The Sultan's Blood tax

The problem with empires, their greatest weakness, is that they depend on people.

Scheming, greedy, selfish, and complicated people. With all their siblings, spouses, and crazy relatives, constantly thinking about the best way to get a piece of the sultan’s cake.

The Ottomans had an elegant, if brutal solution. The devshireme.

Every 5 to 7 years, the Sultan’s envoys spread out across the Christian lands of the empire and collected the blood tax. Boys of ages 9 and up were harvested to be bureaucrats in his palace or soldiers in his army.

Separated from land and blood. Loyal only to the sultan. His palace and armies populated with adopted orphans.

For more information on the devshireme, I recommend Suraiya Faroqhi’s “Subjects of the Sultan”. I read the book while researching for the latest works in progress, “Hand of the Ghost”, features a young Jewish physician from the Venetian ghetto, circa 1630.