Although the Turks in the city were indignant in the face of Emperor Constantine XI's letter of challenge, which was as vulgar as a bandit and bandit, and only a few months before the Roman Emperor had trembled and begged for mercy before the crescent flag, the Turkish Empire would have sent a large army to take the harshest repent against such a foolish provocation if it had been the time when Sultan Mehmed II was still alive.44rc m44rc。 m

But the problem is that with the incredible catastrophe of last month, the situation on both sides of the war has now changed dramatically.

At this moment, with the overnight annihilation of the 140,000-strong army and the violent death of Sultan Mehmed II, the hegemony of the Ottoman Empire in Eastern Europe and Asia Minor was doomed to begin to crumble, no matter how much the remaining Turks struggled to cope.

-- On the European battlefield, Albania's greatest national hero, Scandebe, Romania's vampire "Duke Dracula" Vlad III, Hungary's Hunyadi regent, and the unwilling Serbs and Bulgarians, after receiving the news, will inevitably launch a counterattack against the Turks who have been hollowed out of their hearts. Even in Asia Minor, which the Turks regarded as the hinterland, most of the other small Turkic states that had been overwhelmed by the Ottoman Empire would take advantage of the situation to revolt and spy on the throne of the Turkish sultan.

And the most loyal, elite and powerful army of the Turks, as well as the new army of the Sultan's most trusted, have long been wiped out by this time, and there is not even a slag left. The few remaining motley units were filled with Bosnian heavy cavalry, Bulgarian light cavalry, Serbian musketeers and spearmen, Greek engineers and sailors...... These people were in the prime of the Turkish Empire. They may be loyal to the crescent moon, but now that the Ottoman Turks' own forces are dead and wounded, their loyalty becomes questionable.

Not to mention that before these Turkish motley armies sent troops to face the enemies from all sides and save the declining national fortunes that suddenly became stormy, they had to fight among their own people to compete for the next Turkish sultan...... As for whether the remaining Turkish army had the strength to repel foreign invasions and suppress the rebellion in the territory after the civil war...... This is too far away to be considered for the time being.

Therefore, despite the anger of this challenge, Turahan Pasha still suppressed his anger very reservedly. Not only did he not raise his troops in anger, but he tried his best to appease the generals under his command who were also furious, and persuade them to calm down—the Bayezid Sultan was not yet five years old, and he was illiterate or sensible, so he naturally did not come to the military meeting, but Turahan Pasha saved the trouble of pacifying the children.

“…… Although I am as angry as you are, I still want to persuade you to stay calm. We want to go out of the city to repel these undisciplined Christians, and we can do it at any time. The problem is that the Albanian legion, which is embraced by Prince Mustafa, can be killed from the northwest at any time. And the spies within the city are also on the move, and we must stick to the capital. Until the main force of my Moria Army arrives! ”

“…… Moreover, I suspect that this letter may well be a trap - the Albanian legions may have reached the vicinity of the capital, and had concluded an alliance with the Roman Emperor, deliberately trying to provoke us and lure our sparsely armed army away from the walls and into the open field. Then, the Albanian legion, hidden somewhere, will suddenly appear, annihilate our living liliang, and then easily take the fortified capital! ”

“…… So. Please be calm and do not be provoked by the enemy's provocations...... Short-lived patience does not mean cowardice, and as long as the main infantry of the Moria Legion arrives from the south, these Christians will pay the price for their arrogance......"

Although he painstakingly persuaded the generals to ask for battle, Turahan Pasha's mood was not as calm as he appeared.

As soon as this military meeting ended, an officer in Zuihou had just walked out the door. He drew a sharp dagger from his boot and pinned Constantine XI's reply to the bookcase.

“…… This pig-robed pig, the emperor who is poorer than a beggar...... If it weren't for the fact that my Moria army hadn't arrived yet, where would I have been able to tolerate you being so arrogant? ”

However. What Turahan Pasha never expected was that, after all this false intimidation, the Greeks had actually begun to prepare to retreat.

On the outskirts of Adrianople, the capital of Turkey, the Turkish Sultan's Palace, which was requisitioned by the emperor, was brightly lit at this time.

“…… The current situation is already obvious, and the limit of what this holy war can be fought to this point is the limit. With such a rabble, we are not at all able to break through Adrianople, or even to wipe out the Turkish tribes that are now scattered on the Thracian plains. ”

Standing in the makeshift battle room, Emperor Constantine XI pointed to the parchment map spread out on the table, sighed to his ministers with a sad face, "...... The skies of the Roman Empire were already full of Gentiles speaking foreign languages! ”

-- Although the Ottoman Turks crossed the sea and invaded the Eastern Roman Empire, although there are some superficial similarities between the two events of the Manchu Eight Banners breaking through and entering the Central Plains, the problem is that in terms of population size, the Eastern Roman Empire is very different from ancient China.

In the sixth century, during the Justinian dynasty, the Eastern Roman Empire, which encompassed almost the entire Mediterranean, had a population of about 35 million, which was basically an order of magnitude higher than that of China at the same time. But when the Arabs rose up and took away the empire's North African, Egyptian, Syrian, Palestinian and Spanish possessions, the Eastern Roman Empire was reduced to the Byzantine Empire in the history books. Under the banner of the double-headed eagle of the empire, only Greece and Asia Minor remained, and the total population fell to a mere seven or eight million, from which it never recovered.

As for the Greeks, who were the core people of the empire, the population was even more miserable, at most it was only three or four million

Therefore, the number of hundreds of millions of Han people, even if they are temporarily conquered militarily, can gradually integrate and assimilate hundreds of thousands of Manchurian Eight Banners culturally by virtue of their absolute superiority in numbers and advanced civilization system. The Greeks, numbering less than four million, were unable to form an overwhelming numerical advantage over the hundreds of thousands of Ottoman Turks who invaded from the east, and even had no particularly obvious cultural superiority.

Thus, after the collapse of the Eastern Roman Empire, the conquered Greeks, instead of gradually integrating and assimilating the Turks from afar with their own cultural traditions, in turn continued to convert to Islam and became Turks both physically and mentally.

As a result, by the time the Greeks became independent again, all of Asia Minor, with the exception of a few port islands, had been completely Turkified, and many Greek cities in Europe had become Turkish cities - the national character had changed, and the restoration of the old territory had naturally become a utopia.

Even at this point in 1453, the Turkization of the old territory of the Eastern Roman Empire was already very serious, not only in Asia Minor where there were not many people left who could speak Greek, but even in the Thracian plains of Eastern Europe, mosques and turbans were everywhere.

The Eastern Roman Empire's seemingly overwhelming Jedi counterattack this time was actually just a surprise to the opponent. If the battle continues, their rout all the way back to Constantinople is already the best fate, and it is not impossible that even the entire army will be wiped out.

Therefore, except for the fanatical low-level believers, all the more sensible high-ranking people in the empire are already thinking about accepting it if they want to see it.

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