His army captured several fortresses, including Provadia, Pirot, and Shumen, and the Bulgarian capital of Veliko Tarnovo, forcing Shishman to capitulate to the Ottomans.

[1][2] Çandarlızade Ali then led his troops to join Sultan Murad at the crucial Battle of Kosovo on 20 June 1389 against the Serbian ruler Lazar (r. 1373–1389).

[1][2] Çandarlızade Ali accompanied Bayezid in his campaigns in Greece and Bosnia,[1] and fought in the Battle of Nicopolis in 1396, which resulted in the defeat of the Crusader army under the King of Hungary, Sigismund.

Ali was a proponent of maintaining diplomatic avenues open, and in 1391 or 1396 he brokered an agreement that temporarily lifted the siege in exchange for the establishment of a mosque and a Turkish quarter in the city, with its own kazı.

This momentous event overturned the balance of power in the region, as the Ottoman domains in Anatolia were divided by Timur, who restored many of the Anatolian beyliks previously absorbed by Bayezid.

[1][2] Ottoman chroniclers present a very negative picture of Çandarlızade Ali, accusing him of being a drunkard and a paedophile, and of inducing both Bayezid and Süleyman to follow his debauched lifestyle.