Prince Trubetskoy now decides to finish off…
April 1659 CE
Prince Trubetskoy now decides to finish off the small four thousand-man garrison of the Konotop castle held by Cossacks of the Nizhyn and Chernihiv Regiments headed by Hryhoriy Hulyanytsky, a colonel of Nizhyn, before proceeding in his pursuit of Vyhovsky.
Trubetskoy's hopes for quick resolution of the Konotop stand-off dim when Hulyanytsky and his Cossacks refused to betray hetman Vyhovsky and mount a fierce and protracted defense of Konotop.
According to a historian named Markevych, on April 21, 1659, after a morning prayer, Trubetskoy orders an all-out assault on the fortress's fortifications.
The city is shelled, a few incendiary bombs are dropped inside, and the army moves on to capture the city.
At one point Trubetskoy's troops break through the city walls, but are repelled by the fierce resistance of the Cossacks inside.
After the fiasco of the initial assault, Trubetskoy abandons his plans of a quick assault and proceeds to shell the city and to fill the moat with earth.
The Cossacks stubbornly hold on in spite of all the fire unleashed on the city: during the night the earth put to fill in the moat is used to strengthen the city walls, and the besieged even undertake several counterattacks on Trubetskoy's investing army.
These attacks force Trubetskoy to move his military camp ten kilometers away from the city and thereby split his forces between the main army at his HQ and the army besieging Konotop.
Another attack on April 29 is also repelled; the Russians lose close to four hundred men and suffer around three thousand wounded.
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