1231, North of Bukhara
The Elephants Arrive.
After their victory at Bukhara the Mongols marched east and met the army of the Maharaja at a bridge to the northeast of that city. There they threw back many costly assaults by poorly trained Rajput armies desperate to redeem their recent losses, but declined to attempt to force a crossing. Instead they marched further north, towards Samarqand and the more weakly held bridge there.
Scouting Samarqand and the bridge to it's west they found armies overwhelmingly staffed with immense numbers of archers. They could certainly have crossed this bridge, despite the ongoing attacks from Rajput mercenaries and militia soldiers, but then they would have been facing another potentially costly siege against a well entrenched foe and a sea of archers. For two years the Horde held together there in the central plain, turning back every attack with dramatic losses, but gradually being whittled away.
In the third year they marched back south towards Bukhara, but this time the Maharaja was ready for them. He had gathered a massive army of elephants, javelineers and archers, and placed them under a fresh general who was desperate to prove himself and save the city. Surely never before had so many elephants been seen in one place outside of India itself, and this was no wild herd. These were well trained and highly motivated war beasts under the direction of stalwart veterans of the wars against the Muslims. Unflinchingly they advanced directly into the heart of the Mongol formation, facing the combined might of over five thousand of the enemy.
Tribuvanpal calmly drew up his forces in a long line, stretching across the gently sloping desert sands. He detailed several companies of javelineers to hold his left flank against an advancing Mongol army there, and sounded a general advance to meet the army of Jebe which lay before him. Normal Indian tactics called for the elephants to hold back and fire their missiles until the opponent was forced to commit himself fully against the Indian infantry, but on this day there would
be no infantry.
On the left the javelineers struck the first blow, charging downhill against a disorganized foe who had been riding hard in the hopes of turning the Rajput flank. The carnage among the lead heavy lancers was very great.
In the center it was much the same, as Jebe sent his heavy lancers into battle against the massed elephant assault. Whatever panic the Mongols might have felt in their first battle against the elephants of the Maharaja at that bridge so many years ago they had now learned to control. The hated foe fought with great courage, never shrinking from the great gray bulk of the war beasts.
Tribuvanpal attempted to keep order in his lines by bringing multiple elephant companies to bear against each forward element of Jebe's command while sending the more experienced companies deeper into the enemy formation to disrupt it. This met with great success against the Mongol cavalry as company after company of heavy lancers was felled to a man, but losses inevitably began to mount among the more isolated elephants at the front. Still they held their discipline and slaughtered many men for each that fell.
On the left the main body of the Mongol reinforcements had been surrounded by elephants who were rapidly whittling away the brutal heavy lancers. None of these men would make it to the main engagement to disrupt the battle there, which preserved morale and prevented any massed attack against Tribuvanpal's flank.
As the attack against Jebe's force continued the first small group of enemy reinforcements arrived to his rear and began to shower arrows down against any elephants not heavily engaged in melee with the Mongols. There was no Rajput reserve remaining to commit against them, so their stings and our losses must be borne. The fourth and final reinforcing army was still organizing in the distance, trying to determine if they should aid Jebe first or his other reinforcements.
Back on the left the heavy lancers had been all but eliminated, and the elephants began to roll up the Mongol flank towards their massed infantry. If nothing else the loss of so many mighty horse warriors and their highly trained mounts would make this day a strategic victory. Tribuvanpal's army was starting to tire from the continuous fighting, but there could be no retreat yet.
The first company of elephants to reach the Mongol infantry on the left tore gaping holes in their formations, and butchered many hundreds of them while the Mongol Khan and his guardsmen fought desperately to hold back many more eager elephants. Though the Rajput men were growing weary they still inflicted great losses on the enemy.
Alas, at the central engagement the tide was starting to turn. The first elements of the fourth Mongol army (Seen to the left in the following screenshot) had arrived and added their arrows to the already high volume of fire directed at the Indian army. Two companies of elephants, including those of the secondary commander, Vakpati Jhala, went mad with fear and ran amok. Many of the rest were at half strength and struggling to continue fighting.
To the left the javelineers had completed their charge through the entire Mongol infantry formation, and hurled the last of their missiles against the enemy's heavy horse archers. Truly the sands ran red with the blood of the enemy on this day! Still, it was not enough.
The center of the Rajput line began to collapse under the weight of the fresh men of the fourth wave of Mongols. Vakpati Jhala and his guardsmen were all killed, and almost all of the elephants at the center were in flight or running amok. There was little for Tribuvanpal to do but sound the withdrawal and attempt to salvage what he could. Obviously the enemy had suffered horrific losses even in victory, and though they might be in possession of the field at the end of the day the price they paid was far higher than the worth of this patch of desert.
Retreating back into the deep sands Tribuvanpal paused to review the battlefield one last time. Around every elephant's corpse could be seen the scattered remains of a dozen or more dead Mongols. The advance of Ogodei's fresh force had swept the Rajput resistance aside, but the terrible cost and the fact that Tribuvanpal's own reinforcements were many times nearer than the enemy's would turn this tactical defeat into a mighty strategic victory.
Following this 'defeat' the garrison commander of Bukhara, anxious to avert another siege, departed the city and assailed the Mongols in the field with his men. Though the numbers were almost equal and the Mongols had just fought a terrible battle against Tribuvanpal which killed most of their heavy lancers they had no trouble sweeping the militia soldiers and crudely armed spearmen aside.
Siyaka Suryavanshi's men met a vengeful enemy, and were crushed as the Mongols returned the favor for their staggering losses in the previous battle. The Maharaja, angry at Siyaka's failure, called upon all the cavalry mercenaries in the Bukhara region to ride out and inflict more losses on the Mongols to emphasize the futility of their making a second attempt against the city.
Captain Lakshmanadeva made a good attempt and did inflict substantial losses on the soldiers remaining under Jebe, but he then found himself unable to withdraw or bring down the enemy general in battle, and took many losses of his own. The Maharaja was heard to remark that at least a dead mercenary had already taken his last coin.
After these battles the Maharaja drew on the depth of his forces in the region and fully reinforced Bukhara with hundreds of archers and several more companies of heavy infantry. The Mongols scouted the city closely... and marched away east, over the unheld bridge near Samarqand and all the way south to the bridge north of Balkh, where they would fall completely into the final trap of Maharaja Arjunavar the Cunning.
Re: AAR Challenge Storage Thread
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks