1453: Revival of Byzantium

Chapter 257: My Kingdom For a Horse

With most of the cases solved the city of Thessaloniki returned to a vibrant state, thrived with new merchandise from other Christendom and Saracen states flooding in for they knows that they will all be treated fairly unlike the other ports held by the emperor of the Greeks or the Ottomans. With no high amount of absurd taxations like beard tax, weight tax, oil tax, food tax, window tax, hat tax, dirty sailor tax bluh bluh bluh, they can bring home much more revenue if they trade in Thessaloniki. Through these time of hard work Antonius has managed to establish a solid foundation of governance relying on the farmers and common city folks. 

The city returned to her peaceful state, and after another inspection through the city and the rural areas surrounding it realizing the increased support from the local population, Antonius thought that it is now time to expand his petite sized army, expanding it to at least be able to defend the long stretch of islands and the city he possessed. The bulk of his military now is still made up by unprofessionally trained sailors, joined in local militias, backed by a more combat capable but far to few in numbers the Varangians led by Yuri, the pitiful few calvaries led by Abraham, and the marines. 

He studied through the local population and found out that the locals are familiar with a kind of wrestling technique called the Pankration making many qualified brawlers. And through years of guerilla warfare, it made many locals superb marksman with bow. Many farmers would even hide a bow in their houses, and give any lost Ottoman a shot in the head when no one is watching them. The local terrains and habitats not only made them natural sailors, but also postnatal mountaineers with a high lung capacity able to march long distances, Antonius even bent down and massaged the feet of a middle aged local farmer, and is shocked when he felt this man's feet are hard like a rock, the skins and tissues on the bottom of the farmer has literally solidified. 

In conclusion the local population of Thessaly are natural infantries, it is only a pity that after the Angeloi emperors take over and the following fourth crusade destroyed the regulation that all men must partake in seasonal military training in local recruitment centers when they are not doing agriculture activities, which if this rule still exists it would have saved Antonius a lot more trouble and time training new soldiers from scratch. 

But what about the calvaries? Antonius still has a few hundred mounts from Orhan, and he knows that he must have a calvary force that is at least capable to protect his flanks when facing the Ottomans, who rose to power through the fluent use of calvaries. But many local population have not even rode on a horse before in their life time, which means that if Antonius wants to recruit and train horse men from them, it would take years for them to learn how to ride horses and adapt to mounted combat, and their war fighting capabilities would be certainly out matched by their Ottoman colleagues who are supposed better on horses, that is if they still have not soaked themselves in the bustling city lives and still remained a nomad habitat. 

Antonius wants his calvary force to be established fast, and capable, not recruiting bunch of infantries on horse backs. 

There are two ways out for Antonius trying to assemble his mounted force, one is to follow the path like his predecessors, forming an expert calvary force like Alexander the Macedonian's hetairoi, also known as companion calvaries, recruiting horse men from the local land lords and riches who are used to train on horse backs since young. However, this would also mean that Antonius has to compromise with these people which might potentially topple his foundation of governance. And another thing is that most of these people have already been drafted in to the Ottoman janissaries long time ago, thus even if he wants to follow this path there will not be enough riders for him. 

Then there is the second method, follow the ways of the Komnenian emperors relying heavily on Turkish, Pencheng and Cuman riders, purchasing mercenaries with gold. This too comes with a great risk needless to see, as it is widely known that Roman mercenaries always had a tradition of suddenly becoming incapable or even turning on their master's backs in times of battle. And at the end of the day, mercenaries leave and go, this place is not their home land. Not every mercenary is like Antonius and Giovanni. 

Just as Antonius is having a headache about this watching all his horses being transported all the way here from Anatolia, hopping in to the waters from the ships and waded through the shallow sea water towards the land guided by the herders. The horses are here, but where can Antonius find humans to ride them? In the end of the day, Antonius decided to place that trouble aside for he has already exhausted himself enough from the week long of trials, and catered all the horses temporarily to the logistics division.

After of the all these brain storming, Antonius decided to relax a bit taking the most usual way the nobles of this age in the suggestion of Alexios that is hunting. 

With a few cavalries Antonius and Alexios set off to the nearest woods to seek for preys armed with his full set of bow and quivers, with daggers for slicing meat. However, to their disappointment, after an entire day of searching Antonius and his riders simply could not find a prey large enough like boars and red deer to enlighten their mood, all they found was a bunch of rabbits and chamois. Being on this kind of noble sport for the first time, Antonius immediately grew bored feeling like it is no more than a hike in to the woods.

Sensing his lord is growing impatient on this hunt, Alexios became more and more worried fearing that if the admiral dislikes this kind of entertainment, he might go on to dislike Alexios thinking that he must be a boring person (Antonius: huh?), and thus a rather inappropriate idea started forming up in Alexios' head. 

Since the main source of the admiral's headache is that herd of horses, and horses, of course are big targets that are suitable for hunts and furthermore horses are also local species of animals. So why don't Alexios release one horse in to the wild, guide it purposely towards the admiral, and act like it is purely coincidental, then ask the admiral to bring the horse down with his arrows? Alexios bet that Abraham should not be able to notice that he is short of one horse, assuming by his inferior mathematical skills, and the admiral will be way too busy calculating the number of horses one by one. 

With the plan decided, Alexios waved towards a fellow cavalry he brought, and whispered beside his ears the plan, gave him a pat on the shoulder ordering him to execute it. The rider looked at the admiral, then looked at Alexios with doubts in his eyes, but still sighed and rode towards the plain outside the city where the horses are herded. 

Antonius's backside grew increasingly worn and painful, making him sit down on a bunch of dried lives while the cavalries busied around settling up their camp and a fire place to bake the meat they harvested today. 

"Alexios, come here, sit beside me." Antonius called out as he lied down holding a four leave clover in his hand. 

"Yes, admiral." 

"I have thought about it." Antonius murmured. "This is probably the last time I am going out for this kind of hunts." 

"Huh? Why my lord?" Alexios became a little bit afraid. "This is the usual sport of the nobles since the age of Constantine the great!" 

"Look at the pile of animals we harvested today." Alexios pointed to his loot a distance away. "Can we finish so much meat before it rots? I don't think I have that Appetit big enough to consume all of them, neither do I think you people have."

"But" 

"You see, Alexios, one hare we kill today means that there will be one hare less for my people; If a hunter gatherer from a nearby village found and killed it instead of me his family shall have one more hare for supper. The more meat my people harvested will mean that there will be less starvation and poverty among them. This is much more fruitful then I killing the animals plainly for fun and entertainment, you get what I mean?" 

Alexios opened his mouth and gaped, though no words are vocalized. He thought that the admiral is gonna say things like 'Oh, the animals are also creatures', 'Oh, these creatures are also a creation by God and God forbids us from killing the innocent for fun'. And just as he is thinking of a way to convince the admiral, he is proved to be deeply wrong.

The admiral is just thinking about the starvation and poverty among his people.