"What is this?" Seresnus was full of questions upon hearing this, looking at the ergot with even greater confusion. After a long pause, he finally managed to stammer out a jumbled question, "This ergot is edible, right, Your Majesty? You don't like drinking ergot wine, do you?"
This left Manuel speechless. "No, I prefer wine. As for whether it's edible or not, why don't you try it yourself? If you want to eat it, this rye ergot is yours."
After pondering for a moment, the Chancellor replied with a wry smile, "Forget it, Your Majesty, I still prefer wheat bread."
"Never mind, let's get back to military construction." Seeing that his minister had nothing more to add, Manuel lost interest in discussing the topic further and turned back to military affairs.
While the affairs of the Bosphorus Despotate were proceeding in an orderly fashion, in the Karaman court, Bey Suleiman was discussing the future development of the Beylik with his Vizier and generals. The reason was not complicated: Suleiman and Manuel's old friend, the recently enthroned Mamluk Sultan Yusuf Jaqmaq, had, in recent months, sent an envoy for a routine visit and hinted that he was willing to secretly support Karaman, along with the Republic of Venice, in attacking the Ottoman Sultanate. This was to bog down the Ottoman, who was about to go to war with the Europeans, in the quagmire of Anatolia, thereby causing the Sultanate, facing a two-front war, to collapse.
Unlike the previous verbal promises from only the Latins, the statement from Egypt, which had genuinely supported Karaman before, truly moved Suleiman. Suleiman, who paid more attention to foreign relations than his predecessors, knew that the Venetians' talk of a holy war against the Ottoman was likely a certainty. What tilted the scales in his heart even more towards war with the Ottoman was that Venice told him that the Bosphorus Despotate would also participate in the holy war against the Ottoman, and that Karaman would not be isolated in Asia Minor.
To persuade Suleiman, the Venetians and Mamluks even joined forces, appealing to the Bey with both reason and emotion. Faced with support from Cairo, the Karaman leadership in Konya was overjoyed. In their eyes, with the support of the strongest kindred great power in the Near East, which now held the Caliph, a mere Ottoman, whom even Karaman could not destroy, was no longer anything to fear.
Therefore, in early January of this year, Suleiman Karamanoglu agreed to the request of the two countries and secretly signed an alliance for war against the Ottoman. In this way, the Karaman Beylik was also drawn into the war, and it was unknown when it would charge headlong towards its old enemy.
However, even though the aggressive action against the Ottoman would receive unanimous support from home and abroad, Suleiman still dared not immediately rush into battle with the Ottoman. The hard losses suffered by previous Beys at the hands of the Ottoman had almost become a psychological shadow for him. But if he didn't seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, the Bey worried that the Ottoman would continue to defeat various forces as before, squeezing Karaman's living space and even leading to its demise.
Thinking to this point, Suleiman, troubled by the timing of the war, thought of his infidel friend, Bosporus Caesar Manuel, who was around his age. If it were he, who had seized the opportunity to defeat the Ottoman, perhaps he could offer some useful advice.
Thus, some time later, Manuel received a letter from his close friend Suleiman. During this period, envoys from Venice, Constantinople, the Roman Curia, Pest, and even Cairo had also contacted him, urging him to join the upcoming holy war against the Ottoman. Manuel readily agreed to the requests of these envoys, but he refused to sign any written alliance or reveal the timing of his operations against the Ottoman, always keeping them in suspense.
Now, after reading this letter, he felt a sudden unease and quickly took the time to write a reply by hand, admonishing Suleiman not to make any radical speculative moves based on empty promises:
"…I am glad you are willing to trust me, your humble friend, and that you cherish our friendship. But my friend, please allow my foolish self, under God's guidance, to offer some humble opinions—
"Although the Mamluk Sultan Jaqmaq has a personal acquaintance with both of us, and his sincerity is not feigned, his reinforcements must pass through the Levant to reach Anatolia. Moreover, he has only recently ascended to power, and even fought a civil war against generals in Damascus and Aleppo before, so his control over the Levant is far less strong than that of his predecessor, Barsbay. Therefore, you cannot blindly trust his promises, but rather need to quickly improve your relationship with the Emirs who hold real power in Syria, ensuring that they do not, due to their disloyalty to Cairo, obstruct Jaqmaq's assistance to you, and thereby hinder your military actions;
"And the Venetians are cunning and deceitful; their minds will always only serve for ducats. Do not believe that they will be willing to wholeheartedly support you for the sake of a so-called holy war. Unless the Ottoman hinder their trade hegemony in the Eastern Mediterranean and press so hard that the Latins are forced to unite, then Venice's promises are all worthless.
"Although I truly wish to help you, my friend, even if our two nations combine forces, we cannot defeat the Ottoman by a single iota at this time. Even if we could truly seize a few border territories, it would in reality only be to the benefit of other powers.
"So, listen to my advice and endure for about another year. The time for our alliance will be when the Kingdom of Hungary truly goes to war with the Ottoman Sultanate. …In short, that is all. May Allah protect you, my friend."
After writing the letter, Manuel did not end his contemplation. Instead, he had Badars bring several recent confidential documents to his desk and began to read them carefully again, trying to clarify the Mamluks' reasons for instigating him and Karaman against the Ottoman. After a while, he summoned his Chancellor Seresnus to his side, stated his thoughts, and asked him to analyze them further,
"The Mamluk Sultanate's incitement of our country and Karaman to go to war against the Ottoman is indeed strange. Although Cairo's recent exchanges with the powerful Emirs in Syria have outwardly become more frequent, the situation still appears to be a mess. Moreover, there seems to be no trace of their large armies being deployed to the border or Syrian garrisons; instead, their navy has been moved to several major ports in the Eastern Mediterranean.
"Therefore, I believe that Sultan Jaqmaq has no intention of participating in this war. Even from the most optimistic perspective, he would at most provide us with a few small detachments. As for his unwitting collusion with the Venetians to persuade me and Suleiman, it is only to ensure that the relevant parties involved are too preoccupied to interfere with his own actions.
"Evidently, Cairo's hypothetical enemy, though in the Eastern Mediterranean, should not be a great power requiring its full effort."
"If that's the case, then what is Cairo's objective?" Seresnus held his breath upon hearing this.
"I have a very incredible idea, though without concrete evidence," Manuel looked south, his eyes filled with deep meaning, "I believe Egypt's target might be,
"The Kingdom of Cyprus."