Chapter 246: Glory to the Empire (1/2)

Over a month had passed since Honoria's disappearance, and despite the Byzantine imperial family's best efforts, they had completely and utterly failed to locate the girl. They were beginning to fear for the worst.

While the Emperor was struggling to deal with the fallout of his daughter's reckless behavior, Arethas was marching an army into Egypt. They had set sail from Ionia not long ago, and they arrived in Egypt not far from what remained of the territory of the Byzantine's decades-long conflict of invading the region.

Despite the Byzantines' best efforts, the Mamluke sultanate still held control of Egypt, Cyrene, and most of North Africa. Thus leaving the Byzantine Empire in a never-ending war for reclaiming lost territory. If not for the vast wealth gained from the Levant and the trade routes connected to the Mediterranean, the Byzantines would have had to give up this conflict long ago.

However, today was different; today, Arethas marched with an army of 15,000 men; these men were equipped with matchlock arkebuse firearms and pikes. Through Berengar's intervention in the timeline, the arkebuse, or arquebus, had become a reality far earlier than in his past life, and he had sold them in great numbers to the Byzantines while aiding them in the development of pike and shot formations.

The reason for this was simple, Berengar intended for the Byzantines to be a great power in the East and act not only as a bulwark in defense of the Muslim world but as an Ally he could rely upon to aid him against his enemies.

Berengar had thoroughly outraged the Catholic world with his reformation, and in doing so, created many hostile states surrounding his borders. If he did not foster a powerful alliance with the East, he would undoubtedly be fighting a coalition of the European powers by himself. After spending a lifetime at war, he would surely end up like Napoleon.

Thus in order to ensure that he would have a powerful ally, Berengar intended to restore the lost glory of Rome to fight alongside him against his enemies. Today was the first day that the Byzantine Empire showed off its newfound military might against the Saracens who sought to destroy her.

Arethas sat on horseback at the rear of his formation, protected by his guards. In the field, the Byzantine army equipped with their mirror pattern armor held their arkebuses and pikes in their hands as the Mamluke forces gathered on the other side of the sands.

Arethas had spent a significant degree of time, effort, and expense arming and training his army in the new weapons and tactics. Initially, he had desired to spend more time getting acquainted with their use, but unfortunately, Alexandria had fallen, and he was forced to move his forces to retake what was lost before their training was complete.

Unlike the Hussites, Berengar had not provided the Byzantines with any primitive form of field artillery. Thus at the moment, they were merely organized into arkebuse, pike, and cavalry units. The Mamluke army was a traditional medieval formation and was quite confused when they saw the formations and weapons wielded by the Byzantines.

Nevertheless, the battle had begun as the Mamlukes began to march into battle; seeing this, Arethas ordered his armies to meet the enemy in battle; soon, the troops would clash in the center of the field, where they would fight to the death to determine a winner. Eventually, the armies began to close the gap where Arethas shouted his commands, which the officers and NCOs relaid among the rank and file of the soldiers.

”Hold your ground! Hold your ground until you see the whites in their eyes!”

This was a phrase Berengar had given Arethas as the basis of when his troops should fire their weapons. Berengar had long since surpassed the need for such tactics with his rifled muskets. Still, for a smoothbore arkebuse, the effective range was limited, and to gain the most effective use of their weapons, they would have to fire upon their enemies when they were at extremely close range.

The Byzantines held their ground for some time. However, many of the men in their army did not have the discipline and strength of will to hold on until their enemy was mere feet away. Thus when the enemy drew near one by one, they would fire their shots, often missing their targets in the initial charge.

Though Arethas tried to control this, it created a ripple effect; pretty soon, the entire line had fired, and though many of their shots had hit their mark, cutting down the enemy infantry, the impact they had was not as destructive as it could have been.

After the rounds were fired, Arethas was forced to deploy the pikemen to protect his infantry as they reloaded. Thus the Mamluke soldiers quickly found themselves skewered at the end of the 20 foot long weapons.