After readily granting the Bosporus's request and dismissing his subordinates like Gracio, Pietro Lando closed his eyes, tapped on the table, and muttered to himself, "Speaking of which, Bosphorus Caesar has been fighting the Ottoman so intensely that his finances are probably going to collapse in a few months. Even so, he still doesn't plan to sell us some trade privileges in Tauris? Lord, I really don't know why he's so stubborn about that."
While Lando was constantly acting for Venice's interests, on the other side of the Sea of Azov, in the Palace of Tauris, the capital of the Bosporus, Prince Alexius, Manuel's father and the only one of the two regents personally appointed by Caesar who remained on the peninsula, was anxiously reviewing a new report on a peasant uprising. After a long while, he placed it aside with slightly trembling hands, looking as if he had aged ten years from his expression. After another long while, he worriedly summoned Patniko, the general guarding the peninsula, and questioned him on three important matters: "What is the current progress of the rebel mob? Why did the fleeing Rus serfs, the nearly bankrupt local peasants, and the Tatars dreaming of independence unite at this particular time? Is the remaining local military strength still enough to suppress them?"
Patniko's face flushed with shame at the regent and former monarch's questions. After a moment, he managed to stammer out an unclear reply, "It's still fine, Your Highness, it's still in North Tauris and hasn't spread south yet. Although our remaining troops are not enough, given time..."
"I'm asking: can it be suppressed now?"
Patniko was speechless. After a long while, he lowered his head and quickly reported the truth, "Your Highness, this is too difficult for the guarding troops. Our original guarding legion had less than three thousand men, and Caesar recently transferred 500 experienced veterans across the sea, while the rebels that erupted this time claim to have 5,000 men. Holding out is one thing, but with only the strength of the guarding troops, this rebellion cannot be quelled."
Upon confirming this military intelligence, the old Prince was stunned. If he had encountered such a situation in the past, he would probably have tried to entice external forces like Lithuania or Venice to help him suppress the rebellion. But recalling Manuel's words and actions since childhood and his various measures since ascending the throne, he believed that his son would certainly dislike such actions of paying a price to bring in foreign armies to interfere in internal affairs.
Therefore, all Alexius could pray for now was that his son would quickly finish the related battles with his large army and rush back from Anatolia.
...
News that Tauris was plagued by peasant uprisings reached Caesar Manuel, who was still campaigning in Asia Minor, within a week. After reading the report on the local peasant uprising in the military camp outside Samsun, Caesar Manuel seemed to have a vision of a large red icon above his head, displaying "Disaster: Peasant Uprising in Progress."
Thinking of this, he got goosebumps all over and quickly shook off the thought, pulling his mind back to reality, muttering anxiously, "This is troublesome. The already not-so-rich military funds are now even worse. And although my father said in his letter that there's no need to worry about the defenses of core areas like Bangkok Pu and Theodosia, and I'm also very happy that my father said he wouldn't casually bring in foreign powers, what if something unexpected happens...? My daughter, my expensive father, and some loyal subordinates are all back home in Bangkok Pu!"
After much thought, his final conclusion was to quickly make peace with the Ottoman and then quickly send troops back to suppress the rebellion. However, when he considered this, Manuel felt a sense of frustration: he couldn't think of how to propose a reasonable and not abrupt peace treaty to the Ottoman that would also guarantee no subsequent retaliation.
Finally, he decided to continue cautiously expanding the occupied territories in an attempt to gain more favorable bargaining chips at the negotiating table.
Meanwhile, in the city of Konya, Karaman Bey Suleiman was holding a grand banquet with heartfelt joy to welcome a distinguished guest from Syria: Yakub, the Damascus General of the Mamluk Sultanate.
After the banquet ended and he personally accepted the Mamluk's vassal "appointment," Suleiman dismissed all irrelevant personnel and met with Yakub alone in the council chamber.
After a brief exchange of pleasantries, they finally discussed the most crucial matter: the war against the Ottoman.
"In short, according to the Sultan and the Caliph, our forces, along with some troops from Ramazan and Dulkadir, will support your legitimate claims this time."
Suleiman, who hadn't really considered that Cairo would directly send a general to intervene, was somewhat surprised and cautiously asked for the reason, "May I ask if the Caliph's intention has anything to do with the Ottoman's defeat late last year?"
To this, Yakub nodded noncommittally.
"So that's how it is," Suleiman realized, thinking, "Manuel, your victory at that time really produced unexpected consequences."
A week and a half later, in the city of Ankara, Murad II was already feeling incredibly overwhelmed. Firstly, the Bosporus, who had previously defeated the Ottoman, showed no signs of stopping. Instead, they successively occupied the undefended areas around Pontus, and even places like Bafra and Tokat fell into enemy hands.
But at this moment, he simply couldn't spare any effort to deal with them. Because a few days ago, news that made him break out in a cold sweat reached Ankara and even Edirne, the Ottoman capital: the Mamluk Sultan, claiming to act on the Caliph's orders to assist his vassal Karaman, personally intervened in the war between Karaman and the Ottoman. This forced him to divert the Rumelia Legion, which he had originally intended to use for a counterattack against the Bosporus-occupied territories, to Eskisehir and Kütahya to support the other legions stationed there.
Furthermore, according to intelligence from Edirne, Serbia and Hungary had secretly colluded again, and it was even more obvious than before. In the Sultan's eyes, this was practically testing his bottom line to the extreme. In order to prevent these Christians from doing something terrible to him, he had no choice but to order about half of the Rumelia Legion's troops to return to their original stations and closely monitor the political situation in Southeast Europe.
"Allah, why do these devil-spawned creatures choose this exact moment to attack all at once!?" Murad felt his head swelling. Clearly, the impact of last month's defeat, at the end of last year, by a small state like the Bosporus, was much worse than he had imagined.
But what's done is done. All he could do now was to do his utmost to repel these eager enemies, just as his ancestors and fathers had, and continue to maintain Ottoman rule in various regions.
In view of this, Murad finally made a difficult decision:
Make peace with the Bosporus first.