As soon as he finished speaking, Manuel smiled and scanned everyone, asking, "Any objections?"
"None," they replied in unison.
Manuel smiled with satisfaction, then began assigning tasks to each party.
"Balin, when you return today, immediately lead your tribesmen to convert. After that, immediately take your people to eliminate the remaining members of the Shirin Family and incorporate their tribesmen. As far as I know, after Ali, the chief of the Muzars Tribe, was captured by the Golden Horde and switched allegiance, they absorbed a large number of the original Muzars tribesmen."
Hearing this, Balin shivered, because his Balin Tribe had also taken a share in the division of the Muzars Tribe, though the Shirin had swallowed the lion's share.
He was somewhat glad that he had taken the initiative to seek out and pledge allegiance to Manuel that night; otherwise, thinking of the Shirin's current fate made his hair stand on end.
Manuel, feigning unawareness, continued to issue orders, "This operation to convert the infidels to the true faith, I shall name it the 'Tauris Re-Baptism Movement.' I have decided to appoint Staurakios Posadas as the overall director of this operation, to command the entire process. The focus will be on eliminating the remaining rebel forces who are still resisting, as well as those Ulema and mullahs who believe in infidel scriptures."
At these words, Balin felt a surge of tension. Manuel's inclination was clear in choosing Posadas, who held the most extreme views.
"Your Highness, won't we be a little, well," he couldn't find the right words for a moment, so he spoke ambiguously, "too extreme?" He quickly spoke, trying to persuade Manuel to change his mind.
"What we need to do is a bloody purge." Manuel merely smiled gently in response.
The next morning, in Bakhchysarai, large numbers of Tatar nobles gathered in the city center, curiously preparing to hear what new political decrees Mangup would issue.
"It's probably just some ineffectual nonsense again," a middle-aged Tatar noble chuckled to himself. In recent months, they believed they had seen through the Christian monarch's intentions. This time, at most, the Shirin Family would be punished, followed by the other side's unilateral tolerance and compromise.
If they had known what fate awaited them, they would probably have wept bitterly for their current dismissiveness.
Officials from South Tauris soon arrived, but with them came an army of over a thousand men, which made some Tatar nobles murmur, "What are they trying to do?" Those who were more vigilant or timid tried to find an excuse to leave, but were all stopped by soldiers.
Once the officials, led by Arno, finally arrived, they were thoroughly protected by a group of soldiers and read out their dispositions to the gathered Tatar nobles. At first listen, it seemed quite complicated and intricate, but in reality, it meant one thing: forced conversion. As for a reward? Forgiving their crimes in the civil war was the reward!
The middle-aged Tatar noble felt baffled and was the first to stand up against these officials and the Principality behind them, "Allah above, is this in accordance with the scriptures? What right do you have to make us change the faith passed down by our ancestors for generations? You should know that if we hadn't been willing to stop this time, that civil war could have gone on indefinitely."
Arno looked around, finding most of the Tatar nobles silent, looking on as if watching a show. He sighed and asked the one who spoke up, "So you are unwilling to convert to the true faith?"
"What true faith, allah akbar!" Saying this, the Tatar noble excitedly raised his arm and shouted, prompting most of the Tatars to echo him.
"Please reconsider, gentlemen," Arno mimicked Manuel's tone, feigning humility as he urged them to think again.
"Impossible!" several hot-blooded young Tatar nobles responded. But some more perceptive Tatars looked at the soldiers gradually approaching them, feeling a vague unease in their hearts. However, constrained by the "tough" attitude of the majority, they could only pretend to agree with others.
Arno let out a long breath and quickly and decisively ordered, "Act!"
Upon receiving his command, the soldiers surrounding the Tatar nobles immediately moved, raising their swords, blades, and spears, and unhesitatingly hacked and slashed down at them. The leading middle-aged Tatar noble was the first to suffer. Due to his overly ostentatious behavior just now, he became the first target for many soldiers. First, his left arm was chopped off by a swinging long saber, causing him to instantly fall to his knees in pain, covering his wound with his right hand and crying out, "Ah, ah…" But in less than 2 seconds, he was pushed down by the jostling crowd and then trampled into a bloody pulp.
"Ah, ah ah, ah ah ah, ah ah ah ah…" The screams of the Tatar nobles quickly spread throughout the city center. It wasn't that none of them resisted, but they had only expected today's summons to be routine, so they at most brought a personal dagger, and some even came empty-handed. How could they be a match for the well-prepared Theodore soldiers? Soon, in less than half an hour, the massacre in the city center concluded. Hundreds of Tatar nobles, big and small, who were present, perished, and not a single soldier died.
After confirming that no one had survived, Arno nodded with satisfaction and handed the lists in his pocket to several officers.
"Sir, are these the objects we are to eliminate next?" an officer asked suspiciously.
"No, these more than 700 households on the list are those specially pardoned by His Highness, not to be purged by us. In other words, all Tatars not on the list are our targets for elimination," Arno explained. After speaking, he left under the escort of a squad of soldiers to organize reinforcements inside and outside the city. Outside Bakhchysarai, another squad of nearly a thousand soldiers was preparing to enter the city for the purge.
Meanwhile, Posadas, who was leading his army to sweep other areas of Northern Crimea, was somewhat discontentedly complaining about his Highness, "Why did His Highness list those who could be pardoned? This is too lenient, isn't it?"
Yes, although the scale of the purge was large, at least on the surface, Manuel only presented a stance purely targeting the old Crescent Sect faith of the Tatars, rather than forcing them to change their nomadic lifestyle to agricultural. Moreover, in his plan, he deliberately left some intentional or unintentional loopholes for Tatars willing to "abandon the darkness for the light" in time, to prevent this action from shaking the foundations of Theodoro. One of the bases for this was the list provided to him by Balin, of those who were willing to accept conversion from the beginning. After review by the secret department, he confirmed its accuracy and recognized its validity, listing it as a "whitelist."
"Massacre is merely a means, not an end," was Manuel's later explanation for this.