The next morning, west of Constantinople, Bosporus Caesar Manuel looked with some regret at the battlefield where he had fought the Ottoman the previous night.
Late last night, the Ottoman and Bosporus ultimately did not engage in a large-scale battle.
With his night ambush foiled by the powerful Ottoman, Manuel abandoned the idea of forcing a decisive battle in the dark.
His opposing Ottoman also clearly lacked the courage and ability to fight him to the death that night.
Ultimately, they only fired artillery at each other's positions for a few hours before choosing to retreat at dawn.
So, there was no large-scale, drawn-out battle last night.
As for why he was able to suddenly emerge from the northern side of Constantinople last night, this goes back to the 25th of this month when the Bosporus Army completely recaptured Bithynia—
After completely recapturing Bithynia, he, who controlled the Sea of Marmara, quickly received news of victory from across the strait.
While feeling invigorated and joyful at the bravery of his soldiers, Manuel, seeing the morale of the besieging Ottoman troops gradually decline, conceived a bold plan: to have the main force of the Bosporus Army cross the strait and, together with the defenders of Constantinople, ambush the demoralized Ottoman outside the city.
To achieve his strategic objective, Caesar secretly boarded a Bosporus warship disguised as a Galata Genoese and traveled to the eastern shore of the Sea of Marmara, personally commanding his troops and scouting suitable ambush locations.
As for the "Caesar" who, from the Ottoman perspective, was seen inspecting and commanding from the city walls during those days, he was merely a decoy Manuel had specially chosen and placed within the city.
However, to his regret, the astute Ottoman Sultan somehow perceived his scheme and chose to withdraw from Constantinople before the war situation became completely irreversible.
When his Chancellor Serenus and others detected the Ottoman's unusual movements and quickly informed him, who was still leading troops across the strait from Constantinople, Manuel had no choice but to turn the tables.
Before the information leaked, he led over ten thousand soldiers across the strait to a small hilly area north of Constantinople.
After night fell, he descended from there, attempting to crush the retreating Ottoman.
And then came the fruitless battle of last night.
Nevertheless, Manuel gleaned some actual enemy intelligence from this night raid.
Compared to the Battle of Varna, the size of this Ottoman was clearly much smaller, probably no more than twenty thousand men.
Knowing that the holy fire disease epidemic in the Sultanate was still severe, he immediately realized that the spread of this agricultural plague had even affected Ottoman conscription.
This was a golden opportunity!
After receiving a rough report of casualties and battle results, Caesar further confirmed his idea: statistics showed that the casualties on both sides in this night battle seemed similar, both within a few hundred.
However, based on prisoner interrogations and autopsies of fallen Ottoman soldiers, Caesar discovered that the enemies killed and captured this time were no longer primarily conscripted Turkmen nomads and Christian militias, as before, but mostly well-equipped, active forces.
It was clear that the Ottoman Sultanate, affected by the setback in its national strength, temporarily lacked the ability to rapidly recover its power.
If this opportunity wasn't seized now, when would it be!?
"Caesar, what is this?" His Pontus Army Commander Dungar saw Caesar's increasingly sharp gaze and couldn't help but feel surprised and abashed.
"The remaining field troops can arrive from Chrysopolis and Chalcedon within the next two days, right?" Although it was a question, Caesar's tone at this moment was filled with unquestionable authority.
"Of course." Although he couldn't immediately understand why Caesar would ask this, the Army Commander reported the truth as it was.
"Mobilize all those remaining thousands to Thrace," Manuel turned and ordered, letting the cold late-winter wind whip his purple-black cloak, "It's time to end this war."
As Manuel made this declaration, in Konya, the capital of the Karaman Beylik in the Anatolian hinterland, the current Karaman Bey Suleiman was leading his Turkmen horse archers and Armenian Imperial Guards out of the city, preparing to march towards recently lost territories.
Although he had previously been so beaten by the Ottoman that he could only sue for a separate peace, his dear friend's continuous victories had clearly encouraged this ambitious Bey.
After receiving Manuel's letter and observing for some time, confirming that the Ottoman truly had no ability to stop him in Anatolia, Suleiman, having once again reached a consensus with various social strata within his Beylik, chose to continue on this path of war.
Meanwhile, in the city of Izmir, or Smyrna as the Greeks called it, the young Aydin Bey Bey Halil was discussing an important matter with his Viziers.
"Your Highness, after finally clarifying relations with those Franks, do we really want to provoke the Ottoman again?" The elderly Vizier in charge of internal affairs was incredibly astonished by the thoughts of his colleagues and the Bey.
The main reason Aydin had been so quiet in recent months was dealing with the major pitfalls the Ottoman had dug for them in the previous peace treaty, with the ownership of Smyrna being one of the most significant.
Fortunately, after the peace talks last year, Bey Halil's adoptive father, Caesar Manuel, sent a special envoy to mediate for them.
Even though the Bosporus later faced an undeclared war from the Ottoman, the mediation still achieved a relatively satisfactory result: the Knights Hospitaller recognized Smyrna as belonging to the Aydin Beylik, which effectively controlled it, but the Beylik also recognized the Knights Hospitaller's sovereignty over various coastal ports and tacitly allowed the Franks to establish a branch in Smyrna.
After resolving the troubles, primarily the Smyrna ownership issue, and having no further worries, Bey Halil also agreed to his adoptive father's request, deciding to respond to the Bosporus by attacking the Ottoman, and also seizing this opportunity to capture more Aegean Sea coastal regions.
Other high-ranking officials of Aydin expressed their full support for this, hoping to directly send the culprit who had caused their Beylik's downfall into the grave.
Only the Vizier in charge of internal affairs was deeply worried about this. Unlike the Bosporus and Karaman, Aydin, which had gained independence from Ottoman rule, was also severely affected by the holy fire disease.
Although Aydin's agricultural production was slowly recovering under the guidance of the Bosporus, the accumulated contradictions and problems would not simply disappear.
But his Bey directly stated his resolve, "The arrow is on the string; it must be loosed.
The Ottoman is currently at an unprecedented low point; when else should we act if not now?"
Seeing the Bey's determination and the agreement of his colleagues, this Vizier finally yielded to their wishes, murmuring his support half-heartedly.
As the three factions were all poised for action, within the Transylvania region of the Kingdom of Hungary, a prince who had been exiled to the Hungarian court for many years was discussing something with the region's de facto ruler, the "White Knight" Hunyadi János, who had become a local hereditary ruler due to his fame in resisting the Ottoman…