Well, the teasers you have released already about the New World are very interesting, and I would love to learn more about it, but there is still a lot to tell somewhere else. The world you have created is very riche and diverse and I for one would love to learn more about the past, especially in the nordic region (I still have a feeble for the Wheel-Rulers).
The New World of the White Huns
- Thread starter Practical Lobster
- Start date
Southeast Asia
[These are posts I'd basically finished when I decided to go on hiatus, so I figured I'd finish them up and put them here.]
A chronicle of Shahs
Nanaivant never expected to be the Shah of the Xasar Empire. Born in the sleepy Danubian agricultural community of Belhrat, his father was a lesser member of the usurping Darasakya family, and owned a series of luxurious villas along the river, isolated from the threat of Frankish raids by many miles of fortifications to the west. His father, also named Nanaivant, made every effort to remove himself from the politics of the Xasar court, especially after his brother Arjaxa seized power. But Arjaxa Shah distrusted those nobles who preferred to sequester themselves away from court – he was a firm believer in the notion that enemies should be kept close. And so the Shah demanded that the younger Nanaivant travel to Konstantikert and live as a hostage.
There were some orders one simply did not refuse.
Instantly, the boy impressed Arjaxa. Nanaivant Darasakya was a child who never seemed particularly impressed, according to Arjaxa’s daughter Amadtra, who wrote one of the definitive histories of the Darasakya Shahs. Everything he looked at or interacted with, he seemed to interact with as from a great distance, and Arjaxa found this aloofness in so young a child to be a kingly trait rather than a sign of the stunted emotional development of a child long sequestered behind opulent palace walls. Of Arjaxa’s own children, only one, Xsamandatta, survived to adulthood, and he would die in battle against the Sklaveni at the age of 18 – leaving Nanaivant the closest living relative and the obvious candidate for the throne.
Nanaivant accepted the title of Shah at the age of twenty three, after a long childhood in Konstantikert that was not so different from his upbringing in Belhrat. He remained largely sequestered from the typical activities of young men his age, and he did not ride to war. Arjaxa indulged these impulses, both out of a fondness for Nanaivant’s detached behavior and a willingness to spoil what few members of his family were left alive. Once enthroned, he made little effort to change, only now his behavior was more obvious to the courtiers and lords of the Xasar Shahdom – brought into the cold light of day, his behavior seemed inhuman and autocratic at the best of times, and downright sadistic at the worst.
Xsamandatta became all the more idolized for how perfect of a ruler he might have been, if only he had lived. Everything Nanaivant did angered the nobility – he set himself apart from the young lords with whom he had been raised and accordingly did not know his own retainers. He refused to party with them in the Bakhtiyar style that was in vogue – he avoided their carousing and debaucheries, and kept no concubines or lovers. He swung wildly between shy and aloof and arrogant and sneering, reminding his servants and family that he was a God incarnate, and forbidding them to look at him directly. If he had one talent, it was that he dismissed the small army of sycophantic courtiers that had surrounded Arjaxa in his last years.
Nanaivant would not take the field of battle or indeed resolve many policy decisions. Ghazan Shira Shah, a Christian Bakhtiyar prince in Anatolia, raided the frontiers with impunity, having rallied many who dreamed of restoring the Roman or Asian Empires to his cause. Calling himself Sublime Autokrator, he cut a dashing figure in fine armor on a swift Arabian horse, a clear contrast to the pale, tired Shah hiding in his palace. While Ghazan Shira was far too weak to seriously challenge the Xasar, he remained a thorn in the side of their Anatolian lords for the better part of a decade.
Nanaivant would die in 1173, after a mere eight years of ruling, before he could do enough damage to be a truly awful leader. A forty year old cavalry commander, the husband of Amadtra, Arjaxa “Sebouk” was elevated to the throne by the army. In sharp contrast to the king he left behind, he would spend no more than a total year of his fifteen year reign in Konstantikert. He granted the nobility and soldiery vast estates in Anatolia, destroying once and for all the power of the once great Asian landholding families and breaking the Bakhtiyar. Ghazan Shira was killed and Anatolia brought firmly under Xasar control.
Arjaxa II would be followed by Xsamandatta Shah, a scholarly man who nevertheless shared his father’s martial attributes, but perhaps a greater degree of prudence and pragmatism in how he applied them. “Anatolia,” he said wisely, “is a vast sink into which we shall pour the whole nation of the Xasar and find it emptied of its men and made effeminate by the proximity to the Romaniki.” While Xsamandatta would have the great misfortune of reigning during the Flowering Flesh, and was helpless to stop it, in the war-torn aftermath of the disease he sent out his warlike sons on a series of vast and successful invasions of Frankish Europe, marking a shift of the Xasar frontier westwards and demonstrating that he could strike at the Frankish kings with impunity while their realm collapsed into disorder. He ignored the Bakhtiyar and their internecine power struggles, preferring to focus on European affairs. However, he was also a patron of the arts and music, and unlike Arjaxa he spent much time beautifying Konstantikert, expanding the dockyards and building a new university just outside the city walls.
His eldest son, Drutasana, would seamlessly inherit Xsamandatta’s regime in the year 1221, and although he was already fifty years old, he would soon earn his soldiers epithet for him: “Conquering Lion.”
Southeast Asia
The Khmer Empire in the twelfth century was a curious institution. The Devaraja of Indranokura was unquestionably the foremost ruler of a vast empire, a land of rich riverine settlements and expansive temple complexes rising out of the deep forests. However, beneath the surface Kambujadesa (as the Khmer Empire was known to its contemporaries) was a paper tiger – the agricultural system that maintained it was dependent on artifice, continued internal political stability, and the cooperation of nature. Unlike other comparable powers, such as the Champa and the Chola, the Khmer were neither a maritime nor a particularly mercantile people. While their large population and strong military allowed them to dominate their neighbors, they were conscious that the world was largely leaving them behind. The arrival of Kitai fleets in the thirteenth century would only confirm this sense of technological and societal stagnation.
The twelfth century was one of gradual changes. A succession of long lived rulers coincided with an era of peace and prosperity. The Angkor Ayat formally adopted Mahayana Buddhism as the religion of the state in 1178, relegating the old Hindu temples to a secondary position. New Wats glorifying the Bodhisattva Lokesvara were built across the state and the “thousand handed sovereign” took the place of Holy Visnu in many royal decrees. Gradually, Malay and Bharati trading councils were established in the major cities of the Empire, and their foreign merchant quarters were carefully regulated.
However, the thirteenth century was one of chaos. The plague saw the collapse of key hydraulic works which had allowed the Kambuja to maintain their legendary prosperity. The Angkor Ayat collapsed into warring factions, and a succession of short-lived rulers failed to ensure the stability of the state. Sri Thep, a great Mon city that had long been subordinate to the Kambuja, openly rebelled with the assistance of its foreign merchant community – leading to the Khmer Empire turning on its foreign subjects in the Purge of 1232, which in turn lead to an attack by a coalition of Malay states organized by the “Twelve Happy Sreni” of Kataha and backed by the powerful navy of Srivijaya. While the Khmer army was distracted in Dvaravati surpressing the Mon rebellion, the army marched on the Angkor Ayat and forced them to flee from Indranokura to Yasodharapurait. However, the “Second Ayat” of the Empire, the ruling council of Yasodharapurait, had grown weary of their status as the second city of the Empire, and kidnapped them. The Raja of Yasodharapurait, Sriindravarman, met with the Srivijayan Admiral and struck the “Golden Treaty” disavowing the actions of the previous king and gaining recognition as sole ruler of the Khmer Empire. He renamed Yasodharapurait to Angkor Thom, acknowledging its status as the sole capital of the Empire, and accepted the independence of certain Mon cities in the former Dvaravati League before marching north and destroying the Indranokuran army.
This shift in power might under other circumstances have been restorative, but in the current situation it was anything but. The other subjects of the Khmer Empire realized how fragile royal power is, and even as population rates stagnated and the agricultural systems of the core regime fell into disrepair, the periphery bled away and the center preoccupied itself with ever grander prestige projects, huge temples meant to overawe subjects who were purely concerned with military power. Meanwhile, raids by the migratory Shan people contributed to a situation where the “harmonious mandala” that was the Khmer Empire began to crack. Several battles between 1243-1258 revealed the weakness of the Khmer military – even with overwhelming Khmer numbers, the Shan and Champa managed to win startling victories over the new regime.
The Shan also assaulted the Kyauske Empire, ruled by a Raja Kysansittha. The Kyauske, similarly dependent on carefully managed hydraulic systems, had been devastated by the Great Plague, and the more arid northern regions in particular had suffered – leaving the capital of Kyauske vulnerable to rebellions by the southern cities, chief among them Kusimanagara, which gained independence in 1219 and was able to take a whole league of secondary entrepot ports with her. Gaining an alliance with the Pala dynasty to the west, the Kusimanagara Ayat was able to create a successful republican league in the south even as Kyauske was overrun.
Kysansittha, whose name recalled the first founder of his dynasty, was merely a boy when the Shan, a people related to the Tai, came down from the hills and overran Kyauske. A tribal people, divided into semi-feudal statelets, the Shan established a similar pattern of rule over the north. Instead of cities they built fortresses, and thus the pattern of development along the northern Irawaddi valley was substantially set back. Urbanization declined substantially, and instead of a centralized tax base records show that the Shan focused more heavily on corvee labor, indicating a regression from Kyauske’s more complex monetized economy. The most powerful of these new Shan states, Hsriwa, would come to be a substantial threat to the Kusimanagara, but not for the better part of a century, by which time the political situation had substantially shifted.
A chronicle of Shahs
Nanaivant never expected to be the Shah of the Xasar Empire. Born in the sleepy Danubian agricultural community of Belhrat, his father was a lesser member of the usurping Darasakya family, and owned a series of luxurious villas along the river, isolated from the threat of Frankish raids by many miles of fortifications to the west. His father, also named Nanaivant, made every effort to remove himself from the politics of the Xasar court, especially after his brother Arjaxa seized power. But Arjaxa Shah distrusted those nobles who preferred to sequester themselves away from court – he was a firm believer in the notion that enemies should be kept close. And so the Shah demanded that the younger Nanaivant travel to Konstantikert and live as a hostage.
There were some orders one simply did not refuse.
Instantly, the boy impressed Arjaxa. Nanaivant Darasakya was a child who never seemed particularly impressed, according to Arjaxa’s daughter Amadtra, who wrote one of the definitive histories of the Darasakya Shahs. Everything he looked at or interacted with, he seemed to interact with as from a great distance, and Arjaxa found this aloofness in so young a child to be a kingly trait rather than a sign of the stunted emotional development of a child long sequestered behind opulent palace walls. Of Arjaxa’s own children, only one, Xsamandatta, survived to adulthood, and he would die in battle against the Sklaveni at the age of 18 – leaving Nanaivant the closest living relative and the obvious candidate for the throne.
Nanaivant accepted the title of Shah at the age of twenty three, after a long childhood in Konstantikert that was not so different from his upbringing in Belhrat. He remained largely sequestered from the typical activities of young men his age, and he did not ride to war. Arjaxa indulged these impulses, both out of a fondness for Nanaivant’s detached behavior and a willingness to spoil what few members of his family were left alive. Once enthroned, he made little effort to change, only now his behavior was more obvious to the courtiers and lords of the Xasar Shahdom – brought into the cold light of day, his behavior seemed inhuman and autocratic at the best of times, and downright sadistic at the worst.
Xsamandatta became all the more idolized for how perfect of a ruler he might have been, if only he had lived. Everything Nanaivant did angered the nobility – he set himself apart from the young lords with whom he had been raised and accordingly did not know his own retainers. He refused to party with them in the Bakhtiyar style that was in vogue – he avoided their carousing and debaucheries, and kept no concubines or lovers. He swung wildly between shy and aloof and arrogant and sneering, reminding his servants and family that he was a God incarnate, and forbidding them to look at him directly. If he had one talent, it was that he dismissed the small army of sycophantic courtiers that had surrounded Arjaxa in his last years.
Nanaivant would not take the field of battle or indeed resolve many policy decisions. Ghazan Shira Shah, a Christian Bakhtiyar prince in Anatolia, raided the frontiers with impunity, having rallied many who dreamed of restoring the Roman or Asian Empires to his cause. Calling himself Sublime Autokrator, he cut a dashing figure in fine armor on a swift Arabian horse, a clear contrast to the pale, tired Shah hiding in his palace. While Ghazan Shira was far too weak to seriously challenge the Xasar, he remained a thorn in the side of their Anatolian lords for the better part of a decade.
Nanaivant would die in 1173, after a mere eight years of ruling, before he could do enough damage to be a truly awful leader. A forty year old cavalry commander, the husband of Amadtra, Arjaxa “Sebouk” was elevated to the throne by the army. In sharp contrast to the king he left behind, he would spend no more than a total year of his fifteen year reign in Konstantikert. He granted the nobility and soldiery vast estates in Anatolia, destroying once and for all the power of the once great Asian landholding families and breaking the Bakhtiyar. Ghazan Shira was killed and Anatolia brought firmly under Xasar control.
Arjaxa II would be followed by Xsamandatta Shah, a scholarly man who nevertheless shared his father’s martial attributes, but perhaps a greater degree of prudence and pragmatism in how he applied them. “Anatolia,” he said wisely, “is a vast sink into which we shall pour the whole nation of the Xasar and find it emptied of its men and made effeminate by the proximity to the Romaniki.” While Xsamandatta would have the great misfortune of reigning during the Flowering Flesh, and was helpless to stop it, in the war-torn aftermath of the disease he sent out his warlike sons on a series of vast and successful invasions of Frankish Europe, marking a shift of the Xasar frontier westwards and demonstrating that he could strike at the Frankish kings with impunity while their realm collapsed into disorder. He ignored the Bakhtiyar and their internecine power struggles, preferring to focus on European affairs. However, he was also a patron of the arts and music, and unlike Arjaxa he spent much time beautifying Konstantikert, expanding the dockyards and building a new university just outside the city walls.
His eldest son, Drutasana, would seamlessly inherit Xsamandatta’s regime in the year 1221, and although he was already fifty years old, he would soon earn his soldiers epithet for him: “Conquering Lion.”
Southeast Asia
The Khmer Empire in the twelfth century was a curious institution. The Devaraja of Indranokura was unquestionably the foremost ruler of a vast empire, a land of rich riverine settlements and expansive temple complexes rising out of the deep forests. However, beneath the surface Kambujadesa (as the Khmer Empire was known to its contemporaries) was a paper tiger – the agricultural system that maintained it was dependent on artifice, continued internal political stability, and the cooperation of nature. Unlike other comparable powers, such as the Champa and the Chola, the Khmer were neither a maritime nor a particularly mercantile people. While their large population and strong military allowed them to dominate their neighbors, they were conscious that the world was largely leaving them behind. The arrival of Kitai fleets in the thirteenth century would only confirm this sense of technological and societal stagnation.
The twelfth century was one of gradual changes. A succession of long lived rulers coincided with an era of peace and prosperity. The Angkor Ayat formally adopted Mahayana Buddhism as the religion of the state in 1178, relegating the old Hindu temples to a secondary position. New Wats glorifying the Bodhisattva Lokesvara were built across the state and the “thousand handed sovereign” took the place of Holy Visnu in many royal decrees. Gradually, Malay and Bharati trading councils were established in the major cities of the Empire, and their foreign merchant quarters were carefully regulated.
However, the thirteenth century was one of chaos. The plague saw the collapse of key hydraulic works which had allowed the Kambuja to maintain their legendary prosperity. The Angkor Ayat collapsed into warring factions, and a succession of short-lived rulers failed to ensure the stability of the state. Sri Thep, a great Mon city that had long been subordinate to the Kambuja, openly rebelled with the assistance of its foreign merchant community – leading to the Khmer Empire turning on its foreign subjects in the Purge of 1232, which in turn lead to an attack by a coalition of Malay states organized by the “Twelve Happy Sreni” of Kataha and backed by the powerful navy of Srivijaya. While the Khmer army was distracted in Dvaravati surpressing the Mon rebellion, the army marched on the Angkor Ayat and forced them to flee from Indranokura to Yasodharapurait. However, the “Second Ayat” of the Empire, the ruling council of Yasodharapurait, had grown weary of their status as the second city of the Empire, and kidnapped them. The Raja of Yasodharapurait, Sriindravarman, met with the Srivijayan Admiral and struck the “Golden Treaty” disavowing the actions of the previous king and gaining recognition as sole ruler of the Khmer Empire. He renamed Yasodharapurait to Angkor Thom, acknowledging its status as the sole capital of the Empire, and accepted the independence of certain Mon cities in the former Dvaravati League before marching north and destroying the Indranokuran army.
This shift in power might under other circumstances have been restorative, but in the current situation it was anything but. The other subjects of the Khmer Empire realized how fragile royal power is, and even as population rates stagnated and the agricultural systems of the core regime fell into disrepair, the periphery bled away and the center preoccupied itself with ever grander prestige projects, huge temples meant to overawe subjects who were purely concerned with military power. Meanwhile, raids by the migratory Shan people contributed to a situation where the “harmonious mandala” that was the Khmer Empire began to crack. Several battles between 1243-1258 revealed the weakness of the Khmer military – even with overwhelming Khmer numbers, the Shan and Champa managed to win startling victories over the new regime.
The Shan also assaulted the Kyauske Empire, ruled by a Raja Kysansittha. The Kyauske, similarly dependent on carefully managed hydraulic systems, had been devastated by the Great Plague, and the more arid northern regions in particular had suffered – leaving the capital of Kyauske vulnerable to rebellions by the southern cities, chief among them Kusimanagara, which gained independence in 1219 and was able to take a whole league of secondary entrepot ports with her. Gaining an alliance with the Pala dynasty to the west, the Kusimanagara Ayat was able to create a successful republican league in the south even as Kyauske was overrun.
Kysansittha, whose name recalled the first founder of his dynasty, was merely a boy when the Shan, a people related to the Tai, came down from the hills and overran Kyauske. A tribal people, divided into semi-feudal statelets, the Shan established a similar pattern of rule over the north. Instead of cities they built fortresses, and thus the pattern of development along the northern Irawaddi valley was substantially set back. Urbanization declined substantially, and instead of a centralized tax base records show that the Shan focused more heavily on corvee labor, indicating a regression from Kyauske’s more complex monetized economy. The most powerful of these new Shan states, Hsriwa, would come to be a substantial threat to the Kusimanagara, but not for the better part of a century, by which time the political situation had substantially shifted.
I like character-centric updates, like the one for the short-living rule of Nanaivant Darasakya. They, in my mind, emphasize the humanistic, anthropocentric shift in perception of history that characterized OTL Renaissance. I also like that you don't go too far into literary scenes and dialogues, but keep it summarized as a history book, not dissimilar to Plutarch's "Parallel Lives." I'm looking forward to reading more of those in the future.
Development of OTL Indochina is a peculiar one. With China, India, and Indo-African states becoming more and more aware of each other both culturally and economically, it seems natural that Indochina would be in a geographical position to benefit from the exchange taking place along the trade routes. At the same time, seems like a lot of states and cultures of South-East Asia are experiencing very big setbacks and sometimes even degradation. I wouldn't be surprised if Kitai and Tamil city-states would step in and fill the power vacuum of that potentially important region by launching a series of colonial wars or establishing protectorates.
Development of OTL Indochina is a peculiar one. With China, India, and Indo-African states becoming more and more aware of each other both culturally and economically, it seems natural that Indochina would be in a geographical position to benefit from the exchange taking place along the trade routes. At the same time, seems like a lot of states and cultures of South-East Asia are experiencing very big setbacks and sometimes even degradation. I wouldn't be surprised if Kitai and Tamil city-states would step in and fill the power vacuum of that potentially important region by launching a series of colonial wars or establishing protectorates.
Thanks! Generally speaking I don't like my history to have a whole lot of dialogue in it - while I've read many alternate histories that use narrative scenes with dialogue very effectively, to my mind it often seems that those feel more fictional.
I think you're very right - the latter half of the thirteenth century will see the beginning of real Kitai and Tamil meddling - establishing actual dominance rather than just trading ties. That said, powers like Srivijaya and Kataha are still major forces to be reckoned with, given that they control important trade lanes and could really be a thorn in the side of the merchant elite if not subdued. I don't see either the Tamil or Kitai being able to conquer much this far afield without working with complicit local polities and offering as many carrots as they do sticks. The Khmer and Kyauske regimes are fragile, but I think that fragility should be evocative of OTL - apparently strong, energetic states that have serious cracks beneath the surface that will only grow. Also, the growth of the Shan will be interesting, because the Shan are a more Sinicized state, and also Theravada Buddhists - it comparison to the Hindu-Buddhist (and Mahayana) syncretism of the Khmer and Pala states.
I think you're very right - the latter half of the thirteenth century will see the beginning of real Kitai and Tamil meddling - establishing actual dominance rather than just trading ties. That said, powers like Srivijaya and Kataha are still major forces to be reckoned with, given that they control important trade lanes and could really be a thorn in the side of the merchant elite if not subdued. I don't see either the Tamil or Kitai being able to conquer much this far afield without working with complicit local polities and offering as many carrots as they do sticks. The Khmer and Kyauske regimes are fragile, but I think that fragility should be evocative of OTL - apparently strong, energetic states that have serious cracks beneath the surface that will only grow. Also, the growth of the Shan will be interesting, because the Shan are a more Sinicized state, and also Theravada Buddhists - it comparison to the Hindu-Buddhist (and Mahayana) syncretism of the Khmer and Pala states.
God's Daughter and the East
God’s African Daughter
The Kay Empire of Kanem, two centuries after its founding, was a repressive but united theocratic regime. Generations of peace had seen the Dalai, or Students, grow into an identity that superseded ethnic or tribal-familial ties. By taking instruction in the Bible, by learning to recite chapters and even the entire compiled work from memory, one could advance in the consulted social ranking system of the Dalai regardless of origin or upbringing. If the Dalai were strict in their application of the Law, they were also remarkably egalitarian, and adept in creating a system where their peculiar brand of theocracy could self-perpetuate.
However, under Mai (King) Dawiti Kay, the Kanem Empire’s economy reached its lowest ebb in centuries. The Hawwaya Berbers to the north had turned to raiding, because there was simply no profit in the old trade lanes. As Africa turned oceanward, as the wealth of the Sahel went towards the black waters of the Atlantic, the old caravan routes began to dry up – and the first place this disaster struck was Kanem, the easternmost of the old roads. Bakhtiyar Egypt simple did not send missions down into the desert – instead they warred with Makuria, driving a wedge between African Christendom and the broader world. The Bakhtiyar were also the first to actively incorporate Hawwaya clans around Cyrene into their state, further separating the region along north/south lines.
The Kanem had always maintained, even in the period of great peace, an excellent military force, adept at striking against the Berbers, Daju, and any rebellious southern peoples who might secretly be hiding totems to false gods in their midst. Accordingly, a growing faction at court argued that Dawiti Kay should go to war with the Hausa, and that by taking land on the Niger they might once again become a great power in the world, linked back into the trade lanes. Also, there were certain factions that had never abandoned their religious impulse to spread the word of the Lord, and these emerged full swing once the notion of a war against the westerners became real.
The first target was Potiskum, the chief city of the Ngisim. Ngisim, ruled by a political and religious leader called the Kumu, defied the embassy of the Kanem, and according to legend ordered their missionaries executed. After this outrage, the Kanem fell on the Ngisim in 1154, destroying their city and temples. The typical scenes of triumph were enacted across Ngisim’s central marketplace, where Dawiti Kay declared his victory in truly spectacular fashion. A golden cross was erected in the marketplace, and those captive notables who could afford to buy their way out of slavery were made to kiss it and denounce their idols. Those who did not were summarily executed. This scene repeated in village after village, and the Kanem armies marched onwards. Ngisim refugees fled en masse, spreading panic as they went.
The Hausa Kingdom of Kano, based around the eponymous city, was the greatest of the Hausa Kingdoms, although it never achieved more than slight hegemony over its rivals. As tales of the atrocities in Ngisim spread, however, these rivalries were put aside. The priestesses of the various cities gathered together in Kano and held a conference where it was decided that the Hausa would set aside their difference in the face of Kanem. According to the Kano Chronicle, the “All-Mother” and high priestess of their faith gave such an impassioned plea that the gathered Kings were moved to declare that they would not rest until Kanem was destroyed.
This Hausa confederacy was not perfect – indeed many cities would do little more than contribute token forces, but it laid the stage for future pacts and unity. However, the King of Kano, Gijimasu did receive aid from several kingdoms, including Kalawa and Daura, whose swift cavalry would play a decisive role in the conflict to come. As a well situated trading power with many links to regional states, Kano was able to leverage many allies and call in many favors. Even the distant Mansa of Djenne, Nyingnemdo, sent tokens of aid and assistance.
“The Student-Kings,” Gijimasu is recorded as saying in the Kano Chronicle, “worship no spirits save Atrocity. They will not honor the pacts that have made in this country. If you do not stand with us, will you not fall in turn, slaves to the White Banner of Kanem?”
Many answered his call of war against the Student Kings, and the Kano Chronicle provides one of the clearest pictures of West African warfare in this era. Cavalry dominated both sides, but unlike the Xasar or European model of cavalry warfare, there were no charges with couched lance or whirling volleys of arrows shot in the “Parthian style.” While the Kanem and Kano alike went into battle well armored in mail, with their horses protected by padded cloth barding, their cavalry were more accustomed to tactics that Europe might have called “light” – but were devastatingly effective nonetheless. Riding in close, a skilled rider could loose javelins at rapid speed, and carrying a quiver of ten to twenty, could wreak untold havoc on a dense infantry formation or an opposing cavalry squadron alike, before riding in with sword or axe to finish off the survivors.
The war would last five years, and saw relatively few decisive engagements. It is a testament to the organization of the Kanem state that they were able to sustain a war on the offensive at such long distances from their homelands, but ultimately their armies were decimated. The Hausa were more familiar with warfare – internecine conflicts against their rival cities had ensured a ready supply of veteran soldiers capable of training new levied troops how to fight. By contrast, like many West or Central African states, the Kanem rarely engaged in full-scale conflicts, and when they did were accustomed to having an overwhelming advantage in numbers. Facing a foe who could easily bring tens of thousands of troops to a battlefield was a new experience – the closest similar threat to the Kanem was Makuria, who were limited by geography and accordingly would never engage in more than isolated proxy conflict.
Thus defeated, the Kanem signed a humiliating peace that recognized the Hausa confederacy as its equal. With peace came a period of soul searching. What had they done wrong? How had they defied God that he would punish them with defeat against a heathen foe? The ensuing purges would be some of the most brutal in the Kay Empire’s history.
For the Hausa, victory meant newfound confidence and a self-assurance which led them to take on a larger role in West African history…
The Bakhtiyar East
For most Europeans, the world to the east was the dominion of the Xasar. By happening to be the closest heathen Empire and the latest in the long series of threats to Christendom, the Xasar became synonymous with firearms, Buddhism, and all the exotic hedonism of the orient. However, for the educated, all those things had their origins even further East. The Bahktiyar, to the European eye, were all that was wrong with the east. Debauched and warlike in equal measure, they symbolized the disorder and chaos of the eastern world. The pleasure-palaces of the Bakhtiyar Shahs were populated with beautiful young girls and boys, and the Shahs and their companions would drink themselves into a stupor while enjoying every sensual pleasure of the flesh.
There is some truth, of course, to these tales. Certainly, the Bakhtiyar were influenced by the ancient Iranian tradition of keeping a harem, and certainly the wine culture of the East had flourished under Eftal, Turkish, and Khardi patronage alike. Strong beers and wines were well known in the Bakhtiyar and Xasar courts, and intoxicants ranging from alcohol to cannabis to khat to the zanj drink could be found in their cities. But if the Bakhtiyar were inheritors of some sort of hedonistic tradition, they also ran sophisticated states with well-ordered governments. Negotiations between the various Bakhtiyar states revolved around ceremonial gift-exchange and the various “brother-kings” all respected each other’s legitimacy.
While border wars were a substantial part of the Bakhtiyar lifestyle, and an important way for a new Shah to gain respect from his retainers, these conflicts were usually low intensity. The Bakhtiyar did not fight wars for existential survival, but rather to shore up their positions in a constantly shifting pattern of alliances and borders. Like the Khardi, each Bakhtiyar ruler considered themselves to be a universal sovereign. For the Bakhtiyar, especially those of Tayzig descent, equally important was the fact that they were a spiritual heir to Akhsau Mansar, who was descended from the first Ifthalshahs and thus from the Askarid and Kayan dynasties of Iran.
The symbolism on Bakhtiyar coinage speaks to this. The King was always presented as an idealized figure, lofty and divine, surrounded by Buddhist symbols. However, the writing on the reverse was usually in many languages – in the bastardized Arabic of the Tayzig, in the Khardi dialect of Iranian, or any number of regional languages. Everything was at one particularistic and universal, and accordingly as boundaries shifted and varies Tayzig and Ifthal clans fell under various monarchs they adapted with remarkable alacrity, finding one ruler little different than another.
The three greatest Bakhtiyar dynasties were located in Iran, where the Ansara Suf ruled; Egypt, the seat of the Mansar dynasty, and Syria, where the Haruniya dynasty ruled. Each of these dynasties was confronted with unique challenges – for the Ansara Suf, those challenges involved retaining control of Transoxania and bringing the various Turkish warlords to heel. The Haruniya had to balance the interests of the large Coptic majority against that of their various settler populations. The Mansar, despite the strongest manpower base (holding most of the Ifthal and Tayzig country) were surrounded by threats and thus had to adapt to a state of near constant warfare.
The coming of the Flowering Flesh did little to shake the Bakhtiyar regime – if anything it strengthened it. As the great cities of the east were hollowed out by plague, the Bakhtiyar themselves prospered by being able to fill the vacuum, rewriting once against the demographics of the Middle East. Any ethnic map of the region would by an absolute patchwork – the sprawl of Khardi and Ifthal settlements, the indigenous Syrian, Iranian, and Egyptian populations, the Arabs and Turks and Tayzigs blanketed over the entire region, the legacy of successive successful invasions.
Perhaps this is why, unlike in other parts of the world, premodern and indeed modern states in the Middle East were never based on the idea of a common language group or common history. The politics of ethnic and religious identity were always complex, always defied easy arrangement. While the Bakhtiyar held absolute power as a martial aristocracy, as the era of martial aristocracies faded away, what would replace them was by necessity deeply egalitarian and confederal.
The Kay Empire of Kanem, two centuries after its founding, was a repressive but united theocratic regime. Generations of peace had seen the Dalai, or Students, grow into an identity that superseded ethnic or tribal-familial ties. By taking instruction in the Bible, by learning to recite chapters and even the entire compiled work from memory, one could advance in the consulted social ranking system of the Dalai regardless of origin or upbringing. If the Dalai were strict in their application of the Law, they were also remarkably egalitarian, and adept in creating a system where their peculiar brand of theocracy could self-perpetuate.
However, under Mai (King) Dawiti Kay, the Kanem Empire’s economy reached its lowest ebb in centuries. The Hawwaya Berbers to the north had turned to raiding, because there was simply no profit in the old trade lanes. As Africa turned oceanward, as the wealth of the Sahel went towards the black waters of the Atlantic, the old caravan routes began to dry up – and the first place this disaster struck was Kanem, the easternmost of the old roads. Bakhtiyar Egypt simple did not send missions down into the desert – instead they warred with Makuria, driving a wedge between African Christendom and the broader world. The Bakhtiyar were also the first to actively incorporate Hawwaya clans around Cyrene into their state, further separating the region along north/south lines.
The Kanem had always maintained, even in the period of great peace, an excellent military force, adept at striking against the Berbers, Daju, and any rebellious southern peoples who might secretly be hiding totems to false gods in their midst. Accordingly, a growing faction at court argued that Dawiti Kay should go to war with the Hausa, and that by taking land on the Niger they might once again become a great power in the world, linked back into the trade lanes. Also, there were certain factions that had never abandoned their religious impulse to spread the word of the Lord, and these emerged full swing once the notion of a war against the westerners became real.
The first target was Potiskum, the chief city of the Ngisim. Ngisim, ruled by a political and religious leader called the Kumu, defied the embassy of the Kanem, and according to legend ordered their missionaries executed. After this outrage, the Kanem fell on the Ngisim in 1154, destroying their city and temples. The typical scenes of triumph were enacted across Ngisim’s central marketplace, where Dawiti Kay declared his victory in truly spectacular fashion. A golden cross was erected in the marketplace, and those captive notables who could afford to buy their way out of slavery were made to kiss it and denounce their idols. Those who did not were summarily executed. This scene repeated in village after village, and the Kanem armies marched onwards. Ngisim refugees fled en masse, spreading panic as they went.
The Hausa Kingdom of Kano, based around the eponymous city, was the greatest of the Hausa Kingdoms, although it never achieved more than slight hegemony over its rivals. As tales of the atrocities in Ngisim spread, however, these rivalries were put aside. The priestesses of the various cities gathered together in Kano and held a conference where it was decided that the Hausa would set aside their difference in the face of Kanem. According to the Kano Chronicle, the “All-Mother” and high priestess of their faith gave such an impassioned plea that the gathered Kings were moved to declare that they would not rest until Kanem was destroyed.
This Hausa confederacy was not perfect – indeed many cities would do little more than contribute token forces, but it laid the stage for future pacts and unity. However, the King of Kano, Gijimasu did receive aid from several kingdoms, including Kalawa and Daura, whose swift cavalry would play a decisive role in the conflict to come. As a well situated trading power with many links to regional states, Kano was able to leverage many allies and call in many favors. Even the distant Mansa of Djenne, Nyingnemdo, sent tokens of aid and assistance.
“The Student-Kings,” Gijimasu is recorded as saying in the Kano Chronicle, “worship no spirits save Atrocity. They will not honor the pacts that have made in this country. If you do not stand with us, will you not fall in turn, slaves to the White Banner of Kanem?”
Many answered his call of war against the Student Kings, and the Kano Chronicle provides one of the clearest pictures of West African warfare in this era. Cavalry dominated both sides, but unlike the Xasar or European model of cavalry warfare, there were no charges with couched lance or whirling volleys of arrows shot in the “Parthian style.” While the Kanem and Kano alike went into battle well armored in mail, with their horses protected by padded cloth barding, their cavalry were more accustomed to tactics that Europe might have called “light” – but were devastatingly effective nonetheless. Riding in close, a skilled rider could loose javelins at rapid speed, and carrying a quiver of ten to twenty, could wreak untold havoc on a dense infantry formation or an opposing cavalry squadron alike, before riding in with sword or axe to finish off the survivors.
The war would last five years, and saw relatively few decisive engagements. It is a testament to the organization of the Kanem state that they were able to sustain a war on the offensive at such long distances from their homelands, but ultimately their armies were decimated. The Hausa were more familiar with warfare – internecine conflicts against their rival cities had ensured a ready supply of veteran soldiers capable of training new levied troops how to fight. By contrast, like many West or Central African states, the Kanem rarely engaged in full-scale conflicts, and when they did were accustomed to having an overwhelming advantage in numbers. Facing a foe who could easily bring tens of thousands of troops to a battlefield was a new experience – the closest similar threat to the Kanem was Makuria, who were limited by geography and accordingly would never engage in more than isolated proxy conflict.
Thus defeated, the Kanem signed a humiliating peace that recognized the Hausa confederacy as its equal. With peace came a period of soul searching. What had they done wrong? How had they defied God that he would punish them with defeat against a heathen foe? The ensuing purges would be some of the most brutal in the Kay Empire’s history.
For the Hausa, victory meant newfound confidence and a self-assurance which led them to take on a larger role in West African history…
The Bakhtiyar East
For most Europeans, the world to the east was the dominion of the Xasar. By happening to be the closest heathen Empire and the latest in the long series of threats to Christendom, the Xasar became synonymous with firearms, Buddhism, and all the exotic hedonism of the orient. However, for the educated, all those things had their origins even further East. The Bahktiyar, to the European eye, were all that was wrong with the east. Debauched and warlike in equal measure, they symbolized the disorder and chaos of the eastern world. The pleasure-palaces of the Bakhtiyar Shahs were populated with beautiful young girls and boys, and the Shahs and their companions would drink themselves into a stupor while enjoying every sensual pleasure of the flesh.
There is some truth, of course, to these tales. Certainly, the Bakhtiyar were influenced by the ancient Iranian tradition of keeping a harem, and certainly the wine culture of the East had flourished under Eftal, Turkish, and Khardi patronage alike. Strong beers and wines were well known in the Bakhtiyar and Xasar courts, and intoxicants ranging from alcohol to cannabis to khat to the zanj drink could be found in their cities. But if the Bakhtiyar were inheritors of some sort of hedonistic tradition, they also ran sophisticated states with well-ordered governments. Negotiations between the various Bakhtiyar states revolved around ceremonial gift-exchange and the various “brother-kings” all respected each other’s legitimacy.
While border wars were a substantial part of the Bakhtiyar lifestyle, and an important way for a new Shah to gain respect from his retainers, these conflicts were usually low intensity. The Bakhtiyar did not fight wars for existential survival, but rather to shore up their positions in a constantly shifting pattern of alliances and borders. Like the Khardi, each Bakhtiyar ruler considered themselves to be a universal sovereign. For the Bakhtiyar, especially those of Tayzig descent, equally important was the fact that they were a spiritual heir to Akhsau Mansar, who was descended from the first Ifthalshahs and thus from the Askarid and Kayan dynasties of Iran.
The symbolism on Bakhtiyar coinage speaks to this. The King was always presented as an idealized figure, lofty and divine, surrounded by Buddhist symbols. However, the writing on the reverse was usually in many languages – in the bastardized Arabic of the Tayzig, in the Khardi dialect of Iranian, or any number of regional languages. Everything was at one particularistic and universal, and accordingly as boundaries shifted and varies Tayzig and Ifthal clans fell under various monarchs they adapted with remarkable alacrity, finding one ruler little different than another.
The three greatest Bakhtiyar dynasties were located in Iran, where the Ansara Suf ruled; Egypt, the seat of the Mansar dynasty, and Syria, where the Haruniya dynasty ruled. Each of these dynasties was confronted with unique challenges – for the Ansara Suf, those challenges involved retaining control of Transoxania and bringing the various Turkish warlords to heel. The Haruniya had to balance the interests of the large Coptic majority against that of their various settler populations. The Mansar, despite the strongest manpower base (holding most of the Ifthal and Tayzig country) were surrounded by threats and thus had to adapt to a state of near constant warfare.
The coming of the Flowering Flesh did little to shake the Bakhtiyar regime – if anything it strengthened it. As the great cities of the east were hollowed out by plague, the Bakhtiyar themselves prospered by being able to fill the vacuum, rewriting once against the demographics of the Middle East. Any ethnic map of the region would by an absolute patchwork – the sprawl of Khardi and Ifthal settlements, the indigenous Syrian, Iranian, and Egyptian populations, the Arabs and Turks and Tayzigs blanketed over the entire region, the legacy of successive successful invasions.
Perhaps this is why, unlike in other parts of the world, premodern and indeed modern states in the Middle East were never based on the idea of a common language group or common history. The politics of ethnic and religious identity were always complex, always defied easy arrangement. While the Bakhtiyar held absolute power as a martial aristocracy, as the era of martial aristocracies faded away, what would replace them was by necessity deeply egalitarian and confederal.
Glad to see it alive and kicking.
I'm curious as to what will replace the Bakhtiyar. In OTL 7th century, such egalitarian confederal idea for the Middle East was the Islamic Ummah. With Saihists and Nowbahars in decline, I don't see classic religious conquests as a likely development there, especially due to the partisan, atomized nature of the Middle-Eastern social landscape. Perhaps, Nowbahar-inspired secularism or even a peculiar version of atheism could catch a wave of popularity, but only if it's supported by a dynamic, fluid social structure that would open social lifts to people regardless of their communal origin? My concern is that the pastoral and agricultural nature of the Middle-Eastern economy in this timeline kind of stops such dynamic social entities from emerging in the first place. India could be on the edge of first bourgeois revolutions, but Middle East seems to be still stuck in a perpetual High Middle Age to me. Am I missing something big?
BTW, the Kanem society may be perfectly ready for its own attempt to create a national identity above the level of tribal and family ties, both due to its theocratic dynamism and the shake-off they've experienced due to their loss to the Hausa. Not that the actual Empire of Kanem would survive such a shift of paradigms, but the resulting construct may end up being surprisingly competitive and solid, especially for its times.
I'm curious as to what will replace the Bakhtiyar. In OTL 7th century, such egalitarian confederal idea for the Middle East was the Islamic Ummah. With Saihists and Nowbahars in decline, I don't see classic religious conquests as a likely development there, especially due to the partisan, atomized nature of the Middle-Eastern social landscape. Perhaps, Nowbahar-inspired secularism or even a peculiar version of atheism could catch a wave of popularity, but only if it's supported by a dynamic, fluid social structure that would open social lifts to people regardless of their communal origin? My concern is that the pastoral and agricultural nature of the Middle-Eastern economy in this timeline kind of stops such dynamic social entities from emerging in the first place. India could be on the edge of first bourgeois revolutions, but Middle East seems to be still stuck in a perpetual High Middle Age to me. Am I missing something big?
BTW, the Kanem society may be perfectly ready for its own attempt to create a national identity above the level of tribal and family ties, both due to its theocratic dynamism and the shake-off they've experienced due to their loss to the Hausa. Not that the actual Empire of Kanem would survive such a shift of paradigms, but the resulting construct may end up being surprisingly competitive and solid, especially for its times.
Kanem is thrilling, but they had it coming. Hausa surge sounds cool, too.
The Eastern Med is quite principally a great place for egalitarian confederations ;-) but I haven`t spotted any hints our cherished author may have dropped with regards to what these might be, either. But that only makes me even more curious as to what it`s going to turn out to be. I´m sure it´s going to be awesome, like everything about this timeline.
The Eastern Med is quite principally a great place for egalitarian confederations ;-) but I haven`t spotted any hints our cherished author may have dropped with regards to what these might be, either. But that only makes me even more curious as to what it`s going to turn out to be. I´m sure it´s going to be awesome, like everything about this timeline.
Glad to see this back! The cultural diversity of the Near East is very fascinating, and I wonder what it's going to develop into in the future.
Great Lakes
Urban development in East Africa
Historians have long questioned the exact pattern of development in the region of Africa astride the Great Lakes. Relying on the courtly traditions of the Ganda and Nkore and similar Bantu kingdoms provides an incomplete picture – but so too does relying on the often biased travelogues of Indian and Savahilan adventurers. Archeology is little help, because the urban foundations of the region were ephemeral and constantly shifting. The records of kings founding settlements with every reign seems to point to the merest shift in political power necessitating the evacuation of the entire royal enclosure to a new location, and according mass migrations of the elites. The rural subsistence farmer or tributary landholder was too low in status to merit mention in these accounts, and so their lives remain shrouded in mystery.
For the Indian travelers who came spreading Buddhism or Ishvara worship, or simply to trade, there was little question of interacting with the impoverished or rural. They were inclined to see the whole of the Bantu world as deplorable and degraded compared to the superior Kw’adza, and their chauvinism is recorded quite plainly in the travelogues. Where the Kw’adza were city-building rulers in the accounts of the Kapudesan merchant Bhiru Malagha, the Ganda king Murindwa was a “savage chief who rules over a carnival.” Lake Nyanza was deep forest, and would be until the rise of the Chwa monarchy circa 1250, whose work at land-clearing allowed permanent and profound agricultural changes to take place.
The chauvinism was a mix of racial animosity inherited from India and a sense that forest-dwellers were inherently inferior in some way to even the Kalenjin confederacy, who at least had the sensibility to raise cattle beyond the boundaries of the forest in the north. What the Kapudesans overlooked was the steady growth of the Bantu kingdoms, the migrations and counter-migrations that were slowly shifting the balance of power in East Africa. In the reign of Murindwa, a Nilotic-speaking people known as the Lwo crossed the Agoro mountains and began threatening the Kalenjin, applying pressure on the Ganda. Eventually, a separate branch of the Lwo, the Panyimur, would topple the Gandan kingdom in 1240. Another branch, the Atyak, would crush Kalenjin and subject the survivors to their rule.
The origins of the Lwo are unclear, but it is believed that they came under population pressures as a result of Makurian hegemony to the north. Some historians believe they were Christian in the Makurian tradition, but there is no evidence for that conjecture in any Gandan chronicle. Whatever their nature and origins, they did not long outlast their victory. The annihilation of the Ganda state merely lead to the rise of successor states, and these states, though lacking the centralization of the Ganda, were far more enduring and successful. The Kitara, Chwa, Karagwe, and Nkore were the greatest of these states, but the chronicles of the Ganda refer to even more polities than that: Ndorwa and Isingiro and countless others. Instead of competing over centralized power, these polities actually migrated back out into the broader Bantu world. The urbanized civilization they had created, merging Nilotic and Kushitic culture and ideas with their own traditional agrarian practices, spread like wildfire across East Africa. In the country of Rwanda, the Singa clan came to power ruling as a confederal monarchy in a style that would not be unfamiliar to the Ganda.
What remains uncertain to historians however, is whether or not this was a simple spread of ideas or of people as well. The impact of the Lwo has long been debated. Certainly the destruction of Ganda acquired almost a mythic significance as a sort of “loss of innocence” moment for the culture of the Lake Nyanza region. The collapse of the nation marks the end of a golden age and the beginning of a more successful but also more brutal and less moral era with less ancestral piety and more ambitious, scheming courtiers. Certain accounts speak of “refugee kings” or “pioneer kings” but it is uncertain if these figures brought people or merely ideas and belief systems with them out of Ganda. Certainly there is little genetic evidence for a widespread exchange of population, but the scale is nevertheless disputed. Yet other historians have argued, quite successfully, that the development of the Songye kingdom on the Lomani river, the Boyomi Riverine Complex, and Rwanda is independent of the Ganda-Lwo migrations entirely. They argue that the vast changes which took place in the Congo basin during the thirteenth century were simply the culmination of existing trends in centralization and development, and that the Ganda played no role at all. The division of labor was self-reinforcing cycle which provided great returns to all who were involved in it – it raised quality of life and freed many from backbreaking agricultural labor. Iron metallurgy was reaching new levels of sophistication, and it was only logical that stone cities would begin to form.
The evolution of what most historians still call the “Ganda-system” of Kingship relates to the loss of the King’s sacred authority to rule, ironically enough. In Ganda and Congo alike before 1100, the Bantu kings retained the chiefly right to perform sacred rituals and enjoyed religious power. After this time, that authority was slowly stripped away, replaced with an increasingly large retinue of itinerant bureaucrats, councilors, and priestly figures. Bodyguards, dignitaries, judges, and the like were rewarded in valuables and most importantly, a royal allocation of sorghum-beer. These rewards necessitated additional agricultural surplus – and while land was abundant, clearing it was intensive, so the corvee system gradually developed out of that. Labor-tax allowed the Bantu kings to direct villages towards long-term productivity instead of what was in their short term interests, allowing a steady but gradual population growth which in turn allowed more specialization which in turn increased royal power. Most specialized artisans and court dignitaries were either directly owned by the King himself in some form or other – effectively indentured servants – but their children were free to travel to other courts and work for whomever they pleased. Attracting talented workers into these contracts thus became a major occupation in and of itself.
These changes allowed the Lake Nyanza civilization in particular to survive and thrive in contrast to the Kw’adza and the new Lwo kingdoms to their north, which lacked this sophistication. The Kw’adza in particular were increasingly becoming subsumed into the colonial boundaries of the Kapudesa, and lacked the will to escape this gradual assimilation. To compete with the growing strength of the Takama kingdom to their north, whose armies seemed, in the words of Malagha, “larger and more vicious with each passing year, owing to the movement of those retainers who flee the might of the Luoh and the civil wars of the north” the Kw’adza were forced to invite Kapudesan soldiers into their midst. They lacked the indigenous ironworking capacity to match the increasingly sophisticated iron weapons and armor of the Takama and so came to rely on Kapudesan military forts deep in their territory for protection. The introduction of coffee to the region was also a final blow to the autonomy of the native kingdoms there. The Ma’a and Kw’adza had the misfortune of dwelling in a region where the Zanj bean was best cultivated, and after the Kapudesa introduced the bean to the region, it was quickly found to be more profitable than food production in many marginal areas. By the late twelfth century, the Kapudesans were making an immense profit as coffee middlemen, effectively running many interior tribes as plantations.
[Thanks guys. The discussion of any egalitarian confederation in the middle east is very much a "down the line" sort of thing. You're right to say, Ahigin, that the Middle East is stuck in a sort of perpetual Middle Ages. The changes that will have to occur for that to change are themselves shocking, especially given that events like the Flowering Flesh have only entrenched Bakhtiyar feudalism even more. But down the road it's worth thinking that some sort of weird ideology might emerge to unite people regardless of their origins, and that such an ideology might be the best hope for the Middle East in this timeline finding peace.]
Historians have long questioned the exact pattern of development in the region of Africa astride the Great Lakes. Relying on the courtly traditions of the Ganda and Nkore and similar Bantu kingdoms provides an incomplete picture – but so too does relying on the often biased travelogues of Indian and Savahilan adventurers. Archeology is little help, because the urban foundations of the region were ephemeral and constantly shifting. The records of kings founding settlements with every reign seems to point to the merest shift in political power necessitating the evacuation of the entire royal enclosure to a new location, and according mass migrations of the elites. The rural subsistence farmer or tributary landholder was too low in status to merit mention in these accounts, and so their lives remain shrouded in mystery.
For the Indian travelers who came spreading Buddhism or Ishvara worship, or simply to trade, there was little question of interacting with the impoverished or rural. They were inclined to see the whole of the Bantu world as deplorable and degraded compared to the superior Kw’adza, and their chauvinism is recorded quite plainly in the travelogues. Where the Kw’adza were city-building rulers in the accounts of the Kapudesan merchant Bhiru Malagha, the Ganda king Murindwa was a “savage chief who rules over a carnival.” Lake Nyanza was deep forest, and would be until the rise of the Chwa monarchy circa 1250, whose work at land-clearing allowed permanent and profound agricultural changes to take place.
The chauvinism was a mix of racial animosity inherited from India and a sense that forest-dwellers were inherently inferior in some way to even the Kalenjin confederacy, who at least had the sensibility to raise cattle beyond the boundaries of the forest in the north. What the Kapudesans overlooked was the steady growth of the Bantu kingdoms, the migrations and counter-migrations that were slowly shifting the balance of power in East Africa. In the reign of Murindwa, a Nilotic-speaking people known as the Lwo crossed the Agoro mountains and began threatening the Kalenjin, applying pressure on the Ganda. Eventually, a separate branch of the Lwo, the Panyimur, would topple the Gandan kingdom in 1240. Another branch, the Atyak, would crush Kalenjin and subject the survivors to their rule.
The origins of the Lwo are unclear, but it is believed that they came under population pressures as a result of Makurian hegemony to the north. Some historians believe they were Christian in the Makurian tradition, but there is no evidence for that conjecture in any Gandan chronicle. Whatever their nature and origins, they did not long outlast their victory. The annihilation of the Ganda state merely lead to the rise of successor states, and these states, though lacking the centralization of the Ganda, were far more enduring and successful. The Kitara, Chwa, Karagwe, and Nkore were the greatest of these states, but the chronicles of the Ganda refer to even more polities than that: Ndorwa and Isingiro and countless others. Instead of competing over centralized power, these polities actually migrated back out into the broader Bantu world. The urbanized civilization they had created, merging Nilotic and Kushitic culture and ideas with their own traditional agrarian practices, spread like wildfire across East Africa. In the country of Rwanda, the Singa clan came to power ruling as a confederal monarchy in a style that would not be unfamiliar to the Ganda.
What remains uncertain to historians however, is whether or not this was a simple spread of ideas or of people as well. The impact of the Lwo has long been debated. Certainly the destruction of Ganda acquired almost a mythic significance as a sort of “loss of innocence” moment for the culture of the Lake Nyanza region. The collapse of the nation marks the end of a golden age and the beginning of a more successful but also more brutal and less moral era with less ancestral piety and more ambitious, scheming courtiers. Certain accounts speak of “refugee kings” or “pioneer kings” but it is uncertain if these figures brought people or merely ideas and belief systems with them out of Ganda. Certainly there is little genetic evidence for a widespread exchange of population, but the scale is nevertheless disputed. Yet other historians have argued, quite successfully, that the development of the Songye kingdom on the Lomani river, the Boyomi Riverine Complex, and Rwanda is independent of the Ganda-Lwo migrations entirely. They argue that the vast changes which took place in the Congo basin during the thirteenth century were simply the culmination of existing trends in centralization and development, and that the Ganda played no role at all. The division of labor was self-reinforcing cycle which provided great returns to all who were involved in it – it raised quality of life and freed many from backbreaking agricultural labor. Iron metallurgy was reaching new levels of sophistication, and it was only logical that stone cities would begin to form.
The evolution of what most historians still call the “Ganda-system” of Kingship relates to the loss of the King’s sacred authority to rule, ironically enough. In Ganda and Congo alike before 1100, the Bantu kings retained the chiefly right to perform sacred rituals and enjoyed religious power. After this time, that authority was slowly stripped away, replaced with an increasingly large retinue of itinerant bureaucrats, councilors, and priestly figures. Bodyguards, dignitaries, judges, and the like were rewarded in valuables and most importantly, a royal allocation of sorghum-beer. These rewards necessitated additional agricultural surplus – and while land was abundant, clearing it was intensive, so the corvee system gradually developed out of that. Labor-tax allowed the Bantu kings to direct villages towards long-term productivity instead of what was in their short term interests, allowing a steady but gradual population growth which in turn allowed more specialization which in turn increased royal power. Most specialized artisans and court dignitaries were either directly owned by the King himself in some form or other – effectively indentured servants – but their children were free to travel to other courts and work for whomever they pleased. Attracting talented workers into these contracts thus became a major occupation in and of itself.
These changes allowed the Lake Nyanza civilization in particular to survive and thrive in contrast to the Kw’adza and the new Lwo kingdoms to their north, which lacked this sophistication. The Kw’adza in particular were increasingly becoming subsumed into the colonial boundaries of the Kapudesa, and lacked the will to escape this gradual assimilation. To compete with the growing strength of the Takama kingdom to their north, whose armies seemed, in the words of Malagha, “larger and more vicious with each passing year, owing to the movement of those retainers who flee the might of the Luoh and the civil wars of the north” the Kw’adza were forced to invite Kapudesan soldiers into their midst. They lacked the indigenous ironworking capacity to match the increasingly sophisticated iron weapons and armor of the Takama and so came to rely on Kapudesan military forts deep in their territory for protection. The introduction of coffee to the region was also a final blow to the autonomy of the native kingdoms there. The Ma’a and Kw’adza had the misfortune of dwelling in a region where the Zanj bean was best cultivated, and after the Kapudesa introduced the bean to the region, it was quickly found to be more profitable than food production in many marginal areas. By the late twelfth century, the Kapudesans were making an immense profit as coffee middlemen, effectively running many interior tribes as plantations.
[Thanks guys. The discussion of any egalitarian confederation in the middle east is very much a "down the line" sort of thing. You're right to say, Ahigin, that the Middle East is stuck in a sort of perpetual Middle Ages. The changes that will have to occur for that to change are themselves shocking, especially given that events like the Flowering Flesh have only entrenched Bakhtiyar feudalism even more. But down the road it's worth thinking that some sort of weird ideology might emerge to unite people regardless of their origins, and that such an ideology might be the best hope for the Middle East in this timeline finding peace.]
Seems like the Nyanza region is just a perfect target for early Kapudesan colonialism. The sad irony is that it's going to be colonized and turned into a plantation-based economy just when it was ready for a big jump in urbanization. And I see no way local states can survive (as independent entities, not protectorates), outside some distant mountain regions of Rwanda.
To be fair to the civilization I'm describing, it's borders extend far beyond Lake Nyanza. I'm not sure the Kapudesa have the will or strength to reach OTL Congo - Africa is pretty big, and the Kapudesa even now, centuries after their founding, are primarily coastal in their settlement.
Fu Youde and the Treasure Fleets
Treasure Fleets
Beginning in the 1230’s, Yaol Pusuwan expanded the borders of Kitai to the north, building the major seaport of Yongmingcheng in Gamat Bay and bringing the peoples there under the yoke of Empire. Under his nominal command, the Northern Fleet mapped regions long thought to be devoid of interest, probing the arboreal vastness of the Siberian coastline and mapping the Kuyi islands. They found teeming populations of whales thriving beyond the still tentative reach of Ainu and Japanese fishers. They found deep uncharted forests and beautiful ranges of mountains that might hide coal and other resources.
But their expeditions would take some twenty years to achieve the fame of the Three Treasure Fleets. The first Treasure Fleet, launched in 1228, came only a short time after the Flowering Flesh, and was launched by an active crown prince not unlike Yaol Pusuwan: Yaol Abodai was another Kitai prince that chafed at the tedious confinement of palace life and so took onto himself the immense task of organizing a massive naval expedition in a plague ravaged and ruined China.
The First Treasure Fleet was small but overwhelmingly successful. The ports it visited were open for business but largely devastated and depopulated. A comparatively enormous military venture seemed incongruous to those who were faced with the arrival of the dashing prince in splendid finery. Traveling across the Malay region and reaching tentative footholds into India, Abodai produced a spectacular travelogue and did much to remind the weakened guilds who the true power in Southeast Asia was. The Chola were capable of sending fleets into the Malay Archipelago. They had done so on several occasions, to combat pirates and make shows of force – but these fleets had withdrawn after the Flowering Flesh, and had been slow in returning. As the local superpower, it fell to the Kitai to enforce order, seizing Liuqiu [1] from the guilds after it had once again sunk into the status of a pirate haven, and providing assistance to Srivijaya in keeping the region safe for merchant shipping.
While the Chola would return, they would find themselves outmatched. Yaol Abodai was not a brilliant sailor or even a capable admiral, but his position in the royal court allowed him to sponsor projects that others would have considered unthinkable, and maintain a massive expeditionary fleet for generations at ponderous expense. Even as an old man, he fought tooth and nail with three different Kitai Emperors to maintain his expeditionary fleets, and he would do so quite successfully. By 1271, when the Treasure Fleets were long gone, the Kitai still had a naval force based in the city of Temaseka, whose vital position on the straits meant that the Chola were forced to accommodate the local Embassy rather than fight it.
The second treasure fleet, under Xu Biao, is perhaps more aptly considered as two fleets. One fleet, under a series of subordinates, was retained in the “backyard” of China – doing yearly tours of the Malay Archipelago, making diplomatic stops, presenting gifts, fighting pirates, and mapping the region. However, the second and more glamorous fleet, under Xu Biao himself, would travel first to India, where it stopped at the major trade hubs, cementing business deals on behalf of distant Joint-Stock Companies and making business deals. While Xu Biao tried to avoid interfering in local politics to a great degree, on several occasions he writes that he was enlisted as an independent mediator, most importantly to solve a dispute between Bharukaccha and the Chandratreya Maharaja.
Carrying on, Admiral Biao reached Arabia and then Egypt, where he learned much to his disappointment that the Canal of the Pharaohs could not accommodate his vessels. Utilizing a bank loan from Bharukaccha to feed and supply his men in harbor, he sailed upriver with only a picked detachment, arriving in the capital city of Iskandara to much fanfare. He was pleasantly impressed with the hospitality of the Bakhtiyar, but opted against traveling north to Konstantikert, choosing instead to sail south through Kapudesa and on to Cape Watya, where he acquired a great quantity of Red Tea as a gift to the Emperor, along with many exotic animal pelts.
Fu Youde, who had previously been one of Xu Biao’s subordinates, was granted permission by Abodai to launch the Third Treasure Fleet several years later. His was a scaled down fleet, and his first port of call would be Mahavisayas, whose Raja greeted him well and agreed to the establishment of a trading quarter for Chinese merchants. However, that was only a small part of his mission.
One of the most stunning revelations brought back by Xu Biao was that there was a vast and wealthy land between Europe and China, and not, as many in the Kitai court had presumed, an immense ocean dotted only with tiny islands. If this knowledge had been known to many, it had not permeated the highest levels of the elite until Xu Biao brought it directly before Abodai. And yet, in one of the fortunate accidents of history, Xu Biao’s math was abhorrently poor. He contradicted established measurements of the globe which were known by Bakhtiyar, Indian, and Chinese mathematicians and philosophers alike – and yet Abodai bought into them at once, and those who did know refused to contradict him in all but the most subtle ways. A secondary appeal to the Emperor became bogged down in protocol, and thanks to Abodai’s persuasive manner, enough of the common sailors became convinced of the possibility that they were willing to outfit a massive expedition, thinking that just beyond what the Chola called the “Furthest Islands” there must lie the landmass the Fula Kings had discovered.
Thus, Fu Youde would become the first person to circumnavigate the globe, and in the process would see his fleet decimated. A single ship would limp into port at Shifu four years later with a crew that was almost completely different from the original – but Fu Youde lived. Disease wracked and preternaturally aged, he nevertheless clutched a journal whose findings would prove monumental to world history.
Fu Youde’s Journey
Starting in 1259 and lasting until 1262, Fu Youde would leave China with a fleet of some twenty ships. Merchants, astronomers, mapmakers, soldiers, navigators, sailors, prostitutes, diplomats, and thousands of others clogged up the immense fleet whose design was foolhardy from the beginning. In both the North and in Europe alike, expeditions were generally small affairs, with stripped down crews and plenty of supplies. However, Fu Youde, at Abodai’s order, had determined that resupply would be relatively easy. There was a general assumption that the islands that lay between Solvia and China were rich and fertile and would be willing to trade. While this was true, they were not capable of feeding such a vast fleet, and the moment the first storm hit out in the open ocean, Fu Youde’s fleet was scattered to the winds.
Most of the regions to which Fu Youde travelled had either exceedingly poor historiographical traditions, or were in a state of profound anarchy in the wake of disruptive invasions and population transfers. Accordingly, it is difficult to prove that his writings are true. There are records of his reaching Europe, as there are records of his arrival in Watya and the grueling last leg of his voyage around India, but there are no indigenous accounts of his time in Solvia, nor any accounts written by the Fula or Franks of that region.
The Third Fleet was first recorded arriving at a place they called the “Island of Stone Intervals” which is frequently associated with the developed urban civilization present on Pohnpei[1], or more recently, with the islands of Vauna or Viti, both of which also had stone monuments and Melanesian peoples who match the descriptions given by Fu Youde. He described a civilization that was to him an affront – although they had met with traders from Malaya, and even accepted stone idols of the Buddha, the islanders he encountered still worshiped “cannibal spirits whose hunger was rarely assuaged” and Fu Youde was deeply concerned with their seeming hospitality. He described incidents of violence breaking out between crew and islanders, and made his leave quickly.
Subsequently, Fu Youde lays out a tale of a miserable and degrading voyage across the Procellaric, interrupted only by an immense storm laying waste to his entire fleet and scattering them to the winds. When land was next sighted, there were only three ships remaining, their crews malnourished and diseased. No other ship was ever recovered, although various cryptohistorical tales have described arrivals across the new world, and sought to explain native traditions and cultures through the lens of “Third Fleet Survivor” narratives.
The new land Youde’s flagship sighted was Tolteca, then firmly under the grasp of the aged Mansa Njanire and the Queen Mother, Trese Cosca. The “black king” Youde describes however seems to have been no more than some sort of local satrap, with limited authority.[2] The hospitality of the Fula ruling class to strange wanderers was part of what would become a cultural tradition – Tolteca did not turn away travelers who were hungry, poor, or wretched. They remembered all too well their own arrival in Solvia, and their hospitality was in many cases a clever marketing campaign. Seeing the bounty laid before them, Youde reports many of the surviving crew deserted, and were welcomed with open arms by the local king, who was in any case seeking fresh sources of manpower.
By the time they left Tolteca and made to round the Southern Extremity, Fu Youde only had sufficient manpower to crew two ships. They had picked up several adventurous natives along the route, but these men were according to Youde, of “poor quality, and lacked knowledge of naval matters… They required complete training to be useful.” There was little time for training, however, as the Southern Extremity was as brutal as ever – the very test of nautical skill that had given the Procellaric Ocean its name proved more than the malnourished and exhausted sailors could reckon with. The winds and currents were treacherous and separated the two ships, leaving Youde’s flagship, the Emperor Taizong, alone. The second ship was never recovered.
Now alone, Youde sailed onwards up the coast. He describes a period of peaceful journey. The Emperor Taizong was repaired with wood from the verdant forests of Southern Solvia, and the natives they encountered were generally quite peaceful and curious. His remaining sailors ate well on a diet of tropical fruit until they reached a small and ramshackle colony on the coast belonging to a group of Fula-Norse traders, who were able to give them a chart and explained that their best bet for returning home was to catch the “Lesser Gyre” and then round yet another “Southern Extremity” – Cape Watya. Youde describes the sense of relief which washed over him when he realized that the name Watya was familiar, despite the difficulties of communicating with the Norse mayor of the settlement.
It would still be many months before they returned home. Damage to the ship caused by a transatlantic storm forced them to remain among the Temna peoples of the coast for some time, before finally they reached Akanembe, the great trading port of the Ukwu kingdom. There, they were fortunate to encounter a Chinese merchant from Guangzhou who was able to offer them sophisticated navigational charts and provisions. From there, their next long stop was at Izaoriaka, where they remained for several weeks after an attack by Savahilan pirates. Youde describes an island torn by internecine feuds, but offers a historically fascinating, if brief, portrait of Radamavarma, the man who would ultimately reunite the island, as a young child and temple-hostage.
From there, Youde travelled north to the island the Arabs called Suqotra, after passing through to take on fresh water and wine in Pazudesada, and then on to Arabia, where his men were attacked by customs officials who did not believe their story and forced to flee. Youde paints only a sparse picture of these regions, and has little positive to say about them. The Indian and Southeast Asian legs of the voyages passed largely without incident – in familiar waters, the threats to the crew were limited, and Youde describes a period of relatively pleasant travel and readily available provisions.
By the time of his return, it would take several months to confirm his identity. All but five members of the original crew were dead, and the ship crewed by a mix of what the Kitai officials considered strange barbarians – Kru and Temna from Africa, Toltecans, several Izaoriaka, and an Arab who had a “unique skill at languages.” The crew mostly spoke a bastardized mix of Chinese naval terms and their own argot, which by necessity was somehow comprehensible to all. The ship itself had been repaired so many times that officials struggled to identify it at all as the original ship, leading to the scholar Zhang She to propose and discuss at length the philosophical problem of the “Ship of Youde” – if every piece of a ship is replaced on its journey, is it the same ship that departed when it returns?
[1] Pohnpei, as OTL, has constructed some pretty impressive stone settlements and palaces despite a total lack of animal labor. It’s amazing what you can do with conscripted workers and years of ingenuity.
[2] Later historians would identify him as the ruler of Akapolko, which at the time was only a small coastal community – no more than a shadow of the major port it would become.
Beginning in the 1230’s, Yaol Pusuwan expanded the borders of Kitai to the north, building the major seaport of Yongmingcheng in Gamat Bay and bringing the peoples there under the yoke of Empire. Under his nominal command, the Northern Fleet mapped regions long thought to be devoid of interest, probing the arboreal vastness of the Siberian coastline and mapping the Kuyi islands. They found teeming populations of whales thriving beyond the still tentative reach of Ainu and Japanese fishers. They found deep uncharted forests and beautiful ranges of mountains that might hide coal and other resources.
But their expeditions would take some twenty years to achieve the fame of the Three Treasure Fleets. The first Treasure Fleet, launched in 1228, came only a short time after the Flowering Flesh, and was launched by an active crown prince not unlike Yaol Pusuwan: Yaol Abodai was another Kitai prince that chafed at the tedious confinement of palace life and so took onto himself the immense task of organizing a massive naval expedition in a plague ravaged and ruined China.
The First Treasure Fleet was small but overwhelmingly successful. The ports it visited were open for business but largely devastated and depopulated. A comparatively enormous military venture seemed incongruous to those who were faced with the arrival of the dashing prince in splendid finery. Traveling across the Malay region and reaching tentative footholds into India, Abodai produced a spectacular travelogue and did much to remind the weakened guilds who the true power in Southeast Asia was. The Chola were capable of sending fleets into the Malay Archipelago. They had done so on several occasions, to combat pirates and make shows of force – but these fleets had withdrawn after the Flowering Flesh, and had been slow in returning. As the local superpower, it fell to the Kitai to enforce order, seizing Liuqiu [1] from the guilds after it had once again sunk into the status of a pirate haven, and providing assistance to Srivijaya in keeping the region safe for merchant shipping.
While the Chola would return, they would find themselves outmatched. Yaol Abodai was not a brilliant sailor or even a capable admiral, but his position in the royal court allowed him to sponsor projects that others would have considered unthinkable, and maintain a massive expeditionary fleet for generations at ponderous expense. Even as an old man, he fought tooth and nail with three different Kitai Emperors to maintain his expeditionary fleets, and he would do so quite successfully. By 1271, when the Treasure Fleets were long gone, the Kitai still had a naval force based in the city of Temaseka, whose vital position on the straits meant that the Chola were forced to accommodate the local Embassy rather than fight it.
The second treasure fleet, under Xu Biao, is perhaps more aptly considered as two fleets. One fleet, under a series of subordinates, was retained in the “backyard” of China – doing yearly tours of the Malay Archipelago, making diplomatic stops, presenting gifts, fighting pirates, and mapping the region. However, the second and more glamorous fleet, under Xu Biao himself, would travel first to India, where it stopped at the major trade hubs, cementing business deals on behalf of distant Joint-Stock Companies and making business deals. While Xu Biao tried to avoid interfering in local politics to a great degree, on several occasions he writes that he was enlisted as an independent mediator, most importantly to solve a dispute between Bharukaccha and the Chandratreya Maharaja.
Carrying on, Admiral Biao reached Arabia and then Egypt, where he learned much to his disappointment that the Canal of the Pharaohs could not accommodate his vessels. Utilizing a bank loan from Bharukaccha to feed and supply his men in harbor, he sailed upriver with only a picked detachment, arriving in the capital city of Iskandara to much fanfare. He was pleasantly impressed with the hospitality of the Bakhtiyar, but opted against traveling north to Konstantikert, choosing instead to sail south through Kapudesa and on to Cape Watya, where he acquired a great quantity of Red Tea as a gift to the Emperor, along with many exotic animal pelts.
Fu Youde, who had previously been one of Xu Biao’s subordinates, was granted permission by Abodai to launch the Third Treasure Fleet several years later. His was a scaled down fleet, and his first port of call would be Mahavisayas, whose Raja greeted him well and agreed to the establishment of a trading quarter for Chinese merchants. However, that was only a small part of his mission.
One of the most stunning revelations brought back by Xu Biao was that there was a vast and wealthy land between Europe and China, and not, as many in the Kitai court had presumed, an immense ocean dotted only with tiny islands. If this knowledge had been known to many, it had not permeated the highest levels of the elite until Xu Biao brought it directly before Abodai. And yet, in one of the fortunate accidents of history, Xu Biao’s math was abhorrently poor. He contradicted established measurements of the globe which were known by Bakhtiyar, Indian, and Chinese mathematicians and philosophers alike – and yet Abodai bought into them at once, and those who did know refused to contradict him in all but the most subtle ways. A secondary appeal to the Emperor became bogged down in protocol, and thanks to Abodai’s persuasive manner, enough of the common sailors became convinced of the possibility that they were willing to outfit a massive expedition, thinking that just beyond what the Chola called the “Furthest Islands” there must lie the landmass the Fula Kings had discovered.
Thus, Fu Youde would become the first person to circumnavigate the globe, and in the process would see his fleet decimated. A single ship would limp into port at Shifu four years later with a crew that was almost completely different from the original – but Fu Youde lived. Disease wracked and preternaturally aged, he nevertheless clutched a journal whose findings would prove monumental to world history.
Fu Youde’s Journey
Starting in 1259 and lasting until 1262, Fu Youde would leave China with a fleet of some twenty ships. Merchants, astronomers, mapmakers, soldiers, navigators, sailors, prostitutes, diplomats, and thousands of others clogged up the immense fleet whose design was foolhardy from the beginning. In both the North and in Europe alike, expeditions were generally small affairs, with stripped down crews and plenty of supplies. However, Fu Youde, at Abodai’s order, had determined that resupply would be relatively easy. There was a general assumption that the islands that lay between Solvia and China were rich and fertile and would be willing to trade. While this was true, they were not capable of feeding such a vast fleet, and the moment the first storm hit out in the open ocean, Fu Youde’s fleet was scattered to the winds.
Most of the regions to which Fu Youde travelled had either exceedingly poor historiographical traditions, or were in a state of profound anarchy in the wake of disruptive invasions and population transfers. Accordingly, it is difficult to prove that his writings are true. There are records of his reaching Europe, as there are records of his arrival in Watya and the grueling last leg of his voyage around India, but there are no indigenous accounts of his time in Solvia, nor any accounts written by the Fula or Franks of that region.
The Third Fleet was first recorded arriving at a place they called the “Island of Stone Intervals” which is frequently associated with the developed urban civilization present on Pohnpei[1], or more recently, with the islands of Vauna or Viti, both of which also had stone monuments and Melanesian peoples who match the descriptions given by Fu Youde. He described a civilization that was to him an affront – although they had met with traders from Malaya, and even accepted stone idols of the Buddha, the islanders he encountered still worshiped “cannibal spirits whose hunger was rarely assuaged” and Fu Youde was deeply concerned with their seeming hospitality. He described incidents of violence breaking out between crew and islanders, and made his leave quickly.
Subsequently, Fu Youde lays out a tale of a miserable and degrading voyage across the Procellaric, interrupted only by an immense storm laying waste to his entire fleet and scattering them to the winds. When land was next sighted, there were only three ships remaining, their crews malnourished and diseased. No other ship was ever recovered, although various cryptohistorical tales have described arrivals across the new world, and sought to explain native traditions and cultures through the lens of “Third Fleet Survivor” narratives.
The new land Youde’s flagship sighted was Tolteca, then firmly under the grasp of the aged Mansa Njanire and the Queen Mother, Trese Cosca. The “black king” Youde describes however seems to have been no more than some sort of local satrap, with limited authority.[2] The hospitality of the Fula ruling class to strange wanderers was part of what would become a cultural tradition – Tolteca did not turn away travelers who were hungry, poor, or wretched. They remembered all too well their own arrival in Solvia, and their hospitality was in many cases a clever marketing campaign. Seeing the bounty laid before them, Youde reports many of the surviving crew deserted, and were welcomed with open arms by the local king, who was in any case seeking fresh sources of manpower.
By the time they left Tolteca and made to round the Southern Extremity, Fu Youde only had sufficient manpower to crew two ships. They had picked up several adventurous natives along the route, but these men were according to Youde, of “poor quality, and lacked knowledge of naval matters… They required complete training to be useful.” There was little time for training, however, as the Southern Extremity was as brutal as ever – the very test of nautical skill that had given the Procellaric Ocean its name proved more than the malnourished and exhausted sailors could reckon with. The winds and currents were treacherous and separated the two ships, leaving Youde’s flagship, the Emperor Taizong, alone. The second ship was never recovered.
Now alone, Youde sailed onwards up the coast. He describes a period of peaceful journey. The Emperor Taizong was repaired with wood from the verdant forests of Southern Solvia, and the natives they encountered were generally quite peaceful and curious. His remaining sailors ate well on a diet of tropical fruit until they reached a small and ramshackle colony on the coast belonging to a group of Fula-Norse traders, who were able to give them a chart and explained that their best bet for returning home was to catch the “Lesser Gyre” and then round yet another “Southern Extremity” – Cape Watya. Youde describes the sense of relief which washed over him when he realized that the name Watya was familiar, despite the difficulties of communicating with the Norse mayor of the settlement.
It would still be many months before they returned home. Damage to the ship caused by a transatlantic storm forced them to remain among the Temna peoples of the coast for some time, before finally they reached Akanembe, the great trading port of the Ukwu kingdom. There, they were fortunate to encounter a Chinese merchant from Guangzhou who was able to offer them sophisticated navigational charts and provisions. From there, their next long stop was at Izaoriaka, where they remained for several weeks after an attack by Savahilan pirates. Youde describes an island torn by internecine feuds, but offers a historically fascinating, if brief, portrait of Radamavarma, the man who would ultimately reunite the island, as a young child and temple-hostage.
From there, Youde travelled north to the island the Arabs called Suqotra, after passing through to take on fresh water and wine in Pazudesada, and then on to Arabia, where his men were attacked by customs officials who did not believe their story and forced to flee. Youde paints only a sparse picture of these regions, and has little positive to say about them. The Indian and Southeast Asian legs of the voyages passed largely without incident – in familiar waters, the threats to the crew were limited, and Youde describes a period of relatively pleasant travel and readily available provisions.
By the time of his return, it would take several months to confirm his identity. All but five members of the original crew were dead, and the ship crewed by a mix of what the Kitai officials considered strange barbarians – Kru and Temna from Africa, Toltecans, several Izaoriaka, and an Arab who had a “unique skill at languages.” The crew mostly spoke a bastardized mix of Chinese naval terms and their own argot, which by necessity was somehow comprehensible to all. The ship itself had been repaired so many times that officials struggled to identify it at all as the original ship, leading to the scholar Zhang She to propose and discuss at length the philosophical problem of the “Ship of Youde” – if every piece of a ship is replaced on its journey, is it the same ship that departed when it returns?
[1] Pohnpei, as OTL, has constructed some pretty impressive stone settlements and palaces despite a total lack of animal labor. It’s amazing what you can do with conscripted workers and years of ingenuity.
[2] Later historians would identify him as the ruler of Akapolko, which at the time was only a small coastal community – no more than a shadow of the major port it would become.
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WOW! What a monumental update! How full of promising hints! What a unique voyage! What a fascinating transcultural crew!
I´m so glad your writing blockade seems to have gone!
I´m so glad your writing blockade seems to have gone!
Great update!! Fu Youde's journey has achieved what any treasure fleet could hope to dream of. So many places have been touched, only time will tell of the voyage's impact.
Mesoamerica has piqued my interest. It may become the next great hub, a full amalgam of cultures from such diverse backgrounds. I wonder of the development of the TTL's equivalent of the Manila Galleon route. In a huge contrast to OTL, traders from both east and west may be going both ways. We'll have to wait and see of course, I can only imagine the amount of ideas that could flow across the oceans as time goes on, so many possibilities!
Mesoamerica has piqued my interest. It may become the next great hub, a full amalgam of cultures from such diverse backgrounds. I wonder of the development of the TTL's equivalent of the Manila Galleon route. In a huge contrast to OTL, traders from both east and west may be going both ways. We'll have to wait and see of course, I can only imagine the amount of ideas that could flow across the oceans as time goes on, so many possibilities!
Very cool. What happened when the fleet came to Peru? Come to think of it this fleet might be the first contact the Andean world has had with the peoples across the ocean...
Thanks guys! Glad to see there's still an enthusiastic readership.
@Jon the Numbat - Fu Youde's trip does indeed portend the development of a "Manila Galleon" route - he certainly has enough information to help future explorers and traders recreate his voyage, although in the short term it will still be quite a risky trip. The Procellaric has a bad reputation in TTL - both between the poor misbegotten attempts of European sailors to round the Southern Extremity and the fact that only one of twenty treasure ships actually completed Fu Youde's circumnavigation - and of those, 17 were lost in Procellaric (I'm not clear what China would call it - Dong Hai or Taiping Hai or something?)
@Orisha91 - oh gosh, when I get back to the Franks y'all are gonna see some things. There's been hints that something is rotten in Francia for a long time, but the post-plague Frankish state is... its a mess.
@Hobelhouse - Good point. Fu Youde encountered two major urban centers on his journey down the western coast of South Solvia - he describes a "city of terraces" called Tumpes by the natives. He noted a number of raft-borne fishermen on his approach, but he also reports being cautioned not to stay long, and finding upon closer examination that the city was almost entirely empty - a well-maintained ruin. While some fishermen were willing to trade portions of their catch and some exotic local fruit for trinkets, the local chieftain was, in his account, hostile and afraid that outsiders would bring further destruction. Accordingly he avoided making landfall until he reached the Chimu, where his ship took on more supplies at Chan Chan. He describes a city of (comparatively) large size, and was impressed with the hydraulics that made their lifestyle possible. After that they went south to Pachacamac, where he notes the huge and geometric temples of the city.Unlike with many of the places they made landfall, they really struggled to find anyone who could speak their languages in these places - obviously. There was some suspicion and hostility by the natives, which seems to have its origins in hazy accounts of pale northern invaders and the recent mass epidemics sweeping through the region along native trade lanes. After a misunderstanding with an unknown Mapuche fishing village lead to the deaths of several of his sailors and many of the villagers being cut down with a repeating crossbow volley, Fu Youde judged it prudent to simply keep going until he rounded the southern extremity rather than risking any more encounters.
In contrast to the OTL conquest, these epidemics are going to move a bit more slowly through South Solvia, so two generations after the great epidemics of TTL hit Tolteca, they're just now starting to spread through the South. Why? There's just substantially less infrastructure on account of less developed, more fractured, and more tribal polities and what trade there is, is just cumbersome enough that disease will often decimate a merchant party before they get a chance to spread their infection further. Fu Youde will do his part though, and once some of the really nasty ones hit, the whole region will be left reeling. Especially once the Flowering Flesh settles in and hangs around.
To me, one of the most interesting things about the Ragnarssen Exchange instead of the Columbian Exchange is that Eurasia is largely too weak to actually follow up on their advantages. Around the same time Fu Youde is embarking on his voyage, the first Norwegian explorers are starting to realize that South Solvia is a lot bigger than they thought, and are trying to work with the Cosca family to organize a major expedition into OTL Colombia. Problem is, Europe's still in a state of internecine chaos.
Maybe I'll get some Irish explorers down here.
@Jon the Numbat - Fu Youde's trip does indeed portend the development of a "Manila Galleon" route - he certainly has enough information to help future explorers and traders recreate his voyage, although in the short term it will still be quite a risky trip. The Procellaric has a bad reputation in TTL - both between the poor misbegotten attempts of European sailors to round the Southern Extremity and the fact that only one of twenty treasure ships actually completed Fu Youde's circumnavigation - and of those, 17 were lost in Procellaric (I'm not clear what China would call it - Dong Hai or Taiping Hai or something?)
@Orisha91 - oh gosh, when I get back to the Franks y'all are gonna see some things. There's been hints that something is rotten in Francia for a long time, but the post-plague Frankish state is... its a mess.
@Hobelhouse - Good point. Fu Youde encountered two major urban centers on his journey down the western coast of South Solvia - he describes a "city of terraces" called Tumpes by the natives. He noted a number of raft-borne fishermen on his approach, but he also reports being cautioned not to stay long, and finding upon closer examination that the city was almost entirely empty - a well-maintained ruin. While some fishermen were willing to trade portions of their catch and some exotic local fruit for trinkets, the local chieftain was, in his account, hostile and afraid that outsiders would bring further destruction. Accordingly he avoided making landfall until he reached the Chimu, where his ship took on more supplies at Chan Chan. He describes a city of (comparatively) large size, and was impressed with the hydraulics that made their lifestyle possible. After that they went south to Pachacamac, where he notes the huge and geometric temples of the city.Unlike with many of the places they made landfall, they really struggled to find anyone who could speak their languages in these places - obviously. There was some suspicion and hostility by the natives, which seems to have its origins in hazy accounts of pale northern invaders and the recent mass epidemics sweeping through the region along native trade lanes. After a misunderstanding with an unknown Mapuche fishing village lead to the deaths of several of his sailors and many of the villagers being cut down with a repeating crossbow volley, Fu Youde judged it prudent to simply keep going until he rounded the southern extremity rather than risking any more encounters.
In contrast to the OTL conquest, these epidemics are going to move a bit more slowly through South Solvia, so two generations after the great epidemics of TTL hit Tolteca, they're just now starting to spread through the South. Why? There's just substantially less infrastructure on account of less developed, more fractured, and more tribal polities and what trade there is, is just cumbersome enough that disease will often decimate a merchant party before they get a chance to spread their infection further. Fu Youde will do his part though, and once some of the really nasty ones hit, the whole region will be left reeling. Especially once the Flowering Flesh settles in and hangs around.
To me, one of the most interesting things about the Ragnarssen Exchange instead of the Columbian Exchange is that Eurasia is largely too weak to actually follow up on their advantages. Around the same time Fu Youde is embarking on his voyage, the first Norwegian explorers are starting to realize that South Solvia is a lot bigger than they thought, and are trying to work with the Cosca family to organize a major expedition into OTL Colombia. Problem is, Europe's still in a state of internecine chaos.
Maybe I'll get some Irish explorers down here.
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Angland seems like it could really capitalize on the opportunities in the New World. It's a state on the upswing, already maritime oriented, still has a lot of that Viking raiding spirit...
At some point someone is going to figure out that you can get really rich by growing sugar in the tropical New World and sending it to Europe. Richer than OTL, since Europe is more densely populated.
Meanwhile, the Fula clearly have established themselves in Brazil. Meaning... sooner or later malaria and yellow fever will also hitch a ride to Brazil. They will become endemic with time, and the tropical New World will become steadily more hostile to non-Africans who have no genetic or acquired resistance to them. With that and the survival of native states, the Europeans will have an uphill climb to establish themselves in the Caribbean, but I expect they will win out in the end since their economic and strategic value as sugar islands, and proximity to Europe, may see them get swamped by Frankish second sons looking to make their mark. The Franks have to get lucky once per island, the natives have to be lucky every time.
What island was it that group of heretics wound up on? I can't recall you mentioned which OTL island it was.
At some point someone is going to figure out that you can get really rich by growing sugar in the tropical New World and sending it to Europe. Richer than OTL, since Europe is more densely populated.
Meanwhile, the Fula clearly have established themselves in Brazil. Meaning... sooner or later malaria and yellow fever will also hitch a ride to Brazil. They will become endemic with time, and the tropical New World will become steadily more hostile to non-Africans who have no genetic or acquired resistance to them. With that and the survival of native states, the Europeans will have an uphill climb to establish themselves in the Caribbean, but I expect they will win out in the end since their economic and strategic value as sugar islands, and proximity to Europe, may see them get swamped by Frankish second sons looking to make their mark. The Franks have to get lucky once per island, the natives have to be lucky every time.
What island was it that group of heretics wound up on? I can't recall you mentioned which OTL island it was.
Oh, sugar's definitely gonna be valuable, but Frankish dominance is a lot more questionable. Especially because the Frankish Empire post 1220-ish is in a state of near total collapse. Which has been hinted at and will be seen as soon as I swing around to Europe again. The people of France (I'm thinking of calling them Francien/Francian) may play a large role in the development of the Caribbean but the Frankish Empire as we know it won't.
That island was Cuba. By 1250, they share it with several other groups. The amount of detail this world requires is honestly kind of exhausting - but fun!