On the outskirts of Nicaea, on the shores of the lake, Isaac, a minor Greek nobleman, lay in a filthy and dilapidated shack, vomit and urine running from the reed mats, leaving him smelling all over his body, and his limbs so weak that he seemed to be completely unconscious

Isaac felt that he was probably going to die soon. But he really didn't want to die, not at all!

Speaking of which, in Nicaea City, Isaac was also a figure with a head and a face, so how did he get to this point?

In 1453, the city of Nicaea, across the sea from Constantinople, had been occupied by the Turks for more than a century.

The Turks of this era were still a group of savage and fierce nomads, who came like a wind and went like lightning. For the indigenous peoples of Asia Minor, Turkey was a brutal and tyrannical foreign regime that brutally suppressed Christians of all ethnic groups under its jurisdiction with bloody killings.

However, just like the Mongols who conquered China before, due to their own low level of education, the Turks also faced the dilemma of "they can win the world on horseback, but they cannot rule the world on horseback". Thus, in the western coastal region of Asia Minor, where civilization and commerce were prosperous, and which had been painstakingly managed by the Greeks for more than two thousand years, the Turkish garrisons controlled only a few important cities and fortresses. In the vast rural towns, ports, and commercial ports, they were still dominated by the local Greek tycoons, who enjoyed a high degree of autonomy, at least in terms of local administration, in addition to the pain of paying heavy taxes to the Turkish governors everywhere. And even their own local armed forces!

And Isaac, who is now lying in a filthy shack and dying, originally played the role of such a "puppet army leader" in Nicaea City, receiving a so-so military salary. There was a decent house, and the main job was to collect taxes for the Turkish governor, patrol the city, and suppress riots.

According to another historical trajectory of Shijie, he or his descendants should have slowly abandoned their identification with Greeks and Christians over the course of a long period of time, and eventually converted to Turkish Muslims, although the Turks claimed to be descendants of the ancient Turkic peoples, but according to modern genetic science. At least 95% of modern Turks are descended by blood from the indigenous peoples of Asia Minor.

But in this shijie, this history is a normal evolution. But it was turned upside down by the traversers.

- First of all, the Supreme Sultan Mehmed II and the 140,000 Turkish army, which gathered the best of the whole country, were gassed outside Constantinople and died violently overnight; Then the capital city of Adrianople was reduced to a radiated wasteland, where everyone from the old man to the baby survived, and the Ottoman Turkish royal family quickly disappeared. Under the great shock of the destruction of the Sultan, the capital, the court, the royal family and the regular army. Territory of Asia Minor under the Ottoman Turkish Empire. Inevitably, a series of chaos and upheavals ensued, and even the Greek Christians of Nicaea secretly organized an uprising.

Although the Turkish governor of Nicaea was able to keep the city under control with a small group of close warriors, he also lost trust in his Greek Christians in light of the horrific "miracles" that had taken place in Europe. So, after suppressing the Nicene uprising and burning several Orthodox churches. Isaac and his Greek puppet army units were also disarmed. Dismissed and went home to eat the old book.

In Isaac's opinion, the fate of being unloaded and killed as a donkey like this is bad enough. But in fact, even more unfortunate encounters are yet to come!

- because the plague is coming!

With the collapse of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, Christian riots broke out in Eastern Europe, and almost all the once-tame Serbian and Bulgarian princes and nobles defected, and the Christians at the bottom rebelled. The Turkish Muslim diaspora, who had been in Europe for a century by virtue of the occupying army, as well as the indigenous people of Eastern Europe who had converted to Islam, could not hold on to the sea of Christians because they had lost the protection of the Turkish army, and had to cross the sea east one after another to seek refuge with relatives and friends in their homeland in Asia Minor.

At first, Turkish officials throughout Asia Minor were generally friendly to their fellow Muslims who had fled from Europe. They did their best to provide shelter and food for the refugees, and they also took the sick into hospitals and mosques to care for them as well as possible.

But it didn't take long for them to discover that something was wrong—these patients from Europe were generally infected with a strange and virulent plague, and not only died horribly and almost incurably, but also were so contagious that the people who cared for them soon contracted the disease and died one after another.

- In the 15th century, Islamic Shijie medicine was slightly more advanced than that of Europe, but it was not advanced enough to invent antibiotics.

In just a few days, the refugee camp and hospital became a horrific hell of corpses, and even the imams of the mosque were not spared. In addition, many villages and hotels that have received refugees have also been notified of death by the disease.

So, in the midst of hysterical panic, the Turks in Asia Minor could no longer care about the friendship of their compatriots - the sick patients were dragged out of the hospitals, and the refugees were choked out of the camps. The first thing anyone who sees a stranger on the road is to cover his nose and say, "If you're coming from the west, don't talk to me!" ”

And the Turkish governor of the city of Nicaea also quickly ordered the expulsion of all refugees from Europe, and at the same time closed the gates of the city all day, and never accepted any foreign population—no one cared about anyone at this time! If you must die, you must die outside!

But the problem is that all these control measures have come too late – the plague has already been brought in by the time the refugees enter the city.

Isaac and his family, unfortunate enough to be burdened with the drudgery of caring for sick refugees, then to the plague, and then to be found by their neighbors when the expulsion of refugees began in the city of Nicaea. Unable to find a village on the outskirts willing to host the sick, they huddled in an old abandoned shack, hungry and thirsty, without medical treatment, and soon fell ill and died. The living did not have the strength to dig a pit to bury the dead, so they could only push the dead into the lake, or lie down next to the corpse until they also died on their legs.

Ten days later, Isaac's family had all died, and only the young and sturdy Isaac, with his tenacious survival skills, had a breath left for the time being. However, with no more food and a nearby lake full of floating corpses, how long can he hold on to it?

Struggling to open his eyes and look at the portrait of Jesus hanging at the door of the shack, Isaac couldn't help but shed tears of despair and remorse.

“…… O merciful God! Have mercy on me, an abomination! I will repent of my sin of succumbing to the infidels and helping the Turks to suppress the Christian faithful! As long as you can cure my sickness, I will be willing to risk my life to fight for you! ”

Then, as if guided by some kind of will in the dark, he suddenly heard the voice of some strange language coming from outside the shack.

“…… Alas, the corpses in the shacks over there stink! But it seems that there are still people alive here, so drag them out and interrogate them! ”

So, with these words that Isaac did not understand, the shack where he was lying was kicked open with a kick.

The next moment, accompanied by the dust falling from the sting, he was amazed to see the double-headed eagle banner of the Eastern Roman Empire, as well as a red military flag with a sickle and hammer motif. There is also a shining red star, which is shining on the intruder's hat...... (To be continued.) )