The current situation in the Black Sea area is indeed a bit critical! This crisis was not only for the Ottoman Empire and the Crimean Khanate, but even more so for the "Little Rus and the Duke of Ukraine", the Western Ukrainian hetman Yuri Khmelnitsky!

This man who is in internal and external difficulties has really declined to the extreme recently, he used part of the poor property rewarded to him by his master Ottoman Sultan, begged his grandfather to tell his grandmother, and used his father's little remaining influence to finally cobble together a Cossack army, and then, with the cooperation of some Crimean Tatar cavalry, swore to the east, attacked the left bank of the Dnieper River, in a vain attempt to realize the dream of unifying Ukraine.

But how ridiculous is this dream of little Khmelnitsky! His troops were small in number, his morale was not high, his troops were inadequately equipped, the intelligence of his troops was unknown, and the allies of the Tatars were so bent on plundering eastern Ukraine that they could not be counted on at all, so it was only natural that this so-called crusade would fail shamefully: his old adversary, Samoilovich, was leading his army with the Russians to suppress the steppe people's rebellion in the territory (it is worth mentioning that this was the first time that the Ukrainian Cossacks were hired by the tsar on a real scale to become executioners of territory expansion or suppression of uprisings), There was only one partial division led by his son in eastern Ukraine, and the result was that this partial division, which numbered less than 10,000 people, was actually defeated against the troops cobbled together by Khmelnitsky the Younger. At this time, the cunning Tatar cavalry saw that the situation was not right, so they took advantage of the situation to plunder a wave of gold, silver, grain, men, women and children, and then returned south to the territory of the Crimean Khanate before their Western Ukrainian "allies", so that little Khmelnitsky was not annoyed.

But what made him even more annoyed was yet to come. After the victory of the field battle, Samoilovich Jr. quickly contacted the supreme commander of the Russian garrison, Duke Romodanovsky, and his father, and after obtaining the permission of the two, he crossed the river with more than 10,000 Cossacks and marched westward, attacking Western Ukraine, and then it was a series of stormy offensives, not only defeated the men and horses organized by the Western Ukrainian side repeatedly, and then captured a large number of Western Ukrainian civilians and forced them to move to Eastern Ukraine to settle, which made many towns and cities fall into ruins, and the already ruined territory of Western Ukraine was even worse.

There is no doubt that the Ottomans were extremely annoyed by this situation. It is said that Sultan Mehmed IV has lost patience with this "little Rus and Duke of Ukraine", because it was his incompetence that led the Ottomans to continue to increase their troops on the right bank of the Dnieper River, which cost a lot of money and ended up in nothing, only to interfere with Russia there, which has affected other battlefields - the anxious situation on the Ukrainian side is one of the main reasons for the Ottoman Empire's hasty truce with Poland.

After the failure of this expedition, Sultan Mehmed had to accept the advice of his new Grand Vietsikara Mustafa Pasha and continue to increase the number of troops in western Ukraine by 30,000, bringing the number of Ottoman troops stationed there to 80,000, which overwhelmed the number of Russian troops led by Duke Romodanovsky.

But the consumption of 80,000 troops is not a small amount, Western Ukraine is broken, naturally it can't provide any supplies, they can feed the Cossacks under Khmelnitsky Jr., so the consumption of these large armies still has to rely on the Ottoman Empire to provide, at best, the Crimean Khanate, which has become a little rich in recent years, is just a part, but it can't be too much, because the independence of this country is still not low, unlike Moldavia, Transylvania, Hungary and other servant forces, It is roughly similar to the Mamluks of Egypt's lakes.

Here we add to the new Grand Vizi of the Ottoman Empire, Kara Mustafa, also from the Koplulu family. The prime minister, who was a military general, is now highly regarded by the Sultan and is also under a lot of pressure. The Gainkoprulu family has been in charge of the Ottoman Empire for more than 20 years, and there are many people who have offended, some of these people are figures of hostile political factions, some are generals of the military system, some are church forces, and of course, there are also local sheikhs and Bayi lords (dissatisfied with the inventory of land and the increase in taxes), in short, don't look at the Kokolulu family is currently as brilliant as flowers and cooking oil, but once it shows its decline, it is not impossible to be pounced on by enemies from all sides and eaten up.

Kara Mustafa succeeded her brother and eldest brother (Kara Mustafa was the adopted son of the Koprulu family) Fasher Ahmed. The latter took over the position of the old father Koprulu before, who was also in power for many years, led the army to defeat Poland during his tenure, forced Poland to cede land and pay tribute, and at the same time received Western Ukraine as a client state, and there were still a lot of merits, but it was a pity that he was addicted to alcohol in the later period of his reign (so the rules and precepts of the Qing Dynasty have always been prepared for the lower class people, even if you are a Moor, if you have a high enough status, drinking is not a problem, the same is true of the Great Viqi, and the same is true of the desert princes who hold drinking parties in private in modern society), and the body quickly collapsed, In the end, he died of multiple complications, which was also tragic.

The situation faced by Kara Mustafa Davizi when he took office was more complicated, that is, the energy of the Ottoman Empire was greatly involved in other aspects. Although they have signed a peace agreement with the Poles, there is still a certain size of army stationed on the border, which cannot be moved lightly; Secondly, the continuous increase of troops in western Ukraine has become a major worry for the empire, which has spent countless money, food, and military resources, but has never been able to calm the situation, and is also facing the risk of a full-scale war with Russia; Finally, with the signing of the Treaty of Ainault, the Kingdom of Austria, the great enemy of the West, began to draw out its energy and put more forces into the struggle for Hungary, which can be seen from the rumors that the Austrians were about to transfer their battle-hardened army from the Rhine Valley on the Western Front to the east, this country has no small ambitions, and the increasing national strength in the past thirty years and several victories in the Ottoman border wars have greatly increased their self-confidence, and the Habsburgs are no longer afraid of the Ottomans. has even dared to brush the tiger's whiskers.

Faced with this situation, after weighing the pros and cons, Carla Mustafa Davizi found that the best option was to end the conflict with the Russians and instead devote all his energy to the Western Front and compete with the Austrians. This decision is not difficult to make, just look at whether the Balkans are important to the Ottomans or Ukraine: the Balkans have a population of about 15 million, accounting for half of the Ottoman Empire, and produce a huge amount of food and all kinds of materials, which is the most essential part of the empire; In comparison, Ukraine is relatively chicken, at its peak it was only more than 3 million people, and now it is only more than 2 million, and it has also divided half of the Russians, and if you want to occupy Ukraine, you will have to face hundreds of thousands of Russian troops, and if you invest a lot of money in this direction and spend a total of troops, it is not worth it, and it may also affect the investment in other aspects. In this way, it is not difficult to judge how the upper echelons of the Ottoman Empire will choose, and now they are just waiting for an opportunity to quickly demarcate the border with the Russians.

Therefore, this expedition led by Khmelnitsky the Younger to cross the river to the east was already the last attempt of the Ottoman Empire to unify the two banks of the Dnieper, and Khmelnitsky returned in a crushing defeat. In addition, many Cossack leaders in Western Ukraine complained to Ottoman officials that he was irritable and irritable, often beat and scolded his subordinates in front of his soldiers, and was cruel, and extorted violently among the people, which aroused the opposition of most people, so the future fate of Khmelnitsky Jr. does not look very optimistic, and it is not good that he will end up in a different place.

As the ambassador to Istanbul for decades, Marati, who had worked in the Ottoman Empire for decades, has always kept a close eye on the country's movements. As early as the previous month (September 1680), he also took time to go to the Crimean peninsula to have a long conversation with the newly enthroned Great Khan Murad Glei, and finally got a lot of first-hand information, which was written into a report to Gowengang in Amsterdam.

Marati's primary concern is no longer trade. The Ottoman Empire is now doing this, the domestic currency is scarce, the money shortage is spreading day by day, the business has declined a lot compared to before, except for some military products are still being imported, everything else has been greatly reduced, for example, the dyed cloth that was still sold quite strongly in the Ottoman Empire in the past few years has declined sharply for several consecutive years, and for example, this year the Ottoman Empire canceled the list of about 500 Eastern-style heavy freight carriages, and even the deposit was not required, which is enough to show how far this country has been dragged down by the war- The Cretan War, which cost the Ottoman Empire about 400,000 casualties and lasted for many years, was to blame.

Ambassador Marati's main concern now has risen to the strategic choices and national security of the Ottoman Empire. He had lived in the Ottomans for many years and was well aware of the changes in the combat effectiveness of the Imperial Army today. In the case of the core forces of the empire, the Legion of Ganishari and the Legion of Spassy, the soul of this army was scattered after decades of large-scale purges, and although trade with the east bank improved their equipment, the enemy's equipment was also strengthened, and the progress in combat effectiveness should not be underestimated - with the Battle of the Radu River as a turning point, the Ottoman army had no advantage over the Austrians since then, and even had a slight advantage - in this case, Ambassador Marati was very concerned about the much-talked-about warnings in the Ottoman Empire to ignore the Austrians and make an all-out advance into Hungary, fearing that it would turn into a major war at stake.

It is clear that in a battle of this magnitude, Marati feared that the Ottoman Empire would suffer a heavy military defeat, which would lead to a series of unpredictable reactions. You know, their western territory is a Christian-populated area, and there is a natural sense of estrangement between them and the center of the empire, and once the illusion of the Ottoman Empire's great prowess is punctured, it is hard to believe that these people will not have any dissenting intentions. And when it comes, it's a big problem!

Therefore, the best response of the Ottoman Empire is to calm down, compete with the Kingdom of Austria in Hungary with low intensity, try to avoid the main battle, and at the same time focus on cultivating reserve talents and reshaping the soul of the army, instead of relying on their own strength and strength to lead 200,000 troops to engage in Armageddon, that is a gamble, as long as it is a gamble, there will be a high possibility of failure - of course, Marati does not know, his judgment of the combat effectiveness of the Ottoman army is very accurate, and in history they took advantage of the main force of the Austrian army to fight against the French on the Western Front, thus gathering a large army into the empty territory of Austria, and reaching the city of Vienna almost without any battle. However, it was under this fortified city that the Ottomans had no way to deal with the inferior second-line troops assembled by the Habsburgs, and suffered heavy casualties under the enemy's continuous counterattacks, and several field battles with the enemy were also lost, which greatly damaged the morale of the troops, which showed the weakness of their combat effectiveness.

Marati knew that the East Bank had been friends with the Ottomans for many years, but had no special friendship with the Kingdom of Austria, and it was difficult to gain the trust of others, so he still had to do his best to help the Ottoman Empire. For this reason, he plans to visit Kara Mustafa Davizi in the near future, and at the same time send a message to Gao Wengang's special envoy and the local Ministry of Foreign Affairs, asking for domestic cooperation - the purpose of visiting Mustafa Davizi is to persuade the Ottomans not to start a war easily, and focus on analyzing the current severe economic situation and the chaotic situation of the army within the empire, if this does not work, then retreat to the next best thing, let the Ottomans see good in this possible outbreak of war, and take Hungary and stop, Don't be fooled by the main war faction at home or by the French (historically, Mustafa had planned to take advantage of the fact that the main Austrian army had not yet returned, but the French envoys used their incorruptible tongue to persuade the Ottomans to attack Austria proper), which led to a possible rout; In addition, Marati also demanded that the mainland provide some artillery to the Turkish army even if it was on credit, and used all resources to ask the Crimean Khanate to send cavalry to invade Poland to relieve the pressure on the Ottoman flanks.

This two-pronged approach would increase the chances of victory for the Ottoman Empire, and continue to retain the largest bridgehead on the eastern coast in the White and Black Seas, so that the many years of operation and large investment in the eastern republic (the horse-drawn track parallel to the Suez Canal and some ports) will not be wasted. Of course, the most important thing is to protect this market with a population of more than 30 million, although they are now in a shortage of money, and the various trades between the two countries have shrunk a lot, but how can they not recover in the future? It's impossible to think about!