November 14, 1672, Crimean Peninsula, Kaffa City. 勇

"This damn war, I'm making so much less money than before, damn Xia, damn Cossacks, I really hope Allah will send a miracle and send them all to hell."

In the city's largest slave market, a Tatar slave trader couldn't help but curse towards the north as he looked at the empty streets and the numb slaves in their cages.

The partner on the side looked at him and said, "Save some effort, Harim, if Allah is really willing to save his followers, those heretics will go to hell a long time ago, I heard that the Xia army has already defeated Azabala, and I don't know when the flames of war will burn here."

"Do you think the Xia army will really defeat the Imperial army and occupy Kaffa?" A slave merchant named Harim asked aggrievedly.

"Who knows?" The other party shrugged his shoulders and said, "I only hope that if Kafa falls, they will not interfere in the slave trade, I heard that the Chinese have abolished slavery a thousand years ago, if they move this set to Kafa, then our end will come."

Hearing his words, Harim's face changed slightly, he opened his mouth, and he was about to say something, but at this moment, a continuous cannon fire suddenly sounded on the other side of the strait in the east, and the roar of the artillery was much weakened by the distance, but it still seemed dull and harsh.

At the moment of the sound of the cannons, the civilians of Kaffa City rushed into the streets in panic, and came to the port to look in the direction of Finegur to the east, and Harim and his partners were also caught in the crowd, trying to stretch their necks to see what was happening in Finegur. 勇

"The Chinese army has hit Finegour!"

In the crowd, I don't know who shouted first, and then the panic swept through the entire crowd, everyone's face was full of confusion about the future fate and fear of the Xia army.

Kafa Pasha Abdulhamid, who was still in the Pasha's palace, also heard the sound of artillery coming from across the sea, and he hurried to the window, looking in the direction of Phinegul across the sea, and he could vaguely see the smoke of gunpowder rising outside the city walls—the product of artillery shelling.

Seeing this scene, Abdulhamid Pasha suddenly realized the seriousness of the situation, and he hurriedly ordered the assembly of the entire Kaffa army, and dispatched warships anchored in the harbor to block the entire Kerch Strait and inquire about the situation from Finegur.

However, before the warships could be dispatched, the sound of Finegur's cannons had begun to subside, replaced by the quieter and faintly audible sound of gunfire, and the hearts of every inhabitant of Kaffa were touched by the battle on the other side of the Kerch Strait, and in their melancholy eyes, the Ottoman Star and Moon Banner hanging on the walls of Finegur suddenly fell from the flagpole and fell into the sea under the fierce sea breeze, and a hideous dragon flag gradually rose with the flagpole and appeared in everyone's eyes.

Finnegur, thus falling.

Seeing this, the people of Kaffa screamed in horror, how the narrow Kerch Strait could withstand the advance of the Xia army, and the whole street was instantly chaotic, and the civilians screamed and fled to their homes, trying to escape before the city gate or port was closed. 勇

However, Kafa Pasha moved faster, and he knew that if he allowed the civilians to flee the city at this time, it would probably disturb the morale of the army, so he directly ordered the passage out of Kaffa to be blocked, and the entire city could only enter and exit.

At the same time, he also ordered the forced conscription of unsold male subordinates in the city, trying to integrate slaves into the slave army to help defend the city, which would also prevent the slaves from starting a fire in his backyard when Kaffa was attacked.

While the city of Kaffa was in chaos due to the fall of Finegur, on the other side, Zhang Pu successfully led his army to conquer this port city on the northern shore of the Black Sea, and he entered the city like a conqueror, surrounded by Xia soldiers, and the Ottoman defenders who had stopped resisting and surrendered were kneeling on both sides of the road, not daring to look up.

After conquering Finegur, Zhang Pu came directly to the port of the city, and the eleven Ottoman warships moored in the port did not even have time to sail and even carried the trophies of the Xia army

The galleys, which need to have a large number of slaves as power, paddle to make the ship move.

The warships were much more backward than those of the Christian countries in Europe, with most galleys having only one gun mounted in the bow, and only a few larger ships were able to deploy single-digit guns on both sides, and sailors fought mainly with muskets, oil, or crossbows.

The slaves who drove the ships were also freed by the Xia army, and the slaves enslaved by the Ottoman navy were mainly Christian prisoners of war, most of whom were soldiers captured in the war between the Ottoman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire, and they were full of hatred for the infidels who enslaved them.

The Xia army liberated them as allies of the Holy Roman Empire, and these bloody slaves expressed their willingness to assist the Xia army in their attack on Kaffa, and they also mentioned that the slaves on the twenty-three Ottoman ships anchored in the port of Kaffa were also Christians who had been captured with them, and they assured Zhang Pu that those slaves would turn against the Xia army in a naval battle and help the Xia army defeat the Ottomans. 勇

Zhang Pu was persuaded by the slaves, or rather, he believed the words of those slaves, he remembered the Han people who had been enslaved by the Manchu Qing in China, his father Zhang Mingzhen told him that those Han people were liberated by the Ming army, they all took the initiative to join the Ming army, and actively assisted the Ming army to counterattack the Qing army, although Zhang Pu did not personally experience it, but he believed that those Han people at that time should have the same emotions as these slaves in front of him.

However, Zhang Pu also encountered a new problem, that is, they did not have reliable sailors, and the slaves who surrendered to Cheng could only help with the oars, so it was obviously impossible for them to fight at sea, so they could only let the Xia soldiers board the warships to fight.

Fortunately, the Ottoman navy's combat methods did not improve, and they were still mainly engaged in broadside battles, so even if the Xia infantry boarded the warships to fight, they were barely up to the task.

Zhang Pu was no one to procrastinate, and after deciding to force his way across the Kerch Strait and land outside Kaffa, he ordered the forced requisition of all ships in the harbor and the modification of several of the larger merchant ships so that they could temporarily participate in the war as military ships.

On November 17, the Kerch Strait was filled with a thin white mist, and twenty-three Ottoman naval warships were cruising across the sea, and the commander of the Kaffa navy, Farhad, stood on the deck and looked through the mist at the city of Finegur, which lay on the coastline, and in normal times, there would be many merchant ships coming and going between the two ports or passing through the Kerch Strait, but now there were only their twenty-three galleys on the entire sea.

"Damn bugs, get out of the way!"

"Ouch—" Tsui

Suddenly, a curse came from the other side of the deck, and then his lieutenant came up angrily, and as soon as he came up, he complained to Farhad, "My lord, those damn Austrian bugs are an eyesore, and the good mood of waking up early in the morning is gone in an instant after seeing them!"

"Nizamedin, you're still so grumpy." Farhad looked at him helplessly and said, "Now that our enemies may come from the other side of the sea at any time, restrain your temper, and when you return to the shore, you can do whatever you want with those lowly infidels."

The adjutant listened to him, and his anger barely subsided a little, but he was still full of complaints, but at that moment the sailor who had climbed onto the pole suddenly shouted loudly, and he pointed to several ships looming on the surface of the sea, and warned the sailors below.

"The enemy is coming, ready to fight!"

Farhad commanded loudly, and the sailors on deck hurried into their respective combat posts, and they lifted the gun jackets from the guns mounted on the bow of the ship to reload the guns, and by the time the guns were loaded, the ships hidden in the mist had already closed the distance between the two sides.

"Fire!"

Before the enemy ships could completely leave the mist, the Ottoman ships lit the fuse and fired at the silhouette of the ship on Farhad's orders. 勇

The whole ship shuddered with a loud bang, and the black solid cannonballs flew out of the muzzles in the blinding firelight, and flew towards the silhouette in the distance at high speed.

The Xia warships that were still moving heard a burst of cannon fire in the distance, and several black shadows galloped towards the soldiers

As they shouted, the shells slammed into the sea on the side of the ship, splashing a high column of water, and the salty water rained down, wetting the bodies of the soldiers on deck.

"Fire! Fight back!"

Rumble –

The Xia warships that had been shelled also quickly returned fire, and the Ottoman navy's fire from the first fire revealed their position, so that the Xia warships were able to fire more accurately at their positions.

Only a few deafening cannon sounds were heard, and the cannonballs flew away, hitting an Ottoman warship head-on, and the cannonballs directly cut off the bodies of several sailors on the deck, and then smashed heavily on the deck, smashing a deep black hole, and the sea water quickly poured into this hole, and the sailors did not care about the battle, and hurriedly tried to plug the gap.

The ships of both sides closed the distance while firing their guns, and soon, the two sides broke out of the mist and met the enemy ships in a narrow way, and after the distance was closer, the shells hit the enemy ships more accurately, and the sailors on the deck also raised their muskets and crossbows to shoot at the enemy on the other deck. 勇

The Xia soldiers who boarded the ships were still armed with Type II rifles, and although the ships bobbed in the turbulence of the waves, they were still able to shoot a large number of sailors on the enemy deck by relying on platoon fire.

The sound of gunfire in the narrow Kerch Strait shook the sky, and the smoke from the burning of gunpowder formed a kind of white fog that enveloped both sides of the battlefield.

After an Ottoman warship approached a Xia warship, the sailors on the deck directly threw the viscous oil canister to the opponent's deck, after the crisp clay pot shattered, the black viscous liquid suddenly spilled all over the deck, and the Ottoman sailors immediately shot at the gunpowder, only to hear a bang, the fire instantly burned, and the fire spread, devouring the Xia soldiers and surrender slaves on the deck.

"Ahhh

In the heart-rending wail, the soldiers of the Xia Army, who were engulfed in flames, stumbled off the deck and fell heavily into the sea below, but the oil was the oil known as liquid gold in later generations, even if the soldiers fell into the sea, the flames were still not extinguished, and the soldiers were gradually burned to death by the fire, and even the surrounding sea water was steamed by the high temperature to become warm.

In the melee, the slaves on the Xia side did not forget their mission, and when the two sides fought at close range, many of them rushed directly to the deck and shouted words of surrender to the slaves on the opposite ship in their own Chinese.

Their language was incomprehensible to the Ottomans, not to mention that in such a noisy battlefield, the Ottomans could not detect their intentions in the first place, and the slaves on the Ottoman warships were excited when they heard the persuasion of the former robes. 勇

They looked at the chaotic battlefield and the Ottoman sailors who were too preoccupied with the battle to care about them, and the still bloody slaves who still had to sit still, and they slammed into their positions and shouted to the slaves around them, "Our allies are fighting fiercely outside, how can we help those filthy heretics against their allies? Join me in the rebellion against the Ottoman pagans, kill them, and Christ will prevail!"

"Christ will prevail!"

The slaves, who were determined to join the rebellion, shouted the slogan of Christ's victory, struck and refused to continue rowing their oars to move the boat, and tried by all means to break the chains that tied themselves to their positions, but they did not have the hard enough tools to succeed.

However, their strike affected the Ottomans fighting on the deck, and they were puzzled to find that the ships under them suddenly stopped moving, and before they could realize the reason, the Xia warships took the initiative to approach, and the Xia soldiers fired a volley at the Ottoman sailors on the deck with their rifles, and the projectiles fired knocked the sailors to the ground.

Later, the brave soldiers and the slaves who had defected to the city jumped onto the enemy ship and fought the Ottomans, and the two Xia warships crashed into Farhad's flagship, and the soldiers jumped on the deck with shouts to fight the sailors on the flagship.

Farhad resisted desperately, he raised his handgun and shot down one of the Xia soldiers who was rushing towards him, and was about to draw his sword to fight, when another soldier angrily picked up the butt of his rifle and slammed it on his head, knocking Farhad to the ground

Farhad struggled to get up, but before he could make a move, several sharp bayonets pierced him in the chest, killing the Ottoman naval commander.

This skirmish lasted more than an hour, the Ottoman navy was finally defeated, and the Xia army won the naval battle, because the slaves were on the verge of defection, the Xia army was able to capture twenty-one Ottoman ships, the remaining two ships were seriously damaged, and after trying to rescue the slaves on board as much as possible, the Xia army allowed the ships to sink. 勇