After announcing his new initiatives to these Autocratic State soldiers, Manuel returned to his previous state of camaraderie with ordinary soldiers, personally comforting the officers and men who were fighting for the Autocratic State with an approachable demeanor.
"Your Majesty, may I tell you what kind of faces those military worms you hanged before this incident usually had?" A group of inexperienced logistics personnel, seeing this, approached excitedly and whispered.
"Of course, I'd also like to know more about everyone's daily lives," Caesar smiled, greeting them and chatting.
Seeing that their Caesar truly intended to converse with them without any pretense today, other soldiers gradually gathered around. "Your Majesty, Your Majesty, a while ago, when we were fighting those damned Turks, our company personally destroyed their main force!"
"Is that so? That sounds really good."
"Don't listen to these braggarts, Your Majesty. It was our company that, when fighting guerrilla warfare against the Ottoman Janissaries in Janik, personally beat to death a dozen of their Janissaries!"
"Hahaha, that's quite impressive. Truly worthy of Bosporus's soldiers."
"What do you mean? You guys, who only shoot from behind, still have the nerve to claim credit in front of Caesar? You know all your achievements were gained by snatching kills with firearms!"
"Have you made enough noise? What's wrong with advanced firearms? If you can't use them, aren't you useless? Why not practice more?"
"I apologize, Your Majesty, for letting you see the ugliness of us subordinates…"
"Ah haha, isn't this also quite good…"
Thus, for the remainder of the day, Caesar Manuel maintained this approachable demeanor, staying with these rough, clumsy, and somewhat unmannered soldiers in the military camp.
However, despite his outward appearance, the veteran soldiers present understood very well that, to a certain extent, Caesar was merely putting on a political show today.
But they fell for it! He was willing to adopt such a peaceful and non-repugnant attitude, would treat them generously, and elevate them to a level they had never before imagined. For these former commoners, this was already a great honor. Therefore, after Manuel's visit concluded today, the Bosporus soldiers present had a more concrete impression of the monarch they served, and most deepened their loyalty to Caesar, making them more profoundly understand the meaning of the word "loyalty" they shouted daily.
The same events occurred in the various farmer-soldier camps across Tauris in the following days. Through these days of continuous visits and inspections, Manuel further strengthened his control over the Autocratic State's standing army. At the same time, based on the order to expand the land held by soldiers, he secretly redeployed many companies to garrison the area from the Tauris Mountains to the Tatar Isthmus, thereby strengthening control over the North Tauris region and encouraging local agricultural development.
Finally, after completing his visits to all these loyal and fearless farmer-soldiers, Manuel was at last ready to return to Pontus. It was now the morning of early August, the height of summer, and the weather was so hot and even dry that one couldn't help but wonder why their benevolent Holy Father would create such a harsh summer.
But this was, at most, the grumbling of urban commoners after a meal. Others, whether small farmers tilling land and fishing along the coast or important figures traveling between the two sides of the Black Sea, had no time to consider the impact of such weather on them.
Thus, Manuel returned to the city of Trabzon, which he had been away from for over a month, in the afternoon, three days after setting sail. Upon returning to the palace and visiting his pregnant wife, he immediately sent people to check whether the new land grant law he had issued in Tauris had been fully and thoroughly implemented.
The results were quite satisfactory to him. According to dual reports from Pontus's financial bureaucracy and the covert department, his directive in Tauris to expand farmer-soldier land grants was quickly and widely implemented. Because Pontus had previously acquired a good deal of idle land from the Muslims through war and the suppression of potential rebellions, these lands were now put to their proper use through this law granting land to soldiers.
However, Manuel still felt something was lacking. If Tauris and Pontus became too disconnected, separatist sentiments might secretly grow. Even if this dual governance was only planned to last for fifteen to twenty years, allowing the military and civilians of the two regions to remain out of contact was not to his liking.
Although the fundamental trend could not be curbed before he captured the true central cities, taking advantage of the new decree's recent promulgation, not taking any preventive measures would be somewhat wasteful for him. Therefore, after two or three days of deliberation, Caesar personally added a specific mention to the new decree: "Soldiers in Tauris are permitted to own military Military Farms in the Pontus region, and vice versa."
After taking this seemingly insignificant measure, Manuel turned to deal with the population census reports submitted by his officials over the past month. After spending the remaining less-than-half afternoon, he finished reviewing these reports.
As for the current procedures, Manuel was generally satisfied, as relatively conclusive results could be obtained by mid-to-late this month. Regarding the treatment of those surveyed, he pondered for a moment before slowly nodding. Because no matter their initial attitude, these officials had at least curbed their rough, tax-collector-like conduct after he personally admonished them.
But he couldn't always be the Caesar who personally admonished them, Manuel thought. What if he hinted at something to the scholars responsible for this area before the general law, modeled after modern constitutionalism, was released at the end of this year?
While Bosphorus Caesar was diligently working for the future development of his country, the neighboring Ottoman Empire gradually became bogged down in the war against the combined forces of Karaman and the Mamluk. Due to frequent interference and destruction of supply lines and even granaries by Turkmen nomads in Asia Minor a few months prior, the combat effectiveness of ordinary soldiers in the Ottoman army severely declined, making them even unfit as cannon fodder.
Conversely, after purging a number of opponents with the help of the enemy, although the Karaman army's combat power became somewhat unstable, at least now Suleiman, as Bey, could temporarily coordinate domestic logistical supplies and fight alongside the Mamluk's heavy cavalry.
In short, for Murad to regain the upper hand, he would have to win another major campaign.