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Recently, I found myself reading from Adam Zamoyski's History of Poland and it talked briefly of Cossacks using longboats to raid Ottoman lands throughout the black sea during the 1600's. These raids put the king and the Sejm into conflict since the Sejm wanted better relations with the Ottomans while the king had other ideas.

At one point, Wladislaw IV started paying for a rather ambitious plan whereby the Cossacks would attempt to seize Constantinople by sea. This plan was accepted gladly by the Cossacks, but the Sejm caught wind and ended the plan, since a direct attack on Constaninople would really piss the Ottomans off.

So what if the Sejm doesn't cut off funding, and the Cossacks get all the funding they needed to build their ships, could they seize Constantinople. Its probably a bit of a stretch, but lets say they get lucky and raid Constaninople. It would be ASB for them to hold it, but how would such an attack be seen by the peoples of the Ottoman empire, or for that matter the Ottoman's neighbours? How would the Ottomans react? (beyond you know, pushing the Cossacks back out)
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