Chapter 234: The Fuddy Duddy

On the Fifteenth of July, year 1454, Antonius finally leapt his first foot out onto the expansion southwards towards the warmer waters of the Aegean, and the first and most difficult obstacle he must go past is the series of fortresses along the strait of Gallipoli, with the biggest and most defensive capable of them being the Kilitbahir Castle, a brand new fortress constructed a year ago under the order of Candarli Halil Pasha to trap the beast inside. 

However even the most elite bureaucrat of the Sultanate has things he do not understand when it comes to architecture and modern military knowledge. The fortress is built with the aim to seal off the strait from the narrowest point seating at the spot where it is closest to main land Anatolia, with the strait being the narrowest at a distance of approximately one thousand and two hundred meters. However, the biggest artilleries he can install on the fortress only have an approximate effective range of around one thousand meters, thus the best method is to build another fortress at the city Çanakkale, with the two fortresses cooperating with each other then they are able to seal off the strait completely. 

However, our Grand Vizier simply will not do that, as the city of Çanakkale is now currently in the hands of his political rival Zaganos Pasha, and building a fortress there would only cause him trouble next time when he plan to get rid of him by pure force. 

Even though Antonius knows from the intel provided by Abdullah's scouts that he can evade the shooting range of the fortress with the expertise navigating skills of his sailors, he still decided to pluck this fortress out taking advantage of the fact that the fortress is still freshly built with many areas not completed. 

And most importantly, Abdullah knows the Janissary commander of this fortress. 

The Janissary commander is a man from the Candarli family, close kin of the Grand Vizier called Candarli Erden. For this man Abdullah only has a simple description. 

"This man has nothing in his mind, put in high place in the Janissary only because the Grand Vizier needs some one reliable from his own family to take more control of the army, and thus he was squeezed inside… I reckon the fact that he is even capable of leading soldiers, because the only thing he could do in the past is to read books and talk about macro but pointless stuff."

Anjelo on the side added on in a joking tone. "It is said from the merchants passing by, that since the first day of this honourable commander's arrival, he has been there reading books on his bed. He was there for so long that his sweat drenched the bed sheet casting his dark silhouette on the bed." 

"I see... That's gross." Antonius commented while he studied the fortress through his monocular. "Three towers, one covering the right wing, one covering the left wing…with a wall connecting them together, can't really see how many artilleries from here…." 

"Sixty." Abdullah said firmly gliding through the lines of a report. "Sixty artilleries, fifty pointing towards the strait and ten pointing towards the side." 

Antonius is surprised. "Oh? How did you get this information?" 

"One gold nugget and there be some one there telling me all of what he knows… The janissaries nowadays are no where like the Janissaries in the past." 

Hearing this firm answer Antonius put down his scope and ordered. "If it is like this, then there is nothing more for us to be afraid of! Battle stations! Sound the horns! Raise the flags! All war galleys form a double "C" shape formation, lay anchor, and blast down those walls and towers for me!" 

"Aye! Admiral!" 

The massive fleet maneuvered its sails following the south west wind directions and laid anchor at a six hundred meters distance from the fortress where the artilleries are capable of causing the most devastation. Mean while the defenders of the fortress have already been alarmed by their battle bells scrambling to their battle posts filling up gun powder in the gun barrels adjusting their bearings on those unknown but obviously enemy ships. Their commander, Candarli Erden, only realised his responsibilities now as the commander of the Janissaries of the fortress going up and down the walls and towers giving speeches trying to motivate the soldiers, though his fellow Janissaries cannot really understand what he is talking about as his words are filled with Latin and Arabic quotes and phrases making it unintelligible for their ears. 

When an elder Janissary who have years in the art of artillery came reporting to him that the enemy fleet is all over the seas out gunning the fortress, as the artilleries mounted is unable to move their positions to focus their attack on the vital parts of enemy fleet losing the initiative. Hearing the report, the commander became utterly speechless with his mind being completely blank. Perhaps it is a little too hard for this scholar who excel in academics never facing a battle and touching an artillery before to command an army in to war zone. 

The only thing he could think of after a while, is to send one after another messenger to the Grand Vizier reporting the situation here asking for back up. 

Seeing that there is no obvious orders given from their commander, some minor officers took things in to their own hands commanding their soldiers to start firing on enemy fleet. One after other shells are fired from these guns but almost none of them caused any potential damage to Antonius' ships with out a coordinated strike and proper measurement of distance and angle. 

Antonius almost laughed out at these clowns' performance and checked the wind directions, each ship's statues and readiness before sending the signal commencing fire. 

"Fire!" 

The weapon of the new era showed its fire power once more with more than two hundred piece of artilleries shooting at once creating an impact so strong that it created a wall of air current against the wind as it is sent from the gun barrel with the explosion of the gun powder through the air right at the fortress of Kilitbahir with their main priority at the central tower. 

The Ottoman commander of Kilitbahir Candarli Erden stands right in the interior of the central tower beneath his flag and the banner of the Candela family, which is considerably the safest spot yelling for the perhaps first time of his life towards his Janissary soldiers. Sensing the incoming danger and the surge of air pressure he looked up, and there it is he saw the round shells incoming right at where he is standing like it is in a slow motion state. 

With a quick nerve he made a jump right out of the tower's windows down towards the walls, immediately after the jump a series of explosions sounded almost shattering his ear membranes. Candarli Erden looked back at the position where he was standing just now. The blast of the Rumelian artillery is so impactful that it penetrated through the walls of the tower right on to the stacked pile of gun powder lying at the back, causing a chain of violent reactions that created a massive explosion that almost turned the Earth into a micro hell, catching the entire world before Candarli Erden in the anguished flames of the skies. He studied his books for almost the whole life for thirty plus years but browsing through all of these knowledge he cannot find an answer to what has caused this amount of explosion, and a way to counter it. 

The knowledge summarized in the old era is no longer efficient after the dawn of the new age. 

After the chain of explosions, the central explosion is reduced to nothing but a bunch of falling bricks, with one landing right on to the head of the commander causing a dent on his helmet. He must be thankful to his uncle Candarli Halil Pasha for forcing him to wear an armour, if not even if he survived by inch from that fall, the bricks and rubbles would have taken his life. However even if he managed to preserve his miserable life, the wits and guts within it are shocked and lost, the commander gulped thinking that as such a noble and knowledgeable man he simply cannot die in this place along with those peasants and made a run downwards towards the stable. 

Not only Candarli Erden, but even Antonius and his crew are impressed by their master piece of art seeing the massive explosion. And with this an new idea came out of Antonius' mind; Is it possible to add some explosives and gun powder inside the canon balls so that it can cause an explosion on the enemies when fired?

That is an interesting topic, but first he still have a castle to take care of. 

With the sword drawn Antonius shouted out to all the Varangians behind him.

"Down with the boats! Prepare for attack!"