What was the worst siege ever? Not in terms of death toll, but ineptitude on the part of the sieging army?
Has there ever been a siege where the defenders actually had a perfectly good tunnel all along so didn't really give a shit, so the attackers just sat there pointlessly for months saying "they'll crack soon!"?
The battles of Yongqiu during the An Lushan Rebellion. It's quite cartoony.
>Rebels arrive at Yongqiu.
>Zhang Xun breaks out with just 1000 men allegedly and pushes the rebels back as they were setting up camp.
>Rebels retreat a few miles, then besiege the town again.
>Zhang Xun, for a period of a few nights, played the battle drum signal of a charge, to make the rebels think that he is charging out of the city, but instead did nothing, just played the drums.
>Rebels get used to his ruse that they ignored it.
>Sometime later the drums were played and an attack happened, this time for real. Rebel besiegers caught unprepared and their siege lines were attacked and burned. He then randomised feints and real attacks for at least a month to the detriment of the rebels.
>A famous episode of the siege was when Zhang Xun ordered for dummies dressed in black and placed on ladders and ropes to be made.
>At night, he hung these on the walls and men would lower the dummies to create the illusion of men descending for a counter-raid on rebel siege lines.
>Panicking, rebel archers and crossbows fire at these men.
>After some time, and after repeat performances of this trick, they realize it was just dummies and the rebel general orders them to halt shooting at shit at night.
>The next night, figures in black armor yet again descended from Yongqiu's walls. This time, real T'ang Soldiers.
>counterraid killed 10,000 allegedly.
>Rebels pissed the fuck off but at the same time exhausted.
>At the last month of the 4 month siege, Zhang Xun comes out, makes up some story about how they are demoralized after hearing of the fall of Chang'an (T'ang Capital), and says if they rebels retreat 30 miles from the city, the T'ang Troops will leave Yongqiu.
>Rebels: cool.jpg.
>As most of the rebel army retreated, the T'ang troops ransacked the rearguard which was busy packing up supplies. Stole most of their food, lumber, and arrows.
>Rebels stomped off and retreated for real.
In term of numbers, this one is pretty crazy
Chinese incompetence truly knows no boundaries
>A bunch of modern cunts with modern weapons versus a medieval army.
>Incompetence.
French commander's name literally means "dominated", well not this time I guess...
Couldn't they just walk over the wall?
They're incompetent not to have developed modern weapons despite having an edge on the West every century prior.
There are violent men with rocks on the other side in case you didn't notice.
Constantinople/the sack of Rome
>Siege of Constantinople
>Besiegers incompetent.
No.
Also the Sack of Rome is brought about by the stupidity of the defending party.
yeah but only four; they're outnumbered
>French-Qing War
>The only time a western power is defeated by Qing monkeys.
>Using this example.
Ayyy.
At leas the Russian get rused instead of being humiliated on the field.
>In 1643, when civil war broke out in England, she assumed control of Corfe Castle when John Bankes had been ordered by the king to travel to York. She sent her sons away for safety and remained behind with her daughters, servants, and a force of five men. In May 1643, a force of Parliamentarians, comprising between 200 and 300 men under the command of Sir Walter Erle[1] attacked the castle but never succeeded in capturing it.
>The only time a western power is defeated by Qing monkeys.
Wtf have you smoken?
Chinks got BTFO as always and France took Vietnam from them
M8, Vietnam was literally conquered by France in that war. Although French forces suffered two defeats I think versus Qing armies.
en.wikipedia.org
incompetent my ass
do you people even study History?
>this qualifies as a victory to chinks
>Government fall
>Makes French colonialism unpopular for a decade
>As a result of a fight against some yellow rice farmer using ancient muskets.
>French
>Competent.
>samefagging
Cancer.
>if your enemy beats you but has minor internal political disputes afterward, you win
How did they fuck up so badly painting this?
Cartagena de Indias
HYW art style senpai
By copying paintings that were copying paintings. You see the same stuff today with people who just copy anime that just copies anime, or in any other insular style where people can get by without ever having to draw from life.
I don't remember there being any ladders in HOMM 1
They were copies of what? Do you have any examples?
This is spectacular.... Are there any more like this?
Absolute madman.
Hahaha holy shit
Fuck up? It's just an easy way to draw a siege without forcing the point of view to be too distant. Think those proportions as the medieval equivalent of chibi shit.
>the medieval equivalent of chibi shit.
I fucking love Veeky Forums's analogies. I wish my teachers spoke like this
so were siege ladders retarded?
it sounds fucking stupid
did it work?
As a Chinese person, the lesson is clear: never entrust any kind of military operation to the Cantonese. They have no sense of national pride.
>sack of Rome
Which one?
Zhang is some Sun Tzu tier motherfucker for real
Zhang absolute madman
In numbers yes. Literally about climbing faster than they can kill you.
but the entire wall is manned. the easiest way to kill someone must be someone with his hands occupied, surrounded 2 to 1 by enemies, at the top of a ladder when he can be pushed or bludgeoned easily because he can't move
is this the lindybeige version of castle siege?
>first i bang the drum, then your mum
The entire wall was very often not manned.
Btw, General Zhang Xun is a literal madman. Right after the Siege of Yongqiu, the main rebel army arrived in the province. Zhang Xun then the brutal defense of Suiyang to delay this rebel army, and that story has been repeated much in Veeky Forums already.
You forgot to mention the part where they ran out of arrows, so the dummies were used as a way to resupply as well.
I would love a book of all the best of history in greentext.
Lel ripping off tactics from Alexander
Chinese cannot into innovation for their lives
capped. excellent post user
>They're incompetent not to have developed modern weapons despite having an edge on the West every century prior.
The West over took China in firearm and artillery design in the 1420s starting with the advances made during the Hussite wars. Over the rest of the 15th century the west pulled even more ahead.
Read up on the history of the Folangji, hongyipo, and the use of the arquebus by Japanese pirates raiding China for good examples.
en.wikipedia.org
>biggest and most modern army of the era around 120k men
>cannot take a tiny fort defended by 1000men
>20,000-30,000 civilians were eaten
fug
>Yin Ziqi had besieged the city for a long time. The food in the city had run out. The dwellers traded their children to eat and cooked bodies of the dead. Fears were spread and worse situations were expected. At this time, Zhang Xun took his concubine out and killed her in front of his soldiers in order to feed them. He said, "You have been working hard at protecting this city for the country wholeheartedly. Your loyalty is uncompromised despite the long-lasting hunger. Since I can't cut out my own flesh to feed you, how can I keep this woman and just ignore the dangerous situation?" All the soldiers cried, and they did not want to eat. Zhang Xun ordered them to eat the flesh. Afterwards, they caught the women in the city. After the women were run out, they turned to old and young males. 20,000 to 30,000 people were eaten. People always remained loyal.
Madman is too nice a word
This guy makes the Arkham Asylum look like amateurs
it's a siege in a way
They had pointy sticks, they could have just sticked them in the eyes of rock men.
Surprised this wasn't here
When the Maltese ran out of cannonballs they beheaded their Turkish prisoners and used their heads instead
...
The second Arab siege (actually the first one btw) of Constantinople is exactly that OP
>the siege itself starts when Arab ships arrive in the Bosphorus
>rearguard of the navy is sailing past the city unopposed when the wind changes
>the wind starts slowly pushing the Arabs towards the walls of Constantinople where Greek fire awaited them
>according to Arab sources, Leo managed to trick the general into burning his own food stores to imply that the Arabs were going to do a full frontal attack and so scare the Romans into surrender (The Arabs thought Leo was on their side)
>foraging was hard due to the Bulgars. If you strayed too far into the night, you would be killed by swift horse archers
>with little to no supplies, a ravaged countryside and raids by the Bulgars supplies were low and winter was fast approaching
>this particular winter happened to be the harshest one in a century, snow covered the ground for over three months
>the Arab soldiers started eating their horses, camels, other livestock, bark, leaves and roots of trees
>the Arabs cleared the snow off of the fields and started eating grass
>reports also claim that the Arabs resorted to cannibalism and eating their own excrement
>hygiene also deteriorated meaning and diseases ran rampant all across the camps
>sultan sends new grain supplies and a fresh army to aid in the siege
>the supply ships arrive hugging the asian coast, as far from the greek fire as possible
>the supply ships were mainly from Egypt, as egypt had the most grain, so they were manned by Egyptian christians
>the egpyptian christians then proceeded to defect to the Byzantine side and proceeded to reveal all of the Arab movements to the Byzantines
>Leo launched a naval counter attack
>the Arab ships were essentially without crews since the egyptians left, and all the remaining marines were just helplessly slaughtered or burned alive
>oh and the army the sultan sent? Was completely destroyed in Anatolia.
cont
>The besieging army now had no chance of supplies or fresh troops
>pestilence and famine was rampant, morale was low
>and then the Bulgars attacked full force and killed 22 000 men according to Roman sources
>Arabs start to retreat
>the army is given free access through Anatolia if the Arabs leave
>but wait! there's more!
>the retreating navy was caught in a storm and they lost several ships
>and then proceeded to sail near Santoniri where volcano ashes burned several other ships
>according to sources, only five ships returned
>Arab sources claim 150 000 soldiers died, which is inflated, but is indicative of the severity of the loss
The Arab army was starving and eating their own shit, while the Byzantines maintained a relatively life of luxury in the city, as they could be resupplied from the sea.
That because we have found out nothing to be proud of long time ago
Seems kebab is easier to remove then previously thought.
>The second Arab siege (actually the first one btw)
?
Could be passive , like " his ennemies were dominated "
Modern historians largely agree that en.wikipedia.org
What actually happened was that the Arabs landed an army in Anatolia. The Byzantine navy managed to defeat the Arab navy, leaving the Arab army with no support and all the Theme armies attacked the Arab army at the same time and it was destroyed.
Arabs are not kebab
>people always remained loyal
Pretty spooky
>ctrl+F "candia"
>no results
niggers you what? it took the ottomans 21 years to take one venetian city
yeah well ok but that's such a low hanging fruit it's not even fun. now the siege of rhodes is where it's at.
Imagine growing up in a city under siege
Europe
>every power wants guns
>every power wants to fight another power
>in order to win, you need to have the most and best guns
China
>everyone around you is horse nomads or islanders
>military conquests are always against iron age tribes
>bows and melee weapons suffice
Only a pseud would call other societies "incompetent" because they don't share every aspect of his society.
The siege of Antioch and Jerusalem.
In both sieges the crusaders didn't have any rations and were forced to eat woods, leather, horses, and so on.
it come from dominus in latin which mean Lord-God.
It was for you
>The only time a western power is defeated by Qing monkeys.
they managed to pull victory out of their asses both times though. the siege of antioch especially, how that muslim army from mosul failed to crush the crusaders is ridiculous.
seriously though the whole first crusade is probably the greatest, most improbably hail mary play of all time
The siege of Calais.
In the early Hundred Years War, the English decided to take Calais as a foothold into France. They tried to sit it out for a while before getting frustrated because there was nothing stopping the French from supplying the city by sea. The French, however, couldn't attack the English because the land was really awful and marshy.
After months of unproductive sieging, the English fortify some sandbars to stop the supply and attempt an assault. However, the awful marshy terrain works against them as well and they're forced to try to scale the walls using ladders standing on boats around the walls.
Imagine trying to climb up and fight someone while standing on a swivel chair. It doesn't work out.
Mind you, the English do take the city after almost a year of terrible siegemanship,and then it becomes a huge drain because they have to supply it and defend it constantly as a military outpost.
Indeed
It is a shame there is no epic poem about the first crusade.
You know when you massacre a city so bad even your own historians don't cover up your crimes, you could forget about epic poems.
1148 Siege of Damascus
>history has a tech tree just like my civilization games
sick of this meme tbqh
Iraq 1990-2003