The Sun and the Lion

"Your Majesty." As soon as Ibrahim entered the study, Kamran, who had been waiting here, greeted him. Ibrahim nodded in greeting, then entered his seat, facing the various documents arranged by Kamran on the desk.

Placed at the top of the table was Kehobard's battle report. The entire battle report was very concise. It did not mention how many people his troops had killed or injured. It only reported that the troops had no losses and that there were major discoveries.

Then he opened the relevant documents. One was the original document sent by Kehobard. The handwriting was very illegible and there were some spelling errors. Next to it is a copy of Kamran's copy. It looks very comfortable. The spelling errors have been corrected and marked for easy comparison with the original text.

Gulshani's confession was like the slurred speech of a drunkard in a daze. Many of his words were intermittent, ambiguous, and devoid of logic, leaving Ibrahim to extract useful information on his own.

Ibrahim endured and finished reading. He only knew that there was a caravan in the caravanserai in Tabriz that belonged to the Haltivar Order. It was unknown how many people there were, but they had a lot of money.

"Kamran, invite the Grand Emir, Financial Vizier and Kurchibash."

"Yes, Your Majesty." Kamran nodded and walked towards the door.

Taking advantage of this gap, he looked at Bayezid's letter to Gulshani.

"My dear friend Gulshani...this tone..." Ibrahim read the content of the letter in a low voice, interspersed with his own complaints. He carefully pondered Bayezid's words. He wanted to know from the side the attitude of surrounding powers towards his religious policies.

"Your Majesty, your loyal and respectful ministers have arrived."

After a while, Kamran led the two of them to the door of the study. He knocked gently on the door and signaled to Ibrahim. Then with permission, the three entered the study and faced Ibrahim.

"The Great Emir, my Lale, and my Kurchibash, I want you to send additional troops to the gates of Tabriz to prohibit any caravans from entering or exiting. Fiscal Vizier, your coinage Is the devaluation plan ready?”

"Your Majesty! Blocking the city gates for no reason will bring a lot of losses to the merchants. If the caravan arrives one day late, they will make a lot less money. Not only are the merchants dissatisfied, but the commercial taxes we can collect will also be reduced, Your Majesty." After Ibrahim gave the order to Hussein and Hashayal, Tofmas immediately became anxious. The finances were already not good but he was still going through such trouble.

"I do all these things for a reason. If I were a stupid person, I would still be in jail now." Ibrahim said while copying the information about Gulshani that Kamran copied. Passed it over. "You also know about my recent suppression of heretics. The Haltivar Order is now a key target. I have now obtained information about their remaining property. They turned all their property into gold and silver bars, coins and valuable goods. , and then transported by caravan to the territory of the Ottoman Sultan or Ahmed.

Fortunately, their caravan was prepared not long ago and has not set off yet. We must seize this opportunity to completely eradicate the influence of heresy in Azerbaijan before Nowruz and build a pure and stable Azerbaijan. "

After listening to Ibrahim's words, they understood the reason and praised him one after another, "Your Majesty is wise, no one in this world can deceive you."

"All praise is due to God." Ibrahim calmed down the flattery of his ministers. Then he ordered: "The financial vizier and Kurchibash can go and carry out the order. The great emir, I have something else to talk to you."

Hashayal and Tofmas left the study, leaving Ibrahim, Hussein and Kamran alone in the room.

"Your Majesty, why do you want me to stay?"

"My Lale, you also know that our army is powerful, but the powerful army also puts our finances under pressure." Ibrahim complained at first, and he completely ignored his attempt to bring Qizil to the throne. The failed operation of the Bashi to turn into a standing army was not only due to the financial situation not allowing it, but also because the tribal leaders and emirs did not allow their private armies to become publicly owned.

Ibrahim relied on the caliphs who were active within the tribes and the army to compete with these emirs to forcefully implement this reform. The cavalry based on tribes was transformed into troops organized according to fixed organizations. Relying on this move, Ibrahim believed that he could completely control the ownership of the army in his own hands.

However, the resistance of the emirs prevented this reform from achieving the results Ibrahim wanted. Although the red heads were organized into regiments, tribal ties still played a huge role in the army-such as the officers appointed by the A major factor is the composition of the lower-level personnel of the unit. Generally speaking, if a certain tribe in the unit has a large number of people, a noble from a certain tribe will serve as the military commander.

Ibrahim decided to end it all.

He took out a document from the desk, which was sent by the Grand Vizier not long ago. "The newly acquired real estate has been calculated. My great emir, this part is allocated to the army." Ibrahim pointed to a part of the document and said to Hussein.

"Starting from next month, the Qizilbash no longer have a fixed salary. All soldiers and officers currently serving in the army will be allocated fiefs, as well as the disabled and dead. All fief owners As long as they provide me with military services, they will still be members of the tribe and subjects of the Khan, and the tribe is not allowed to buy or sell fiefs outside the tribe, otherwise the privileges will expire."

Hussein looked at the number of properties allocated to the army, and then he searched through his memory. The sum of the newly awarded properties and those held by the original tribe was quite a lot.

"I will firmly implement your will, Your Majesty."

After Hussein left, Ibrahim and Kamran drafted a formal document, the most important content of which was the provisions on the autonomous rights and feudal obligations of the red-headed tribe.

The chiefs have various powers over the people and property of their tribes, including administrative, military and judicial - if there is a conflict between the tribe and the direct territory, judicial judgment belongs to the King of Kings - only religious affairs are subject to the Safavid order interference. And they only needed to provide troops to Ibrahim and pay commercial taxes.

Formal recognition of these rights should appease tribal forces, but in Ibrahim's view it was a huge concession. The issuance of this order also represented the failure of his efforts to curb the expansion of tribal power in the early days of his business.