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Chapter 948 Victory is Just Around the Corner

Chapter 948 Victory is Just Around the Corner

"alert!"

The undead cavalrymen, who were on high alert, pulled down their chainmail masks, picked up lances that were over three meters long, and their attendants handed them secondary weapons such as maces, armor-piercing spikes, and long-handled axes, which they hung on their saddles.

The Franks who occupied Damascus were known for their excellent armor. Their full plate armor and new-style visored helmets were rare and fashionable items among the princes and nobles in Baghdad and Ctesiphon.

Traditional Saracen straight swords and Turkic scimitars were difficult to use against this type of armor, so the Undead Army specifically increased the proportion of armor-piercing weapons in their army when facing the Franks.

The Sasanian Immortals inherited the name of the ancient Persian Achaemenid dynasty, but unlike their predecessors, they were changed from elite infantry to cavalry.

The reason they were called "immortal" was because they possessed a large reserve force. Whenever the main force of the Immortal Army was damaged, they could be immediately replaced, just like the reserve troops in the Imperial Army at that time.

This is why, despite the Immortals suffering successive defeats in Khwarazm, Persia, and Rahba, Bahram was still able to allocate a 2,000-strong Immortals regiment to Ali.

However, unlike the Sassanid heavy cavalry, the Immortals did not have wealthy urban members to supplement their ranks. Their composition was similar to the Tatar Kheshig, consisting entirely of sons of prominent nobles.

Therefore, every large-scale loss of this army shook the foundations of the Sasanian dynasty.

"Is the enemy sending someone to negotiate?"

This was Alibaba's first reaction.

It wasn't that he was stupid, but that he trusted the flock of falcons overhead too much.

With so many eyes watching from above, if the Franks in the city were to make a big move, sending out hundreds or thousands of cavalry for a surprise attack, how could they possibly fail to detect such a large-scale operation?

It wasn't until more and more Frankish cavalry poured out of the city gates that Ali realized the Franks had somehow evaded the falcon's surveillance.

"I knew those Saracen bastards were unreliable!"

"Pass on my order: have 'Vashti' and the Undead Army engage the enemy according to the tactics I have laid out beforehand!"

"Lords of all the Ikta tribes, prepare for battle! We are outnumbered and outgunned. On this land illuminated by the sacred fire, we will ensure that these barbarian villains from the west never return!"

The Vashti were the most elite mounted archer company in the Sasanian army, numbering only about three thousand men, all recruited from nomadic tribes that had submitted to the Sasanian dynasty.

The Parthian tactic involved using mounted archers to lure enemy heavy cavalry into battle, and then launching a full-scale attack once the enemy formation was broken and their horses were exhausted.

In fact, with the decline of the Eastern Empire and the fact that most of the surrounding enemies had become nomadic light cavalry rather than the heavy infantry of the imperial legions, the Sassanids no longer frequently used this ancient tactic.

But recently, when General Ali was studying the two major defeats in Persia and Khwarazm, he was surprised to find that the Tatars from the East had defeated him using the Parthian tactics that the Sassanids had long since abandoned.

So he specifically asked Bahram for command of the company.

Ali quickly abandoned his warhorse, mounted his command elephant, and looked down at the battlefield from a high vantage point, where his field of vision immediately became much wider.

At this point, the chaotic camp was completely unprepared to engage the enemy, and the Franks pouring out of the city gates seemed to have come out in full force, their numbers impossible to count.

"Don't panic, proceed according to the plan!"

Ali kept shouting loudly that any army is most vulnerable when it is setting up camp, because the battle formation during the march has been broken, and the defensive fortifications have not yet been built.

But he had made preparations in advance, and he was not afraid whether the Franks held their ground or launched a surprise attack while they were still establishing themselves.

He did indeed have some command ability, and soon, all the troops had entered combat readiness according to his prior arrangements.

The skilled and swift Vashti lightly armed horsemen approached the Frankish cavalry coming out of the city in a loose formation. They raised their composite bows and fired a barrage of arrows that rained down on the Frankish cavalry's armor.

But the Frankish cavalrymen who rushed out of the city gates were like a group of silent iron towers, bathed in the torrential rain of arrows. The dense sound of arrows hitting their ears could not be heard. These composite bows, which could pierce chainmail, could not cause any damage to these plate-armored cavalrymen.

Only when a few unlucky riders' mounts were hit by arrows would a slight ripple be stirred in this silent procession.

The Franks disliked equipping their horses with armor. Firstly, the Kingdom of Jerusalem lacked depth and iron ore was scarce. Secondly, in the vast desert, armored warhorses were prone to heatstroke and death. This was a habit they had developed over many years.

But Lothar's cavalry were not all a group of unarmored shock cavalry.

They spread out to the flanks, revealing behind them a dark mass of heavily armored archers, completely clad in cold, metallic armor from head to toe.

These armored horse archers, composed of Kheshig troops, heavily armored horse archers, and ironclad cavalry, formed a wall that blocked the Vashti horse archers, preventing them from approaching to harass them with arrows.

Both sides were equally skilled archers, with the Vashti light cavalry even having a slight edge. After all, Lothar's armored horse archers often had to stop and pause before firing, while the Vashti light cavalry could charge forward and shoot back at the same time!

But no matter how skilled their archery was, they simply didn't have the ability to engage in a direct archery duel with armored cavalry.

"Damn it, these Franks are even equipped with Imperial-style heavy archer cavalry!"

This was Ali's first formal encounter with the Franks. In his memory, Frankish cavalry rarely had mounted archers, let alone such imperial-style heavy cataphracts—to be precise, even the Eastern Empire, the former Sassanid enemy, had almost completely abandoned the heavy cataphracts as a type of cavalry.

The armored horse archer, a seemingly contradictory unit, was initially created largely to counter these swift and elusive nomadic light cavalry.

Unless these heavily armored horse archers rashly break away from their main force to pursue and exhaust their horses, these lightly armored horse archers simply have no way to fight against these heavily armored horse archers.

As more and more Frankish cavalry poured out of Haditha's gates, they began their charge in a slow but more imposing manner, spearheaded by heavily armored horse archers, maintaining a dense formation.

From a distance, they resembled a group of moving steel barriers, all focused solely on the enemy ahead, with the slightest harassment from a few archer cavalry on the flanks failing to attract their attention.

"These Franks are so well-trained?"

General Ali, sitting in the Elephant Tower, watched with a drastic change in expression.

Aren't the Franks all a bunch of barbaric and uncouth brutes who charge recklessly on the battlefield relying on their individual bravery? This cavalry unit seems to be even more disciplined than his most elite Undead cavalry.

"Elephant Legion, send the elephant legion forward! These Franks are going to charge in formation, aren't they? Then charge with my war elephants!"

At Ali's command, the riders mixed some black powdered magic potion with feed and fed it to the armored elephants. These war beasts raised their heads and roared, their eyes turning crimson, and charged forward with their two tusks as sharp as steel blades.

With war elephants leading the way and the Undead cavalry following behind, this was the Sassanid army's direct confrontation with the Frankish forces.

On both flanks, more and more Sasanian heavy cavalry began to assemble. These heavy cavalry, mainly composed of military nobles, numbered as many as 8,000 under Ali's command. Their goal was to flank the city from both sides, trapping and annihilating all the Frankish cavalry who came out to challenge them!

In the rear, five thousand mountain infantrymen recruited from Azharbaijan and Armenia had also taken up heavy weapons such as axes, maces, sickles, and flails. These fierce mountain people had always been the most elite infantrymen in the Sasanian army.

Their mission was to use heavy weapons to annihilate the enemy cavalry after they had become entangled with their own cavalry and lost their momentum.

Following these mountain infantrymen were conscripted militiamen, who, under the urging of the officers, were forced to form a makeshift square formation. Although these poorly equipped infantrymen were not very useful, they were still capable of fighting when the tide was going their way.

Even the most formidable cavalry, once they lose their momentum and are surrounded by infantry, will find it difficult to escape death.

Seeing his army advancing steadily, carrying out his will, Ali felt that victory was just around the corner.

He squinted and looked up at the sky.

Frankish general, at this point, if you don't send out your tamed dragon, I'd like to see how you plan to break this deadlock.

He had already made contingency plans for the demonic dragon!

This was a battle that concerned his life and fortune. He felt that he had exhausted all his efforts and considered all aspects of the problem. How could he miss this most crucial link!

(End of this chapter)