- Diplomatic Ambassador, Trade Representative and Governor of the Golden Horn Concession of the Government of the Republic of Venice in Constantinople, Girolamo. Minoto to the Doge of Venice, Francesco. Report of Francesco Foscari.\\

Your Excellency the Doge, After the incredible miracle of God Almighty, who had reaped the lives of 140,000 Turks outside Constantinople overnight, the Emperor Constantine, who ruled the city, was clearly overly excited. Perhaps the emperor, believing that he must be blessed by God and that he would be victorious forever, launched an expedition against Adrianople, the capital of Turkey, despite the weakness of his country. And Gregory, the Patriarch of Constantinople, also gave this military adventure the cross banner of Chapter 39, the report of the Venetian diplomat, "Holy War".

While I can understand the Emperor's desire to eliminate his long-standing enemy, the decision was too hasty from any point of view. You know, the Eastern Roman Empire army in Constantinople has not stepped out of the city walls for almost half a century.

Moreover, the quality of the army that the Emperor was able to raise at present was very bad, and the number was too small, even though the Emperor had brought every chamberlain and servant of the palace into battle, so that the palace was left unguarded after the expedition, and had to nail the doors and windows of the palace with wooden bars before leaving. Government officials and clergy also did their best to recruit soldiers, but they still managed to scrape together less than 10,000 men.

Due to the lack of troops, Emperor Constantine once turned his mind to the Republic reinforcement fleet brought by Admiral Trevison, but the cautious Admiral refused to let his sailors leave the warship, and was even less willing to let them venture inland far from the coast.

On February 22, 1453, after the Emperor's departure ceremony at the Hippodrome Gate, he went out of the city with this rabble, including peasants, carpenters, blacksmiths, porters, bakers, servants, Venetian diplomats, and even many women! It looks more like a merchant group than an army capable of fighting. May God bless them living to see the walls of Constantinople again and not to be sold into the slave market!

In the whole army, only the mercenaries directly under the emperor, as well as volunteers from Italy, France and Spain, still had some military demeanor.

However, although the quality of this army was poor, the equipment was very good, and at first glance it was somewhat formidable - because the 140,000 Turkish army had left so much ordnance outside the city that everyone could choose their favorite weapons at will, even the finest scimitars and chain mail, which were worth the salary of ordinary people for several years. Many foreign sailors joined this messy team in order to mix things up.

In order to observe the course and outcome of the expedition with my own eyes, and to inform future decisions, I joined the expedition of the Emperor Constantine as volunteers with a small army of about fifty men, after bidding farewell to Admiral Trevison, who was about to leave Constantinople with his fleet and return to the Mediterranean for the next mission to Greece, and arranging the remaining personnel of the concession.

However, after leaving the city, the situation was slightly different from what I expected, and this rash march of Emperor Constantine was quite smooth, and the Greeks continued to defect along the way, so that his army quickly swelled to more than 30,000. The Turks, scattered on the Thracian plain, were barely able to organize an effective resistance along the way. And the emperor had no intention of entanglement with them, but kept urging the army to advance at full speed towards Adrianople.

The reason for this is which, in my opinion, is first and foremost due to the terrible miracles which God performed outside Constantinople, which made these pagans feel great awe. What's more, the battle for the succession of the Ottoman royal family that broke out in Adrianople in the past few days has plunged the entire Turkish Empire into extreme chaos, and no one can care about stopping the motley army of Emperor Constantine.

-- Two years ago, when Sultan Mehmed II ascended the throne, there was an extremely bloody scene. As soon as his father, Sultan Murad II, died, he sailed from Bursa to Adrianople, the capital of the empire, with his long-trained provincial privates. The bloodthirsty young man first announced a doubling of his salary, bought off the new army (the Janissary) guarding the palace, slaughtered all the princes and princes who were in line with him, and then set a trap in the capital to kill all the relatives who came to the funeral of Sultan Murad II.

Now, immediately after the sudden death of the tyrannical Sultan, his wives and sons have also begun a brutal battle against one victor in the end, as was the case with the old practice - according to what we have heard, the Turks not only slaughtered the capital to the blister, but also burned and blew up the Sultan's palace and smashed the gates...... Maybe we can really get another miraculous victory?

It is a great pity that, despite the fact that we have tried to speed up, by the time we reached the vicinity of Adrianople, the civil strife of the Turks was almost over, the losers were either killed or fled, and the victors were shrinking their forces, holding on to the city, and repairing the broken walls, gates, and towers with astonishing speed, and preparing for defensive battles, so that we no longer had the opportunity to take advantage of the chaos to enter the city.

Due to the chaos in the area, I do not yet know the details of the infighting among the Turks, but I have sent people to step up their investigation. In addition, there was a bonus—in a pile of rubble, my mercenaries caught a few disgraced Bulgarian craftsmen who claimed to have been involved in the casting of the Hungarian city's cannon not long ago, and who had many jishu tricks and a pile of drawings with them. I thought these Bulgarians were very helpful in the armament work of the republic, so I seized them all and prepared to be loaded on ships and shipped back to Venice or Crete.

Zuihou, as to the origin of the previous batch of fine pepper, nutmeg, and cloves, the Tatar crusaders who arrived from the Jochi Ulus on the northern shore of the Black Sea (as the Europeans called the Golden Horde), I have made contact with them on the way to Adrianople.

It was a small contingent of a mixture of Tatars and Rus's, only about twenty people in total, but I don't know how many they left in Constantinople. In the ranks, the Tatars clearly dominated. When I revealed myself, the attitude of the other party was friendly, but communication between us was still very difficult, because neither my men nor I spoke the language of the Tatars and Rus, nor did they speak Latin, Greek, or even Turkish. In this way, we can't talk to each other at all, except for gesticulating......

Later, a Tatar tried to converse with me in Arabic, but he managed to speak. Unfortunately, my Arabic is very bad, just the level of being able to say hello, coupled with the cooperation of gestures, finally made them understand that we are interested in the spices they brought and want to continue to buy...... As for their reply, I regrettably didn't understand it at all, but from the tone of analysis, it should have been a happy look.

It seems that I will have to find a translator who can speak Tatar, Rus, or Arabic before I can have any further conversations with them...!!

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