Chapter 1359: Occupying Cairo
The pursuit of the Egyptian legion's defeated troops continued until the evening, and the knights who chased them to the city of Cairo returned with the spoils along the way. They were very satisfied with the wealth seized in this battle. Some lucky guys even found dozens or even hundreds of gold coins from the enemy's corpses.
Although they saw the outlines of the pyramids and Cairo City and defeated the enemy, the Expeditionary Force did not take advantage of the situation to attack Cairo, but instead swept the battlefield outside the city, putting psychological pressure on the enemy.
"We have more than 30 casualties in Sicily." After counting his casualties, the Spanish infantry major reported to Sun Chuanting.
"The loss here is more than 50 people, including the knights who were killed by the enemy when they defeated the defeated soldiers." said Ludovich of the Pope.
Sicily and the Pope have minimal pressure and minimal losses.
"What is the casualties in Venice?" Sun Chuanting asked about the situation of the Venetian phalanx that was assaulted by the Mamluk cavalry.
"We in Venice have suffered more than 400 casualties and lost three artillery pieces. One of the gunners of one of them have loaded too much gunpowder in a hurry, causing the explosion." The Venice commander Conner's face was not very good-looking.
More than 400 soldiers were killed in battle, and the population of Venice was not large, but the Mamluk cavalry was even more popular, and the Mamluk cavalry was even more broken. They thought that the Mamluk cavalry would attack the hollow phalanx in the middle, but they never thought that the Mamluk cavalry would be deployed to attack the right wing of the expeditionary force.
"The losses are not big. The troops are resting and recuperating. We will set out early tomorrow morning to occupy Cairo. If the enemy wants to hold on to Cairo, we may experience a tough battle. But this is not a problem. Their morale is low, and Cairo City is not as strong as a bastion." Sun Chuanting calculated everyone's losses, and their losses were less than expected.
Originally, in Sun Chuanting's vision, he had to pay one-tenth of his troops to take Cairo, but it seemed that he would win a great victory without having to pay such a large amount of casualties. The legendary ferocious Mamluk cavalry did not seem to have a turnaround in the face of modern infantry, and even the Venetian infantry phalanx could not break through.
When the Knights of the Hospital came back, Costella and Hannah had blood stains on their bodies. I don’t know if they were injured in the battle or were stained with the enemy’s blood.
Hannah's saddle was hanging the trophy she collected. For the Knights of the Hospital, they did not need to occupy the land of the Nile River, but to obtain the gold and silver needed for the Knights of the Hospital and to weaken the Ottoman Empire's power in the Mediterranean.
"These property..." Castella asked Sun Chuanting, who was the commander-in-chief, and he also wanted to see what Sun Chuanting meant.
After all, this time the Knights of the Hospital gained a spoil by chasing the defeated enemies without any effort.
"The spoils you have grabbed belong to you," said Sun Chuanting.
The Fourth Fleet was trying to establish good relations with Malta as an important stronghold in the Mediterranean, so there was no need to care about this spoil with them.
The next day, the Egyptian expeditionary force drove to Cairo.
The defeated Mamluk cavalry and Egyptian Pasha escaped from the capital overnight with a large amount of gold, silver and treasures. Some carriages transporting gold, silver and treasures were captured by the expeditionary army before the camels had time to leave. These treasures were divided up as collective spoils.
When the Sicilians, Greek mercenaries, knights and believers of the Pope were all quarreled over the share they occupied.
"Although Cairo is already an unguarded city, we cannot guarantee whether the Mamluk cavalry and the Ottoman army will counterattack. We will roughly evaluate the value of the property according to the previous agreement and divide it into similar parts. If everyone feels unfair to their distribution, then the Mamluk cavalry will make a comeback, and the fire inside us will lead to the failure of our expedition!"
As the commander-in-chief of the Expeditionary Army, Sun Chuanting spoke out in time to mediate the dispute.
Uneven distribution of spoils is a serious problem that leads to failure in action!
With Sun Chuanting's mediation, everyone reluctantly agreed to the distribution of gold and silver. Among them, Sun Chuanting and the others had the big end because they made the most efforts in the Battle of the Pyramids and were the initiators of the Anti-Ottoman Empire Alliance. Otherwise, no one would have been willing to give up the dispute over the division of spoils because of Sun Chuanting's words.
The Venetians won the second most trophy, who lost the most in the battle and sent the most troops at the same time.
However, the Venetians did not have much more trophy than the Popes, Sicily, Britain and Malta. The biggest trophy for the Venetians was the occupation of Egypt and several important strongholds in the city of Alexandria to serve as their colonies in North Africa.
Sun Chuanting and others did not mind the big deal, nor were they afraid of upsetting the situation in the Mediterranean. Anyway, the Jiuzhou Army had no personal interests in the Mediterranean, so it was not a strategy to balance the Mediterraneans with the Ottoman Empire.
Anyway, Sun Chuanting was not very worried about Venice. After all, Venice is a small country with a core population of only more than 100,000 people, and is destined to be unable to become strong.
The large expeditionary army stationed outside Cairo City. A small team occupied the city and divided Cairo City into its respective jurisdictions to divide the Cake of Cairo City.
There were also many officials sent by the Ottoman Empire to Egypt, local powerful people and wealthy Arab merchants did not escape from Luocheng, and the expeditionary forces could collect a large amount of wealth from these people.
Compared with the parasite pirates who make a living by looting, the local powerful people who have been squeezing from the poor Nile farmers for hundreds of years are even richer.
"You can loot, but you cannot set fire to the areas you occupy. We, Venice, will restore order in Cairo after you leave." The Venetians said to their allies, fearing that their allies would set half of Cairo's city on fire.
"If the Ottoman Empire and the Mamluk cavalry make a comeback after we leave, are you Venice confident that you can defend here?" asked Sun Chuanting.
The expeditionary force divided the city of Cairo and returned with a full load, and Egypt was left with more than 6,000 infantry and 10,000 sailors in Venice, and they might face a counterattack from the enemy.
"We have a solution to our Venice..." said Venice's commander Connor.
Sun Chuanting narrowed his eyes slightly. This group of Venetian merchants was really powerful. In addition, the colony now has only a few hundred thousand people. Egypt, which dared to eat millions of people, was not afraid of the Ottoman Empire's counterattack.
Chapter completed!