Chapter 108: The Crescent Flag

Kudret Suvari walked into the city staying behind the cover of shields.

He is now regretting his action of making such a loud fuss even before he enters the battle field, although it is a god thing with his country men trapped inside the city realising that their Sultan has not abandoned them, and the brute sound of his hammer did give a hammering strike in the ears of the Romans waking them up from their dreams of victory, it also diverted all the attentions – no matter friendly or hostile – to him.

Now the Romans on the walls are desperately pouring arrows and rocks down on both sides trying to halt their footsteps, thus the two meter giant has to squeeze under the shade of round shields just to prevent a random arrow or rock smashing onto him and ending his life in such an unfortunate way.

Julian held his metal firmly in his hands, vowing that he wound never let it drop again, and commanded the Venetians to engage the new stream of enemies, and push them back outside the gates.

However, the Venetians, in front of the enemies who are almost less than a hundred meters from the Ottomans, did something really remarkable – they demanded Julian for more payment to continue their duties as mercenaries.

Julian gaped at their request wandering who gave them the wit to ask for more gold with such under standard lousy piece of work done, just as he is about the wield his own blade towards them to cut them off of their foolish and unreasonable idea, Antonius showed up just in time and pinned his hands firmly down shaking his head silently towards Julian. Then Antonius walked up to the Venetians and promised to them in the language of their home town.

"Brothers! Fight for me! And I shall grant you more gold!"

A series of loud cheers erupted among the Venetians as they finally marched forward towards the Ottomans.

"You see my dear Julian." Antonius gave Julian a slap on his back. "That is how you do it, against mercenaries."

…

While all of this is happening, Mehmed launched a full scale invasion on almost every single part of the walls sparing no one, even the chef and cooks in his camp are given a knife and scrambled into action. "Live and march into the city with pride or get disgraced by the infidels hang on poles shown as trophies." Said Mehmed when he was giving them their mobalisation speech.

The Ottomans put in every single piece of resource they have for this time. It is an all in, a show down of power, as Julian mentioned. The Ottomans adopted an age old Mongolian collaborated way of siege by having the troops march towards the walls with the horse archers and sharp shooters running ahead when the artilleries behind fires, then immediately as the guns stop firing, the horse archers and sharp shooters shall run forward under completely no cover and empty their quiver of arrows onto the walls suppressing the enemies. Then they will use their agility to quickly maneuver themselves out of the shooting angle of defenders who has a limited sight in the arrow slit.

This tactic did work pretty well initially, but Mehmed forgot one element that might not seem that obvious in the medieval ages but it is now starting to have more and more influence.

Technology.

The Romans did not just sit behind the walls and fight back with bows, they started using grenades, also brought in by the Mongols from the distant Kingdoms of Khitan and Serica. They start to use more and more crossbows purchased from the Genoese weapon merchants by funding from the orthodox churches in the city, which enables them to just stand up, shoot from the slit, and lean back down against the walls. And most importantly, using the innovations of Orban, he managed to design a new brand of canon, a magical piece of weapon never seen before.

The new kind of canon fits perfectly on the Theodosian walls of Constantinople which is previously deemed to be unsuitable to station heavy artilleries. It is able to fire shells in an arched ballistic trajectory, allowing its shells to fly past the walls launching into the sky and pounding right onto the enemies outside the walls. It is

Orban named his new master piece "Gourd Shaped Canon", while it is widely named by the Roman soldiers as "Jacob", after the inventor Orban's son.

However, although the Romans now have the slight advantage of technology by their side, Mehmed's main intention was to stop Giovanni and Constantine from reinforcing the main battle field, although it does not hurt if his men on the other two frontiers can bring him some surprises by breaching another openning on these wicked walls, which some how never seems to fall despite days and nights of bombardments by his artilleries.

It seems like the entire world's attention, the epicenter of the war, and the future of the city is now focused onto the Gate of Kerkaporta, and the two commanders with his troops.

It did not take long before the Ottomans successfully pushed back the counter attacks of the Venetians and repelled Mauro's men on the walls, rebuilding connections with the trapped Ottoman pioneers in the city and escorting the ones who are no longer able to fight out of the city. By the time the sun has completely set, the Ottomans has managed to secure their foots inside the city, and is progressively pushing for more survival space, even reaching the borders of the palace of the Porphyrogenitus, which is already bombarded beyond shapes by Ottoman projectiles.

Kudret Suvari is the first to climb onto the first tower of the Komnenian walls, and as he threw the purple double headed eagle flag down into the dried moat and replaced it with the Osman white horse and crescent flag, everything seems to be decisive at this point of time onwards.

Mehmed laughed as he starts riding towards the city step by step waiting to accept his ripped red apple together with Zaganos Pasha and Canderli Halil Pasha by his side. He knows that his Janissaries and Kudret Suvari will not disappoint him, especially this time.

Meanwhile, a surprise awaits Mehmed on the flanks of the ruins of the palace.