Chapter 503 - Who Benefited The Most

"Your majesty, only the emperor of Imperium Romanum can grant people the position of Stratēgos…"

These words created an explosion in the minds of the guards standing around in the tent, they looked at one another and then looked at Apostolos standing behind their sovereign's back with eyes of disbelief. To them this sentence felt like Apostolos is reminding the Caesar to remember to seek approval from Constantinople about the new appointment of Stratēgos, which is an act that the Caesar dislikes or even despise due to the multiple restrictions Constantinople is trying to impose on him limiting his expansion, especially with the nasty performance of those envoys and supervisors sent by Constantinople for this battle.

Master Apostolos has always been a very careful person when dealing the relationship between him and the other members of the government, what made him change to who he is know? The guards cannot help but wonder for themselves. To them they felt like Master Apostolos has already offended the sovereign for twice, once by referring him to an emperor whose head is turned into a drinking cup, and the second time today.

Though strangely speaking Antonius did not make any comment, or not even any expression on Apostolos' words. He stood there for a while and proceeded on by going out of the tent leaving Apostolos here himself. This made the guards to be even more sure that Apostolos has now offended the Caesar again today and started thinking whether it is time for them to stop trying to appease Apostolos and start to marginalise him instead.

…

Adrianos left this place just half a day after the meeting, with a bunch of trophies, coins, medals, jewels and banners. Oh, and a standard of the Holy Cross of Chi Rho to let him, a faithful Orthodox believer, to have something to worship to in the middle of a bunch of Muslims. Antonius only allowed him to leave with a hundred of his men first, saying that there is not enough space in the ship that he has allocated for them which can only go one trip at a time. Adrianos definitely does not believe this kind of bullshit, a Caesar that came from an admiral, who has spent countless efforts building a formidable fleet in the past decade, is now telling him that he is running out of ships to transport his men to Anatolia?

This is obviously another old Roman trick that is widely used by the Komnenian emperors of Constantinople on the crusaders in the past, whereby they let the leader of the crusaders cross the straits of Bosporus with only a portion of their men, saying that there is a limit on how many men they can transport at one time asking them to wait over there on the other side of the strait. Then when the next batch of people arrive, the leader of the Crusaders shall be shocked to find out that the emperor of the Greeks has already granted leadership to a bunch of people who can be bought by ranks, prestige and most importantly gold to swear their allegiance to the emperor, enabling the emperor to stretch his antennas out into the crusaders. This trick has enabled the emperors in the past to control these Alermanians and the Franks, Adrianos as a Roman knows too well on this trick, and it seems like this trick has landed on his head today.

Though he dared not to say a word of complaint and scrambled off with the hundred of his men under the 'escort' of a bunch of armed soldiers to the port outside Katerini, where supposedly a fleet is already there expecting them bound for Artake.

The operation hunting down the Ottoman troopers who escaped into the woods took an entire week, leaving many Ottomans with no choice but to keep on running away from the search areas going back to Epirus or heading north into Macedonia and Bulgaria controlled by Abbas Pasha to seek for political asylum. There is no information regarding the ones who ventured all the way to Abbas Pasha's territory, but the ones who went west found themselves coming head on to the border scouts of another man that they have been rivalling with for a long time – Skanderbeg.

Countless tricks and strategies have been used in this battle that stretched on since the end of last year, but the trophy for the most superb trick star and performer shall doubtlessly go to the sovereign of Albanon Skanderbeg. He has successfully fooled everyone from the Ottomans to the Romans making them think that he would not take any action this time round, allowing the Sanjek to draw a quarter of his border guards away to reinforce the battle here. He has fooled the Ottoman intelligence system again for the second time making the Sanjek believe that all three of his border fortifications have been captured, which actually it is just surrounded. Skanderbeg successfully tricked the nobles left behind in the city of Ioannas, making them believe that the Albanons are legit coming here with large groups of infantries and siege equipment to capture this city, forcing the Sanjek to make a hasty and suicidal advance to face the Romans for a gamble in order to go back to save the fire in his capital city.

The direct result of Skanderbeg's tricks is the complete destruction of the Ottoman army, and the removal of the Sanjek who has been one of his main opponent for the past entire decade by the hands of Antonius with not a single Albanons life was lost in the process; Due to the massive defeat and the missing of the highest ruler in Epirus, the defenders on the border region between the Albanons and Epirus started fleeing from their posts leaving many places that are once hard to take with force now extremely vulnerable. These places, with many of them being strategically vital cross junctions and fortresses, are now like a piece of meat under Skanderbeg's mouth.

Even after Skanderbeg takes these places and expand his duchy into Epirus, he knows that Antonius of Thessaloniki cannot say many things about it either. Antonius is fighting for God, and he is also fighting for God. They have signed a pact of alliance before all of these ever started, although Skanderbeg did say that he would not send a single soldier at the time of the signing. They are still allies that have just achieved their common goal, and Skanderbeg has definitely made enough achievements to cut a share of the cake for himself.

It is now clear to everyone that the Albanons never wanted – and never had the abilities to take the city of Ioannina in an advancement fast as a lightening bolt. He had just staged a perfect show assembling all eight hundred of his cavalries rushing down to Ioannina within a few days' time, while the fortresses in the borders are encircled by his thousand plus infantries. Then they made a mega sized camp right outside the city lighting up a huge amount of bonfire and candle light every single day giving the Ottomans inside the city a feeling that the bulk of the Albanon army has arrived for their city, then Skanderbeg sent out half of his cavalries to go around the city to ransack and pillage the properties outside the walls, mainly targeting the properties of the nobles to make them feel the pain of suffering a tremendous economical lose.

Finally he purposefully let a safe passage out for Ottoman messengers between Ioannina and the direction of Kastoria, as Skanderbeg knows clearly that the desperate Ottoman nobles who are already corrupted after been spoon fed with a golden spoon in these luxurious cities for years, shall urge the Sanjek repeatedly by sending him letter after letter exaggerating about the real numbers of Albanons outside the city, giving the Sanjek an expression that he must come back to save Ioannina as soon as possible.

As the 'old friend' of the Sanjek, Skanderbeg knows way too well that there is something inside the walls of Ioannina that his old friend shall definitely try to protect to his death. Though even Skanderbeg did not realise that his piece of intel is actually outdated as well, which added some uncertainty to whether the Sanjek shall really try to finish the things at the Eastern lines fast and make a come back. But nevertheless, most of his plans and assumptions worked, Skanderbeg is notified about the Sanjek's defeat a day after the end of the actual battle, and he satisfactorily ordered a total retreat of all the troops underneath the walls. Then did the Ottoman nobles inside the city realise that this vast camp was in fact vacant for most of the times.

No one knows whether these nobles inside Ioannina shall actually feel guilty and remorseful about themselves urging their sovereign to rush back only because of their own selfish reasons.. Everything is too late now, they have lost, everything.