That is one enormous empire! Too bad it will all come crashing once Burilgi dies, or it would be the kingmaker of all its neighbor states, not to mention a formidable power on its own right.
The Sultanate of Rumistan: An Alternate Anatolia
- Thread starter marsworms
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That isn't even the whole empire! It cuts out much of his western territories (a massive chunk of ukraine and russia IOTL) and doesn't take into account the gains he will make in his final escapades before his looming death... hehehe. Burilgi's conquests are much more extensive than Timur's even were: they're more comparable to Chinghis Khan or Alexander the Great, just over about 30-40 years.
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Just wondering but will there more or less Turkish settlement compared to the OTL ottomans?
Really enjoying these developments throughout eastern Europe and the Islamic world
I wonder what name Burilgi's empire will be? Regardless, he carved out an empire bigger than OTL Timurlane. But the questions is, how long his empire will lasts?
Well, no empires last forever.
Well, no empires last forever.
Well most likely it will collapse with his death. But it seem at least the "core" of his empire will last beyond him i suppose. For the name historian most likely will name it after him, but officially Burilgi maintain a fiction of him as servant of Jochid line or something.
Another benefit will be a more United central asian culture compared to otl
Ah, thank you all so much for the feedback! I'm really happy with how much y'all are liking it! I don't want to reveal too much about the aftermath of Burilgi's conquests given that there is still an update before he finally kicks the bucket, but suffice to say that the empire of Burilgi completely redefines and reshapes events in just about all of the world.
The empire is referred to as the Burilgid Empire in typical contemporary histories. It won't be the only Muslim Turkic state in the steppe region though: with the counterbalance of eastern europe shifted so far east, there just isn't any Russian state that is able to unify enough to conquer Tartary...
The role of Burilgi as kingmaker will definitely come to the forefront in the next update. His armies are becoming increasingly strained, so he would have intense difficulties really conquering the Iranian plateau. Much easier to just establish a bunch of puppets in the near east!
The settlement of Turcomen/Turcs is definitely different than IOTL. Eastern Anatolia is demographically dominated by Iranians (Kurds) and Armenians, but the leading peoples are all of Turcish origin.
The empire is referred to as the Burilgid Empire in typical contemporary histories. It won't be the only Muslim Turkic state in the steppe region though: with the counterbalance of eastern europe shifted so far east, there just isn't any Russian state that is able to unify enough to conquer Tartary...
The role of Burilgi as kingmaker will definitely come to the forefront in the next update. His armies are becoming increasingly strained, so he would have intense difficulties really conquering the Iranian plateau. Much easier to just establish a bunch of puppets in the near east!
The settlement of Turcomen/Turcs is definitely different than IOTL. Eastern Anatolia is demographically dominated by Iranians (Kurds) and Armenians, but the leading peoples are all of Turcish origin.
I’ve noticed there always seems to be a trend with Turkish nomadic sultans, in which they rapidly expand, invading both Central Asia and other area, only to hit a limit. After this, the empire implodes upon their death, but there have been some notable exceptions. One of the results of the collapse is often their heirs or generals carving out pieces and picking up where their former ruler left off, or they might perhaps invade a new area and carve out a new empire (Babur did this following his grandfather(or something like that) Timurlanes death, invading South Asia). I suspect many of Burlingis generals and predecessors will begin a series of fragmentation, where they invade further parts of Eastern Europe or perhaps further East into Asia.
Part 20: Burilgi's Last Hurrah
Part 20: Burilgi's Last Hurrah
In 1401 (803), Khukir Burilgi Emir Khan was increasingly struggling to expand, struggling to live his life as a warrior astride his great black steed. He was now 71 years old, his joints stiff and his skin sagging, unable now to lead from the frontlines like he did during his early years. He still rode his horse, primarily for the image of it, but during battles he would remain in his yurt and only emerge to see the carnage and issue orders from afar. The looming shadowy demon of Bashkortostan was no more; in his place was a frail old man, hunched over, his face shadowed under his pointed helmet. His brother Ruslan Arslan died a few years ago, leaving behind no legacy at Sarai. He had a wife and son back in Sarai, a little boy he hadn’t seen for about a decade named Mahmoud Aral, but on his campaigns through Russia and Tartary he accrued a harem of concubines from as far afield as Kiev and Yarkand, and fathered several “sons of the yurt” as they would be called in the years following Burilgi’s death. His mind increasingly grew distanced from the carnage he saw before him, turned to thoughts of his legacy, of monuments and children, just as he received the letter from the disgraced brother of the Ilkhan, Uthman bin Abu Said.
Uthman bin Abu Said, on his horse (the white horse is symbolic and does not match the historical record), circa 1419
The original text of this letter is now long gone, but transcriptions of it were included in the official histories of Burilgi’s empire after his death, which read as follow:
“Oh fine and glorious Emir of the Manghits and Moghuls and Kirghiz, Khan of the Kipchaks, lord of Tartary and Rus, Burilgi the ever-known and ever-powerful. You know me not, but I am the brother of the treacherous Ali bin Abu Said, Ilkhan of Iran, Mesopotamia, Arran, and the Jazira. He was throned at the orders of himself and himself alone, against the desires of my blessed father Abu Said, may Allah show him mercy. My name is Uthman, and I have been disgraced and disappointed by the treachery of my evil brother, who is most impious and, from what I have learned, made attacks on your state through his vassals the Turcomen. If you will kill my brother Ali and enthrone me on the low-lying seat of the Ilkhan of all Iran, I shall owe you all things, I shall owe you gold and silver and the finest of silks from Rome and from China. I shall be your loyal vassal, serving in your name for as long as you shall live, for as long as your sons shall live. I ask only that I be given power over the land of Iran, in order to better serve you and to better serve God, the all-merciful and all-knowing.”
At the request of this disgraced princeling, Burilgi crossed Khurasan and entered the Iranian plateau, his forces fanning out to capture mountain villages and valley cities alike. Mashhad fell to his sword, its towers toppled and half of all its people decapitated. Astarabad and Gorgan were both immolated, even their mosques burnt to their foundations. As he rampaged through northeastern Iran, he slaughtered any Zoroastrian he came across, upon hearing that they were prone to alignment with heretic Shi’is and had some well-off merchants among them that benefited from the stability of Ilkhan Ali bin Abu Said. Almost as reaction to Burilgi’s conquests in northeastern Iran, a local warlord rose to some prominence in the eastern provinces, a young man named Temur, a Turcoman who began to carve out a foothold in Balochestan. Burilgi considered facing this upstart, but instead decided to keep on his push to the west.
When his forces reached the city of Rayy, they were met by the armies in service of the disgraced prince Uthman bin Abu Said, a ragtag group of Persian and Arab horsemen and Armenian infantrymen, who were angered at Ali bin Abu Said’s repressive policies toward the Armenian Church, throwing their weight behind the rebellious prince. Ali bin Abu Said had difficulties holding onto the loyalties of his vassals and nobles, from the nomadic tribes in his service to the landholders of Fars and the merchants of Hormuz. The south of Iran began to break away from the holdings of the Ilkhanate in 1405 (808), as Ilkhan Ali struggled to defend his holdings from the onslaught of Burilgi. While Burilgi bared down on him from the east, Uthman and some of Burilgi’s other armies, under the command of one of his lesser generals, pushed in from the west. Burilgi’s western force, returning from years of raiding into the Balkans and Hungary, were well suited to the mountainous combat of the Caucasus and Iran, and helped to carve out weak and submissive states out of the lands to the south of the Caucasus mountains.
The great mosque of Sultaniyeh, where Burilgi prayed following his subjugation of Iran
By 1409 (811), Burilgi had the city of Sultaniyeh surrounded. With this siege, the Ilkhanate would fall under his control and influence, the willing vassal of Uthman bin Abu Said placing himself in full submission to Burilgi’s revived state. The siege began, as many others had in his long career, with a burning of the fields and valleys which surrounded it, filling the walls of the city with peasant refugees and blocking off its access to food. Then he and Uthman surrounded its walls with soldiers and encampments, leaving no exit. After five months, Ali bin Abu Said opened the gates, in exchange for his family being left unharmed. He was shot in the eye with an arrow (supposedly fired by Burilgi himself) and fed to dogs. His children were sold into slavery, on the contingent that they never be hurt, lest God curse their owners. Sultaniyeh fell, and Uthman bin Abu Said was paraded in on the back of a great tan horse, the streets stained with blood and vomit, brought to the palace of the Ilkhans and installed as the new overlord of all Iran… though he presided over a much reduced Ilkhanate, having lost all of the provinces of Mesopotamia and much of southern Iran.
Burilgi seemingly found himself satisfied with his conquests, for he made no others for the last remaining years of his life. He made visits to his newly created vassals south of the Caucasus, installing loyal generals and nomadic chiefs in their seats, praying in the revitalized mosque of Sultaniyeh with his symbolic son Uthman bin Abu Said. He completely reshaped the whole of the world, and he was happy with this. However, in 1410 (812), having heard news of the spreading northwards of the Black Vest Uprising and the endangerment of the Great Khan himself, sent his forces, the veterans of his conquests in Rus’, Tartary, Turkestan, Khurasan, and Iran, along with conscripts from the Iranian plateau, northwards and eastwards, to defend the Great Yuan from the machinations of the Chinese.
Then, he died. Khukir Burilgi Emir Khan, the overlord of the world, died in his sleep at the age of 80 in the city of Tabriz. His shadow was cast over almost as much of the world as Temujin himself, and he may have even seen himself as the true heir of the Mongol tradition. But, ultimately, his body would be put into a coffin of the finest mahogany of Africa and plated with gold and silver, transported on the backs of camels and dark horses from Tabriz to the city of Yarkand, the city which enticed his imagination with its inventions and its literature. Monuments were erected in Tabriz, Yerevan, and Sarai, and dedications placed in their grandest mosques to this most terrible of conquerors. With his death, just as with his rise to prominence, the world would be completely redefined.
Burilgi Khan has passed and has left a great empire. Question is, will his successors lived up to his legacy or fell into decadence?
By the way, is this Temur by any chance is Tamerlane in OTL?
He isn't Exactly our Tamerlane, but he came from around the same region as Tamerlane... OTL Timur probably goes by a different name and never rose to prominence, if even that... it's been over 150 years since the timeline diverged!
Hey just started reading this timeline. It's fantastic! It's so detailed and intricate @marsworms
On another note, how is Delhi Sultanate fairing? I know that OTL Timur devastated Delhi with his conquest and subsequent massacre? Did Burilgi interact with the Sultanate or was the doom of the Delhi Sultanate butterflied away?
On another note, how is Delhi Sultanate fairing? I know that OTL Timur devastated Delhi with his conquest and subsequent massacre? Did Burilgi interact with the Sultanate or was the doom of the Delhi Sultanate butterflied away?
Well awww shucks, thank you so so much!!! And, with regards to the Delhi Sultanate, I was planning on making a post detailing what has been happening in India eventually (not too far in the future). It is faring better than IOTL, but will still collapse.
However, with regards to future updates, here's a quick little description of the next set of posts! First we will return to the Seljuq Sultanate of Rum and end the reign of Mahmoud Shah the Lion of Islam, and with the death of Mahmoud Shah the 14th century (with a little bit of the 15th) will be wrapped up with a series of posts detailing the state of affairs ~100 years since the last "state of affairs" update, the place of ethnic and religious minorities in the Burilgid Empire, the spread and development of gunpowder weaponry, and a concise timeline to place all of these events from 1243 onward in one place.
Part 21: The Lion Defends His Den
Part 21: The Lion Defends His Den
Mahmoud Shah returned to the Sultanate of Rum in 1381 (782), following an extensive hajj and time spent away from his state. Upon his return, he found the lands to the north of anatolia increasingly unified under the black banner of Khukir Burilgi Emir Khan, and though he was disgusted by the tales of the burning of cities and wholesale slaughter of the populace of the former Golden Horde, he did little to respond to it. He simply turned his focus to mundane matters, matters of art and culture in Iconium and other major cities of anatolia, as well as getting into a close correspondence with King Vakhtang III, son of Vakhtang II, who presides over both Georgia and Trebizond. This correspondence, first begun with a flurry of letters (most of which are now long gone) of appreciation for one another and their respective states, quickly turned more to matters political, as both Sultan Mahmoud Shah and King Vakhtang III mustered together ships, along with Genoese merchants, to defend the city of Theodoro and the crimean holdings of Trebizond from the trepidations of Burilgi Khan in the late 1380s (780s), with a short siege of the city abandoned by Burilgi in the interest of instead pushing into Rus’ and Poland. He had little to gain from the capture of a small city on the southern tip of Crimea. Mahmoud Shah returned home in 1389 (790) with a triumph, Theodoro defended and still in the hands of Trebizond. The Black Sea remained firmly in the hands of the loose coalition of allies arrayed against Burilgi Khan: the Sultanate of Rum, the Kingdom of Georgia (with their vassal Trebizond), and the Genoese Republic.Following his victorious return to Iconium at the age of 73, Mahmoud Shah was an old man, and one increasingly ill-equipped for the political situation he found himself in. Following the failure of Burilgi’s conquest of Poland and his travel to the east, his forces were left to their own devices, and as armies are wont to do when left along, they began to raid. Burilgi himself made no attempt at expansion into the balkans, only pushing into the principality of Moldavia along its coasts, but the armies left behind to fight the Poles began a push into Wallachia and the lands beyond the Danube following their repeated defeats. The already floundering Serbian Empire finally collapsed beneath the twin pressures of their sovereign’s death years before and the invasions of the Burilgid forces, and it was this push into the balkans that brought the Turco-Mongol army to the attention of the aging Basileos Alexios VI Palaiologos. Simply put, the Basileos saw an opportunity in this Muslim army that he did not have in the heretical rebels he supported previously. The Basileos made communication with the sadly unnamed and unknown general of the independent Burilgid force, promising them free passage through Roman lands in exchange for their communication with Burilgid armies in the east and an attack on the Sultanate of Rum. The general agreed, and in 1396 (797) began a move to the south, through Thrace and Gallipoli.
The Burilgid general honored his agreement with the Basileos, sending a letter to the armies and garrisons in the Caucasus to push to the southeast and invade Georgia and Anatolia. Georgia was quick to fall, with its capital at Kutaisi relatively undefended with the Georgian forces arrayed in the west of Georgia and some even in Anatolia iself. Mahmoud Shah and Vakhtang III began the defense of their own homelands, caught by surprise as the Burilgid forces poured over the Armenian highlands, and it is likely that their defense would have eventually collapsed from a steady decline in supply if it were not for two surprising coincidences.
First, there was the failure of the western Burilgid forces. Upon their entrance into Thrace, the aged Basileos Alexios VI Palailogos passed away in his sleep. With their reborn Christ now gone, the Alexionites which had been resettled in Thrace felt betrayed by the Roman state, and doubly betrayed that ungodly Turcs and Muslims were traveling through their towns and villages, at the order of the Roman Empire (they did not believe that their Conquering Christ could have asked the Burilgid Muslims to travel through Thrace, instead choosing to believe that it was at the behest of some lesser advisor). Rising up in the late 1390s (790s) and early 1400s (800s) (the exact date is uncertain due to the chaos of the period), the Alexionites of Thrace immediately clashed with the balkan forces of Burilgi’s empire, completely blocking them off from passage into Anatolia. The newly crowned Julian II Palaiologos scrambled to defend the mercenary Turcs, causing Alexionite sources to consistently paint him as a sort of Antichrist, who either killed the Conquering Christ Alexios VI or had him in captivity (his shared name with the infamous ancient emperor Julian the Apostate most definitely made such symbolism easy to come by).
The other coincidence was the entrance of Khukir Burilgi Emir Khan into the Ilkhanate, first with his bloody invasion of Khurasan and then his entering into the Iranian plateau at the request of the disgraced Uthman bin Abu Said. The Burilgid forces in eastern Anatolia had progressed very far into Georgia, Trebizond, and Rum, but upon receiving orders directly from Burilgi Khan himself to regroup with him in Iran, they abandoned their efforts for fear of receiving the sword and the flame just as the conquered of Burilgi’s empire did. Paradoxically, the Sultanate of Rum was saved by the very political actors that challenged it in years past: the heretical Alexionites and the conquering king Burilgi.
Just before the fleeing of the Burilgid forces in the Armenian highlands, Sultan Mahmoud Shah succumbed to his old age in 1402 (802), at the age of 83. He left two sons, who both have their eyes focused on the low-lying cushioned throne in Iconium: Muhammad and Kilij Arslan.
And so passes Khukir Burilgi Emir Khan, the Demon of Bashkortostan. The presence of 'official histories' indicates that his empire will surprisingly survive him for some time afterwards, or at least long enough to have an official biography written down about him. Would his successors and their future kingdoms see him as a great ancestor similar to Genghis? I can see future Turkic dynasties trying to link their lineages back to Burilgi in the same manner as the Mughals did to Timur (and from him, to Genghis).
I think by this point a map of his empire and the surrounding polities (Rumistan among them) should be in order. A lot has changed, and it'll help a lot in orienting current and future events.
Back in Anatolia, do I smell a succession crisis? And the Alexionites continue to hem and haw over the presence of Bulgirid armies across the Roman Empire. I can see a sort of Ahmani-lite schism arising if they continue to preach about the imperial family - It's one thing to say Alexios VI being Christ reborn, but another to say Julian II is the Antichrist. Has there been contact between these people and the church in Italy and Central Europe? I wonder what they will say about these believers.
I think by this point a map of his empire and the surrounding polities (Rumistan among them) should be in order. A lot has changed, and it'll help a lot in orienting current and future events.
Back in Anatolia, do I smell a succession crisis? And the Alexionites continue to hem and haw over the presence of Bulgirid armies across the Roman Empire. I can see a sort of Ahmani-lite schism arising if they continue to preach about the imperial family - It's one thing to say Alexios VI being Christ reborn, but another to say Julian II is the Antichrist. Has there been contact between these people and the church in Italy and Central Europe? I wonder what they will say about these believers.
The very next update is a look at the state of affairs in the known world as of Khukir Burilgi Emir Khan's death in 1410, which will have especial focus on the Burilgid Empire, the Sultanate of Rum, and the Balkans, but really it will cover the whole of Eurasia. I don't want to spoil too much about the updates following the series of short posts regarding specific aspects of the 15th century, but there will be a little bit of stability in Sarai for some years... whether that same stability extends to the remainder of the Burilgid domains is uncertain. His numerous Sons of the Yurt might have something to say about that. Burilgi is like a cross between Alexander and Timur... he becomes almost a nigh-legendary figure for just how vast his conquests were.
Also, there has been little in the way of contact with the Alexionites and the western church. The papacy does have knowledge of it, but they are uncertain whether to support the rebels. On the one hand, it could be a good way to undermine the heretical eastern church, but on the other, claims of christhood may not be entirely in the realm of orthodoxy... Currently, the papacy considers on par with Bogomils, but this stance may change in the future.
Now, since I've mentioned upcoming updates regarding a look over the 15th century, here is the order and the topics:
The State of Affairs in 1410
Minorities in Burilgi's World
The Spread of Gunpowder
Special Update 3: The State of Affairs in 1410
Special Update 3: The State of Affairs in 1410
To understand the world in 1410, we must first turn our focus to the empire of Burilgi Khan, now reeling in grief and joy at the murderous tyrant’s sudden death at the age of 80. Stretching from the Dniester to the Tarim, Burilgi singlehandedly conquered the largest empire in the world since the division of the Mongol state, controlling the whole of Central Asia and a significant portion of Russia. Not only that, but with his conquests of Iran and Transcaucasia, a series of states have bent the knee to his extensive empire, from the Turkic Muslim administered Georgian Horde (more properly referred to as the White Tatars) and the Persian Muslim administered Armenshah to the Emirate of Kandahar in the former Afghan territories of the Chagatai Khanate. At the center of this system of vassals and subjects is the Ilkhanate, the last remnant of the Mongol Empire in the Middle East. It is ruled by Ilkhan Uthman bin Abu Said, installed as the Ilkhan of Iran with the aid of Khukir Burilgi, and stretches over the whole of northern and eastern Iran. With the complete collapse of Ilkhan Ali’s rule as Burilgi poured into the Iranian Plateau, much of the southern and western territories of the Ilkhanate have broken away, and this instability reaches deep into the rump Ilkhanate as well.
While there is little of this apparent just yet, there is much to be displeased about in Iran. A series of deadly famines and outbreaks of the Pestilence have starved out the already declining population, and on top of that the vassalage to Burilgi, the conqueror who massacred thousands of Turcomen and Persians in Khurasan and Iran, is growing increasingly unpopular. Turcish mercenaries and wandering hordes who served under Burilgi have come to dominate the countryside of the Ilkhanate, and Ilkhan Uthman struggles to keep them under check, especially now that their benefactor has passed away. Furthermore, the staunch Sunnism of the Ilkhanate’s elite has become a rallying cry for enemies of the state. Shi’is and Zoroastrians (both of which were targeted by Burilgi’s forces as they conquered Iran) have begun a somewhat underground resistance movement against the Ilkhan, especially centered in the provinces of Arran and Mazandaran. The Ilkhanate is living on borrowed time.
The myriad states, both vassal and independent, of Iran
While the Ilkhanate struggles with religious and Turcish strife, the only other remnant of Temujin’s empire is in the process of collapse. The Great Yuan, once the head of the Mongol state that spanned the entire world, began to lose its southern provinces to the hands of the Black Vest Uprising, a half-religious half-political movement of ethnic Chinese Daoists against the primarily Buddhist Mongol ruling elite. Easily identifiable by the black silk vests that their leaders wear, the uprising began in the province of Guangdong and has been steadily pushing northwards, heralding a new Chinese empire, a new Chinese society, centered on the south for the first time in centuries. However, this uprising has been facing stark difficulties: Buddhists, aghast at the attacks on their religion that have become endemic among the Black Vest rebels, have en masse defended the Mongol state, and no region could be a better image of this than Tibet. While Yuan control and influence over Tibet began to wane when the Black Vests cut off access to the plateau in the late 1380s, the Yuan Bureau of Buddhist and Tibetan Affairs began to arm itself and defend the arid mountains from the Daoist rebels. As of 1410, although the influence of the Bureau has been steadily declining (especially among the more rural parts of Tibet), it is still the Yuan-aligned Lama and his Mongol and Tibetan soldiers that hold control over the plateau.
It is very likely that the Great Yuan would have completely lost control over northern China and perhaps even Manchuria if the Black Vest Uprising had been able to progress further than it did, but the intervention of the troops of Khukir Burilgi Emir Khan, sent at the orders of the Khan himself just before he died, has been a great benefit to the Yuan Emperor. It is very likely that the Great Yuan, in future, will be able to hold onto a significant amount of Chinese territory, though the zealous Black Vest rebels and their newly appointed rival Son of Heaven may have something to say about that. The new Guang dynasty has been established, and the course of history in China is defined by this new nationalistic Daoism, to the detriment of the Buddhists and Muslims that gained so much ground under the Yuan.
Beyond the Himalayas, India struggles into the 15th century as well. While left relatively untouched by the rapid expansion of Burilgi Khan, the Delhi Sultanate under the Tughlaq dynasty has been steadily overextending itself, first with a conquest of the Deccan plateau under Sultan Muhammad Tughlaq and then with a push into eastern India, to consolidate control in the north. The far western regions of India, dominated by nomadic Pashtuns and Baloches, agitates against the Sultan based out of Delhi, desiring further autonomy and displeased with both a series of poor harvests and the empowering of Indian Muslims at the expense of the more Persianized groups. This strife is made worse by outbreaks of the Pestilence in Delhi, Lahore, and throughout Bengal and the length of the Ganges. Sultan Abd Allah Tughlaq, the current leader of the great Islamic state in South Asia, is little but a figurehead, powerless compared to his grandiose predecessors, as military generals and displeased locals increasingly agitate for independence. The 15th century will not be a good one for the Sultanate of Delhi.
While the Islamic power of India may be struggling, it is its specific brand of the faith which has become so successful abroad. At the outset of the 14th century, southeast Asia was dominated by Hindu-Buddhist states, namely the expansive trade empire of Majapahit, based out of Java, while mainland southeast Asia was centered on primarily Theravada states in the Thai, Cham, and Viet countries. However, Muslim merchants became increasingly prominent, and the faith of the one God spread along the same trade routes that Hindu-Buddhism spread along in centuries past. India is the origin of the religions of southeast Asia, and while in the past that meant Hinduism and Buddhism, by the 14th and 15th centuries that meant Islam. The first Islamic state was the Sultanate of Kelang, centered on the titular city, quickly becoming a cultural center of both jurisprudential and Sufi learning in Malaya. The future of southeast Asia will be defined by the further spread of this faith… but this does not mean that the Hindu-Buddhist substratum will fall away or be hidden from view.
On the near opposite side of the world, the once greatest empire in the world struggles to hold onto life. The City of the World’s Desire is as beautiful as ever, filled with glorious looming architecture, divine rounded domes atop the world’s finest churches, and the statuary and art of the classic age. But the empire built around this city is struggling: it has almost completely lost control of the Balkans to the recently collapsed Serbian Empire, and almost completely lost control of Anatolia to the expansive Sultanate of Rum. As of 1410, they only control Constantinople, the lands just across the Dardanelles from the city, the city of Smyrna and its surroundings, the city of Athens and its surroundings, and the city of Thessaloniki and its surroundings. Much of its Aegean holdings have been snatched by the Venetians, including the Duchy of Morea which has been independent from the Romans for much of the 14th century. The new Basileos Julian II Palaiologos is contending with the uprising of the Alexionites against him in Thrace, aghast at the seeming disappearance of their supposed savior Basileos Alexios. As of 1410, much of Thrace is in the hands of these heretical rebels, and Julian is in near constant skirmishes with them. Both of the sons of the former Sultan of Rum Mahmoud Shah have their eyes turned to the Balkans, and as soon as either of them are able, they will use the instability of the Alexionites and the collapse of Serbia to their advantage.
To enter the Balkans in 1410 is to enter a world of constant churning warfare. Emperor Stefan Dushan the Mighty established an expansive Serbian Empire in the mid-14th century, conquering the Bulgarian state and defeating the Romans at almost every turn. But, with his death in 1363, the Tsardom of Serbia was handed to his son Stefan II, who had significant difficulties coping with the aftermath of his father’s quick expansion. This was not helped by the invasion of the independent forces of Burilgi in the later 14th century, with Tsar Stefan II succumbing to a heart attack in 1379, and the Serbian Empire completely collapsing in on itself. In its place were dozens of squabbling princedoms and tribal states, from the newly independent Bosnian state to the Turcish Christian Principality of Dobrudja on the Black Sea coast. Surprisingly enough, the only unifying force in any of the former Serbian Empire are the heretical Alexionites: they have expanded significantly in Thrace, defeating former Serbian generals and petty warlords. But, the Alexionite rebels are not the kind of rulers to rule a kingdom. It is unlikely that whatever hold they have on Thrace is going to stick in the upcoming century.
North of the Balkans, the powerhouses of eastern Europe are truly the Kingdom of Hungary and the Sejmate of Poland. Hungary has its eyes turned to the west: it is confident that its puppet-vojvodes in Wallachia and Moldavia will defend its eastern flanks from Turcish and Tatar trepidations. Instead, the new von Luxembourg king of Hungary, Peter, was interested in influencing the politics of the Holy Roman Empire, perhaps even to have himself elected as Emperor. Poland, meanwhile, was in the throes of a power struggle, with the victorious Krol Zdislaw Czapla increasingly coming to dominate the affairs of the noble’s Sejm. While as of 1410 the system of electoral noble-focused monarchy is still in place, the growing number of seemingly disappearing nobles and the role of Krol Zdislaw Czapla in foreign affairs waxing to a great extent, it seems likely that Poland will change in the future. As of the beginning of the 15th century, however, the Sejmate is in a constant struggle with the tribal state of Lithuania, the last bastion of true paganism in Europe, which has expanded rapidly into the collapsed Russian principalities, against the wishes of both Novgorod and Poland. Will the fate of Russia, and of eastern Europe be decided by a Catholic Krol, or by a pagan prince? The Old Gods of Lithuania, in their motionless gaunt carved images, seem uncaring, and the religious fate of Lithuania seems uncertain.
Western Europe has changed much, but at the same time, it has changed little. The Holy Roman Empire, with the King of Bohemia at its head currently, is still a squabbling mess of petty princes. France and England are still at war, with England currently holding a significant portion of southern France. Iberia is still on the cusp of the end of the Reconquista, with Castile and Portugal drawing up an alliance to fight both the Nasrid Sultanate of Granada and the Sultanate of Morocco. Italy’s affairs are defined by the mercantile states in the north, with Genoese, Venetian, and Milanese merchants acting as the middlemen for much of the Mediterranean, with the century as the last hurrah of the Jewish and Muslim domination of trade in the Mediterranean sea. With the end of the 14th century, the world begins to turn.
Glad to see we can get the glimpse of TTL's world at large, it is no kidding the Burilgid Empire is huge, comparing to other kingdoms of its' contemporary times. Unless we counted the Yuan Dynasty (or what's left of it). Nevertheless, there's no doubt there're going to ripples of changes in the world.
Regarding Rumistan, will it succeeds where the OTL Ottomans fails or this Alt-Anatolian state will go things differently?
Regarding Rumistan, will it succeeds where the OTL Ottomans fails or this Alt-Anatolian state will go things differently?