Orkhan had now accomplished the first part of the great task left unfinished by Osman. But, before he could proceed to the establishment of laws for his new state, it was necessary for him to consolidate and strengthen his position in relation to his formidable neighbours. Dangers threatened from the east and from the south. In 1327 Timurtash, a son of Choban, who was Mongol governor of Rum, pushed his raids as far as the Mediterranean, which the Mongol arms had not hitherto reached. He fought in turn Greeks and Turks.[116] Fortunately for Orkhan, the emir of Kermian, whose capital was Kutayia, had appeared so unpromising to the eyes of Timurtash that the Mongols had not come northward. But they were an ever imminent source of danger to the emirs of Asia Minor, and to Orkhan among them, until 1335, when the death of Bahadur Khan, just the year before the birth of Timur, caused the disintegration of the Mongol power in western Asia.[117] The Mongol menace had contributed to the undisturbed operations of Orkhan against the Byzantines. Immediately upon its removal he was threatened by the other Turkish emirs. It was a critical moment for Orkhan, whose territories had not yet reached the proportions of a large state, like those of Omar of Aïdin and Mohammed of Sarukhan. Singly they might have crushed Orkhan. United they certainly would have done so. But here again the Byzantines contributed to their own downfall. In 1329, at Phocaea, Andronicus had conducted his first negotiations with the emirs of Aïdin and Sarukhan.[118] This unsuccessful attempt to embroil the Anatolian emirs with each other was a pitiful confession of weakness on the part of Andronicus. It did no harm to Orkhan. But it called the attention of these emirs to the impotence of Andronicus, and led to a series of petty raids in Macedonia and Thrace. Emboldened by the ease of initial successes, Mohammed of Sarukhan in 1333 led in person an expedition of seventy-five ships against the Macedonian coast. Andronicus was too weak to oppose his landing.[119] In the same year Turkish pirates seized for a short time Rodosto, on the Sea of Marmora, only a few hours’ sail from Constantinople.[120] The following year the emperor was compelled to put an army in the field to save Salonika from the Turks.[121] These attentions from his proposed allies did not prevent Andronicus from seeking aid in the same quarters in 1336 when he was besieging the Genoese of Phocaea. Mohammed sent twenty-four ships, numerous troops, and all the provisions necessary to sustain the imperial army. The net gain to Andronicus from this expedition was the empty acknowledgement from Cattaneo of Phocaea, who was not afraid of Andronicus but did not want to be bothered by him and his Turkish allies, that he would hold as a ‘fief of the empire’ what Andronicus, even with the help of the Turks, could not take from him![122]