In the history of mankind, almost any great empire that has left a name in history has a legend full of legends or romances about the founding of the country.

In the legend, the birth of the Ottoman Turkish Empire, which dominated Western Asia and Eastern Europe, the great Islamic empire that made all of Europe tremble in a certain time and space, is shrouded in a little bit of legend and romance just like the story of the wolf child who founded the city of Rome.

In the legend of Turkey's founding, there is a young warrior named Osman, who met with the local sheikh of Islam. Edbarry's daughter, Malhedon, falls in love. But Osman, despite his martial prowess, was too poor to scrape together enough dowry to marry his sweetheart. He believes that the only hope he can hope for winning his lover is to fight the battlefield to gain honor and wealth.

In one battle, the Ottomans captured the owner of the fortress of Hermonsik, the Greek Kze. Mikhail, and sympathized with each other and became friends with him. On this day, the young warrior Uthman suddenly had a strange dream, and he faintly felt that this was an omen given to him by Allah, and he was surprised and delighted, so he went to Sheikh. Edbari, the chief of Islam, and his future father-in-law went to confide.

He said that in his dream he saw a bright moon rising from the chest of his lover Malhedon, and at the same time on the chest of Osman himself grew a great tree (the totem of the ancient Turks), the crown of which reached into the sky, and the bright moon in the distance, and the roots of the tree connected to four great rivers (Tigris, Euphrates, Nile and Danube). Just as he was dizzying, a gust of wind blew suddenly. The blades of the tree, as sharp as a sword, immediately pointed at Constantinople......

According to Osman himself, this dream seemed to indicate that he and his sweetheart would eventually be married. But. Sheikh. Edbarry excitedly told him that things were far from that simple, which meant that the heavens had revealed that he would rule Shijie!

Thus, with the strong approval of his future father-in-law, Osman married the daughter of the Sheikh without hindrance, and the conquest of him and his descendants began, the young warrior Osman, the first sultan of the Ottoman Turkish Empire. He was also one of the most famous emperors in history, and his name became the name of the Turkish Empire for more than 600 years, and this vast empire spanned three continents: Asia, Africa and Europe. Choking the throat of mainland traffic, it was once one of the most powerful and prosperous empires in the West for a long time.

(Of course, the story is basically as unreliable as the wolf child who founded the city of Rome.) And the real Ottomans have never been so miserable. He was a sheikh from the beginning - by the way, the legendary old father-in-law, Sheikh . Edbari is an elder of the Sufi sect, and belongs to the same sect as the Islamic sect in Xinjiang...... Now understand why the Turks boast that their territory should be "from the Mediterranean Sea to the Great Wall". ）

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Standing on a mottled and old stone tower, overlooking the ruined city at his feet, Turahan Pasha couldn't help but sigh deeply.

As a top magnate who valued appearance, Turahan's hair was still neatly combed despite being under siege. But he looked a little yellow and shriveled, and his face was so pale that it was bloodless. His eyelids drooped weakly, and his spirit seemed a little tired, obviously he hadn't had a good rest for a long time. Truth be told, he now feels like a cheap sculpture made of shoddy plaster, exhausted to maintain a crumbling dignity, but still ready to decay into a pile of rubble and debris......

The bloody fighting in the past dozens of days not only exhausted a little of his Zuihou's energy, but also made the city unrecognizable.

At present, many of the city's lavish palaces and mansions have been demolished to collect building materials and plug the gaps in the walls that have been blown open - in order to resist the continuous shelling of the Eastern Roman Empire, the Turkish soldiers and civilians defending the city must strengthen and repair the damaged walls with mud and brick plaster, or fill the collapsed sections with bags filled with soft materials such as wool, or even valuable tapestries. As for the huge gaps that were completely blown open, it was necessary for brave carpenters to first erect a fence against the fire of the artillery to resist the onslaught of the enemy troops. Then everything you can find at hand, such as stones, wood, shrubs, and even a lot of dirt, are piled up in a mess.

Of course, the Turkish defenders did not just take a beating and did not fight back. Most of the heavy artillery was brought to Constantinople by Sultan Mehmed II, and then fell into the hands of the Eastern Roman Emperor. Therefore, the defenders at this time had to push small artillery up the city wall and rely on the height advantage to bombard the artillery positions of the Eastern Roman Empire. Although this approach was successful, the recoil of the artillery was also very destructive to the walls and towers, and there was a section of the city wall that collapsed in the battle because of the recoil of the own artillery, not the enemy's bombardment.

In addition, there were some small guns that were particularly small in size, and even if they were pushed up the city walls, they could not hit the enemy's positions. So the defenders took a different approach and used them as "shotguns". They loaded the barrels with several buckshots the size of walnuts, arranged them behind the walls, and moved at any time, bombarding them head-on as the Greek soldiers swarmed towards the openings in the walls—these pocket guns, although they did not have a long range, but the lead bullets fired at close range were so penetrating that they could often penetrate a soldier in armor, hit another soldier behind him, and then penetrate the flesh again, and then hit the next soldier behind him, until the kinetic energy of the cannonballs was completely exhausted. As a result, a single shot of lead bullet could often kill 2 or 3 enemy soldiers at a time, and a single shot could blast a fan into flesh and blood, causing the Eastern Roman army to suffer unexpectedly heavy casualties.

However, despite the abundance of food in Bursa, the Turkish defenders were able to repel the besieging enemy again and again, and quickly repaired the walls. Moreover, as the season gradually moved into winter, the cold weather also suppressed the spread of the plague to a certain extent. However, under such a tragic continuous attack and intensive engagement. The combat effectiveness of the Turkish military and civilians has been worn to the limit, and the few or so small artillery pieces have been blown up or scrapped one after another, and swords and spears have been cut until they are broken or deformed. As for the houses and firewood for the winter. It is also quite scarce.

Due to the burning of houses and the lack of building materials, many citizens have to build shacks on the ruins to shelter themselves, and people die in the streets and squares every day, but until the corpses decompose, no one may come to collect the corpses for burial.

What's even worse is that there is a terrifying black hand called the plague. It has not been moved from the city of Bursa.

Since the outbreak of the plague in late summer, despite the many measures taken by the municipality, the terrible disease has sparked a spark. Block after block spread until there was no safe place left in the city. Although the imams of the mosque and the aristocratic officials of the governor's palace repeatedly called on people to calm down and the basic necessities of life were still secured, there was no cure for it.

The weather is getting colder. Only slightly curbed the spread of the plague. But it can't change the fact that Bursa has been reduced to the city of death. Almost every street and alley is filled with the smell of rancid and smoke, which symbolizes death, and people often suddenly vomit blood and fall to the ground while walking.

The haze of death has long since covered the entire city, and the lowly mortals have no choice but to continue to kill each other.

Turahan knew very well that every sick person who died in agony today was constantly weakening the faith of the soldiers and civilians in Bursa, if it were not for the distraction of the enemy's attack. Under the fear and despair of death, a hysterical collapse is long overdue.

In fact. Even at this moment, the will of the defenders of Bursa was on the verge of collapse.

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Walk down the stone steps down the ancient tower, then down the dilapidated promenade to the door of a stone house. At the sound of the accompanying guards' reminders, Turahan Pasha took out a handkerchief from his coat pocket, soaked it in the water tank at the door of the stone house, dipped it, covered his mouth and nose, and then walked in with his feet.

As far as the eye could see, the icy bars were dragged by the dancing torches in shaky shadows, and a dozen ragged men fell asleep on the stained limestone floor. Fill this room, which was supposed to be spacious. There are many people who still have yellow-green pus on their bodies, and some of the most serious ones have even lost consciousness, incontinent and urine, and stinky feces and urine flow all over the ground. As a result, the floor of the room was covered with pus, blood, phlegm, feces, urine, vomit, and garbage, and a pungent smell of blood and rancid stench could be smelled from afar.

Hearing a groan of pain that seemed to be a miserable wretch, Turahan Pasha couldn't help but shudder - this unremarkable stone house was one of the makeshift hospitals in Bursa. In order to control the spread of the plague, Turahan Pasha ordered that all the sick in the army should be gathered in a few places as much as possible, so that they could be watched and cared for.

As for the ordinary people who are sick in the city, they can only die wherever they love.

In fact, such so-called hospitals were nothing but dying, and could do nothing but house dying patients - some time ago, the city of Bursa had managed to smuggle some miraculous "elixir" from Constantinople at a high price through the channels of Venetian merchants, but with the siege of the Greeks, this channel for importing medicines had been completely cut off. At the same time, due to the intensification of the epidemic in Italy, the Venetians who got the medicine are no longer willing to sell for profit, but want to keep their own lives.

So, after the few stocks of drugs are depleted, the patients here can only wait for death.

In order to avoid being infected himself, Turahan Pasha only stood at the door and looked at it a few times, and then summoned the steward to come out and ask questions, "...... What is the situation today? How many more patients have been brought in? Has anyone ever recovered? ”

“…… I'm afraid it's going to be bad, my lord! Many brothers failed to survive last night, and some people secretly committed suicide by cutting their wrists this morning. ”

The hospital's steward, a respected patriarch, shrugged his shoulders at Turahan Pasha, took off his dirty coarse cloth mask, and smiled helplessly, "...... Let's tell you the truth, they are here now, and all they have to do is to ask Allah for their blessing. And so many patients gathered together. will only die faster...... In fact, the most effective way to do this now is to evacuate everyone to the countryside. A breath in the wilderness air may be a little more relieving. But the Greeks outside the city ...... I heard that the Greek emperor has recruited a lot of mercenaries? And the other Turkic chieftains on the Anatolian plateau, but no one wants to come to our rescue? ”

Looking at the patients who were tossing and turning on the rotten straw pile, moaning and moaning, Turahan Pasha couldn't help but sigh deeply again.

“…… This one...... Recently, another group of Genoese mercenaries from the island of Lesbian joined the camp of the Greek emperor (Lesbian, also known as Lesbian Island, an island on the eastern coast of the Aegean Sea. The famous lesbian mecca, the residence of the ancient Greek poetess Sappho, at this time a colony of the Italian city-state of Genoa). But it's not really a cause for concern......"

He pulled himself together. Use words that you don't even believe in, try to soothe the anxious imam in front of you, "...... The Greeks could drive these Genoese to fight for themselves with money, and we could buy them over...... I'm already arranging countermeasures......"

- Absolutely. Bribery of enemy mercenaries. This kind of thing is theoretically possible, but it is completely impossible at the moment: first, the gap between Christians on one side and Muslims on the other, in the faithful atmosphere of the medieval West, is not so easy to dissolve by money. Secondly, what really hooked these Genoese mercenaries was not money. Rather, it is the "holy water", "holy oil" and "holy bread" of the Orthodox Church, which are curing all diseases, in this age of plague. They are more valuable than any coin.

Money on one side and life on the other, anyone who is rational understands what they should choose.

After finishing his tour of the hospital and returning to the headquarters in a sullen state, Turahan Pasha poured himself a cup of hot tea, and at the same time leaned over to look at the city defense map on the table again, preparing to arrange a sneak attack out of the city, but suddenly there were several exclamations and screams outside the door.

Then, with a brief clash of gold and iron, before Turahan Pasha could draw his delicate gem-encrusted scimitar, a large crowd slammed open the door and burst in, armed with swords, battle axes, and wound crossbows, and surrounded him in the center of the room.

Sharp arrows, shiny blades, swarthy spears, and guards who fell outside the door...... Turahan Pasha first swept through the circle in amazement, and saw the generals of his army, the officials and wealthy merchants in the city, and the imams of the mosque, gathering almost all the upper echelons of this doomsday city...... After realizing that this was a premeditated coup d'état, he calmed down and no longer trembled with anger.

After a brief silence, one of the imams stood up and solemnly declared: "...... Either way, it's over, Lord Tulahan. As is customary on the prairie, do you choose to do it yourself, or do you want us to help? ”

“…… See, you've been planning to dedicate this city to the Greeks, haven't you? He said slowly, suddenly raising the tea in his hand and splashing it on the imam standing at the front, "...... Traitors to Christians! Are you worthy of the teachings of Allah? ”

The bearded imam, who had been splashed with tea, just calmly wiped his face with his sleeve - most of the victors were always tolerant of the wailing of the defeated dogs, "...... Nobody likes to be a traitor, but we can't help it, my lord.

In the summer, there are still 150,000 people in the city; Now, a few months later, there are only 40,000 people left, and half of them are still sick in a few days before they die. And the 2,000 cavalry you brought with you are now less than 200 sick men......

Hundreds of people are dying of disease every day, and even without the enemy's attack, we won't live long! The only way to save the lives of our people is to leave this cursed land......"

“…… This is a betrayal of the faith, and treason! Turahan Pasha's eyes were almost red, and he cried out hoarsely.

“…… Wake up, sir! The House of Ottoman is extinct, the country is gone, Allah's conquest has failed, but our tribe is still there! A Turkish officer, brandishing a scimitar, shouted, "...... We are the children of the blue wolf, the eagle soaring over the grassland, not the mole in the burrow! weishenme is going to rot in this stone corral? ”

Looking at the familiar and unfamiliar faces around him, Turahan Pasha shook his head dejectedly, "...... Well, things have come to this point, and no matter what I say, it's probably useless. But I still want to know, what conditions did the Greek emperor give you? ”

“…… Allow all of us to leave safely, taking with us all the weapons, cattle and possessions we can without paying any ransom, and to provide us with a quantity of medicine against the plague, sufficient for all the sick in the city......," replied the imam...... Zuihou, the Greek emperor also promised to protect the tombs of the Ottoman sultans from excavation and destruction. ”

“…… Sounds good, no wonder you're choosing to be traitors. ”

Turahan said lightly, sitting back in his chair while closing his eyes, "...... All right, you cowards! Cut off my head and flatter the infidel emperor! I will be waiting for you before Allah! ”

Everyone looked at each other a few times, and finally someone gritted his teeth and raised his scimitar.

Suddenly, blood splattered, staining the silk screen behind the table...... (To be continued.) )