Chapter 143: The Fake Prince and the Shia Dealing (Two-in-One)

Chapter 143: The Fake Prince and the Shia Dealing with Him (Two in One)

A carpet is big enough to accommodate two Sufis, but the world is not big enough to accommodate two kings.

——Selim I the Cruel

Judging from the preaching in the past two days, the people of the Ottoman Empire did not have any obvious resistance to these new laws, and that was enough.

After the wedding banquet, Selim instructed Mahand and the Ulema to make the final revisions to the adjusted Islamic law.

Things like the headscarf law must not be abolished. Today, the emperor asked Muslims to take off their headscarves. Maybe tomorrow Muslims will not only take off the emperor's crown, but also their heads.

This legal preaching is to loosen up Islam a little bit, so as to further promote the reform plan of the emperor.

Days passed, and it was already the end of 1790.

The Sultan looked at the autumn leaves outside the window and couldn't help but sigh.

A few days ago, the imperial physician had brought the news that Anna was pregnant. For some reason, when Selim heard about this, he felt that his connection with the world was getting deeper.

The child still in Anna's belly was like a bond between Selim and the world.

The Sultan was thinking about his future child, but Paul's voice came from outside the door.

"Your Majesty, the descendant of the Safavid dynasty has been found. Do you want to meet him now?"

"Bring him in."

Selim said calmly.

Looking at the young man who carefully poked his head in from the door, he couldn't help but look at the so-called descendant of the Safavid dynasty found by Justinian.

His appearance was not outstanding, belonging to a relatively ordinary level, and his stature was quite tall.

After a few casual glances, Selim lost interest and asked calmly.

"Are you sure you are a descendant of the Safavid family, the son of Ismail III, the rightful Padishah of Persia, the Ten Thousand Kings of Iran."

The young man's face looked a little pale, but he still answered firmly.

"Yes, Your Majesty, the great Ottoman Sultan, the Caliph of the Islamic world, the master of the two holy places.

I am the last blood of the Safavid family, Ismail Safai.

Mohammed Qajar killed his father and all the descendants of the Safavid family, and only I escaped.

All this is because I have a loyal servant who covered me and escaped from Persia and came here to seek your help.

It's just that he died on the way."

Selim did not listen carefully to the words of this so-called descendant of the Safavid dynasty. After all, the Ottoman Empire just needed an excuse.

As for whether this descendant of the Safavid dynasty is real, according to the information given by Justinian, it is likely to be false.

To be honest, Justinian didn't know where he got such a thing from.

This guy might as well make up a servant to flee with the prince, but found out that the prince was going to surrender to the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. In order to make a career, the servant decisively killed the prince and replaced him.

For this story, Emperor Seychelles was willing to use him more.

"Okay, if it is, then so be it.

Go and learn about the information of the Persian court and the history of the Safavid family, so that you can use it in the subsequent conquest of Persia.

Remember, be rigorous, understand?"

Ismail nodded vigorously and was immediately led out by Paul.

Selim picked up the information on the desk and began to think about the plan of the great expedition.

According to common sense, winter is not suitable for sending troops.

Because in the Mediterranean region, the geographical environment between the Ottoman Empire and Persia, the climate is relatively mild all year round, and military operations can be carried out most of the time without obvious seasonal restrictions.

But there are exceptions in winter. This area may have snowfall and bad weather conditions, resulting in some strategic restrictions.

Therefore, the Ottoman Empire chose a suitable time for each war with Persia.

These military operations are generally in the dry seasons of summer and early autumn. During this period, because the weather is relatively stable and the ground is relatively dry, transportation and military mobility are better.

By the way, the Ottoman Empire's ruthless "Selim" I defeated Ismail, the founding monarch of the Safavid Dynasty, in the Battle of Chaldiran in August 1514.

The latter was almost devastated after this major blow and eventually died.

However, in Selim's view, this was entirely Ismail's own fault.

This man started his army at the age of 12, unified Persia and the two rivers at the age of 22, and can be said to be the dragon of the time.

However, the smooth unification made Ismail a little arrogant.

Where is this arrogance reflected?

After Ismail destroyed the Aq Qoyunlu Dynasty in 1505, his main threats were left with three, namely the Ottoman Empire in the west, the Uzbeks in the northeast, and the Portuguese colonists who invaded the Hormuz Islands in the south.

Among them, the Uzbeks took the initiative to challenge Ismail.

The Uzbeks who rose in the Transoxiana region were originally a nomadic tribe on the grassland. Their leader, Shaybani Khan, was eager to conquer the remaining legacy of the Timurid Empire in Khorasan.

In 1506, Hussan Bekara, the ruler of Khorasan and a descendant of Timur, died. His sons had internal conflicts, and the Uzbeks were able to invade Khorasan and control most of the area, including Mashhad, Tus and Herat, and thus bordered the Safavid Dynasty.

In 1509, Shaybani Khan sent troops to attack Kerman via the Kavir Desert, looting and slaughtering.

Ismail was busy suppressing the war in Shirvan, so he had to choose to compromise temporarily and wrote a letter to show friendship.

But this was regarded as weakness and incompetence by Shaybani Khan, who wrote a threatening and insulting reply to Ismail, and attached a begging stick and a begging bowl (a begging tool commonly used by Sufi monks), saying that Ismail should remember his father's original profession and go back to beg and practice asceticism, and intensified harassment in the south.

This completely angered Ismail. After stabilizing the west, Ismail decisively sent troops to Khorasan and provided shelter for Badilzaman, the son and successor of Hussein Bekara.

In November 1510, Ismail gathered an army of 17,000 people from all over the country.

The army quickly occupied Tus and Mashhad and advanced towards Herat.

And Shaybani decisively retreated to Murug City to hold on.

Shaybani's choice was correct. Ismail hastily sent troops and did not expect the Uzbeks to avoid fighting. Therefore, although he surrounded Murug City, he did not prepare enough siege equipment for the siege.

The Uzbek tribal reinforcements outside the city continued to gather and expanded to 28,000 people.

In order to force Shaybani to fight, Ismail decided to adopt Shaybani's approach. He wrote a letter to Shaybani, saying that he was about to return to suppress the rebellion in Azerbaijan and Diyarbakir, and asked Shaybani to stay in the city and not come out until he had dealt with the rebels and then come back to deal with him.

On the other hand, Ismail asked his "retreating" army to burn all the old tents in the camp.

A 300-man elite red-headed cavalry led by Emir Beg Muslu was stationed near the burned camp. (The Safavid sect wore red hats as a symbol)

This small team kept making lightning raids and then pretended to retreat. Shaybani and his army fell into the trap and pursued the Safavid army. Ismail had prepared a trap for Shaybani.

He organized his troops into a horseshoe formation, and the bait team led the unsuspecting Shaybani army into the encirclement.

Ismail equipped all the troops with torches soaked in oil and lit them at the same time. The sudden light of fire caused panic among the Uzbeks. Ismail led the red-headed cavalry to attack the Uzbeks in the encirclement.

Nearly 10,000 Uzbek soldiers died, and Shaybani himself died in the battle.

This war took Ismail 10 years to build an empire that basically covered the entire Iran, South Caucasus, Mesopotamia, Eastern Anatolia and Khorasan.

He had reached the peak of his life. As we all know, there is usually an abyss behind the peak.

After the war, Shaybani's body was cut up by Ismail: the skin of his head was peeled off in one piece, stuffed with straw, and given to his "friend" in Constantinople, the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid II. The two sides had planned to attack the Safavid dynasty (it was this incident that triggered the rage of Selim I, who was still a prince at the time, and became the source of his hatred for Ismail).

However, Ismail did not know that the future Ottoman Sultan would hate him so much.

He was still savoring his victory. Ismail made Shaybani Khan's skull into a gem-studded wine glass and became his collection; his limbs were dismembered and paraded around the four borders of Persia to show that the threat from the Uzbeks had been lifted.

After that, Ismail conquered Murug and Herat and controlled the entire Khorasan. As the second royal city in the empire, Herat became the center of the Khorasan province, and the "Pearl of Khorasan" was able to shine again.

Not only war, Ismail also played political incitement.

In the Turkish-Iranian border, the Caucasus and Azerbaijan regions, a large number of Turkmen who were inclined to the Safavid Shia maintained contact with Ismail I, and the Safavid dynasty had been inciting Shia followers in these areas to kill Sunnis and even launched a rebellion against the Ottoman Empire, which completely angered Selim I.

The Sultan recalled the Battle of Chaldiran, although in his heart he did not think that Selim I was really his ancestor.

However, this kind of glory is still worth cherishing. The Sultan does not care, but the people should care.

In addition, Selim I's treatment of Shiites is also what Selim the Great needs to avoid.

In history, in order to curb the momentum of the empire's rebellion and maintain the stability of the empire, Selim I immediately took many harsh measures.

This "cruel man" ordered a large-scale massacre of Shiites, and those who were not executed were all branded and exiled to Europe.

This is what Selim the Great needs to avoid, because in his opinion, this is completely a discredit to himself, although it was useless to discredit the Ottoman Empire in that era, after all, it was strong.

But if you look at the entire Battle of Chaldiran, you will find that Selim I's methods are too rough.

At the beginning, this battle was just a small-scale battle because Ismail I had been retreating, adopting the tactics of retreating when the enemy advances and clearing the fields. This made Selim I very angry because he could not catch the main force of Ismail's army for a decisive battle.

And the Ottomans' strong defenses meant that although they were advancing on the front line, it was becoming increasingly difficult to supply them with logistics, because the supply cities and villages along the way had been demolished by the old fox Ismail I, while the Ottoman supply lines were getting longer and longer.

In this critical moment, it was up to the "ruthless one" to do it. He directly used the tactic of attacking the enemy and saving them, and ordered the army to march straight to the capital of the Safavid Empire - Tabriz!

Sure enough, this move worked. In August 1514, the Ottomans who arrived in Tabriz forced Ismail to retreat. Ismail had no choice but to fight a decisive battle with Selim, and this was the Battle of Chaldiran.

Let's go back to July 1514, when Selim I the Ruthless reorganized the army, which totaled 120,000 people, including infantry, cavalry and artillery. It is worth mentioning that the Ottoman army at this time was equipped with muskets, and brought 200 cannons and 100 mortars.

These hot weapons eventually became the key props to determine the direction of the battle, and also announced the end of the "cavalry is king" in the traditional cold weapon era.

By August 22, after a long march of more than 1,000 miles, the Ottoman army finally arrived at Chaldiran in the northwest of Azerbaijan, and headed straight for Tabriz

At this time, Ismail I, after a long period of fortification, personally led 60,000 tribal cavalry to wait in formation. This cavalry corps followed him in the north and south, east and west, and made great military exploits and accumulated countless experience. It was the ace of the ace, the elite of the elite, and the foundation of Ismail I's conquest!

However, due to the technological limitations of the regional environment at that time, this Safavid army was only equipped with backward weapons such as bows and arrows and spears, and had never even seen the muskets and artillery like the Ottoman army, so the Safavid army was one step behind in combat weapons and equipment.

However, the Safavid cavalry had two experienced commanders, namely, the Governor of Diyarbakir, Muhammad Khan Ustagilu and Nur Ali Khalifa, and the army was led by the Persian Shah Ismail I himself.

When the battle officially started on August 23, the two commanders of the Safavid army suggested to Ismail I: take advantage of the fact that the Ottoman army had come from afar and had not yet established a firm foothold, and immediately launch a fierce attack, specifically to attack the Ottomans who were exhausted from the long march, so as to avoid the Ottoman artillery from exerting its power and make up for the disadvantages in their weapons and equipment.

These were quite correct suggestions from any perspective, but unfortunately, all these originally correct suggestions were rejected by Ismail I, and even the outstanding battle commander was ridiculed by his superiors. His superior, Durmish Khan Samru, even suggested to Ismail I that he should wait until the enemy army completed its deployment before launching the attack.

Ismail I, who had fought for half his life, really accepted Durmish Khan. Samru's advice, and said: "I am not a robber, everything that God has destined will happen."

In this way, the only advantage of the Safavid Empire, which was to wait for the enemy to attack, was handed over to others because of Ismail I's pretense, and eventually led to a great defeat.

But if Ismail attacked first, would it be possible to win?

It is very likely, because the Ottoman army at this time was already exhausted after Ismail's long-term defense of the countryside. If it attacked suddenly, the army would probably collapse.

This exposed the problem of Selim I, whose logistics were quite fragile.

The question is, what does this have to do with the treatment of Shiites?

Of course, if it was Selim the Great, he would not massacre Shiites at all, but would requisition them.

You say that this group of people is prone to rebellion, haha, the Turkmen princes dared to make trouble in the Ottoman Empire, but these civilians did not dare.

The "Cold One" could have sent a small number of troops to guard and force these Shiites to participate in logistics and transportation. If they ran out of food, they could learn from Qin Zongquan. This would be more economically efficient than massacre.

Of course, Emperor Sai would definitely not do this in this great expedition. After all, Emperor Sai came from the civilized world. How could he learn from Qin Zongquan? At most, he would let these Shiites contract the eastern infrastructure of the empire and the logistics of the great expedition.

The fake prince would endorse it. How could there be two orthodoxies in Persia?

The Sultan smiled and began to look forward to it.

Thanks to the monthly tickets of the p-society player Kuangxi and the book friends