The cold wind of early winter blew ripples in the turquoise water, and the crow chirped from the shore, and a small boat in the lake drifted slowly with the gentle current, and gradually the bottom of the boat touched the stones on the shore.

The man sitting in the boat moved slightly as the boat swayed, tightening the thick woolen blanket around him a little.

A few servants with tall red turbans immediately dragged the boat ashore with swift hands and feet, and fastened the cable to the stones, and then they stood by and watched the hostess of the boat.

Lady Connie glanced at the servants waiting on the shore, the Safavid Chief, or rather the Safavid monarch, who had been sent to serve her.

Almost a year ago, the little boy who had proclaimed himself the Monarch of the Safavid had finally eliminated the Aries forces that threatened his order.

This was much earlier than the time in history, thanks to the powerful and sharp firearms that the Safavid army received in time, and in the Battle of Farsabad, Ismaili's army carried out a devastating blow to the enemy who had the advantage of numbers, even with agile and mobile semi-nomadic cavalry, but because of the terrain, the army of the Aries Dynasty could only tear through the powerful firepower network arranged by Ismaili again and again with desperate charging apostles.

But as a result, more and more deaths led to the eventual collapse of his enemies, and the new Persian Empire, founded by the Safavid Order, seemed to be beginning to emerge.

Lady Connie couldn't help frowning at the thought of this, because she had been feeling a little confused, she couldn't understand why Alexander was so familiar with this Order in Azerbaijan, and he even swore to Lady Connieo: "If you want to take advantage of that Cadron and don't want to be hunted down by the Ottomans, you must help the young Sect Master." ”

When she first heard this, Connie was skeptical, but given the weapons and money Alexander had provided, she wasn't averse to giving it a try.

It's just that when he saw Ismaili again, Connie at that time really wanted to turn around and leave, if it weren't for the fact that Alexander was really serious about this matter, and indeed sent all the supplies they needed in time, Connie O couldn't believe that this little kid in front of him could really do such a big thing.

Then it turned out that she was clearly wrong.

Not only did that little kid do it, but it was successful.

When he was only 14 years old, he destroyed the Aries dynasty.

And now his goal is the eastern territory of the Ottoman Empire.

Lake Urmia is less than 30 fats from Tabriz, and the lake runs like a long spindle in a north-south direction, with the eastern shore of the lake belonging to the present-day Safavid Persian Empire, and the western shore being the eastern border of the Ottoman Empire.

The two sides tacitly agreed that the middle line of Lake Urmière would be used as a buffer zone, and the cavalry on both sides of the strait would face each other across the lake, and this situation had already taken shape almost two years ago.

Only now, with the demise of the Aries Dynasty, Ismaili I was able to move his army towards the eastern front, which made the border between the two countries, which had been in conflict but still peaceful for the time being, tense for a while, and the smell of war permeated the sky over Lake Urmiye.

While acknowledging Alexander's unusually keen sense of the situation in the East, Lady Connie was shocked by Ismaili.

She couldn't have imagined that this hairy child, who was not yet 16 years old, would really do such a miraculous thing, he would build a country, destroy a country, and then compete with another country in the world.

Now Connie even thinks that if she can, she is willing to invest all her blood in this hairy child, because she really can't imagine what earth-shattering things this little kid will do in another 10 years.

But this was just a thought, she knew that these Persians would not be with her, just like these servants around him, who were watching her closely while serving, and she could also feel that she would not achieve much in this country as a woman compared to the Ottomans.

So Connieo decided to stick to her previous plan, especially with the arrival of Caderon, and she felt it was time for her to show her talents.

The Battle of Bucharest was a great loss for the Ottomans, but it was still not a devastating one.

The Ottoman Empire still had the most powerful army and navy in the world, and even though they temporarily retreated from the western Balkans, they still had large conquered lands in Europe, and even in the Balkans, Bulgaria and Greece remained under Ottoman rule.

Farther east, Moldova was again forced to submit to the Ottoman Empire, and the Empire's army was once again defeated by a Polish counterattack.

And at sea, the Ottoman navy had almost completely expelled the Venetians from the eastern Mediterranean, and the entire eastern Mediterranean had completely fallen into the hands of the Ottomans, with the exception of the two stubborn places of Rhodes and Crete.

The Venetians lost their last colony in the Mediterranean, and the Ottoman navy even drove straight from the Sea of Nyonia to the Adriatic Sea, and Venice was under constant threat from the Ottoman navy.

All this seems to indicate that the defeat of Bucharest was so insignificant, that the pace of the Ottoman conquest was not even a little slow because of this small setback.

But in fact, it's a different story.

What really terrified the Ottomans at the Battle of Bucharest was the turmoil caused by the serious injury of Bayezid II.

In contrast to the casualties of the army and the loss of supplies discarded during the mass retreat, the turmoil caused by the Sultan's serious injuries caused by the two princes fighting for the succession to the empire has effectively left the Ottoman Empire, which still looks formidably formidable, in a state of subtle division.

Mehmet took advantage of the expedition to Mamluk to gain control of a large part of the western provinces of the empire, while in the east, on the border with Safavid Persia, Selim stood by and was ready to compete with his brother.

In Constantinople, the nobles, who were still loyal to Sultan Bayezid II, or who were temporarily watching the situation, watched the great turmoil caused by the two princes with a kind of indifference.

As for the many tribal nobles and the outlying high-ranking officials who were far away from the capital, most of them appeared to have nothing to do with themselves.

However, these are just illusions, everyone is trying their best to make themselves look less noticeable, and at the same time they are trying their best to arm their men, and for a time the entire Ottoman Empire is shrouded in a strange atmosphere.

The Ottoman Empire was suddenly on the verge of fragmentation, and at the same time, in addition to the constant wars between the Ottomans and their enemies in Europe and Egypt, the rise of Safavid Persia also aroused the alarm of Selim.

As early as two years earlier, the Safavid Order had harshly lectured Selim, who was then the governor of the border province, on the Ottoman border, which made Bayezid II angry, but because it was a critical time in the battle of Bucharest, he had to denounce his son's incompetence and warn Selim not to make trouble at this time.

However, the rapid expansion of the Safavid Order in the next two years began to unsettle Selim, especially after the complete destruction of the Aries Dynasty a year earlier, and as its strength grew, Ismaili I began to set his sights on his neighbors on the western border.

A war seemed inevitable, and the fledgling Safavid Persia and the Ottoman Empire, which was in its heyday, were like two sturdy giants who showed their muscles and willingness to fight when they met on the shores of Lake Urmia.

For Selim, his desire to defeat his opponent is stronger than that of Ahmed, who is far away in Egypt.

This is not because he wants to be beaten by a thirteen-year-old hairy boy because of his carelessness before Yixue, but because he wants to use a real major victory to deter the tribal nobles in the east.

He had not gained anything from his previous battle with Ismaili I, and as Safavid Persia grew stronger, some tribes that had been forced to succumb to Ottoman force became ready to move.

This situation was very bad for Selim, who knew that although Mehmed also had to deal with the Mamluks of Egypt, the difficulties faced by Mehmed were much easier to solve because of the intricate relationship between the many tribes in the east and the Ottoman Empire.

The news from Constantinople disturbed Selim, as Bayezid II's health was getting worse and worse, and the battle of Bucharest not only hurt his body, but also seemed to destroy his spirit.

The Sultan became suspicious, because he was paralyzed in bed for a long time and his increasingly moody temper made everyone around him accompany a grumpy sick lion, and he was worried all day long.

Worse still, he began to fear betrayal, neither the vizier nor his cronies, and heard from those who remained in Constantinople to listen to the movement that the Sultan was now worried that his two sons would rebel.

This made Selim start to worry about himself, he knew that once Bayezid II became suspicious, even if he was the son of the Sultan, he would have a terrible end, and the only thing that could get him out of the current predicament was to calm the eastern border as soon as possible, and then take the opportunity to wave his army and point his troops at Constantinople.

As long as Constantinople is captured first, Mehmet will be defeated.

Selim mobilized a large army to the border, knowing that there was not much time left for him, and that he had to establish himself a solid rear before Bayezid II went completely insane.

Madame Connie sat in the carriage and looked at the vast blue waters of Lake Ulmière, which in winter seemed so quiet that there were no waterfowl to be seen grazing on the water, and even though she had been boating on the lake before, it was now a little still and eerily quiet.

In the distance, a man on horseback came running towards them, and in the distance he could hear the man shouting for his purpose, and when he heard the man shout "Diyarbakir", Lady Conneo's face suddenly showed a look of concern.

The servants watched vigilantly, noticing the black clothes on each other's clothes and the white felt hats on their heads, and their eyes couldn't help but show Sensen's hostility.

"Ma'am, I have come to see you on orders." The man bowed cautiously, not daring to make eye contact with the servants, trying not to look so noticeable.

"Shane allowed me to see my friends wherever I wanted." Connie said to the servants that Connie was secretly relieved to see that they had been put aside despite their ugly faces.

The hatred and ferocity of heresy are more terrible than those of the infidels, and this does not seem to be peculiar to the West, where the civil strife that broke out over different doctrinal understandings also shed the blood of the faithful.

"Madame, we have delivered 'the one' safely," the man whispered, standing in front of the carriage, "and the tribes of Diyarbakir have received him very kindly, and now he is their guest of honor. ”

"Yes, that's great," said Lady Conneo with a little excitement, she had risked her life to find him after hearing about the legend about that man, and now that those efforts had finally seen the shadow of the reward, "let our men keep an eye on that man, I believe that someone must be fighting his idea, and we must be more careful at this time." ”

Listening carefully, this woman was a heretic, but she had done something that none of them had expected, and the thought of the ecstatic look of the tribal nobles when they heard of the return of the descendants of Mohammed II's son Jem, the man thought that perhaps this woman in front of him could really change the future of the Ottoman Empire.

The visitor did not stay long, although the Safavid Sufi Order led by Ismaili I was not so radical and terrible compared to those overly radical sects, but the strong insecurity in the pagan territory made him leave in a hurry.

However, he had already received important lessons from Coniono, including her promise to encourage the nobles of Diyarbakir to "let it go".

Diyarbakir was a gathering place for the southeastern Ottoman tribes, who formed alliances before the Ottomans occupied the Anatolian plateau, and later became a force to be reckoned with in the Ottoman Empire during the war of conquest of the Eastern Romans.

When Muhammad II's son, Jem, was supported by the Diyarbakr clan when he fought with Bayezid II for the throne of sultan.

After Cem fled to Europe, the tribal nobles swore allegiance to Bayezid II, but Bayezid II remained stubborn and could not dispel the Sultan's suspicion of them.

When the news of Jem's death in a Neapolitan prison reached the Ottomans, Bayezer II sent someone to Diyarbakir to make the tribal nobles who still missed Jem completely dead, but although the tribal nobles seemed to have finally died because of Jem's affairs, Bayezid II could not let down his vigilance against them.

Because of this, Bayezid II sent his son Selim to guard the eastern part of the empire for him, also to intimidate the eastern tribes who had always been hostile to him.

Connie knew very well what Caderon's return meant to the tribes of Diyarbakir, so as soon as the messenger had left, she asked to see "Shane", and in order to meet the gifted young monarch as soon as possible, she said to Ismaili I's close courtiers: "Go and tell Shane that he must be willing to hear that there may be a rebellion against the Ottomans." ”

This news apparently aroused the interest of Shane Ismaili I of Safavibos, and soon Connie was allowed to enter the palace to meet the king.

Shahn Ismaili ibn Haidar, 14 years old.

Judging by his age and the fact that he pretended to be old, and even had a layer of fluff on his lips that was not considered a beard, Alexander was not wrong, he was still a little kid.

Ismaili, who already had two wives, liked to wear brightly coloured outfits, which made him look older, and a large turban studded with precious gems and pearls was topped with a straight peacock feather, which shook quickly when he moved his head, making the little boy look a little less majestic, but a little funny.

But now no one dares to despise him, because it is this 14-year-old boy who has completely defeated the Aries dynasty in two consecutive great battles, and just two months ago, he was made by the Safavid Order as the Shahn, or king of the newly established Safavid Persian Empire, and on that day he had just passed his 14th birthday.

"You mean those Ottomans might judge?" Ismaili asked with some curiosity, perhaps because he was still young, he was obviously not tempted by Connie's appearance, the young monarch full of vigor was now eager to expand his territory, and now there was such a good opportunity in front of him, Ismaili couldn't help but be moved.

"Jem's son is back." Seeing the surprise on Ismaili's pretended old face, Connie nodded to him, "The tribal nobles of Diyarbakr are preparing to believe that there will soon be a rebellion in the Ottoman territory. ”

"Oh, oh." Ismaili I gave two responses from his mouth, and then he was silent, and he began to walk up and down the steps, the peacock feathers above his head shaking in the air with his movements.

After a while, he finally stopped staring at Conio, "You know that the Ottoman army has very powerful firearms, although we have such weapons now, but they are still much worse than Selim's army. ”

Connie was a little silent, she knew that Ismaili was right, although it received a lot of funding, but the Safavid Persian firearms still could not compare with the well-equipped Ultraman army, if it was a defense, it might not be much different, but if it took the initiative to attack, it would expose the weakness of the Russian army.

"I'll find a way to get more equipment for your army, but you'll have to respond accordingly."

"Of course," Ismaili laughed, looking at Conio like a mischievous child, as if glad that he was about to get a new toy, "and it's fair to all of us that I can help those friends as much as they can help me." ”

Connie nodded silently, and at the same time couldn't help but frown secretly.

Although Ismaili I was only 14 years old, she felt that this little boy was really difficult to deal with.

In the early winter of 1501, a shocking rumor began to circulate in the Ottoman lands that the descendants of Mehmed II's son Jem had appeared in the eastern part of the empire and that he was going to lead the loyal Ottomans to challenge Bayezid II and his sons!