Aksham-Sadin, a Mashriqi born in Mesopotamia, was now a moderately well-known Sunni jurist, and thus respectfully referred to as Ahmed Gourani Molla.
In Manuel's previous life's official history, he would soon travel from Janik to the Brusa School of Jurisprudence, and become the tutor of Prince Muhammad when he was 11 years old, in 1443.
And Prince Muhammad would benefit from his teachings, laying a solid foundation for the great achievements he would later create as Ottoman Sultan Muhammad II.
However, at present, this scholar, who in the future should have been revered by the Ottoman royal family, was still traveling in the former Janik region.
If it were official history, he should have already been residing within Ottoman territory by now, until he settled in Brusa a few years later.
But due to the impact of the war in Bosporus, Aksham-Sadin remained in the region to this day.
Of course, Manuel, who had already returned to the palace, did not actually know for sure whether this person was still in the Janik region; the relevant information he knew still came from what he had heard while leading troops in the Janik region.
From those rumors, he vaguely judged that Aksham-Sadin was most likely still there.
This was also the basis for Caesar's order to the shadow guards to search for this person.
Although finding this person and having him actively or passively benefit him was quite difficult for him at the moment, he still intended to use the opportunity to make trouble for the Muslims to try to find a way to utilize this famous Muslim scholar to influence the now neighboring Ottoman.
Although at the time, Manuel didn't hold out much hope, he thought as he flipped through the atlas on the table.
If this scholar were truly under his rule and used by him, that would be ideal.
If doing so was futile, it wouldn't matter; Greek-style intrigue, or rather, Byzantine-style intrigue, was ultimately just icing on the cake in his eyes, even if he didn't have an aversion to it.
After thinking, he gently tapped his forehead as he watched the deepening night outside the window.
After closing the atlas, Caesar once again refocused his energy on important matters such as economic, political, and military affairs, and at this moment, he noticed a problem he should have noticed long ago—
"Damn it, I forgot to rename the conquered towns!" Recalling the Turkmen place names on the atlas that made him uncomfortably Islamic, Manuel couldn't help but frown, as if smelling indescribable intestinal waste.
As he still had some time, he first used the historical materials in the room, supplemented by his knowledge, to reopen the atlas and meticulously began the renaming work.
After an hour and a half of renaming, he had largely completed the renaming of several medium to large cities and towns: Samsun was renamed Amisus; Ordu was renamed Cytora; Ünye was renamed Oinoe; Bulančak was renamed Terastios.
As for towns including Amasya and the Four Towns, since they had not been renamed by the Turkmen, he made no changes.
"Done, roughly." Looking at the Roman place names he had changed back, Manuel felt incredibly familiar and relieved.
Compared to the uncomfortably Islamic place names, he felt more at ease with these familiar Greek-Roman place names.
The next day, the decree to change place names was implemented very quickly under the personal supervision of Caesar.
The order to change place names spread throughout the Pontus region under his rule that same day; at the latest, by eight or nine in the evening, relatively remote places like Amasya had also received this decree from Trabzon.
This was one of the fastest implemented measures recently.
Half a week later, after personally reviewing the appointment list for religious and administrative affairs in the morning, Manuel went to another part of the palace after a long time.
This time, he primarily used the pretext of inspecting the daily work of the historians to casually discuss historical processes with his scholars.
In other words, Caesar specifically and justifiably slacked off once.
Although his main purpose was to slack off, his reason for coming here was still a legitimate one.
So when he entered this rather spacious room, all the historians and scholars in the room rose and showed their respect to their monarch.
After a brief joint prayer, Manuel waved his hand, signaling them to sit back down and work with peace of mind.
In the current Bosphorus Despotate, these historians and scholars were a relatively idle group.
Because Manuel's primary responsibility for them was to compile and collect historical materials and incidentally include many eulogies in the finished products delivered to the publishing department, they basically had nothing to do recently except record the recently concluded war between the Bosphorus and the Ottoman into historical books.
And Manuel also took advantage of this atmosphere to enjoy this leisurely environment, and even discussed some of his ideas and views on various events in Roman history with the scholar John Anagnostes, who was famous in his previous life's official history and was currently still writing "The Last Fall of Thessaloniki."
As they talked about the divisions among various religious sects in the country, and the atmosphere was harmonious, a young Armenian respectfully stepped forward and bowed to the two in front of him.
"This must be the Armenian student he accidentally took in, mentioned in Anagnostes's previous report, right?" Manuel thought, looking with interest at this Armenian, who was slightly younger than him.
And Anagnostes's words confirmed his guess.
"Your Majesty, this is a student I took in when I was in West Armenia, named Bagrat.
He was originally a follower of the Apostolic Church, but recently converted to orthodox."
"Hmm, very good." Manuel indicated that he didn't care much and gave them a gentle smile.
After all, it was within reasonable bounds for a historian to bring a few reliable attendants; as for whether these attendants were considered servants or students, Manuel didn't mind.
"Armenian?" On second thought, listening to the opinions of ordinary non-Greeks would also help him understand to what extent his administrative measures had actually been effective.
Thinking of this, Caesar somewhat abruptly threw the question to Bagrat, "Bagrat, how do you think I compare to the Turkmen and Kurd who ruled you before?"