Siege of Meereen
| Siege of Meereen | |||||||||||||||||
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 Daenerys and Jorah outside of Meereen - by Amok © | |||||||||||||||||
| Date | 299 AC | ||||||||||||||||
| Place | Meereen | ||||||||||||||||
| Result | Daenerys occupies Meereen | ||||||||||||||||
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The Siege of Meereen occurred in 299 AC when Daenerys Targaryen marched on Meereen, the last and the largest of the greatest slaver cities of Slaver's Bay.
Prelude
The Meereenese, warned by the fate of Astapor and Yunkai, did not allow contact to be made with Daenerys, retreating behind the formidable defense of Meereen. They stripped their land, leaving Daenerys with scorched fields and poisoned wells; and nailed a disemboweled slave child up on every milepost along the coastal road from Yunkai, with an outstretched arm point toward Meereen as a message to Daenerys.[1]
Daenerys, followed by 20,000 soldiers and 60,000 refugees from Astapor and Yunkai, was starved of supplies and could not afford a prolonged siege.[1]
A Meereenese champion, Oznak zo Pahl, emerged to challenge Daenerys' champion in single battle, and was slain by Daenerys's eunuch bodyguard Strong Belwas, a former gladiator of Meereen.[1]
Daenerys commanded her fleet to be dismantled, to construct battering rams, mantlets, turtles, catapults, and ladders.[2]
Battle
The fighting was bitter and bloody for most of a day and well into the night. Daenerys sent rams, protected by great wooden turtles covered with horsehides, to batter the city gates, whilst her archers fired flights of flaming arrows over the walls and her forces stormed the walls.[2]
At nightfall she sent a diversion force of 200 men to set fire to the hulks in the harbor, while allowing Ser Jorah Mormont, Barristan Selmy, Strong Belwas and 20 others to infiltrate the city sewers under the cover of darkness. Once they found their way into the city, they went to the nearest fighting pit, where they released the slaves. Within an hour, half the fighting slaves in Meereen had been released, and soon after a ram broke through the eastern gate and the defenders broke. Daenerys wanted to lead the charge through the gate herself, but her captains unanimously counseled against this. Soon the Unsullied crushed the last resistance.[2]
Aftermath
Meereen was sacked savagely after its fall. The stepped pyramids of the mighty were spared the worst of the ravages, but the humbler parts of the city had been given over to an orgy of looting and killing as the city’s slaves rose up and the starving hordes who had followed Daenerys from Yunkai and Astapor poured through the broken gates. [3]
In contrast to her previous Ghiscari conquests, Daenerys chose to remain in Meereen and installed herself as Queen taking the Great Pyramid as her seat. This was because at this time, she received word that her ruling council in Astapor had been overthrown by a tyrannical butcher resulting in much suffering. Not wanting to let this happen to Meereen, she decided to stay.[2] Her Unsullied finally restored order, but the sack left a plague of problems in its wake. [3]
References and Notes
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 A Storm of Swords, Chapter 57, Daenerys V.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 A Storm of Swords, Chapter 71, Daenerys VI.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 A Dance with Dragons, Chapter 2, Daenerys I.
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