Chapter 521: Right?
All of the venetian’s efforts have been ruined by the sudden victory of that autocrat Antonius De’Ricci. The patrician knows clearly that there is now not a single possibility of him getting his hand on the city, but that certainly does not stop him from starting to adopt a hate towards that man seating inside the high castle of Thessaloniki Antonius De’Ricci. Everyone knows that the Venetians are almost invincible on the seas, but in fact the Venetians would prevail from using force for most of the times to achieve their political goals in the fear that it might injure their already overstretched fleet in every part of the Mediterranean, instead they often use another weapon.
Economical strangling.
And that has worked pretty well for the past centuries, which means that it must have continued to work efficiently for the centuries to come. The patrician, on behalf of the Dandolo family and the serene republic of Venice, now needs to show to that commander called Helio, and the Antonius behind him, that who is truly the king of these waters.
No matter what, for now, all military operations involving Helio is now officially over. Helio began separating his infantry regiment to various segments, installing them in various heartland, towns and fortifications carving out a borderline between Antonius and the Albanons in the North building up forts and repairing the fallen walls. The soldiers shall lay down the first tiles of bricks on the new border security of the state, and they themselves shall form the first guards patrolling the borders, being the first generation of scouts men stuck here to safeguard the safety of the citizens.
...
Antonius’ army set off almost two weeks later than the other two armies after he has finished whatever business he had in the city of Kastoria.
Information flies everywhere together with the waves of time, and in the time span of two weeks, the recent Roman victory, the defeat and missing in action of the Sanjek, and the name of the victor, Antonius De’Ricci. The news of defeat brought a series of aftershocks and events to the region, the first to respond to this exploding piece of news is of course as always, the merchants. Immediately after the battle, the merchants are already starting to embrace the imminent change of governance and more importantly, the market.
Especially the merchants selling food, they started raising the price for vital living essentials like salt from the Adriatic, grains from Eygptus and hides from the Mongols to a sky high price aiming to earn some quick money with the resources they have, exploit the local people for their very last time before they run to somewhere else with the fortune. There are also the kind of merchants who wish to stay doing business under the new regime started buying all the available silk and cloth in the market and started manufacturing them into the flag of the white lion to be hang outside their stores, warehouses and wagons even before the forces of Antonius ever show up.
One must say that it is indeed pretty interesting to observe the behaviours of these merchants in times like this, a great way for social experiments to test how ready is the local population towards major crisis, and also at the same time a great opportunity for merchants to become opportunists, taking the change as a ladder for them to climb towards the greater wealth.
Antonius met little resistance ever since he embarked with his troops. There are some warlords and owners of towns attempted to put up a defence, but only to be ran over by Antonius’ troopers in no time forcing them to either surrender themselves, be killed, or flee to the nearby forests or hills to become a bunch of rogues and bandits which shall indeed deteriorate the safety and stability of the local area giving Antonius some extra trouble when he is about to properly govern this region.
The troops marched to a fortress called Agros Orestiko not far away from Kastoria first, only to find out that this fortress has already been captured in the locals in a peasant uprising whereby all Ottoman garrisons have fled away with the news of the defeat. The uprising local peasants requested to join the forces of the Caesar proving themselves to be useful as local guides, and the later agreed. Under the help of the guides, Antonius then reached the town of Neapoli which sits on a vital three way intersection connecting the major routes from Ioannina to Trikala, only to find out that this town too has been captured by friendlies, apparently Julian moved in a God speed and has come to this town long time ago, leaving fifty men behind as garrison and welcomed the troops of Antonius, Julian even left a note behind for his superior.
In the note Julian described that this place was once filled with bandits, local uprising troops, and leftover Ottoman troopers, and he has kindly helped Antonius to clear up all of them, so there should not be any more enemies left starting from here onwards.
Antonius twitched his lips and kept the piece of letter aside, as the years go by and his army expands, war is becoming increasingly dull and boring for him, because as the sovereign he is barred from going onto all forms of field action by his sub coordinates in the risk of his own life. Now, war is just either his elite forces crushing the enemies like how they squeeze an ant, or his loyal commanders having already done most of the job for him leaving the bare minimal things to do, then in the end complimenting Antonius as if he has done a brilliant move. Sometimes Antonius even wonders if these people, like Julian, is just spoon feeding him to prevent him from frequently interfering with frontline military affairs, just like what those nobles and lords in the West love to do.
Antonius left Neapoli soon after and headed west along the mountain trails that has an ancient road built by the pagan Romans that is surprisingly still functional even till today, making Antonius complain to his men on the fact that he does not understand why some old things perform much better and is more durable than its modern counterparts.
It is not until the village of Tsotyli that did Antonius finally meet some resistance from the Ottoman forces, a total of a hundred riders, still waving the war banner of the deceased Sanjek, charged towards the incoming Roman forces in the hope that their ambush shall work, only to be intercepted by the Roman sentries and guards that are counter ambushing them, and in the end all of them are slain except for one man, who is captured after he is being knocked down from his horse and fell unconscious.
Later that night, Antonius came to interrogate him out of boredom.
Upon seeing the Caesar, the Ottoman man made a spit towards the direction of Antonius, giving the later’s boots a mouthful of blood with a broken teeth, showing that he has already received a good beating earlier during the day.
"Bloody invader, menace, inhumane faggot." The man uttered in a weak but full of hatred voice.
"You know me?"
"Shall remember your face until I die, I will describe your face to Izrāʾīl and the mighty Allah when I die, to cast a thousand lightening of punishment to you for the sins you have done."
"Ah, but I follow a different belief as compared to you though, so most likely your God cannot do anything to me."
The man kept silent for a while, then shook his head. "سبحان ربي العظيم وبحمده, الله أكبر."
"You said that I am an invader, an outsider." Antonius continued questioning. "But this place, this piece of land called Epirus, belongs to the Romans since thousands of years ago though? It is you people, the Ottomans, that ought to be called outsider and invader, don’t you realise?"
The Ottoman captive made a cold laugh, shook his head once again and retorted. "Infidel, if I am going to use the logic that you have just stated, then this piece of land should not be owned by the Romans too though, in fact you people ought to also be counted as invaders and outsiders, this land ought to belong to the Greeks... Don’t you think so? Don’t you know that your Romans are once the biggest war monger in this land invading every single piece of land you have your eyes on?"
"That is already more than a thousand years ago..."
"We Ottomans have also been residing on this land for like what, a hundred years?" The man interrupted and continued questioning. "We have already called this place our home, we have started integrating with the local community, we have even started to change our language, can’t we call ourselves a local to Epirus now? And if we are locals, what role do you play over here then? An invader, right?"
