Chapter 46: Rise of a new scourge of god? (Part 3)

Once our troops were in position all we needed to do was wait and respond according to the color of fireworks shot into the sky. Red meaning they are in urgent need of support, blue meaning they are in conflict but winning, and green meaning they need medical support.

We are all aware of the plans so we just waited in the command center camp, waiting for signals... as the daylight began to pass I was a little worried about the troops assorted throughout the cold forests. But soon we began to see fireworks exploding across the skyline.

Using all our troop positions on the map and correlating them with the fireworks locations and colors, we not only sent support but also recorded the positions in which battle was raging in. This went on throughout the night, our soldiers are most definitely exhausted from such small-scale personal battles.

While the sun was rising high in the sky I sent out messengers to bring the troops back to the headquarters. I want to let our troops make camp and relax for the remaining part of this day while we figure out the numbers of our and our enemy's casualties.

By noon all the living and dead troops made their way into the camp already. Our casualties were not too high, something around fifty or sixty men. But the enemies were dealt a definite blow, we estimate the enemy's numbers before the ambush to be around twenty thousand, and during our ambushes, we managed to kill or capture up to six thousand soldiers.

Still, as of this moment our sipahi and my Kapikulu are hunting down the retreating enemies, they are under direct orders to run the enemies out of the area. I do not need any enemies rushing my back as I crush this city. My goal is to capture the city within two weeks, I need this port as just like Durres the Italians are sending their reinforcements to the Serbs through this city.

In the night the cavalry returned in large groups, and before two in the morning, all of the cavalries have returned. Waking up in the morning and entering the central meeting tent, I was met with tons of reports.

One of my cavalry commanders stepped forwards and said "my sultan, the men who were ordered to chase down the fleeing enemies have returned in the night. They reported that many enemies were cut down, the leaders estimate the numbers of dead enemies can reach as high as two thousand and at the lowest a thousand men dead."

Another commander also stepped forwards and said "my sultan, we have established a connection inside the city of Ragusa as you ordered, we now have contacts in the government and guards who are willing to cooperate with us for coins, and for certain benefits when we capture the city... There is also new information coming in from the captured soldiers.

-They are saying the army we have driven off from the area was here to recruit and pay the Italian, French, and Spanish men at arms and knights who arrived at the port city Ragusa. This can be proven true as the number of coins and paper taken from the camp is a lot more than you would normally find in an army of their size."

Giving me no time to digest the new information or even respond the next commander stepped forwards. He said "my sultan, I also have information... I received a messenger from our fleet last night and they say that their reinforcements have arrived yesterday and that their numbers are about 65 ships now... Here is the message showing the breakdown of their numbers..." He then handed me the message he received...

Looking over the paper real fast I see the makeup of the navy I have available at the moment. There are now four carracks in this fleet as two more just arrived, and the remaining number of ships are all split between the galleon and galley. The two new carracks were stolen from our enemies the Genoese during our naval battle with them and then modified to hold cannons.

Now that I have been given the necessary information I decided to pass down the necessary orders... I said, "All commanders prepare your troops to march within the next two hours I want to see the city before nightfall!"

Once my army was back to marching I could notice the slight sluggishness coming from their movements... The entire army is a little tired as we have been on campaign for a while now, but I plan to organize campaigns in the future that may go on for years not just months... I will make my soldiers used to the harshness of the campaign so that in the future this will be possible.

Using the route our soldiers trekked through before while securing the region, we moved swiftly through the snowy areas. When we first started the Anatolian campaign not many of my soldiers had any true protection against the elements like cloaks or furs to keep warm... But now after a few battles and sieges and lots of looting, I see a sea of fur cloaks, thick overcoats, and extra thick kaftans.

Now they are certainly kept warm during the marches, from their body's warmth being trapped into whatever they wear to protect them from the elements. We ended up marching for an entire two days before even reaching the mountains guarding the coast where Ragusa resides... Damn, I am regretting giving the majority of my fleet to my brother so much right now but you live and you learn.

Moving through the pass we eventually entire day later managed to reach the outskirts of the city... But this is where I am surprised, though my scouts and spies mentioned there was already a camp outside the city. NO ONE AND I MEAN NO ONE SAID THE CAMP WAS THIS MASSIVE! There are at least thirty thousand people in the camp, I mean I cannot say all of them are combatants but at least ten thousand are.

I need to figure out a way to eliminate these forces here, I cannot simply wait for them to move into the city eliminating my chances of winning within two weeks. Looking at the size of the camp and the sheer number of people in it I estimate the city couldn't feed them for a month without starving themselves. I mean the city itself has barely fifteen thousand people calling it home, there is no way to feed this camp for long.

Hmmm... *Sigh* I am always in a rush, I pressed my advantage of having a standing army to rush deep into enemy lands to get a head start and I achieved that. What is the need to rush, the longer I am in enemy lands the better, I am drawing their attention to my army here alone.

Also, every two weeks that pass I am gaining a massive number of new elite units from the system recruiting function, there is no need to rush too fast to deal with problems. Because in a month the Serbs will also have to deal with my new elite force I will have turned into a raiding band looting all across the Balkans and even into Hungary if they can.

They may not be a large force but dealing with multiple forces at once is a lot to deal with if you want to incorporate your forces into one big army to go on the offensive. My strategy is to force the Basilius of Serbia to make hard decisions, will he choose to chase out the attacking armies, or ignore them...

Will he choose to go on the offensive regardless of the state of his defenses, and move to siege Serres? I am not sure if he will be willing to split his army up once he can form the army in Skopje, but that only leaves the option of trying to force a decisive battle... But my army will be way faster than his so maybe he will send his elite retinue to slow me down resulting in...

*Sigh* Again lost in my thoughts, well let us figure out how to reign in this large camp of crusaders. It seems we have gotten our way on the information front as the enemies do not seem aware of our presence just yet...

So if we wait until the night I believe we can scatter these crusaders through the act of burning their camp. Simple is better especially when you do not have to work hard, calling my commanders... When they arrived I gave them orders.

We need our army camped in a rather secretive location for the night, a light camp we are not settling in for the night. A few hours later the sun has left the sky for a time, and my horsemen are now mounting their horses.

I plan to use the Kapikulu units mostly in this raid, and add some sipahi to sure up the numbers and kill more fleeing soldiers. I forced myself to lead this raid as it needs to go perfectly as it is a nighttime raid and too many mistakes can be made, so once we reached the outskirts of the camp we put out our torches and waited.

Waiting until about four in the morning, making sure the campers were in deep sleep... There weren't many lookouts as the camp is not under anyone's leadership just yet. So moving closer without torches let us reach within charging range of the camp before anyone could make out our forces.

Then I gave the order "CHARGE" moving forwards full steam ahead! *thump Thump THUMP* We galloped closer and closer to the fortified camp's entrance, once we reached the entrance area the guards tried to scream but were shot in the neck with arrows before a single word was released.

The first group of our horsemen entered the camp led by me, we lit our torches and naphtha grenades with the torches already present in the camp... We started setting fire to all the tents we could see as we marched through the camp. Not experiencing any pushback we moved on and on firing all the tents we could see.

Soon more and more of my horsemen were entering the hellish camp entrance, and the enemies themselves were also waking up at this time looking to defend themselves or just run away. I have even seen some idiots looking to surrender in this situation this is just stupid, it is still dark out the fires are raging everywhere no quarter will be given anything that moves is an enemy!

I screamed as I rode through the camp of fire "KILL TAKE NO PRISONERS ANYTHING THAT MOVES IS AN ENEMY CUT THEM ALL DOWN!" I do not want any more captives they just eat more of our food and the ransom will be complicated...

So I see no benefits in keeping them, so lets just kill as many as I can all the sipahi outside will catch the runners! But soon after about twenty minutes a group of a thousand men tried to mount a defense and counter-attack but we just crushed their formation running them down where they stood...

I saw this as the last stand of the camp as I did not see any coordinated movements in the camp anymore I ordered a retreat from the camp... Moving out of the camp in stride I regrouped our forces where we came from. I retreated as I did not want any accidental casualties from our own men either fighting each other or having them killed by the fire or lack of oxygen.

Reaching a large hill overlooking the coastal area where the camp and the city are located, I look out over the area watching the chaotic scene before me with a smile... Men were rushing towards the city walls only to be cut down with speed, others ran towards our direction only to be shot down by an arrow, and the smarter ones tried to move quietly towards the forested areas in the distance also with no luck.