10. Plan if you want to expand.

Thessaloniki December 1431 A.D

The journey back to Thessaloniki from the Siderokausia mines took three days. After the crushing victory against Sinan Pasha, my original plan was to march directly to Thrace, liberate Edirne and then reach Constantinople. With winter coming fast and my siege cannons still in Skopje, I changed my mind and decided to play safe and be more conservative in my strategic planning. So I spent all the rest of October in small missions within Macedonia. I cleared Veroia, Serres, and other towns of the few small Ottoman garrisons remnants in the area. Then I spent two weeks in Chalkidiki reorganizing the Siderokaustia mines, and I am delighted with what I saw and the progress made. There are now four hundred kilns active, with more than five thousand people working on the mines. My first estimations of the mine output are about six tons of gold and silver per year! (1) Woohoo! That means a boost in my income of close to one million gold coins! I am now able to fund pretty much all of my ideas and projects. The first thing I did, is building a new fort near the precious mines with one tagma staying permanent as the mines garrison. Of course, I also mint my first gold(2) and silver Stavraton(3) coins

Upon my arrival in Thessaloniki, my fleet from Glarentza arrived, with a bulk of my top craftsmen and numerous supplies. Soon after, I began the initial phase of rebuilding Thessaloniki. With plenty of buildings abandoned or destroyed by the Ottoman last year, plenty of space was available for my "vision."

The new infrastructure of Thessaloniki

A new big naval arsenal West of the merchant port of emperor Constantine will be the new home of my Portuguese master shipbuilder, who has finally made progress with implementing some of my ideas for a new type of ship. North of the naval arsenal, another workshop-arsenal, and numerous gunpowder and weapons factories will serve as my primary military industry.

In the central North of the town and within the Acropolis of the city, a new "war academy" will serve as my primary officer school. One hundred capable soldiers from within the ranks of the tagmata will live in the academy compounds and get yearly training and education, from the study of military history to military techniques and army logistics. The goal of the academy is to produce one hundred new capable officers for the tagmata every year. Another significant new building is the lighthouse on the East side of the city. Inspired from the great lighthouse of Alexandria, I thought that besides being an essential aid to night navigation in the vicinity, the tower would serve as a symbol and landmark for Thessaloniki

I made also plans to restore the buildings of the old palace of Galerius to serve as my new administration center, with the south side of it (including the octagon) to serve as a new university.

The city, in general, acquired a new character. New roads built throughout its neighborhoods and new building complexes arranged,

The water supply system already in operation with underground and aboveground cisterns was enhanced and expanded.

The city walls also strengthened through reconstruction or new additions, such as the walls around the new "industrial" area. Despite the fact that several thousand ex-residents return from the nearby area, I will need a vast amount of people to work in all these projects. I made calls for settlers all over Macedonia to repopulate the city. By the end of the year, the city population reached fifteen thousand.

With the arrival of the fleet from Glarentza, I also received information regarding my entreprises back in Morea. My book sales manager Ioannis Alketas informed me that more than seventy thousand books sold this year, and the orders for the next one had reached the astronomical number of one hundred thousand. It seems that both the Papacy and Venice did a pretty good job selling books all over Europe. Speaking of the Papacy, I was pleased to hear that my friend and business partner Gabriele Condulmer got elected as the new Pope under the name Pope Eugene IV. The previous Pope, Martin V, died in Rome of a stroke on 27 February 1431 at the age of 62. Heh, the profit from the book sales seems to really help my "business partner" to rise quickly.

The lucrative book sales, of course, affected my relations with Venice too. I received a personal letter from the Doge of Venice himself congratulating me for my recent successes on the battlefields. I also received multiple letters from various lords and kings. Despot George Brankovic seems the most friendly towards me. He eagerly joined the "Ieros skopos," and he even offered me his daughter Katarina to marriage to seal our alliance.

Never the less the most essential news I received it from my brother, the emperor, John. More or less, my brother informed me that upon my arrival in Constantinople, he would proclaim me as his Co- emperor. This news took me by surprise. After several talks with my best advisor and friend George, i concluded that this proposal from my brother is quite logical since I am practically the ruler of the Empire already.

(1) Sevket Pamuk, A Monetary History of the Ottoman Empire, Cambridge, 2000

(2) The Gold Stavraton of Constantine Palaiologos contained 3.545 grams of 99.47% fine gold, the highest purity medieval metallurgy could produce.

All these coins featured a bust of the cross on the obverse and an imperial bust on the reverse. The inscriptions are uniform, with the opposite featuring an inner and an outer inscription: ΔΕCΠΟΤΙC Ο ΠΑΛΕΟΛΟΓΟC", i.e., "DESPOT PALAIOLOGOS."

(3) The name Stavraton first appears in the mid-11th century for a gold Histamenon showing the Byzantine emperor holding a cross-shaped scepter, but in its more specific sense, it denotes the large silver coins introduced by Emperor John V Palaiologos in circa 1367 and used for the last century of Byzantine history. The late Byzantine coin was probably named after the cross (Greek: σταυρός, stavros/stauros) that featured in its presumed model, the double gigliato of Naples and the Provence; alternatively, the name may have derived from the small crosses at the beginning of the coins' inscriptions, an unusual feature for Byzantine currency, although these are not very conspicuous.