The Cannons Roared
Diyarbakır was a city located on the upper reaches of the Tigris River, a city within the Mesopotamian civilization born from the regions surrounding the Euphrates and Tigris Rivers.
Just as the city’s civilization had to be traced back to the birth of ancient civilization, the history of the walls surrounding the city also had to be traced back to the days of ancient Rome.
With a maximum height of twelve meters, a maximum width of five meters, and a length of 5.5 kilometers, it was the second-longest surviving wall into the modern era.
Standing atop walls that would normally have been regarded as imposing, Nur Ali Khalifa gazed down into the city with sunken eyes.
“Hurry! Move! There is no time! The enemy is at our doorstep!”
“They are devilish Ottoman soldiers! They will make playthings of your wives and daughters, and tear your young children to pieces! Move!”
Rocks transported on logs laid across the ground were piled around the catapults, and the civilians, sweating profusely, moved their feet again at the soldiers’ urging.
On one side, a pale, watery gruel that looked neither tasty nor nutritious was being prepared by the hands of women laboring.
Preparations for war were steadily being made by squeezing the laboring civilians dry, but the adjutant spoke with an air of worry.
“Discontent is said to be growing among the laborers these days. Would it not be better to lower the intensity somewhat?”
It was a natural concern.
Because no matter how sturdy and thick the walls, they could not stop an enemy within.
At this, Nur Ali gripped the hilt of the sword at his waist.
“It is fine if discontent accumulates.”
“How so….”
“The Shah has spoken. Impure ones who have forsaken their faith have appeared everywhere. They are like rats.”
In the northwestern regions of the Safavid domain, Ismail was personally commanding the execution of those showing suspicious movements.
There were surely some innocents among them, but it could not be helped. One could not refrain from setting traps to catch rats for fear of hurting a cat.
“Surely there are such people here as well.”
The majority of Diyarbakır’s civilians were Kurds.
They were people who had long put down roots in these surroundings, and they had been the greatest victims of the pillaging Yusuf had carried out when he was a prince, and the scorched-earth operations that occurred after he became Sultan.
The primary culprit was Yusuf, but dissatisfaction with Ismail for failing to properly stop it was also great, and having experienced Kurdish rebellions in the early days of the regime, it was not suspicion but certainty.
Nur Ali looked down at a picture that had arrived some time ago.
Considering the taboo against idolatry, it was a portrait that was shockingly realistic to the point of heresy.
No, to be precise, it was closer to a wanted poster.
“This pig of a man should have been captured in Tabriz. My teeth grind when I think of the damage caused by this bastard, as bitter as if a snake were placed upon my tongue.”
He looked to have suffered much, with an emaciated face and a long scar across his cheek, seemingly from his escape from Tabriz.
The misdeeds of this bastard, now known for certain through the capture of this rat, had been rooted in the Safavid realm for a long time.
In the early days of the kingdom, he had caused trouble with false rumors that the Shah was massacring Sunnis; he had helped Tazlu extract information from Tabriz, and traveled the west creating traitors.
One could say without exaggeration that Satan himself, in the form of the serpent that corrupted the first man, had descended in human guise.
“If discontent accumulates, it will gather around those who have fallen for this bastard’s tongue. Then we simply purge them.”
“But to overcome the Ottoman army, we need the civilians’ help. I worry this matter may become a grave mistake.”
At his adjutant’s loyal counsel, Nur Ali let out a bitter smile and placed his hand on the wall that had endured through the ages.
“No matter how magnificent a wall, it cannot stop every enemy. Did not even the walls of Constantinople, said to be greater than these, fall to their hands?”
Nur Ali moved his gaze along the wall he was touching.
That it had endured so long meant it had suffered many assaults.
It would not be an exaggeration to call Diyarbakır’s walls a patchwork quilt. Having changed hands many times and been repaired repeatedly, all manner of architectural styles had been cobbled together.
“Perhaps the master of this fortress will change again this time.”
“Why do you speak so before it has even begun?”
“That is our role. To meet an end of which we need not be ashamed before Allah.”
The fact that not a single cannon had been brought in with great difficulty through Venice spoke to that role.
They had to draw the enemy deeper inside, so this was merely one waypoint.
“We are not here to stop the Ottoman army, but to kill as many enemies as possible and die here. That is our final mission for the Shah.”
A deep silence fell over the wall at Nur Ali’s words, spoken as one who had already resigned himself to death.
The silence was broken by a lone cavalryman rushing from afar, kicking up a cloud of dust.
The rider passed through the bustling gates, crowded with laborers, with a small commotion, and knelt before Nur Ali, who had been waiting for him.
Dust rose from the slight movement, showing how urgently the messenger had ridden. He spoke with a parched voice.
“I-it is the Ottoman army. The Ottoman army that crossed Malatya has appeared near Elazığ!”
The final moment had drawn near.
∗ ∗ ∗
For a moment, a light drizzle fell from the sky.
The soldiers around the battle wagons loaded with cannons covered the cloth overhead more carefully.
If a cannon exploded due to negligent maintenance, it would be they who died, not the enemy, so they had no choice but to be even more careful.
The process of setting foot upon the land the Armenians called the Golden Plain, passing Malatya, had not been easy.
“You say all the dead soldiers have been buried properly?”
“Yes, Your Padishah. They say it was not done negligently.”
Usually, a nation’s borders were often divided by rugged mountain ranges or long rivers, and the boundary between Dulkadir and the Safavids was formed by the Euphrates River, which extends to the Persian Gulf.
It is difficult to lead an army across a river; when Ismail attacked Dulkadir, the reason he went through Erzincan was also to bypass the river.
However, Yusuf’s army sought to cross the Euphrates, and the Safavid forces sought to destroy the connected bridges.
“Yes, we cannot leave them to be torn apart by beasts like the enemy did.”
Yusuf looked down from the hill on the right.
Not all of Dukakinzade’s forces that had come to Malatya went down to Ayntab.
Three thousand or so troops had defended this place to guard the bridge and reinforce it with cement they had brought, and the surrounding scenery showed how fierce that battle had been.
Birds of prey and field rodents like rats swarmed around half-rotten corpses, and five large mounds were visible, appearing to be graves where their own soldiers had been buried.
“Here is the list you requested. It is roughly three hundred men.”
“Many indeed.”
“It is because they were raided day and night. In addition, it includes engineer soldiers who died in accidents while reinforcing the bridge with cement.”
Yusuf ran his eyes over the paper.
It was a list of the dead, not casualties including the wounded, but the densely packed names made one feel that people had died, not mere numbers.
Yusuf clicked his tongue at this.
“There are as many as fifteen dead Yusufs?”
Because it had been meticulously written, brief notes on how they died were also included, making his mood even worse.
“Grand Vizier, when this war is over, I shall have to establish surnames. With so many sharing the same name, does it not give rise to unpleasant incidents?”
It was an absurdity born of the fact that the Arab cultural sphere already used such similar names, and the Ottomans originally had no surnames.
If one were somewhat renowned, they would be called by their title and name together, and even this was confusing enough that places of origin were appended.
In Joseon terms, it would be similar to calling an architect born in Chungcheong-do “Gaettong.”
At the suggestion of introducing surnames to the Ottomans, the Grand Vizier answered with a faint smile.
“Your Padishah, after this war I shall retire from my post, so you should speak of this with my successor.”
“I know that well; is that not why I speak to you? You will be lonely after retirement, so it should serve nicely as a pastime.”
“…A pastime?”
It was a matter of introducing surnames to the Ottomans, who had none.
At least ten million or more would need to take new surnames; it was not a small task, but one requiring work like an ox.
The weather was not particularly hot, yet he felt cold sweat running down his back.
“Consider slowly how best to introduce them during the war. When the task is done, I shall see that you spend your remaining years in comfort.”
“…I shall obey your command.”
No matter how he thought about it, dying of old age seemed faster than finishing the task, but the Grand Vizier had only one choice.
The Grand Vizier wore a dark expression after receiving such an enormous workload, but this was merely a trivial episode.
For the war that would dye the Golden Plain in blood was drawing near.
An army reeking of iron covered the fertile land where grain had grown, and battle wagons loaded with cannons took the lead.
The soldier’s grip on his weapon tightened as he thought of the imminent battle, and the horse Yusuf mounted, sensing the ominous energy, reared up in excitement.
Even with war approaching, Yusuf leisurely patted the horse’s head and turned his gaze to the side.
“Hasan, is this him? The one I ordered brought?”
“Yes, Your Majesty. He is the one who harmed our friendship with Dulkadir and caused the death of our soldiers.”
He was young. No, to be precise, he was but a boy.
The man grasped in Hasan’s hand, with a long scar on his cheek.
He had not yet reached twenty, and those present easily knew that he had been singled out as a scapegoat.
“You do not regret it?”
It was a question of whether he regretted becoming the scapegoat.
To this, the fear-soaked man raised his head and answered.
“I do not regret it.”
“If you regret it, you alone can live. However, the family that abandoned you will not escape harm.”
“I said I do not regret it.”
Yusuf looked down indifferently at the man who had struggled to overcome his fear and shouted, then turned his head and spoke.
“Take him away and behead him. Do not mistreat him; send him off cleanly.”
“It shall be done, Your Padishah.”
It was an era when, if a family did not offer a bribe, executions were commonly carried out with great suffering.
That was all the consideration that could be shown to a man of spirit, and before long, the execution was carried out—the soldiers’ cheers ringing out.
As if showing no interest in what was happening behind him, the Grand Vizier spoke to Yusuf, who was gazing at the walls of Elazig.
“Your Padishah, all battle preparations are complete.”
“Well done.”
“But will the scholars we brought be of any use?”
The Grand Vizier looked at the scholars quivering beside the cannons with puzzled eyes.
“It is absolutely necessary in order to shoot the cannons more accurately.”
It was an age where ballistics was still in its infancy.
It was a time when it was not even properly known that, without air resistance, a cannonball flew farthest when fired at a 45-degree angle.
“Henceforth, victory in war will be determined by how many artillerymen we have who can shoot cannons accurately.”
The ability to produce cannons by boring them with a drilling machine rather than casting them in molds meant that cannons had been standardized.
It meant that if the same amount of gunpowder and cannonballs were loaded, they would fire at the same velocity, which meant the foundation for using ballistics was complete.
“Until now, artillerymen have relied on intuition, but rather than intuition which cannot be properly handed down, theory must be established. If we do so, we can mass-produce skilled artillerymen.”
“Is such a thing possible?”
“It is possible.”
After all, it was what the École Polytechnique, which had made France a great power, had accomplished.
Basic ballistics is the process of obtaining coordinates through observation, establishing quadratic functions and tangent line equations, and calculating the angle using trigonometric ratio formulas.
The solution to quadratic equations had already appeared four hundred years ago, and trigonometric ratios expressed as sine, cosine, and tangent had been studied since before the Common Era.
The basic materials needed for ballistics were already in place.
All that remained was to fire hundreds, thousands of rounds and theorize to match the cannons currently in use.
The Grand Vizier clicked his tongue as he looked at the terrified scholars.
“They look terrified; many of them will likely die during the war. Will that be alright?”
“If Allah wills to take them, they shall die. If they survive and formulate the theory, they shall become Efendi and claim fame.”
Becoming an Efendi—the equivalent of a “sir”—was no easy task.
He who overcame every crisis and survived took everything. That was the Ottoman way.
Around the time cannonballs and gunpowder were being loaded into the roughly six hundred cannons deployed at the front, the gates of Elazig opened and a lone cavalryman emerged.
“I warn you! This is the territory of the Shah, whom Allah protects! Withdraw your army at once!”
Yusuf frowned at the thundering voice and gestured to a nearby Janissary.
“That Ismail fellow was the same way; I don’t know why their tongues grow so long before battle. It’s noisy. Tell them to fire.”
“I shall relay the command, Your Padishah.”
At Yusuf’s command, the cannon muzzles turned toward the cavalryman, and a thunderous roar rang out.
The cannonball fell beside him, and the cavalryman fled in haste. Yusuf spoke coldly.
“I shall give you three days. Bring that insolent wretch’s head before me.”
The roar of cannons echoed across Elazig, and the city, small as it was, fell in less than two days.
The full-scale war with the Safavids had begun.
∗ ∗ ∗
Blood flowed down the execution platform like tears.
Ordinarily, an execution was a festival.
Watching the condemned beg for their lives, call upon God, tremble uncontrollably, and shower curses upon the crowd before them.
Mocking the prisoner who refused to let go of life until the very end as a dull axe blade struck their neck repeatedly was the greatest amusement of the age.
But the subjects gathered in the square could not speak a word.
Unlike the usual executions that felt like someone else’s affair, the pile of over a hundred corpses before them inspired fear that they could be next.
Thud!
Caliph Nur Ali slammed the blood-dripping axe into the ground.
Addressing the subjects who cowered as if the axe were falling on their own necks, Nur Ali shouted out.
“Allah does not love aggressors, and in the Quran it is written that you should fight those who fight you, but do not commit aggression.”
“La ilaha illallah, Muhammadur Rasulullah.”
The agitators made the profession of faith that there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is His messenger.
It was the Shahada, a creed later to be inscribed on the flag of Saudi Arabia, and one of the Five Pillars of Islam; there was none who did not know it.
Nur Ali lifted the Quran with bloodstained hands.
“But look at those vile Ottomans! They brutally killed the Shah’s envoy who desired peace, and employed the spawn of Satan’s tongues to make us distrust one another.”
The fact that Ismail had waged wars of conquest more actively than anyone and had attacked Trabzon first was unimportant.
Because what incitement needed was not truth, but emotion.
“How can you forget that the fertile plains burned twice at the hands of the Sultan who blasphemes the Quran and acts a false prophet, and fall for his deceit!”
“They deserved to die!”
“Pigs! Knowing no shame!”
As the agitators spewed curses, an atmosphere of sympathy formed, and Nur Ali left his final words.
“Do not forget! If this place falls into the hands of the devilish Ottomans, it will soon become hell!”
Leaving behind a strange roar that seemed a mixture of screams and resolve, Nur Ali descended from the execution platform, his expression hardening.
He had suppressed the subjects’ fear of death with violence even as he executed the dangerous elements, but this was only a temporary measure.
When true death approached, they could waver at any moment.
“What of the man who came from Elazig?”
“He has been brought inside the fortress.”
Nur Ali nodded and entered the deepest room of the fortress with a heavy face. There, he saw a man gripping a sword and constantly looking around.
Clad in rags rather than armor and trembling constantly with anxiety, his fear was easy to imagine.
Nur Ali approached the man and covered the hand clutching the sword hilt with his own.
“There is nothing to fear. Unlike Elazig, this place is made of high walls and is safe.”
“R-really?”
“I swear by Allah, there is no enemy here who will harm your life. Tell me what you saw and heard there.”
At these words, the survivor finally calmed down and released the hilt, opening his mouth with a trembling voice.
“T-terrible roars were heard. The walls shook several times with tremendous thunder as if the heavens were screaming. Something passed by, and when I turned my head, my comrade was gone—only flesh remained!”
“…And then?”
“The high walls collapsed, and they plundered. I rode a nearby horse and fled here! They are demons! Demons! We must flee! This place will fall too, at any moment!”
The soldiers standing guard seized the rampaging survivor, and Nur Ali, watching coldly, drew the survivor’s sword.
The survivor, impaled on his own blade, vomited up gushing blood.
“Y-you swore….”
“I said there was no enemy who would harm you. I did not say there were no allies who would kill you. Remove him.”
Nur Ali picked up the blood-soaked sword and threw it aside, grinding his teeth.
“To think they would stoop to such filthy tricks.”
A soldier out of his right mind had safely escaped from a sacked city all the way here?
It could not have happened without someone’s aid.
Fear was contagious. Keeping him alive would only spread the fear that even high walls would be useless.
Watching the corpse dragged away and disappear, Nur Ali let out a heavy breath.
“I am tired.”
He seemed infected by fear himself.
Four days later, the Ottoman army that had followed the path the survivor took revealed itself outside Diyarbakir fortress.
∗ ∗ ∗
Elazig, which they had passed through, and Diyarbakir as well, lay under the influence of the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. Though rainy and humid in winter, they were hot and dry in summer.
Already having entered June, the flow of the Tigris west of Diyarbakir fortress had grown narrower than before.
Yusuf, who had ruthlessly trampled the plains that had been filled with farmers tending crops for the autumn harvest just last year, looked up at the fortress and cracked a joke.
“Grand Vizier, anyone would think I have already captured that fortress. What do you think?”
“It resembles the gate of Elazig, which you captured on your way here, so it is natural that you would think so.”
“Hm, to think there is another with such a refined hobby. The world is truly vast.”
Over a hundred poles with heads hanging from them rose high above the eastern gate.
It was half a joke, of course. He had planted heads atop the ruined walls of Elazig, but they had not been arranged like flower decorations for their looks.
They served to shift blame for the plunder onto those whose heads hung there, and as a warning that resistance meant death like theirs.
“I do wonder why they hung them. Grand Vizier, do you think we ought to send a parley envoy?”
“It is proper procedure, so would it not be better to do so?”
“Procedure.”
He was not one to fuss over procedure, and judging by the atmosphere coming from the fortress, it would hardly be strange if the envoy’s head came flying back by catapult.
Yusuf, who would normally have fired the cannons first, asked the Janissaries who were watching him with eager eyes.
“Who will go?”
“Leave it to me, Your Padishah!”
“To follow the Padishah’s command and pass into Allah’s embrace holds no fear for me!”
Yusuf raised his hand toward the Janissaries who volunteered.
The reason they volunteered for a suicide mission was not loyalty.
An infantry Janissary who wished to become a Kapikulu Sipahi of the royal cavalry, and among them a Silahtar who guarded the Sultan, had to carry out a suicide mission and survive.
Even after transferring, they would be treated as traitors by both the Janissaries and the Kapikulu Sipahi, but because great wealth and fame could be won, many volunteered like this.
Yusuf pointed to the one who had spoken first.
“You go and see.”
“I obey your command!”
The Janissary saluted with impeccable discipline, mounted a horse bearing a white flag, and arrived before the gates of Diyarbakir. The massive gate opened.
After a short while, the city gate opened again, and the horse that had lost its rider came galloping back in a panic.
“Tsk. In the end, he came back dead.”
The Janissary hairstyle, much like a queue, left only a single tuft at the crown of the head—a handle left so that, when they died in battle, it could be grasped and carried.
With the hair tied to the horse’s flank, only the head had returned. The Janissary who retrieved it with a hardened expression found a slip of paper held in its mouth.
When the soldiers looked at the paper with strange expressions, Yusuf gestured.
“Bring it here. What does it say that you are all staring at it like that?”
Yusuf, too, wore a strange expression when he saw the paper they brought. There was not a single letter written on it.
Only a face.
Yusuf called Hassan, who had been shoved by the ministers all the way into a corner.
“Hassan, you’ve made it big. If you walk around Safavid with your bare face, you look liable to get stabbed.”
Hassan, receiving the portrait of his own face, wore a sour expression, and Yusuf patted him on the shoulder before turning his head back toward the city gate.
Judging from the fact that they had sent Hassan’s portrait back, those dead men seemed to have intended to side with the Ottomans.
He did not pity them. It was their own fault for failing to properly hide their fangs.
Only.
“This makes me angry. How dare they kill the envoy I sent? Prepare for battle. I shall make them pay the blood price.”
The ultimate hypocrite, who was fine with killing people himself but could not tolerate others doing it, was enraged.
Soon, the drums announcing battle began to sound.
∗ ∗ ∗
The drumbeats that had shaken the plain like heartbeats soon turned into the shouts of the battlefield.
Boom!
The cannons lined up along the long city wall belched acrid smoke with thunderous blasts.
Hundreds of cast-iron lumps flew through the sky and came crashing down inside Diyarbakir.
The sight of black cannonballs falling from the sky like rain felt unreal, and the subjects stared up blankly at the scene.
Then calamity unfolded.
Rumble! Thud!
—G-get away!
Buildings struck by the heavy cannonballs were punched through and collapsed, while those hit as they fled screamed as they clutched their crushed bodies.
The terrified crowd trampled over people waving their hands and begging to be saved from beneath collapsed buildings, and a woman who had lost her husband huddled in a corner clutching her child, calling for Allah.
The chaos atop the wall was no less than that within the city.
“Aaaaargh!”
“The catapults! Fire the catapults! Why are you standing there like idiots, you useless bastards!”
“Do not run! Anyone who runs dies by this sword first!”
Soldiers who fell from atop the wall, which shook as though struck by an earthquake from the cannonballs, tumbled down the slope with their limbs snapping.
A soldier whose eye had been struck by fragments of the wall shattered by a cannonball clutched at it and screamed.
All the commanders could do was order the catapults to fire at the enemies spewing acrid smoke and threaten the frightened soldiers.
The Ottoman army firing cannonballs from below the wall was in just as much chaos.
The artillerymen shoved powder and shot into the muzzles to reload, then adjusted the angle of the barrels while thinking over the trajectory of the shot just fired.
“So, you ink-stinking damned bastard! How much higher do I need to raise it?!”
“W-wait a moment! Do you think this is something that can be calculated instantly?! The wind seems rather strong, so I must reconsider the parabolic arc!”
“What damned cannonball flies in a parabola?! It flies straight and then drops, I’m telling you!”
“Are your eyes crooked?! It flies in a parabola! The Padishah himself said so!”
The thunderous blasts left their ears ringing, and the noxious smoke made rough coughs burst out every time they spoke, but the scholar and the artilleryman raised their voices and fought.
It was an age when, aside from a few with keen powers of observation, people thought cannonballs flew in a straight line and then fell vertically to the ground, and this was an argument that had been going on since Elazig.
As the two bickered, a black shadow dropped before their eyes.
Rumble!
—C-catapult! Shields! Raise your shields!
Realizing that the rock that had fallen in front of him had been launched from a catapult, the scholar shouted furiously.
“Why aren’t you firing already?! Raise it roughly and shoot! Just shoot!”
It was close to a farce, but for the scholar whose mind had gone blank at the realization that he had nearly died, it was only a natural reaction.
After that, as cannonballs continued to fly in one after another, the soldiers of Diyarbakir gritted their teeth and carried stones.
Because of the difference in range, most of the stones fired by the catapults could not reach the enemy, but this was all they could do for the moment.
The battle continued until the hands carrying stones were left in tatters, and the smoke rising from the plain covered the walls atop the hill.
The accident happened around then.
Boom!
—The cannon exploded! The cannon exploded! Cease fire!
A cannon being fired failed to withstand the heat and exploded, and the soldiers nearby were blown apart.
The Janissary Agha, commander-in-chief of the Janissaries, spoke to Yusuf with a hardened face.
“O Padishah. It seems the cannons have overheated.”
“Good. Pull back the cannons that have fired.”
At Yusuf’s command, the war wagons carrying the red-hot cannons withdrew all at once, and cheers erupted from the walls of Diyarbakir.
“Hahahaha! The devil’s weapons are retreating!”
“We held out!”
The shock dealt by the repeated bombardment had been so great that they rejoiced merely at the fact that the enemy’s weapons were withdrawing.
Watching the scene, Nur Ali bit his lip hard.
‘They are not broken. They have been pulled back to cool. Once they cool overnight, they will certainly return.’
Unlike during the day, the temperature would drop sharply at night, so it was obvious they would return soon, but Nur Ali was inwardly relieved that they had at least overcome one crisis.
If they hurried to repair the damaged wall, they would be able to hold out for more than a fortnight.
∗ ∗ ∗
“That is the sort of foolish thought they must be having.”
Cheers came from atop the wall, and the cannons radiating intense heat passed by him as they withdrew to the rear.
Taking that sight in, Yusuf smiled faintly.
“O Padishah. Preparations are complete.”
“Show them that the nightmare is not over.”
At Yusuf’s command, the wagons that had been mixed in with the supplies split through the troops and moved to the front.
They were the five hundred or so cannons that had been kept back.
At the sight of the new cannons lined up along the long city wall, the resounding cheers vanished as if washed away, and Yusuf slung the gun he was holding over his shoulder.
“Continue the bombardment.”
The Ottoman Empire.
It was a nation more sincere about firepower than any other.