Chapter 308: 303: We Made It

By this time, the entire retreat of the Ottomans has actually only lasted for one day, though frankly speaking it is understandable that the Ottomans lost their order and organisation from yesterday's retreat judging by their situation, low morales and messed up commanding structure. However, what makes people bewilder is the fact that it just took one single day, twenty four hours, for the entire Ottoman army to completely crumble in to this awful state. No one, not even Antonius himself, has expected his cavalries to have such an immense impact. 

Facing this situation, the three commanders in the front line Khalid, the Mamluk commander Mamsriqwe and Abraham had three entirely different reactions. Khalid chose to make his own decision mobalising his resting cavalries immediately continue chasing the entirely crumbled Ottoman troops after leaving a memo for the admiral motivated by his surging hot blood; The Mamluk commander Mamsriqwe hesitated for a minute and decided to left the Roman cavalries behind resting mobalising his own Mamluk cavalries and joining the chase, while for Abraham he thought for a while and followed the standard procedure sending a messenger to Antonius first describing the current situation he saw, and requesting permission to start the final offensive earlier.

Thanks to the substantial amount of in time effort put in by Mamsriqwe and Khalid the Roman cavalries separated in to two different wings wiping out the escaping Ottoman troops along the road with a superb mobility charging in to groups of Ottomans breaking apart their ties and commanding structures again and again, assaulting and slaughtering the troops breaking them up again in to smaller segments.

With this the Ottomans further shattered in to pieces and crumbled aborting any more attempts of forming up together. They ran along the broad road in desperation throwing off all excessive stuff they are carrying to be a little bit quicker. They dumped their valuable rations, dried foods, war banners, Ottoman flags, some even disposed their valuable blades and armours giving up all attempts to struggle back.

Facing this kind of chaotic situation the Roman cavalries totally forgot what they have been taught about preserving the stamina and treasure the hoof health of their horses, also totally giving up the discipline that they need to stay attached and organised to one another at all times, wielding their blades on to any living person who dares to stand before their ways with their blades and a blood shot eyes, but almost all the Ottomans on the road now dared not to show any actions of resistance and shifted to the side of the road squatting down. Over just one day, an organised army turned in to a bunch of lambs that are now trembling totally under the mercy of the foes they used to rule last time.

This blood thirsty campaign continued going on for the until day, and by night they have broke through most of the retreating troops encircling them on the roads in the plains between the mountains north of Thessaloniki and the city of Serres. When they finally gathered up to take a short break waiting for the arrival of their infantry comrades, they are shocked finding out that their cutlass and Kilij blades have dented and curved beyond the point of usage after they rinsed the clotted blood on the blades clean. What became even shocking is that the blood they washed, together with the blood from the corpses and soil in the upper stream mixed together dying the entire stream bloody red for the next entire week that the local population gave it a new name "potámi aímatos" which means "River of Blood".

….

Five miles away Mahumad Pasha Angelovic, together with some other nobilities of the Sultanate protected by less than a squadron of his personal guards has successfully made it out of danger among the shallow woods beneath the mountains. They know that the Rumelian Cavalries will not bother coming here as different from the plain terrain this forest habitat will greatly halt the mobility they rely on and also damaging the hooves of the limited number of horses they have.

"Do not panic! Gather before me!" Being the back bone of this group of less than fifty men Mahumad Pasha Angelovic displayed an incredible calmness trying to soothe the still panicking minds of the people around him. "According to my experience, those filthy RUmelians has been on our tails for almost two days! Even if their men are not dying of tiredness soon, their horses must be, that means that we are temporarily safe… For now!"

Despite hearing the words of encouragement from their leader, the people seating in a circle beside him still has their heads lowered facing the ground, while some rose their head up displaying a face of ignorance totally stripped of any emotions they should have as a human being.

"We can take a rest over here for the night beneath the shield of the mountains, then we can proceed on with our es… tactical manoeuvre out of this place." Mahumad Angelovic continued convincing the others cleaning his beard. "I am going to Bulgaria, and there we can assemble enough soldiers to…"

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"Soldiers? Where? How?" Some one finally toppled his temper standing up on his feet pointing and cursing at Mahumad Angelovic. "Thanks to the master piece of you, Ibrahim and Candarli Halil, we lost so much soldiers beneath those Rumelian walls that I do not believe that we still has any more soldiers we can mobalise, not even any more men! The entire population has been thrown in to this devil's pit for your military gamble…"

The sarcastic tone in this man's voice slowly faded away as he speaks changing in to a weeping tone, following this weep under the moon light beside the rocks, the bunch of middle aged men huddled together and started crying out expressing the suffering they have just went through, totally forgetting about the enemies on their side, their growling tummies, and the coldness of the night.

"Stop crying! Stop crying!" Mahumad Angelovic hurridly stepped in to the middle of the circle breaking these men apart trying to stop their crying. "Since Candarli Halil and Ibrahim are no longer here, I shall take up the main responsibility of this defeat, you can curse me, beat me, do what ever you want later on, but this is not the time to do it now… Following this battle we might lose all our lands in Thessaly, but we still got Epirus, Wallachia, Bulgaria, Thrace… And perhaps Zaganos Pasha in Anatolia, we are far from defeat! We still have millions of population to rely on, and a land mass large enough to fight with the Rumelians, but think about it…"

"…You are still nobles, at least, and if we don't es… tactical maneuverer out of this place and organise our defenses keeping the Rumelians out of touch of our holy capital Edirne, they might even lay siege to our captail in one week's time, and we might have the risk of getting our state toppled over by those infidels! DO you people want to see your country getting doomed, and you, including your families, turning in to slaves?"

The people stopped weeping and started hesistating on Mahumad Angelovic's advice.

"Please! Follow me lords." The pasha continued pleading. "If we join Abbas Pasha in Bulgaria, and we are able to assemble your support provoking the anti Rumelian sentiments among local Bulgarian land lords, making them assemble an army for us, we can gather a force big enough to compete with the Rumelians! We can even push them back in to the seas if we simply stay united!"

Hearing this comment some stood up and approved, but others still remain seated thinking about some thing, after a while of waiting Suleyman bey stood up under the sight of anticipation of his old superior, but the words he said immediately plunged the later in to disbelief and desperation.

"I am going to our capital Edirne!" Suleyman bey spoke sincerely to his colleagues. "We need to be united, true I agree, but not under you in Bulgaria Mahumad Pasha, in times of troubles like this we need to stick closely to our Sultan who carries the blood of Osman and Murad. Sirs! Nobles! We still got one last standing army in our capital, and I can see in our young Sultan that he is going to become the sapphire star of tomorrow. If we go back to the capital using our influence to get rid of that sinner Candarli Halil, and return the power to our majestic Sultan, we can fend off the Rumelians using the tough chains of defenses in our capital city!"

"Yes! We still have our Sultan with us!"

"Zaganos Pasha is all the way in Anatolia, Candarli Halil is the piss pot responsible for all of these… We shall follow you Suleyman! Go back to Edirne!"

Hope seems to get back to the eyes of these nobles as they vowed their allegiance to Suleyman Bey, while Mahumad Pasha Angelovic remained silent with a cold eye for seeing the future of these people.

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