put in these consumables because I don't want the enemy's consumables to consume my soldiers." "After the persecuted finally collapsed, the Overseers retreated to Castle Hill, the hill on which Ljubljana Castle was located, and retreated to the first line of defense, and the Grand Vizier's horsetail banner finally appeared slowly in the distance, and the bloody prologue came to an end.

The groans that could be heard before it was dark were no longer audible at night, and the temperature of July gave the corpses a foul smell, so the Ottomans had to clear the battlefield under the hills before digging trenches and laying forts, and they scrawled the dead together and poured grease on them, and such fires lit up people's faces, and sometimes the moans of weakness could be heard, and some of the Slovenes who were just lucky enough to be wounded were burned alive.

In addition to these fires, there were craftsmen who worked all night to assemble heavy artillery for the Ottomans, and the Ottoman Turks were not inferior to the Europa in thermal weapons, and even earlier they were able to pour barrels on the battlefield - but before the time of Kobril, the Ottomans lost this calmness, and all Ahmet could do was guarantee to carry more than a hundred light and heavy cannons, which were disassembled into barrels. The brackets were dragged to the battlefield by ox carts and wagons, and it took a lot of time to reassemble them, so the Grand Vizier ordered his guards, wearing yellow boots and high hats, to bring a box of gold coins, and when he finished assembling a cannon, the light one could take one gold coin, and the heavy one could take two gold coins, and with such a heavy reward, the craftsmen did their best, and stayed up all night, sweating profusely, and some even fell to the ground and stopped breathing when they staggered to the box and grabbed a handful of gold coins.

Such a death would certainly not move the Grand Vizier Ahmet, and if he was defeated here, he would inevitably die when he returned to Istanbul, and he lay on his couch, half-asleep, and got up at dawn, and crossed the Ottoman position, which was the castle hill and the castle of Ljubljana on the castle hill, which was originally a giant in armor, and now the French general Vauban was covered with spikes on his armor, bunkers, trenches, The combination of low walls and sloping lines makes the hill resemble a giant hedgehog, and you can imagine how difficult it will be to take the castle.

"What are those?" Ahmed suddenly asked, "those thorn-like things? They don't grow naturally, do they?" ”

"Black iron thorns don't grow in the ground. The Grand Imam next to him said that he could see far away without relying on a telescope like Ahmed, "It's an artificial creation." "What they saw was another product that was mass-produced after the steam engine was built – iron wire.

Iron wire has been there hundreds of years ago, craftsmen use pliers to pull out the wire, wind the wire on a fixed caliber tube, cut it and make a coil, and then braided it into chain mail, but this wire drawing method was completely eliminated after having a steam engine, the steam engine is infinitely powerful, sleepless, can make iron wire day and night, these iron wires are used on the battlefield for the first time - in the previous war between Flanders and the Netherlands, France was the attacker, and the second was insufficient production - It was alien to both the coalition forces and the Ottoman Turks.

But even the sudden rise of a black iron tree in Ljubljana could not stop the course of the war, and the Grand Imam took his leave, and then he had to go to divinate a suitable date for the war, and the Grand Vizier Ahmet could not hide his uneasiness, he returned to his tent, muttered for a while, went to the locked chest, opened it, and in the Great Vizier's chest, full of precious ornaments, silky clothes, and splendid weapons, his hand rested on the box for a while, and he could not make up his mind— If anyone had been around him, he would have seen that this noble man, second only to the Sultan, had been watching a scimitar with silver and gems.

The scimitar was delicate, but it was also inconspicuous among the dozen scimitars because of its delicacy, and Ahmet hesitated for a moment before taking it out and hanging it on his belt.

He had barely lifted the curtain when he was startled, for there was a man standing in the tent—a dazed boy.

"Why are you here?" asked Ahmed.

"My lord," said the boy respectfully, "Master asked me to deliver the ......," and he could not finish the next sentence, for Ahmet had drawn his knife and slashed his throat, and the child fell to the ground with his eyes glared, his blood staining the silk carpet of gold and dark green a dark red.

Ahmad recognized him, his master had a brother who served by the Grand Imam, and Ahmet could not take any chances.

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The next morning, the light artillery brought by the Ottoman Turks had been assembled, and they tentatively bombarded the bunkers, driving the shells into the trenches, the walls of which were unexpectedly thick, the narrow holes that prevented the shells from entering, and the trenches below the ground had a small slope in front of the attackers to slow down the power of the shells, which was effective but still disappointing. Especially when the first Azap infantry stormed the trench and captured the bunker, they found that most of the soldiers inside had been withdrawn from the attached trench.

The barbed wire fence in front of the trench also caused a lot of trouble for Azap and the cavalry, especially the low-ranking cavalrymen converted from herdsmen and Tatars, who had no armor and were covered with the fur of wild beasts, and could easily be caught by the barbed wire and pierced by bullets. Without the constant intrusion they inflicted on the people in the castle, the pressure on the defenders was much less, and even the soldiers in the bunkers and trenches suffered very little damage, and they could even be said to retreat in an orderly and calm manner to a safer place, and only after repairing could they go back to a new battle.

This situation did not change until the Ottomans formed heavy artillery, which could suppress the defenders' counterattacks and destroy bunkers, and the Ottomans began to dismantle barbed wire and fill in trenches.

Both Grand Vizier Ahmed and Grand Imam looked at the dismantled barbed wire, and anyone with eyes could see how useful this metal thorn was for defense—every inch or two of the wire was surrounded by sharp bars of thorns, and if you didn't pay attention to it, it could bite deep into a person's flesh like the teeth of a cat or dog, and if you pulled it forcibly, it would tear off a large piece of the belt, and even scrape the bone, even if you just grabbed the clothes, it was difficult to break free.

This is again for the infantry, and if it is for the cavalry, the horses are more vulnerable to iron spikes, causing disability and even death.

"If I were a Christian general, I would save them for later on the battlefield. Ahmed said, looking at them.

"Maybe they feel they can stop us in Ljubljana. The Grand Imam said, completely ignoring Ahmet's gloomy face.

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The ensuing battles were brutal and numbingly long.

After the official start of the war, although guns and cannons have been popularized in the armies of both sides, the use of trenches and walls, ladders and siege engines still occupies the majority of the battle, but the roar is no longer arrows but bullets, and people throw metal grenades at each other instead of clay pots, but a large part of the cannons are still filled with granite shells, which can even surpass those shells with gunpowder when attacking the city walls, and similarly, the cannonballs that the defenders of the castle fight back are also partly made of cementThis kind of shell, which can only be used as training shells and targeted strikes after hundreds of years, has the same kinetic energy as real stone shells, and the amount of gunpowder required is about the same.

General Vauban was one step earlier in reinforcing part of the walls of Ljubljana Castle to house the cannons, lest there be a ridiculous accident in which the walls would collapse before the enemy was defeated - of course, the walls, bunkers, and cannonballs required a lot of cement, but having tasted the sweetness of the Flemish and the war with the Dutch, these merchants even provided countless limestone, coal ash, iron slag, etc., without any promise or mortgage.

Their initiative turned the attack and defense of Ljubljana Citadel into another war of attrition, the Ottoman army of 250,000 could make any king tremble, and Ahmet relied on the same numerical superiority, even if the cannons of Ljubljana never stopped roaring and roaring, and the bullets rained down like a torrent of bullets, he continued to send his soldiers to charge, behind these soldiers were the Overseers armed with clubs and whips, and behind the Overseers were the Janissaries and Mutfirica legions, and any deserters who broke through the Overseers would be beheaded on the spot。

Coupled with the promise of plunder and slaughter at will given by the Grand Vizier after the capture of the castle, the Azaps rushed forward like a pack of deprived beasts, and they piled up like folds under the walls of the city in such quantities that the defenders of the city had to burn their corpses, lest the enemy take advantage of them to climb the walls the next day.

At the same time, the Ottomans continued to build huge siege engines - They had built siege towers that were more than the walls of Istanbul when they were attacking Istanbul, and of course they could do the same, or even go further, but this plan was quickly discovered and destroyed by the defenders because the surrounding trees were cut down and burned by Vauban and carried out somewhat slowly and could not be concealed, but the Ottomans were also good at digging trenches, and without the threat of bunkers, they kept extending the trenches to the edge of the defenders' fire and digging down, covered with stacks of cowhide tents to defend against cannonballs, although the defenders threw a lot of fire oil, but did not pose much of a threat。

The outnumbered Ottomans dug and harassed day and night, and General Vauban held out for a whole week, and in just seven days he looked like he had aged more than ten years, his eyes were red, his cheeks were sunken, and it was consoling to know that the Dauphin Louis had returned to Kamnico three days earlier—the fall of the castle in Ljubljana was a foregone conclusion, and the Dauphin Louis the Younger had finally seen the real war, and there was no need to stay until the last minute to get in the way.

Death accompanies people every moment, and it seems to be endless.

Vauban had been closely watching the movements of the Ottomans, and in between battles, such as the Grand Vizier, who still had to pray and fast, at this time, the Ottoman offensive would not stop, but because there was no commander, they would only obey the previous order, that is, fight to the death, which was one of the weaknesses of the Ottoman army - he turned around and said in a hoarse voice: "We can retreat." ”

Vauban had already prepared a secret passage from the castle hill to the Sava River, although it was inevitable that the Ottoman vassals roamed, but they were mainly responsible for the task of guarding and patrolling, and their own strength was not strong, and the number was not large, and the last part of the army withdrawn from the Ljubljana castle passed through the last barrier, the Sava River, without danger, and when they turned to look at the castle they had abandoned, they saw a white cloud of smoke and dust running through the heavens and the earth.

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The castle of Ljubljana, like all the castles that the Ottomans had attacked before, had blocked all the gates with stones and cement at the beginning, and the Azaps who attacked the castle had to use ladders and siege engines to climb the walls, and at first they were even confused, because there were suddenly no people on the walls, but in previous wars, it was not uncommon for the defenders to collapse and abandon the castle and flee, and they ran down the walls as quickly as hyenas hungry for flesh, running towards the nearest house, hoping to find food inside, money, and trembling citizens.

More and more soldiers climbed the walls and joined the raiders.

Almost everything was good for these Azap, who were only better than slaves, and only a few Transylvanians ran to the center of the castle, where the main tower was located, where both the owner of the castle and the generals of the defenders would leave a lot of valuable things, and when they saw that the stairs in front of the main tower had been removed, and the big lock hung on the door, they were even more sure of their thoughts, so they brought the stones they stepped on, picked the lock and rushed in.

They did find some scattered coins, utensils, and ornaments here, and more soldiers poured in, and they ran frantically around each room, and an unwilling Azap finally noticed that something was wrong with the sound coming from his feet, and he carefully avoided the sight of the others and walked down a hidden ladder.

All castles have rooms, warehouses and cisterns underground, and this castle is no exception, and Azap closed his eyes to get used to the dim light underground—a faint glow of fire came from the end of the passage, illuminating the walls, and he walked over, and as soon as he turned the corner, it suddenly became clear to him that it was a huge warehouse.

An old woman sat on a wooden box, holding a torch, and she saw an Ottoman beard, not at all alarmed, "oh," she said, "I thought I would have to wait longer." ”

As soon as she lowered her hand, the torch lit the fuse beside her.

Azap's smile froze on his face, he might have thought a lot about it in this moment, but no one could have known it anymore.

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In the assault and defense of Ljubljana Castle, the Ottomans lost nearly 10,000 men, but in the subsequent explosion, they lost almost as many people as they were killed and wounded, and also lost the castle.