Reborn In 17th century India with Black Technology

Basra Fortress

"Boom!"n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

"Boom!"

"Boom!"

Every time a grenade exploded, it was like a nail dug into his heart. Sayyid Khalid Mashhadani thought that his plan was flawless. He had imagined his army slaughtering the enemy after luring them inside the fortress, which had been transformed into a meat grinder. But unfortunately, even though he had the knowledge about the firearms used by the enemy, he knew nothing about these exploding eggs.

Sayyid Khalid, along with a few hundred people, was the only one remaining out of the 5,000 soldiers he had under his command. Currently, as a last line of defence and as a last struggle, Sayyid Khalid and his men were huddled in a storage room, which fortunately did not have any windows or direct doors into it. It was quite hard to throw a grenade inside without exposing oneself.

Even if the enemy wanted to sacrifice himself and still throw the grenade, it was of no use, since the storage room, although mostly empty, still had a lot of shields that were mainly used in field battles. Moreover, the storage room was large—large enough that all the hundred people could huddle up in a corner with the shields, and the shards from the exploding grenades could not reach them.

In such a condition, a stalemate was created. Kaveh, who received this news, was annoyed. He did not expect such a thing to happen. If he had some more time, he would order his men to build a wall at the entrance and throw some clothes inside while burning them so as to completely burn up the oxygen. He could have suffocated them. But sadly, he no longer had the chance.

Half an hour ago, he received an alert from the scout about the approaching armies from the cities of Ahvaz and Shushtar. Although both these cities combined could only bring 10,000 troops, which was still manageable by his army, he was still in a dangerous situation. If these 10,000 troops did not look to directly engage with him but continuously interfered with his actions, then by the time he could conquer Basra, the armies from Hillah, Kufa, and Samawah would be here with an army of 15,000 soldiers. Even if his army was quite advanced, he could not contend against an army of 25,000 soldiers immediately.

If the Bharatiya Empire's Navy had not made it to Basra by then, Kaveh could only declare the mission a failure and retreat at best, or attempt to break through the encirclement with heavy casualties at worst.

----

Kaveh immediately called for a military meeting

"Take on defensive formation, reinforce the logistic channels, do not let it be cut, and send special squads to disrupt the situation of the enemy," Kaveh Atashban gave a series of orders when he finally confirmed that the armies from Ahvaz and Shushtar had arrived.

The nature of the battle completely changed. If it was a siege battle before, now it had completely turned into a tower defense battle.

Given that Kaveh Atashban now currently occupied the majority of the fortress, he had completely taken it over, used it as his own defensive fortress, and moved his cannons inside.

As for the army on the outside, it had formed into various brigades in a defensive formation.

Generals Abdullah Rahman of Ahvaz and Namaz Khan of Shushtar, looking at the actions of the enemy, looked very troubled. They were very hesitant to confront the Atashban army head-on since they had self-knowledge about how much they weighed. They had already planned to disrupt the situation of the enemy until more reinforcements arrived, but unfortunately, the enemy had seen through their plan and had completely turned themselves into an iron shell.

"Damn Sayyid Khalid, you couldn't even hold on for so long—what a waste," Abdullah Rahman cursed.

---

Half an hour passed in a similar situation, where a stalemate had formed between the army of 10,000 soldiers of Ahvaz and Shushtar, Kaveh Atashban's army of 18,600 near the fortress of Basra, and the remnants of Sayyid Khalid within the storage room of the fortress.

Despite there being constant deaths on all parties, no one took the lead. This delicate situation seemed like it could last for hours. Realizing this, Abdullah Rahman and Namaz Khan were overjoyed, since their whole objective was to slow the enemy's actions down, and now inadvertently, it seemed to have worked.

Sadly, their happy expressions did not last long.

"Ah, General, look!"

Abdullah Rahman and Namaz Khan took a look in the direction pointed by the soldier, and they were greatly shocked.

"What sort of a monster is that?" Abdullah Rahman immediately exclaimed.

Abdullah was a military leader in a city fairly close to the Persian Gulf, so he had seen his fair share of large ships, but he had never seen one this large.

Compared to the ship that had just arrived at the coast of Basra, all the ships he had seen were like children. Namaz Khan had a similar reaction; his mouth was agape.

Before they could take the time to process what they had just witnessed, another group of warships came into the port of Basra from another direction.

"Wh-What!" Things were happening too fast, and Abdullah Rahman did not have time to process them.

---

Captain Chandrashekhar looked at the battlefield where a stalemate had formed. He immediately ordered a round of shelling from the battleship.

"Boom!"

"Boom!"

"Boom!" Enjoy exclusive adventures from empire

The cannons roared like the sound of thunder, and looking at the cannonballs approaching them at unimaginable speeds, with the size of a watermelon, Abdullah Rahman and Namaz Khan were scared out of their wits.

The soldiers were no different. Their army formation, which had looked orderly and disciplined just a few minutes ago, suddenly scattered like insects.

The marines immediately disembarked from the warships and came onto the coast with guns blazing.

"AHHH!"

"Oh lord, no!"

"No!!"

Screams and shouts were immediately heard, and the dispersed army couldn't fight against the marines.

The logistics team who disembarked the ship from behind took this opportunity to set up fortifications and cannon platforms so that the army could arrive safely.

The army of the Bharatiya Empire, nearly 15,000 in number, started to disembark from the ships and immediately formed formations behind the safe fortifications created by the logistics team.

Abdullah Rahman and Namaz Khan immediately realized that they no longer had the ability to win or even, for that matter, to escape.

"I surrender!" Abdullah Rahman waved the white flag.

"Me too," Namaz Khan followed.

---

Within the fortress

Given that the Bharatiya Empire's Navy was finally here, Kaveh Atashban finally followed his plan to choke the enemies who were still within the fortress. But to his surprise, shouts came from within the storage room yelling:

"We surrender! We surrender!"

"The general is dead!"

"Please let us live! We surrender!"

Kaveh was surprised. "Why did the general suddenly die?" He was confused, but since this was a good thing for him, he stopped the construction of the wall that was about to be closed. However, he wasn't going to immediately believe these words. What if it was some sort of a ploy? "Come out one by one. You have my word I will not take action unless you make any special moves," he said as he aimed his rifle at the corridor.

Unexpectedly, after a few minutes, the people who were inside really came out one by one through the unfinished wall with their hands raised in the air, as if to show they wouldn't play any funny business.

Emptying all the enemies within the storage room, Kaveh finally learned that the general was really dead, but unlike what he had guessed—that his soldiers killed him so as to plead for mercy—Sayyid Khalid had actually died by himself due to chest pain.

He was confused, as he did not know people could die like this too, but seeing as how the end result was achieved, he forgot about the process.

---

"Captain, since you are here, then I will take my leave now. I am worried about the battle situation in Baghdad," Kaveh said as he ordered his logistics team to pack everything up in order to go on another expedition.

Chandrashekhar nodded his head and did a namaskara.

Kaveh repeated the action and finally left Basra victorious.

---

Surprisingly, on his way back, he was informed by an intelligence agent controlled by Fariba that Baghdad had never been attacked and the Bharatiya Empire's intelligence had given another target.

"Cousin Kaveh, the army of 30,000 that was arriving to reinforce the Zangana forces in Arabistan has returned to Kurdistan in a hurry. I have received intelligence from the Bharatiya Empire that these forces are now fully scattered and leaderless. "

"They suggested we completely wipe out these forces so that the majority of the Zangana family will be under our control. "

"We have discovered a potential ally in the region of Kurdistan. It is because of them that the 30,000 reinforcements couldn't reach Basra."

"I personally have been told that all the leadership of the Zangana family, along with the elite military leaders, has been eliminated. "

"I will inform more details later, but for now, please come back as quickly as possible. We will not get another chance to take the Zangana family's territory."

To be continued...