Chapter 215 Change

One year of continuous civil war has set Hungary back hundreds of years. The population has been expelled in large numbers, the economy is in ruins, people's livelihood is declining, and the borders are festering. The great Central European country has been beaten to the point where it cannot even recognize its mother, and can only accept the fate of being slaughtered.

Ignoring the warnings of the great nobles and the Catholic Church, Mary not only renewed the alliance treaty with Wallachia, but also went a step further and planned to further unite Hungary and Wallachia. She sent representatives to Constantinople to discuss matters, hoping to achieve a union between the two countries.

Mary was not stupid, she knew that Wallachia not only wanted Transylvania, but the entire Hungary was their target. Not only Wallachia, Poland and Shinra are also eyeing it. In this case, it is better to join your own allies, so that those political affairs have nothing to do with you.

When the Hungarian Civil War came to an end, the alliance between Croatia and Bosnia came under unprecedented pressure. Whether it was in the east, north or west, they were not able to fight head-on with their size. The two countries can only survive in the cracks and carefully maintain a balance.

Bosnia was forced to pay tribute to Wallachia every year in order to obtain the other party's promise of protection. Croatia also gave up its unrealistic illusions. Independence was originally a good thing, but if you look closely, you will see that it is surrounded by people a hundred times bigger than itself. Guys, how can you play this?

Croatia had to ask Venice and Sigismund for help, because both Wallachia and Mary believed in the Orthodox Church. Louis was afraid and hoped that his brothers could support him.

Wallachia has no intention of taking action against Croatia for the time being, so it is just a buffer. As long as he doesn't act too high-spirited to provoke trouble, he, the king, can still stand in front of him.

As the Crusaders regained the southern coastal areas of Anatolia, attacks in the north and interior were also put on the agenda. Peter had previously let Cossacks and mercenaries harass Suleiman's border. Now he was taking advantage of Suleiman's attack on the territories of other brothers to consider heading north to recover the three important towns of Prusa, Nicaea and Nicomedia.

According to Constantine's estimate, it would take 70,000 troops, more than 2 million in funds, and nearly a year to regain these places. This is a big expense for Wallachia, which has just stabilized, because it not only includes military pay, but also the cost of transporting supplies, building bridges and roads, and appeasing the people. Moreover, these towns are also Not the Christian-majority cities in the Balkans, where Crescentism dominates, especially Prusa, except for the Christians who do business here.

In addition, Prusa, as the capital of the Ottomans, had extremely strong defenses. From the beginning of Sultan Orhan, the defenses were fortified, and the strength was even better than that of Nicaea. This makes it more difficult to regain lost ground.

In order to penetrate deeply into the pagan lands, Peter began to send new types of soldiers to fight. After the influence of monasteries and missionaries, these pagan children in the Balkans became the most fanatical Orthodox Christians who would sacrifice their lives for their beliefs.

They are usually light cavalry, but a small number are other types of soldiers. Equipped with scimitars, bows and arrows and other weapons, as long as they give an order, they will rush towards the pagan phalanx. In the battle to recapture Smyrna, these cavalry frightened the Turks and became the key to the collapse of the morale of the Turkic army. factor.

There were 1,000 such cavalry, which caused heavy losses to the Ottomans during border battles. Even the local bey's bribes with money were of no avail, and the massacre and looting continued. The Turks were forced to leave their place of survival.

Whether it's military operations or daily expenses, these all cost money. Wallachia's treasury has been in a state of distress over the past two years. In the end, only 200,000 lei were left in the state treasury. The finance minister was about to cry. He kept writing to Peter, hoping to persuade the Grand Duke, no, the co-emperor, not to spend money lavishly. The treasury could no longer bear it.

Peter also had a headache, because his father had written to him before, saying that he was planning to expand the standing army to 80,000 people and directly double military expenditures, but taxes would not suddenly double. If this continued, sooner or later the deficit would reappear.

In order to make up for the upcoming gap, Peter had to choose the best short-term method: fighting to feed war. The reason why Napoleon was able to carry out continuous wars was because he relied on this method to force the defeated countries to pay and replenish manpower, thus maintaining the empire's huge military strength. Unfortunately, after the failure of the Eastern Expedition to Russia, this method was no longer applicable, because there was no The country is willing to pay.

Peter's strategy of using war to support war combined territorial expansion, expanding as much territory as possible in Anatolia, and plundering the properties of Turkic nobles and merchants to add to the treasury. He did not believe that the Turks had settled in Anatolia for hundreds of years. Everyone has a breath of fresh air.

With regard to the pagans at home, Peter made limited reservations while adhering to Orthodox orthodoxy. He levied an additional poll tax on those pagans and restricted their other rights. Although they became second-class citizens, they could still get by.

Since religions are not easy to change, then change their language and customs. Peter confiscated many religious schools in the Crescent and converted them into Orthodox religious schools. The language, customs, etc. were all closer to Greece-Wallachia. Although there were obstacles in the expropriation process, the task was successfully completed.

After half the summer, Kizikus began to gather his troops. Suleiman and other Turkic states closest to Wallachia felt in danger and had to detach a part of their army to defend.

Muhammad, who was far away, was very happy to see that Wallachia was about to take action. He directly sent 100,000 silver coins to help, and also offered to attack Wallachia from east to west.

Peter knew what he was going to do and declined the other party's request. After all, he wanted to see what the battle would be like without the Balkans. As for his presence in Cyzicus, it was just for training. Antalya, which the Crusaders had just conquered, needed to be defended, and the supply lines had to be protected. All of this required troops and fortresses, so the funds were tight.

When the funds were tight, they naturally had to plunder, the Turks had to rob, and the Catholic Church could not be left behind. Some of the countries that were not clearly saved by Venice were his targets, the most important of which was Cyprus. Some other small regimes were temporarily ignored, and they were small, so they only needed to be deterred.

Seven years changed the historical trajectory of Wallachia. Sometimes Peter felt that he was not governing the country, but playing a business strategy game, but everything was so real. Wallachia's reform and prosperity were real, and the sequelae of reform and expansion were also real, but the benefits covered up the shortcomings. Like the Qin Dynasty's reform, Wallachia was about to complete the transformation from a barbarian in the eyes of Western Europe to the successor of the Roman Empire.

I'm sorry, I've been too busy lately and have been staying up late every day, but I won't be exhausted, don't worry.