novelSusiti Chapter 154 Surprise Attack on Mecca
Chapter 154 Surprise Attack on Mecca
Chapter 154 Surprise Attack on Mecca (Part 3)
Reinald stared at him for a few seconds, then suddenly burst into unrestrained laughter.
He patted Zahir on the shoulder forcefully: "Good! Very good! I hate hypocrites, and I hate naive fools even more. At least you're a real scoundrel. I prefer someone like you to those holy knights who cross themselves while stealing from their comrades' pockets."
Zahir smirked. "Likewise, Duke. You're an openly madman too. Working with you is at least pleasant."
Five galleys quietly sailed away from the abandoned fishing village in the darkest hour before dawn the next day.
Zahir personally commanded the flagship, with Reinard beside him—he called the flagship "Revenge".
"That's so straightforward, Duke," Zahir remarked as he steered the ship.
According to the plan, the two fastest ships will remain near the exit of the Gulf of Aqaba, tasked with blockading the port, harassing and intercepting any small boats attempting to send messages north, creating the illusion of large-scale pirate activity at the northern end of the Red Sea, and containing any small reinforcements that may be heading north from Egypt.
Meanwhile, Reinald and Zahir personally led the other three ships, taking advantage of Zahir's profound understanding of the Red Sea monsoon and ocean currents to sail south with the wind.
Their first targets were two important ports and anchorages on the western shore of the Red Sea—Tour and Qusayr—which were key points of contact between Egypt and the Hejaz by sea, and were home to a large number of coastal trading ships, but were relatively poorly defended.
Reynard quickly launched attacks on these ports. His tactics were simple: to use the mobility of galleys to suddenly rush into the ports or anchorages at dawn or dusk when visibility was low.
First came a barrage of Greek fire pots, a gift from Lyon, which ignited the docks and ships, creating the greatest chaos.
Then came the boarding action, where well-trained Italian mercenaries and Transjordanian infantry knights faced off against panicked sailors, merchants, and a small number of guards, resulting in a complete massacre.
The mercenaries then scattered to loot the "unclaimed" goods. Anything they couldn't take with them, such as spices, cloth, and grain, they poured fish oil on and burned.
The captured Muslim sailors and merchants were brought before Reinald by the soldiers.
Reinald drew his sword, pointed it at their necks, and asked them one by one, "Are you willing to turn away from your prophets and convert to Christ?"
The prisoners who hesitated even slightly were immediately executed, and their bodies were thrown into the sea.
The other prisoners, terrified by what they saw, collapsed to the ground, kowtowing to Reinard in confession, praising God's grace, and expressing their willingness to convert to Christ.
Reinald coldly curled his lip: "Pretending to convert, huh? Then you deserve to die even more!"
Before he finished speaking, the knights behind him quickly stepped forward and executed the prisoners who had verbally agreed to convert.
Only a very small number of Arab navigators who were worth ransom or who were kept by Zahir and were very familiar with the Red Sea routes were handcuffed and stuffed into the hold.
Within just two weeks, war broke out on the western shore of the Red Sea, and terrifying rumors spread southward faster than ships could sail.
"The Frankish devil conjured a ship from the desert!"
"They kill anyone they see, without even giving them a chance to beg for mercy!"
"They're going to fight their way all the way to Mecca!"
Meanwhile, in the cramped captain's cabin of the "Revenge," Reinald and Zahir sat facing each other, drinking with cured meat and hard bread, while outside the cabin came the sounds of waves and the soldiers' snores.
“You know, Zachary,” Reynald said, plunging a piece of meat into his dagger, “back in Aleppo, they showed me a book with a picture of that black stone house in Mecca. The emir who was guarding me proudly declared that it was the center of the world, the only dwelling place of God on earth.”
"He mocked me, saying I wouldn't even have the right to see it from afar in my entire life." He chewed hard, his eyes burning with hatred. "I swore then and there that one day, I would not only see it, but I would also carve everything I had suffered onto that black stone—with blood, with fire, with the blood of Muslims, with their holy land as kindling!"
Zahir took a swig of his drink and said nonchalantly, "The center of the world? I've robbed plenty of 'centers of the world'—the lighthouse of Alexandria, the Golden Horn of Constantinople, the Doge's Palace in Venice—weren't they all touted as magnificent? After looting and burning, they were all the same. Whether something is the center or not depends on who has the strongest fist and the fastest knife."
Reinald laughed again, this time with genuine joy.
He found that talking to this Saracen pirate, who had no faith and only cared about reality, was a thousand times easier than talking to those court nobles who talked about God but had ulterior motives.
They are very similar, both despising rules and both advocating for primal power and revenge.
A few days later, the panic that Reynald had caused on the western shore of the Red Sea spread like a plague throughout the Hejaz region.
When Reynald's three ships appeared off the coast of Jeddah, the main gateway to Mecca was in a state of panic.
The defenders attempted to organize a resistance, but lacking large warships, the few small patrol boats that hurriedly sailed out of the harbor were quickly turned into floating torches under Zahir's professional and experienced helmsmanship and precise Greek fire and crossbow fire.
Instead of forcibly capturing the relatively well-defended port of Jeddah, on Zahir's advice, they bypassed Jeddah and continued south along the coast, searching for and attacking pilgrim convoys and supply ships traveling from Jeddah to Mecca.
They intercepted a pilgrim fleet consisting of five large ships.
The ship was packed with Muslim men, women, and children who had come from North Africa, Egypt, and even Andalusia to make their pilgrimage.
With little resistance, after a one-sided massacre, Reynald did something that terrified all the surviving sailors.
He ordered his soldiers to hoist the body of a slain religious elder high onto the mast, and had a prisoner who understood Arabic shout towards the wreckage floating in the sea and the distant shore: "Tell the gravediggers of Mecca! Tell the parasites of Medina! Reinald of Shathyon has come! To collect the blood debt owed by Saladin! If you do not dig up Muhammad's bones and hand them to me, I will burn your holy city into a second Sodom!"
The blasphemous declaration, carried by the sea breeze and the escape planks, spread inland with terrifying speed.
Mecca and Medina trembled.
Although neither city was directly on the coast, the threat of the holy site being defiled and the fear of the core of faith being pointed at by barbarians quickly seeped into the inland, plunging the entire Arabian Peninsula into unprecedented panic.
The urgent messenger rushed north, pleading for help from Prince Adil in Cairo and Saladin in Iraq.
However, Adil's main Egyptian navy had not yet recovered from the heavy damage suffered in Beirut, and Reinald's operation was a complete surprise attack. The small number of warships that had been hastily assembled needed time to sail south from Suez.
Meanwhile, their Sultan Saladin was deeply embroiled in the political and military quagmire between himself and the Zengid dynasty in northern Syria and Iraq, and was unable to intervene effectively.
The Muslim holy land is in imminent danger.