Trebizond, at the southeast corner of the Black Sea, is the capital of the last remnant of Greek empire.

Although subject to brief periods of domination by the neighboring Seljuq Turks, Mongols, and the Greeks of Nicaea or Constantinople, the Empire of Trebizond had been largely bypassed by both the Seljuqs and the Mongols because of its relative isolation, difficulties of access, and conflict among its enemies.

Its prosperity lies partly in export of its own products—silver, iron, alum, cloth, and black wine—and partly from taxes on transit trade to western Iran.

After the Fall of Constantinople to Mehmed II in 1453, Trebizond and the Morea were left as the last remnants of the Greek imperial tradition.

Mehmed II had immediately summoned Emperor John IV of Trebizond to pay tribute in Constantinople and imposed heavy tolls on Trapezuntine and Venetian shipping through the straits.

John had apparently failed to cooperate, and in 1456 the Sultan dispatched his governor of Amasya, Hizir Bey, to attack Trebizond by both land and sea.

According to the contemporary historian Laonikos Chalkokondyles of Athens, Hizir raided the countryside, even penetrating into the marketplace of Trebizond, capturing altogether about two thousand people.

The city, deserted due to plague, is likely to fall; John makes his submission and agrees to pay an annual tribute of two thousand gold pieces in return for the return the captives Hizir had taken.

Mehmed has sent messengers in all directions to assemble an army.

The sultan moves with his army from Constantinople on April 26 or May 17, 1462 with the objective of conquering Wallachia and annexing the land to his empire.

The Sultan himself writes in a letter addressed to one of his grand viziers, that he took one hundred and fifty thousand men with him.

The Greek historian Laonikos Chalkokondyles wrote of Mehmed's army as "huge, second in size only to the one that this sultan had led against Constantinople."

He estimated the force at two hundred and fifty thousand, while the Turkish historian Tursun Bey mentioned three hundred thousand.

The same numbers were put by an anonymous Italian chronicle found in Verona, believed to have been written by a certain merchant named Cristoforo Schiappa.

A letter of a Leonardo Tocco to Francesco I Sforza, duke of Milan, wrote that Mehmed had recruited four hundred thousand men from Rumelia and Anatolia, with forty thousand being constructers of bridges armed with axes.

These numbers are deemed exaggerations.

A more realistic number is the one given by Venetian envoy at Buda, Tommasi, who mentioned a regular force of sixty thousand and some thirty thousand irregulars.

These consistsof the janissaries (the elite troops); infantry soldiers; sipâhis (the feudal cavalry); saiales (the sacrificial units composed of enslaved men who would win their freedom if they survived); acings (the archers); silahdârs (the custodians of the sultan's weapons who also protect the flanks); azabs (the pikemen); beshlis (who handle the firearms); and the praetorian guard that serves as the sultan's personal bodyguards.

Vlad's half-brother, Radu the Handsome, who willingly serves the sultan, commands four thousand horsemen.

In addition to this, the Turks bring with them one hundred and twenty cannon, engineers and workers that will build roads and bridges, priests of Islam (ulema) and muezzin, who call the troops to prayer, astrologers who consult Mehmed and help im make military decisions; and women "reserved for the night pleasures of the men."

Chalcocondyles reports that the Danube shipowners were paid three hundred thousand gold pieces to transport the army.

In addition to this, the Ottomans use their own fleet, which consists of twenty-five triremes and one hundred and fifty smaller vessels.

The Ottoman army manages to advance as Ţepeş institutes a policy of scorched earth, poisons the waters, and also creates marshes by diverting the waters of small rivers.

Traps are created by the digging of pits, and then covered with timber and leaves.

The population and animals are evacuated to the mountains and as Mehmed advances for seven days, his army suffers from fatigue.

Ţepeş adopts guerrilla tactics as his cavalry make several hit-and-run attacks.

He also sends ill people suffering from lethal diseases, such as leprosy, tuberculosis, syphilis —and in more significant numbers—those who suffer from the bubonic plague, to intermix with the Turks and infect them.

The bubonic plague manages to spread in the Ottoman army.

The Ottoman fleet launches a few minor attacks on Brăila and Chilia, but without being able to do much damage, as Ţepeş has destroyed most of the ports in Bulgaria.

Chalkokondyles writes that the Sultan managed to capture a Wallachian soldier and at first tried to bribe him for information; when that didn't work, he threatened him with torture, to no avail.

Mehmed was said to have commended the soldier by saying, "if your master had many soldiers like yourself, in a short time he could conquer the world!"

After failing to capture the fortress of Bucharest and...