188
u mad?
(lemmy.nz)
Context: According to historical accounts, the Byzantine Emperor Leo III tricked the Umayyad commander Maslama into burning his own army's grain supplies by promising a peaceful surrender once the food was gone. Leo then refused to surrender, leaving the Arab forces to face a devastating famine and a brutal winter that ultimately broke the siege.
There is some sense to it - insofar as besieging armies occasionally did destroy their own supplies in order to force their own troops to commit to a (usually costly) assault on the besieged location. Thus, "I want to convince my nobles to surrender, but they think you're just going to wait out there and that they can outlast you. They need to think you're going to storm the walls soon if we want them scared enough to entertain the idea of surrender" is a legitimate thought...
... but that's a lot of fucking faith to put in one's literal fucking enemy XD