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 EEIGN OF OECHAN 99 year to capture Ismidt failed, and he was obliged to sue for peace. In spite of these disasters, he was always able within a few months to assemble new armies, and to renew the struggle. Already he had succeeded in exacting tribute from nearly the whole of Bithynia. His troops, within two years, invaded Macedonia, Euboea, and Athens, and while Cantacuzenus was with difficulty holding his own against them, another army met Andronicus the Third in Thrace, and took possession of Eodosto — an army, however, which the emperor shortly afterwards destroyed. New recruits were continually making their way across the Dardanelles or the Marmora into Thrace, until, in 1336, the Turkish army in that province met with disaster in an unexpected manner. A band of Tartars from the north made a descent upon them when they heard that they had been successful in a raid upon the Christian population and were carrying off an enormous mass of booty. 1 Three months after the departure of the Tartars a new descent into Thrace was attempted by the Turks. Once again the Greeks were successful, and, in the same year, an army which ravaged the environs of Constantinople was destroyed and the Turkish fleet which brought them captured. The efforts of Orchan were more successful in Asia Minor. A division of his army had laid siege again to Ismidt, and the inhabitants, in order to avoid imminent starvation, surrendered. The acquisition, in 1337, of this Nicomedia, city, the most important seaport on the Asiatic side of the (1337). Marmora, and the head, then as now, of all the roads leading from the capital to every part of Asia Minor, Persia, and Syria, was of the utmost importance. During the stormy joint reigns of John and Cantacuzenus (1342 to 1355), the empire was attacked both by Tartars on the north, and by the Turks in Asia Minor. The Bulgarian and Serbian kingdoms had both gained strength during the Latin occupation at the expense of the empire, and were ready to avail themselves of the aid alike of Turks and Tartars in 1 Greg. ix. 2 says the Turks had carried off three hundred thousand Christian captives. The Turks fought well, but were exterminated. h 2