Showdown
There is fear born of ignorance, like reaching into a box without knowing what lies inside; but there are also things one fears precisely because one knows.
After daybreak, the Mamluks felt that fear in their bones.
If only they had not known what cannons were, they might have regarded the five hundred guns aimed at them as nothing more than lumps of iron that might be dangerous.
But the Mamluks knew that cannons were monsters capable of turning thick, towering walls into rags in an instant.
Rrrrrumble!
The cannons encircling their camp in a semicircle looked like an iron curtain that could never be crossed.
As if confirming that their target was not the city walls but the Mamluk camp, the artillerymen lowered the angles of their guns, and the envoy who had left the previous day hurriedly returned.
“O Padishah! Did you not say you would grant us time to consider?!”
“And did I not grant it?”
He certainly had.
Though it had been only one night.
The envoy forced down the anger boiling up in him from shock and fury, then spoke urgently.
“This is not a matter that can be decided so easily, is it? It cannot be decided in a single night.”
“Very well. I shall give you more time.”
Saying so, Yusuf pointed a finger at the sky.
“When the sun reaches its highest point in the heavens. I will wait until then. No more.”
“O Padishah?!”
There were not even a few hours left. When the envoy cried out in horror, the silahdars with their vicious faces stepped forward.
“How dare you raise your voice before whom?”
“Enough.”
When Yusuf raised a hand to stop them, the soldiers pushed their half-drawn blades back into their scabbards.
The simultaneous clack of steel told the envoy that he had come within a hair’s breadth of death.
Yusuf turned away coldly and said,
“Go and tell them. The time given to them is nearly gone, and if they show any foolish movement, even this mercy will end.”
He did not know what they would think, but Yusuf truly considered it mercy.
Whatever the reason, they were enemies who had come to harm his men. Why would he spare them out of affection?
After the envoy left, the Grand Vizier said,
“O Padishah. They will not surrender.”
“I know. They are a rabble who do not even have a leader capable of making such a decision.”
Even if they did, there were not many who would choose surrender without a single battle.
“They must be thinking of fighting with death in mind, fleeing, or else slipping into Tabriz.”
The first two options would require accepting heavy losses, so their choice had likely narrowed to the third.
One could tell just from the fact that the gates of Tabriz had opened several times during the night.
“That is why I gave them so little time.”
“For the Safavids, they cannot readily open their gates to the Mamluks, so it will take them long to decide.”
No matter how allied they were, no one could know what would happen if they let in forty thousand troops, far more than the defenders of Tabriz.
It was a matter that could lead to Tabriz being plundered and destroyed, just as Venice had gathered crusaders only to sack Constantinople instead of Islam.
‘That cannot happen. This place will become my land, so if anyone is to plunder it, it should be me.’
Even plunder had its limits, and if it was to be done, it had to remain within the bounds of control.
They had no time to negotiate with Tabriz, and if they did not choose a battle tantamount to suicide, there was only one action they would take.
“Tell the artillerymen. If they show any sign of fleeing, bombard them at once.”
“Understood, O Padishah.”
The Mamluks’ main force had to be annihilated here.
∗ ∗ ∗
“What have you decided to do?”
At his subordinate’s question, the governor of Damascus—one of the four great cities of Islamic culture along with Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem—spat out thick saliva.
“There are all sorts, from idiots saying we should attack because the difference in numbers is not great, to cowards saying we should surrender. Tell the soldiers. Pack their belongings as quickly as possible.”
“Then…”
“Yes. If we are to preserve as many troops as possible, we must flee first.”
His priority was to maintain the troops he had brought and preserve his position as governor for the time being.
Unfortunately for him, he was not the only person thinking the same thing, and those who had brought fewer troops than he, who had brought a great many, moved faster.
“S-stop them! Don’t let them leave!”
“Out of the way, you bastards!”
It happened in an instant, without even giving them time to properly stop it.
A man on the outskirts of the camp took only the minimum amount of food, mounted his horse with three hundred subordinates, and fled out of the camp.
The trigger the Ottoman army had been waiting for was pulled.
With a vibration that shook heaven and earth, a thunderous roar rang out.
Boom! Bang!
Neiiiigh!
The explosions were so loud that even horses that had undergone tremendous training as warhorses startled, rearing up and crying out.
The blasts were so deafening that their numbed ears could barely hear even the horses neighing right beside them.
Because of that, even the sight of huge lumps of iron flying toward them felt unreal.
“Allah…”
Those were the last words a soldier cried as he saw the pitch-black shadow filling his vision.
Cannonballs rained down over the encampment and the soldiers’ heads.
The governor of Damascus saw the man who had twice gone as envoy to meet the Ottoman Padishah and survived—who had been said to be under Allah’s protection—get struck by a ricocheting cannonball and turned into a bloody pulp. He shouted,
“Everyone, calm yourselves! You must calm down!”
It was shocking because of the tremendous roar and the great cannonballs falling, but the losses among the troops were not large.
Unlike city walls, which suffered heavy damage with every hit, at most three or four men died from a single shot, so it was unsuitable for killing personnel.
Just as the situation was finally calming down thanks to the governor of Damascus, who had noticed this, Yusuf simply provided the answer to that.
Rattle! Rrrrrattle!
“Grrrgh! Put more strength into it, you bastards!”
Feeling their muscles being wrung dry, the soldiers strained, and the wheels moved with a clatter.
Even the cannons that had been set aside as reserves all came to the front of the battlefield, and the Janissary Agha spoke with concern.
“We lack artillerymen to operate the cannons.”
“It is fine. They can learn as they fire. And what does it matter if they cannot aim properly?”
There were so many targets that someone would die even if they fired roughly.
It was an Ottoman-style flex, made possible by an abundant supply of gunpowder.
∗ ∗ ∗
The cannonballs pouring down with explosive roars were violence that could not be resisted.
They trembled in terror, with no chance even to sleep.
As night fell and the temperature dropped, the cannons cooled faster, and more than a few soldiers who could not endure their drowsiness and fell asleep ended up sleeping forever.
It was the moment deserters began appearing one after another.
“Stop them! Do not let them flee!”
Men stole horses or deserted even with nothing but the clothes on their backs, and this tide could not be brought under control.
That did not mean all the deserters escaped safely.
“Kill every one of them who resists! There is no need to spare them!”
Soldiers with match cords wrapped around their bodies, glowing like will-o’-the-wisps in the night, pulled the triggers of their matchlocks.
Even the soldiers who fled along the walls of Tabriz, where no encirclement could be established, could only scream in despair before the firmly shut gates.
In the end, the Mamluk army was torn in two.
Those who gave up resisting and surrendered, and those who fled while accepting the losses.
Bang!
An ally struck in the head by a bullet was flung away as if snapped back, but the fleeing Mamluk soldiers did not stop.
Even under the rain of bullets, the mounted Mamluk soldiers drove their horses forward and crashed into the Ottoman troops with bayonets raised.
Thuck!
“Kuh-huk!”
As though his luck had run out while avoiding the hail of bullets, a soldier whose chest was pierced by a bayonet gripped it with a sound like air escaping his lungs.
Then the next Mamluk soldier surged in and swung his blade at the Ottoman troops.
It was, quite literally, a bloody path.
The road they had passed was embroidered with crimson blood, and beyond the encirclement they had barely broken through were the cavalry of the Sipahi and the Crimean Khanate.
They suffered enormous losses while shaking off the two pursuing cavalry forces, losses far too painful for a force that had come merely to keep the Ottomans in check.
“Forgive me, O Padishah! We allowed roughly five thousand troops to escape. Please punish me!”
“This is enough.”
Of the forty thousand enemy troops in total, twenty thousand had been killed, and around fifteen thousand had been taken prisoner.
Even excluding the wounded who might die at any moment, it meant they had captured about ten thousand prisoners.
Of course, they had not suffered no losses at all; five thousand casualties had occurred, but this was certainly a great victory.
‘The Mamluks have their own reserves of strength, so they will conscript more, but the losses they suffered today cannot be restored in a short time.’
After all, elite soldiers were not something that could be made in a flash.
Yusuf rose from his seat and picked up the gun lying beside him.
“Grand Vizier, I shall leave matters here to you.”
There were several cannons that had been damaged in this bombardment and become bombs rather than guns, but many remained intact.
Taking Tabriz without Mamluk aid would be an easy task.
Seeing Yusuf sling the gun over his shoulder, the Grand Vizier’s eyes widened.
“You must not! What need is there for you to go in person?”
“To cut off that bastard’s breath, I must go myself.”
They had dealt enormous damage to the Mamluks, and the capture of Tabriz, the enemy capital, was right before their eyes, but this was still only half a victory.
If he did not take that bastard Ismail’s head, it was not yet victory.
Yusuf had an intuition that was close to certainty.
“If I fail to kill Ismail this time, I will regret it for a long, long time.”
The farthest the Ottomans could extend their reach was Tabriz.
If they went beyond that, they would also have to fight the natural barrier that was the Iranian Plateau, with an average elevation of 1,300 meters.
If Ismail, who had become more vicious than in the original history, used the Iranian Plateau to harass the Ottomans, the blueprint for the future could be distorted.
“Even so, there is no need for you to move personally and put yourself in danger! Please trust and entrust this to the Sipahi and the cavalry of the Crimean Khanate!”
“That is so. Please place your trust in us!”
The sanjakbeys leading the Sipahi all knelt at once, and Saadet, the Khan of the Crimean Khanate, also paid his respects.
“Your Majesty the Padishah, please trust the man you made Khan. The Crimean Khanate and I will not disappoint you.”
Saadet had been made Khan of the Crimean Khanate partly because he was easy to leash, but also because he possessed decent ability.
To begin with, even with Yusuf’s protection, if he had been incompetent in the Crimean Khanate, where the laws of the steppe held sway, he would not have been able to keep his life.
Yusuf trusted Saadet’s abilities, and those of his retainers as well, but his thoughts did not change.
“Ismail may have stepped into a trap and become prey, but do not underestimate him.”
The region where Ismail was presumed to be lay between Diyarbakir and Tabriz.
With sixty thousand cavalry, they could form an encirclement, so he was indeed trapped—but Ismail had more than enough ability to break through a trap of this scale.
Even in the original history, had he not lost at Chaldiran and still escaped well enough despite his wounds?
“Even if the enemy scatters and flees, can you be certain you can kill Ismail?”
“Of course!”
“Even if he throws the Qizilbash out as bait and runs?”
If his bodyguard, the Qizilbash, suffered heavy losses, it would be an enormous blow to Ismail as well, but if he was thinking of revenge, he might very well act that way.
They had to keep in mind that carelessness born of disbelief could become a grave misjudgment.
“Does Your Majesty the Padishah have a clever plan to catch him?”
“It is not difficult.”
Yusuf smiled coldly.
“All I need to do is reveal that I am here. If it is him, he will come rushing to kill me.”
“Your Majesty the Padishah?! You must not!”
“We absolutely cannot allow that! Even if it means letting him escape!”
The Ottoman Empire’s current explosive growth depended on Yusuf.
If something went wrong and he died, it would not end with the simple death of the Padishah; the entire Ottoman state could be shaken.
At the cries of his horrified retainers opposing him, Yusuf struck the butt of his gun against the floor.
Thud!
“Silence!”
At his shout, the council chamber fell quiet, and Yusuf bared his teeth fiercely.
“This is a conclusion I must draw myself! I will hear no more objections. Prepare to march!”
No matter how dissatisfied they were, once the Padishah had declared it, they could no longer add any further protest.
All they could do was their utmost to ensure Yusuf did not so much as injure a fingertip.
After the retainers left to make preparations, Yusuf murmured softly in the now-empty council chamber.
“It is time for you to leave the stage, Ismail.”
∗ ∗ ∗
“Yusuuuuuf!”
Ismail, his face twisted like a vengeful demon, roared harshly.
The dust rising over the plain became a gust of wind and wrapped around the battlefield.
∗ ∗ ∗
The blood flowing from the hideous wound was beginning to stop.
It was not being staunched. There was simply no more blood left to flow, and he was dying.
He was neither subordinate nor enemy. Thus, it was neither punishment nor execution, but nothing more than venting anger.
“…Your Majesty the Shah.”
Under the pretext that he could not believe the words that had been spoken, the torture came to an end, and Ismail looked down at the Mamluk soldier who had breathed his last.
Blood flowed from his tightly bitten lip.
“In my heart, I thought it might turn out this way. It was my lingering attachment that made you all suffer.”
“Not at all! The Shah’s judgment was entirely rational.”
Ustajlu flatly denied his self-reproach.
They had been deceived by the enemy and attacked a false supply unit, but that did not change the situation.
The enemy had to move their supplies, and they had to find the real supplies and stop them from being transported.
“Who could have known they would have enough troops to pass safely through the north?”
The forces they had already mobilized numbered over one hundred thousand, and yet that figure had excluded the troops of the Crimean Khanate.
No matter how he thought about it, it was beyond common sense.
At his subordinate’s consolation, Ismail replied coldly.
“There is no need to comfort me. So many troops marched south, yet not a single report of it reached my ears. No matter how thoroughly the enemy disguised themselves as you, that fact does not change.”
It was a painful reminder of just how much control they had lost, even if fear had been the cause.
Ismail answered the gazes filled with anxiety and worry with burning eyes.
“Do not be afraid. Defeat does not mean the end! Even Muhammad himself overcame defeat and crisis. I, too, shall do the same! Who am I?!”
“You are the incarnation of the Prophet Al-Khidr, who gave teachings to Moses, the soul of Christ, and the keeper of the sacred fire.”
At Ismail’s question, the Qizilbash answered.
Ismail, who had been deified since childhood, had also sincerely believed himself to be just that.
A man who had once been like a glass vessel because of his excessive self-esteem had met a formidable foe and grown hard enough not to be shaken by ordinary trials.
It was a sight sufficient to wash away the unease of the Qizilbash.
“Tabriz has effectively fallen into enemy hands. Therefore, we will move south first.”
“Do you intend to head for Isfahan via Baghdad, as planned?”
“I do. Hard times lie ahead.”
Isfahan had once prospered through commerce and industry, but it had gradually declined amid continuous wars.
Two centuries ago, it had been occupied by Timur, and when its people killed Timur’s soldiers and tax collectors, it had collapsed completely.
At the time, Timur slaughtered seventy thousand citizens and built twenty-eight towers out of fifteen hundred heads. Even now, the city had yet to recover from that devastation and remained half in ruins.
“I will rebuild Isfahan as my capital and take revenge on that bastard Yusuf. Even if it takes decades, I will do it without fail.”
It was a vow Ismail could make because he was still in his twenties.
Ismail summoned the Qizilbash who had scattered in all directions to search for supplies, and among those who returned safely, there were others who did not.
As if they had fought a fierce battle, men stained with blood knelt before Ismail.
“It is the Ottoman army! The Ottoman army is attacking our forces!”
It was a hunt that had been planned in advance.
∗ ∗ ∗
Ping!
“Aaaagh! Die!”
The Qizilbash twisted his body and took the arrow that flew in with a sharp whistle of wind in his left shoulder, then swung his sword.
The hot blood splashed across his face told him that the enemy collapsing before him had been alive only moments ago, and that was his final thought.
Behind the Qizilbash whose head burst open from a thrown hand axe, two groups mounted on frenzied horses continued their brutal bloodbath.
Neiiiigh!
“Your Majesty the Shah!”
“I know! Those damned bastards are treating us like prey!”
Seeing his subordinates, who had turned their horses around to hold off the pursuit, dying amid enemies twice their number made rage boil inside him.
As they shook off the pursuers, his own force had already fallen to around thirteen thousand, and the enemies pressing them seemed to be luring them onward.
Gripping the reins harder in anger, Ismail judged the situation coldly.
“Whatever they have prepared, we have no choice. We keep moving!”
The encirclement had been woven far too tightly to tear through by force and escape, and the direction in which they were being lured was the south, where they had intended to go in the first place.
Even if they changed direction, it would only become more dangerous.
The Qizilbash clung tenaciously to the pursuing troops to hold them back, and once they had shaken off the pursuit to some extent, they could see it.
A little over five thousand infantry lined up across the plain, and above them, a fluttering banner.
Because it belonged to the enemy, they knew it all the better: it was the banner symbolizing the Sultan. And the face of the man standing before it came faintly into view.
He had never met him face to face, but his pounding heart told him clearly who the enemy in the splendid attire was.
“Yusuuuf!”
Ismail, his face twisted like a vengeful demon, shouted harshly.
Through the thunder of hooves shaking the earth and the dust swirling like a gust of wind, the man who had stood at the front seemed to hear that cry and turned his horse around.
“We must capture him!”
“You must calm yourself! It may be a trap! No, it must be a trap!”
Even if the man before them truly was the Ottoman Sultan, it was strange for him to be on the plain together with infantry.
But Ismail’s judgment, too, was the result not of impulse but of rational calculation.
“Even if it is a trap, all we need to do is capture him!”
If Yusuf died, the Ottoman Empire, whose only heirs were children, would surely be shaken.
And even if it was a trap, that was fine.
“They are infantry anyway! We can win without fail!”
On the plains, infantry were prey for cavalry, and they outnumbered them by more than two to one.
Moreover, while targeting supplies, they had already fought enemy infantry armed with guns, so his confidence was not entirely baseless.
On that basis, the fleeing Qizilbash changed direction, and Yusuf slung the gun he was gripping over his shoulder.
“Come on then, Ismail.”
Yusuf, who had worried they might flee even after seeing such tempting bait, smiled as he watched the enemy surge toward him.
They were likely charging in without fear precisely because they had fought guns while looting supplies, but those had been soldiers who had received only two weeks of intensive training.
The Janissaries, who had already received more than two years of firearms training, were on an entirely different level, and Yusuf smiled.
“Welcome to the era of line infantry.”
From now on, the paradigm of war would change.
∗ ∗ ∗
Watching the Qizilbash surge forward like Mount Tai, the Janissaries gripped their aimed guns even tighter.
It was such a threatening sight that they felt fortunate to have comrades pressed close at their sides, and while they swallowed dryly, the enemy closed in at an instant.
By the time the eyes gleaming with killing intent could be seen clearly, the unit commander, called a çorbacı—a name derived from the word for soup cook—shouted.
“Fire!”
With the sound of exploding gunpowder, the powerful firepower born of a dense formation swept away the Qizilbash.
As the enemies in the lead, who had already resolved themselves to death, were killed, the rear ranks swiftly stepped forward and fired.
Watching their comrades die amid gray smoke with bloodshot eyes, the Qizilbash closed the distance in an instant on the strength of their comrades’ sacrifices.
The Qizilbash, having closed the gap so much that there was no room for the rear ranks to come forward, recoiled at the densely arrayed bayonets and turned their horses’ heads.
Neiiiigh!
“Aaaagh!”
The Qizilbash, unable to change direction properly in time, was skewered by the hands of a Janissary who knelt and raised his bayonet.
The Qizilbash who had turned their reins to avoid the square formation bristling with bayonets like a hedgehog fell into terrible confusion.
Even if they tried to swing their swords and kill the enemy, bayonets surrounded them on every side.
The enemies who had been lined up in three or four ranks had all formed square formations, and the Qizilbash wandering helplessly between them were easy prey.
Ratatatat! Bang!
“W-we have to run. This is a nightmare!”
“I don’t want to die! I don’t want to die like this!”
Corpses piled up everywhere, shot down without even getting the chance to swing a blade, and the horses, having caught the scent of death, could hardly be controlled.
No one wanted to die emptily, like an insect crushed underfoot without thought, rather than fiercely and gloriously against the enemy.
Just as even the Qizilbash, renowned as elites, were trying to flee amid the chaos, a thunderous voice cut through the sound of gunpowder.
“It’s the Sultan! Kill the Sultan!”
At the sight of a square formation larger and sturdier than the others, the confusion in the Qizilbash’s eyes subsided, and they gleamed with killing intent.
Raising their swords high, the Qizilbash shouted loudly.
“Kill him! For the Shah! Kill the Sultan!”
Bang!
The head of the man who had incited them burst apart after being struck by a bullet, but the spark he had sown was enough to change the mood.
As they charged toward the square formation without fearing even the bayonets, the thick formation wavered in an instant.
The Qizilbash who rushed in like madmen clung to the bayonets that pierced their bodies, and persistently dug into the gaps that had grown dull.
“Hold them back! Hold them back with your lives!”
The unit commanders urged them on until the veins stood out on their necks, and a melee broke out in an instant.
The casualties of the Qizilbash, who were forcing their way through the formation, swelled like a snowball, but as much as the enemy died, the Janissary square formation also lost its strength.
And it allowed the enemy to break in.
“Sultan! Where is Yusuf!”
“How dare you call His name so carelessly?! You bastards!”
The Silahdars in charge of guarding the Sultan swung their swords with furious faces at the enemies pushing in.
With guns firing continuously, hazy gunpowder filled the plain, and the screams of those who had let go of the thread of life piled up one after another.
At the end of his subordinates’ sacrifices, Ismail broke through the square formation and cut down a Silahdar’s neck.
As the Silahdar fell, clutching at the neck that was half hanging loose, Ismail charged toward the one wearing the most splendid attire.
“Yusuuuf!”
Swinging his sword with fierce force and meeting those dark brown eyes, Ismail felt a chilling sense that something was wrong.
Even when he knocked aside the sword that clashed against his and half severed Yusuf’s arm, which had been raised reflexively, that feeling did not fade.
Then a gunshot rang out.
Bang!
Though gunshots were sounding from every direction loudly enough to deafen him, that single shot rang out with perfect clarity.
As pain surged in along with an impact like a fist striking his chest, Ismail looked down at his chest.
The sight of his chest turning red felt utterly unreal.
“Sh-Shah! Save the Shah! Save him, you bastards!”
Ustajlu’s tear-choked voice sounded faintly.
With his vision growing distant, Ismail turned his head toward the place where the gunshot had come from and met the eyes of a man dressed as a Janissary.
One corner of his mouth was lifted, and his green eyes curved.
“…Yusuf?!”
“Who dares call my name so carelessly?”
Answering in a voice overflowing with arrogance, Yusuf stamped his foot down on the fallen Ismail.
As expected of Ismail, who was famed for his outstanding martial skill and always took part in battle personally, he had sent a chill down Yusuf’s spine to the very end.
If he had not set up a double, the one to die might have been himself.
“Do you have any final words to leave behind?”
“Puhuhu, final words, you say.”
After spitting out a mouthful of blood, Ismail looked up at the sky with an empty laugh.
“Ah, has Allah, cough, chosen… you over me?”
“Do not be mistaken. No one can choose me. I am the one who chooses.”
The eyes that had held bewilderment slowly lost their light, and in a voice so small it seemed about to snap, he asked.
“Was there… ever a future… where we stood together?”
A future where the Ottomans and the Safavids coexisted peacefully.
“Even if the past were repeated tens of thousands of times, such a future would not exist. Do you not think so as well?”
No matter how valuable a talent someone was, one who harbored poison could not be taken in.
As if agreeing with that declaration, Ismail let his head fall, and Yusuf felt all manner of emotions for a moment.
When he had first become Yusuf, the one he had set as his target for establishing military merit had been Ismail.
He had been a formidable enemy who had brought him several crises that chilled his spine, and a man who had greatly influenced him, both in status and in spirit.
Feeling emotions impossible to put into words, Yusuf closed Ismail’s eyes and rose from his place.
“Padishah.”
At the call of the Silahdar, Aain Alper Pasha, Yusuf shook off his emotions and spoke coldly.
If he had closed his eyes as one human being, now it was time to act as Padishah.
“Cut off his head and announce it. That we are victorious.”
Alper cut off Ismail’s head, lifted it high, and shouted loudly.
“The Shah! Shah Ismail is dead!”
—Shah Ismail is dead!
The monster who had founded a nation at the age of fifteen, and who had twice defeated thirty thousand enemies with seven thousand soldiers, was dead.
It was the year 1512, when he was twenty-six years old.
∗ ∗ ∗
The walls that had once held prosperity had collapsed, and into the entrance of Tabriz, where the horrors of war remained everywhere, an army entered bearing a man’s head.
It was the moment the fall of the Safavids became known to the world.