Chapter 219: Defend the Capital [1]

There was a deafening silence as the messenger was sent towards the walls of Karnavati. Askar stood ready with his forces to begin the siege. There was no way that the Marathas would cede and surrender to their demands.The exchange was nothing but a formality to avoid unnecessary bloodshed.

Askar saw the messenger trodding back on his horse.

By the looks of it, the message wasn't well received by the Marathas.

He looked over at his vice commander, Usman, and nodded. There were ready to attack the fortified city.

The war horn blared through the area, breaking the deafening silence. The soldiers began to move in neat formations towards the city.

The battle had begun.

Askar's army was split into four parts. The vanguard was led by the heavy infantry, forming an arc. The battering rams followed close behind the shield wall along with the more infantry troops.

Another smaller heavy infantry unit moved closely behind the vanguard. They were responsible for protecting the cannons moving towards the gate of the capital. They had to get the cannons in the range of the gate. It would be easier to take it down.

Meanwhile, the other two parts of the army were moving towards the walls of the city. There also had a shield wall in the front. The soldiers carried the ladders and pushed siege towers to scale the walls.

Both sides were similar in numbers, with heavy infantry moving at the front and light infantry in the middle. The remaining cannons and archers were in the backline under the protection of the shield walls.

Askar used his advantage in numbers very well. As the vanguard and flanking army moved towards the city.

He scanned the terrain near the capital. It had some jagged rocks to use as cover for the archers.

The last part of his army were archers in the back archer. He wanted to use them to snipe at the people in the wall. It wasn't that hard to do if they had proper cover in range for the archers.

The rocks would be good cover but it was limited in space and didn't cover large numbers of archers that provide cover fire for the infantry in the front.

"Prepare the palisades," ordered Askar.

The archers lifted up wooden fence-like structures and moved forward into the range of the city. They were propped up neatly to cover archers. Multiple palisades were installed on all sides to give archers cover in the open field from projectiles like arrows, cannon shells, and rocks hurled by the catapults and trebuchets.

The Maratha archers launched a hailstorm of deadly projectiles onto the shielded vanguard, trying to aim at their gaps and take down a few troops along the way.

The arrows did minimal damage against the tight and rigid shield wall. The Mughals kept moving ahead towards the gate.

There were no casualties in the first barrage of arrows on the vanguard. The Mughals moved with a determined glint in their eyes to take down the gate.

Askar had already given the plan for each one of the captains leading the army. He was watching from the backline to see for any loose ends in the formations.

'Will they use that exploding thing?'

He was wary of the use of fuse grenades by the Marathas. They were one of the reasons half their cannons got destroyed, along with more than 70% of their cannon crew. He had to go through the trouble of retraining the cannon crew.

'They won't use it at the gate. It would damage it as well in the process.' Sёarᴄh the NôvelFire.nёt website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

*BOOM*

*BOOM*

A loud thunderous sound was heard in the distance as the Maratha unleashed their catapults and trebuchets onto the approaching flank armies. The rocks landed on the shield wall, throwing the heavy infantry in the air. Some rocks crushed the soldiers along with their armor.

Blood splattered as rocks and flaming projectiles rocked the shield wall of the Mughals.

They kept moving forward towards the walls of the city. The shots that landed did damage but half of them had missed their mark due to careful maneuvering by the captains in the army.

Askar also had catapults and trebuchets in his army. They didn't use them yet. He was looking to target specific places with their cannons first, then use them to finish the job.

'I will wait and watch the battle play out for a while before I decide.'

Askar thought.

The Vanguard began to make it's way steadily towards the gate. They suffered casualties as the second barrage of arrows managed to kill a few heavy infantry. The catapults and trebuchets also managed to deal a good amount of damage to them.

It was a number game at the point. The Mughals had a lot of bodies to throw at the capital.

Finally, the Palisade for the cannons was setup by the second heavy infantry unit behind the Vanguard. They were setting the cannons, while the crew moved to load the shells. Sweat poured from their brows as they measured and poured in the gunpowder. They rammed it tight and aimed the cannons right at the gate.

The iron ball screamed across the field with a thunderous roar and hurled itself at the gate, where it struck and splintered the wood of the gate, sending the shards flying in the air.

The gate was made primarily of wood and reinforced with iron and metal. The cannon crew began to move once again with practiced efficiency and began to reload the cannons.

Meanwhile, the other cannons entered the range in the flanking army, and palisades were set up to protect the crew and equipment.

With a roar, iron shells flew across the open field directly towards the fortified walls. The cannonball crashed into the tall stone walls with a thunderous crash, leaving a small spider-webbing in the walls. Shards of stone fell to the ground by the impact.

The Maratha soldiers atop the wall instinctively ducked, seeing the approaching cannonball. The shells made the thick walls tremble.

Shivaji stood confidently, scanning the battlefield from the vantage point to inflict damage on the Mughals. Continue your saga on M-V-L