After Arnavutlu Iskender Pasha left the old battlefield, Manuel, after a brief sigh, was truly relieved; he had thought he was going to die there.
"Good, it seems I made the right gamble." Recalling everything he had just experienced, Manuel thought, "But now I'll probably have to find a way to escape on my own. If we follow the original plan, the retreat rest stop seems to have been set in Guerze…"
Just as he began to figure out how to rendezvous with his army, the Filakas search party led by Vladimir found him. After rushing to meet him and explaining the situation, Caesar roughly understood the current state of affairs, and he was immediately carried away from the still dangerous old battlefield by his subordinates, returning to the Bosporus Army's temporary encampment in Guerze.
Upon returning to the temporary camp, Manuel, who had experienced great ups and downs today, felt incredibly tired. Driven by this exhaustion, he didn't even have time to eat dinner, and simply collapsed onto his bedroll and immediately fell asleep.
This time, he uncharacteristically slept until the next morning. It was only a while after the large clock in Sinop City pointed to "9" that Manuel, having barely shaken off his fatigue, managed to wake up. Upon waking, realizing he had overslept, he quickly ordered his attendant to bring him breakfast and instructed Badars to gather a rough battle report as soon as possible to present to him.
By the time Badars arrived to report, his esteemed Caesar had just finished his breakfast. After a brief exchange of pleasantries with his loyal subordinate, Manuel eagerly, and still somewhat nervously, accepted the brief battle report on yesterday's engagement from his respectful subordinate.
According to the report, more than half of the nearly ten thousand soldiers the Bosporus Army deployed were casualties, with less than half remaining capable of continued marching and combat. The casualties among the conscripted militias and mercenaries were particularly severe, reaching a point where it was almost impossible to reorganize them into a legion. The Tatar Cavalry and Circassian Legion, composed mainly of foreign peoples, fared no better; positioned on the flanks of the entire army, their total losses amounted to nearly eight or nine hundred men. However, the peasant soldier units and the Philaka Legion, as elite troops, were in the center and had higher combat effectiveness, so they still retained seventy to eighty percent of their strength.
However, Manuel felt that the main reason his elite forces still remained was that Arnavutlu Iskender Pasha, the General of the Ottoman, for some reason, stopped pursuing them. He wondered if this counted as a blessing in disguise?
But according to the information he received from this Albanian, Ottoman Sultan Murad II was suspected of coming in person to deal with him. Thinking of this, his confidence, which had still existed last night, was shattered, and he could be said to have fallen into what was often called a state of depression in his previous life, muttering with his head down, "The future is bleak!"
Just as Manuel was feeling melancholic about the uncertain road ahead, his wife Barbara, who was serving as regent across the Black Sea, was also in a state of anxiety. While the Bosporus confronted the Ottoman Ankara Legion in Asia Minor, Tauris was not idle. As previously mentioned, to support their monarch's war in Asia Minor, the two regents and the cabinet members who remained unanimously agreed to implement a high tax rate of one-seventh. And just as Manuel and some key financial officials had worried, after several months of this tax rate, it indeed caused a backlash from independent farmers and small lords. After multiple unsuccessful anti-tax actions, radical elements among the farmers chose to resist taxes through riots.
After the first armed uprising was suppressed by local militias, the seeds of opposition in South Tauris gradually began to sprout. At this critical moment, about a week ago, Barbara, overriding all objections, persuaded her father-in-law, Prince Alexius, to accept the suggestion and directly ordered the garrison commander, Patniko, to bring the guard troops to Bangkok Pu and Theodosia.
After these two thousand soldiers arrived in the south, they immediately followed the regents' instructions and spent nearly a week brutally suppressing these rioters. It was only after she personally witnessed the riot leaders being hanged and their bodies dismembered in the center of Bangkok Pu City yesterday afternoon that she returned to her palace with peace of mind to embrace her beloved daughter, little Justiana.
But at this moment, her thoughts were once again thrown into disarray by last night's dream.
"Was the angel I dreamt of last night real?" Barbara clutched her pen and paper, frowning and pursing her lips, unsure of what to do.
She no longer remembered last night's dream clearly, but she still recalled the angel with an indistinct face solemnly telling her that her husband was currently in crisis in Asia Minor, having fallen into a slump, and only she, as his beloved, could uplift him again. And it thoughtfully pointed out Manuel's current location to her.
After a while, she, who had always been half-skeptical about religious beliefs, finally made a decision, "Never mind, let's just consider it God's will." The young woman clutched her crucifix, looking worriedly towards the Janik region on the southern shore of the Black Sea.
In contrast to the Bosporus, which had been driven into a decline, Kandar Bey Isfendiyar in Sinop, who had successfully defended his land, was incredibly invigorated and frequently expressed his heartfelt condolences and congratulations to the Ottoman reinforcements who had stopped their pursuit for their sake. It was impossible to tell that this old man had engaged in a fierce battle with the Ottoman just over a decade ago.
"So, Allah be praised, Pasha, what will you all do next?" After the early feast, the old Bey eagerly invited the General and Deputy General of the Ottoman for a private discussion.
To his surprise, his liege was very likely to intervene here. "This is not for us to decide. If nothing unexpected happens, Sultan will personally come to the Black Sea coast to clear out the enemy chieftain," Anaftolu Pasha responded solemnly.
Meanwhile, in Brusa City, Murad II suddenly felt an itch in his nose, "Is someone talking about me?"
But he had no time for such trivial matters now. At this very moment, he was consulting with his Grand Vizier Nizamettin Pasha on how to deal with the Bosporus, which was still next to the Ottoman. Furthermore, the progress of the Karaman civil war, as mentioned by Nizamettin, also elicited a subtle feeling from the Sultan.
"The usurping rebels in Karaman are already attacking Konya, and they have invited the Mamluk's Damascus General to intervene. Is the Cairo Sultan so lacking in control over Syria?" Murad tapped the table, frowning as he recounted the report's contents.
"Sultan, is it possible that this is tacitly approved by the Mamluk Sultan?" Nizamettin Pasha reminded his monarch.
"This, this could be," Murad's face immediately turned extremely grim, "By no means, those infidels are already annoying enough. At this juncture, I do not want His Holiness the Caliph to extend his hand into the heartland of Anatolia."