Chapter 461 - Admiral, Caesar

Everyone has a clear knowledge that no one, inclusive of Fisnik, can possibly survive with such a load being piled onto him, even if his bones and internal organs are not crashed into crackers by the sheer weight of these coins piling up to a hill, he would have been killed from the lack of air. But no instructions ever came out from the higher ups in that tent who are still watching all of these going on, and Helio too did not stop transferring the bags of coins, the other two treasurers, although reluctant, continued doing whatever they had in their hands. 

After a long period of time, a mount came back from the frontline reporting to Antonius that the Ottomans seem to have no intention of taking this opportunity to launch an attack on their camp, and Helio is also done with piling up all the coins and silvers onto his friend's body, which according to the words of Antonius earlier, these money shall be all gifted to the family of Fisnik.

The stash of coins and silvers are then being stacked again onto pre-prepared carts bound for the place where Fisnik's family resides. They will be informed about the grave news that their man has sacrificed himself gorily on the battlefield and these money are used to compensate them for their lose. If planned wisely, these money is sufficient for fifty people to live comfortably for a living even inside an expensive area for a living.

Words came from Antonius again to Helio, saying that he has no intention of showing the pathetic state of Fisnik's remains to the others. Thus, Helio used a piece of cloth to wrap Helio's remains together with several bags of coins covering his body, brought it to the point facing the direction of his hometown Avlonya and buried him there on the spot. Only the blood tainted on the yellowish dust shows to people that Fisnik was here a while ago and has left the world of the living forever.

This is the first man who has followed the admiral since the very start of his career that has been executed by Antonius, though everyone knew that Fisnik pretty much deserved this ending by his own deeds, but it still created a mental shock within their heads. With Fisnik being the first case everyone knows that the admiral, or the Caesar of the empire, have the right and indeed can execute them if he feels the need to. It created a hard feeling within themselves, of course. Some even started to sympathise with Fisnik.

At least it is also ensured today that the deceased shall earn a decent name with a spectacular amount of reward after he passes no matter of whatever mistake or crime he has done in the past, all that matters is the weight one carries inside the Caesar' heart.

The drum and horns are sounded once again.

All the commanders and advisors are summoned back into the same tent again, with a complete different mindset and mood this time round.

One can feel from the atmosphere that something is not right here in the tent this time round, everyone has their head lowered staring at the carpet imported from Syria, no more chit chatters and greetings like last time and definitely no laughter and hugging with one another.

"So." Antonius opened his mouth first as he sat back down on his chair. "The artillery site that spent Jacob more than a month has now been destroyed by the Ottomans before we could acquire the mathematical arguments to launch our bombs onto their camps, we have temporarily lost our strike abilities, what other methods or thoughts do you people have?"

No one said a word, everyone is peeking at Julian, the most senior general who has also been following Antonius for the longest time.

"Eh, admiral, Caesar." Knowing that everyone is expecting him to stand out Julian had to say something with his eyebrows tightly shut. "We have temporarily lost the heavy siege equipment temporarily, and it is hard for us to maneuverer our heavy artilleries across these steep mountain trails and form an effective damage against those fortified fortresses standing in our way, but we must break through these lines of defence and go all the way into the enemy territory before the planting season comes, so our logistics pressure can be greatly reduced and the employed farmers can be released back into their crop lands to ease the pressure lord Alexios is facing on the food shortage escalating each year."

The speech just given by Julian is almost equivalent to he has said nothing in which he recited the current situation mentioning the future dilemma and pushed the problem back to Antonius.

"I have asked for an idea, a solution Julian, not for an evaluation of the current situation."

"Forgive me for my incompetence please, your majesty." Julian took the chance to come out and apologise which further pushed the problem away from him. Everyone standing here has a basic understanding on military knowledge, and everyone knows that there are only two solutions left for them facing the current situation. One is to use fire which has already been opted out by the Caesar which has an outstanding safety hazard of the fire being spread to the dried winter woods on the surrounding hills and end up spreading towards their own military camp.

While for the other solution…

"Your majesty." Alexios stepped out of the line and eased the burden of Julian. "I suggest that we reconsider the proposal by Jacob, that is to build a specialised task force within our troops with selected warrant specliast corps to handle explosives and order them to charge towards the enemy lines carrying the gun powder with them, plant it under the walls, ignite all of them at once and try their very best to get the hell out of there."

The tent went back to its usual dead silence