1453: Revival of Byzantium

Chapter 221: How I wonder where you are~

Rolling rolling little shell~ How I wonder where you are~

Here I am honey~ 

The giant metal round shells the size of a man's head came tearing through the air pounding onto the ground bouncing off into the crowd of Ottoman soldiers, these soldiers here are pretty new recruits to replenish the previous batch of garrison forces here have been drawn by the previous sultan Mehmed into the siege of Constantinople, and of course they never returned as the grand vizier Candarli Halil Pasha prohibited them from going back to their home towns and joining 'the hilariously weak forces of the rebels'. Thus, it is certain that only a pitiful amount of them ever experienced what does shelling taste like. 

An Ottoman soldier is still there looking blankly at the Rumelian fleet wandering what is that loud noice he had just heard, before he knew it he felt his left shoulder is splattered with some liquid soaking the cloth wet. He tilted his head in disgust and looked at his partner, he saw nothing, only a neck still splattering the scarlet red blood and a falling torso. 

Where is the partner's head? 

It took a few seconds before the surrounding situation made the soldier remember where he is now. 

He is right in the center of living hell. 

Shells exploded every where on the buildings, on the crowds, on the heads of the Ottoman soldiers like one after another bright rose flower blooming in the fields, the sheer power of metal clashing against them before their eyes, something they never see before ,only proved once again how weak human flesh and bones are against these newest innovations of modern technology. 

Times of blades and bows have ended, now it is gradually going to be the era of gun powder. 

The Ottoman soldiers on the decks scattered screaming and yelling scrambling for their shelters back to safety. Some psychologically fragile soldiers instantly got onto the ground with their knees shivering like seizure, some vomiting at the sight of the entire ground tainted with blood mixed with broken limbs and legs, some cried out lot seeing their known and dear ones collapse onto ground in agony. 

The Rumelian have not went ashore to engage yet, but the Ottomans have already suffered a heavy loss in morale as the entire army collapsed after the Rumelian shelling, actually even the two commanders seating back stood up staring at the scene not knowing what to do. His Agha had never taught them about any thing like this back in the past on how to deal with enemy artilleries, causing them to not even know the basics like digging shell scrapes.

"Send orders!" The Ottoman commander yelled panicking to his junior officers. "Send messages to all the various Bashis to re-organise their troops and fall back! We cannot leave our soldiers like this!" 

"General!" The junior officer supported his helmet trying his very best to protect his head against the falling rubbles shouting back. "It is no use! We have tried! But our chain of command has entirely collapsed! Even I cannot find where my men are!" 

The commander fell onto the ground, totally unsure of what to do under this kind of circumstances. Seeing this, the vice commander by his side anxiously pulled him up from the ground, giving him a pat on the back buffing him up and suggested almost crying out. "Commander! We have no time to waste! Remember that we, all of us over here, are nobles, we cannot just throw our lives in this cursed place like those peasants!" 

"You mean" The commander gulped sensing the hidden meaning in his vice commander's words. 

"Yes." The vice commander nodded without hesitation in his eyes. "Lets get the hell out of this place, those things called 'cannons' used by the Rumelian is way too much for us to handle. We should save our lives and report back to the honourable Grand Vizier of the situation over here, and by Allah's blessing we have such a Grand Vizier filled with the virtue of intelligence and wit, I bet that he shall think of a solution soon" 

"But This is the land of the Sultan, and we are obliged to serve the Sultan" 

"Forget about the Sultan!" The vice commander roared shaking the shoulders of his superior violently. "Who cares about the Sultan nowadays! Please! Commander! Wake up your mind! We serve the Grand Vizier! Not the Sultan! At least not this Sultan!" 

The commander is shocked beyond speech seeing his familiar counterpart now suddenly reacting like this. 

Just as these Ottoman officers are here arguing about what to do next, the next wave of volley shot came soaring across the sky right onto the garrison, with better accuracy this time after re-analyzing the trajectories adjusting the artillery's dividing angle of firing, this time almost all the shells fired landed right onto the garrison once again striking fear and anxiety into the heart of these soldiers scattered around. Though the Ottomans, when they invade others with artilleries, ought to have expected they too get invaded and get pounded upon by artilleries. 

The windows shattered before the commanders from the shock wave sent by a shell onto the building. Seeing this, the vice commander took no further delay, pulled his superior carrying him onto a cart with the help of several junior officers, then whipped the horse escaping a far from the site to seek a port that can give them a few ships to sail back to Edirne. 

In times of difficulties not every one can stay put on their feet and face it with what ever they can do, even if it is futile and might potentially cause their life. 

The poor Ottoman soldiers, not knowing that their commanders have already left there, continued crouching there behind those ineffective covers risking their pitiful lives at any moment. They would endure another three rounds of volley shots by the Rumelian fleet who seems like they want to sweep this entire premise into a vast land of complete emptiness. Just before the final round end, some Ottoman soldiers could no longer endure this kind of physical and psychological torture, ran out of their barricades shouting and screaming with tears and mucus gushing out from their eyes and nose, then suddenly dropping onto the ground shivering as if he is thrown into a frozen pond, having a seizure, with his life then taken away by a shell which came from no where, ending his suffering making him feel almost no pain at all. Maybe at this state death is a lucky thing for him.

After making sure that there is no more organised resistance observed on the port side by the pioneer scout ships, Antonius released his Varangians sailing smaller vessels to board, only to find out the exaggerating effects of the prior bombardment have already cleaned this area leaving not even the scent of any Ottomans over here, they have all either ran away behind during the intervals of the shots, or have simply vaporised into the air from the impact of the shells.

Yuri frowns as he kicks a pile of unhuman dead meat stuck on his shoes away, climbed onto a miraculously still standing tower, dropped the Ottoman flag flying there replacing it with the flag of double headed eagle. Upon seeing the flag, the crews of the pioneer ships erupted into a sea of cheers, followed by the crew of the main fleet, and then lastly into the ears of Antonius, signifying the capture of the Pendik bey.

However, the bey is still not completely empty though, as Antonius' varangian search through the premise they still found around two hundred Ottomans who are in a rather bad shape huddling together in the remaining remnants of the shelters squeezed together evading the shells, with no one left here having the guts to go out and check the situation, because all the people who went out to check on the situation previously never came back. They just stayed there shivering waiting for their fate to be called, hiding there avoiding sun light from their eyes like a pack of mice living in the shade. Yuri sighed looking at this, because he can see through their minds that the psychological defence of these people have been thoroughly demolished living not a brick behind. These men can no longer be effective soldiers.

After making sure that there are no more troubles spawning in the region, Antonius docked his fleet in the bey for a temporary re-supplying the fleet, while sending a message to the Sultan Orhan still under Izmit informing him that he has captured the bay asking him to send people to take over, and also bring the thing he promised to Antonius in the deal he signed.

As for the mentally crumpled Ottoman soldiers, Antonius sent all of them with his messenger to Orhan giving him a little more trouble in dealing with these mentally combat unfit soldiers.