1453: Revival of Byzantium

Chapter 291: The Naked Army

If a cavalry lost his mount, can he still be called a cavalry? If a Sipahi cavalry corps lost most of its horses, can it still be counted as a cavalry Corp?

The answer is no.

Actually it is only later after the Grand Vizier replaced the horses with hundreds of stronger slaves to pull these cursed walls down that Mahmud Pasha Angelovi convinced himself that the Grand Vizier is not trying to minimise his troops, power and influence using the Rumelian fortresses as an excuse and whet stone.

Thinking about this the Ottoman Pasha closed his eyes and sighed shifting his head away from the damned walls. God knows how many lives of his fellow Ottoman brothers are going to be lost because of this ridiculously tough walls constructed with only wood on winter soil. There is almost certain that the war shall drag on to an never ending state unless one side retreats.

Perhaps, just perhaps, that once this wall is breached the rest of the war shall not be as hard as before?

With this thought Mahmud Pasha Angelovi resisted the nauseous feeling inside him and passed the order to his vice commander letting the supervising force get prepared

With the blowing sound of the horn and the waving of war banner the supervising Sipahi cavalries got themselves mounted patting and touching the manes of their horses gently calming themselves down stepping in to this battle field filled with the odour of blood, decaying animals and humans stepping across the line of deceased horses with some of their chests still bulging up and down getting its last breathe.

They are followed by slaves holding no weapons, followed by drafted Rumelian peasants, and even some women are assembled together in the empty field before the battle field with not a single emotion in their eyes even if they know that they shall meet their death here today.

It is in the morning of the early winter with dim sun light, howling winds across the plain descending from the mountains, and what makes things appalling is that most of these slaves and peasants, even the women, have completely no cloth on their upper bodies making them shiver and sneeze on the open field as they gathers for death, stepping right on the dead carcass of their already deceased pals who might have been their neighbours.

This view became way too obvious to escape the eyes of Mahmud Pasha Angelovi as he growled towards the respective beys and lords. "What the hell is this? Why are all my soldiers nude? Where is their cloth?"

"Let me explain, prestigious pasha." His vice commander bowed on the horse and replied. "I asked the question earlier on and the supervisor sent by the Boluk bashi says that, since these peasants and slaves are going to die immediately today, then there is no need for them to wear cloth, because if they die later it will be the loots and plunders for those Rumelian bastards, and also hard for us to retrieve the cloth from their dead bodies with all the holes and tears from the Rumelian arrows which can still be used to keep our horses warm!"

In the last five days, excluding those pathetic folks whose bodies are used to fill up the moats in front of the Rumelian wooden walls, the Rumelians would usually send people to come out to the field and loot the blades, armours, shields, arrow heads and other metallic objects.

However, although the Rumelians recycle these things but they means no disrespect to the deceased. They would usually drag the bodies to a safe distance away from the walls down to the side of the Rumelians after taking all the metallic objects and valuables, for hygiene purposes preventing a plague from happening and ravage through the entire camp. Then in the next day after dawn the Ottomans would send slaves out to collect these corpses deposing them by either dumping or burning.

Of course, by that time the only remaining valuables left on these corpses are the cloth they are wearing, which will usually be recycled and  put in to good use either as the clothes for the horses keeping their manes in tact and body warm during this early winter.

The last dignity and honour of these slaves and peasants who died for their slave masters are not even worthy when compared to preventing warmth for their masters horses.

Hearing this ridiculous explanation hatred towards the Ottoman pals and colleagues started arousing in the mind of Mahmud Pasha Angelovi for the very first time as he turned his mount and rode off towards the back away from his army, where he ignored the calling of his captains and went straight in to the biggest tent in the camp which once used to belong to the Grand Vizier, but now it belongs to a new owner Ibrahim Pasha.

"Really? Are you serious?!" Ibrahim Pasha seems to be appalled by the descriptive words of what Mahmud Pasha Angelovi saw just now in the front line. "You mean my Boluk bashi did such horrible deeds to our own soldiers?"

"Yes!" Boluk bashi rose his head up and hissed, with both of his eyes dyed red from fury and shame.

"He is obviously wrong." Ibrahim Pasha looked at this big Serbian man before his desk and pushed all the blame to his own Janissary commander. "He is completely wrong disregarding the Grand Vizier's order to treat all Ottoman warriors equal, casting our army in an atrocious spot light. You have the full right to deal with any of these cases in the front line, now tell me, what do you want to be done with him?"

"I want you to kill him." Mahmud Pasha Angelovi hissed in a low voice. "We can send the slaves to die I have no doubt with that, they are brought here for this purpose But those peasants, those women! They are our future Ibrahim Pasha! The future! Our foundations of rule! They are our main source of income, labour, soldiers, if they go back to their home towns spreading the information on how we treat them we will straight away lose our already low support among them! And the women!..."

"WE have already lost enough men fighting in the front line, starved to death at the back or even killed by our own people, their wombs are be used to produce new man power and potential recruits in to our army in the future, and now you choose to send the women to grind the walls and die meaningless too?"

Ibrahim Pasha lowered his head and started truly pondering over this brawny Serbian man's words for the first time since he entered this tent. Being an elite politician who has been serving in the Sultan's government for decades he knows that despite being an empire the entire Ottoman Sultanate in this point of time is still a bizarre mixture of feudal tribal nomadic system of governance, with each system having their respective role. The feudal are for taxation, the nomads and tribes for the military.

If it is in peace times Ibrahim Pasha would reject this proposal as this particular Janissary captain is a pawn of him inside the Janissaries used to spread his influence; In fact, with that full of intrigues brain he would probably think that this man before him is trying to start a mutiny. But the situation is now different, they are now seating right on a battle field, and one more disapproval from him might totally upset this general who controls tens of thousands of men, accumulated enough frustration and anger to make this kind of proposal to kill some one in the Janissaries.

In other words, it is now the time to give the pawn away to appease this general and maintain the stability here.

"Bring the captain and the other people who are responsible for this over, behead them at once and parade their heads across the entire camp They shall be responsible for the despicable misdeeds they have done to our people." Ibrahim Pasha ordered with no more hesitation and shame totally disregarding the fact that he is the one who made the decision to strip the peasants and slaves of their top dress. Being a natural actor Ibrahim Pasha stood up from his seat and grabbed hold of the hands of Mahmud Pasha Angelovi and said earnestly. "My dear commander, you see what has already being done cannot be undone There will be cloth for them tomorrow, but we have no more time to waste for today, please, launch the attack!"

Seeing the other side has backed off Mahmud Pasha Angelovi regained his clear mind breaking free from the fury he had just now. He insisted no more giving the little man before him a look of complicated emotions and bowed done acknowledging his order. "Yes, chief, the attack on the Rumelians shall commence at once!"