Wild Goose Chase (fiction, continue 32)
Posted on: November 29, 2008
The demise of an army
The Southern Army had no choice but to avoid the shores and crossed their worst nightmare for 60 days toward the small fishing village of Bandar Abbass. What was to be an army was no longer; it was decimated by thirst and anyone who reached Bandar Abbass was in a state of coma and total dehydration. There are no chronicles left on that adventure; the Greek would have done a thorough Iliad.
In order for the plan to evacuate the Southern Army to succeed it was necessary to lure the fleet of his enemy that his real intention was to land in Egypt from the Red Sea. Actually, one of the primary strategies of Artax was to recapture Egypt and press on to Babylon and thus cut trade route supplies to the usurping Monarch; but that plan was studied for future activities and the decoy plan came much too late.
As is the case in general, military defeats are turned into victory by appropriate propaganda. Since the small and insignificant navy of Artax was no match to the navy of the Persian Empire, and since Artax could not entice the neighboring States to join him on naval expeditions against the “legitimate” Persian Empire on account of ratified trade agreements and written documents, then Artax devised an ingenious promotion victory. The best way was to give the illusion that his intention is to discover the African continent by touring its coast and establishing commercial colonies. As part of Artax fleet advanced around the African seashore, tales of his glorious adventures to circumnavigate the African Continent spread like wild fire amid the Persian people who were getting depressed of an authority wielded by the nobility and the cast of strict priesthood.
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