When Mahmud Pasha and his men were crossing the river at night, Vlad Dracula started his first attack on the Ottomans. However, Mehmed II was smart enough to know that Vlad would be waiting for them. Mehmed II counterattacks Vlad’s army, and we see the first great battle here.
After his victory, Mehmed's troops advance into Wallachia, and Vlad employs guerrilla tactics to weaken his rival. At one point, Vlad Dracula released some criminals with tuberculosis and bubonic plague in order to infect the Ottomans. He sent these infected criminals to the Ottoman camp at night, and it is considered a great tactic by the experts because we see Vlad Dracula practicing biological warfare. Meanwhile, a threat lurks in the imperial palace.

Sultan Mehmed II's siege of Constantinople enters its third week. Mehmed's artillery teams continue their relentless bombardment of Constantinople's walls. After his navy suffers a devastating defeat, Mehmed moves his ships overland to the Golden Horn in a daring, visionary feat. In the shadow of betrayal, Giustiniani attacks the Ottoman fleet.

After two weeks of chasing Vlad Dracula across Wallachia, Mehmed the Conqueror and his exhausted Ottoman army camp on the outskirts of Târgovişte. Their attack on the capital is imminent. But the man known to the Ottomans as the ‘Impaler Lord’ has turned the surrounding countryside into a chamber of horrors. Raiding during the night, sentries disappearing from the Ottoman camp, being taken outside and being murdered by Wallachian raiders. An exhausting day of marching followed by a night full of terrors, but yet still, Mehmed begins to close on his prey.
Mehmed prepares to strike a fatal blow to Vlad's army. A spy is found in Mehmed's camp. Vlad Dracula planned to kill Mehmed II in his tent in a very famous historical event called the ‘Night Attack.’ Vlad ambushed the Ottoman camp with his army in a surprise night attack. His plan was to confuse the Ottoman army by using their uniform so that they could not distinguish between the Turks and the people of Wallachia, but a surprise awaits.

In the Taurus Mountains Simon stays with descendants of the original Turks, nomads known as Yoruks, whose lifestyle is under threat from the modern world and an increasingly religious government. They're not the only minority at odds with the authorities in Turkey; Simon sees first-hand the devastating effects of fighting in the country's Kurdish region. In an area where the government has detained foreign journalists, Simon gathers unique footage in the aftermath of a crackdown on Kurdish militants - the wholesale destruction of the historic centre of one of Turkey's oldest cities.
Away from the conflict in the south, Simon heads towards the Black Sea coast. He meets a wildlife conservationist protecting Turkey's population of brown bears, and villagers who still communicate over long distances using an ancient bird language. In the country's capital he meets a victim of President Erdogan's authoritarian purge of people accused of complicity in the failed coup against him.
Finally Simon's journey comes full circle when he returns to Istanbul - home to the new craze of 'Ottomania', a celebration of the vast empire that preceded modern Turkey. Simon visits the set of one of the world's most popular TV dramas - even getting a speaking role - based in the court of an Ottoman sultan

Ottoman Sultan Mehmed II wages an epic campaign to take the Byzantine capital of Constantinople. Twenty-three armies have tried to take the legendary city and all have failed. Out of the carnage, one ruler will emerge victorious and shapes the course of history for centuries. For one empire to rise, another must fall.
The Ottomans, former Anatolian warlords and nomads who've built a burgeoning empire are the biggest threat to the Romans' 1100-year reign. The death of Ottoman Sultan Murad II in 1451 unleashes a chain of events that will soon bring the Ottomans and Romans to the brink of war. After claiming the Ottoman throne, Mehmed II sends an unmistakable signal to Byzantine emperor Constantine XI.

April 1453. Sultan Mehmed II unleashes an artillery attack on Constantinople unlike any the world has ever known. It's the largest concentration of cannons that the world had seen in one place. The monumental task of keeping the Ottomans out of Constantinople falls on the shoulders of Genoese soldier of fortune Giovanni Giustiniani. He and his men must defend 14 miles of city walls. Mehmed launches his ambitious plans to break through the walls of Constantinople, but Giustiniani's mercenaries manage to forestall the attacks.