The Ming Dynasty: The most ruthless imperial grandson, Old Zhu begged me not to kill him.

Chapter 440 The Defense of Almaty

"If they dare to come, we'll make sure they don't leave alive. We've been guarding this place for a long time now, and the facilities here are very complete!"

The group nodded in agreement. This was exactly what they had in mind, and it was precisely because they possessed this advantage that they were not worried.

Just then, Zhu Neng, who was on patrol nearby, arrived at this place, his face extremely excited.

"Your Highness, generals, good news! The army of the Timurid Khanate has set out!"

"This time, in order to support the Chagatai Khanate, they have mobilized a full 60,000 cavalry, and they are now heading towards this place!"

Upon hearing this, Prince Yan, Zhu Di, was immediately intrigued. In order to reach this place as quickly as possible, he had only brought 17,000 troops with him. The enemy outnumbered him by a great deal, and they were all elite cavalry.

After thinking of this place, he nodded.

"It seems the enemy is really desperate this time, but this may not be a bad thing for us. As long as we hold them off, the front line will surely achieve excellent results!"

The generals nodded in agreement and began preparations.

When the Timurid Khanate's army arrived in Almaty, they frowned upon seeing the large flag erected there.

"No wonder there's been no news for so long. It seems this place is really under the control of the Ming army. What are these soldiers guarding the city doing?"

"We haven't found anything along the way!"

His face was extremely pale, and his eyes were filled with anger.

It's no wonder he was so angry. The people who guarded the city had gone too far. There were so many enemies in this one place, yet they hadn't found anything. It was utterly despicable.

At this moment, the leading general looked at the city wall and said.

"Listen up, you on the city wall!"

"I am a general under Timur Khan, sent to support the Chagatai Khanate. I have 60,000 elite cavalrymen under my command. There is no way you can defeat me!"

"If you surrender now, you may have a chance to live; otherwise, once my army invades, you will all die!"

Upon hearing this, Prince Yan, Zhu Di, immediately snorted coldly.

"It's still uncertain who will live and who will die. In that case, let me see what kind of skills you have."

The soldiers below the city wall were furious to see that the Ming army had not made any progress and immediately organized their troops to attack.

At this moment, the cavalry under his command charged towards the city wall.

Because they came in a hurry, they were not well prepared and did not bring much heavy equipment.

The losses from directly attacking them now are too great; numerous attacks have yielded no results.

The leading general sighed upon seeing this situation.

"General, we came in far too hastily this time, and many preparations have not been made adequately. I think we should temporarily cease hostilities!"

"There are many of our tribes around here, and there's a forest not far away. We just need to cut down all the trees in that forest to make siege weapons!"

"Furthermore, we can take this opportunity to transfer more troops from the surrounding tribes. With the number of troops we have, we can wipe them out completely!"

The commanding general sighed as he witnessed the losses suffered by his troops. "It seems this is all we can do now!"

As the signal to sound the retreat rang out, these people began to retreat little by little.

Prince Zhu Di of Yan was extremely shocked when he saw this scene.

Why did these guys retreat after only fighting for a short while? I thought they could fight for a little longer.

In such a short time, these people hastily left behind hundreds of corpses and fled.

Zhang Yu, who was standing to the side, shook her head.

"You don't have many siege weapons, so their attack is not very effective right now. I guess they're just temporarily ceasing hostilities to produce more siege weapons!"

"Once they actually finish making it, our days are numbered!"

Zhu Neng nodded as well.

"More importantly, there are many tribes around here, ranging from tens of thousands to several thousand, and they still have a considerable number of soldiers. If he were to gather all of them together, they would likely be a powerful force, and the number of enemies we encounter would double!"

Prince Yan, Zhu Di, nodded. This was indeed a very troublesome matter.

At this moment, he looked at the generals in his hands and said with a smile.

"Despite these troubles, we're not without our advantages!"

"First of all, we have already sent General Qu Neng to guard that forest. If they dare to cut down trees and build siege weapons in this forest, we will set it on fire and burn the whole place to the ground!"

"If he needs more timber by then, he'll have to transport it from even farther away, which buys us time!"

"Our artillery and muskets haven't been exposed yet. With these, we should be able to hold out for a while without any problems. We might even be able to give them a surprise!"

Since they all nodded after hearing this, in fact, apart from muskets and some gunpowder, they didn't bring anything else, after all, this was a long-distance raid.

However, after they conquered the place, they discovered that it did have some gunpowder stockpiled, but it was all in the most primitive form.

The gunpowder they made was far inferior to what they had made before, so they had their craftsmen improve it and dug out some of the trebuchets they had made previously.

These trebuchets were arguably the most frequently used type of cannon during the Yuan Dynasty's struggle for supremacy.

Unfortunately, this type of weapon has already been phased out in the Ming Dynasty.

The situation is urgent now, so some of it is good.

Soon, the soldiers of the Temür Khanate began to cut down trees in that forest.

What they didn't know was that an army had secretly laid an ambush in this place, and the leader was none other than Qu Neng.

Although Qu Neng and Chen Heng had spent a long time together and both of them had indeed become more composed, his military strategy still relied heavily on taking risks, which was quite similar to Ping An's approach.

They felled trees that day and quickly made a lot of equipment.

The leading general was very satisfied to see so much stuff. With these things, it wouldn't be long before they were able to take Almaty.

(End of this chapter)