⚔️ Ottoman Defters: the Invisible Backbone of the Most Powerful Medieval Empire – YouTube

Ottoman conquests were not won by the sword alone.
Behind the largest and most effective armies of the 15th century stood a cold, precise, and remarkably efficient bureaucratic machine: the defters.

📊 Who paid the taxes?
📊 Who was called to war?
📊 How many villages sustained a single soldier?

This episode explores how fiscal and military registers made an empire possible — and why real power often lay not on the battlefield, but on paper.