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preface
The death of Muhammad was kept secret for 40 days, until his son, the legal heir, Murad II, rode from Amasya in Asia Minor to Edirne to take charge of the state and successfully completed the transfer of power, and a solemn funeral was held for Muhammad.
Murad II ascends the throne
When Murad II ascended the throne, although he was only 18 years old, he was the governor of Amasia in Asia Minor, and before learning to exercise his statecraft, he participated in the wars to conquer the Balkans with his father Muhammad many times. In addition to Murad II, Muhammad had three sons, two infants, who had been under the protection of Muhammad's mentor Bayezid, but unfortunately the two children died a few years later from a plague that struck the continent every few years.
Muhammad's other son, Mustafa, was 13 years old when he died. Fearing that Murad II would kill him in the same way that Bayezid I had hanged his brother Yakubu, Mustafa renounced his rule in Asia Minor and fled with his mentor to Konya to seek the protection of another Turkic principality, and was later hanged by a man sent by Murad II.
Just as Murad II began to fully restore the former Ottoman territory, one of his coveted uncles, with the assistance of the Byzantine emperor, captured the military town of Edirne and killed him in Asia Minor. The young Murad II led his troops to fight back and drive his uncle back to Europe. In April 1422, with the help of the Genoese who had been bought with heavy money, Murad II transported his army across the Dardanelles, stormed the inner city of Edir, captured and killed his uncle and his followers.
In addition, in retaliation for the Byzantine emperor's support for his uncle's rebellion, he ordered the Ottoman army to besiege Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire. During the battle, Murad II and his soldiers fought to the death and, for the first time, bombarded the walls with siege artillery that had never been used in Ottoman history. After more than two months of fierce siege, the Byzantine Empire, which had been pampered for many years and had little will to fight, agreed to pay the Ottomans 30,000 gold coins a year as tribute, and on the condition that all the land outside the city except for the water supply area was the condition that the fierce Murad II finally abandoned the plan to capture Constantinople, the capital of the Byzantine Empire.
For the conquest and rule of Asia Minor, Murad II adopted a statecraft of eradicating dissidents and attaching equal importance to grace and power, and through political marriage, he married some princesses of Turkic principalities as wives and concubines, thus gaining the recognition of his suzerainty by many Turkic principalities in Asia Minor, so that Murad II was completely relieved of his worries and allowed him to focus fully on the conquest of Europe. In the conquest of Europe, jihad, which had played a large role in the expansion of the early Ottomans, was revived on both the Venetian and Hungarian fronts. Venice carried out a policy of preserving and developing its eastern trading empire.
In 1423 it bought the important port city of Thessaloniki from the Byzantine Empire, which led to conflict with Murad II, who wanted to repossess the important port city that had been lost to the Byzantine Empire in 1402. In July 1423, Murad II successfully captured Thessaloniki with his army and agreed with Venice on a series of peaceful solutions to the city. At the urging of many warriors, Murad II at this time was completely free to boldly devote himself to expansion in the direction of Hungary. In December 1437, the chaos caused by the death of King Sigismund of Hungary opened the door to an all-out Ottoman offensive.
In February 1438, Murad II led the Ottoman army into Serbia, capturing the rich silver mines and Semendrija, the most important strategic fortress in the Balkans. In June 1440, Murad II led the Ottoman army to besiege Belgrade, the capital of Serbia. Belgrade was the most important military fortress to defend southern Hungary against Ottoman attacks. Under the unanimous resistance of all the soldiers and civilians in Belgrade, six months later, the defeated Murad II was forced to lead his army to retreat.
Introverted, silent and thoughtful Murad II
In October 1443, under the leadership of Johann Khanjadi, the illegitimate son of the former Hungarian king Sigismund, Serbs, Bulgarians, Hungarians, and Bosnians who harbored hatred for the Ottomans united and captured many of the Ottoman military fortresses in an attempt to bring Murad II to the brink of destruction. In February 1444, the outnumbered Murad II signed a dignified peace treaty with the Hungarian king in Szeged, in which the two sides agreed not to invade each other for 10 years. At the same time, Murad II was forced to renounce his suzerainty over Wallachia and Serbia and redeem his captured son-in-law during the battle for 10,000 gold coins.
Murad II is said to be an introverted and silent and thoughtful man. He did not like war, he was deeply tired of non-stop fighting. After settling his borders between Europe and Asia Minor through a peace treaty with the King of Hungary, Murad II decided to consecrate himself to his 15-year-old son, Mehmed II, and retired to picturesque Manisa, hoping to live a peaceful and quiet life henceforth with poets, mysticians, theologians, jurists, philosophers, and other literati in his favorite mansion.
It was the beginning of the Ottoman Renaissance, and the Turkic language, spoken at the Ottoman courts and throughout Asia Minor, had become a tool for people to express elegant words. Many excellent works in Persian and Arabic have been translated into Turkic, and the outstanding poets of the Ottomans and their works are highly respected and admired by the entire society of Europe and Asia. In particular, under the enthusiastic guidance of Murad II, for the first time, the country compiled a formal Ottoman chronicle, which contains many fascinating historical stories that celebrate the heroic deeds and achievements of the most outstanding ancestors of the Ottomans.
Of particular importance was the fact that Murad II was so concerned about the education of his children that he paid a fortune to hire the most enlightened and learned scholars in the country to serve as teachers for the princes. In the Ottoman court school, other children studied with the princes, some young prisoners of war and some sons of the monarchs of the prominent Ottoman vassals. Murad II not only often taught his own sons to be conscientious, but also strove to prepare other young people to be disciplined, upright and loyal pillars of society so that they could take on important responsibilities.
In the history of the Ottomans, the value and role of this court school was first manifested in the fact that it cultivated a great conqueror Mehmed II with both ability and integrity for the Ottoman Empire, thus bringing the Ottoman Empire to glory. However, Murad II's hopes for a comfortable and peaceful life soon came to naught, as Christendom in Europe was planning a major attack on the Ottomans. Murad II's abdication made the feudal knights of European Christendom think that they would take advantage of Murad II's abdication and the monarch's young and ignorant to launch a major attack on the Ottomans.
It was bound to strike at and weaken the military power of the Ottomans, especially since they believed that the inhabitants of the various religions of the Ottoman-ruled areas would also take active action to support their actions by waging armed rebellions. Faced with an increasingly dangerous situation, some Ottoman ministers and army commanders, fearing the consequences of putting the fate of the country in the hands of a young child, signed a joint letter asking Murad II to return to the court to return to power and continue to command the Ottoman army.
Regain the throne
After repeated entreaties, Murad II regained the throne, and in November 1444, he personally led the Ottoman army to defeat the Hungarian-dominated European coalition near Varna, killing King Ladeslav of Hungary and Cardinal Julian, and easily swept through Serbia and Bosnia. The main reason was that the Ottomans had long adopted a policy of tolerance for all religious beliefs, while the Hungarians, during their short reign, imposed the rites of the Catholic Church on the Orthodox churches of Serbia and Bosnia.
This intensified religious tensions in the region, so when Murad II arrived with the Ottoman army, many military fortresses in Serbia and Bosnia opened their doors to the Ottomans. When the overall situation stabilized, Murad II, who was clumsy and preferred a quiet life, abdicated again in April 1445 and returned to Manisa to live in seclusion in the fields. Soon after, however, the arrogant and violent Ottoman Guards rebelled against the new monarch, Mehmed II, which once again forced Murad II to leave his secluded comfort and quickly return to Edirne to reign again.
Under the brutal suppression of Murad II, the leaders of the rebellion of the Guards regiment were either executed, imprisoned, or exiled from the capital, and the authority of the Ottoman sultans was quickly restored. However, the episode of the armed rebellion of the Ottoman Guards became a prelude to their frequent intervention in imperial politics. After the armed rebellion of the Guards was suppressed in 1445, Murad II never abdicated again. In the short years that followed, in order to reverse the tide and restore the prestige of the Ottomans, he personally led the Ottoman army into Albania twice.
Resources:
History of World Empires, p. 132.
History of World Empires, p. 136.
History of the World Empire, p. 140.