January 20th, 1656
The Mughal Empire, Region of Balochistan, The city of Quetta
11:00 AM
MIRI FORTRESS
At the northern end of the city of Quetta stands a large fortress as high as the city walls.
The fortress, with its doors facing the Safavid Empire, clearly indicated against whom it was built. However, despite its intended purpose of protecting Balochistan from external threats, it ultimately became useless due to internal threats.
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Fortunately, the enemy this time does not seem to have enough firepower to destroy the city wall, or else the rulers of the region, the nobles of the Mughal Empire, the Ahmedzai Baloch Dynasty, would lose their precious city Quetta, which is a prized possession and their ancestral land.
The current patriarch of the Ahmedzai Baloch Dynasty, Ahmed Ahmedzai Khan, lamented that the current situation his family was experiencing was a joke played by Allah.
The enemy, whom His Majesty the Emperor predicted would attack the region of Bengal, ended up targeting their remote region of Balochistan, making a complete 180-degree deviation from the prediction. The Ahmedzai Baloch Dynasty, doomed to this remote region with no hope for the rise of their family, now faced such an enemy who made even their mighty emperor powerless.
Ahmed Ahmedzai Khan, who had witnessed the first attack by the Bharatiya soldiers, had already concluded that if not for the enemyâs lack of artillery, his city would have been doomed. He could, already at first glance, see how outnumbered they were in terms of military strength.
Unfortunately, he was the only one in his family with such worries. Looking at his three sons, he couldnât help but sigh and lament the fate of his family again.
The three sons did not mind their father acting this way, as it had become a daily occurrence. According to them, their father was too cautious and too old, worrying about everything.
Nasir Ahmedzai Khan, the youngest son, who was currently being annoyed by his brothers, couldnât help but proudly declare, "Hey, what do you know? You both might have already been engaged, but me? Although I am not engaged, I already visited 10 noble households this morning alone. The young ladies in this city cannot get enough of me, unlike you old bones."
Khudadad Ahmedzai Khan, the middle child, who heard this, felt challenged and sneered, "Nasir, who doesnât know your lies? I had my follower inquire, and you did no such thing. Why donât you accept that you donât have any charm instead of bragging like this?"
Hearing the sneering tone of his elder brother, Nasir immediately started to argue, and Khudadad, the middle child, was not to be left behind, quarrelling with his younger brother with vicious words.
Abdullah Ahmedzai Khan, looking at the way his younger brothers were quarrelling, became very sad and tried to stop them.
"Hey brothers, stop quarrelling. Stop arguing or Father will be mad again. Instead, tell me what you both think about the enemy who is at our doorstep."
Hearing the words of their elder brother, both the youngest and the middle child stopped quarrelling. Although they did not think much of their big brother, they respected him nonetheless, as he had always been good to them.
Nasir said, "What are you worried about, Big Brother? The enemy canât even put a dent in our walls. Father already asked for reinforcements. Itâll only take 10 more days for them to arrive."
Khudadad, in a rare moment of agreement, added, "What the youngest said is right. Those enemies canât even breach the wall. Father is unnecessarily worried. Donât worry, Brother, nothing will go wrong."
Hearing the suggestions and thoughts of his two younger brothers, Abdullah thought for a while and felt they might be right.
"Well, what you guys said makes sense."
However, Patriarch Ahmad unfortunately had to listen to all three of them bickering. He had a big headache dealing with his three sons. The youngest is a braggart who likes to go around the city boasting about his heritage and bossing people around on weekdays.
The middle child, though he might not look like it, is actually very lustful, having fathered a few children outside the family with some messy women, thus tarnishing the familyâs honour. As the head of the noble family, Ahmad always had to clean up the mess.
Though the eldest is very obedient and respected by his younger brothers, his intelligence has been low since birth, and Ahmad does not have much hope for this eldest son, as he is often manipulated by his younger brothers.
As for his sons not worrying about the enemy, Ahmad couldnât help but feel depressed again. Although his sons were not knowledgeable and often acted foolishly, Ahmad was quite knowledgeable and knew that the enemy had excellent mobilizational capabilities and could adapt throughout the battle. The enemy seemed to literally evolve to match the conditions and defeat their opponents.
So, although it looked like Quetta was in a good situation now, Ahmad always felt it was not so simple. He had a foreboding feeling after witnessing the enemy doing nothing and standing motionless a few hundred meters outside the city wall. Thinking about all this, he couldnât help but lament his fate for the nth time this week.
"BOOOOOOM!"
Suddenly, an earth-shaking explosion was heard from the southern end of the city. This explosion was so loud that it felt like thunder descending on Earth.
"Ah," his sons, including himself, exclaimed as they were startled, and a few delicate glass antiques in the fortress shattered due to the aftershock.
Ahmedâs heart was beating rapidly as he did not know what had happened or what to think. This was the first time he had experienced such a situation. Feeling panicked, he first looked at his sons to see if they were okay. Fortunately, nothing was wrong with them, and it was the eldest who recovered the quickest and began to comfort his younger brothers.
Ahmed began to think about what the explosion might have been. No matter how he thought about it, he could not think of anything that could produce such an explosion, not even the enemyâs 30-kilogram calibre giant cannon, which he had heard could put a hole in an old city wall with one shot.
Fortunately, Ahmed did not have to wait long, as a soldier came running into the fortress with a panicked expression on his face and informed him, "Your Excellency, the southern wall has collapsed. The defensive net has fallen."
"What? How is that possible? How is that possible?" Ahmed exclaimed, his eyes wide open, Although he had expected some bad news after hearing the earthshaking explosion just now, he did not expect to receive such devastating news.
He kept repeating the words multiple times as he could not process the sheer magnitude of the firepower required to completely obliterate the southern wall, which was made up of strong Squire-cut rocks.
One Week Ago...
Narasimha Nayak and Ramayya Senapati, who read the letter sent by His Majesty the emperor Vijay, couldnât help but be shocked and looked at each otherâs faces with widened eyes.
"Even this could be done?" Narasimha Nayak exclaimed, quite the opposite of his usual calm demeanour.
"Haha! His Majesty is a genius. Who would have thought we could produce such power with the materials we already have?" Ramayya Senapati laughed out loud, feeling an eager anticipation to try out the method His Majesty had mentioned.
From that day onward, under the command of Narasimha Nayak and Ramayya Senapati, the Dakshin Bharatiya Empire Army began to dig a large hole every night. This hole was dug under the tunnels already created to position the grenade launchers.
Since the hole was dug underground with the help of tunnel lines, the Mughal soldiers did not know about its existence. Also, the hole was not straight down but angled 50 degrees towards the city wall.
Throughout the next four days, a total of five tonnes of sand and gravel was removed.
In the meantime, they received a shipment of new Devi 553 cement from the military logistics department. According to His Majestyâs strategy, the cement powder was mixed with the dug sand and gravel, combined with water, which was the only rare resource they had to part with in this strategy, to plaster the dug hole cleanly.
For the next two days, the hole was left to dry while distraction manoeuvres were launched by the army, as they acted as if they were flanking the city towards the east.
Fortunately, their plan paid off, and the enemy did not leave the city wall to check what they were doing.
On January 19th, one day before the operation:
Exactly one tonne of explosive gunpowder was filled into the hole and tightly packed. On top of this, heavy metal objects like rocks, a few hundred grenades, and many metal parts were added to the top of the hole. Before filling the hole, a fuse was connected to the gunpowder to ensure it would light up without fail.
To protect the fuse, the bottoms of hundreds of precious copper water canteens were cut out, and these hollowed-out canteens acted as containers for the fuse to pass through.
After this was done, at night, the top layer of the sand was removed and replaced by a camouflage net. To be even more certain, the camouflage net was covered with dried sand from the top layer.
January 20th, 1656
10:30 AM
The plan codenamed âFougasseâ was about to commence.
Although both Narasimha Nayak and Ramayya Senapati did not know why His Majesty chose such a peculiar name for the operation, they followed his suggestion nonetheless.
"Is everything prepared?" Ramayya Senapati asked, excitement visible on his face.
"Yes, Commander. We have checked multiple times. Every link in the operation is a go," a soldier confirmed.
Ramayya Senapati looked at Narasimha Nayak to see his thoughts.
"Well then, shall we start the fireworks?" Narasimha Nayak, filled with anticipation, replied.
Immediately, with a signal from both commanders, the soldiers inside the tunnels were evacuated.
Ramayya Senapati, along with Narasimha Nayak, retreated to the back where the tunnel opening was dug. They could see a fuse drenched in gunpowder lying in front of the tunnel wall. The fuse extended along the tunnel, covered by water canteens like a long snake.
Without hesitation, Ramayya Senapati quickly lit the fuse. As soon as he did, he retreated, soon followed by Narasimha Nayak and the troops stationed in the temporary barracks they had built.
The Mughal soldiers on the city wall, seeing the enemies quickly retreating, couldnât understand what was going on.
"Hey, look! Theyâre running away!" a few even cheered.
However, they did not know that at that very moment, a fuse like a ticking clock, signifying their doom, was quickly burning right in front of them, only a few feet below the ground. The flame that was lit by Ramayya at the entrance of the tunnel rapidly passed through the entire tunnel and reached the entrance of the pit.
Within a few seconds, this flame passed through the packing of projectiles and entered into the tightly packed gunpowder keg.
*Rumble*
The gunpowder immediately ignited, combusting very quickly and causing the heat to rise to a blazing temperature in milliseconds. So much energy had nowhere to go, and the tightly plastered cement wall was able to hold on for only an instance before it began to crack.
However, before the cement wall fully ruptured, the projectiles that were tightly packed on top of the gunpowder immediately flew out, followed by a loud explosion.
"BOOOOOM!"
The camouflage net was torn apart, and the ground rumbled. The city wall, which had taken the full brunt of this behemoth of a ground cannon of unknown calibre, couldnât resist the blow, as the impact was similar to a fully loaded locomotive hitting it at full speed.
Even though the wall was made of strong rock cubes, it immediately shattered into countless pieces, like a bunch of Lego pieces breaking apart.
"Ahhh!"
Screams of the Mughal soldiers could be heard as the devastation did not end. Since the place that took the hit was one of the pillars of the wall, a few meters of the wall on both sides of the impact continued to fall, like a domino effect, taking the Mughal soldiers along with it.
All of this happened in only a few seconds. When the dust settled on the southern end of the city of Quetta, a large pit that looked like a hole in hell was spewing out high-intensity flames. Nearly twenty to thirty meters of the city wall had collapsed, burying soldiers beneath the rubble, There were splashes of blood all over the debris, like tomatoes being squashed under a large rock.
Seeing this scene, Ramayya Senapati, who had lit the fuse, was both horrified and overjoyed. But this was not the time to waste any time, this was their chance to take action while the enemy was still confused.
Narasimha Nayak seemed to agree with Ramayya. Before Ramayya could say anything, he heard Narasimha shout, "CHARGEEEE!"
"TO VICTORY!" Motivated by the shout, Ramayya continued, following Narasimha Nayak as they charged.
"JAI BHAVANI!" the soldiers roared as they rushed towards the breach.
P.S. Sorry, I had a busy day, so only 1 chap today (12th)