While the Crimean soldiers in their camps were trembling with fear at the Khan's wrath, inside the Akhtar-Bakhtar fortress on the border of the Kuba and Azaraba regions, the rebellious Janissaries General Mahmud Kelir concluded his conversation with the leaders of the Theodoro Army from Phanagoria, gaining a deeper understanding of his current situation.
According to one of them, Nikiforus Volor, the General of this Theodoro detachment, he and his army were actually subordinate to the younger brother of the current Crown Prince of the Principality of Theodoro. In other words, it seemed that Theodoro was not a monolithic entity, and this issue was very likely to surface after the war ended.
Even if it didn't emerge immediately, Klier would do his best to expose it, because based on his impression of the young prince during their conversation, this unworldly child seemed to have a subtle disagreement with his Crown Prince brother; and in his perception of the child, "He's not very capable and still young, easy to manipulate. No wonder some Theodoro nobles sought him out instead of supporting the Crown Prince."
Thinking of this, Klier's lips curved into a faint smile, "Perhaps I should also use him, induce him to become a pro-Ottoman monarch, so that the Sultan will have a foothold north of the Black Sea, and my guilt for losing over 150 Janissaries will be wiped clean. No, achieving this would not just be atoning for my sins, but a great achievement. Maybe I could be personally appointed Pasha by the Sultan, or even Vizier, Grand Vizier…"
The morning after Klier fantasized about his brilliant future, Manuel and the Golden Horde commander Tenek Emir reached an agreement, defining the scope of their pursuit: Theodoro would pursue the remaining coastal areas of the Crimean Khanate, while the Golden Horde would be responsible for the interior.
After the agreement was reached, Tenek immediately led his army, along with the captives, away from Adamakha. Due to signs of the rebellion by Prince Muhammad in Astrakhan escalating, he needed to quickly resolve the issue of the Crimean Khanate for the Golden Horde Khan, to swiftly free up troops to deal with that potential usurper. Not long after Tenek left, roughly in the afternoon, Manuel also led the rested Theodoro Army to pursue the remnants of the Crimean Khanate in the coastal areas, leaving behind the city, which had been ravaged by both sides and was suffering greatly.
But Manuel had no time to care about the city; he needed to completely destroy the Crimean Khanate as quickly as possible. Because in his previous life's timeline, when Giray first established the Crimean Khanate, he was also beaten by the Golden Horde, and he himself was even betrayed by two major tribes, forced to flee to Lithuania again. But when the Lithuanian civil war ended, King Sigismund, who rediscovered Crimea's value, once again supported Giray, helping him reclaim his lost territory. Giray then took the opportunity to lead Crimea's resurgence, several times single-handedly defeating the Golden Horde's army, eventually becoming the first nation to contribute to the collapse of the Golden Horde in the Eastern European Great Plains.
Therefore, Manuel would not give Giray and his Crimean Khanate even a moment's respite. Unless he personally captured Giray or saw his corpse with his own eyes, he would never give up.
Given this, Manuel quickly mobilized all the land and naval forces under his command, heading east, vowing to personally capture Haji Giray. For this, he even transferred his confidant, Georgia Mana, from Mangup, sending him to negotiate at Tana, the Venetian Black Sea colony, hoping that Pietro Lando, the Venetian Black Sea Consul, would, out of their friendship, prevent the remnants of the Crimean Khanate from hiding in the Azov region, and also grant military transit rights, allowing the Theodoro Army to pass through the area and their ships to use its port for mooring and rest. "Remember to tell them 'we will pay ducats,'" Manuel instructed Mana before he left for Tana.
In addition to requesting military access from Venice, Manuel also wrote to his brother Isaac, asking him to quickly take the Kuba region of Crimea, and if possible, to try advancing into the Azaraba region.
In early October, under Mana's persuasion appealing to both public and private interests, Lando happily relented, agreeing to Theodoro's demands. By this time, Manuel had already successfully captured all the territory of the Crimean Khanate west of Cherkassk, leveraging the coordinated advantage of land and sea. The Golden Horde also lived up to his expectations, having already advanced into the Azaraba region.
However, even under these circumstances, the Crimean defenders in Cherkassk were still barely holding on. Upon learning this information, Manuel, after a brief complaint about the Golden Horde, swiftly led his army north to personally eliminate Crimea's last stronghold in the Tien region.
As for Giray himself? He was currently operating with fewer than two thousand surviving soldiers, struggling in the Azaraba and Kuba regions. In late September, Ali Muzar, who was originally under his command, seeing the unfavorable situation, had already led his forces to surrender to the Golden Horde during a small skirmish in Tien.