Chapter 24: Campaign Anatolia

Now that I have paid for the exciting new buildings and added them to the building queue, I can add the standard and important system buildings here in Iznik. After paying 10s of thousands of gold coins I added all the necessary buildings, and tower upgrades to the city, this building queue will take about 4 months to finish. After all these buildings are built the city will be no different from Abydos and Thessalonica, except the walls here are custom like the ones of Thessalonica, so the upgrades only add more length to the walls, and later cannon towers will be added for supreme fire powered defenses.

The only building that was already constructed here and recognized by the system was the garrison and training ground, allowing for the immediate recruitment of top-tier troops. Which would be of help usually, but as of now my treasury is currently stretched thinner than thin, I am currently settling some of my businesses into other countries and regions to export some gold from regions I do not own. The act of income from other countries is good, but I want a self-sufficient tax base capable of supporting my campaigns and huge standing armies. To improve my tax base and get the gold moving from hand to hand as it does in a good economy, the banks were established so money doesn't rot away in someone's pocket.

I also began to create many building projects requiring many men to complete so other than slaves there are many peasants hired to work, I also began to hire a lot of men to fill in new job positions like police officer or garrison soldier. More jobs were created from my reforms like sanitation management jobs, many new maids and servants working in my palace and new government offices being built around my lands. I also began to build many new caravansaries and mosques then places will need not only learned imams but cleaners, cooks, and stable hands. In turn, these are not meant for quick gain, but to improve the lives of my tax base, so that they will have more income and therefore spend more and get taxed more.

These are problems that cannot be solved with one decision or in one day, so I have to give it time. Looking toward my campaign that is looming on the horizon, I decided to get a move on as well. During the remainder of the 2 weeks, before the campaign can be started, I will use this opportunity to head back to my capital as I have a few more things to do before the campaign kicks off, though I will leave my Salaried troops here only taking a small guard unit and a few musketeers.

After a short day's travel, I arrived in Thessalonica. Rushing into my palace as I am on a time crunch, I opened the systems menu once more, looking to recruit the next round of servants, as with every new system city I can recruit one more group of Viziers (Spy, Merchant, Imam, Assassin, and Diplomat) But this time though I get to hire an extra merchant. The new system building "merchant bank" allows for one extra merchant to be recruited for every level of the building being built.

<Notice: My sultan has recruited 1x Spy, 2x Merchant, 1x Imam, 1x Assassin, and 1x Diplomat>

Great, I am always in dire need of intelligent and trustworthy experts on my side. Honestly, even if I could not recruit soldiers from the system, I would be fine, but without recruiting these men I would truly be at a loss, I would spend all my time crushing rebellious viziers and speaking with the locals to obtain manpower for my huge projects. But with these men, I can focus on expanding the realm whilst they handle the more laborious and tedious tasks in my stead.

After entering the throne room I waited for my new staff to arrive... After about an hour I received word that there were guests who would like to meet, I gave the guards the go-ahead to invite these men up to see me... Right after walking in these six men got down onto a knee and said "My sultan, we are here to serve" it was as if they trained to say this together before they arrived, Haha.

After we all got acquainted, I assigned them their new tasks which is to assist me in my tasks closely for the time being. As all my other servants were made into viziers they are swamped with tasks, so they cannot assist me in my everyday sultan duties and the ruling of my cities like Abydos and Thessalonica so I will have these men take over that duty. All except one of the new merchants, his job is to spread my businesses and banks into Hungary, Italy, and the holy roman empire.

By spreading these businesses throughout Europe, I can now have a small base of operations in some of the larger cities in these regions, giving me some sway over my local contacts there and maybe a few businesses may develop enough to affect an entire city-state... Mainly the bank, I want the banks to be spread all around Europe and use the money exchange banking of the Medici to achieve some economic dominance over the city-states of Italy. It could work, only time will tell with operations like these one can have the main goal of gold, and secondary goals are bonuses.

My last objective before heading to war is the research muskets. now that I have a few muskets I want to bring them to the system of weaponsmiths who are capable of making them and have a pistol-sized matchlock produced. Once they can produce them, I have made it so at least 3000 of them will be manufactured here, as these pistols will be handed out to my cavalry units, making them capable of firing a volley and then crashing into the enemy's formation. This will be extremely deadly to enemies preparing to take a horse charge because these enemies will group up to defend the charge. This will spell death for them as they will be shot to death in higher numbers the closer, they are to each other.

A week then passed by as I lounged with my woman and spent time with my mother and sister, after a brief goodbye meal I set off by ship heading to Iznik. as soon as I landed there, I headed to the garrison where my troops should be waiting and training. upon arriving near the garrison, I already see my troops in marching order leaving the city the men at the back are still near the garrison whilst the front has already left the last city gates. Watching my army march I just marched my horse and my guard I brought along to meld into the rear cavalry formation.

As we waited in line, I heard that Mehmet arrived with the militia today and rounded up the army. After everyone was ready to go, he planned to march everyone outside the city to wait for my arrival, well I couldn't have done it better myself. Once we left the city gates I ran my horse to the front of the army meeting up with general Mehmet and his entourage, after some catching up we decided it was time to set are marching route.

Ultimately this is the route and plan we followed on our way to the border, leaving Iznik we marched west to Apemea. Then we marched south to Tahtali, after resting for the night there, we split up here into 2 armies, My retinue army led by me, and Mehmet will lead the militia units. I marched my army to Orhaneli, a small town on the border run by the Islamic clergy there. whilst Mehmet will take the militia to the far east of the same county to the main castle-city in the county of Misya the castle is called Mihalic named after the city. There Mehmet can have the militia defend against any attacks launched toward our lands such as counter-raids, but in that castle, he can also attack the enemies, not just defend, so he will be there when I call for him.

My army shall spearhead the charge against the enemy, while the second army will be supported when needed. Leaving the border city with my army we marched southeast to a small city called Akcaalan, it is not a walled city so normally it wouldn't be an issue for such a large army. But this city in specific made me march down here instead of west to the main city of Dursunbey because it has a larger garrison and is ruled by an influential tribe in this Saruhan Beylic.

Marching for a while in this mild weather wasn't bad at all, I assumed it would be cold until I reached the coast nearest to Izmir, but no the weather here is fine too. Crossing the border, I decided to split my forces as one force of infantry and a sipahi cavalry guard will set up the cannons for the siege on the large castle of Dursunbey. While I will lead my Kapikulu calvary to destroy or subordinate the Ucbey of Acaalan. Before leading my troops into their territory, I sent a messenger ahead to the tribe, as they are Muslim, I gave them a choice of destruction or subordination.

Seeing the messenger's troop speeding off I gathered my Kapikulu calvary and headed in the same direction only at a slower speed as there is no rush right now. After about 2 hours we met my messenger returning from the tribe, he just shook his head saying, "My sultan I have failed you, this bey says our sultanate is false and doesn't have the power to dislodge his men from these lands."

I replied, "Oh so this man isn't the brightest, if there is nothing within his head there is no reason for me to keep it upon his shoulders."

Ordering my men to form up we speed our horses rapidly toward the idiot's tribe. After riding for a short while we have already reached the small plain where his main tribe is located, I sent out the Kapikulu garip under the command of Azmi bey one of the former system captains and current commander of my garip unit. I commanded him to get as close as possible to the tribe to see their reactions and shoot arrows and explosive arrows into the tribe if the enemies are dumb enough to let my men get so close.

After sending him off, I organized the rest of my units into two lines: skirmishers, the heavy bow cavalry the ulufeci, and the sipahis I brought along are in the first line, and the second line consists of the kapikulu sipahi and the Silahtar. This shall be a common tactic for my arms, as my skirmishers can loosen up the enemy formations by firing upon them, then my heavy cavalry can break their defensive lines by charging right behind the skirmishers we can do this over and over if necessary.