Unknown Knight

What gave Niza the most headache was his good fifth brother, Prince Sharif, who discovered an open-pit oil mine near the city of Barieh where he was entrenched.

After discovering that these natural viscous petroleum can burn, Sherif actually followed Aix's example and used ceramic jars to hold these viscous natural petroleum and then used them as flaming oil.

Since these natural oil reserves are huge and do not cost much to mine, Prince Sharif had a lot of them prepared.

However, the quality of this natural oil is very poor. It does not have the low ignition point and fierce burning rate like the fierce fire oil produced by Aix Territory. Even if it is ignited, the fire does not spread quickly. As long as you are not hit directly by the pottery jar, it is unlikely to cause casualties.

But the key to this kind of attack is quantity. Sharif ordered his catapults to continuously throw catapults at the walls of Karaf Fort as if they were free. Although there were many natural oil jars that could not burn after hitting the walls, once they hit the walls, they would make a large area sticky and slippery, and the soldiers could not even stand steadily, which was not conducive to defense.

Of course, the enemies climbing up the city walls could not stand steadily either, and soon became targets for archers in the arrow towers and on the inner castle walls, which was a disaster for both themselves and others.

However, once this Sharif version of incendiary oil starts burning, thick smoke will billow, which has the properties of a chemical weapon, making people on and off the city cough and gasp. The noise effect is also very strong. If you don't know, you might think that Karaf Fort has been breached. It has a very cinematic effect.

So every two days when it was Sharif's army's turn to attack the city, the defenders of Karaf Fort were on high alert, and they had to prepare a large amount of wet cloth, wet sand, burn ointment, and medical staff.

At the same time, they had to change the defense layout and leave the front that was vulnerable to catapult attacks as empty as possible to prevent the clay jars filled with sticky oil from raining down on their heads and causing unnecessary losses to the soldiers defending the city.

But this would make it easy for the enemy to climb onto the top of the city walls. There was nothing that could be done about it, so Niza had to bite the bullet and fight the city defense as a positional battle.

Without the advantage of the city walls, although the quality of Niza's troops was obviously superior to Sharif's soldiers, the losses in positional warfare were huge.

In addition, the enemy's strategy of rotating attacks had made their own soldiers very tired. Every time they repelled Sharif's army on the city wall, the defenders of Karaf Fort had to pay a heavy price.

Seeing that this was not a solution, and that if the army took over one or two more times, Karaf Castle might be breached, Niza was extremely anxious, but he could not think of an effective solution for a while.

At this moment, a swift hunting falcon flew quickly from the horizon and landed in the feeding pavilion of the main fort, bringing an exciting news:

Aix, who was in charge of the coordination, has already conquered the cities of Barrier and Amerad. Aix is now leading his army towards the city of Dukuba.

In the message, Aix also told Niza to hold out for two more days at most and be ready to pursue the enemy if they retreated in panic.

After the news spread in the army, the whole army was excited and morale was high. The gloom of the previous few days was swept away, and everyone was more actively involved in preparations for war, ready to teach the enemy a good lesson.

The soldiers had been unable to resist passive defense in the past few days, and they were already furious. Now they have a chance to vent their anger, which makes them excited just thinking about it.

This was a disaster for the enemy army who attacked the city on the second day. They found that the counterattack of the Niza army defending the city that day was extremely fierce, not only causing very heavy casualties to the attacking army, but also completely lacking the fatigue of the previous few days, and everyone had a look of contempt and ridicule on their faces, as if their plan had succeeded.

When the heavy casualties were reported to Prince Nubia, who was in charge of the siege that day, the suspicious prince had a bad feeling and ended the siege early.

This made the third prince Azzam, who was following the eldest prince in attacking the city, feel nervous. He fought very conservatively on the third day of the siege. When there were any casualties, he immediately ordered to stop the attack and rest, and he was slacking off all day.

That night, there was a sudden commotion in the camps of the three princes. Not long after, three long teams with torches came out of the three camps and headed northeast.

Standing on the city wall, Nizza used his telescope to look again and again, and found that the enemy's torches were in disorder. He knew that the news of Aix's capture must have reached here. He breathed a sigh of relief, thought carefully, and then ordered his subordinates:

“Send the order to have all the light cavalry outside the city go out and follow the enemy closely. Tell them not to engage the enemy head-on, but to attack the enemy’s baggage and light infantry whenever they have the chance.

The enemy has retreated now, so all we have to do is follow them, slow down their escape, and destroy their baggage and food supplies.

The rest of the soldiers should immediately prepare for battle and be ready to follow me out of the fort to pursue the enemy at any time."

Niza now has about 5,000 soldiers and horses, 2,000 of whom are used to defend the Kugits on the western front. Excluding the troops defending the city of Shariz and other places, he does not even have 2,500 soldiers on his side. These troops are far less than the military strength of the third prince's family, so he has to be extremely cautious.

However, he concentrated all the light and heavy cavalry at his disposal here to deal with his three good brothers.

This is also a helpless move. If these cavalrymen are placed on the Western Front to fight against the Kugits who are good at cavalry warfare, it will not only be ineffective but will also cause great casualties. It would be better to concentrate them here where they will be more effective.

This included 500 light cavalry, of which 300 were brought from Berbera and 200 were newly recruited after the capture of Sharez.

These light cavalry all came from desert areas and were very good at desert warfare, especially the more than 200 Bedouin cavalry, who had very strong combat effectiveness and were most suitable for pursuit in the desert.

The commander of this light cavalry is Zeb, one of the four great generals. At the beginning, Aix specifically left him behind to assist Niza.

During this period of time, Jeb led Niza's cavalry to fight everywhere, and his application of cavalry had reached perfection. After receiving Niza's order, Jeb immediately led the light cavalry to pursue the fleeing enemy.

This light cavalry had not participated in any battles recently, and their energy and fighting will were very strong. After receiving the order to attack, the entire army pounced on the nearly defeated Third Prince's army like hungry wolves.

After working together for so long, Zheb was very clear about Niza's intentions. When he encountered the enemy sending cavalry to block him, he took the initiative to give way and did not engage in direct combat with the enemy to avoid unnecessary casualties. Instead, he focused on attacking the enemy's baggage, food, and weak links.

The enemy's food and supplies, in particular, became Jebu's main focus. He would raid them directly if possible, and if the raid was unsuccessful, he would not fight to the end but would choose to set off rockets to burn them at night. If that didn't work, he would continue to harass them, like taking advantage of any opportunity, until an opportunity appeared and he would destroy the enemy's food and supplies.