Chapter 279: Face To Face

Under the cover of the night shade the hundreds of Janissaries came in to action starting the first ever offensive of this battle. After the demise of the previous batch of Janissaries the Grand Vizier, after consulting the young Sultan of course, changed the entire structure of the Janissaries from only through selection of the fittest to compulsory recruitment of teenage young adults from rich and powerful Christian families in cities controlled by the Grand Vizier. 

These young kids, many experiencing live action for the very first time, are filled with anxiety and enthusiasm with light of excitement flickering in their pupils. But they dared not utter a single word fearing that they might breach the military discipline, though through their eyes and minds they all knows that if, if they managed to bring down all these enemy camps with only a few hundred men plus some torches and igniting arrows, there will be all those fortune, power, rank, prestige coming in to them, and they shall be allowed to be the first to loot inside the city of Thessaloniki. 

Some might say that those folks inside that city and the fortifications are all similarly Christians and used to belong to the same state as them. But honestly who cares about this nowadays, it is always a natural trait to seek own self's interest, last time, current, and in future. 

The hundreds of people approached the fortress in the cold and dry night wind blowing towards the direction of North, all of these adds up to be a perfect timing for an attack by fire. They sneakily crept upon the wooden walled fortifications and flung their torches in to the walls, successfully setting up fire as alarm bells are immediately rang on the watch towers. Instantly the entire camp became enlightened with light sources waking the rowdy Rumelian defenders up causing a wide spread chaos in almost every single Rumelian fortifications. 

Seeing this the junior officer almost jumped in joy, and he continued commanding the Janissaries ordering the first batch of attackers to back down to re prepare the fire torches, while the second batch to come forth with bows and igniting arrows and plunged hundreds of fire arrows in to deeper parts of the camps, continuing to create chaos and disorder inside, hoping that these Rumelian will finally unable to sustain the heat and fire, and succumb to the Janissaries by themselves with out the need for a fight. 

But as time passes by, the fire inside these target fortresses slowly went down and eventually diminished instead of spreading around burning every thing down in its path, despite progressive efforts by the Janissaries tossing more fire in to the walls; After one area is set on fire it is extinguished in less than a few minutes stopping it from spreading any further. And after a few rounds the Rumelian officers are already organising their archers to rush on to the walls and pour arrows and bolts right on to the Janissaries beneath them, bringing casualties on to these pricky hot blooded young teenagers for the first time.

"MY honourable Grand Vizier, things are not looking good." Abbas Pasha observed for a while and shook his head. "The Rumelian officers knows what they are doing…. From this angle we can see that they cleaned away all excessive weeds, leaves and twigs from their encampments preventing any fire from spreading…" 

"Not only that." Another general near by called Alaüddin Bey who used to be the main architect and building designer in the court of the previous Sultan Mehmed II continued. "The Rumelian not only dug moats outside these fortifications, but also inside the walls as a way to stop fire from spreading, and evading shell strikes if necessary. The paths and streets inside are also neatly allocated which allows troops to gather and move around as fast as possible… Whoever have designed this must have some level of knowledge in the fields of architecture." 

Candarli Halil Pasha returned with a stern face. "Not only that, you people only saw things about the buildings and cleanliness, but by the Grace of the Mighty Allah I have saw another thing that you all have not; I am really surprised that the Rumelian officers managed to react so fast with out panicking and coordinated themselves to strike back, and the commanders of the other forts did not abruptly come out to reinforce these forts under attack…"

"…That can only mean that commander of this army is no ordinary person building such a level of organisation for the conscripts and newly recruited Rumelian foes within a few months, well, as expected from that cursed Antonius De'Ricci." 

The three people stood there watching the Janissaries making their last desperate attempt, remaining utterly silent with different thoughts in each of their minds. And finally as the last place of fire is successfully put down by the Rumelian fire fighting force, the Grand Vizier sighed and turned his horse's direction riding away. "Let's go, nothing more to see here…. Ask our boys to return." 

…

In the next morning, as the weather turned even colder bringing in the bleezing northern wind from the Crimean Peninsula, the Ottomans who have just arrived scurried around pitching their tents laying down the first pillar of their walls. Chefs and cooks erected their gigantic black crocks and stew pots starting to cook their daily dish of çorba soups consisting of mainly rice and butter for the ordinary soldiers, making sure they have enough energy to die for their lords. The aroma of this soup spread through the entire camp with white smokes rising up in to the skies motivating the people around to work even faster in order to get their lunch first. 

The entire Ottoman campment is enormous, spreading from one side of the horizon to another side of the horizon spreading out for almost a hundred Roman miles as it seems with naked eyes. When the last batch of soldiers finally laid down their tools and began having their plain lunch, the first batch of ten thousand plus Ottoman warriors have already prepared themselves for battle marching for around ten Roman miles towards the Rumelian fortresses of Thessaloniki. 

Their main task today is not necessarily to take down the Rumelian fortifications, of course, no sane commander would want his troops to knock head on with a well defended fortifications being ill equipped and unfamiliar with the scenario they are facing. Their main task today is to pave roads to the fortresses for subsequent armies to use, set up replenishment stations and construct defensive towers in important high lands or road conjunctions. 

Of the ten thousand soldiers marching, three thousand of them are cavalries mainly mercenaries or barbaric hordes in the steppe and mounted slaves from Bulgaria and Circassia who longs to get recognised by their masters through hard battles becoming a real 'Ottoman'. They shall be used to wipe out all remaining Rumelian scouts and resistance outside of those cursed fortifications, these people are deemed to face the most amount of loss and casualties, but the Grand Vizier would not even blink an eye in pain even if all of these men are dead. Because, at the end of the day, they are not true Ottoman Turks, only a bunch of 'properties' in the eyes, no matter how hard they fight. 

When an army surpass one thousand men they can already seal off an entire road stretching for hundreds of meters, when an army is counted more than ten thousand on the plains they seem to be boundary less, shaking the Earth as they march in the direction of Thessaloniki.

…

Mean while back in the main fortress on the Roman line of defence, Antonius has acquired report from a group of almost dead scouts about this impending foe as he raised the signal to all other fortresses to get prepared for the possible siege. While suddenly a few mounts carrying the messenger banner can be seen approaching the other end of the fortress shouting that they have an urgent message of Thessaloniki, which immediately sent a wave of worriedness among the defenders as they began gossiping whether some thing has happened in Thessaloniki. 

The mounts rode in to the fortress through the lowered bridge and jumped down their horses right in front of the admiral shouting. "Admiral! We have some thing to pass to you, some thing urgent from the mistress in Thessaloniki!" 

"Mistress?" Antonius is bewildered. "Who the hell is mistress?"

"Ahem." Abdullah in one side coughed and reminded. "I think he is referring to Anna Notaras." 

"Ohh~" Antonius came to realisation as he opened the box trying to figure out what is inside. 

It is a war banner, sewed in silk with a vibrant scarlet base colour, a figure of a Eastern Roman crown in the middle with a white lion beneath it. After an inspection Antonius can say that this is by far the most elegant piece of silken art he has ever seen, and the one who sewed it must have at least started preparing three months ago.