The commander of the right flank of the Ottoman attack on Bucharest was an old acquaintance of Alexander, Sisughu.

Bayezid II did not choose Sissougu to besiege Dembvica, not because of his poor performance at the Battle of the Alger River, but simply because the Sultan considered Sissougu to be more suitable to play on the right flank.

Bayezid II may not have been a good battlefield commander, but he had the qualities he needed most as a sultan, and that was to be able to read people.

Sisugu was a very assertive and sharp-smelling general, which gave him a natural advantage in capturing fighters on the battlefield, which made him obviously more suitable for commanding field battles than siege warfare.

The Sultan was well aware of Sisugku's strengths, just as he knew that if Sisukku and Eryup were reversed, things would make things worse, and Bayezid II had an unusually human instinct and experience in employing people.

The Sultan was not disappointed by the fact that his army had crossed the Alger River and advanced rapidly along the north bank of the Danube, and by the night of 11 April, the vanguard of the Ottoman right had reached the vicinity of the mouth of the river at the confluence of the Dembvica and Danube rivers.

Many of the locals in the nearby villages apparently did not expect the Ottomans to be so bold in crossing Bucharest into the interior of Wallachia, much to the immediate suffering of those who did not want to leave their homeland with a fluke mentality.

Unlike Eleup, Sissou was more concerned with gaining honor and spoils on the battlefield, and he was also a fanatical believer, who regarded the preaching of doctrine as his greatest duty in life.

This left him not concerned with what would happen to the villages along the way, but only about whether his army could advance to their destination as quickly as the Sultan had hoped.

The villages were immediately sacked, and the looters were executed, but not for the crimes they had committed, but simply for the delay in their march.

As he ordered his army to advance rapidly, he ordered his men to keep a close eye on the direction of Bucharest, and he had a hunch that he might encounter the Count of Montina again.

Sisughu's guess was based on what the Sultan had said to them when he had arranged the mission.

"The Europeans see Dembvica as a holy place, and they will go to great lengths to try to defend that little city, so what you have to do is not just to take Dembvica quickly, but to make it like a huge decoy to attract more enemies, so much that even if the coalition knows it's a trap, they have to throw it in, or rather, they have to rely on only one army to protect the right flank of Bucharest, which is what really matters to us."

From the very beginning, the Sultan clearly did not intend to hide his aims, and even the armies of the northern and southern flanks launched an attack in the direction of Bucharest almost simultaneously.

But as the Sultan said, even knowing the difficulties they might face, the significance of the Holy Land was already doomed to make it impossible for the coalition forces to abandon Dembvica.

Then when everyone regarded the salvation of the Holy Land as their duty and great ambition, it seemed that the only force that could be sent to the right flank to resist the Ottomans was Alexander's troops.

This judgment is actually not complicated, and Xi Sugu was a little excited when he guessed this result.

The Battle of the Alger River made Sissou Valley "acquainted" with an opponent, and from then on he hoped to meet that Montina again on the battlefield.

However, Sisukgu was not the kind of person who would do anything for the sake of honor, he was well aware of his responsibilities, and if he had to choose between competing with Alexander and achieving victory, he would not hesitate to choose the latter.

Because he had sent scouts to reconnoiter repeatedly, Sisugu was very clear about the Bucharest people's defense of the lower reaches of the Dembvica River, he knew that there were almost no decent forts along the lower reaches of the river, and more importantly, almost all the batteries along the river that posed a great threat to attack from the river were placed in the upper reaches, which made Sisugu believe that it would not take too much time to control the entire downstream coast.

Sisugu also considered whether Alexander would take the initiative to intercept him, but after careful deliberation, he rejected this conjecture.

"Neither the number of troops nor the situation is against that man, if he is too far from the city of Bucharest he will face the danger of being cut off, the wisest way at this time is to be cautious defensive, not to be a hero, in my opinion that the Count of Montina is indeed very brave, but not reckless, so he may do everything in his power to stop our attack, but he will not casually give up the situation in his favor, unless he has a reason to take the initiative."

This was Sisughu's guess on Alexander, and he was right, and despite Ladislas II's strong desire for Alexander to "defend himself against the outskirts of Bucharest", Alexander did not respond to the king's hints.

When he returned to his lodgings, he summoned Prato, who had only been freed the previous day, to him, and after careful inquiry again about the Ottoman Eylup, he sent Prato away, and then took out the letter that Aryup had written to him.

Speaking of which, the letter was delivered to Alexander safely, Prato did take a big risk, and it was a lot of credit, although he thought that he had sold himself cleanly, but Alexander still decided to forgive Prato.

As for Morko, it is said that he decided to follow Chipes in the battle to rescue Dembvica.

In the words of Morko himself, "If I can't come back with honor, then use death to relieve my troubles." ”

Ilup's letter was very simple, if it wasn't someone who knew the inside story, he couldn't even tell what it meant from the content of the letter, which was also a precaution that Elop did to prevent the letter from falling into the hands of others.

But for Alexander, although the letter contained only a few words, it was sufficient.

"My dear friend, I want to tell you what I have seen, there are more bronzes here than you think, but we all know who the real rich man is, so if I can make that person willing to be generous to you, tell me how you are going to repay me?"

Of course, such a clueless letter would not reveal any secrets, but Alexander had read it several times.

He was sure that Eleup had not written such an inexplicable letter to her on a whim, and that it would only mean one thing, that the Ottoman, now governor of the occupied territories, had already known of his plans, which included having Prato collect copper and throw it on the market.

Alexander didn't know how the secret was revealed, so he even temporarily forgave Prato for "betraying" him, and instead asked repeatedly, hoping to find out from Prato's words why the other party could spy on his plan.

But he could not get any answer other than to learn that the Ottoman seemed to be close to Ashulk.

And from the meaning of Prato's words, Alexander had the feeling that the Ottoman knew much more about him than he thought.

This made Alexander feel uncomfortable being recognized, and he had a vague premonition that this Ottoman might cause him a lot of trouble in the future.

The coalition army led by Cepes had already set off at the time of the first Ottoman attack on Dembvica.

In order to reach Dembvica as quickly as possible, Chipes sent his Wallachian cavalry, which ran like camels and walked like camels along the banks of the river quickly from south to north to Dembvica, and at the same time, fearing that the Sultan might be threatened by the Ottomans on his flank, Chippes sent a large number of scouts west to guard against a possible ambush.

In fact, when Alexander mentioned at the meeting of the nobles that this might be a trap for the Ottomans, it had already occurred to Tsepes that what he said was probably the truth.

But even if he knew that this was the case, regardless of the reason, Cepes had to insist that troops should be sent to rescue Dembvica.

It was only with the news from the scouts that Cepes realized that the situation might be much more critical than he thought.

The Ottomans had set up improvised camps on the outskirts of Dembvica, and at the same time they had sent large groups of cavalry southward, and it was clear that, as Alexander had guessed, the Ottomans were trying to intercept and deplete Bucharest's reinforcements through constant harassment.

Tzepes was secretly glad that the riverside forts provided him with important protection, especially the large ones with their heavy artillery, and their presence added even more scruples to the Ottomans.

But even then, the distance from the nearest fortress to Dembvica was almost thirty franca, and the road was undoubtedly a serious test for Cepes.

Chipes decided to divide his army into two parts, one consisting entirely of cavalry under his own leadership, and the other with infantry and baggage to a Wallachian nobleman he trusted.

Cepes knew that he had to be prepared to engage a large force of enemy cavalry, and whether his cavalry could break through the interception of the Ottoman cavalry depended on whether the entire reinforcement army could reach Dembvica.

On the afternoon of 13 April, the Wallachian cavalry, detached from the bulk of the group, began to advance towards Bukrčani, a far outskirts of Dembvica, where, according to the scouts' previous reconnaissance reports, the Ottomans had a large cavalry detachment in front of Bukrčani.

It was also the closest riverside fortress to Dembvica, and after Bukrčani, Čepes's army would have lost the protection of the fortress completely.

In order to take the initiative and boost morale in the first head-to-head battle with the Ottomans, Cepes personally led his troops ahead of the army.

In the ranks of the cavalry, a young knight prayed with a cross on his chest while stroking his sword by the saddle with his hand.

He was Morko, who had volunteered to join Tzepes's army the night before, and the day before, Morko had had had had had a strange experience that he couldn't put into words.

The experience made him strangely realize that Alozia's shadow was fading in his mind, and the figure of another girl that he couldn't describe was becoming clearer and clearer.

In fact, from beginning to end, Sophia was arrogant and even rude and unreasonable to Morco and Prato, but perhaps it was this peculiar attitude that made Morco's impression of the Greek princess just amazing and much deeper than before.

Perhaps because Sophia kept chattering about Alexander, Morco became even more disgusted with the Count of Montina, whom he felt was his natural enemy, but he also knew that he could not compete with him in his current status.

This gave Morko an unprecedented desire for honor and martial prowess, and even though he knew it might be dangerous, he decided to join the reinforcements of Chipes.

"God, give us a glorious war."

Morco cried out in his heart, and he felt that in his twenty-plus years of life so far, he had never longed for war so much.

A string of moving black dots appeared on the undulating horizon in the distance, and Cepes grabbed his horse to take a closer look, and after a moment he waved his hand to the scouts who were already waiting for orders.

The scouts quickly urged their horses forward, and looking at the scouts who were gradually moving away, Cepes said to the people around him, "Those must be Ottomans, and I hope our first battle will not be too bad." ”

"Your Highness, we will bring you a victory," said one nobleman, but his words did not elicit peace, and everyone looked apprehensively at the distant horizon.

"We really need a victory," Cepes did not care about the silence of the people, he slowly led his horse in front of the group, and looked behind at the back of the cavalry that was spreading out on both sides with a sound of orders, Cepes exhaled softly, and then lowered his shoulders as if he had relaxed a lot, he turned his head to look in the direction where the enemy had just appeared, and whispered to himself, "This is what you all owe me and my father." ”

As soon as Chipes's words fell, several black dots appeared again in the distance, and then these black dots became more and more, and with a faint vibration from the ground, the Ottoman cavalry appeared on the horizon like an endless wave.

Looking at those surging black dots, Cepes narrowed his eyes slightly, and at the moment when the thought of this seemed to be Sophia's usual movement flashed in his mind, Cepes had already drawn the long sword at his waist and shouted: "Charge!" ”

While Chipes was attacking the Ottomans, something else was happening on the shores of the Black Sea, far southeast of Wallachia.

On the morning of April 13, the sun had just revealed half of its face from the sparkling and undulating waters of the Black Sea, and the red morning light painted the craggy cliffs along the coast with a magnificent brilliance, and the figure of a large brig oarrow gradually appeared on the distant horizon, and then the shadow of the ship gradually approached, and as it became clearer and clearer, the sign of the ship that day also entered the eyes of half of the busy people.

It was a ship with the coat of arms of a typical European country rather than a conspicuous crescent flag, and judging by the calm sailing of the hull on the sea, it should have carried a lot of cargo.

The fishermen who were collecting their nets on the shore looked curiously at the boat, which was now less and less frequent, and as the Strait of Psphorus fell into the hands of the Ottomans, there were few ships from Europe on the Black Sea, which had been choked by the throat.

This is a nameless wharf, which in the early years was somewhat prosperous because there were still merchant ships from Europe or Asia, but now the fleet from Europe is almost extinct, and ships from Asia, the local people are more worried about the appearance of warships of the Ottoman navy instead of merchant ships.

The ship seemed to be slow because it was a tailwind, and by the time the sun was about to rise to the top of the mast, the brig had entered a bay shaped like a half-bent waning moon.

The bay is a natural port, although there is no large-scale dock, but most of the nearby ships will stop here temporarily, which provides a lot of opportunities for the locals, relying on these boats, the bay has formed a small but also gathered hundreds of families in the bay, in some places where the terrain is flat for large ships to dock, and even a few simple small docks have been built.

The boat had a shallow draft, so it dropped anchor far from the shore, and a small boat was lowered and swayed towards the dock on the shore, where the figure of the boat could be seen from a distance.

The boat soon landed on a wooden pier jutting out of the water, and a group of local children, all from nearby villages, who had already heard the news, rushed up to do some hand-work for the boats to supplement their families.

To the children's disappointment, however, there was only one man on board, and that man had no luggage with him, except for a saber that hung from his waist, and that man had nothing to spare.

The children scattered in disappointment, leaving only two adults to look at the man with two slightly upturned beards on his lips and a rather sloppy dress.

"Pay your taxes," said one of the chubby men to the stranger, "and if there is no cash to pay, we will take everything." Speaking of this, he added, "We have enough fish of our own, except for fish." ”

Saying that, the fat man's eyes curiously crossed the man's shoulder and looked at the brig on the sea in the distance: "It looks quite heavy, it has a lot of goods." ”

"It's good thing," the man shrugged, "and now there are pirates everywhere, especially the Ottomans, and it's good that my ship can get here." ”

The man's accent was a bit peculiar, and I couldn't tell where it was, but the two of them could still understand him.

Listening to the man's words, the two of them immediately nodded sympathetically, the life at sea has not been easy these years, in addition to dealing with bad weather, they also have to deal with wanton pirates, it is indeed a headache to think about.

"But you still have to pay taxes," the fat man suddenly remembered his duty, bluffed his face and said in a vicious tone, "Don't fish." ”

The man looked at the fat man and then at the other person next to him, then took out a strange gold coin from the bag hanging from his waist, pinched it with two fingers and shook it in front of the two of them.

"I'll give you two gold coins, but you're going to tell me, who's in charge of this lump now?"