Suleiman consulted immediately with Adjebeg, Ghazi-Fazil, Ewrenos, and Hadji-Ilbeki, ancient vizier of the Prince of Karasi, who had been his assistants in the government of Mysia. All confirmed him in his resolution. Adjebeg and Ghazi-Fazil the same night went to Gouroudjouk and took ship to make a reconnaissance in the environs of Tzympe, situated a league and a half from Gallipoli, opposite Gouroudjouk. A Greek prisoner whom they brought with them to Asia informed Suleiman of the abandoned and unprepared state of the place, and offered himself as a guide to surprise the garrison. Suleiman immediately had two rafts constructed of trees united by thongs of bull skins, and made the attempt the following night, with thirty-nine of his most intrepid companions in arms. Arrived before the fortress, they scaled the walls by mounting on an immense dung-heap, and took possession of it easily, owing to the inhabitants being all absent in the fields engaged in harvesting. Suleiman then hastened to send to Asia all the ships which he found in the port, to transport soldiers to Tzympe; and three days after, the fortress contained a garrison of three thousand Ottomans.
In the mean while Cantacuzenus, unable to resist any longer the forces assembled against him by his young rival, John Palæologus, asked the assistance of Orkhan. Orkhan sent him the conqueror of Tzympe, an auxiliary whose support later became more troublesome to the Emperor than it was useful against his enemy. Ten thousand Turkish cavaliers disembarked near Ainos, at the embouchure of Maritza (Hebrus), defeated the auxiliary troops which John Palæologus had drawn from Mœsia and from the Triballiens, ravaged Bulgaria, and repassed into Asia, loaded with spoil.
Cantacuzenus, more at his ease after the departure of the conquering horde, negotiated with Suleiman the ransom of Tzympe. Scarcely had he sent the ten thousand ducats agreed upon, when a commissary of the Ottoman Prince arrived bringing him the keys; but at the same time a terrific earthquake devastated the towns on the Thracian coasts. The inhabitants who did not find death in the destruction of their dwellings went with the garrisons to seek refuge against the destroying scourge and the barbarity of the Turks in the towns and the castles which the catastrophe had spared. But torrents of rain, snow, and a glacial temperature killed the women and the children on the road. As to the men, they fell into the power of Orkhan's soldiers, who were awaiting their passage. Thus the Ottomans found a powerful auxiliary in the warring elements. From that time they believed that God himself favored their projects. Adjebeg and Ghazi-Fazil, whom Suleiman had left in front of Gallipoli, penetrated into that town by the large breaches that the earthquake had made in the walls, and took possession of it, owing to the confusion which reigned among the inhabitants.
Gallipoli, the key of the Hellespont, the commercial entrepôt of the Black Sea and of the Mediterranean, is celebrated in history by the siege that it sustained against Philip of Macedon, and by the revolt of the Catalans or Mogabars who, half a century before the disaster, braved with impunity the power of the Greek Emperor and made it the centre of their piracies. The tombs of the two Ottoman chiefs are still seen to-day. These two mausoleums are much visited by Mussulman pilgrims, and the reason of this pious veneration is due to the fact that here in this sacred place lie the ashes of the two generations to whom the Ottoman empire owes the conquest of a town, the possession of which facilitated the passing of the Turks into Europe. For the same reason all the surrounding country, which, during the blockade of the town, Adjebeg and his lieutenant Ghazi-Fazil had put to fire and sword, received the name of Adje Owa. The two beys, taking advantage of the terror caused by so many disasters, penetrated into the deserted towns and established themselves.
On the news of these conquests Suleiman, who then was at Bigha (Pegæ), refused to restore Tzympe, and, far from being contented with the peaceful possession of the territory invaded by his hordes, dreamed of extending the boundaries, and for this purpose sent over to Europe numerous colonies of Turks and Arabs. One of his first cares was to raise the walls of Gallipoli and other strong places devastated by the earthquake; among the number were Konour, whose commander, called Calaconia by the Ottoman historians, was hanged by order of Suleiman at the doors of the castle; the fort of Boulair, before which Suleiman received, as a presage of his future glory, the bonnet of a dervish Mewlewi; Malgara, renowned for its trade in honey; Ipsala (ancient Cypsella) on the Marizza; and lastly Rodosto, now Tekourtaghi, ancient residence of Besus, King of Thrace, and the place of exile where died in modern times the Hungarian Francis Rakoczy, Prince of Transylvania, and his partisans. All these towns and strong places fell into the power of the Ottomans in the course of the year 1357; they served them as starting-bases for their excursions, which they pushed as far as Hireboli (Chariupolis) and Tschorli (Tzurulum).
Cantacuzenus, too weak to stop the progress of the Turks, complained of this violation of the peace. Orkhan excused his son, saying that it was not force of arms which had opened the gates of the towns of the Greek empire, but the divine will manifested by the earthquake. The Emperor made representations that he was not agitating to know whether it was by the gates or by the breaches that Suleiman had penetrated into the places in question, but whether or not he possessed them legitimately. Orkhan then asked a delay for reflection, and subsequently promised that he would request his son to return the towns that he occupied, if Cantacuzenus, on his side, would engage to pay him a sum of forty thousand ducats. At the same time he invited him to an interview to meet Suleiman on the Gulf of Nicomedia. But the Sultan pretending to be ill, the Emperor returned to Byzantium, without having obtained anything.
Orkhan now found himself in one of the happiest of political situations. The division of sovereign authority between Cantacuzenus and his pupil John Palæologus, and their continual wars, allowed him to address one or the other according as his interests and the circumstances demanded. It was thus that John Palæeologus, ally of the Genoese, undertook to deliver from captivity to Phoceus, the son of Orkhan, Khalil or Kasim, whom the governor Calothes surrendered for a ransom of one hundred thousand pieces of gold and the concession of the glorious title of Panhypersebastos ("very venerable"). The service that John had rendered did not prevent Orkhan from sending to Abydos a body of troops to rescue the son of Cantacuzenus, Mathias, then at war with the Bulgarians.
From the epoch when the Ottomans made durable conquests in the Greek empire, Asia each spring threw new hordes into Europe, until the time when the successors of Orkhan had extended their domination from the shores of the Sea of Marmora to those of the Danube.
The conquest of Gallipoli, which had opened the gate of the Greek empire and the whole of the European continent to the Ottomans, was announced by "letters of victory" to the neighboring princes of Orkhan, whose father had divided with Osman the heritage of the Seljukian sultans. The use of these "letters of victory" has been preserved to this day in Turkey, and their style, already so pompous in the days of Orkhan, has become so proudly emphatic that this kind of document to-day is not the least curious of those which belong to the annals of the Turkish nation.
Orkhan left to his son, Suleiman Pacha, and Hadji-Ilbeki the charge of preserving the conquests made in Europe; Suleiman established his residence at Gallipoli, and Ilbeki at Konour. The first overran the country as far as Demitoka; the second as far as Tschorli and Hireboli. Adjebeg received in fief the valley which still bears his name.