It had been a week since Kara Osman's two sons sent for aid from Diyarbakir when he received a distress call from Erzurum at his palace in Mardin. The restive Levant nomads in the recently conquered Mardin region, still loyal to the Black Sheep, Ayyubids, and Dulkadir, forced Kara Osman to return from the capital, Diyarbakir, to suppress them, leaving him no time to attend to the north.
When Kara Osman finally, with thunderous methods, managed to quell the secretly rebellious tribes and nomads, he was enjoying the sunset on a high ground with his beloved grandson, Uzun Hasan, accompanied by his attendants, when he received the distress call from Erzurum.
After reading it carefully, the aged and weary man almost had his blood pressure surge to his heart. "What are Sheikh Hassan and Hamza doing? Are they again blindly following local tribes and ignoring Ali's advice? Now they've not only lost two considerable cities, but Ali's fate is also unknown, and they've been ruined like this by mere Romans... Allah, is this your test for me and the entire tribal alliance?"
Hearing that his father might have met with misfortune, young Uzun Hasan, only 10 years old, gasped, almost crying in worry before his grandfather.
Seeing the expression on his beloved grandson's face, Kara Osman quickly comforted him, "Don't be afraid, little Uzun. Grandpa will solve all problems with Allah's protection." After comforting his beloved grandson and entrusting him to the care of servants and attendants, Kara Osman immediately left the scenic high ground with a somber expression. He had to quickly lead his troops back to Diyarbakir, gather the main forces of the Aq Qoyunlu Dynasty, and crush the Bosporus Army from the Black Sea's northern shore, just as he had crushed all past enemies of the White Sheep Turkmens.
But just as he returned to his palace in Diyarbakir the next afternoon, another bad piece of news made him hesitate.
"The Black Sheep Dynasty is attacking our potential ally, the Shirvanshah State?" After receiving reports from the tribes along the eastern border, Kara Osman felt his head ache. "Why now of all times... Damn these Shia heretics!"
"Then, Sultan, what should we do now?" One of his Viziers bowed and asked, full of worry.
His Sultan was also in a difficult position. The Aq Qoyunlu Dynasty had grown from a small tribe into a closely connected tribal alliance with a considerable territory, not only because of the consistent competence of its monarchs but also because they always assessed the situation and judged the surrounding diplomatic landscape to make the most advantageous choices. At this moment, the choice between preserving an ally that could expand their influence or prioritizing their own territory was a dilemma.
At this moment, Kara Yuluk Osman vaguely recalled the Battle of Ankara. Back then, he resolutely led the White Sheep tribe to fiercely betray the then Ottoman Sultan, "Lightning" Bayezid I, earning the appreciation of "the Lame" Timur and receiving the fief of Diyarbakir. It was from that point that the White Sheep tribe gained the foundation to develop into an alliance dynasty, and avoided vanishing from the world like other Turkmen tribes in Anatolia, leaving only a few vague records.
After recalling this, Kara Osman gently tapped his seat. He had roughly determined his next strategy.
"Although we secretly formed a mutual defense pact earlier, at least for now, Khalilullah I hasn't asked us for help, has he?" Kara Osman suddenly mentioned this with a slight smile, his tone calm and amiable.
"Sultan's meaning is?" The tribal commanders and Viziers before him quickly understood his intention.
Kara Osman nodded, confirming their conjecture. "That's right, send troops to Erzurum first. Shirvan isn't that fragile, and these Romans are a big problem if left unchecked."
"Yes, Sultan. Your will is Allah's will."
However, Kara Osman did not yet know that at the very moment he decided to send troops, Erzurum's city defenses were on the verge of collapse. After all, by this time, nearly a week had passed since Erzurum had been surrounded by the Bosporus Army.
To capture the city as quickly as possible, after sending troops to clear the surrounding Turkmen tribes and control the Armenian villages through a combination of hard and soft tactics, and ensuring the blockade was complete, Manuel ordered his soldiers to launch frequent, relentless assaults on the city defenses, prioritizing their own safety. Naturally, artillery and arrows were indispensable during this period. He was confident that Erzurum, without effective reinforcements, would not be able to withstand this offensive for more than two weeks or half a month.
Indeed, as Manuel had expected, under the Bosporus's attrition tactics, the White Sheep defenders, whose effective forces had already been decimated in the Battle of Bayburt, were on the verge of collapse. Furthermore, the city was strictly blockaded, and no relevant preparations had been made beforehand. Consequently, a week after the siege began, just like in a typical siege, a small-scale famine broke out within the city.
Facing this minor famine, Sheikh and Hamza immediately made what was, for the time, a "very" correct decision regarding food distribution: the remaining provisions were prioritized for the defending soldiers to ensure they still had strength, and the Turkmen nobles, led by the two of them, also took the opportunity to provide themselves with still excellent food; the other Muslims, as always, tried their best to maintain their normal diet.
As for the infidels, they were severely cut off! Without ducats or other currency and valuables, no infidels would receive food. If anyone converted at this time, they were all considered false believers and were immediately taken to the city center and hanged in public as a deterrent to the others. Yet, despite this, the labor normally assigned to Christians continued as usual and could not be excused.
The first to suffer from the defenders' measures were the numerous Christian slaves in the city. Within a single day, lacking property and food intake while still forced to labor, they quickly fell in large numbers, unable to rise again.
This measure barely managed to preserve the combat effectiveness of the defenders, but it completely turned the Christians within the city psychologically towards the besiegers outside. They had now completely lost the will to continue serving the Crescent Sect, and while passively resisting, they placed their hope for normal survival on the Bosporus Army outside the city.
Having lost the firm support of more than half of the city's inhabitants, the exhausted defenders' resistance crumbled within a few days under the enemy's relentless assaults. At noon on the third day after the small-scale famine broke out in the city, a large breach was inadvertently blasted into Erzurum's western city wall by artillery. Upon quickly noticing this, Tukharovsky immediately commanded his troops to attack fiercely through it.
After an offensive lasting nearly 6 hours, the White Sheep defenders finally completely retreated from the west side. And control of Erzurum was soon transferred to the Bosporus Army.