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156 DESTRUCTION OF THE GREEK EMPIRE Hungarians had defeated an army of three hundred thousand who entered the great plain north of the Danube. Most of the Turks in Asia Minor, if not all willing subjects of Murad, still rendered him at the time of the death of Manuel, in 1425, a nominal submission. The prince of Caramania was, however, always a troublesome feudatory. Murad's reputation may be judged by the fact that in the year in which Manuel died he made a triumphal pro- gress. Having traversed Thrace, he went to Brousa, to Pergamos, Magnesia, Smyrna, and Ephesus. While at the last-mentioned city, homage was done to him by the ambassadors of the emperor John, of Lazarus, king of Serbia, Dan, prince of the Wallachs, and the signors of Mitylene, Chios, and Khodes. He was, in fact, the almost undisputed lord of Asia Minor and of all places in the Balkan peninsula, with the exception of a few fiefs in Greece, and of Constantinople, with a small territory behind it. With the exception of the Venetians and the Hungarians, he was at peace with all the world. But the Venetians were still holding their own. They had supported the insurrection in Caramania. Their fleet had been sent to prevent Murad from crossing into Asia, and they were masters of Salonica. But even in that city Murad had still a triumph to achieve. Pressed by famine when the inhabitants were besieged by the Turks, shortly before Murad's siege of the capital, the population had offered the city to the Venetians, who gladly accepted it and sent a fleet to its relief. But the Turks had constantly claimed that they had been improperly deprived of their intended prey, and the answer given by Murad to proposals of peace made by the republic were : Surrender Salonica first. In 1428, Murad determined to fight for it. While he went south-west into Macedonia, the whole population, including the southern Serbs and southern Bulgarians, submitting to his rule, one of his leading generals laid siege to Salonica. Ducas says that the besiegers were a hundred to one, and there can be no doubt that there was a fatal discrepancy in numbers. On the arrival of Murad, the Janissaries were promised permission