8 February 1673, Iraq, Baghdad.

After months of siege, Baghdad, the Ottoman capital in Iraq, is on the verge of collapse.

The ancient city wall has been bombarded by the artillery of the Xia army, and the surface of the city wall with creepers is full of potholes left by the shelling, and some of the battlements on the city wall have also been smashed by cannonballs, and dark black blood stains that have been dried and coagulated can be seen on it.

Behind a section of battlements shattered by shells, a Turkish soldier armed with an arquebus happened to walk by, and he looked at the shattered battlements with a fleeting look of fear in his eyes.

In the battle last week, he saw with his own eyes that a soldier standing here was loading with the help of the battlements, when a cannonball hit the place, and after shattering the battlements, he was also killed with the soldiers who were hiding his face, and half of the belly of the unlucky man was cut off, and his intestines flew to the shoulders of a fellow not far away.

Although the city of Baghdad has no shortage of besieged experience in history, it was all a matter of the cold weapon period, and the defenders could rely on the tall and strong city walls to hold on for a long time, but in the era of hot weapons, especially the emergence of artillery, it was not as easy to defend the city as before.

Fortunately, the soldiers and civilians of Baghdad still remember the tragedy that happened more than 400 years ago, more than 400 years ago, the Mongol Empire captured Baghdad and sacked the city.

Therefore, driven by the fear of the invaders from the east, the army and people of Baghdad united under the leadership of Mustafa Gurgyupasha to resist the siege of the Xia army.

However, even so, under the superior firepower of the Xia army, the pressure of the city's city defense has almost reached the limit, although the city wall can still stand, but the offensive and defensive sides are very clear in their hearts that the city wall may collapse at any time, and at that time, it will completely determine the belonging of the city.

"Elias, go, don't be stunned there."

The call of his companion brought the Turkish soldier back to his senses, and he looked at the calling companion and walked towards him, but he had only taken a few steps when he suddenly heard a movement in the direction of the Xia army's position outside the city.

The soldiers were very familiar with this movement, they looked at the Xia army who was assembling, lifting the armor of one cannon after another, and preparing to load, their faces changed, and the companion of the soldier named Ilias didn't care about anything else, and hurriedly picked up the horn on his waist, puffed out his cheeks and blew it vigorously.

As the alarm horn sounded, the whole city of Baghdad seemed to turn on a switch, and the soldiers ran out of their barracks with weapons and ran up the city walls, and while the defenders of the city were gathering, the Xia army outside the city was also reloading the artillery.

After the cannon was loaded, the infantry guns in a row, under the orders of the officers, roared and fired deadly shells at the city wall again, as if the scene had been repeated every few days in the past few months, and the shells whizzed down on the wall, causing the whole wall to tremble.

The Turkish soldiers who kept running on the city wall did not notice that on the surface of the city wall under them, where the shells had been bombarded, a crack had been opened at some point, to be precise, there were many cracks in many places, and the cracks slowly spread out in all directions under the bombardment of the shells.

Rumble –

The inhabitants of Baghdad have become accustomed to the thunderous shelling, but they still hide in their homes, praying to their faith Allah that the shells will not go over the walls and fall on their heads.

However, although the gods of today blessed them from shelling their heads, they did not protect the crumbling walls from collapsing under the bombardment.

After three rounds of continuous bombardment by the Xia artillery, the city wall was finally overwhelmed, and by the time the Turkish soldiers noticed that something was wrong, the cracks on the surface of the city wall had expanded by several meters, and the entire section of the city wall was crumbling.

It was too late for the Turkish soldiers to notice it, and they screamed and ran under the walls, but before they could all evacuate, the walls finally could not withstand the pressure.

Collapsed with a bang amid the screams of the people.

Boom –

At this moment, the city wall collapsed, the dust was flying, and the stones that were splashed because of the collapse almost enveloped the surrounding area within a hundred meters, and the stones that fell from the sky rained down on the Turkish soldiers who were exposed to the air, beating them to the point that their heads were bleeding, crying for their fathers and mothers.

"Beautiful! The walls have finally collapsed!"

Looking at the dusty gap, Mu Zhongliang, the deputy general of the Xia Army who was supervising the battle in the military array, couldn't help but clench his fists and wave them in the void, shouting excitedly.

Mu Zhongxian, the commander beside him, just glanced at his younger brother who had lost his temper, his face was solemn, and he said, "Now that the city wall has been blown down, the biggest obstacle for our army to enter the city has also been pacified, blow the horn of attack, and order the whole army to launch a general attack, I want to take Baghdad today!"

"Yes, General!"

Everyone responded in unison, and then conveyed Mu Zhongxian's order, and soon, the fierce attack horn sounded outside the city of Baghdad, and the Xia army infantry who had already completed the formation outside the camp stepped on neat steps and advanced towards the city wall in the dense drumbeat.

"The enemy attacked, the shooters and musketeers quickly went up to meet the enemy, and the rest of us joined me to plug the gap in the wall!"

Seeing that the Xia army launched an attack, the Turkish army officers issued orders to deal with it, and the shooters returned to the city wall again, waiting for the enemy to enter the firing range, and the city wall of Baghdad originally had city fire artillery, but under the heavy shelling of the Xia army, the artillery was destroyed, so the defenders could only rely on bows and crossbow muskets.

Under the cover of their own artillery, the Xia infantry quickly advanced to the bottom of the city wall, but the fire on the wall did not stop their pace, and the Xia army braved the fire falling from the sky to launch a charge towards the gap in the city wall.

With the grenadiers as the spearhead, they threw grenades into the Turkish army formation behind the gap, and when the grenades exploded and the Turkish army formation was torn apart, the tall grenadiers shouted and raised their rifles to charge, and ran into the Turkish infantry in confusion.

A fierce battle ensued, with large numbers of line infantry following closely behind and pouring into the city to take part in the battle, while the light infantry climbed to the top of the slope formed by the ruins and stood straight at the enemy in the warband.

On the other side, with the assistance of the Persian servants, the tall siege towers slowly approached the city wall in the face of the fire of the Turkish army, and after approaching the city wall, the suspended drawbridge was suddenly lowered and smashed heavily on the battlements, and the infantry in the siege tower immediately rushed up the city wall with shouts and fought with the native army on the city wall.

Faced with the enemy who jumped into the city wall, the Turkish army drew their melee weapons, and some of the Turkish musketeers inserted the early insertion bayonet into the barrel of the gun, turning the arquebus into a short spear, and fought the Xia army.

After less than an hour of fierce fighting, the Xia army was the first to defeat the native troops on the city wall, driving them off the city wall, and some panicked soldiers even jumped down from the city wall in a panic and fell heavily to the ground and turned into a puddle of meat sauce.

After the Turkish army on the city wall was defeated, part of the Xia army pursued away from the city wall and joined the battle group under the wall, while part of the Xia army condescendingly opened fire on the enemy below to provide fire support to friendly forces.

The city wall was occupied, and the Turkish army below naturally could not support it for long, under the multi-faceted blows of the Xia army, they quickly routed the Ottoman defenders blocked behind the gap, and in the panicked screams of the Turkish army, the Xia army cheered and stepped on the corpses all over the ground to attack the city.

After the Xia army entered the city, some Baghdad residents, driven by fear, took the initiative to take up arms to resist with the defeated Turkish army.

However, this did not work, and after several hours of fierce fighting, the Xia army finally conquered the important town of Baghdad and brought the entire city under control.

At the last moment of his life, Mustafa Pasha led his loyal guards to attack the Xia line, and finally fell under the dense barrage of Xia fire.

……

News of the fall of Baghdad quickly spread throughout Iraq, and spread throughout the eastern frontier of the Ottoman Empire, centered on the Iraqi region.

When the news spread, the eastern frontier of the Ottoman Empire was greatly shaken, and those local tribes and nobles who submitted to the empire but were not loyal suddenly had different hearts - the reason why they would surrender was that they were forced to submit to the great martial arts and *** of the Ottoman Empire, and now the military power of the empire seems to be declining, how can they continue to be willing to submit?

The provinces of Egypt under imperial rule are a striking example of this.

The provinces of Egypt were under the rule of the Mamluk dynasty of Egypt before the conquest of Egypt by the Ottoman Empire, but after the conquest of Egypt, it was difficult for the empire to gain full control over the region, and the provinces of Egypt remained semi-autonomous.

Although the empire sent the Pasha to Egypt to administer it, they did not understand the Egyptian language and did not understand the situation in Egypt, so their tenure was extremely short.

Moreover, the Mamluk system was so entrenched in Egypt for hundreds of years that the empire could not change it, and the Egyptian governor had to cooperate with the powerful Mamluk chiefs and appoint them as beys and magistrates in order to be able to rule, but the two sides often clashed with each other.

In this case, if the empire can always remain strong, then the Mamluk beyi can still maintain their loyalty to the empire, but the empire has been defeated one after another, and there is no time to look east, which gives some Mamluk beyi with ulterior motives an opportunity to take advantage of.

Egyptian province, in a small estate on the outskirts of Cairo.

"The Chinese have conquered Baghdad, the capital of Iraq, but the empire is powerless about it, and it seems that our opportunity has come."

Saeed Ali Yusuf said with a smile on his face as he held the information from the east and said with a smile on his face.

Several of the Beys had already learned of the capture of Baghdad before they came, and they looked at each other and nodded in agreement with Said's words, but one of the Beys threw out his question:

"But one of the Sultan's Praetorian Guards is still stationed in Cairo, and if we want to start an incident, we will definitely not be able to bypass them, and if we can't get rid of this Janissaries, it will be much more difficult for us to get started."

"Don't worry too much about this, Iraq falls into the hands of the Chinese, they can threaten rich Syria at any time, if we want to strengthen the garrison of Syria, it is necessary to mobilize the army of Egypt, and then it will be our opportunity to do it." Said Said.

"How many Bey are willing to join us?" Another Mamlukbeyi asked, "With the strength of our hands, we are afraid that we will not be able to take Cairo."

"The Beys of the southern Faiyum and Aitfih are willing to join forces, but only if we take Cairo first." Said said helplessly, this sounds like they are in a predicament, they can't take Cairo without foreign aid, and if they can't take Cairo, no one will start with them.

However, this is not a big deal in Said's opinion, because he already has a preliminary plan in mind, which only needs to use a small number of elites to take Cairo in one fell swoop.

He didn't tell them about the plan directly, but after the secret meeting was over, he asked his men to start preparing.

As Said expected, Iraq fell, and the Xia army could move westward at any time to threaten the rich Syrian region, and it was precisely because of this realization that the Syrian Pasha hurriedly asked the Pasha in the surrounding area to send troops to help.

Syria was an important province of the Ottoman Empire, and no one could sit idly by and watch the Xia army march into Syria, so in order to prevent the Xia army from continuing to advance westward, the troops of the surrounding provinces quickly began to assemble and increase troops to Syria.

The Janissary Forces stationed in Egypt were also part of the reinforcements to Syria, and after receiving orders, the Egyptian governor ordered the mobilization of food and grass for the march and the ordnance needed for the battle, and requisitioned a large number of men for transportation.

At the same time, they also asked the Mamluk Baii to provide a part of the Mamluk cavalry to accompany them to Syria, which was not because the Egyptian inspector was aware of the plans of the Mamluk Baiis, but because the military tradition of the Ottoman Empire, the so-called Ottoman characteristics, had to be tasted.

More than two months after the fall of Baghdad, most of the Ottoman troops in Egypt were officially deployed, the Janissary

The large formation of the New Army, the Provincial Sipahi Cavalry, and some Mamluk cavalry left Egypt and marched to Syria.

Unbeknownst to the Ottoman officials in the Egyptian provinces, an undercurrent began to rise in Egypt after the army had been launched, and the Mamluk Beys began to plot a rebellion, determined to free Egypt from the Ottoman Empire's oppressive rule, to make Egypt independent from their rule, and to restore the Mamluk dynasty.