As expected, under Manuel's "advice" after he lost patience, the remaining Georgian old nobles immediately chose to submit to him.
Although he had anticipated this situation, Manuel still couldn't help but smile; he had been wondering if there would be a few hard bones to sharpen his scimitar on.
Well, this is good too. However, except for David III, the Georgian Patriarch, whose attitude was good and tolerable, he had no intention of continuing to employ these old officials whose true loyalties remained unclear, even if he had to compromise now due to the Black Sheep threat.
To prevent these old officials from dragging his feet, on the afternoon of the very day they swore allegiance, the Caesar began to have his loyal followers secretly take over their authority, to prevent them from causing trouble.
These Georgian old nobles were aware of this, but knowing they were in the wrong and facing a great enemy, they could only swallow it in silence.
As the Georgian old nobles switched their allegiance, Alexander I, who was under house arrest in the cathedral, fearing for his life, also repeatedly tried to send signals to the Bosporus Caesar to discuss terms.
However, Manuel, considering various priorities, only sent members of the Bagration family who had submitted to him, including Dimitrios, to appease the king, who had effectively lost all power, to prevent him from taking his own life.
At the same time, Manuel also ordered that Crown Prince Vakhtang of Georgia, who was under house arrest in Mtskheta, be brought to Tbilisi, and on the fifth night after conquering Tbilisi, he held a long discussion in the royal palace with Vakhtang, the Dimitrios brothers, and Atabeg Ivan II of Samukhetsi, to discuss how to control and stabilize the various regions of Georgia.
The discussions that night achieved significant results, and thus, on the morning of the seventh day of occupying Tbilisi, the former Crown Prince Vakhtang of Georgia was crowned King of Georgia and Kartli with the support of Bosporus Caesar Manuel, and "appointed" Manuel as co-ruler of the Kingdom of Georgia; as part of the deal, Imereti and Samukhetsi, ruled by Dimitrios and Ivan II, became independent from the Kingdom of Georgia and immediately declared a "permanent alliance" with the Bosphorus Despotate, with the former also being elevated to a kingdom.
As for Prince George, who currently controlled Kakheti and was resisting the Black Sheep, Manuel personally wrote a letter to him, persuading him to submit and promising that if he acknowledged the authority of his elder brother Vakhtang and the Bosporus behind him, Kakheti would be allowed to continue its autonomy and he would be helped to resist the Black Sheep Dynasty; if he had other ideas, Tbilisi and Trabzon would also allow Kakheti to be elevated to a kingdom.
To increase the credibility and leverage of the letter, this handwritten letter was also signed by George's two elder brothers, Vakhtang and Dimitrios.
"Caesar, can this be done?" Badars asked with a hint of doubt that evening, while helping his monarch organize documents.
After all, his respected Caesar had directly overthrown and put the other party's father under house arrest, subverting the entire Kingdom of Georgia.
"I don't have complete confidence," Manuel, who was deepening his understanding of Georgia through the Tbilisi archives, only responded with a slight smile, "but there's an eighty percent chance. Badars, you've been with me for so long, you should be able to guess."
"Since it is your Majesty's command, then please allow your humble servant to overstep," his Commander of the Guard rose and respectfully stated his opinion, "It's very simple, Kakheti cannot resist the Black Sheep Dynasty alone. If Prince George does not want to be ruled by infidels, then the only effective source of aid he has now is you, Caesar."
"Of course, if this child is full of filial piety towards his parents, then I really can't extend my hand into the Kakheti region. But now it seems this is not very important, after all, compared to half of Georgia, Kakheti can only be considered an extra to help block the Turkmen. At most, it's a bit of a pity."
The Caesar chuckled as he flipped through the archives, making his final summary.
While Manuel was outlining the future of Kakheti in Tbilisi, Jahan Shah's five-thousand-strong Black Sheep army had already occupied most of Kakheti, reaching the foothills of the Lesser Caucasus Mountains.
Due to the loss of foreign aid for two months, and the fact that Kakheti, apart from its rugged terrain, had nothing else, Prince George of Georgia's remaining two thousand or so remnants had been forced to retreat to the southeastern foothills of the Lesser Caucasus Mountains, where the capital Town of Gremi was located, barely surviving.
As the messenger was a local mountaineer and extremely well disguised, a few days later at noon, Prince George, not yet 20 years old, received the letter from Tbilisi in the Kakheti capital, Town of Gremi (გ რ ე მ ი / Gremi).
Although the words of the other party, the Bosporus Caesar, were extremely polite and humble in the letter, George's fingers grew cold as he learned the crucial information that Tbilisi had changed hands, his father was under house arrest, and his brothers had been forced to defect.
After reading the letter, young George trembled and placed it on the table, gasping for air, unable to believe the facts.
But it had happened, and he couldn't change it. At this moment, he could only try his best to calm himself down and summon his remaining subordinates to discuss whether to seek aid from the Bosporus Romans.
What displeased George was that after his generals learned and confirmed the Bosporus's attitude, many of them expressed without hesitation that they should seek aid from the Romans and acknowledge their suzerainty, barely even hesitating.
Although George was mentally prepared for this, the utterly shattered integrity displayed by his subordinates still made him particularly indignant: no matter what, that Caesar was the one who overthrew his father, a king privately revered as "the Great"!
However, most of the generals were helpless and dismissive of the Prince's hints.
Among them, Heli, from the Khevsureti tribe, who had always had a close relationship with George and could be considered his mentor, out of helplessness, could only secretly explain to his Highness,
"Your Highness, the King is a thing of the past. If we don't get any foreign aid now, we will truly be destroyed by the infidels."
After Heli said this, the still-naive George finally put away his indignation and dissatisfaction.
If Manuel had witnessed this scene firsthand, he would probably have been petrified on the spot: it's hard to imagine that George VIII, the culprit behind usurping his brother's throne and the disintegration of the Kingdom of Georgia in official history, was so kind in his youth.
Thus, Kakheti's decision to submit and seek aid from the Bosporus was conveyed in less than an hour.
Early in the morning a few days later, the Caesar in the Tbilisi palace also received a reply from Kakheti.
It was successfully completed, Manuel thought with a slight upward curve of his lips.
After thinking, he immediately got up and issued the order to his subordinates and servants to prepare for reinforcement:
"All hands, prepare! It's time to go to Kakheti and save our kin."