A palace eunuch rushed into Empress Dowager Shevkyevza's chambers in a panic, shouting.
"Sultana, His Majesty and Afud Pasha have gone mad! They're going to war with the Russians!"
The exquisite coffee cup in Empress Dowager Shevkyevza's hand fell to the floor and shattered into pieces.
"What nonsense are you spouting?! Cut out his tongue and throw him into the Black Sea!"
The man was one of Empress Dowager Shevkyevza's trusted confidants, and those around her could scarcely believe their ears. This only enraged the Empress Dowager further. She roared.
"Are you all deaf? I said now! At once! Immediately!"
This time, the palace servants at her side dared not delay. They immediately stepped forward, cut out the confidant's tongue, and stuffed him into a sack.
"What he said just now was madness. Is that clear?"
"Yes."
Empress Dowager Shevkyevza closed her eyes. She had never expected her son to be so impulsive.
That child had been exposed to far too many idealistic books since he was young. Murad V greatly admired Napoleon and was always talking about revitalizing the Ottoman Empire.
It reminded Empress Dowager Shevkyevza of her husband. Abdulmejid I had once been much the same, but in the end, Abdulmejid I chose to give up. Shevkyevza had believed that once her eldest son grew up, he too would choose to give up, just like his father.
Yet Murad V had chosen the most extreme course, at the very time when the Ottoman Empire was at its weakest and the situation at its worst.
"Summon Abdullah and the Grand Vizier."
As the leader of the Ottoman Empire's largest Anti-War Faction, news like this was nothing less than the sky collapsing and the earth splitting apart for Empress Dowager Shevkyevza.
But she understood that she had to stabilize the