"Allah above, what kind of joke is this?!" In Erzincan City, Abdul-Aziz, the Aq Qoyunlu Dynasty tribal General stationed there, was utterly bewildered and confused upon hearing the news of an unknown enemy attack.
"Could it be that the Ottoman Sultan, in his excessive ambition, has once again armed a bunch of Greeks, Slavs, and Armenian Kafirs to attack us? Allah above, do they have no shame at all?!" The mere thought of this possibility made Abdul-Aziz tremble with rage. Regardless of the current situation, he began to curse the Ottomans next door.
"Uh," the Turkmen messenger boy, seeing his General's reaction, was at a loss for what to do.
He saw the messenger boy try to speak several times, and finally reined in his wild laughter, allowing the boy to explain the current battle situation and the identity of the enemy.
After a while, once the messenger boy had finished and he had clarified the situation, he burst into laughter again, uncontrollably, even his thick beard trembling with it. "It's not a joke, is it? I wondered whose General it was, turns out they're Christians from Pontus! Thank Allah for his mercy, sending us one amusement after another. It's hard for them, too; in such a state, they still travel over mountains and rivers to our territory to throw their lives away."
However, not everyone underestimated the attacking Christians as he did. For example, one of his subordinate Generals spoke up at this moment, attempting to remind the General to pay attention to the approaching enemy. "But Lord Aziz, it is said that a group of strong Christian soldiers has arrived from across the Black Sea. Previously, Lord Bey rashly led his army into the Pontus mountains to campaign, but in the end, returned to Erzurum without any results. Furthermore, the Erzincan area is still primarily led by Armenian Kafirs who believe in Christianity. If we lose, it will be very difficult for us to organize our forces and return."
In response, Abdul merely waved his hand dismissively. "What is there to worry about? The previous defeat of Lord Bey and his men wasn't that complicated; they simply underestimated the trouble in the Trabzon mountains. We are fighting on our own land now, a relatively flat, dry plateau, not mountains. There's no reason to be defeated. Besides, those Armenian rascals won't help us; will they help the Greeks? I know that they are heretics to each other. Rest assured, there's nothing to be afraid of."
"I hope so," his General sighed inwardly. "Since Lord says so, we will obey him."
Finally, Abdul, the General defending Erzincan, confidently gathered the more than 2,000 defenders still under his command, intending to engage the attacking Bosporus Army in an open field battle outside the city. It's worth noting the composition of these defenders: they were primarily Turkmen, supplemented by Kurds, mostly conscripted from various tribes. Many of the Turkmen could flexibly switch to fighting as horse archers in open field battles, making them truly elite soldiers of this era in flat terrain combat.
His confidence was not unfounded, as for several centuries, the history of Christian states in Asia Minor could largely be summarized as a history full of defeats. Whether it was the Eastern Roman Empire, driven out of Asia Minor and even counter-attacked by the Ottomans due to low martial prowess and frequent civil wars, or the Empire of Trebizond, which relied on marriage alliances, neglected military development, and was left with only coastal areas, or the Cilician Kingdom, which befriended Catholic countries, leading to its eventual disintegration and isolated demise half a century ago—none of them failed to serve as typical examples for these Turkmens to mock.
If the Bosphorus Despotate were a Christian state conforming to Muslim stereotypes, it probably wouldn't be able to defeat the defenders led by Abdul.
Unfortunately, under Manuel's governance, it was not.
The grand preparations of the Erzincan defenders did not escape the notice of the attacking Bosporus Army, or rather, they had no intention of hiding them. In any case, less than an hour after they moved out, Manuel, who was resting his army in the Elozu Hills, received intelligence from his scouts that the Erzincan defenders intended to counterattack.
"A force of around 2,000 men," hearing this news, Manuel, in the center of the army, instinctively frowned. "A bit troublesome. How many armored soldiers? What are the cavalry numbers and proportion?"
"Reporting, Your Majesty," the scout bowed and replied, "The enemy soldiers mostly wear leather soft armor, but there are also several hundred cavalrymen in iron chainmail; the cavalry proportion is more than half, numbering probably over 1,200."
"So that's it, they intend to break us with traditional Turkmen tactics, do they?" Receiving this intelligence, Manuel, well-versed in history, acutely perceived the enemy's intention. After some deliberation, he turned his gaze to the wooden watchtowers toppled by artillery fire and the hills on both sides of the position, smiling playfully, and mused to himself: "Improvise?"
Around noon, when the scorching sun hung high in the sky, the White Sheep Erzincan defenders quickly arrived in the Elozu Hills area. But the scene before them left them bewildered—
In front of them were obstacles like chevaux de frise, made of stacked, toppled, and destroyed watchtowers. Over a thousand enemy soldiers, holding long spears, lances, and shields, were vigilantly forming a circular formation, defending within the chevaux de frise. On both sides of the chevaux de frise and other roadblocks were small hills with fairly dense woodlands, where cavalry could still operate, but it was generally not very suitable.
Abdul, leading the White Sheep Army, was first stunned, then immediately burst into laughter. No other reason: although he rarely saw such a formation on the battlefield, he had seen it before. After confirming that the cavalry could not directly pass through the roadblocks for the time being, he decisively ordered half of them to dismount and manually dismantle the roadblocks, while simultaneously ordering the archers in his army: "Fire arrows!"
A rain of arrows from the White Sheep immediately poured down on their enemies, forcing them to huddle under their shields and hold their ground, abandoning their efforts to stop those dismantling the chevaux de frise. If everything went perfectly according to Abdul's plan, this victory would add another feather to his cap.
But unfortunately, this victory belonged to someone else. Just as he ordered the arrows to be fired, one of his subordinate Generals suddenly noticed shadows moving in the wooded area of the hills. Feeling something was amiss, he immediately reported it to the General, but only received a dismissive reply: "Don't worry, even if there's an ambush, will it be some elite cavalry? Just fight!"
The White Sheep Army thus missed their last chance to salvage the battle.