"General"

A Bulgarian who had joined the gray guard was reporting to Luo Jizhi the latest information he had discovered.

"The Port of Varna is a big port, the largest port of Ottoman in the Black Sea, Istanbul is its largest port in its homeland, Izmir is its largest port in the Aegean Sea and one of the outposts for fighting with European countries. In Europe, it is the largest port in the Port of Duras, Albania, which is the frontier base for their battle with the Republic of Venice."

"The Port of Varna is a maritime base for the Ottomans to manage Eastern Europe. In the past, they set out from here to guide the entire Bulgar region and Wallachia. There are perfect castles and port facilities built by merchants in Venice and Genoa. The port is five miles long and has a military camp, which can accommodate 3,000 troops. There are also military camps in the castle, which can accommodate at least 5,000 troops."

"At present, both in ports and castles, the Ottoman navy is guarding. Their Navy Minister Kara also serves as the marshal of the Black Sea Fleet and the governor of the Bulgar region. Therefore, this is still Kara's nest."

"In the past, when the old Koprolu was Pasha in Trabzon, Kara was the navy general there. Since the rise of the Koprolu family, all the people who followed him had already risen. Kara is one of them. By the way, Kara is also Koprolu's son-in-law."

"Originally, the houses in the port were all the property of Ottoman franchise merchants, and now they have been requisitioned by the commander-in-chief Ahmed, and there are the population, livestock, food, property, etc. robbed from Wallachia, guarded by three thousand sailors."

"According to the investigation of the Ministry of Service, some of their property was placed in the castle. It should be the gold and silver jewelry they brought from the church of the Grand Duchy of Wallachia, including candlesticks, lamps, etc. Near the Danube River and south of Bucharest, there are more than ten small and medium-sized castles of the Wallachians. Each of the best buildings are churches. After years of investment by the Roman Empire and the Grand Duke of Wallachia, it is also the most valuable place. All the things the Ottomans get from there are transported to the city."

"After they get the money, they will be divided into four parts, about 50% of them will enter the treasury, and 50% of the remaining half will enter the Khan Palace. In addition to rewarding the soldiers with meritorious deeds, the rest will be transported to the Kooplolu mansion. As a member of the Kooplolu family and the owner of Varna City, Kara will definitely get a part."

"According to the information discovered by the Ministry of Service, just early this morning, they will load all the people, food and property placed in the port on board and ship to Istanbul. At the same time, the gold and silver placed in the city will also be loaded in advance."

Luo Jizhi nodded, "In other words, the best time for our army to enter there is this morning?"

"Yes, because during the war, although Varna belonged to the Ottoman territory, the castle was generally closed due to the large amount of seizures and only opened when transporting property. At the same time, the military camps in the port were escorted to the ship, including prisoners, and there should not be many people in the military camp, and they would appear on the street."

"There are four exits on Port Street, one towards the dock, located in the middle of the street. They want to get the seized onto the ship and pass there only."

"One exit faces the city gate, and two exits are at the end of the street, leading to the other two gates of the castle."

"Sir, they probably started shipping at this time. If they want to start, they can't hesitate."

Luo Jizhi nodded and thought to himself: "The key to this raid is Varna City. The port is open on all sides and it is not difficult to break. Once the castle is closed, it will be troublesome."

He said to his deputy Batu: "Take half of the men to surround the port, remember to first cut off the connection between the port market and the dock, and then use the three consecutive fire guns of the tiger cavalry to guard the gap between them, so as not to let sailors anchored on the port ships come to rescue."

Batu is the first graduate of the Lishucheng Cavalry School, the man who lives in the same room with Sun Sike, Tulichen, Sun Dezhong, Mu Zhan, Zuzehong and others. He is the son of Tengjis, the chief of the Sunit tribe. After a few years, the other people basically led a legion, and he was the only one who was Luo Jizhi as the deputy commander of the legion. However, he was unyielding because Luo Jizhi usually only manages the legion in name, but in fact, he was still the deputy commander in charge of the specific military affairs.

"Not appropriate." After hearing Luo Jizhi's words, he quickly said, "It's too dangerous to attack the castle. Let's go with the Huzhi. The Governor will attack the port."

Luo Jizhi waved his hand, "That's it. This is the case. This governor is from the Gray-Clothed Guard. When it comes to adapting to the situation, you should go to the port quickly. According to the information of the Gray-Clothed Guard, the current port is not only prisoners but also soldiers, but also slaves who are ready to carry things. Whether it is a prisoner or a slave, when the Hanhai Army suddenly arrives, if it is operated well, it will still have some help."

Batu originally wanted to say a few words, such as "If there were our warships on the sea, it would be great, and in that case, the enemy would not be able to escape at all." But he did not say it when he said it.

He didn't say it, but Luo Jizhi said it for him.

"According to the previous plan, Yang Chengen's fleet should have arrived on the sea near Varna, and set off from Yalta to Varna for up to a thousand miles. With the strength of the Hanhai warships, they arrived in one day and one night. They probably had arrived at the nearby sea long ago, but when there was no news from our army, most of them were still dormant in a certain port."

He looked at the gray-clothed guard just now, "On the west coast of the Black Sea, what other port is closest to this place?"

The man replied: "The best ports must be Odessa and Constanta, but there is a port not far north of Constanta, called Nevodari, which is only more than thirty miles away from Constanta. It is said that just under the eyes of the Ottomans, our navy will not be anchored there."

Luo Jizhi shook his head, "Not necessarily, with the power of our navy, as long as one or two Swifts were sent to cruise the sea outside the sea, in order not to stimulate the Ottomans, they would not occupy the port of Nevodari at the beginning, but at this time the news that the Cossacks arrived in Constanta should have reached the Swifts, which were cruising outside the sea. In this way, they would suddenly appear on the west coast of the Black Sea, and it would be very likely to occupy Nevodari."

"If that were the case, they would soon learn that our army was heading south to Varna. At the speed of the navy, they might have arrived at the outer sea. When our attack began, they would also know about it in the outer sea. Less nonsense, act quickly!"

...

But things are not that simple.

First of all, Oak Forest is about a few miles away from Varna Castle. If Luo Jizhi leads the great enemy cavalry to suddenly kill near the castle, the Ottomans will definitely close the city gate first.

Moreover, although the castle has four gates, in the early morning, it only opened the gate to the port market, that is, the south gate, and near the woods is the north gate. The gate of Varna Fort is made of oak-doped iron bars, which is as thick as one foot and requires a winch to start. Even so, they can still close the gate before the cavalry arrives.

The Fort Varna was built by generations of Greeks, Romans and Ottomans. After repairing, the castle was eight meters thick and eight meters high, which was even stronger than the major castles of the Crimeans. Not to mention cavalry, even if Sun Degang's infantry army came, it would take at least ten days to achieve initial results.

But the Ottomans were not completely without weaknesses.

Their weakness is the port. As the absolute overlord of the Black Sea, although Varna Port is close to Romania, due to the maritime advantages of the Ottomans, they did not set up comprehensive defense facilities for it. The gates, east-west roads and the openings of the docks were all open for a long time. Except for a wooden fence near the docks, other places were unobstructed, and the fence was actually thrown aside most of the time.

For the Hanhai Army, if they want to attack the Ottomans as much as possible, they naturally have to take down the castle and rescue the prisoners trapped in the port, because the port is only one mile away from the castle, and the cannons at the top of the city can be shot. If the enemies in the castle ignore the lives and death of their own personnel at the port and use artillery to bombard the port, Luo Jizhi's cavalry will not be able to fight safely there.

So, taking down the castle is a necessary option.

"what to do?"

...

For Han Haijun, there has never been four words to retreat when he sees difficulties.

After the castle of Varna Fort opened, under the escort of sailors, fifty big carts pulled by two tall horses went out from the south gate of the castle.

Look at that look, each car can carry at least 1,500 kilograms of things. If it is loaded with valuable items such as gold, silver, jewelry, etc., fifty large cars are roughly equivalent to 750,000 taels of silver!

The main reason why they had such great gains in Wallachia was that at the end of the sixteenth century, Wallachia was ruled by the "brave Mikhai". Under his leadership, Wallachia not only won many victories in the war with the Ottomans, but also briefly combined Moldova and Transylvania, and he himself became king.

Later, the Ottomans recognized Wallachia's independence. Therefore, in the past sixty or seventy years, Wallachia has maintained peace and stability, and naturally absorbed a large number of Moldovans who were harassed by the Cossacks and Crimean Tatars for a long time to settle down here. Because Moldova actually became a vassal of the Crimean Khanate, many churches in Moldova have also moved to Wallachia. At this time, the richest in Europe was the church, and they naturally brought wealth.

During Mihai's rule, he also brought some of the wealth of Transylvania and Moldova back to Wallachia. Unexpectedly, after decades, all of this was taken away by the Ottomans.

"Dadadada"

Two hundred riders flew on the road northwest of the castle to the Romanian territory.

The dress of these cavalry is no different from the current Sipahi cavalry. They are polished and have two ball joints wool-woven ball joints under the iron helmet with a pointed top. The upper body is three plate chain armor. The so-called plate chain armor refers to a whole piece of iron plate that protects the heart, and other places are chain armor, a kind of armor woven with fine iron wire.

The knights protect cowhide armor at their knees, and the front half of the war horses wear chain armor. The weapons in their hands are mainly long-handed weapons. The weapons of the cavalry are mainly long-handed, mainly long-handed spears, heavy swords, long-handed axes/hammers. They are all equipped with cavalry knives to prevent them from quickly entering the battle after the long-handed weapons are damaged.

The flags they held were a blue lake beneath the star and moon symbol.

"Fansheng Special Rider!"

The Van Province is the easternmost province near Persia, because it has the largest lake in the empire, and the largest castle in the eastern end of the empire. Pasha here is a Kurd from Persia, and all his cavalry under him are Kurds. Since Persia is Shiites, after the war between the Ottomans and Persia began, he led some of the Kurds to surrender to the Ottomans who were also Sunnis.

The Ottomans did not treat him badly, appointed him as Pasha, Van Province, and classified the area around Van Lake as a "autonomous region" of the Kurds.

But what happened decades ago was happening. At present, the Ottomans also implemented a strategy of division and disintegration in Fan Province. They recruited some of the Kurds loyal to the empire into Sipahi, but they were still allowed to hold the flag of the past.

Mahamo (actually Mohammed, because there are too many Mohammed, it is called Mahamo here) is the leader of Kurdish Sipahi. He has a cavalry brigade of 3,000 people, and he is also the strongest among the Sipahi cavalry, known as the "Fansheng Special Cavalry".

The defenders near the South City Gate were hesitant when they saw this cavalry that should be affiliated with the Fansheng Special Cavalry.

What did the Van Seiya come to Varna at this time? Didn’t they fight with Vizier Ahmed in Wallachia?

They did not dare to provoke any provincial special cavalry. Although they stopped the cavalry, they also sent people to run to the Governor's Office to inform Kara.
Chapter completed!