Chapter 1543: I Really Don't Want Vienna!

Istanbul, Topkapi Palace, the Second Courtyard, the domed council chamber.

The Grand Vizier Ahmed Köprülü, old and decrepit, looking as though he might go to meet Allah at any moment, rose shakily from the sofa with the support of his brother-in-law Mustafa Kara, walked into the room where Sultan Mehmed IV was, and found the Sultan with a deeply worried face.

"Great Sultan, Your Majesty, the Emir of India has heard your summons, and together with his son-in-law, the Emperor of China, has sent a great army to support our holy war. Moreover, he has provided us with an enormous sum of military aid, as much as 20 million rupees. This is the will of Allah! This time, we will surely take Vienna! Your Majesty's six-horsetail banner will surely be planted atop the great palace of Vienna!"

Listening to the old man's torrent of words, Sultan Mehmed IV prayed inwardly to Allah: O Allah, seeing that I still hold the office of Caliph, spare me, and stop this war that has not yet begun. I truly do not want Vienna! I am a peace-loving Sultan!

That was what he thought in his heart, but he dared not say it aloud.

Because Mehmed IV was a coward by nature. He had been Sultan for more than twenty years, yet had never held real power for a single day. At first he was young, and his grandmother and mother ruled in turn. Later, his mother, mindful that most dowager sultanas who had ruled before had met bad ends, simply found an old man of over eighty, Mehmed Köprülü, to be Grand Vizier, who disciplined the Janissaries at home and fought the Christians abroad, giving Mehmed IV many years of comfortable life.

And unlike those ambitious sultans who burned to seize back power and rule as their own masters, he just wanted to lie still and comfortably be a sultan of peace. So after Mehmed Köprülü died of old age, he let Mehmed Köprülü's son Ahmed Köprülü succeed him as Grand Vizier.

The Grand Vizierate had become hereditary! And seeing that Ahmed did not look long for this world either, Mehmed IV actually wanted his son or brother to carry on. If this trend continued, the Grand Vizier might as well be renamed "Grand General of the European Conquest."

But the problem was that Ahmed Köprülü simply refused to live out his days in peace! At his age — nearly eighty — he was still stirring up trouble to attack Vienna.

Vienna, of all places! The center of the Holy Roman Empire and the House of Habsburg, and very likely the strongest fortress in all of Europe!

If they failed to take it, the losses would be catastrophic. If they took it, the trouble would be even greater. Because in today's Europe, the Holy Roman Empire was barely holding on, while France, to the west of the Holy Roman Empire, was the rising great power.

Once Vienna fell into the hands of the Ottoman Empire, France would surely seize this once-in-a-millennium opportunity to move in and consolidate Italy and the Rhineland — both territories would very likely become part of France.

And a France possessing Italy and the Rhineland would very likely be upgraded into a Western Roman Empire!

To kill off a dying Holy Roman Empire and get in exchange a powerful Western Roman Empire — Mehmed IV was weak, but he was no fool!

"Grand Vizier, has the time truly come? Should we not wait and see a little longer?" Mehmed IV did not dare refuse Ahmed outright, because he knew that it was not only the old man Ahmed Köprülü who wanted war — everyone in the Janissary corps yearned for a war that would bring them wealth, honor, and power.

And the Ottoman Empire itself also needed to develop through expansion!

The Ottoman Empire had always followed the development path of "making is not as good as buying, and buying is not as good as seizing"!

And the thing such a state fears most is having nothing left to seize — which was exactly the situation the Ottoman Empire now faced! All the places worth seizing had already been seized by the Ottoman Empire. To the east, the route for plundering India was blockaded by the naval forces of England, France, Holland, and Portugal!

To the south, the route for plundering Africa was blocked by the great desert!

To the north, they ran into Poland and Russia, two opponents who were very hard to plunder and had little wealth besides.

To the west, the sea route was jointly blockaded by Spain and Venice and hard to open up. Moreover, the naval forces of France, Holland, and England had now entered the Mediterranean.

With the paltry navy the Ottoman Empire possessed, dealing with Venice and Spain was barely manageable, but going up against England, France, and Holland would be pure suicide!

Going west by land, they ran into the Holy Roman Empire led by the House of Habsburg. Compared with dealing with the navies of England, France, and Holland, Mehmed IV's Janissaries were far more willing to march by land and attack Vienna.

As for what to do after taking Vienna — that was not something their generation needed to worry about.

"Sultan, Your Majesty," Ahmed Köprülü said, "there is no need to wait any longer. The time is ripe. Recently word has come from Western Europe that the French, the Dutch, and the Spanish have suffered major setbacks in the Americas! Their navies were badly defeated in the Pacific, and their armies have suffered reverses on two fronts, in New Spain and New France.

In particular, on the great plains of New France, the French encountered a Mongol nomadic army numbering as many as 200,000!"

"What? 200,000 Mongols in America? How did they get there?" Mehmed IV was stunned again and again. He had seen a globe, and on it America and Mongolia did not seem to be connected.

"That is unimportant," Ahmed Köprülü said. Whatever he did not know was unimportant — if it were important, he could not possibly not know it. He paused. "What matters now is that the French, the Dutch, and the Spanish are recruiting mercenaries across all of Europe on a grand scale. By the end of this year, forty to fifty thousand men will have been sent to America, most of them from Germany. This will greatly weaken Leopold I's ability to mobilize in an emergency."

In this age, Europe had no compulsory military service. To raise an army, one had to spend money and hire. This involved two things: first, the king had to have money; second, there had to be enough high-grade mercenaries.

Cannon fodder was easy to find, but cavalry, officers, non-commissioned officers, and excellent artillerymen were all scarce resources in the mercenary world. And the impoverished Holy Roman Emperor clearly lacked the ability to compete with the wealthy Dutch and New Spain for such resources.

Now that France, Holland, and New Spain were recruiting mercenaries on a massive scale, the market price of high-grade mercenaries was bound to rise.

And the Holy Roman Empire of today was a pauper — it had not even paid off the debts of the Thirty Years' War!

The Grand Vizier Ahmed Köprülü continued: "Once the elite mercenaries are sent to America, they will not be coming back any time soon! So we can begin drawing up plans now, and by next spring we can launch the attack. If all goes well, by the time next autumn arrives, Your Majesty will be sleeping in the great palace of Vienna."

Could one even sleep in the great palace of Vienna? The Ottoman Sultan still felt his heart pounding with dread!

Once he took Vienna, the fifty thousand men recruited by France, Holland, and New Spain would be returning! And France also maintained a standing army of over a hundred thousand men year-round. By then, the moment Louis XIV was elected Roman Emperor, he would lead 200,000 men in a counterattack — just thinking about it was enough to drive one to despair!

"Sultan, Your Majesty!" The Grand Vizier Ahmed Köprülü understood the Sultan's mind, and so he smiled and reassured him: "You need not fear a French counterattack, for it will not come quickly! As long as Louis XIV cannot become Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, he will not send troops to retake Vienna.

And once we hold Vienna, there will be many political and diplomatic tricks we can play. For example, we could create a Holy Roman Emperor of our own. In short, as long as Vienna is in our hands, we hold the initiative!"

"Alas, since that is so, then I agree to your proposal," Mehmed IV sighed. "Begin preparations for war. Next spring we formally march on Vienna! This will be the war that decides the fate of the Ottoman Empire!"

(End of Chapter)