Chapter 52: Elation, frustration, and fervor

POV: NARRATOR

Moving through the lands of Serbia, we zoom in and find a city by the name of Skopje. In this city, you will find the court of a great Tsar named Stefan Dusan. The regime has been experiencing plenty of issues, their towns are being targeted by intrigue, and their vassals have been paid off to rebel against their liege.

There is a new faction in the court which is fairly wealthy and has a big influence at this moment in time. This is all because the Tsar decided to pay lip service to the pope and said he would convert his lands and people to a catholic kingdom, which his enemies have used to their advantage.

Spies have been seen all over the Serbian empire's current lands, placing propaganda in public areas and even within churches before weekly services take place. Some of these art pieces show the Tsar kissing the pope's feet, and another shows their liege running and hiding behind the pope's skirt while the Turks wreak havoc on the people.

Even more vulgar pieces were known to be painted on the side of churches showing a catholic cross bum-humping an orthodox cross... Some of the agents of chaos acting against the Serbian regime are clearly creative. But just this propaganda is not enough to bring a solid regime to its knees alone.

But there are more vicious means used by these agents, for example, many water poisoning cases have been recorded. There were also scenes where entire churches were burnt down, and wine cellars, taverns, and inns seemed to explode leaving the building and its inhabitants destroyed. Amazingly this isn't the most effective method of chaos and outrage creation the most effective method seemed to be destroying mining operations.

There have been a few dozen cases of main exits of well-used mines collapsing with the miners still to this day stuck within most likely dead. The disruption of mining has made a lot of nobles very upset as this is one of the primary sources of income for Serbian nobles. This is a backward way that led the nobles to cooperate with their enemies to combat their own liege lord.

If we look at the Tsar himself who has just finished having another verbal spat in court with these trouble-making nobles... The Tsar looked around the room making sure there isn't anyone he doesn't know before speaking... He said to his closest helper "What is even happening, these dirty low down nobles are the worst kinds of men.

-When times get rough they do not look to solve the issues by working together they look to make a profit during the chaos instead. These damned Turks when did they start fighting like this, I do not even have a way to combat such intrigue. If the citizens were willing to help spot outsiders, it would be easier, but the damned nobles are using logical decisions like this to call me weak and the simple sheeple agrees with the idiots! What can we do... What can we do..."

The Tsar's right hand who has been with him since he was a young boy, stepped forwards and said to his liege... "My Tsar, we only have one choice in this situation and that is to drive out the Turks from these lands, obviously, they are weak so they choose to engage in such lowly methods! If we march our combined forces up to Ragusa we can crush their young sultan's forces and maybe even capture the head of the snake and put an end to this nonsense and move towards our true goals."

The Tsar hearing this began to calm down and shape up, and after running through his thoughts he said "Yeah! Why else would they create such issues unless they need time, so all we need to do is crush them promptly... Call the messengers and round up the commanders we march on Ragusa to make holy war on the infidels!"

As the Serbians attempt to solve their issues with war... We move over to view the Anjou king of Hungary and his court. This Anjou king of Hungary Louis I in 1346 is now focused solely on dealing with Naples's queen Joanna I who is the widow of his late brother Andrew duke of Calabria... He believes she is solely responsible for his brother's murder, so he is trying to figure out how to hold her accountable.

He is only 17 years old a new and young ruler who has inherited a centralized kingdom under his thumb and a treasury full of gold... After dealing with the Lithuanians and re-establishing royal authority in Croatia, he now has his full focus on Naples.

So when a bunch of messengers was sent to him from Serbia and the pope in Avignon about a crusade against the Turks. The Turks, who are not even bordering any of his important lands, happened to weaken his enemy in Naples by taking their dutchy of Durrazo and their settlements in Epirus.

He as a ruler did not want to commit any troops to this crusade or even have anything to do with it personally. But his Polish mother a devout catholic convinced him to allow the churches to recruit some of the peasants and warriors willing to fight for the cross. After dealing with this he then went back to his main focus that being Naples, to which he just heard they plan to campaign against the weakened Genoese and take lands in Sardinia.

They are moving far away to a distant land known as Egypt where we zoom in to a city that is now considered the capital of Islamic culture and power Cairo. We visit Sultan's court here, watching them calmly deal with their issues not facing any serious problems recently other than a pirate attack on their port city of Alexandria for which they never found the group responsible.

But they did receive a messenger from a new Turkic Sultan in Anatolia, saying that he had proof that the Venetians are responsible as he claims the same situation happened to his city. The Sultan took this with a grain of salt, but still, put out a stronger coast guard and reinforced the number of garrison troops provided to the port cities.

For this information, the Sultan asked for a closer diplomatic relationship and to have our people draw up a trade deal. The sultan initially wanted to agree as it wasn't anything to lose until his vassals explained that the Sultan in question was an Ottoman sultan named Alaeddin a tyrant who conquered the majority of Anatolia from his fellow Muslims.

This vassal also claimed to have a close relationship with the Karaman bey, who told him by letter that the Ottomans are power-hungry tyrants who wish to conquer all their neighbors and rule over all of Anatolia. He said to the Sultan that the Karaman bey also said that the new Sultan was young and naive and believed he was meant to unite all of the Islamic-ruled states into his own Caliphate.

The vassal went on to say that he believes they should support the Karamanids in their fight against the tyrannical Ottoman Sultanate. Because as of now Cairo is the center of the Islamic world if this sultan were to continue to rise and conquer all in his path to create a large Islamic empire where would they as the Mamluk sultanate fit in this new world order?

To which the Sultan Al-Malik al-Muzaffar replied "I believe we can oppose the expansion of this Ottoman sultanate while also opening diplomatic relations and trade with them. We will give secret support for the allies in the south and have cordial and cooperative relations with the ottomans in the open."

To which the vassal only replied with servitude in the face of his sultan's order. Then we move next to the far north, entering the kingdom of France. Here we further zoom in on the city of Avignon where we will find one of the largest gothic castles ever built.

This castle houses the papal clergy, and the pope himself, this court is very very lively. There is always popular music played in its halls, and it constantly hosts magnificent musicians to entertain the famed noblesse the pope entertains.

Pope Clement VI is the pope at the moment, a man who has climbed his way up the clergy power ladder since a small child. He is now ruling out of the castle in Avignon at the behest of the french royalty, but this is not what we seek by checking in on our pope.

We seek to see his view of our mighty Turks... The pope can be seen at his dinner table while beautiful music is playing in the background and from the windows, the birds can be seen proudly flapping their wings and flying about in the sky. In this beautiful and serene environment, the pope calmly ate his meal and spoke with his council and bishops around the table.

But soon a messenger arrived, and he brought news that would ruin the pope's wonderful meal. A small cleric from Croatia was given the job to bring this message to the pope with all due haste. And within a head-splitting amount of time, he arrived at the pope's court and delivered the news as he was ordered.

Once invited into the luxurious dining hall, the messenger began to get nervous especially after seeing the supreme pontiff, god's representative on earth. But he was woken up by one of the bishops used to seeing such behavior by lesser men, once he was over the hump that is the fanfare of seeing the pope he said "I was sent by the Archbishop of Esztergom Csanád Telegdi to see the

-pope. I will now read the message word for word, "to the pope, I Archbishop of Esztergom Csanád Telegdi deliver this unfavorable news, Our church's support for a crusade in Serbia is breaking down the kingdom itself. The king was in a powerful position but once the barbarian Serbs heard that the one true catholic church would bring its faith to the people the rebellious nobles and peasants hand in hand ignored their liege and left him to fight the Turks alone.

-The Hungarian King Louis I also ignored your request for a crusade as the support for it was not there in his kingdom but still allowed for recruitment. So the crusade falls to the 30,000 crusaders from Italy and Germany and the original force of king Stefan... As I heard the king has already marched off to fight the Turks, who he claims is weak that is why they have engaged in intrigue against his people. " This was what the Archbishop of Esztergom Csanád Telegdi wrote, I thank you for your ears I will be in the castle until tomorrow if you have a message to send I will gladly help."

Once the messenger left and the door closed, the pope smashed his fist onto the table. Screaming "Why! Damnable Infidels!" his council and bishops would eventually calm the pope down enough to speak to them. The pope said "This idiot, I truly did not expect him to tell anyone of his promises to me as I believed they would be lip service, but this man who was supposed to be a great king, one who could kick out the infidel invaders who will eventually threaten our beloved Christendom! If the Serbs lose this war, what chance do we have to keep the Turks out of our lands in Hungary-Croatia? Or even Italy or Rome itself!? Why my god oh why... can we as Christians not work together?

-This was my shallow attempt to give world opinions on our Mc's local events.

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