One morning, after completely annihilating the Ottoman Sultanate, Manuel III Gavras, Basileus of the Roman Empire, dressed in casual clothes, sat in a sunlit room within the Constantinople Grand Palace with several of his relatives and confidants, admiring the rising sun over the capital.
"A comfortable life," he said, holding a porcelain teacup and taking a relaxed sip of clear tea.
"A revived Empire,"
"And a strong and powerful army!" At this, the Emperor, seated in his chair, spread his arms and laughed confidently, "With this, under my rule, the Roman Empire is bound to…"
"That's enough…" Barbara Palaiologina, the Basilissa of the Roman Empire, sitting beside the Emperor, approached him helplessly and gently tapped her husband's forehead with a rolled-up document.
"Why are you talking to yourself in the Grand Palace instead of dealing with official business first thing in the morning? You're over 40, how did you suddenly seem to go back a decade?"
"Oh, I'm just 'an old man acting like a young lunatic'."
"If you quote Eastern proverbs and famous sayings that others don't understand again, I'll hit you dead next time." Facing her husband's teasing reply, Barbara spread her hands somewhat helplessly.
"How could you say that…"
The interaction between the Emperor and his wife was naturally observed by their relatives and subordinates.
"These two, so mushy, are my father and mother / father-in-law and mother-in-law, how unlucky…" Justiana and Muhammad, the young couple, couldn't help but mutter.
Seeing his son-in-law mumbling, Manuel immediately feigned seriousness and asked, "Muhammad, what were you just saying?"
Thinking his father-in-law had heard his mumbling clearly, Muhammad trembled with fright and hastily explained, "Father, I was saying, uh, this is truly a joyous occasion." Ever since Muhammad overcame countless difficulties and was united with his beloved, he had addressed his father-in-law as "Father," making it seem as if Manuel was his biological father. This scene caused Manuel's adopted son Bey Halil and eldest son Theodore to exchange awkward smiles, unsure how to react.
However, these high-ranking officials of the Empire gathered together today were clearly not just to listen to their Basileus lament about life. After their casual chat, they would also decide the fate of millions of Islam Turks in the Empire's Asia Minor within this very room.
After the complete destruction of the Ottoman, the four warring factions divided the Sultanate. The northern part of Sivas and the former territory of the Karaman Beylik from over thirty years ago were given to Karaman, while the Aydin Beylik received the western regions, and Muhammad of Tekke was allotted the entire southwest.
However, the gains of Aydin and Tekke in this war were mostly a facade. Through his special relationship with the rulers of the two Beyliks, these two Beyliks had already ceded their sovereignty to the East Rome Empire under duress in the past few years. After the war, and after specially sending troops to purge the stubborn and independent factions within Aydin and Tekke, both Bey Halil and Muhammad promptly announced their acceptance of the Empire's "protection." For the pro-Roman factions led by them, why cling to their not-so-wealthy old territories when they could become influential figures in prosperous Constantinople? After all, from a certain perspective, they had all become Roman citizens!
After expending some effort to actually annex Aydin and Tekke, Manuel began to re-examine Asia Minor under his rule. The post-war Empire, after centuries of stagnation, finally returned to the heartland of Asia Minor. However, the Anatolia Plateau at this time was no longer what it once was. This former core region of the Empire had become dominated by Turkmen nomads. These unruly people grazed their horses here; the former Sultanate of Rum could not restrain them, nor could the Tukish Beys, including the Ottoman, who rose from among them. Now, this ball had finally been kicked to the Roman Empire, as a ruler of a different religion and culture.
Manuel was also extremely troubled by how to handle these numerous nomads. If he didn't treat them as people, these unruly herdsmen would surely erupt in crazy rebellions like unquenchable wildfires within his territory, hindering his Coming soon designated immigration plan; but if he did treat them as people, then what kind of people should they be considered? Normal citizens or second-class citizens? The former would certainly displease the Roman populace, who were the foundation of the Empire, and those foreign tribes would inevitably be ungrateful; the latter was only a thin veil away from not treating them as people, and a slight oversight would again lead to "explosions."
To this end, he specifically sought out the two former Tukish Beys, who had a good understanding of the Turkmen character, and several high-ranking officials deeply knowledgeable about Turk culture were also specially summoned, all to resolve this issue.
After a morning of discussions, the Empire's top brass finally came up with an effective draft proposal: the Empire would divide and rule the agricultural and nomadic Turk Muslim tribes. The former would receive treatment inferior to ordinary second-class foreign citizens, while the latter would be officially regarded as an "untouchable group" and subjected to overt discrimination, exploitation, and even slaughter. As for Turks who converted to the orthodox faith, they would all be treated as legitimate citizens, enjoying full protection under Roman law. Agricultural and commercial orthodox Turks would be treated as ordinary Roman farmers, while the Imperial government would cooperate with nomadic orthodox Turks to strengthen control over suburban pastures and meat prices inside and outside cities.
At the same time, the Empire would authorize the orthodox Church to send missionaries to spread the Holy Father's gospel. If a missionary could persuade a Turk tribe to convert to the orthodox faith, that missionary's status would be elevated, even earning a metropolitan nomination. In terms of ethnicity, the government would encourage greek-speaking populations to cultivate the river valleys of the Anatolia Plateau, recognize their ownership of reclaimed wasteland, grant them five years of tax exemption, allow them to carry weapons for self-defense, and also dispatch troops to protect their safety.
As for the passes and strategic points in various inland cities, they would be garrisoned and guarded by the Empire's legions. Non-Romans in these areas were strictly forbidden from carrying weapons, with violators facing capital punishment.
Furthermore, to temporarily alleviate ethnic pressure within the territory, he would also contact his old friend Karaman Bey Suleiman to establish channels for guiding Turkmen nomads to the Karaman Beylik. He would have no designs on Konya for the short term, so Karaman would become the Empire's temporary dumping ground for Turkmen.
At this point, Manuel announced the next appointment: he would temporarily assign Muhammad from Tekke to Ankara to serve as the local civil administrator, suppressing local Turk unrest.
Speaking of this, he looked at this son-in-law, whose historical path was completely different, and slowly said, "Muhammad, you are, after all, of Ottoman royal descent. When you go to Ankara to sort things out, try to make good use of your identity. Of course, also try to keep it within limits." With that, his gaze towards his son-in-law became much more profound.
"Naturally, please trust me, Father." Facing his father-in-law's hints and threats, the young and handsome Muhammad rose with composure and firmness, adjusting the formal hat on his head and saying, "I am already a Roman."
Hearing this, Manuel almost spat out a mouthful of tea. Although in some ways Muhammad was not wrong, he was still startled by such a statement, which in his eyes was incredibly shocking.
"I hope that's truly the case…"
Although he said so in his heart, if he didn't fully trust Muhammad, he would never have sent this former Ottoman prince to Ankara.
Incidentally, the surname of Muhammad and his cousin Orhan was no longer Ottoman or Osmanoğlu. Instead, after the Ottoman Sultanate was destroyed, at the Basileus's instruction, the remaining Ottoman royal family collectively converted to orthodox Christianity, and their surname was changed to the Hellenized Osmanlis (Οθωμανική θ / Osmanlis). In this way, the remaining Ottomans would completely become a prominent but ill-fated clan of the Empire, rather than an alien sworn enemy. If Turkmen nomads were to revolt and wish to raise the Ottoman banner, they would likely have to reconsider.
After finalizing, perfecting, and implementing the above draft, Manuel continued to delineate the administrative divisions of the Asia Minor interior. Not long after he ascended to the throne, he divided the Empire's administrative units into two categories: military districts and civil districts. The former was similar to the Roman Empire's past military district system, with legions stationed under generals who rotated periodically; the latter were formal administrative units, with civilian officials dispatched from Constantinople Central responsible for the actual governance of local administration.
After dividing the newly recovered lands into three military districts—the Anatolikon Military District, the Ephesus Military District, and the Cibyrrhaeot Military District—Manuel dismissed everyone except his wife and cabinet members. The Imperial Privy Council then naturally shifted its next focus to the Latins question.
"How do the Venetians view our proposal to redeem various privileges and the Aegean Sea islands?" Manuel looked at his Chief Minister and Foreign Affairs Director, his face immediately becoming solemn.
Months ago, shortly after destroying the Ottoman, in order to completely resolve the lingering poison left by the Latins in the Empire, his cabinet, at his instruction, worked overtime to devise two solutions: one was a peaceful solution, which planned to gradually and annually diminish the Latins' various privileges in the Roman Empire through peaceful redemption, while systematically repurchasing the Aegean Sea islands that had fallen into the hands of heretics; the second was a war solution, which was very simple and brutal—directly reclaiming all Latin privileges, declaring war on these parasites of the Empire, and recovering lost territories!
After weighing the options, Manuel ultimately chose to prioritize the peaceful solution. This was not because he lacked the confidence or willingness to oppose the Latins, but because he was already wary of the two great Eastern enemies: the White Sheep Dynasty, which was about to recover from civil war, and the changing foreign policy after the death of his old friend, Mamluk Sultan Yusuf Jaqmaq, and he wished to eliminate them swiftly.
However, unfortunately, Western affairs would continue to trouble him for quite some time.
"Have all the other Italian states, apart from Venice and Genoa, accepted the Empire's peaceful solution?" Confirming this, Manuel's expression grew even gloomier: it was indeed these two commercial Republics again.
Since that was the case, he no longer needed to pretend to be a gentleman. Having made his decision, Manuel resolutely looked at his subordinates and decisively commanded:
"Prepare yourselves, it is time to send these blood-sucking Latin leeches to their graves."