14. Securing the East.

"He's almost here, "yelled the tagma signaler. The tagma commander rushed to his horse, snatch the stirrup, threw himself across the saddle, drew his sword, and with a happy and vigorous physiognomy, opened his mouth, ready to shout. The troops of the tagma took positions for military inspection and stood still.

"Attention!" shouted the regimental commander in a firm voice. Along the small road, came an imperial, four-wheeled covered carriage, pulled by four horses, controlled by a coachman. Behind it galloped a convoy of twenty mounted bodyguards. As I stepped down from the wagon, the word of command rang out, and the tagma presented its arms. I must confess that thanks to the strictness of its commander, the tagma, compared with other reinforcements that had reached Ikonio(Konya) at the same time, was in superb condition. I walked through the ranks, sometimes stopping to say a few kind words to the soldiers pleased with their high morale. After the inspection, the tagma broke up into smaller companies that went to their appointed barracks near Ikonio, where they receive new shoes and clothes and rest after their long march.

It took us more than a month to establish decent authority in the ex Karaman Beylik lands. We faced the same type of guerilla-style fighting that we met during campaigning near Bursa. Although not very cost-effective, it sure took us time to deal with it.

By the end of August, we marched to Ankara, which fell shortly after. The area was still recovering from the pillaging and destruction of a few years ago from the Timurid forces. To make it even worse, many Turkish families and Muslims from the area fled to the east fear of us. At least the few Orthodox Greek and Orthodox Galatians communities in the locality were friendly toward us. Speaking of the Galatians, meeting them was quite surreal for me since I knew their history from reading about them in my previous 21st-century life.

With our conquest of central Anatolia, the Muslim Beyliks in collapse, and Ancyra and Ikonio under my control, the ultimate prize - to capture the core lands of the empire in Anatolia - was already achieved.

But I am not naive; the reward is not secure as long as the Timurids are around. I have no other choice but to prepare for a confrontation with Sah rukh sooner than later.

The council of war began to assemble early in the morning in a spacious room in the Ankara fortress. One after another, the highest officers of my army came into the room and sat around the table, on which lay numerous maps, reports, and papers.

«My brother Thomas opened the council with the question: "Are we to abandon Jerusalem and the holy lands without a struggle, or are we to liberate them?" A prolonged silence followed. All eyes looked at me.

"Ah, Jerusalem, the ancient and holy land!" I said, repeating Thomas's words in a steady and rather angry voice.

"Allow me to say to all of you here, that that question has no real meaning for us now. Such a question cannot be truly asked; it is pointless! Of course, I want to liberate the holy lands, as all Christians do." I said and continued

" But the real issue for this meeting to discuss is a military one. The real question is how we will deal with the army of the Timurids. Our latest reports mention a massive Timurid army gathering in Persia as we speak. That is the question on which I want your opinion," I said and sat back in my chair.

Although marching to Jerusalem was tempting, in the end, logic prevailed.

Better safe than sorry is a great moto. As the Co-emperor and leader of the army, I could do as I want without asking anyone. But if I want to make a core of capable generals, they must be able to speak of their minds. In the meantime, during the meeting, we heard the news that Sigismund was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Rome on 31 May 1433.

On the fourteen of October, I went back to Ikonio to inspect the recruits that just arrived. With more than a million souls now, under Roman rule, the number of volunteers for the army skyrocket. With Ikonio as my winter headquarters and tens of thousands of people available for labor, I orchestrated a massive building campaign. I stretched my economic capabilities to the limit spending a vast amount of my minted gold coins. Hmm, some sort of a banking system would be handy sooner than later.

Repairing and expanding the existing Roman roads network, establishing a Tachis Ippos network in Anatolia, bulding watermills to boost the local agriculture, and erecting a series of small fortresses from east of Ankyra to the south of Ikonio was some of the main focus of the building projects.

Timurid preparations and forces

Shah Rukh was informed of our operation in the middle of May while conducting a small campaign near India.

He swiftly assembled a large army, gathered from central Asia and all over Persia, including large contingents of horse archers. He mustered his forces at Herat and was ready to march to Anatolia by the end of August.

The exact numbers and composition of Shah Rukh's force are unknown. A contemporary document claims that Shah Rukh had three hundred thousand, but this may be an inflated figure. Modern historians have offered an estimation of the size of the forces: one hundred forty thousand men, eighty thousand of them cavalry. The army would have consisted of a mix of cavalry, infantry, and archers.

In Late August, Shah Rukh left Herat and marched to Tabriz, where he camped for the winter.

Mamluk Egypt

To prop up his fragile state, Barsbay, the Mamluk Sultan, moved to obtain support and loans or trade revenue from regional powers. In September, he sent as envoys a Venetian merchant with close ties to the Doge and a Tunisian noble who maintained close contacts with the Hafsid caliph.

Despite their trade agreements with the Romans, the Venetians viewed the Roman revival, more and more, as a significant threat to their political and economic ambitions.

Moreover, for a technologically advancing Venice, the relationship with Barsbay and his vulnerable but geographically strategic domains served as an extension of their burgeoning imperialism. Alexandria would serve as the commercial link between Persia and their domains.

Venetian envoys came with significant gifts and proposed an alliance treaty with Barsbay. It explicitly stipulated joint efforts toward the weakening and eventual destruction of the Roman Empire

Florentine politics

In 1433, Cosimo's power over Florence began to look like a menace to the anti-Medici party led by figures such as Palla Strozzi and the Albizzi family, headed by Rinaldo Albizzi. In September, Cosimo was imprisoned in the Palazzo Vecchio for his part in a failure to conquer Lucca, but he managed to turn the jail term into exile. Some prominent Florentines, such as Francesco Filelfo, demanded even his execution, a fate that may have been almost certain without the intervention of the monk Ambrogio Traversari on his behalf. Cosimo traveled to Padua and then to Venice, taking his bank along with him and finding friends and sympathizers wherever he went. Venice shortly after sent an envoy to Florence on his behalf and requested that they lift the order of banishment. When they refused, Cosimo settled down in Venice, along with his brother Lorenzo. However, prompted by his influence and his money, others followed him, such as the architect Michelozzo, whom Cosimo commissioned to design a library as a gift to the Venetian people.