Chapter 14 Mocha Is Attacked

Diwan's orders were passed down layer by layer, and reinforcements and supplies were continuously transferred to Shah Port, which is across the sea from Hormuz Island. From then on, they were sent to Aden Port by ship to reinforce the Governor of Yemen.

The leader of this reinforcement army was Kaihobad, who first came to Yemen to understand the situation. Although the governor was a naval officer, he did not cause any difficult conflicts between the sea and the land.

The general arrived in Aden with his personal guards and a large number of necessary supplies. In addition to the food and other military supplies that were transferred, there were also a large number of boxes loaded with silver coins in the cargo hold of the ship - Ibrahim's additional funds allocated to the Red Sea.

With the gradual arrival of money, food, and troops, all threats to Yemen had to be eradicated. The first to bear the brunt were the old forces sandwiched between the Safavids and the Zaydis. The governor invited them to the castle in Aden on the grounds of jointly suppressing the heretics in the north and allocating new territories.

The emirs who received the notice to come to Aden for the meeting arrived one after another. Although the governor had a negative attitude towards them before, the reversal of attitude proved that they were still needed to rule the inland.

The guards brought by the emirs were all left in the camp outside the city. Everyone had some complaints about the governor's arrangement, but they still obeyed and entered the castle alone to attend the meeting.

However, when they gathered in the hall of the castle, a team of soldiers who were specifically designed to deal with them suddenly broke in, blocked all entrances and exits and controlled the emirs without waiting for them to react.

"I am here to attend the meeting on orders, what are you going to do!" The emir who was twisted by the soldiers and unable to move struggled in panic, and shouted in the Yemeni Arabic dialect that the Turkic soldiers could not understand. Fortunately, Kaihobad's personal soldiers were all extraordinary, twisting their arms and escorting all the emirs present to the dungeon of the castle.

The prisoners who had never seen the Governor of Yemen were all secretly executed without a chance to yell and rush over. The soldiers and horses they left outside the city were attacked at the same time, and some died or were captured, completely losing their ability to resist.

The southern tribal leaders who obeyed the Safavid rule immediately began to divide up the vacant official positions and went north to take over various jurisdictions to rebuild the ruling order. The remnants without a leader could not resist and surrendered and knelt to welcome the new master. The stubborn ones either fled into the mountains or were hanged in the square.

To stabilize the situation in the rear, the governor immediately arranged to send troops to "rescue" Sana'a. He carefully selected hundreds of cavalry from the local tribal armed forces to go north to inquire about the situation, but everyone had already preset the answer in their hearts-the defenders had died and became martyrs, God has mercy on them.

According to the agreement reached between the governor and Imam Hassan, this advance team was able to cross the border smoothly and also received material support from the settlements under Hassan's rule.

However, while the port of Aden was waiting for assistance, the war burned more fiercely and affected a wider area. When the governor of Jeddah heard about Yahya's siege of Sana'a, he immediately decided to invest more chips.

The pro-Egyptian Yemeni tribes were immediately mobilized and besieged the Safavid port of Mocha, the only stronghold in the Timah area, with great fanfare, in an attempt to make the Iranians lose sight of one thing while focusing on another.

Compared with the geographical advantages of Aden, the defensive conditions of the port of Mocha were much worse. Not only was it landlocked on three sides, but the city defense fortifications were more rudimentary and fragile than those of Aden, Taiz, Sana'a and other big cities. The Safavid garrison invested a lot in transforming the city defense fortifications.

In order to capture Mocha, Hussein spent a lot of money. He provided a lot of firearms and "Roma" volunteers to the Yemeni vassal army in the hope of a quick victory.

Dozens of artillery were lined up under the city. Under the guidance of Ottoman instructors, Yemeni gunners were loading artillery and preparing to bombard the walls of Mocha.

"Sir, should we fire first? I see that the enemy's artillery is of different shapes and they are not good at operating artillery. They may flee after firing a few shells and dare not fight back against our army." Seeing this, the officer of the artillery fort suggested that the newly built artillery forts in Mocha, in addition to those facing the sea, are also integrated with the city defense fortifications to strengthen the city defense force.

Just as the centurion was thinking about a good way to repel the enemy, the stone bullet whizzed over the city wall and hit the open space of the mosque in the city. Fortunately, no casualties were caused.

In the intervals of artillery fire under the city, tribal warriors holding bows and arrows and firearms lined up and slowly approached the city wall, intending to suppress and kill the defenders on the city wall together with the gunners.

"You dare to show off in front of us with such a petty trick? Pass the order down, fire back." The centurion was very disdainful of the level of firearms of the Yemeni tribal armed forces.

The trained Safavid gunners were naturally more accurate than the Yemenis who had just gotten started. The iron bullets fell into the queue and quickly penetrated the crowd. The Yemeni shooters were flustered and lost. Then the Yemeni artillery team was also attacked, and the gunners were also in a hurry to dodge and had no intention of fighting back.

The Yemeni army's initial aggressive arrogance was hit, but the offensive did not stop. Arrows and lead bullets from the city still flew to the parapets, and long ladders were still placed on the top of the city for the Yemenis to climb the wall and attack. The naval infantrymen held the handles tightly, ready to welcome their first battle.

However, when the Yemeni climbed to the top, he looked up and saw the black muzzle of the revolving cannon. The gunner immediately ignited and fired, and the shotgun and smoke sprayed on his face. He fell off the ladder before he even had time to scream, and his upper body was a bloody mess, and his identity could not be recognized at all.

Powerful firepower was the capital of the naval infantry in defending the city. The numerous muskets and breech-loading cannons were more difficult to deal with than the Yemenis had expected. The low morale caused by the setback in the offensive inevitably affected everyone. Even the most indifferent and stubborn Sheikh had to agree to withdraw the troops for rest.

The situation was stuck here. It was impossible to siege. Mocha was a port city, but the Yemeni tribes that had revolted had no water power to block shipping. The fleet of the Governor of Jeddah could not go to the battlefield personally, otherwise the two countries would go to war directly.

The Ottoman instructors took advantage of this gap to guide the Yemenis to build artillery positions and urgently trained their artillery skills, consuming ammunition to continue bombarding Mocha.

The time before sunset was spent in artillery battles. Compared with the well-stocked Safavid defenders, the Yemeni artillery team fired much less frequently, and the actual damage caused to the city defense fortifications was very limited.

The success during the day allowed the centurion to organize a suicide squad to assault the Yemeni artillery team at the front at night. They brought nails and hammers, rushed into the artillery positions in the dark, and hunted the gunners who had not yet reacted. They began to block the fire gates in the faint moonlight.

The warriors who successfully destroyed the artillery did not linger in the battle, but immediately fled back under the fire cover of their comrades. In order to prevent the city gates from being seized by the pursuing enemy, they could only climb back to the city using the hanging ropes.

This incident greatly dampened the morale of the Yemeni people. The Sheikhs believed that attacking the city was to attack the long with the short, and suggested lifting the siege. It would be best to lure the defenders out and ambush them. They were good at mobile warfare in the familiar mountains.

With this in mind, most of the tribes of the coalition forces gave up attacking the city directly and marched inland instead. Only a few people remained at their posts.