Chapter 300: 295: The Depressed Pasha

The overall atmosphere in the tent is more depressing than ever, with the dense shadowy clouds of defeat looming over the head of every Pasha and bey seated here. Ibrahim Pasha has compiled the overall statistics in to a paper, copied and shared it with the people here, with the intention that it is unfair for him to only have himself reading these pathetic statistics every day, he must share the stress equally with the rest of the gang so that he would feel a little better studying the negative emotions on their faces. 

"How?" Ibrahim Pasha enquirer holding his chins. "Any thoughts on these figures?" 

The beys looked at each other with hesitation in their eyes and continued staring in to the paper on the table; Roughly eleven thousand lives lost, twenty thousand people injured to the point being incapable for fighting, and a staggering fifty thousand lives lost to plagues, accidents, hunger, and others… But all of these are not shocking when compared to another detail stated on the paper gently provided by the Grand Vizier in Edirne – The supply of the entire sultanate is only able to support the operation for another week, and after that the sultanate shall have to use the grains which is going to be used as seeds for the next plating season. 

Every one here has a piece of granted land under their name with agriculture activities inside, and thus they all knows what this details means, it means a great famine is coming.

"What do you think? Let me know, don't be shy." Ibrahim Pasha continued asking. "Starting with you, Suleyman pasha, I have asked the question to you every half a day and it has almost became like a daily practice for me – where are my artilleries?" 

"At…Artilleries." Suleyman Pasha replied staggering. "We are only able to transport those smaller calibre artilleries to the front line, there was a snow on the road from Lachanas to Thessaloniki a few days back, and when the weather warmed these snow melted making the previously solid ground muddy… Many artilleries got their wheels sank in to these mud making it unable to move… Blocking off the entire road and preventing subsequent artilleries from…"

"I guess that is the same for the wagons transporting ammunition, medication and food but?" Ibrahim Pasha interrupted monotonously. 

"Yes, honourable pasha." Suleyman Bey answered squeezing the wrinkle on his fore head. 

'Mahumad Angelovic, you are in charge of here, and I got some routine questions for you too." Ibrahim turned to his old pal and asked. "Is it really impossible to lay offense on the Rumelians through the other two directions? Must we continue stagnating here in the swamp throwing in our increasingly precious man power and resources?"

"I am afraid so, the battle width along the path through the mountains is way too narrow to start an assault, the Rumelians can hold there with one fortress and three hundred men against our entire army. The path through the Peninsula along the coast is way too long and dangerous, as the enemies have the superiority on the sea which allows them to cut off our supply route at any moment, this limits us to the only battle field which is here."

Ibrahim Pasha took a deep breathe and looked blankly on to the map on the ground. No matter how many intrigues he has No matter how many intrigues he has, it is effortless in times like this when blades and blood forms the main melody of the battle field, not back stabbing alienating and skindering. He cannot think of any other methods in his aid accept for continuing the attack with brute force. 

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Things would be so much easier for him if he has learnt a little bit of physics back then, but even if they managed to succumb this difficulty breaking through the fourth wall, according to their intel there is actually still a fifth wall waiting for them and maybe a sixth wall awaiting their arrival, no one here knows when will this kind of suffering end.

"I got a new task for you, I want each of you to dispatch some slaves to the mountains and hills in the surroundings and cut off any trees you can find. Since the Rumelians love to build walls, we shall give them no more wood to build." This is the only idea Ibrahim Pasha could think of so far, despite he knows about the fact that with the control of the sea firmly in hand the Rumelians can export as many wood as they want, even the finest wood from the Genoese colonists in Crimean peninsula. "Now, you are dismissed." 

The Ottomans halted their actions temporarily, a night passed with out any actions only the continuous sound of logging and chopping woods by peasants and slaves. The Ottomans only started another offensive two days later, rewarding the soldiers and peasants with some money, and promising the slaves that they shall gain back their liberty which helped their morales by a bare minimum, still better than nothing, and commenced another round of attack concentrated in to two spear heads.

This time they finally got some bigger stuff to add on to their fire power – twenty medium caliber artilleries that finally made here the night before, and giving the pashas and beys enough confidence that they now no longer need to have an headache against the impassable walls of their foes, as there is no doubt that these hard solid shells shall knock down these fragile wooden logs within one hit. 

However, the moment Mahumad Angelovic saw around three times more artillery pieces with calibers much larger than the Ottomans being pushed out of the prepared slits on the ground level behind the Rumelian walls he showed no hesitation and ordered the entire army to retreat. The entire army of six thousand people marched off before sun rise and came back before lunch, wasting an entire morning. The moment Mahumad Angelovic came back he went straight towards the tent of Ibrahim. 

"You did the right thing Mahumad, we have all seen the devastating effect these metal rods can have creating another death toll that we cannot tolerate." Ibrahim Pasha looks like he is slightly hunched back with a pair of blackened eyes from the days and nights of hard work." 

"Shut up you Ibn al Kalb *Vulgarity*! The enemy commander is much younger, and at the same time much more nimble witted than you." All the frustration accumulated in Mahumad Angelovic's heart combined with the distress today made the long term rivalry between this two men erupted like a volcano, making Mahumad Pasha Angelovic confess every thing he has to say buried in his mind. He wanted to reprimand the Grand Vizier, but he dared not go against the supreme figure in the entire Sultanate, and thus he discharged all his shells bombarding Ibrahim Pasha instead as a replacement to the Grand Vzier Candarli Halil Pasha who is not here.

"We embarked on this war which is full of stupidity from the start because of your aggressive thinking, poor planning and weak judgement, and a direct result of this is the 'outstanding' number of death toll that we got right here on this piece of brown paper. Let me tell you what child, even if we did get Thessaloniki back under our control, it is totally not worth it! You are ruining the foundation of this Sultanate that used almost a century to build! You, yes you, you and your master is truly the sinner of this damned country!" 

Facing the full rage of this man Ibrahim Pasha kept his mouth shut with no words against him. He knows clearly that war is the best way for the prestige and influence of a person to ascend or descend. Because in war when you are the commander leading a group of men, it is equivalent to the soldiers have given their lives to you. If the commander achieves victory after victory bringing in benefits and glory for the soldiers, he shall soon become a God like figure in the heart and mind of the soldiers; Like wise if the commander brings the soldiers in to defeat after defeat, failure after failture, giving the soldiers nothing but sacrifice, his prestige shall fall rapidly becoming the most hated figure among the men. 

There are way too many deaths over the span of a month, the death toll elevated high enough that even Ibrahim Pasha himself has no idea how many folks have lost their lives. Mahumad Angelovic is right, with so many man power lost it would still be a suffering and loss for the Sultanate even if they managed to successfully take back Thessaloniki. 

Luckily for Ibrahim Pasha his opponent stopped cursing and reprimanding him. The war is still far from being over, and that behaviour just now is nothing but a ranting session to soothe the almost exploding fire ball inside his body, meaningless but it feels good.

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