The elite standing infantry of the Ottoman Empire, raised through the devshirme, a periodic levy of Christian boys taken from the Balkans, converted to Islam, and held as slaves of the sultan. They were among the first professional standing armies of the modern era, were early masters of gunpowder, and rose to make and unmake sultans before their violent abolition in 1826.
An Ottoman recruiting officer arrives in a Balkan village and inspects the Christian boys. He chooses the strongest and brightest, and their families usually have little legal power to refuse. The boys are marched to the capital, converted to Islam, and made slaves of the sultan. Yet that word, slave, hides a strange truth. One of those boys might rise to command armies, govern provinces, or run the empire as Grand Vizier. The same system that tore a child from his family could also carry him to the summit of power.