At that moment, the Ottoman envoy continued shouting.
"Poor Russians! You serfs have to serve in the army for twenty years, and your families have long since been starved to death by those aristocratic bastards!
They are not worth being buried alongside!
Surrender! Surrender, and you will have freedom! So long as you are willing to swear loyalty to the Sultan, you will have land! Join the great family of Islam, and we will be brothers!
The envoy wanted to say more, but the Russian officers could take no more and raised their rifles. Unfortunately, the distance was too great, and they missed.
The envoy did not dare say another word. He hurriedly retreated to his own lines.
At this moment, the temporary commander of the Russian army shouted.
"The Ottomans are lying! Do not believe their lies! Russia will triumph!"
But how many people truly believed him was anyone's guess. All that was known was that, under cover of night, quite a few Russian soldiers slipped out of Topkapi Palace.
Meanwhile, after the Russian Black Sea Fleet withdrew from the Bosphorus Strait, Britain's Mediterranean Fleet saw its chance and entered without hesitation.
When the news reached Vienna, Franz truly did not know what to say.
A surprise attack on Constantinople, the destruction of the Golden Horn Fleet, and the establishment of a beachhead—this was practically a heavenly opening hand for Russia. Yet Franz simply could not understand the moves that followed.
The Russians destroyed every artillery battery they had captured. After completing their landing, they actually failed to press their advantage and seize Constantinople in one stroke.
But what puzzled Franz most was Nakhimov's decision to withdraw the main fleet from the Black Sea Straits. As long as the Russian fleet held this choke point, the British would inevitably