1453: Revival of Byzantium

Chapter 287: The First

"The only certainty in war is human suffering, uncertain costs, unintended consequences."

-        The 44 th president of United States, Barrack Obama 

After so much hard time trying with perseverance the Ottoman infantries who are carrying the make shift wooden ladders finally arrived at the front line enduring showers of arrows and bolts under little or no support, with the only thing motivating them to advance forward being the supervising Sipahi calvaries right at their back. However, after they arrived beneath the Rumelian barricades a severe problem emerged before their eyes. 

The ladder are either too tall, or too short for the Ottoman infantries to climb on to the walls due to the inconsistent depth of the moat outside these forts another trick used by Helio when he is designing his chain of defenses. He dug his moats in an irregular zig zag depth which means that there are some parts of the moat that is much deeper than the other parts and some parts relatively shallower.

But for the Ottomans who was scouting the battle fields during the dark sky calculating the overall height of the walls plus the moat, they did not know that due to the poor visibility of the darkness in the night. When they went back to the mathematicians and siege engineers the Grand Vizier brought with him, they simply used it as a unified depth and proceeded on to design their ladders according to this statistics they have, which caused this desperate situation for the pitiful drafted infantries in the front line now. 

Although these poorly designed ladders are obviously not suitable to be used here in this scenario, but the startled infantries still got to bite their lips and try to climb some of the ladders that are erected in a position that is able to reach to the top of the walls. Behind them is a bunch of roaming anti retreat supervising calvaries, and before them is only a mere three meters tall wall and a supposed lavish amount of loot and wealth defended by people who are used to belong to the same country, surely. They cannot be as fearsome as their Ottoman masters right?

Once a person's mind has been terrorised by some thing it shall take ages for people to remove the false impression from their head, making them get away from the identity of being slaves and walk upright like normal humans once more.

And there are two more problems regarding these ladders.

Some ladders stretched way taller than the walls, which means once the Ottoman infantry climbed to the top they either have to turn their back to the enemies turning to the walls which is impossible, or they will have to jump down from the ladder on to the walls and gets poked to death by the defenders on top.

And that is only for those lucky ones who have made it on top by chance, for most of the poor fellows they made almost perfect practise targets for the newly recruited archers and crossbow men on the walls. Without a cover by shield or friendly archers they get picked down one by one on the way climbing to the top.

Two hours in to the battle, and this place is already filled with the rhythms of  war, with the cheerful glees and clamour of the defenders, mixed with the shouts of pain and agony by the falling Ottoman casualties, and the consistently moving flag, charging troopers, rolling dust, scents of splashing blood, all arousing the various senses of a man.

Though for Antonius he dd not bother paying much attention on those Ottoman infantries who are dying in a rather laughable way. He has not even a bit of interest paying his attention on these miserable drafted infantries who are obviously sent here as a kind of 'expendable resource that cannot be reused', to die purposefully getting their lives wasted only for the soul purpose of scouting and depleting the defender's ammunition supplies and muscle energy. If the Candarli Halil guy is a qualified military leader then he must be hiding some thing behind after these infantries.

Actually, in times of war not only these regular soldiers, but the entire army can some times be a consumable resource that can be traded for the final political goal of the war, it is just whether it is worth it or not. In the end of the day, war is started only to serve its politics master's wishes.

After a prolonged one sided slaughter until the defending archers could almost no longer be able to pull the string of their hard bows, and some archer's bow string even torn itself apart from poor maintenance and long time of usage, the horns from the Ottoman formations in a far distance away finally signaled the end of this pointless wastage of life and the Ottoman infantries fell back like a wave of tide, and the defenders finally got a while to rest their worn out arms and feet drinking some salted water. 

However, it is only after a mere half an hour that the battle horns of the Ottomans started sounding again bringing in the attention of every one forcing them to get back up on their feet and pay full vigilance to the Ottomans seeing what kind of trick do they got this time round, and they are not disappointed, the Ottomans really did awe them this time round.

This time instead of sending the most common kind of siege infantries like they always do to grind on the defensive walls, the Ottomans dispatched a flight ofcavalries, mixed with some infantries at the back, charging towards the walls. Actually, it is quite hard to say that they are combat cavalries, because unlike the Arabia or Persian horses the Ottoman cavalries frequently ride in combat, these mounts look more like donkeys, being grey, short, sturdy on the lower body, and neither do they have that superb speed like their taller and faster cousins in the same family.

"Are they trying to use mounted forces to lay siege?" A group of captains and commanders around Antonius started laughing out loud at the Ottoman commander's decision. Even Antonius laughed shaking his head and commented. "Only if I am that rich like the Ottomans with so many mounts in my disposal." 

However, it only took a few minutes for Antonius to realise that he is deeply wrong. The Ottoman infantries behind the donkeys advanced forward holding rectangular wooden shields in their arms shielding almost half of their body yielding the projectiles from the Rumelian archers, the donkeys and their riders stayed put in a distance away and another Ottoman infantry continued advancing under the cover of their pal' shields. What makes things even more bizarre is that they seem to be carrying some thing that resembles a linen rope attached to the bodies of the donkeys at the back. 

They brought no ladders with them this time. 

Immediately after these people reached a suitable distance they tossed the ropes with an entangled loop at its far end with all their energy on to the wooden pikes on the logs which is used to form the bodies of the defensive wall, some missed but most did manage to hit their targets, then in the horrid sight of Antonius these infantries started falling back and the riders at the back started whipping the buttocks of their donkeys forcing them to travel towards the opposite direction towards their own formation. 

Feeling pain these mounts neighed and pushed forward stepping against the Earth strangling the rope making it straight with an immense force much stronger than a human adult. Seeing this sight Antonius jumped up from the carpet guessing the intentions of the Ottomans this time with a stern face, while Helio, being the one who designed these defences, became the first ones to know the intentions of the Ottomans and began shouting out frantically to the archers, even picking up a cross bow himself. 

"Stop focusing on the shields! Stop focusing on the shields!" Shouted Helio. "Focus on those mares! Send all your arrows on to the freaking mares!" 

But just after Helio has sent his orders, a part of the wooden walls is already unable to withstand the pulling force against its foundation which is enlarged by a few times through several physics principles and began moving forward slanted, and finally after a few more pulls the entire wooden walled defense began coming down one part after another like a domino effect, bringing the defenders on top falling down with it. 

The Candarli Halil man is indeed a skilled tactician after finding out from the first wave of useless attack that his infantries is unworthy of shocking the Rumelian defenses, he stopped using this stupid method and flexibly switched to another idea Since he cannot get over these fences and get his apple, why can't he just pull it down? 

The defending troops met their first obstacle in to the battle, just after four hours.