As promised, this update will have pictures.
The start
We started in May of 1431 with a lot of rebuilding to do, and a lot of money to pay back to the banks that have loaned it to us for the war. We also had no allies now, and so a formation of an alliance became a priority.
A royal marriage was arranged between Hungary and Byzantium, but the gifts that our Emperor sent were not to the Hungarian taste, and relations were damaged because of them. In early 1432, however, a follow-up gift warmned the heart of the Hungarian King and eventually, due to our royal marriage, Byzantium entered the alliance of Hungary and Serbia.
We had to extend our loan in the summer of that year because we had no money to repay it. Slowly, however, we were saving more and more money in the hopes of repaying all of them sometime in the near future.
Meanwhile the Ottomans got themselves engaged into a massive war against Karaman, which they appeared to be losing. We could only hope that Karaman would do well and would weaken the Ottomans further, because a second conflict was imminent.
At the beginning of 1433 we reduced our army size. We could no longer maintain such a larger amy and inflation begun to eat into the profits of our kingdom. We could always raise the army back within a few months and I decided that the risk was worth the extra money.
In November we repayed our first loan, and had three more that we needed to pay in the future. It was nevertheless good to not have to pay interest on one of them.
In early 1434 we hired a good military advisor, who raised the quality of our army. It was expensive but quality is everything right now, and we cannot afford to pass up the opportunity to raise it. Late in the year we repaid another loan, leaving us pennyless, but I still think it is a first priority to repay all of the loans I had to take.
In December I considered declaring war against the Ottomans who were very weak and in a war against Karaman. Albania and Wallachia had both at least twenty thousand soldiers, and I decided against it, since there would be no way to protect myself against them.
The next few years went by quickly, and I concentrated on repaying our loans and preparing for the next war. By 1438 I had finished repaying all of the loans and had about 100 ducats in the treasury. Things were looking up. In July I decided that we were ready for another war.
By September of that year we won a decisive victory on the sea, again cutting Turkey off from Europe. Our first goal would be to neutralize Ottoman allies in Europe, and only then would we move on to Turkey itself.
In March of next year Austria annexed Wallachia after defeating them soundly. I am not sure how Austria expects to govern a region so far away, but if it revolts it would be all the better for me.
The Pope aproached us with a proposal of a Union of the Orthodox and the Catholic churches, but we rejected it outright. Two decades ago we might have taken the help, but right now we did not need it, as Hugary's huge armies arrived on the field.
We launched a massive attack on Albania by the end of that year, preparing to take control of the mountain province. A seperate attack was launched on Smyrna after Hungarian military took care of almost all Ottoman allies in Europe.
In early 1440 Morea was attacked by the Ottomans, but our army that was sieging Albania came down and defeated the small Ottoman army in Morea. We then returned and prepared to take control of Albania but that was not to be this time either.
Albania and Bosnia put together their last army, and launched an attack on Constantinopol. Our Albanian army had to be dispatched to deal with the invaders and took heavy casualties, but in the end we were victorious. At the same time Smyrna fell to our troops, and Konstantinos XI moved on to attack the Ottoman capital itself.
By the end of 1442 the war was over and the Ottoman capital had surrenderd. We demanded that the Ottomans had over two more of their provinces and they easily complied. Now the Byzantine Empire was strong in its own right, without even the foreign help, and most of the Ottoman allies were severely weakened.
