Chapter 301: 296: Mahumad Angelovic

"La Terreur, das sind großenteils nutzlose Grausamkeiten, begangen von Leuten, die selbst Angst haben, zu ihrer Selbstberuhigung" 

"Terror consists mostly of useless cruelties perpetrated by frightened people in order to reassure themselves."

-        Friedrich Engels

"I shall let my own men I brought with my from my demesne lead the charge tomorrow morning." Seeing Mahumad Angelovic has backed off, Ibrahim too lowered his statues replying with a better attitude. "They shall die first before your men, this is the last phase of the battle, we shall conclude this phase conquering the remaining walls using only my troops, and then we shall be equal… Don't worry, I know this Antonius man, he is a man who cares about the lives of those filthy peasants and ordinary soldiers. If we enter the brawling phase he would call for a retreat soon when his death toll starts to rise."

"This is no disadvantage of him, and neither can we be glad at this." Mahumad Angelovic took a few deep breathe calming himself down and replied with a pair of reddened eyes. "This only proves that the Rumelians only suffered minimum casualties in the last couple rounds of fighting… This general is a tactician, he has saw through your tricks and plots, prepared this layer after layer of inter connected defensive lines even before our arrival, planned a good domestic and foreign relationship, and with all those quick observations and sudden ideas… Then look at you, Ibrahim Pasha, even with a huge advantage over the other side you cannot do any thing except letting people die to achieve your goal!" 

Facing the direct insult Ibrahim Pasha sighed sitting down and poured a cup of tea placing it in front of the fuming front line commander and chose to answer to his insult this time. "After we have taken down these walls chasing the Rumelian in to the city of Thessaloniki I shall not go back to Anatolia nor shall I return to Edirne, instead I shall guard here by myself and my men slowly suffocating them. I hope that you people shall disperse the peasants and the drafted soldiers bringing them home by the start of the planting season next year…" 

"…and please, pass my plead to the Grand Vizier that we Ottomans need no wars and civil strife now, instead we need to rest and build up ourselves to live through this crisis together. We Ottomans are still too weak if we do not have a capable Sultan to lead us, and our foundation is still too thins to with stand this type of crisis, our laws are still far from complete which is why we still have this kind of non stop succession crisis and interregnum… We are still too weak to be able to achieve our Ottoman dream!"

This is perhaps the longest and most earnest speech Ibrahim Pasha has said ever since the start of his life long career, silencing the commanders and servants around him knowing that they have over reacted, with some even starting to pity this temporary chief of command seeing such a willful determination in that thin body of his. 

In the afternoon the temperature rose back to normal again, there was even a shallow rain in the region which again made the soil wet and muddy which means that the foundation of the Rumelian walls must be loose again. Watching this shallow rain Ibrahim Pasha almost crawled out of his tent and made three laughs facing up at the sky, hurrying his colleagues to get back to their post and prepare for another offensive, while he fulfilled his vow climbing on to his mount and led his own troops to the front line. 

The Ottoman troops under the direct command of Ibrahim Pasha lined up in formations carrying heavy shield carts, artilleries, cross bows and other complicated siege equipment getting ready for the charge. Just from the appearance only one can tell that they are very different from the others beside them, wearing almost full set of armour, well polished kilij blades and arm shields for blocking projectiles. 

The only thing these commanders dislike is that the entire area is now covered in a dense fog that limited their vision on what is going on in a distance away. According to the scouts this strange misty weather has been around for quite some time after the shallow rain in the earlier day. Although they can use this to their advantage thinking that the vision of the Rumelians are equally as affected, shortening their range of archers meaning they can use a stealthy approach sneaking on the foes, though their artilleries will be useless in this case. 

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However just as they are about to commence another scout from the northern side rushed to the platform with a pale face reporting. "Honourable Pasha! Rumelian reinforcements spotted! A two thousand strong cavalry force, all donned in dressing similar like us! They are passing through the narrow strips of road along the mountains, fast paced fully loaded, bound for the Rumelian camp in an hour's time from the back!"

This exploding message instantly ignited another round of debate and discussion among the people on the platform arguing where did this bunch of cavalries come from, what is their intentions and what should they do facing this unexpected piece of news. Ibrahim thought for a while and shifted his attention to his vice commander standing beside him. "Mahumad, what do you think?"

"I do not know!" Mahumad Angelovic replied straight forwardly with a pale face, no one here knows on what impact another surge of Rumelian reinforcement than him here. With the current number of enemies already being so trouble some, and now there is an incoming cavalry reinforcement? 

But Ibrahim Pasha thought other wise, he explained his assumption to every one in an earnest and frank way leaving nothing hidden for the first time. "I think it is merely some Rumelians disguised themselves as Ottoman traitors who betrayed the Grand Vizier coming for the aid of the Rumelians, sneaking in to the mountains at night, and then purposefully showing themselves in our scouting area, in order to motivate the foes giving their men the impression that they are not fighting alone, countless help is already on the way and bond to arrive giving them hope, and also to terrify us forcing us to be more careful when planning our next attack…" 

Hearing this explanation Mahumad Angelovic shook his head and interrupted at once. "That is not possible, the moon last night is round and shiny making our scouts see clearly on every inch of wood and grass in the mountains. If they sneaked out at night, our scouts would have definitely saw them." 

Ibrahim Pasha thought again and continued. "Then it must be during the day, when the fog started… They might have sneaked their troops out during that period of time when there is poor visibility in the mountain paths… It is nothing but merely a hoax to fool us in to disbelief and distrust! Quick, Mahumad, start the offensive we got no more time!" 

Mahumad Angelovic nodded slightly initially but violently shook his head after he realised some thing. "But what if? What if these reinforcements are real? Two thousand reinforcement, two thousand! How many Rumelian enemies do we have here facing us on the direct front? No more than ten thousand probably, that means they are buffed up by almost one fifth! Ibrahim Pasha, if there is a real reinforcement and there are subsequent reinforcement arriving, then it is meaningless for us to continue this war am I right?" 

"Wait, but…" Ibrahim Pasha tried to retort and further explain, but the later simply gave him no chance in vocalizing his words and interrupted violently. 

"If we continue dragging on like in this current state, then we shall even run out of supplies and food for us to retreat our troops back to safety, am I right? Ibrahim Pasha, look at my eyes, can you be completely sure that this is a hoax? A false reinforcement? If it is a real reinforcement force, and our entire hundreds of thousands of people ran out of supplies and is defeated by that barbarian Antonius, which might straight away cause our Sultanate to fall and get bitten up by hostiles from every direction! By then, what kind of compensation can you, your men and your tribe hand over for your sins and crime?" 

The paleness spread to Ibrahim Pasha's face making him look as white as a goat's wool. Hearing the words of the front line commander the other commanders also realised the importance of this reinforcement and began eyeing Ibrahim Pasha with a certainly unfriendly, almost hostile look. No one wants to die here at the end of the day. Ibrahim Pasha trusted his instinct, but at this point of time he could not even open his mouth to answer for the chain of questions. Now under peer pressure even he began to lose confidence in his assumption.

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