1. About the conqueror Muhammad II, he was only 19 years old when he took over as the sultan. He inherited the rich legacy of Murad II. Legacy: The internal rebellion was quelled, the surrounding powerful enemies were swept away and surrendered, the national strength was strong, and the internal affairs were stable. Just two years later, he besieged and captured Constantinople, relying on the foundation laid for him by his father. Muhammad was stubborn and arrogant when he first ascended the throne at the age of 12, and he lost the support of his ministers. After he ascended the throne for the second time, this character was still unmistakable, and he added a suspicious, fickle and neurotic character. These characters are also reflected in the movie.
2. The other side of the war, the Byzantine Empire, was the successor to the Roman Empire, but its territory had shrunk to the periphery of Constantinople, the Peloponnese, and a few cities along the Black Sea and Thrace. At the same time that Byzantium was threatened by the Ottoman Turks, it was also attacked by the Western Latin world for religious reasons (Byzantium was Orthodox and the Latin world was Catholic), including the Crusaders who sacked Constantinople in the 13th century. The rebellion of the internal mercenaries in the 14th century, as well as the Black Death, hit Byzantium hard. Despite this, Byzantium, especially Constantinople, has long insisted on the front line of resisting the invasion of eastern nations; at the same time, it is extremely developed in the field of culture and art, far exceeding the Western Latin world. The status of the University of Constantinople is equivalent to that of Harvard University in the United States today. After the fall of Constantinople, a large number of artists and intellectuals went into exile in Western Europe, accelerating the pace of the Renaissance.
However, by then Constantinople was already in decline, and after several wars, its population had dropped from 500,000 at its peak to less than 100,000. In addition to the Royal Palace and Sophia Cathedral, many buildings have been abandoned, including the stadium where the emperor in the movie made his prewar mobilization. The ruins of this stadium still exist today, just opposite the Blue Mosque. Many parks and squares in the city have been turned into wasteland and even farmland. Therefore, the splendid city embodied in the film does not exist.
3. The Byzantine emperor at that time, Constantine, was very knowledgeable and elegant, and was completely different from the rude, arrogant, and drunken image in the movie. The Byzantine Empire and the Roman Empire were in the same blood, and their dress at the time was still toga (an elegant white robe commonly seen in Roman movies), which was hardly a class compared to the European courts at the end of the Middle Ages. Constantine has always been committed to maintaining peace with Turkey and did not take any action to stimulate the Turks. The plot of Constantine writing to stimulate the sultan in the film is completely absent. In fact, Byzantium at that time had been counted as a vassal state of Turkey, and had sent troops to participate in Turkey's war to quell internal rebellion. Constantine always insisted on the front line during the war. After the city wall was broken, his subordinates suggested that he escape and make a comeback, but he refused. In the end he tore off all the royal insignias and imprints from his body and went into battle himself. His body was never found, and the scene in the movie where his minister presents his body to the sultan is fictional.
4. The scenes of the Byzantine court in the movie may have existed during the Roman Empire; but at that time, the Byzantine finances were quite limited, and it was almost impossible to exist. Movies should be imagined out of a need to vilify Westerners. On the contrary, it is the Turkish harem, full of filth and extravagance. Muhammad II himself is not only a harem of beautiful women, but also includes a large number of boys (yes, boys). In the film, I dare not say that there is no love for the princess, and the possibility should be very low.
5. The Urban (Urban) cannon, which played a huge role in the war, was invented and built by a Hungarian craftsman. He first came to Constantinople, but due to the extreme financial constraints of Byzantium at this time (the gems inlaid on the emperor's coronation crown had begun to be replaced by glass), and he could not afford the payment he asked for, Urban went to Turkey. Muhammad paid 4 times his asking price, and he eventually succeeded in making the cannon. Therefore, everything is because of money, and the plots of Muslims being massacred by the Crusaders, beautiful girls bearing family feuds, the assassination of Byzantine ministers, and the rescue of Turkish 007 from behind enemy lines are all fictional. The Urban cannon was formidable, over 26 feet long, required 60 cattle to pull, and weighed 1,200 pounds and had a range of 1 mile.
6. The only love scene in the movie, the gun girl and Turkey 007, is of course not recorded in history. But the warrior Hasan is indeed a man. He is a strong man. He led a special force of the Turkish army to attack a gap in the outer city wall during the chaos and persisted until reinforcements arrived. He himself was shot and killed by a stoning. There is no plot of bravely fighting enemy generals and putting up flags with arrows in their bodies.
7. Regarding the strength of the opposing sides, the Byzantine defenders themselves, plus some reinforcements from Venice, Genoa, the Holy See, foreign sailors and merchants stranded there, and a few volunteers from the Western world, and even local There are less than 7,000 monks, guards of the Turkish hostage Prince Olga, etc. The total length of the city walls of Constantinople is nearly 23 kilometers, and the inland-facing part facing the Turkish army is about 6.5 kilometers long, but this part of the city wall is divided into two parts: the inner and outer parts. That is to say, an average Byzantine warrior is responsible for at least guarding a city wall of nearly 2 meters. Among them, the Venetians, the Greeks and the Genoese all have conflicts and constant quarrels with each other. During the harshest phase of the war, the inhabitants of the city, including women, children and the elderly, were on the front lines to repair the destroyed walls.
8. The strength of the Turkish side is expected to exceed 100,000, of which 80,000 are regular troops and the rest are miscellaneous troops. The main component of this army is not actually Turks. The main force of the regular army is the new army. The members are children "recruited" from Christian families in Turkey. They are trained since childhood. These children are supposed to believe in Islam and are not allowed to marry when they grow up. They are basically trained war machines. The composition of the motley army is very complicated.
9. In the movie, the Byzantine defenders have been unable to retreat. In fact, in the early days, the defenders took advantage of the Turks' unsteady footing to take the initiative to attack and achieve small-scale victories.
10. During the war, the Turks did attack by digging tunnels, but the Byzantines countered very successfully and defeated them by digging tunnels on the opposite side. There was even an officer of the tunnel soldiers who was captured once, and thus obtained the location information of all the tunnels of the Turks. Since then, the Turks have abandoned the way of attacking through tunnels. In the movie, the Turkish tunnel soldier sacrificed his life for the feat of YY.
11. The Turks had more than 100 large and small ships in the navy, while the Byzantine side had only 26, and most of them were sailboats rather than oars. But the combined fleet, especially the Genoese and Venetians, showed superb sailing skills. Four supply sailing ships broke through the blockade and entered the Golden Horn. In the environment of changing winds, they fought fiercely with nimble Turkish oars. The sultan watched the battle by the sea, and couldn't help jumping into the sea with his horse. In the end, Christian's sailboat landed safely. This scene is reflected in the movie.
12. The focus of the defense of the city walls of Constantinople is on the side facing the mainland, and the weakest link is on the side of the Golden Horn, where the Crusaders broke the city in the early 13th century. Therefore, the Byzantines blocked the mouth of the Golden Horn with a huge chain, resulting in the long-term inability of the Turkish fleet to enter the Golden Horn and gain control of the sea. The sultan nearly chopped off the head of the naval commander for this. In the end, the sultan unexpectedly transported about 70 ships from the land to the Golden Horn, bypassing the Genoese-controlled city of Pera. The sudden appearance of a large number of Turkish fleets in the Golden Horn led to the collapse of the confidence of the Byzantine defenders. In the movie, the Turks use their strong will to drag the battleship over the hill. In fact, it is the bull who drags the battleship, only adding some manpower when going uphill.
13. According to Muslim law, plundering and destruction of surrendered cities are not allowed, and personal property and freedom of belief should also be protected; and for cities that resist, they can be looted for three days after the city is destroyed. This is what Muhammad's ultimatum to Byzantium was about.
14. After the city was broken, the Turkish soldiers began frantically looting and slaughtering. Young adults were plundered into slaves, and "useless" old men and infants were killed. Churches and palaces became prime targets, gold and silver decorations, mosaic frescoes were taken away, and artworks and books were destroyed. However, some soldiers who knew the goods collected some books. You must know that there was no engraving printing technology at that time, and the books were manually copied on the parchment, which was extremely expensive. Nobles who were plundered into slaves were later allowed to "ransom", but in fact many were plundered into slaves again after their redemption. The sultan himself gave priority to beautiful boys (!) girls to enrich his harem, and personally selected 400 pairs of golden boys and girls for the kings of Egypt, Tunisia and Granada. In the end, 4,000 people died in Constantinople and 50,000 were turned into slaves. Of course, these are ignored by the film.
15. The plundering of the Turks only lasted for less than 2 days before being stopped by the Sultan. The purpose was to hold a city entrance ceremony in order to rectify the order; but the Turks were not dissatisfied because there was nothing left to plunder. The sultan entered the Sophia Cathedral, found a soldier smashing the marble inside the church, and rebuked the soldier. Not out of respect for the church, but because he thought all the buildings were the spoils of the sultan.
16. The Sultan ordered the conversion of Sophia Cathedral into a mosque, but kept other parts of the church and made the other main church, the Church of the Holy Apostles, the main church of the Orthodox Church. However, the Sultan's promise did not last long, and the Holy Apostles Church and other so-called protected churches were gradually transformed into mosques. The Orthodox cathedral was forced to opt for a more low-key architecture, but it does survive to this day.
17. In the last scene of the film, Sultan Muhammad entered the Sophia Cathedral, promising to protect the personal, property and religious freedom of the residents, and hugged a little girl for a kiss. This picture is really disgusting, maybe only Gangcun Ningji enters Nanjing, and the picture of giving Chinese children candy can be comparable.
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