In Manuel's eyes, to slow down the Ottoman advance, he didn't hesitate to send people weeks in advance to burn down the major towns of Janik, and even the local Muslims were repeatedly slaughtered through coercion and enticement.
At the same time, he did not forget to plunder local heavy metals and grain, and allowed his soldiers to erect several 'Jingguan' (pyramids of heads) made of Muslim corpses to ensure effective deterrence of his enemies.
As for the Christians in this area, he forcibly relocated them to the Pontus border.
If they were truly unwilling to leave and insisted on staying in their ancestral lands, he didn't make things difficult for them; instead, he benevolently ordered: if they wouldn't go with him, they would go with their ancestors!
As for whether this would cause damage to the local economy and people's livelihoods, Caesar didn't care.
Anyway, he had no intention of annexing the Janik region, so it was better to ruin the land and let the Ottoman or Janik deal with the subsequent governance.
In a word: not his problem, not his concern.
But now, looking at it, could it be that he wasn't extreme enough?
Thinking of this, Manuel couldn't help but frown, shaking his head with some dissatisfaction, then thoughtfully stroked his chin.
But it wasn't a complete loss; at least, every time the Ottoman captured a town, they had to divide their troops to garrison it because they couldn't quickly conscript from the local population.
Although from subsequent reports, he could roughly deduce that the Ottoman had not diverted too many troops for garrisoning, but were still concentrating their forces to crush his side—
"But that's enough," Manuel sneered, his hands clasped behind his back, turning his head to look in the direction where the enemy was most likely to be.
"Ottoman, for your sake, I have prepared three complete plans..."
"Easier said than done," Barbara, who had been attending to her husband in the tent, couldn't help but narrow her eyes and retort.
After that night, she had planned to return to Tauris by boat, but he kept her, citing that the strategy had already begun, though this was certainly not the real reason.
As for the true reason, although she could probably guess, Barbara didn't want to reveal it yet.
Besides, there was no need to reveal it.
Manuel could only offer an awkward but polite smile in response; the hostile sneer from before transformed into a genuinely warm smile.
"I can't help it; otherwise, I'd have to slink back to Tauris and eat dirt.
It's come to this, I must fight to the death."
He looked away with a hint of guilt.
Barbara, however, ignored his explanation and instead flipped through the backup of the account books he had given her, intending to lecture him again and make her Little husband understand his current predicament.
Seeing Barbara's serious expression, Manuel could only helplessly dissuade her, "Alright, alright, I know the situation with my own orders.
Stop nagging, stop nagging, master, stop nagging."
Just as he said, he was, of course, most clear about the orders he personally issued.
To lull the Ottoman into a false sense of security, at the end of last month, he sent orders to Tauris to instruct merchant fleets to avoid entering the Black Sea under the Bosporus flag or name as much as possible.
At the beginning of this month, he also ordered all naval vessels to anchor in the Asia Minor ports controlled by Bosporus, temporarily avoiding engagements with the Ottoman navy to create the illusion that his side had no control over the sea, in preparation for subsequent actions.
This also led to a partial blockade of ports, a significant reduction in trade income from the Black Sea trade, and even made obtaining supplies and taxes from Tauris extremely unstable.
In addition, to gather enough troops to fight the Ottoman army of ten thousand, he not only had to massively expand the recruitment of conscripts and mercenaries but also had to spend money on building fortifications, with military expenditures constantly increasing.
In other words: he was about to be unable to pay his soldiers.
To avoid mutiny due to unpaid wages, Manuel had to find ways to squeeze money.
On the battlefield, this meant frantically plundering the wealth of scorched-earth areas through a scorched-earth policy, and incidentally sending small mobile units to raid enemy territory like nomads.
In the rear, it meant directly requisitioning the accumulated wealth of many disgraced Pontus nobles to fill the gaps; of course, he also gladly accepted the Komnenos family's years of accumulated treasury.
And externally, he shamelessly requested several low-interest loans from Venice, which he did not do sparingly, as there was no Martian bank in reality; for loans, one had to turn to these commercial Republics and the families behind them.
In addition, he had now swallowed his pride and done many shameless things such as temporarily raising taxes, selling useless titles, extorting and blackmailing his subjects, and engaging in unsustainable overfishing of merchant caravans.
The only things he had consistently avoided were directly selling effective titles to crown lands and extensively granting fiefdoms in exchange for funds.
If Manuel were to truly do such a thing, who would replenish the autonomy he would lose?
Recalling these things, Caesar felt completely exhausted, and even the smile he had just shown his lover became incredibly weary.
"Manuel, are you... alright...?"
Seeing her husband's expression, Barbara suddenly became quite flustered, and her questioning look immediately transformed into complete worry and concern.
"I'm fine," Manuel forced his smile to become more normal, "It's just that whenever I think about money, I feel a little unwell."
Just as the couple felt a bit awkward in this situation, a clerk who had been sent to Konya finally met their contact.
Konya, the capital of the Karaman Beylik, was a large city firmly held by Ibrahim II a few months ago, but it had now fallen into the hands of another claimant.
At this time, in the palace of Konya, Suleiman Karamanoglu, who was about to be crowned as the new Bey, was somewhat unexpectedly receiving an envoy from Bosporus.
"A request from Manuel?"
After listening to the envoy's oral statement, Suleiman, sitting on the throne, stroked his thick beard and narrowed his eyes in thought for a moment.
Half a moment later, the look in his dark pupils became incredibly sharp, "Is he sure the Ottoman will really respond this way?"
"Most likely," the envoy, who had kept his head bowed, replied with a calm smile.
Upon noticing the questioning look from this "old acquaintance" before him, he immediately added a rhetorical question: "Your Highness Suleiman, do you think the Ottoman will tolerate the heartland of Anatolia falling into the sphere of influence of the Mamluk, whose attitude is unpredictable?"
"But I'd rather not risk losing my throne by fighting a behemoth.
I need reasons, especially for the subjects of Karaman."
Though he said this, Suleiman intentionally hinted at his concerns, subtly indicating his willingness to compromise.
"What do you need?" the envoy laughed, "The Hamid region is your country's inherent territory, and even a change of Bey will not alter this undeniable fact.
As long as the time is right and the reasons are sufficient, His Holiness the Abbasid Caliph will naturally not stand idly by."
"Good, good, good," Suleiman clapped his hands and laughed heartily, "Serenus, you speak well!"