59 Chapter 59: War is also diplomacy, right?

After the fires of war began to spread across this city I heard everything from my tent... And after about thirty minutes I left all by myself. Within a few moments, I was walking through the city alone looking on as my troops ravaged the population. Some men have taken someone's wife or daughter to a corner of one of the many alleyways or dark corners of the city to have their way with them.

Though I must say that the majority of the soldiers were more inclined to shake down the residents with either fear or violence taking their hidden wealth for their own. Many found themselves looting the now-dead or captured enemy soldiers of their wealth, armor, and arms.

I saw children crying whilst their parents were beaten, and I noticed many instances of arson just burning down once-fine buildings. Now the things I see are horrible, but at the same time, it is the citizen's fault for allowing their rulers to defend them with their meager strength. To fight against those far more powerful than you and do it in such a face-to-face battle goes against all reason.

To leave your citizens to endure such maddening violence and looting goes against all reason. Why would anyone make such a choice... This is just beyond my understanding as maybe it is their belief in the strength of their defenses or faith in their god. I have to now add another goal to reach for in my life, I want to know why men would decide to fight such an unwinnable battle when surrendering is far more profitable and reasonable than even winning such a bloody battle.

Although I know greater men than I have tried to explore the minds of unbelievers and seemingly greedy and idiotic fools I just want to know what could cause a man to make such a choice. As I continued to think I somehow made my way to the center of the city, to the broken walls of the now lifeless palace.

After walking through the hole blown through the walls, I looked left and right just observing the scene my soldiers created here. There were naked enemy corpses laid all around the beautiful palace garden grounds. It seems that over the past few months or weeks, my army has found its hidden talents for looting.

I mean only about an hour and a half passed since the city's walls fell, how can these dead soldiers already be looted bare? The speed at which they must've shredded the enemy forces and begun raiding is unnerving to me as I see this as a danger to me and my army... The enemy could take advantage of us in many ways if they knew my troops were this greedy.

I must nip this endless greed in the bud, and replace it with rigorous discipline, or my troops and I will meet an enemy that will devour us all by use of my troop's greed. Though looking at the speed at which we shred through the defenses of this city I can honestly say the skill of my troops is good, but discipline may be more important than skill sometimes.

After about half a day the looting began to die down, I then recalled all the troops to our makeshift garrison inside and around the palace area. There we rested for about two days and used our troops and the local people who we just looted to rebuild and repair the more damaged parts of the walls, and many useful buildings in the city like the palace and several small markets.

We also made sure to change the largest church here into a mosque as well. Once this was completed I moved my men out leaving only a tiny garrison used as a placeholder until the campaign is over. All these men left as a garrison will later be reintegrated into my forces and serve as soldiers in the army once more.

Over the next week, I managed to conquer the surrounding area, securing all of the area surrounding Nikopol. Once this was completed, I moved my army along toward the next task. And over the next period, we managed to secure two more significant cities Widdin and Orsova, and the area surrounding them as well.

Now I find myself facing the last major conquest along the Danube for now Belgrade. This city is decently fortified but honestly its defenses are not even on the same level as Nicopolis. I do not know who gave my brother false information but he made it very clear that this would be the hardest conquest for me so far, but I believe he was misled as this city is just located in a pretty good area and can be further improved to increase its ability to defend.

But right now I do not even believe this fortified city or castle is even worth mentioning... But I could see us using this city to further our trade influence and as a springboard to conquer more lands in the north. But regardless of my petty thoughts, we need to secure this settlement by any means.

Keeping things simple I just used barrels of black powder like my brother explained and just blew the gates off their hinges. Once this was done I just allowed my troops into the city to eliminate all the defenders and capture or kill the liege lord here.

This time my brother gave me a direct order not to loot or harm this city too much as we have a major use for it in the future... So to my troop's dismay, they weren't allowed to loot at all, but to make things a little better for them I split the treasury of the city even among them.

Now that the first phase is completed, we have enclosed all the lands we want within our new borders. I now must move south either conquering or absorbing all the settlements in my path, I do not care whether the nobles surrender or not as it doesn't matter to me, but I prefer they not surrender as then I can try out more of my strategies for besieging on them.

***POV: MC

Now that my brother has succeeded in securing Belgrade which for some reason isn't as strong as I remember reading, it could be that it just isn't upgraded until later centuries. My memory is just failing me about the details. I now must focus on diplomacy, as I want to secure all of Serbia and Bulgaria by summer's end, then I can focus on indoctrinating their new aristocrats.

To do this, I plan just to secure everything in my path to the major cities but mostly I want the system cities of the Balkans. The main system cities in this area of the Balkans are Skopje, Belgrade, Sofia, Varna, and Edirne. I need to secure all of these cities as they will help me transform the population into workers for my cause albeit slowly.

My first step to dominating these countries is to spread the news of their brutal defeat, the state of their captives, and ransoming terms and prices. I also need to compile a list of all the nobles that will stand against me. This won't be easy usually but if I take the capital of Skopje and call a meeting of the nobility I can easily parse through who is willing to bend the knee and not.

All those who arrive will be given a chance to be absorbed into our Bureaucracy or military branches of Government and given certain privileges to allow their families to prosper for a time. This will make it easier to part with from their vast lands, though I am not sure how many will be willing to take this opportunity.

But if I can crush a few nobles on my way to the capital and bring a few to my side and share this news and the differences in how they were treated maybe I can bring the majority of the nobles over to my side without much bloodshed. Then the die-hard Serbian nobility can be slaughtered to the last man or enslaved and sent to the mines.

Two weeks have passed since I decided on this plan. Following my idea I moved through southern Serbia and into Northern Macedonia, Absorbing many noble families into my state and slaughtering just as many. Spreading news of all my movements all across the failing empire, I must have scared many of the nobles into action as by the time I arrived outside of Skopje there were many nobles and their soldiers on the walls and camped outside the city.

I said to my commanders "Look what we have here... We received no formal notice of their declaration of war, or maybe they are fighting for the throne, or they believe I will appoint a new king...? I do not know, but I say whoever stops our army from entering the city kill them whether they be men or women... King, Duke, queen, duchess I care not you all must slaughter whoever dares to stop us!"

As my army inched ever closer to the city, the soldiers stationed outside the city moved first creating a line of men on both sides of the city, allowing for me and my men to walk through like a red carpet entrance. Oh, so these are most likely knights or men at arms in service to counts and dukes as they are very well trained and understand their lieges intentions.

So I and my Janissaires entered the city with a small contingent of the Kapikulu entering with us as well, in total about 15 thousand men entered the town with me. Upon entering the town, I immediately dispatched my soldiers to secure the walls, I do not want enemies surrounding me.

Once this was completed to the confusion of the Serbian soldiers on the walls, I moved forward toward the palace... Slowly as I wanted all the citizens to see my expert soldiers and show off our wonderful equipment and superior weaponry. But once we arrived at the palace I was surprised to see who was greeting me, I am gonna assume it is the Tsarina.

A fairly tall snow-white woman came to greet me dressed in full royal garb in Byzantine style bedazzled with pearls, rubies, emeralds, diamonds, and opals this was just the outer long-sleeved dress I can see. She also sported a huge Byzantine-styled crown with matching jewels from the silken dress.

She said "I am Helena of Bulgaria, Tsarina of Serbia. This here is my son the heir of Serbia Stefan Uroš V, and my daughter Irene. I hope you liked the entrance we prepared we would also like to treat you to a feast *Looks at my reaction* but only after we discuss the politics first... *clears throat*"

Looking her family up and down, I then responded "Hmm... You look a little young to be the mother of children this age, honestly, I am starting to believe they chose such a beautiful woman to act as the queen to seduce me into making bad choices. Are you really the Tsarina a woman thirty-one years of age?"

I said whilst walking up to the woman staring into her eyes for a brief moment then walking past her into the palace. After being stunned for a moment she and her children eventually caught up to me. She said while chasing me down "Sultan, Sultan, Sultan, *Huff Huff* Allow me to lead the way I do not want you to get lost in our palace as that would be to my detriment."

-New chapter tomorrow, Sorry finding time is becoming harder as the temperature begans to rise, and more and more work is coming my way... Sorry guys but I stayed up late writing two chapters for everyone.