1453: Revival of Byzantium

Chapter 293: Opportunity By God

"Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God"

-        Tanakh Genesis 6:9

The ice in the foundation of the walls keeping it together with the Earth is now melting as the weather rises above the freezing point, making the liquid combined with blood, melted snow and under ground water sipping in to the surrounding soil mixing together and eventually making the soil softer than before. These liquids came in a tremendous amount due to the blood from the days of bloody battle with countless lives lost, and when this red ice melts, it has a crashing effect on the foundation of the walls. 

During the night of the ninth day a group of soldiers collected their out ration of black bread and pottage walking to the corner to the walls trying to get a seat on the ground leaning against their supper calling an end for the day, when suddenly a soldier felt like his entire body is pulled by some thing backwards sinking his entire butt in to the soil and spilling the pottage all over his body attracting a round of laughter. 

But their laughter soon stopped as they found out shockingly that it is not just their comrade's butt that is sinking in to the soil, actually it is the entire wooden log used to form the walls sinking in to the soil too! Which means that just now they are literally just sitting on a swampy piece of mud that not only tried to devour their comrade's butt, but also the wall which is their savior and protector! 

These soldiers dared not even approach this place, and under some discussion they decided to keep their mouth shut not going to talk about this to any one else knowing that this might affect the army's morale; A thing they learnt from Antonius' literacy schooling program started one year ago. They have no more appetite of eating and gave their pottage and bread away to others, then proceeded on moving to their captain's tent with out even giving their pal the chance to thank them. 

"What did you say? Are you serious?" Their captain, a senior sailor named Baron almost spilled his ration of pottage over his beard hearing this piece of news. "This is appalling! Come, brothers, bring me to that spot." 

This discovery made the night busier than any other nights, with the soldiers reporting this phenomenon to their captain first, their captain Baron proceeded on informing their higher commander Helio and followed by Julian, and finally the words about this discovery reached the ear of Antonius, who is there having his version of the pottage and stood up abruptly almost tossing the bowl to the ground in a manner of disbelief. "What did you say? Are you serious?"

All the commanders informed soon gathered around the spot where the soldiers discovered this sinking Earth, and all kept their silence after they has realised the dreadful impact this sink hole might have once the siege starts tomorrow morning. Antonius bent down his knees and touched the muddy soil beneath the walls, and then plucked out his cutlass piercing it in to the soil taking a scoop out easily, revealing a portion of its foundation; Yes, indeed, the foundation is now loose with the grass rope getting rotten being a sumptuous feast for the decomposition creatures thriving in the nutritious soil contributed by the dense blood. It can be said that if the Ottomans are going to use their same old tricks of pulling the walls it could come falling down with the slightest pull by a couple children. 

"Wake every one up." Antonius' face looks as pale as a sheet of paper casted under the fire torch. "Get every one moving, we shall move the women and the injured first, then followed by logistics, supplies and lastly the troops, one group after another, we cannot afford to have any disorder and disorganization, if the Ottomans managed to observe us being in chaos I bet that the Candarli Halil guy shall seize the opportunity and all out his horde for us!" 

"What should we tell our men?" Asked Julian in an anxious tone. "We cannot just tell them that we are abandoning the fortress we are relying on for so long because it has gone unstable right? It shall cause a straight away plunge to their morale!" 

"Just say that this is a trap laid by me." Answered Antonius. "There is no more time foy lally gagging. We must get out of here now! Back in to the protection of the newly built fourth wall, and then we shall start planning for our next step there, right now we need to prevent a catastrophe, a tragedy from happening." 

The commanders by his side all nodded in anxiety and gulped their saliva, then prepared t rush back to their encampment to gather up all their troops to start packing and leave. 

"Wait! I have an idea!" Alexios suddenly called out to the captains just before they leave. "How about this, we shall open our stocks of all the food we have for tonight, dried grains, oats, what ever and distribute them to the hands of each captain which shall be dispersed equally among our men, then as we retreat ask our men to sing songs, blow their horns and ram their drums giving the false interpretations to our foes that we are having a celebration from the days of victories. Then they shall not know our true intentions."

Hearing this idea Antonius sounded his support and followed by the other captains all having no objections to making a false impression and hurriedly went off to their posts. Every gear, every department, every men in this entire system of army accelerated under the sudden lubricant applied by the admiral and started working in a double up speed, with the planning squad making a full detailed plan on which army shall retreat first and what path shall they take. The logistics made their best effort to prepare these food as required and distributed them to the captains in less than an hour, a rather spectacular speed never seen before from any one in the entire Medieval times. The information group boosted their efficiency transmitting all these military orders and plans to each group right before they set off. The entire army started moving in two hour's time. 

Along the way they became like a choir singing songs, playing drums and blowing horns making it not look like a retreat, but rather like a victory parade and a full night celebration. Ultimately the sound became so unbearable that it alerted the Ottoman front line commander Mahmud Pasha Angelovi, throwing a tantrum and started bellowing towards the Rumelians in a far. "What are they thinking of creating such a fuss in the night? Guards! Guards! Tell me, what are our enemies doing?"

"Honourable Pasha!" The guard descended from the tower, kneeled down on one knee and stuttered. "The Rumelians The Rumelians seems like they are having a massive celebration! From my position on top there I can only see countless torch lights moving around within those walls, but I cannot see clearly what are they doing exactly"

"Fine, go back to your post." Mahmud Pasha Angelovi will never throw his temper at his soldier without reason. "We shall make them have a yummy taste our Ottoman iron by tomorrow morning Now, lets go back and rest."

If Ibrahim Pasha is here, he would have definitely seen through this easy piece of trickery, a play set up by the Rumelians. Honestly speaking who the hell would want to set up a parade and celebration in the middle of the night, right in the middle of a battle field and in the middle of an ongoing war? No one in the right mind shall be thinking of doing this to purposely wear out their soldier's strength making them tired the next day. Which means there can only be one reason, the Rumelians are hiding some thing from them. 

However, history has no buts, and because of the judgement made by the Ottoman front line commander Mahmud Pasha Angelovi regarding this as nothing important to disturb the head quarters in the mid night, Ibrahim Pasha is totally not informed of this bizarre Rumelian movement. Although he is there still in his tent burning mid night oil drawing one after another line on the terrain map planning for tomorrow's attack, but he only got to know this event a day later and by then it would have already been way too late.

The entire retreat took a total of four hours to complete despite the distance between the third wall and the fourth wall is merely a little more than a mile, a note worthy speed for armies of this size in any era, and by dawn all of them have went inside the third wall leaving no one behind for the Ottomans. Because of the negligence and miscalculations the Ottomans missed a vital opportunity to assault their foes, and this kind of opportunity gifted by God might never come back again. 

After this event the few soldiers was heavily awarded by Antonius himself. 

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