Tchorlu was the first objective point, because its capture would protect the rear of the army operating against Adrianople. This city, only forty-six miles from Constantinople, offered a stubborn resistance, and had to be taken by assault. The commandant was decapitated, the garrison massacred, and the walls razed.[249] The Osmanlis saw to it that the fate of the defenders of Tchorlu was heralded far and wide, so that it might serve as a lesson to other cities before which their armies appeared. Evrenos bey, pushing forward on the left, occupied Demotika,[250] and then Gumuldjina. This operation gave to the Osmanlis control of the basin of the Maritza River, and removed the danger of a Serbian attack. A column on the right moved up the coast of the Black Sea and captured Kirk Kilisse, a position of extreme strategic importance in preventing a possible Bulgarian attempt to relieve Adrianople by bringing an army through the mountainous country between the river and the sea.[251] After the capture of Tchorlu, Murad advanced to Lule Burgas on the north bank of the Ergene, where he effected a junction with the armies of Evrenos and Lalashahin. The decisive battle was fought between Bunar Hissar and Eski Baba, to which point the defenders of Adrianople had [Illustration: THE EMIRATE OF MURAD] advanced.[252] The Byzantines and Bulgarians were defeated. The Greek commandant of Adrianople, with a portion of his army, managed to flee down the Maritza to Enos.[253] it is one of the remarkable coincidences of history that the Osmanlis should have won the first battle which opened up to them their glorious future in Europe in exactly the same place that was to witness five hundred and fifty years later their last desperate stand in the Balkan peninsula. Deserted by their commandant, and overwhelmed by the disaster of Eski Baba, the inhabitants of Adrianople opened their gates to the Osmanlis.[254] Murad installed Lalashahin in Adrianople, and took up his own head-quarters in Demotika,[255] where he built a palace and a mosque. Lalashahin, before settling down in Adrianople, carried his victorious arms up the valley of the Maritza as far as Philippopolis, which he fortified strongly. A stone bridge was built across the river.[256] The occupation of Philippopolis not only gave to the Osmanlis an advantageous base of operations against the Bulgarians, but also brought them the most fruitful source of revenue they had yet enjoyed. It enabled them to levy taxes upon the rice-growing industry. Bulgarians and Serbians were both dependent upon the harvests of the rice fields around Philippopolis. II