1453: Revival of Byzantium

Chapter 387: The Unsealed Pocket

The start of year 1460 is pretty remarkable and historical for the Romans in Thrace, who has already found themselves in a totally unpleasant way of life as they have entered a situation they have expected but did not expect it to happen that fast. The troops under the command of Constantine and Mauro have come in to an attack by their long waited foes whom they missed for almost the past month finding and searching, and apparently they did not come in the gesture of an old friend, they came with fangs, spears and kilijs. The emotion of shaking fear soon overtook the initial feelings they had just a few minutes ago, and this process is greatly increased by the series of horns from the horizon, making them realise one thing.

They have been ambushed. 

Facing this situation Mauro became the first to react according to his military instinct facing an ambush as he yelled towards his flags men. "Do not panic! Do not panic! Raise the flags! Follow what you people have been taught before hand! Guard the flanks! Protect the rear! We shall pull out of here together!" 

His partner, emperor Constantine was just about to give his instructions when he saw the commanding flag of Mauro being hang up and started waving in a distance away, transmitting the message of the commander to every one on the spot. Being an understanding partner Constantine soon remained calm and remained silent leaving the stage only for Mauro. When a few of the commanders who are loyal to him came to ask for orders, Constantine slashed his whip on to the shoulders of these men yelling out in rage. "Can't you see the orders from commander Mauro? Just follow what he signaled! And who allowed you to leave your posts?" 

The commanders totally did not understand why is there such an abrupt change in the attitude of the emperor, and ran back to their posts to instruct their men to get in to formations. What they could never realise is that in the mind of the emperor, rivalling and struggling with Mauro and Giovanni for military influence was never a need, it is all to serve the common purpose of building the army in to a different shape, just that they have conflicts in their ideologies and method in achieving it. If he loses this battle in an ambush like this, then all the efforts he spent for the past decade would be gone. 

With one single central of command to follow the Roman army finally started regaining their order, recovering from the initial chaotic situation. If God was to give them some more extra time maybe they could have recovered their posture and show a tougher stance towards the enemies, but God did not give them the chance they missed, and certainly the Ottoman ambushers would not give them the chance as well. 

The horns were not just there to alarm the Romans telling them what situation they are in now, but also to wake up their fellow Ottoman army of vengeance that now is the time to strike. The young adult who was there a few hours back trying to sneak upon the Roman pioneer scouts almost have fell asleep on this freezing land, and once he heard the horns his eyes suddenly opened wide knowing that this is now finally his chance to perform, he grabbed the spear by his side with out caring about his frost bite and stood up, but only to realise his mentor did not stand up with him. 

Maybe he has just merely fallen asleep? The junior thought, he squatted down to shake the mentor, but only to realise that his entire body has already became stiff with no white mist coming out from his nose, the veteran's eyes are still open though with no reflection of colours or any signs of responsiveness inside his pupils. There is still some white frost on the man's pale cheeks and frozen eye brows, all of these signifies obviously that the veteran did not manage to make it through the hours of waiting in the harsh weather, and succumbed himself to Azrael, who has his soul taken away from the living world. But till the end of his demise, he did not squeak a single sound or move by a single inch telling people of their location. 

The junior Ottoman soldier stood up once more, trying to control the tears from coming out of his eyes fearing that it might freeze. He grabbed firm of the spear with both of his hands, behind him and in front of him there are already hundreds and thousands of Ottoman troopers charging out of their hide out towards the Rumelians beneath them. The junior Ottoman soldier joined in, carrying the wrath of his family's lands and properties getting taken away, and also the grieve of not being able to save his mentor. 

In a scenario like this, it provides a critical test for the army being ambushed on its morale, organisation, discipline, cohesiveness and level of training. The Roman army failed three out of the five, at the start. They have the morale, they have the discipline indeed no one stepped back or tried to fled from action, but their organisation and cohesiveness could not handle this situation totally. Eight thousand men takes up a lot of space, and once the signal has been given for them to change into a defensive formation, every unit is trying to run to their proposed location as fast as possible, only to find their ways being blocked by other units, and they in turn starts blocking others causing a massive traffic jam along the road, with soldiers falling out of the line some times. 

Because of this quarrel, conflicts, pushes started happening between different units at this point of time. But luckily this time, Mauro did bring along the military police set up by Giovanni getting inspiration from his good friend in Thessaloniki and managed to maintain some basic law and order to keep the force to have some minimum level of self protection. Though still the Ottomans have speeded up too, with the first wave of them already visible thirty meters away. 

The ambushers violently clashed with the defenders at the front, with spears and swords slashing and poking at each other with the momentum from the charge just now, it immediately sent head and limbs flying. But with the element of surprise and the panicking enemies, the Ottomans took no time to hammer through the thin layer of defence with a concentrated attack trying to split the enemies in to two like what they always used to do for the last time, but only to find more and more Roman light infantries and unmounted cavalries coming up to fill the gap and forcing the Ottoman penetrators out of the formation, refilling in the gaps. 

It is only then that the Ottomans found out that their numbers are way too less to try to encircle this Rumelian army, not only because of wrong prior intel saying that there are only less than five thousand Rumelian troops marching towards here, but also because of Hamza Pasha splitting the troops in to three. He cannot be blamed for this though, because his mission right at the start was not to completely eliminate the incoming enemy, but to deter them as fast as possible with a minimum loss of man power, while also making sure that they would not come back in the next five years to come. 

Mauro and the emperor worked together to command the troops in calm, with Constantine himself staying put with his flags at the front and Mauro commanding the armoured infantries at the flanks the Romans successfully holding their grounds after suffering from an initial heavy loss under their opponent's relentless assaults and is now beginning to pull back from this place slowly bit by bit. Hamza Pasha noticed that his forces are slowly going to lose the element of surprise and ordered the horns to be blown again to inform every combatant beneath there that now they are about to enter the phase two of the battle plan. 

The Ottoman ambushers soon fled from the front line with out having any hesitation orderly towards their pre prepared locations, also trying to lure the Rumelians out of their defensive formations to chase their enemies, a tactic that have always worked in the past not only against the Rumelian, but also the Burgundians, Latins and Catalans. But sadly, this time the Rumelians did not fall for this kind of trick. 

The second round of offensive by the Ottomans have begun, with now archers instead of infantries showing up under the cover of Ottoman shields men. Their target is clear, to use the advantage that the enemies does not have shielded protection or heavy armour, flung a few rounds of arrow to maximise the enemy casualties, plunge their morales and organisations forcing them to either seek for cover, or to flee backwards, but in a disorderly manner. The way is always clear for them, there are no Ottomans blockading the roads behind the Rumelian, just like an unsealed pocket. 

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