It never occurred to Cepes that he would give up the great sacrifice of finding the truth about his father's death in order to take care of the overall situation, and that the exchange would put Dembvitsa and himself in a difficult situation.

The Ottoman left flank was obviously much more fortunate than their right flank, and with no topographical constraints and no convoy to protect and resolve, the Ottoman army on the left flank made full use of their strengths, especially the Anatolian cavalry, whose speed and might in rapid interspersing and tail pursuit made the Wallachians who had been trying to get rid of them suffer a lot.

Bukrchani was lost in the middle of the night on the 20th, or it is more appropriate that the army defending Bukrchani voluntarily abandoned the fortress, but at this time there is no need to investigate how the fortress was lost, because after the Ottomans attacked Bukrcani, they quickly destroyed the fortress without the slightest stop, and they obviously understood what was most important to them, so the first thing the Ottomans did was to set fire to the granaries in the Bukrchani fortress.

The sight of the red flames rushing into the sky at night can be seen from a distance, and it is difficult not to even notice the striking light like a illuminated torch.

Chesses, who was rapidly approaching Dembvica, saw the fire, and the defenders on the walls of Dembvica farther away saw the shocking sight.

The people of Dembvica were completely stunned, they did not expect that Bukrtsani would fall so quickly, so that for a time rumors spread in the city, and many people were talking about Bukrtsani being betrayed.

So who exactly betrayed Bukelcani?

Soon, a word of unknown origin began to circulate throughout the city.

The Grand Duke of Wallachia, Cepes, was the culprit of this conspiracy, and the reason he would do so was purely to avenge his father, Vlad III!

Unbeknownst to him, Cepes had somehow become the mastermind of a conspiracy to betray his country and his countrymen, and as the newly baked Wallachian No. 1 "Tile Traitor", he still led his army to try to break free from the Ottoman siege and fight to get closer to the city of Dembvica.

Chipes knew that he was in a dangerous situation at this time, and that the fall of Bukrtsany not only deprived Dembvica of an important granary, but also completely cut off his back route, and unless he crossed the river to the east, he had no way to retreat on the west bank of the river.

And even if you wanted to cross the river, the only way to cross the river was to use a bridge over the city of Dembvica to the other side of the river, and to cross the river under the pursuit of the Ottomans would be maddening.

So even in order to get out of the Ottomans safely, he had to get to Dembvica as soon as possible.

Tempest's previous strategy of luring the enemy had worked, and the great sacrifice of the army led by Morko had bought him precious time, and by the time the Ottomans finally realized that they had been fooled into redeploying to besiege them, Tempes was already very close to Dembvica.

The belief that he would be welcomed like a savior, and that even the people of Dembvica would greet him with the monarch made him feel that everything that had been done before him was worth it.

Vlad III struggled until his death for his position as the rightful ruler of the Duchy of Wallachia, and now that his son can enter Dembvica, which is of great significance to the entire Balkans, Tsepes believes that this is enough to make Vlad III feel comforted even in hell.

Vlad III was so brutal that even the son Cepes did not believe that his father would enter heaven after his death, but this was before, and Cepes was convinced that his father's reputation would be duly respected after this rescue of Dembvica.

Cepes imagined a lot, or it was very good, but reality taught him a vivid and profound lesson.

Early in the morning of the 21st, the Wallachian army of Cepes finally arrived at the city of Dembvica.

This small, walled city doesn't look like anything special from afar, and although you can see the spire of the church where the brothers of St. Cyril are said to be buried from a distance from a slightly higher vantage point outside the city, there is really not much to attract in the town itself except because of its special historical status.

Despite this, the Ottomans were not able to capture this humble city.

For almost six days, from 15 to 20 April, Dembvica had been subjected to several successive attacks, large and small, but the city held out.

The reason why the city was able to hold back the Ottoman army of nearly 10,000 men with more than 2,000 people in the city was that the city had a ferocious firepower that even Bucharest would be jealous of.

The artillery of the entire Bucharest region, almost a large part of it was gathered in Dembvica!

This makes the walls of the city look like a hedgehog covered in sharp barbs from a distance, and if you touch it at all, you will be severely stabbed by those terrifying barbs.

Although delayed by the blockade on the road, Cepes was not very worried about the safety of Dembvica, because he knew very well that Dembvica's defenses were not so easy to penetrate, not only because the city's inhabitants had a strong belief in defending the Holy Land, but also because he knew that Dembvica had a formidable defensive firepower.

And the fact that the city of Dembvica was able to gather so many artillery pieces had a big reason for it and his father, Vlad III.

Vlad III fled to Dembvica after being ousted from the throne within a few months of his accession to the throne, and then secretly joined the "Dragon Knights" who lived there.

After vowing to make it his life's mission to protect this Balkan holy place, Vlad III received great support from the Order.

In return for the Order's help in regaining the Grand Duke's throne, Vlad III generously sponsored the Order of the Dragon Knights after the Restoration, and in order to support a Order with great influence in the region, Vlad III did not hesitate to spend a lot of money to rearm his former companions.

Vlad III had great ambitions, and he intended to semi-openly support the elders of the Dragon Knights as his agents in Dembvica, so that his rule would not only be secure in Wallachia, but over time even surreptitiously influenced countries such as Bosnia, Croatia, and even further afield, as far away as Caniola or Bulgaria and Moldova.

Vlad III's plan was good, but unfortunately his luck was not good, so when he was just starting his seemingly ambitious plan, first Mehmed II's expedition ruined his plans, and then he died inexplicably under the city of Bucharest, and even his head was cut off as a gift to the Ottomans.

However, what Vlad III did for the city during his lifetime in order to borrow the prestige of Dembvica did not disappear with his death, on the contrary, after the end of the war, it was soon discovered that people had spent a lot of money to buy and transport those artillery that had made great contributions to the war, and with the continuous delivery of weapons to Dembvica in the name of defending the Holy Land, the original Balkan holy place had unwittingly become a heavily guarded, armed military fortress to the teeth.

Cepes knew about this, and even after he succeeded to the throne of the Grand Duke, he had a headache for his poor finances, for he found that a large sum of money had been misappropriated in his father's name long ago, and that the result of the investigation was that all the money had been used to buy the terrible-looking cannons that were now placed on the head of the city of Dembvica.

Of course, if the strength of the Principality of Wallachia alone is not enough to bear such a huge expense, but when it is mixed with a religious order that also has a complex and huge source of wealth, the strength of the city of Dembvica is really not to be underestimated.

Cepes did not believe that Dembvica had not attracted the attention of others over the years, for example, Patriarch Bucharest, who could not be easily deceived, but the Patriarch seemed to have secretly acquiesced to this behavior of the Dembvica Order, which led Chippes to believe that his father should have had some tacit understanding with the Patriarch when he was alive, or at least with the deacons and elders of the Bucharest Cathedral at that time.

This is the main reason why Chipes insisted on coming to relieve the siege of Dembvica.

He hoped that he would become the true heir to his father, both in terms of his position and his plans, and he hoped that as Grand Duke of Wallachia would take his family from Dembvica to glory.

Chipes marched ambitiously towards Dembvica, but what he did not expect was that what awaited him under the city of Dembvica was not flowers and praises, not only the cheers of the knights' allegiance and the screams of adoration of the maidens, but a round of heavy shelling and the ensuing mad shouting.

In the midst of the clamor where it was almost impossible to hear what was being scolded, it took a long time for Cepes to hear the words "traitor", "spy", "traitor" and "Vlad's bitch" that made him angry.

But before Chipes could entangle himself with the scolding men on the city walls, the Ottoman army was already following, and this time Chipes was keenly aware of the danger.

He immediately gave up cursing at the Dembvica and led his army north along the outskirts of the city, which he guessed was unlikely to continue north, at least to give him a respite from exhaustion from the enemy's blockade.

Tzepes was right, the Ottomans had followed him for most of the day for nearly a dozen fats, and although he had to throw away most of his baggage in order to get rid of the Ottomans, and even several infantry units, which were apparently on the verge of collapse, had to be ordered to find another way out, he was finally able to escape from the Ottoman pursuit.

It was only when he finally stopped that he realized that he was now far from Dembvica, but that he had completely lost contact with Bucharest, and that the consequence of losing his baggage was that his army would most likely go hungry in the days to come.

Cepes was not worried about food, it was not very difficult to find food in the Balkans this season, but the loss of a large number of baggage made him feel the seriousness of the situation.

His purpose was to relieve the siege of Dembvica, so a lot of the baggage he carried was a tool for defense, and it was obviously bad for those things to fall into the hands of the Ottomans, not to mention that he could not forget the insults that the Dembvica people had told him, and once those baggage appeared in the Ottoman army, it was obviously one of the evidence of his collusion with the infidels.

What's more, he fears that those inexplicable rumors will be exploited by some people in Bucharest, and if that happens, he really won't have a way out.

Cepes was secretly anxious, he did not know who was slandering him, or who wanted to kill him, and this rumor at this time was enough to put him in a desperate situation, as can be seen from the troops that followed him.

The troops he had ordered to disperse from the pursuit had already been suspected by Tzepes of dissent, which made him smell danger, and he decided to act immediately, regardless of their intentions.

Since it could not be solved by force, they were sent far away, and the willingness of those troops to leave happily also made Chipes's originally nervous heart secretly relaxed.

But what next, continue north?

The idea was only momentarily brushed aside by Chipes.

It was a great temptation to go back to his native Transylvania, and if he went back there he would have the confidence to become ruler again, and then he would believe that he would not be better than Ruwa? How much worse, it is completely possible to negotiate terms with the Sultan and at the same time entangle with the Bucharest side.

But Cepes also knew that if he did, he would always be the ruler of Transylvania.

Chipes is not reconciled!

He was the Grand Duke of Wallachia, which made him not only possess a vast territory, including Transylvania, but also the nominal monarch of Bucharest, and now he was a defensible and outcast in Bucharest, which he absolutely could not accept.

But what to do, to prove your loyalty by going back to a decisive battle with the Ottomans?

Cepes immediately dismissed the idea, he was not one of those enthusiastic young men, he knew that he might be able to wash away his suspicion in blood, but sacrificing his life would do him no real good.

"My lord, where are we going?" One of his men asked anxiously, and then whispered a reminder to Cepes that the soldiers seemed to be in a bit of a mood.

Cepes looked back at his army, and he couldn't help but feel secretly anxious.

They had already run too far, as they had been heading north, and some of the soldiers had really mistaken that this might be going home, so a commotion quickly spread through the ranks.

This made Chipes's men secretly uneasy, and they knew that if such emotions spread, they could lead to a terrible outcome, especially when they seemed to be constantly running away.

"Where to go." This simple question made Cepes not know how to answer for a while, he jumped off his horse and sat down by a tree, and kept scratching the meaningless traces of Taoism on the ground with the whip in his hand, while thinking about this difficult question in his heart.

Neither the Dembvica nor the Ottomans would allow him to go there.

A return to Bucharest seemed like the only option, but Cepes knew that all that awaited him was doubts and even terrible accusations.

And he would never just go back to his native Transylvania.

Cepes faintly heard the whispers of the soldiers in the distance, although he was much more merciful than his father, but the harsh rule still made his men fear him, but this fear was not endless, just as the people feared his father more, but he was still murdered.

Chipes knew that a clear place to go must be found as soon as possible, otherwise the army would be in danger of collapse or even mutiny because there was no way out.

This was not impossible, and even the Ottoman army, which was known for its discipline, was not without such a mutiny.

But it was the Gombray who did not know how he had come from so far to Wallachia and how he had managed to keep the morale of his army.

The thought flashed through Cepes's mind, and then his hand on the ground suddenly stopped.

Gombray, the Montina army, the south of Bucharest, and the Ottoman army that could attack from the lower reaches of the Dembvica River!

This series of thoughts quickly flashed through Cepes's mind, and they soon formed a simple but complete plan.

"Order the troops to prepare for departure!"

Seeing the expectant and inquiring looks of his officers, Chipes gave a firm order: "Looking for the ferry and boats, we will cross the river to the east bank of the Dembvica River." ”

Chipes's order took his men by surprise, and some simply raised questions.

Faced with these questions, Chipes gave them a simple answer: "We are going downstream along the east bank of the river, and I believe that the Count of Montina must have a hard time at this time, so he will be glad to see us." ”

Cepes's plan gave the Wallachians, who had seemed helpless and helpless, a sudden reinforcement, especially when they heard the Archduke's statement that the Count of Montina might now be in need of help, and many Wallachians even laughed at the Roman army.

It was only the soldiers who had gone from frustration to excitement that did not notice a trace of worry flashing in Chipes's eyes.

"I hope that Cambrai can hold on a little longer, and don't wait for me to arrive and only collect his body." Tsepes prayed in his heart, and then he gave the order to the troops: "Go, cross the river to the east bank!" ”

The fall of Bukrtsany and the disappearance of Chipes's army near Dembvica sent Bucharest into a panic, and the arrival of another piece of bad news that shocked them further intensified the panic in the city.

At noon on April 21, after nearly a day and a night of holding out, the marshland defense line on the left flank of Montina's army was finally broken through, and Montina's army was forced to retreat!

On the same day, the Ottoman flotilla finally crossed the section of the river that they considered to be the place of death, and the defenders of the fortress had abandoned the fort and fled.

In this way, the great roundabout campaign against Bucharest planned by the Sultan of Bayezid was preliminarily completed!