The first episode in the series “Intelligence Operations That Changed the History of the World”.. and King “Seqenenre Tao”.. he takes over the rule of his country with part of its north occupied, because the enemy came in with a weapon no human had ever known.
The first tank in history.
The first armoured vehicle, it tore apart the limbs of infantry soldiers, terrified the horses, and scattered the ranks, so the Egyptian army was defeated and withdrew before it from the city of “Avaris”.. before the Hyksos pharaohs.
Has the tale of the soldiers reached you.. in the year 1558 BC?
In the midst of the immense battle, with the dust and the neighing of horses, the clanging blows upon the armour, and the ring of sharp deadly blades, the Egyptians almost inflicted a shameful defeat on the soldiers of King “Pharaoh”, king of the Hyksos.. so in a moment of despair and collapse he gave the order, and the Hyksos battalions advanced with the tanks of the age.
A weapon without equal, so much so that the Egyptians, with their supremely advanced minds at the time, imagined it was an idea from the devil himself.. to the point that they nicknamed the Hyksos king then, on the walls and the papyri, “Apophis”.. the devil himself.. the name of the devil in the creed of the ancient Egyptians.
The weapon of the war chariots.
The war chariot is an armoured cart with bronze armour, which arrows and spears cannot pierce, pulled by horses that are themselves armoured, which cannot easily be killed or brought down.
The war chariot was driven by a man, and might carry two or three men with him, to hurl arrows and spears, and to strike from a place of safety amid the bronze armour, with those sharp blades, fixed to the wheels, which spin as it moves like a terrifying mincer, as the chariot turns.. with spears bearing sharp blades that jut out between the necks of the horses.. stabbing and severing and tearing apart limbs and joints.
In short, a lethal, deadly armoured chariot, with no way to pierce it.
And for the first time in history, the Egyptian met a new weapon, capable of breaking up the ranks, tearing them apart, and scattering the military formations.
And King “Seqenenre Tao” withdrew to the south.. to where the capital was.
And in the capital the king set about building defences and traps, and training the soldiers to stand up to that terrible weapon.
And he set about trying to manufacture the war chariot.
He tried again and again for long years.. but something in its engineering and its balance remained hidden from his scholars. So the attempts at manufacture failed one after another.
And despite the Hyksos' superiority with that fearsome weapon, they too decided not to advance.
The courage of the army of the ancient Egyptians had struck into their hearts a terror beyond terror, despite their limited victory, and so “Pharaoh” decided.. to train his soldiers and develop his “tanks” in his turn.
And nine years passed in complete calm.. or almost complete.. a calm not free of skirmishes and raids.
And in the year 1549, “Pharaoh” sends a mocking letter to the king of Egypt “Seqenenre Tao”, saying that the sound of the hippopotamuses in the capital was disturbing his sleep, and that he was coming to get rid of them, as soon as he had covered the distance of the road, which is about 500 miles.
And that letter was tantamount to a direct declaration of war, on which “Seqenenre Tao” moved in order to meet the forces of the Hyksos, far from the capital.
Two forces from two great armies from before the birth of Christ, led by two kings, and moving the soldiers with primitive calls, going no further than drums and percussion instruments.
And under the harsh rays of the sun, in the heart of the desert, the two armies meet, and a terrible battle is fought between them, in which the Egyptians stand up to the tanks of the age with bare chests, and ancient weapons.. going no further than the dabbous - a kind of sword - and the bow and the spear.
And with the advance of the “tanks of the age”.. the Egyptian soldiers are scattered, and a young man steps forward.. in his thirties.. curly-haired, sinewy, straight-backed, of medium height, to reorganise the ranks.
And this young man was the Egyptian king “Seqenenre Tao” himself, trying to organise his ranks, and break up the terrible formations of the enemy.. but in that attempt of his, he is struck by a sharp axe on the side of his head.
“Seqenenre Tao” is struck and falls wounded from his horse, but he clenches his teeth hard to contain the pain, and rises to his feet striking the Hyksos soldiers with his spear without mercy or hesitation.
And he stabs one of the Hyksos, a great warrior, in his left side, and the king sinks to his knees.
Even as he surrendered his soul to its Creator he kept fighting.. gripping his weapon, never letting it go, clenching his teeth to bear the pain, in the position in which they found his corpse thousands of years later.
And the enemies closed in on him, and he was struck by a fatal blow in his neck, directly behind his left ear, after which he tried to rise, but his legs gave way.. so he fell on his right side, and a soldier of the enemy soldiers kicked him with his bronze-reinforced shoe in his chest, shattering his ribs, and after that he received a blow from a sharp axe on his forehead.. and the world went dark before his eyes all at once.
And.. and he dies.
A terrible, horrifying story told by the mummy of the king of Egypt “Seqenenre Tao” and its wounds, on the dissecting table. The tale of a man who decided to protect the soil of this land at any price, and died for it on the field of war.
And despite the advance of the terrible tanks afterwards, the Egyptians decide to recover the king's body at any price, and they succeed in that, with an orderly withdrawal.. during which they embalm the body of their great king with a quick, hurried embalming.. so that it would not be damaged on the way back, and they withdraw once more to the capital.. and they place on the throne his son “Kamose”.
And this time “Kamose” decided, before engaging with the Hyksos, to carry out one of the oldest intelligence operations in the history of the world.
And at the beginning of the year 1540 BC.. “Pharaoh”, king of the Hyksos, was surprised by a group of traitors.. defectors from the Egyptian army, along with other traitors from among the peasants and the workers.. offering him loyalty and obedience.. and presenting themselves before him, and prostrating to his gods.
And because “Pharaoh” was an extremely cautious man, he welcomed them and honoured them.. but he set about watching them closely and attentively, fearing assassination at their hands.. or a coup against him.. but he found that they were interested in nothing but the women, money, concubines and wine he gave them.. so much so that they set about farming the land on the outskirts of the city of “Ampus”, which was subject to his authority.. and they laid down their weapons.. and the life of ease and pleasure carried them away.
And when the news reached “Pharaoh” of the advance of “Kamose”.. he immediately ordered the peasants.. and the traitorous Egyptian soldiers to be moved to the far north.. as a precaution.. so that not one of them would turn against him.
And “Pharaoh” was astonished that the traitors submitted to the decision so easily, so much so that they stipulated that they would take with them the concubines he had bestowed on them.. and “Pharaoh” sighed in relief, now reassured about them.. and ordered his forces to advance to meet “Kamose”.
And “Kamose” advanced.. up to the borders of “Ampus”.. then encamped and began to wait.
And this time “Pharaoh” decided to teach “Kamose” a quick lesson.. so he ordered the war chariots to advance at once.
But the ground sank and gave way.. and the heavy armoured war chariots became embedded in it.. and were unable to advance, while “Kamose” and his soldiers from the army of Egypt advanced on horseback and on foot with lightness, smoothness and ease.
And the deadly surprise for “Pharaoh” was.. that the fighters and peasants who had defected from Egypt were not that at all to begin with.
They were spies and soldiers from the army of “Kamose”.. in an intelligence operation and a very special mission.. in which they had hollowed out the ground and made it soft, weak and damp.. which robbed the Hyksos armour of its effectiveness.. and hindered its advance.
And these fake traitors drew their weapons suddenly, at the backs of the soldiers of the Hyksos army.
And “Kamose” was victorious.
And the king entered, for the first time in years, the city of “Ampus” victorious.
But the winds bring what the ships do not desire.
For while the Egyptian king “Kamose” was passing among the bodies of the dead Hyksos soldiers, one of their wounded, who had pretended to be dead, took him by surprise.. and stabbed him suddenly, with a fatal spear thrust, robbing him of his life on a beautiful night of victory in the year 1549 BC.. so that his blood flowed and he gave up his soul upon the soil of Egypt.. before the Egyptian soldiers fell upon that wounded Hyksos and tore him limb from limb.
And once again the army returned to the capital, Thebes, to place on the throne a new king for Egypt, in the same year.
The son of “Seqenenre Tao” and the brother of “Kamose”.. his name means “son of the moon”.. King “Ahmose I”.
And King “Ahmose” studied the ways of the Hyksos and their methods and their military formations thoroughly and attentively.. then spent his time in thought, before issuing an astonishing intelligence decision.. one that no king had issued before.
“Ahmose” understood perfectly that it was not every time that you could send people to pretend to be traitors and hollow out the ground, and that it was “stupid” to repeat the same trick.. so this time he made a decision unique of its kind.
A decision to modernise the Egyptian army with a new weapon.
The weapon of “tanks”. The very weapon that the enemy possessed.
And as soon as the idea ripened in his mind.. “Ahmose” issued his decision, to carry out a special intelligence operation, to bring back the design of the war chariots, or to capture one.. from the heart of the Hyksos army itself.
And the Egyptian intelligence men at that time received the order.. the first intelligence men in history.. and set about examining how to carry it out.
And after study and sleepless nights and deep thought, the men arrived at the method by which they could obtain the designs of the terrible armoured weapon.
That ingenious method.. which would take long to speak of.
And the rest of the tale remains to be told.
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