Although he intended to await Georgia's Bagration Dynasty's response and true intentions, Manuel did not plan to simply wait.
He then secretly issued orders to closely monitor the borders between Georgia and Bosporus, while also having his covert department discreetly contact Atabeg Ivan II of the Samukhetsi Principality, and cautiously observe the movements of the Black Sheep Dynasty.
According to his knowledge from his previous life, the Black Sheep Dynasty should still be recovering from the losses of its civil war at this time, and Jahan Shah, his distant relative, was still pretending to be a subservient vassal of Timur.
How could he have the energy to make any significant moves in the Caucasus?
"Could it be the butterfly effect of my actions during this period?" Manuel pondered uneasily in his heart after returning to his bedchambers.
Although he was dissatisfied with the Kingdom of Georgia, which had been intentionally or unintentionally ignoring him, he felt that the Georgians, being of the same lineage, were quite appealing compared to the Shia-believing Turkmen tribes.
While awaiting replies from his Caucasian neighbors, Bosporus also developed peacefully under his rule.
The next few months were a rare period of peace in this era.
During this time, the Autocratic State's economy and commerce flourished, and the resurgence of the Black Sea trade routes boosted the prosperity of the commodity economy.
The small farmers in the core regions lived in peace and prosperity, undisturbed by bandits, nomads, or tribes.
Furthermore, Caesar's previously advocated three-field system and the use of farm manure had already shown initial results by harvest season, so Bosporus enjoyed an unexpectedly abundant harvest this autumn.
Militarily, his Military Industry Department lived up to Caesar's trust, and roughly half a month later, they had developed the simplest form of fixed ammunition, which only required paper tube packaging.
Manuel, pleased and delighted by this, praised the officials of the department and then promoted its use among the army's musket units, further increasing the army's combat effectiveness.
In addition to the benefits brought by the above technological advancements and foreign exchanges, Bosporus's internal administration also became more complete and stable.
After Caesar's sweeping reforms, the Autocratic State's administrative efficiency had significantly improved, to the extent that Caesar himself even had leisure to discuss academics with scholars after dealing with the important matters left by the Regency Council.
Furthermore, at the end of that year, the Bosporus Senate held its first annual meeting, allowing the Senate to fulfill its functions and various social groups to express their opinions.
Although due to initial inexperience, the Senate's first large-scale meeting devolved into a "vegetable market" of mutual insults among various social strata, forcing Caesar himself to step in and clean up the mess, overall, it could still be considered a steady improvement.
"So, Little husband, why did you include representatives of infidels and lower-class peasants in the Senate?"
That evening, after the Senate meeting, in the Trabzon bedchambers, Barbara, dressed in her nightclothes, soothed her husband with a gentle tone, a wry smile on her face, after listening to his outpouring.
"If the Autocratic State wasn't still fraught with undercurrents, I wouldn't want to bring in these people who only spout nonsense," Manuel said weakly, burying his head in his wife's chest, "But if I don't let them into the Senate, will the groups they represent cease to exist?
That's impossible, isn't it?
It's better to give these people an outlet for their grievances and a glimmer of hope for improving their situation, to alleviate the current contradictions within the Autocratic State."
"Is that so?"
Realizing the painstaking efforts behind her husband's governance, she gently embraced him, "In that case, get some good rest."
"I want you," Manuel's spirits suddenly lifted, changing the topic.
But Barbara was speechless, "You want me, huh..."
Shortly after the Senate's first large-scale meeting concluded, taking advantage of the relatively free time, Caesar also took a tour of the three major governorates in the Eastern European Great Plains, which he had always paid little attention to, to observe their governance.
Upon returning from the Kuban Governorate, the results of his investigation left him somewhat depressed.
According to the investigation, although the three governorates established by Bosporus nominally possessed vast tracts of grassland, their control over the local areas could be described as unstable.
With the decline of the Golden Horde, more and more nomadic tribes roamed freely without restraint.
Although Manuel had stabilized the Tauris Peninsula by expelling and slaughtering a large number of Tatars, making the region, protected by its Isthmus, a relative haven, the governorates located in the Great Plains were not so fortunate.
The Crimean Tatars, driven from the Peninsula, quickly became unrestrained nomads in the Great Plains.
Mingling with the already present Kipchak Tatars and Nogai Tatars, they lived a nomadic life as they pleased.
The West Kyzyl-Yar Governorate, which was essentially a Tatar tribe loyal to Bosporus in disguise, was slightly better off.
Under the rule of the Christian tribes led by Kristo Balin, this governorate maintained balance and peace with a paradoxical nomadic logic, for a nomadic region.
However, the other two governorates suffered.
When large numbers of nomads invaded and plundered, the administrative officials of these regions, and the bureaucrats appointed by Bangkok Pu, could only passively defend.
Especially when Manuel led a large army to conquer Asia Minor, they simply holed up in their capital fortresses, trembling and waiting for pro-Bosporus tribes or the governorate armies to come to their rescue when faced with nomadic raids.
This also ensured that these regions consistently maintained an unusually stable tribal system.
Manuel had no solution for this situation.
Besides helping to control the Black Sea, his establishment of the governorates also served as a meat shield for the core homeland.
Even in official history, even for the Crimean Khanate, probably until the time of Giray, only the Crimean Peninsula and its immediate surroundings were fully obedient to the Khan.
The Great Plains tribes outside the Peninsula were only nominally loyal to the Khan, and there were even humiliating situations where the Khanate was violently invaded by scattered Nogai people, who plundered within the Isthmus, and the Khan could only retreat into fortresses or flee to the Ottoman territory in the south for refuge.
As for the Tsarist Russia that later annexed the nomadic scourge of the Great Plains, it wasn't much better.
Before officially entering the modern era, the Rus' people were also on the defensive against these nomads who lacked a stable central authority.
Ivan II's destruction of the Kazan Khanate and his flight from Moscow after being defeated by the Crimean Khanate are not contradictory.
The strategy of fortresses squeezing living space, which later generations glorified, was a joke in this era.
It was the Cossacks, who also lived a nomadic life, who competed with the nomads for living space.
What did the local boyars, struggling within their fortresses, have to do with it?
Even the nomads themselves and the later-rising Rus' people could barely protect themselves in this era, so what could Bosporus do?
Throw the current, but weak, Cossacks belonging to Bosporus onto the Great Plains as cannon fodder?
How could the Cossacks, who were only just taking shape, launch an offensive?
Thinking of these things, Manuel could only headache-edly put the matter aside, issuing a directive to "maintain the status quo."