Amid the Flow of the Times
Yusuf, who had been looking outside the carriage, turned his head toward Hassan, who had boarded at his command.
“Are you wondering why we’re suddenly going to the slave market?”
He gave Hassan, who was staring at him as if he were a ghost, a mocking chuckle.
Hassan’s thoughts were so plainly written across his face that Yusuf could tell what he was thinking without making any effort to read his emotions.
“Don’t get your hopes up. I’m not taking you there to sell you. I’d kill you before I sold you.”
“I-I never thought anything like that! Please believe me!”
“I’m joking, joking.”
Hassan was trembling so violently that he clearly hadn’t been able to take it as a joke, but wasn’t that what a superior’s jokes were usually like?
Enough fooling around. It was time to assess how useful Hassan really was.
“Hassan, as you’ve heard, I’ll be going to Trabzon before long. But that’s a place Lord Selim ruled for a long time. In your opinion, what do you think the biggest problem will be?”
“…The problem will probably be that his followers are still there.”
See? Our Hassan really was a useful slave.
“Then what’s the solution?”
“……”
Hassan became mute as if he had honey in his mouth.
Cold sweat poured down his half-bared forehead, and his hands trembled uncontrollably.
‘If I sigh even once, he’ll faint.’
It was time to stop tormenting him.
He still hadn’t gotten rid of all his visceral fat, and if he teased Hassan too much and gave him a heart attack, it would be a loss.
“It’s easy if you think of why our empire employs the devshirme.”
Devshirme was a system in which boys were forcibly recruited and raised to become soldiers and bureaucrats.
Its targets were primarily Christians in the Balkans. The children selected in this way were converted to Islam, taught Ottoman Turkish, and given a variety of training.
Those who achieved the best results became officials directly under the imperial household or high-ranking ministers, while those who excelled in military matters became members of the regular cavalry, the Kapıkulu Sipahi, or the elite infantry, the Janissaries.
The reason this system had been introduced was the Turkic nobility.
“As you know, the factions created through the devshirme restrain the Turkic nobles who oppose the sultan and serve to establish the sultan’s authority.”
“Are you saying that we should also use the devshirme to build up a personal guard loyal to us?”
“Are you insane? I heard that two people who were caught attempting a false conscription in Trabzon had their hands cut off. Do you want to end up like that?”
Even a dog growled when someone touched its bowl. If you touched the sultan’s bowl, on the other hand, your hand would be cut off.
“Besides, I don’t have the time to raise people and put them to use right now. That’s why you’re still alive.”
If he’d had that kind of time, Fatima, who felt betrayed after all the years they had spent together, would have split Hassan into ‘hot’ and ‘san’ and thrown him to the dogs.
It was an era in which a traitor was lucky to die without being tortured.
Yusuf clicked his tongue at Hassan’s pallid face and rose from his seat just as the carriage came to a stop.
“I need a personal force loyal to me. If possible, the more immediately combat-ready they are, the better. I came to the slave market to see whether such people exist.”
According to his plans, he would have to face Ismail I in battle within three years, and he needed to build up his forces before then.
What greeted Yusuf when he stepped down from the carriage was an enormous crowd.
There were so many people that arriving by carriage was practically the equivalent of driving a car down a pedestrian sidewalk, but no one dared complain even after seeing the fearsome escort.
Of course, this crowd had not gathered to buy slaves.
Even the cheapest slave would be equivalent to a luxury foreign car by modern standards, so ordinary people could not even dream of affording one.
“Is that the textile market?”
“Yes. It was built by Mehmed II the Conqueror.”
One would be mistaken to imagine some ordinary neighborhood market upon hearing the name textile market.
It was a luxury shopping district selling expensive fabrics, jewelry, relics, and more—a place where every merchant visiting the capital gathered.
As a result, a complicated commercial district had sprung up around it, including the slave market, and it was now packed with people to the point that there was hardly room to set foot.
‘It’s not as though I have money to spend on luxuries, so I have no intention of browsing.’
If he had that kind of money, he wouldn’t be bothering to slim Hassan down so he could put him to use.
Yusuf had little interest in luxuries, but once he became sultan, he could play marbles with jewels and dominoes with gold, so he had no regrets.
“Let’s go in.”
Yusuf led the way into the large building marked ‘Esir Pazarı,’ meaning slave market.
The guards glared fiercely to keep penniless riffraff from entering, but no fool would dare stop Yusuf from coming in with an entourage of guards hanging off him.
It was Yusuf’s first time entering a slave market, and he experienced a cultural shock.
If he had to put it into words, perhaps it felt like seeing pornography for the first time in his life.
Of course, that did not mean he felt any sexual desire.
The slaves, men and women, young and old alike, barely had enough clothing to cover themselves, while merchants loudly called out to customers and customers haggled beside them.
The merchants examined their teeth by putting fingers into their mouths, lifted their clothing to inspect every part of their bodies, and explained what fine products the slaves were. They regarded the people before them as nothing more than merchandise.
Of course, Yusuf had just come from seeing heads that had been severed because of him, so it was not as though he had suddenly developed some shallow sympathy for slaves.
‘I just realized all over again that this is the kind of era we live in.’
One might say it was strange for him to be surprised now, after using Hassan like a slave at his side, but honestly, people being worked like slaves was hardly something one couldn’t see even in the modern world.
Even setting aside the salt-pan slave cases that occasionally appeared in the news, it was impossible to say that the work intensity endured by modern people worn down by overtime was any better than that of the slaves being sold here.
‘A slave sold in the capital probably won’t be put to work as an extreme-labor galley oarsman, so if I had to compare it to something, it would be like living your whole life as a private first class.’
Thinking of it that way made it feel even more horrifying, but in any case, seeing people being sold with his own eyes gave him a different feeling.
The possibility that those slaves would live longer than he did was quite high, and with Yusuf’s memories as well, it did not take him long to pull himself out of his thoughts.
Having finished his brief contemplation, Yusuf began to properly look around the slave market.
It was not difficult to distinguish the slave merchants from the customers.
The customers were draped in expensive fabrics and flashy accessories, as if they had hung a sign around their necks reading, I’m rich.
Among people who were practically the equivalent of building owners in Gangnam by modern standards, Yusuf possessed an overwhelming presence.
It was not simply because he had so many guards with him. Every step he took was imbued with dignity.
Yusuf also felt the glances subtly pouring toward him, but he did not pay them much attention.
‘As long as there’s no killing intent, who cares?’
The past few days had been too spectacular for him to be sensitive over mere looks.
Yusuf stopped in front of a slave.
“How much would this slave cost?”
He was a sturdy Black slave.
Judging by the muscles clinging to his body alone, he looked like he could put his strength to good use.
“You have an eye for quality, my lord. Eighty ducats will do.”
“That’s expensive.”
Eighty ducats was 4,800 akçe. It was enough money for an ordinary person to save up over four years if they did nothing but breathe.
The merchant had likely named a high price in anticipation of haggling, but considering that the cheapest slaves were the disabled and Black slaves, it was still expensive.
“Please don’t look at it that way. If what’s hanging below is inconvenient, I can have it cut off for you. I have connections with a craftsman who makes eunuchs to be sent to the palace, so you needn’t worry. Shall I leave half of it?”
At those words, the slave, who had been standing as still as a stone, flinched.
Yusuf acknowledged the necessity of eunuchs.
Even if one could not prevent eunuchs from becoming the playthings of queens and concubines, one had to at least prevent someone else’s child from becoming the heir.
Otherwise, it would be like being cuckolded by a cuckoo.
But he had no perverse hobby of cutting things off without necessity, so Yusuf waved his hand.
“No, forget it. There’s something else I want to ask.”
Though the transaction had failed, the merchant put on a professional smile.
Judging by the guards surrounding him, it was obvious that the person standing before him was no ordinary man.
“Do you happen to have any Circassians among the slaves here?”
That was the reason he had come all the way here himself.
The Circassians were an ethnic group that lived along the Black Sea coast, around present-day Sochi in Russia. Just as Ukraine was regarded in Korea as a country of beauties, the Circassians occupied a similar position.
They were so famous for their beauty that, in later years, the harems of the Ottoman and Safavid Empires would be filled with Circassian women, and several works of Russian literature would portray them as alluring beauties.
Because of this fantasy, they were also a people subjected to vicious slave hunts. It became so bad that they eventually even converted from Christianity to Islam in an attempt to escape being hunted as slaves.
‘But I’m not interested in them because of their women.’
He was walking on thin ice. Did beauty really matter right now?
The reason he was interested in the Circassians was that they were famous for producing the Mamluks, the heavy cavalry of the Mamluk Sultanate.
‘Even if they weren’t Mamluks, they must have been born warriors, considering they managed to defeat the massive Timurid Empire in war.’
In other words, they would be a dependable addition to his side if he could win them over.
“Oh, Circassians? As it happens, we do have one. You’re very fortunate.”
With a bright smile, the merchant led Yusuf to the Circassian slave he had been looking for.
However—
“Take a look. Beautiful golden hair, translucent skin, and green eyes. The face of a perfect Circassian beauty. Contrary to what people think, most of them have dark hair, so it’s difficult to find such a typical beauty.”
The problem was that the person standing before him was a girl who looked barely old enough to be in middle school.
As the merchant said, with looks like that, she would not be sold to a slave trader but presented as a gift to the sultan’s harem or given as a concubine to a high-ranking official. The problem was that Yusuf had not come here looking for a woman.
Before Yusuf could speak again, a sharp voice rang out.
“You damned bastards. Trash not fit even to be horse feed.”
It was an insult, but when the slave spoke fluent Ottoman, Yusuf asked the merchant,
“Is she really Circassian? As far as I know, they have a language of their own.”
“She picked up the language by eavesdropping for two months, just so she could curse us.”
If that was true, then she was exceptionally intelligent.
He had not planned on buying a female slave, but if she was this clever, he might have to give it some thought.
“What’s your name?”
“I have no name to tell a bloodline like yours, one that deserves to fall straight into hell!”
Hassan’s face paled as he listened from the side.
They had openly insulted the Sultan’s bloodline. If they had known his identity, it would not have been strange for them to be subjected to death by dismemberment.
Yet Yusuf smiled pleasantly and spoke as though he had not heard the insult.
“You shouldn’t say things like that. You’re only spitting in your own face.”
“…What?”
As the girl voiced her question amid her hostility, Yusuf’s mysterious, gleaming green eyes curved gently.
“Half of my blood is the same as yours.”
The girl’s eyes widened as though she had just heard a secret of birth from a morning soap opera.
∗ ∗ ∗
It would be a mistake to think that plunder in this era was simply the work of bands of robbers running rampant.
If anything, plunder was closer to a state-sponsored enterprise encouraged by national policy.
Just as Europeans went to Africa or the New World to plunder the natives and put them to work as slaves, it served not only economic purposes but tactical ones as well.
‘The Akinji, the irregular light cavalry the Ottomans operated along their borders, are a good example.’
True to their reputation as infamous irregulars, they received not a single coin from the state, but they were free to cross into enemy territory and plunder at any time.
Through them, the Ottomans could attack enemy villages, garrisons, fortresses, and border posts, while also identifying weaknesses in their defenses.
‘It drives the countries on the receiving end completely mad, but for the Ottomans, it’s killing two birds with one stone.’
It was not for nothing that the states in Europe, which treated the Ottomans like the Devil and smashed each other’s heads in, would link arms and form a Holy League whenever their opponent was the Ottoman Empire.
The Ottomans had two powerful plundering machines at their disposal.
The first was the Barbary pirates of the Mediterranean, who enslaved more than a million Europeans over three centuries.
The second was the Crimean Khanate, which set fire to Moscow and carried away 150,000 people, and enslaved more than two million over the course of two hundred years.
The isolated land jutting out into the Black Sea belonged to the Crimean Khanate, an Ottoman vassal state.
The reason he had suddenly brought up raiders was that Circassians were among the Crimean Khanate’s primary targets.
When he said that half her blood was the same as his, the girl’s eyes went round.
“Really?”
“Yeah, really.”
To be honest, Yusuf had been quite surprised to hear Fatima say that he was a Circassian captured by the Crimean Khanate.
When he had thought of Trabzon after leaving it, searching for allies to draw in and strip Selim of the military’s support, there had been two places he had considered.
One was Georgia, which shared a border with Trabzon, and the other was Circassia, attached to it on the other side.
At first, he had considered neighboring Georgia his top priority, but after hearing this story, he changed his mind.
‘Others might say she’s unlucky, being descended from slaves with no maternal relatives to rely on.’
But, as the saying went, luck came from planning. Everything depended on how one arranged the board.
Of course, he did not know how effective a “Come on, aren’t we all kin?” appeal would be, and the more cards he had in his hand, the better, so he had no intention of abandoning Georgia either.
At this point, one might ask whether it would not be better simply to woo the Crimean Khanate.
‘They’re too proud for that to be easy.’
As the only Muslim vassal state, it enjoyed privileges bordering on independence, and no matter how hard he tried, they would not even bother to snort at him.
Yusuf asked the slightly dazed girl:
“Then let me ask again. What’s your name?”
“…Maria.”
“That name won’t do as it is. From now on, your name is Ayşe.”
Yusuf smiled faintly at Ayşe as she nodded with a bewildered expression.
Since Islam was the religion of the Ottoman ruling class, even the names of slaves had to be chosen carefully if he wanted to earn their favor.
Although it was not an age in which women had many opportunities to act, a clever one could be put to use somehow.
‘She should at least earn her keep as an interpreter.’
As Yusuf entertained these thoughts, the merchant asked with a sly smile:
“I knew you would recognize at once that she was a rare slave, my lord. You have no idea how many high officials coveted her. You are very fortunate, young master.”
Fortunate? He was fortunate, that was true, but…
“You couldn’t sell her because if you handed over a slave this rebellious and something went wrong, you’d have been held responsible. Isn’t that right?”
“Aha-ha-ha….”
Who did he think he was fooling?
Since she was such an expensive slave despite her rebelliousness, they probably had not even dared educate her too harshly.
“So how much is she?”
“As you have seen, she is a slave who has not been properly trained, so I will let her go for exactly four hundred ducats.”
Yusuf did not lose his smile even at the dizzyingly large sum. Instead, he turned and called for Hassan.
“Hassan.”
“Yes!”
“If a slave curses the bloodline of a prince, the slave’s owner would be punished as well, wouldn’t he?”
Yusuf smiled sincerely at the merchant, who went pale in an instant.
The merchant had been right. He really was fortunate.
∗ ∗ ∗
He would have liked to shout out four ducats and rob the man blind, but it would have been troublesome if the merchant killed Ayşe while claiming to be paying the price for his crime.
Since Yusuf’s identity was still hidden, the merchant could get away with only that much punishment thanks to mitigating circumstances.
He had at least a minimum of conscience, so he paid three hundred ducats and took Ayşe along with five Circassian men to serve as her guards.
Though it was still thuggish behavior all the same.
‘If I weren’t a prince, I’d have gotten punched by now.’
Even Hassan, a merchant with years of experience under his belt, looked thoroughly fed up, so the details can be omitted.
The moment they arrived, Fatima and Nene dragged Ayşe away, saying that they would begin her education.
She had a mountain of things to learn, starting with basic etiquette.
‘She must have heard that she hurled every curse in the book at me, so they’ll educate her very harshly.’
He already felt as if Ayşe’s distant wails were reaching his ears, but unfortunately, he had no time to pay attention to her right now.
A difficult opponent had arrived.
“It is a pleasure to meet you, Prince. I am Shemsi Pasha.”
“A pleasure.”
They had done nothing more than exchange greetings, but Yusuf could immediately tell that he was no easy opponent.
He could not sense a single thing through Emotion Perception.
‘Even if he was pushed aside in the struggle for power, a pasha is still a pasha.’
A frustrating feeling washed over him, as though one of his eyes had gone blind, but he had already expected as much.
The power struggles of this era were on an entirely different level from those of the modern world.
A greenhorn incapable of hiding even his own emotions properly would have gone to meet Allah long before he could ever receive the title of pasha.
“I have received the Padishah’s command to assist Your Highness from now on.”
Even though he had been demoted and sent to a prince far from the central authority, a prince with almost no chance of becoming Sultan, he did not reveal so much as a grain of emotion.
Yusuf smiled at the inscrutable Shemsi.
“It is reassuring to have an experienced pasha assisting with my duties as sanjak bey.”
A sanjak was something akin to a district, and beneath it were subdivisions called kazas.
With more than ten kazas under the Trabzon Sanjak, including Trabzon Kaza itself, it was an extremely vast territory.
Naturally, they could not entrust such a broad land entirely to a young prince and an inexperienced concubine, so they attached various assistants, including advisers, teachers, and physicians.
‘But it would be a problem to trust and rely on an adviser completely.’
A young ruler and an adviser who managed the territory in his place.
If a regent and a figurehead ruler had come to mind, then one had guessed correctly.
‘It wasn’t uncommon for them to blind the princes and commit corruption behind their backs.’
How could that happen?
In the Ottoman Empire, a prince who let himself be treated that way was simply an idiot.
How could they entrust an empire to someone who struggled just to manage a handful of people?
That said, he could not be so afraid of them that he kept his distance. That would be like a fool cutting meat with his bare hands because he was afraid of the knife.
He merely needed to determine where the knife was pointed.
“Then, Pasha, what do you plan to do first?”
“I intend to select the people who will assist Your Highness besides myself. Are there any people you would prefer?”
Most of those appointments would be teachers who were meant to instruct him.
There was a mountain of subjects to learn—science, history, religion, military science, martial arts, and more—so naturally, there would be a whole host of teachers to select.
Choosing them himself would be tedious, and looking at the teachers Shemsi selected would also give him a glimpse into what the pasha was thinking, so he had no intention of stopping him.
‘If he tries anything foolish, I can use it as an excuse to root him out.’
He already had plenty of external enemies. He had no intention of raising a nest of rats inside his own camp.
“I’ll leave the basic appointments to you, Pasha. But I would like to select the physician myself.”
“The physician?”
“Yes.”
At the very least, shouldn’t he keep hold of his own lifeline?
Even if it was not for something like assassination, there were many physicians who seemed like quacks from a modern perspective.
‘I need an excellent physician, if only for the future.’
He did not know how many times he would participate in wars while serving as sanjak bey, but it certainly would not end after just one or two.
Even in an age when cauterization—searing severe wounds with fire—was the primary treatment, he needed to bring in someone capable of basic surgical care.
‘And I need to think about smallpox inoculation, too.’
There was no disease in this era as terrifying as smallpox.
Its cumulative death toll was over a billion, far exceeding the three hundred million attributed to the Black Death, so it was no coincidence that inoculation always appeared whenever people discussed alternate history and the like.
There could be nothing more absurd than struggling to become Sultan only to die of smallpox through sheer bad luck.
‘The fame he could gain by making inoculation public would be a great help as well.’
Of course, he had no intention of making it public right away.
With barely any power at his disposal, revealing something like that would only earn him a midnight visitor bearing his brothers’ love.
At Yusuf’s declaration that he would find a physician himself, Shemsi nodded without showing even the slightest curiosity.
“A physician. Understood. Then I will look for suitable candidates aside from that position.”
“Very well. I’m counting on you.”
After Shemsi left, Yusuf let out a long sigh.
Dealing with someone whose thoughts he could not read was more exhausting than he had expected.
Under normal circumstances, he might have even resented the Sultan for sending him such a man….
“Does one need this much nerve to become the master of an empire?”
Looking at the Sultan’s gifts of independence piled up in one corner of the room, Yusuf clicked his tongue.
Perhaps it was a case of coveting what one saw, but the treasures glittering resplendently with golden light were enough to awaken greed he had never possessed.
“Good heavens, they’re dazzling. I wonder how much I could get if I sold them all.”
Wouldn’t it bring in at least twenty or thirty thousand gold coins?
It was far too much money to curse the Sultan over.
∗ ∗ ∗
Thump, thump! Thump! Thump!
Thunderous drums echoed throughout Constantinople.
Galleys driven by dozens of oarsmen and more than a hundred supply ships covered the sea, while three towering galleys proudly cut through the waves.
Most impressive of all were the two massive carracks.
Those enormous ships, each capable of carrying a thousand people, churned up rough currents simply by moving.
The Sultan’s flag, announcing the war, fluttered above Topkapi Palace, while those who had gathered to witness the spectacle shouted the names of Allah and the Padishah at the top of their lungs.
It was a cry heralding the beginning of a war that had mobilized more than forty thousand sailors alone.
Yusuf took in the sight with both eyes, his heart pounding just from looking at it.
“It’s truly begun.”
He did not mean the war between Venice and the Ottoman Empire, which would continue until the two states signed a treaty in 1503.
He meant that, since the Empire had closed one eye in pursuit of victory, it was time for a new giant to rise.
This tide could never be stopped.
‘Nor should it be.’
Just as an age of turmoil was necessary for a hero to emerge, the Empire’s chaos was necessary for him to become Sultan.
The conflict between the Sultan, who responded passively to the Safavid Empire, and the military, which harbored discontent over it.
The Shahkulu Rebellion, sparked by the Safavid Empire’s support, followed by the rebellions of the princes that would arise in its wake.
This scene felt like the beginning of a long, drawn-out struggle.