Recaps

Vitus learned that Venice had disguised Galleass warships as merchant ships to deliver them to the Ottomans, and the Roman Navy detained the vessels. After negotiations stalled, Venice abandoned its plan to send the remaining warships through the Bosphorus and proposed transferring them at a Mediterranean port instead.

• Vitus heard that Prince Henry had broken his promise to surrender Ceuta after handing his brother Fernando and thirty nobles over as hostages.
• Vitus reviewed the empire’s growing population and revenue, then considered the northern Black Sea’s demand for iron pots and textiles.
• Constantine told Vitus that the Roman Navy had intercepted three ships carrying ordinary goods and discovered that one was a disguised Galleass warship.
• Vitus recognized the vessels as warships Venice had sold to the Ottomans, and Constantine said they would be detained pending negotiations.
• John sent envoys to Venice and the Roman Curia, but the doge denied selling warships to the Ottomans.
• The doge abandoned the plan to send the remaining thirty warships through the Bosphorus and proposed transferring them at a Mediterranean port.

Vitus proposed a large campaign to reclaim Anatolia from the Ottomans, but John VIII and the Imperial Council struggled to commit to its cost and timing. The council agreed to seek the necessary funds over the next four to eight years, while Thomas remained abroad in Sicily.

• Venice's envoy declined to endorse the Ottoman sultan's proposal to attack the Palaiologos family and promised to relay it to the doge and Council of Forty.
• At the Imperial Council, Vitus proposed convoy escorts, more warships, and a strike fleet to secure command of the Black Sea.
• Vitus outlined an Anatolian campaign requiring over a hundred thousand troops and an estimated seven hundred thousand Florins, claiming a sixty percent chance of defeating Murad II.
• John VIII questioned the campaign's timing and cost, while the minister of administration asked how the empire would defend itself from a Balkan attack.
• The Imperial Council resolved to cut spending and raise funds for war within four to eight years, if no major conflict or natural disaster intervened.
• John VIII told Vitus that Thomas had gone traveling through Western Europe and had recently sent a letter from Sicily.

Constantinople began registering large merchant ships to monitor whether they were aiding the Ottomans, alarming Venetian merchant Elion Daltino. Venice then sent an envoy to Ragusa to discuss its new anti-piracy levy, and he arrived at the Rector’s Palace.

• Constantinople ordered large merchant ships bound for the Black Sea to register their details, while warships patrolled the waters to enforce the decree.
• A Greek officer ordered Elion Daltino’s Venetian ship to stop, and clerks inspected and recorded its vessel and cargo at the Golden Horn.
• A clerk warned Elion that Venice could be barred from the Bosphorus if its ships entered the Black Sea but did not leave, and Elion worried that business was becoming harder.
• Venice sent an envoy to Ragusa to address the annual twenty-thousand-Ducat anti-piracy levy imposed on the city.
• The envoy reflected on Venice’s overcrowding, sanitation, and shortage of fresh water while guards escorted him through Ragusa.
• The envoy reached the Rector’s Palace and entered to meet Ragusa’s rector.

Venice pressured Ragusa to pay an annual anti-piracy fee and blockaded its ports after Ragusa refused, while Hungary declined to intervene. Skanderbeg saw an opportunity in Ragusa’s crisis and marched north with eight thousand men, claiming he meant to help it resist foreign invasion.

• The Venetian envoy demanded that Ragusa pay fifteen thousand Ducats annually, and Consul Paladino Gondolich refused to accept the demand.
• A Venetian fleet anchored off Ragusa, and Venice captured three merchant ships and five fishing vessels as Gondolich awaited Hungary’s response.
• King Albert told Ragusa to remain calm, and Metsitik concluded that Hungary was allowing Venice to extort the city because it wanted more tribute.
• Skanderbeg decided to profit from Ragusa’s predicament and told Stanisa that he would help it resist foreign invasion.
• Skanderbeg gathered eight thousand troops and marched north through Serbia, alarming local nobles who called for help.

Skanderbeg’s siege of Ragusa ended in a settlement that enriched Hungary and Venice while allowing his army to plunder the region. Afterward, Otto worried that Skanderbeg and Hunyadi would turn their ambitions toward Bosnia and Serbia, whose future he linked to his son Uroš.

• Skanderbeg’s army encircled Ragusa, and Metsitik discovered that its forces claimed to be protecting the city from Venice.
• When Albania’s heavy siege guns arrived, Hunyadi’s Hungarian cavalry appeared, prompting Skanderbeg’s army to withdraw and leave the guns behind.
• Otto Dragases commanded Serbia’s response to the crisis while envoys from Venice, Hungary, Albania, Bosnia, and Ragusa pressed competing demands.
• Demetrius Palaiologos accepted gifts from Ragusa’s envoys and joined negotiations, where Hungary secured annual tribute of fifteen thousand Ducats and Venice received nine thousand Ducats in anti-piracy funds.
• Skanderbeg gained no regular income but seized supplies worth thirty thousand Ducats from Ragusan estates and towns.
• Otto told Demetrius he expected Skanderbeg and Hunyadi to target Bosnia and then Serbia, and asked him to support Otto’s son Uroš.

Ragusa’s envoy Metsitik accepted John’s offer to investigate settlement in the Empire, and Vitus welcomed him to Chersonesus. Meanwhile, Romanus and the other children began a ten-day field-training trip that left Romanus tired and worried they might have to harvest wheat.

• John refused Ragusa’s request for aid but invited its merchants and craftsmen to settle on the northern shore of the Black Sea.
• Metsitik accepted John’s proposal and sailed to Chersonesus to inspect the settlement prospects.
• Vitus showed Metsitik vacant plots and offered access to local banks for building homes and workshops.
• Behoff led Romanus and forty-one other children out of Chersonesus on a ten-day field-training trip, accompanied by military escorts.
• Romanus grew thirsty and exhausted on the road and hoped the instructor would not make the children cut wheat.

Romanus and the other children endured a field exercise, pitching camp, eating dinner, and marching again the next morning. Meanwhile, Ragusan senator Metsitik traveled through Tauris Province, learned about local sheep farming, and began to suspect Emperor Vitus wanted immigrants to supply labor for textile mills.

• Romanus’s squad pitched its tent and cooked vegetable soup while Third Squad received barley cakes as punishment for poor performance.
• Romanus listened to dragon cavalrymen discuss whether nomads could perform Stirrup Concealment, prompting an argument between Chiron and another child.
• Behoff woke the children before dawn, and Romanus led First Squad onward on the exhausting field exercise.
• Dragon cavalrymen questioned Metsitik, a Ragusan senator carrying an order from Emperor Vitus, and concluded he was not a spy.
• Metsitik asked a miller about sheep farming and learned that farmers near Sufulion Town raised sheep on fallow land.
• Metsitik observed that Tauris’s rural population was relatively prosperous and wondered whether the emperor welcomed Ragusan immigrants to provide labor for textile mills.

Metsitik surveyed Tauris Province’s livestock, villages, taxes, and militia preparations before deciding to move his family and property to Chersonesus and restart his textile business. After arranging to buy land for a workshop, he learned that using the city’s equipment required a five-percent fee.

• Metsitik visited the livestock market and learned that farmers were debating a new agricultural tax increase.
• Ratmir took Metsitik and his interpreter to Thistle Village, where Metsitik observed village life and learned about Ratmir’s sheep, fishing, and household finances.
• Ratmir explained that villagers trained with spears in autumn and might soon practice with crossbows and Matchlocks, leading Metsitik to suspect the Emperor was preparing for a major war.
• After twelve days traveling through Tauris Province, Metsitik concluded that its wool supply and cloth markets made it suitable for textile production, despite high labor costs.
• Metsitik decided to move his relatives and property from Ragusa to Chersonesus and applied to buy land for a textile workshop.
• At Chersonesus City Hall, Metsitik completed the land-purchase formalities and learned that using the stored spinning machines required a fee equal to five percent of the goods’ value.

Metsitik bought land for a textile mill in Chersonesus while Vitus inspected the production of long-lasting smoked meat for the military. In the Don Frontier, Ilya learned that a Ryazan noble demanded the return of thousands of runaway serfs, and Tucha urged the officials to attack him.

• Metsitik signed a patent license and bought a riverside plot for a medium-sized textile mill, planning to return to Chersonesus in autumn.
• Vitus inspected the workshop's meat-curing, drying, and smoking process to prepare long-term military rations.
• Leo knocked out a front tooth biting tough smoked meat, and Romanus teased him until Vitus silenced him.
• Ilya received a letter from a Ryazan noble demanding the return of serfs who had fled downstream to the Don Frontier.
• Ilya reported that nearly five thousand Rus migrants had arrived, and Tucha proposed attacking the noble rather than returning them.

Ilya reported the Don Frontier conflict, but Tucha mobilized against the Ryazan nobles, prompting Vitus to prepare a show of force and send Ilya to warn the Qasim Khan. Ilya’s mission reached the outskirts of the Khan’s encampment, where abandoned livestock suggested something had happened.

• Ilya stopped Tucha from fighting and reported the threat after the Cossacks attacked a Ryazan slave-catching party.
• Tucha mobilized four thousand nomads and five hundred Cossacks, while Ilya refused to issue supplies from the treasury.
• Vitus rejected paying compensation, assembled the Tuna Legion and Varangian Legion, and sent a warning to the Ryazan Principality.
• Vitus sent Ilya to assure Qasim Khan that the Roman army intended only to pass through, and Ilya rode out with Yaropolk and thirty guards.
• Yaropolk led the party into a Tatar camp, where the chief delayed them while sending word ahead to the Khan.
• On July 29, Ilya found untended livestock near the Khan’s encampment and wondered what had happened.

Ilya found the Qasim Khanate in turmoil after its Khan fled, and persuaded two tribes and thousands of other nomads to join the Empire. The arrivals swore fealty to Vitus and began choosing where to settle or work.

• Ilya reached the Qasim Khanate’s camp, where armed leaders told him the Khan had fled northeast and that they now governed the Khanate.
• Ilya explained that the Emperor’s army was heading to the Ryazan border and urged the tribal leaders to surrender; two tribes agreed while five chose to leave the region.
• Twenty thousand Roman soldiers advanced upstream along the Don River as scouts reported that about eight thousand nomads were approaching under a Palaiologos banner.
• Ilya reported his journey to Vitus, who accepted the two leaders’ oaths and arranged for their tribes to settle in the Frontier.
• Ilya explained that the remaining nomads could join the original sixteen tribes or work on pastures in Tauris Province, and officials recorded their choices.

Vitus met Ivan III of Ryazan after arriving with a Roman army and offered terms to settle their dispute without making Ryazan a vassal. Ivan accepted the prospect of peace, while Vitus considered Ryazan a useful counterweight to Moscow.

• Ivan III panicked after learning that nearly twenty thousand Roman troops were approaching and decided to seek peace rather than fight Vitus.
• Vitus received word that Ivan III would meet him in Lipetsk and gathered intelligence on Ryazan’s population, nobles, and declining peasant freedoms.
• Ivan III arrived with nearly ten thousand men, mostly poorly equipped militia, and led a delegation to the Roman camp.
• Vitus demanded free trade and an end to Ryazan nobles pursuing migrants who fled across the border, but asked for no tribute or military service.
• Ivan III and the great nobles welcomed Vitus’s terms, and Vitus judged that preserving Ryazan would help prevent Moscow from growing too powerful.

Vitus returned from Ryazan toward the Don, secured gifts from the Nogai Khan, and appointed Ilya to a post in Circassia. Meanwhile, Thomas learned in Montferrat that France was preparing to march on Genoa.

• Vitus refused Ivan III's request to buy firearms, then accepted furs, amber, and honey from Ryazan as he departed.
• Vitus drove off Nogai horsemen spying on his army, then pressured an envoy into offering more gifts for the Roman Emperor.
• Vitus promoted Ilya and assigned him as financial officer in Circassia, with Kuban Town as his office.
• Vitus reached Gray Antelope Town and learned that Genoa's civil strife had driven Genoese residents to flee overseas.
• Thomas returned from hunting in Montferrat and found John IV mustering the militia to defend the territory from routed soldiers and bandits.
• John IV told Thomas that Charles VII had claimed Genoa and sent Arthur de Richemont with the French royal army, which was marching through Savoy toward the Alps.

Thomas left Montferrat to observe the French siege of Genoa and gather intelligence, then witnessed the city fall after French artillery breached its walls. He followed Arthur to the Bank of Saint George, where Arthur summoned Genoa’s nobles to discuss the aftermath.

• Thomas learned that Montferrat could muster only fifteen hundred men and that Gian Giacomo was seeking information about the war while John IV recruited troops.
• Thomas traveled to the French camp outside Genoa, where he observed the army’s preparations and the rain-delayed siege.
• After the weather cleared, French artillery battered Genoa’s walls, and Thomas advised Arthur to guard against a night raid.
• On October 6, Arthur sent the first wave through two breaches, and French troops fought their way through Genoa as defenders fled or sought reinforcements.
• Thomas accompanied Arthur to the Bank of Saint George, where Arthur called Genoa’s nobles to a meeting about the city’s future.

Arthur announced Jean Coeur as the new Governor of Genoa, while Milan opposed Charles VII’s occupation and prepared to form an alliance. On his way north to persuade Montferrat to join France’s camp, Thomas was ambushed by bandits and reached Montferrat with only one guard alive.

• Arthur read Charles VII’s decree and introduced Jean Coeur as Genoa’s new governor, provoking discontent among the local representatives.
• Filippo Maria Visconti opposed France’s control of Genoa, sheltered exiled nobles, and proposed a defensive alliance to the Pope, Albert, Alfonso V, and others.
• Arthur asked Thomas Palaiologos to persuade Montferrat to join France’s camp, and Thomas rode north with four Greek guards.
• Thomas passed through villages and fields devastated by looting as order collapsed in the Genoa region.
• Bandits ambushed Thomas and his guards with a tripwire, and Thomas fought them off after three guards were killed.
• Thomas continued to Montferrat with his sole surviving guard and arrived on November 3.

Montferrat joined the French campaign against Milan, and Thomas led its troops in plundering the countryside around Pavia. As Sforza marched to confront the French, Arthur chose to meet his army in battle rather than wait for reinforcements.

• After Genoa fell, the marquis agreed to join the French attack on Milan in exchange for the return of territory, and Thomas persuaded him to appoint him commander of Montferrat's troops.
• Filippo gathered support and funds for Milan, while Sforza began training the militia and was promised Bianca's hand in marriage if the war was won.
• The French army entered Montferrat, seized Pavia, and plundered the surrounding countryside, where Thomas gathered supplies and valuables for his troops and sent other spoils back to Montferrat.
• Thomas learned that Sforza's army had left Milan for Pavia and went to Arthur's meeting with the commanders.
• Arthur rejected the proposal to hold Pavia and wear down the Milanese, arguing that winter and difficult sea transport made delay dangerous, and decided to meet Sforza's army head-on.

Thomas led his troops into the French army’s battle against Sforza’s Milanese forces, helping break the enemy wing before the French heavy cavalry crushed the main force. The French army camped outside Milan, where Filippo’s plea for peace could not stop the soldiers from seeking the city’s wealth.

• Thomas deployed his troops on the French right wing and reorganized them after the army’s advance disrupted its formation.
• Arthur’s artillery outnumbered the Milanese guns and bombarded their positions until Sforza ordered an attack focused on the French wings.
• Thomas sent crossbowmen forward, then committed his melee infantry to break the tangled pike fight and drive back the Milanese troops.
• The French ordonnance cavalry struck the Milanese left wing from the side and rear as the center counterattacked, shattering Sforza’s main force.
• The French army camped near Milan, while Filippo sought peace and the French soldiers pressed to take the city’s wealth.

After the French captured Milan, Thomas profited from raids while opposition to Charles VII’s expansion gathered, and John VIII urged him to leave Northern Italy. In Constantinople, Vitus weighed the growing Italian war, increased hospital funding, and saw the influx of Italian merchants as a chance to raise money for a decisive war against the Ottoman.

• Thomas allied with mercenary captains to raid Milanese castles, manors, and towns and send their spoils to Montferrat.
• Albert, the Holy See, Venice, and Florence condemned French actions, while Thomas resolved to make more money before the war expanded in spring.
• John VIII received Thomas’s letter boasting of ten thousand Florins and scolding Demetrius, and he questioned why Thomas remained in Northern Italy as forces gathered against France.
• Vitus assessed the French army’s strength and concluded that Albert needed Hungary’s Black Army and his own standing forces to resist France.
• Vitus increased Adrian University Affiliated Hospital’s funding to one thousand Florins and inspected Constantinople’s growing Italian district.
• Vitus recognized that Italian merchants’ capital could fund a decisive campaign against the Ottoman.

Vitus secured approval to borrow money, reorganized cavalry forces in Tauris, and assessed the province’s growth as he shifted his attention toward Anatolia. After receiving Alexander I’s warning about Georgia’s danger from the Ottoman, Vitus proposed sending a delegation to gather intelligence along the southwestern border.

• Vitus persuaded the imperial council to approve borrowing at least two hundred thousand florins for the coming war.
• Vitus traveled to the northern Black Sea coast and organized directly controlled Light Cavalry and Dragon Cavalry Brigades, while refining horse artillery tactics.
• Vitus learned that Casimir had become Grand Duke of Lithuania and that migration to Tauris was expected to decline.
• Vitus reviewed Tauris’s population, agriculture, and trade, then concluded that further expansion in Eastern Europe was not the Empire’s priority.
• Vitus read Alexander I’s account of Georgia’s worsening position against the Ottoman and proposed sending a delegation to gather intelligence under the pretext of providing aid.

John VIII sent an embassy to Georgia under the Black Sea Fleet’s escort, but the Roman ships encountered an Ottoman fleet near Trebizond and were forced into battle. The Ottoman flagship sank from an apparent design flaw, allowing Cohen’s fleet to rout the remaining warships before withdrawing from the harbor guns.

• Cohen’s fleet approached Trebizond and encountered an Ottoman force led by a huge, lavishly decorated flagship.
• Cohen ordered the Roman ships to avoid battle, but Ottoman light galleys separated the transport ships from the main fleet and drew the warships into a fight.
• Cohen turned the Roman warships toward the galleys, while the Ottoman flagship began to list and sank after seawater flooded its lower-deck gunports.
• With their flagship lost, the Ottomans fled; the Romans sank three Galleass warships and captured a merchant-converted gunship.
• Cohen ended the battle without storming Trebizond, and the officers suspected the sunken flagship’s high center of gravity had caused its loss.

After the Ottoman flagship sank, Cohen learned that its failure came from Venetian shipwrights changing its design midway through construction. Constantine surveyed Georgia’s southern borderlands and concluded that the Samtskhe Region could support only a limited diversion against the Ottoman Empire.

• Cohen questioned captured Ottoman fleet commander Kadiram and learned that the Sultan had ordered the Nicopolis redesigned during construction to carry more cannons and travel faster.
• Cohen concluded that the Ottoman fleet had been crippled and suggested that Roman forces could land at Sinop without fear of enemy warships.
• Constantine arrived in Georgia and told the port official to provide guides and supplies for his survey of the Samtskhe Region.
• Alexander worried that supporting a Roman invasion would exhaust Georgia’s grain, but Vakhtang warned him against provoking Vitus and urged him to remain allied with Rome.
• Constantine traveled through the Samtskhe Region to the southern border and determined that its sparse population and poor infrastructure could supply only twenty thousand troops.
• Constantine judged the Georgian theater suitable only for pinning down Ottoman forces and argued that a Black Sea Fleet landing at Amisos or Trebizond would have greater impact.

Constantine secured Georgia’s agreement to join Rome’s war against the Ottomans, while Thomas’s return to Constantinople followed the French defeat in Italy and the collapse of their position there. At the Golden Horn, Thomas found troops and supplies arriving and spotted a new city carriage route.

• After Roman reinforcements arrived in Georgia, Alexander agreed to aid Rome in exchange for southern expansion after the war and continued equality between the kingdoms.
• Thomas learned that Hungarian cavalry had crossed the Adda River, withdrew from Milan with the French army, and later retreated to Montferrat after the French lost their decisive battle.
• Thomas told Gian Kejiamo I that Montferrat’s militia had dwindled to 130 men and warned that the French might withdraw, then left for Constantinople.
• Thomas sailed from Genoa and returned to Constantinople in early August, where he saw the Tuna Legion disembarking alongside shipments of military supplies.
• Thomas inspected the dockyard’s iron-sheathed tracks and discovered a marked carriage route running from the Golden Horn to Selimbria Gate.

Thomas returned to the Eastern Roman Empire as Vitus prepared for war against the Ottoman, learning that the army planned to field nearly one hundred thousand men. Vitus continued organizing the massive force and its logistics, while Thomas insisted on taking part in the coming campaign.

• Thomas rode a carriage to Selimbria Gate and learned that Vitus had formed the Fifth Legion and was training recruits outside the city.
• Thomas visited the military camp, met Vitus, and heard that the Empire had raised eight hundred and fifty thousand florins and planned to deploy nearly one hundred thousand troops against the Ottoman.
• Thomas demanded a role in the war, and Vitus told him he could stay by his side and take on tasks as they arose.
• Vitus planned ten auxiliary brigades and trained officers for the expanding army, dividing them into courses for infantry, cavalry, artillery, and engineers.
• Vitus established a logistics department to calculate supplies and coordinate transport, but remained uneasy about commanding an offensive on such a vast scale.

Tauris Province drafted militia for the Emperor’s war against the Ottomans, and Ratmir was selected by lot to leave his family and join the force. He and the other recruits reached the camp outside Chersonesus, where they began registration and basic tests.

• The mayor ordered each village near Sufulion Town to provide eight militiamen, explaining that recruits would be paid and their families would receive tax exemptions and help with their fields.
• After no one volunteered in Thistle Village, Ratmir drew a red straw and was selected to serve; the priest arranged help for his family and gave him a silver cross pendant.
• Ratmir and seven other men joined more than two hundred recruits at Sufulion Town, where Captain Boranov took command and led them toward Chersonesus.
• Militia from across the northern Black Sea gathered at the camp outside Chersonesus and began registering, taking physical examinations, and completing four basic tests.

Ratmir passed the enlistment assessments and was assigned to the dragoon company, where he learned that dragoons were mounted infantry with poor-quality mounts. He began an exhausting routine of horse care and military training, ending his first day as a recruit asleep in the barracks.

• Ratmir passed all four assessments and was assigned to the dragoon company, one of six recruits selected for cavalry.
• Boranov explained the cavalry roles and pay, then led the recruits to collect their equipment and settle into the cavalry quarters.
• Ratmir joined Second Squad, First Platoon, and chose a light-gray warhorse after learning dragoons used horses mainly for transport and fought on foot.
• Before dawn, Ratmir and his comrades cleaned the stables and cared for the horses before beginning horsemanship and formation drills.
• Ratmir practiced saber techniques, mounted combat, and Matchlock loading, then cared for his horse and returned to the barracks for the night.