17 Chapter 17: Reports

Reaching our designated escape beach a few miles away from the burning Alexandria, we waited an hour before the ships arrived and another hour before everyone was finally settled on a ship and we took off back toward our homeland! A full 8 days later we arrived at the port of Thessalonica giving me comfort like never before.

Before arriving here, I split some of the ships to send 2 of the Nubian farmers to Abydos, oh yea the men found in the dungeons were growers of this seed luckily enough the merchant managed to even find me a grower of this fruit, what a man. I decided to split the farmers into two groups one group shall check my European lands for a great place for the fruit to grow, and the other group shall check my Asian lands for a place as well. If I am lucky, I could make a few large farmsteads on both sides as this crop in the future shall play a key role in my economy, it shall become a state secret the level of silkworms for the ancient Chinese.

To explain why I went to such great lengths to get this tree I shall say one-word COFFEE! This fruit tree is a special tree where the seed happens to be a coffee bean, and I managed to acquire hundreds of thousands of coffee beans. I shall open my coffee shop where we shall brew this delicious coffee for my citizens to enjoy, spreading these state-owned shops all over the Sanjak and the Sultanate in the future. I do not want this delicious drink to spread all over the world just yet as I am not sure I will be able to benefit from this trade, as I do not own Egypt and it is Egypt who can hold a monopoly on the trade of such a coffee bean. I refuse to allow someone else to get rich and powerful with my ideas.

But within my lands adding a new drink for my people to enjoy and get an extra energy boost for their workday. This is also another outlet in which my citizens can spend their coins, and shortly I will also have my merchants obtain another special drink for me to create and that is tea, I shall obtain some seeds to grow and make my tea strains here for my people to enjoy. I gave my merchants a directive to obtain these leaves and seeds at all costs, through any connection or any price this is a necessity for us. As tea will be my second cash crop grown not for nourishment, but purely for the enjoyment of the buyer.

I know it may take time before these crops become profitable for me and my future empire, but when it does finally catch on, we shall become very rich just by selling these two crops in a short amount of time. Just thinking about coffee made me think about conquering my Asian neighbors more and more, as the Balkans don't offer much, other than a route to Europe and the great mines they have. But in the south, there are large profits from the ancient silk road and the Trans-Saharan Trade route.

Many ancient cities include Aleppo, Damascus, Tyre, Baghdad, and Jerusalem. There are the great ports connecting the middle east to the Mediterranean, there are many reasons to look south and only one not to, the one reason is the political reasoning of the day is to not conquer your neighbors, but just co-exist well at least in Anatolia. But with all these separate small states holding onto power, how will we spread Islam into other lands when we have all broken apart?

So, I have been thinking that I should shoulder the great burden of building a massive empire that is capable of expanding endlessly. If I could have access to the manpower that an empire offers, I could rebuild the roman roads, and build mosques and caravansaries throughout my land also add local schools that teach children the main principles of our religion and state principles as well as the state languages. To have an empire you must have roads that connect all the lands, and the citizens must have a common language and principles that connect all the citizens in one way or another, making them work together rather than attacking each other for whatever makes them different.

I am not sure what brought about these thoughts, it could be the trip to the south. Maybe it was because I saw how small the city of Alexandria was, a city that used to hold a population of hundreds of thousands now has less than 10 thousand people. This is an outrage, is Islamic rule so shabby that a city that should be able to grow by itself has shrunk to such a level, Egypt with its strategic location in the middle of the Mediterranean and connecting far east India with the Mediterranean world this alone should make the country filthy rich and allow them to spread that richness to the citizens with libraries, roads, schools, and a large standing army to protect them from whatever comes to the states way.

Now I am not saying the Mamluk's rule is ruining Egypt or the country is poor, I am saying with the support of an empire, Egypt could become something far greater, as could all the lands that are broken into small beylics and sultanates!

The biggest downside and upside to having a small consolidated state are that I cannot focus on more than one campaign at a time, I can only attack one small kingdom at a time, and currently, I could not form a combined attack on the Balkans without the help of my sultan father. But at the same time, I could defeat any attacking army from the Balkans and turn them back where they came from with ease.

But with a larger manpower pool, I could achieve many great conquests and have the logistic network to support a larger army, at most now I can have an army of around 20-30,000 troops and this truly depends on distance and how long the campaign will last If it is longer than 2 or 3 months I couldn't even handle 10,000 troops.

But once Macedonia and Thrace are consolidated and all the cities (except Constantinople) are under my control I think I could have the manpower and logistics needed to go on serious campaigns and not just take a single city but take everything and dominate entire kingdoms or small empires like Serbia in the process.

The biggest contributor to my confidence in this is the roman roads, I only need to restore them and not build entirely new networks, this allows me to have a discount perfect and quick road system to move armies and supplies about the Balkans, and once I get the Balkans and build up their infrastructure and restore what is left there I can continue to move forward, but I cannot attack large empires like Austria or the holy roman empire just yet, I need the conquest of Anatolia before that. But this plan wholly relies on the fact that my father does the right thing and crowns me as sultan, if he crowns one of my brothers and I have to crush them first before taking Anatolia that would be just terrible.

But let me get out of my head about plans and look at what we have achieved in this short winter peace. For one the road restoration of all my lands is practically complete as the road in Thrace was in good shape and just needs mosques and Caravansaries on the roadway, the system handled all the roads around Thessalonica, Abydos, and Canakkale.

Speaking of Canakkale I almost managed to build all the system buildings available for 2 more months and it can be considered a max-level fortress guarding the strait of Gallipoli. So overall in two months, the first phase of the infrastructure will be completed, that is the basic mosques and basic caravansaries serving travelers throughout their travels will have been completed, but the second phase will take a year or two to complete as that is the real design of the buildings using stone and marble and overall displaying the might and luxuries of our state.

For the first phase, you can consider the buildings as stone and wood combined to make a sturdy but unappealing building but when phase two is finished these buildings will look beautiful and striking to the viewer, making travelers recognize the power of the state they are now visiting.

One of my very original plans is now in its final phase the castles built guarding the Gallipoli strait are now all finished and are now just adding the appropriate staff, munitions, soldiers, and ships to do the job of guarding the strait. With this now completed, I can apply political and economic pressure to states like Venice, Genoa, and Byzantium.

With the trade over the sea now completely within my grasp no ship can pass through these waters without paying me, I can directly cut off all trade from the west with Constantinople by land and sea if I ever wished to. My fleet is also getting stronger every month as my shipbuilders in Abydos, Canakkale, and Thessalonica push at least one new ship into the ocean every month. We are not speaking about a small vessel but a baghlah or Lanternas and even a Galleass which is similar to the lanternas. This month we even recruited a few very expensive ships these are the Carrack, a ship that has a lot of firepower and was recruited from the system.

With a fleet like this and militarized seaports all along the coasts we can be very dominant in a small area not allowing any outside influence in our lands, also we can seriously damage a country like Genoa by cutting them off from their colonies in Crimea. We can force them into paying us a substantial amount of tribute from these lands, in exchange for safe passage.

The military is in the same limbo as it was a month ago, I am just currently recruiting and training troops, just allowing the recruits to come to Abydos and Thessalonica and receive training and salaries, whilst the militia is currently either training or waiting for the training facilities.

Also, I passed around the proper citizen information before I left, leading to easier taxation efforts and the formation of militia regiments. Week by week as time goes by my military power continuously grows, not waiting for the local troops to train the system troops are constantly being recruited, the people I am using for this is currently criminals and captured peoples who refused to be slaves but when this is not enough the poorer strata or homeless are then chosen to be changed by the system.

I am currently emptying my coffers on the recruitment of Ottoman cataphracts, as I believe they will help me the most in any field battle against the Europeans as they have an influx of heavily armored knights in this era and light horses just will not be able to deter them, If I do not have enough armored horsemen or heavy pike infantry then my only choice is to throw numbers at them or trick the enemy into a trap. Both of these are extremely hard to do, what's easier and allows for more tactical flexibility is to just match them in armored horsemen and outmatch them in light horsemen, and horse archers.

I will also try my best to bring the same momentum as the ottoman janissaries when they entered the battlefield the only difference being my infantry will be more armored and be less focused on bows as the contemporary ottoman army. The biggest problem the ottomans faced in this period is that when they face European armies, they would lose the majority of their army when winning in open battle, well for one because they were shooting arrows at a knight in heavy plate armor it just won't work, they will just bounce off them.

So, I will have at the least in any raised army 2000 militia crossbowmen, I will eventually raise a retinue force of crossbowmen but as of right now, I do not have the clout or money to locally recruit more than I already am.

I am currently recruiting 5000 horsemen locally to be placed in my retinue forces as Sipahi. These 5000 men will be given lands after my conquests and will not be paid out of pocket, but their job unlike the 450 Sipahi I already have is to recruit a retinue for themselves to ride into battle with them, allowing me to grow my armed units without personally paying for it.

In the long run, this is not ideal but for the first few years I can dramatically grow my armored horseman this way, but it will draw away from the number of tribesmen I have available to me as most of these horsemen I make landed Sapahi will be tribesmen who performed well in battle or were recruited in this initial 5000 men. Whilst the 450 Sipahi I already have will serve as 10- and 20-man squad commanders of the newly recruited sipahis.

I am also currently spending gold to recruit local infantrymen from all over, I sent posters to even be posted outside of my lands drawing in military-minded Youngman from all over truly. I am paying top dollar so I expect to receive the 8000 men quota I set for infantry recruits, these men will also be enrolled into my retinue, they will be trained in a pike square like the one I already have, heavily armored and holding a pike in all 4 directions making a square and in the middle will be men with either crossbows, bows, and melee weapons like axe's, swords, and war hammers.

Instead of calling it a modified phalanx, I will call it a pike square that was implemented by the Swiss to counter the French heavy cavalry to great success. This change in style by the infantry in our timeline by the Swiss changed warfare in Europe from being dominated by knights to infantry heavy armies, you can also attribute it to the rise of cold weapons like the firearm as well though. I want to have like the ottomans I know the most disciplined and modern army in the world making everyone move to the tune I set, and not the other way around.

Once all troops are recruited, trained, and armed & armored I will be a poor man but I would rather be poor than get wiped out by the enemies surrounding me. I can always make more money whilst leading my campaigns, I will easily still have enough funds to launch a large campaign come spring and recoup my winter losses and stop my troop upkeep from being negative as it will be after a few more months of recruitment.

The only reason I even have such liberal spending right now is that Thessalonica is just so rich and my trade revenues continue to rise by the day, I am certain once I take Adrianople, Selymbria, and Ainos my fortune will be incredibly significant once again entering the hundreds of thousands, whilst my income will increase to nearly 20-60,000 ducats a turn making my yearly income in the millions, like the Byzantines of old. Further exaggerating my income is my superior infrastructure that is piggybacking off the empires of the old.

One thing that must be mentioned is that the population as of now is pretty high in the former imperial lands of Europe, like Constantinople for example at this point has a population of 450,000 and Thessalonica has a population of 150,000.

One of the major reasons the ottomans could steamroll their enemies is because the black plague that spread across the world ravaged everyone's population resulting in places like Constantinople having a population of less than 80,000 and Thessalonica having only 11,000 people when it finally fell into Ottoman hands. But in this timeline, the black plague has not been spread throughout Europe just yet and I plan to stop the major spread of this plague preserving the populations of major city centers and allowing me to have extreme manpower to ravage the world.

There are a few more points that need to be summarized. The bank system is slowly being introduced, the main bank is in Thessalonica and is under the control of the state merchants, they can keep your money safe and not have to worry about someone stealing it, this goes for all classes except the slave class. These banks are also responsible for loaning out money and even land can be sold to men who have yet to have the money to buy it as long as they have the corresponding property to levy as collateral.

I am also starting a program where small amounts of money or property such as small real estate in the city can be loaned as well to the poorer classes, like merchant stalls and the selling zone for the stall, stores fronts, and even villas on the countryside and houses and villas in the city can also be loaned and sold by the bank.

Another major update to my administration is allowing the citizens in larger cities to vote a representative into the court of the governor or leader of the city even if that leader is me, these men or women are responsible for relaying the relevant information from these sections of the city such as needs, and concerns.

Allowing my appointed governors to get accurate information straight from the source and allowing the citizens to feel they have a source to vent themselves and show their concerns. With this system, I believe we can have a firmer grasp on these larger cities which is usually a loose control as there are just too many people.

We will also have this system implemented in more remote regions that aren't on the border allowing these remote villages to have a representative in the capital or closest regional capital giving them some kind of voice to express their concerns as well and to show the needs of these people that are harder to contact, this will be another way of spreading influence across vast lands.