Chapter 165: Going West and South

For Sigismund, the fall of Belgrade meant that the door to the southeast of Hungary was wide open. If Serbia or Wallachia took this opportunity to attack, Hungary would be in danger.

After Belgrade was occupied, Transylvania cheered. This undoubtedly cheered them up, but for the Hungarian army, this was extremely bad news. The commander withdrew from Atlaide when he heard that Belgrade had been occupied.

The Transylvanian army took advantage of this to beat Hungary to the vicinity of the Tisza River, and Sigismund's plan for a quick victory failed. It was also a great victory of the Orthodox Church over the Catholic Church.

After occupying Belgrade, the legion continued to advance westward and entered the Tisza River. If the Tisza River was lost, then Buda, which had no natural defenses, would be the next target. Therefore, there were only two choices before him, either to continue fighting or to negotiate with his ex-wife.

Sigismund sent someone to test Mary, and he proposed that as long as she stopped fighting and admitted her mistakes, she would be pardoned and her church membership would be restored.

Mary was happy with such conditions. Why didn't she realize that her ex-husband was so conceited before? He was the one who came to ask for peace, but the conditions were as if he had won.

Mary rejected this so-called peace exchange and proposed her own conditions for the withdrawal of troops: that is, all the land east of the Tisza River belonged to her rule, and she didn't care about the rest.

"Go back and tell Sigismund that one day I will take back what belongs to me, let him wait."

The messenger could only report this news to Sigismund. As expected, he would not agree to this request. If he agreed, those Hungarian nobles would eat him. He could only use static to dynamic, hoping that something unexpected would happen to Mary.

After keeping her own regime, Mary began to establish her own rule. She enfeoffed some nobles and let them manage the local areas, and transferred the real estate of the Catholic Church to the name of the Orthodox Church. These became the pillars of Transylvanian society.

Then it was to restore the economy. As a large number of Catholic nobles left, most of Transylvania's property was also taken away. Mary relied on the Chamber of Commerce and local minerals to obtain some income, relied on land laws to stabilize the situation, and could also collect agricultural taxes, which provided a long-term income.

Mary also sent people to Bucuriesti to express her willingness to form an alliance with Grand Duke Mircea. Mircea had been waiting for her for a long time. Not only did he give many gifts, but he also formally formed an alliance with her. Wallachia gave Transylvania protection, and in return, Transylvania only needed to give 10,000 gold coins a year.

Seeing that Hungary was about to fail, Serbia quickly expressed its loyalty to Wallachia. Fortunately, Wallachia did not want to swallow him for the time being, so he let him watch honestly on the side.

Soon Sigismund's funds ran out, and the mercenaries and the army plundered the surrounding villages for their own military pay. The villagers fled to Transylvania, which exacerbated the conflict between the peasants and the king, and even the church's intervention was not very effective. The army commander could only watch the Orthodox cross erected on the land of Hungary.

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The spread of Orthodoxy in the West was smooth, and that in the East was also progressing well. Especially in Crimea, the church had advanced to the edge of the peninsula and was preparing to advance to the mainland.

Some Tatar tribes were destroyed, and a city was built in the central area of ​​the peninsula to rule, which Peter named Viruga.

With Viruga as the center, Wallachia's rule in Crimea began to stabilize and expand northward. Due to the tolerant policy towards slaves and serfs, a large number of slaves from Caffa fled here, which caused the Tatars to lose a lot of money.

In southern Greece, Theodore's Principality of Morea decided to completely annex the Principality of Athens. He gathered all his forces, crossed the Isthmus of Corinth, quickly occupied Athens and Thebes, and captured the Duke of Athens, Nerio. At the same time, he recognized the territory of Venice and tried to appease them. Venice did not pursue it too much, and the profit was much more fragrant than the land.

After occupying Athens, Morea became the most powerful country in Greece. Other small countries could only survive in the cracks between Wallachia, Ottoman and Morea.

The despot Theodore has made his daughter Sophia the only heir, which was opposed by Constantinople. Manuel was ready to give his future son a place to hone his skills, and Morea was just right, but his brother gave it directly to his niece, and after the niece got married, the land became someone else's. By then, where would the Roman Empire have any place?

And the growth of Wallachia threatened Constantinople. Manuel always felt that they would want to replace them like the Serbian Empire, but he didn't know when they would come. And now they still need Wallachia to fight against the Ottomans, and he still had a fluke mentality, they were all from the same clan, so they shouldn't turn against each other.

In Balkan diplomacy, Mircea invited all Balkan principalities to invite their rulers to come to Bucuriesti to celebrate his 40th birthday.

Except Venice and Morea, all other small countries came. They came to congratulate with expensive gifts, and Mircea also happily responded to them and asked them not to go home until they were drunk.

The banquet started normally, and the dukes gradually relaxed. They drank and talked about the glory of their ancestors, and soon they fainted.

"Come, please go back and rest."

Mircea sent people to invite them back to the castle room to rest, and sent soldiers to guard them strictly. When they woke up, they found that they were under house arrest, which made them panic.

Although this behavior is very immoral in Western Europe, this is in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. No one cares about them, nor does anyone care about their life or death.

But the Grand Duke only sent someone to ask them to stay for a few more days and discuss the exchanges between countries. The main thing is to unify the tariffs between countries according to Wallachian standards.

The countries invited are mainly Epirus, Gjirokaster, Arta Despotism, Aegean Islands and Candia, all of which are Latin countries in Greece. All of them are Latins, and most of them are Orthodox Christians and Greeks. Mircea saw the opportunity to split between the ruling class and the people and decided to make them surrender at once.

Although it has not yet reached the Aegean Sea, Wallachia's influence has already reached here. This is also the reason why these island rulers came here.

The two island principalities were released soon, and Wallachia would not do anything to them for the time being, but as for the principalities on land, they would be in trouble. They were forced to sign a large number of treaties, including reducing tariffs on Wallachia, reducing oppression of Orthodox Christians, etc., and in the absence of any country to save them, they could only become vassals of Wallachia.