Hadrian's Consolidation - reboot
- Thread starter Hecatee
- Start date
I forget, has the iron plow been popularized?
The Roman population should have grown significantly over the last century, and Germany would be a good place to settle, if the iron plow was well known.
Also, while steam engines are interesting, the real advance that was available to the Romans for copying and mass implementation is the Junk. Have they adopted the sails or other parts of their design?
Have any of the Emperors expanded down the Arabian coast? Those are rich trading cities, ripe for the taking, and far more immediately valuable than the wilds of Germania.
EDIT: Also, we've never seen a POV from a Serican who has visited the Empire. I'd really like to see one, especially if they visited Rome itself.
The Roman population should have grown significantly over the last century, and Germany would be a good place to settle, if the iron plow was well known.
Also, while steam engines are interesting, the real advance that was available to the Romans for copying and mass implementation is the Junk. Have they adopted the sails or other parts of their design?
Have any of the Emperors expanded down the Arabian coast? Those are rich trading cities, ripe for the taking, and far more immediately valuable than the wilds of Germania.
EDIT: Also, we've never seen a POV from a Serican who has visited the Empire. I'd really like to see one, especially if they visited Rome itself.
Hecatee
Donor
No, the third british legion has been moved to the main land due to the fact that the wall keeps the barbarians at bay and the two other legions and stronger than OTL auxiliary units mean that overall the number of troops in Britain is similar to OTL but more mobile and thus has an increased effectiveness.
As for Alba it comes from the river Albis which cuts it in half
Cast iron heavy plough have been invented and slowly spread through the northern provinces from OTL's Austria's region.
Junks have not been copied, because the large roman trade ships of the improved Alexandrian grain fleet design are seen as suffisant for the long range trade and those sailors of the intra-mediterranean trade are unaware of it.
Arabia is still independant, mainly for... fiscal reasons ! Indeed should the local product become Roman property they would be taxed at the lower inter provincial portaria rate, not the 25% border tax.
Indeed I've not had a Serican's pov although a few (some dozens) sericans have visited the empire
Junks made it has far as Antioch in OTL, surely far more have made the trip in this TL. Roman sailors should have encountered them at times.
But that 25% tax is only on what the Arabs ship into the Empire. If the Empire annexes the cities they can tax everything.
And it's not like they'd be losing out on the taxes on the Indian trade, the ports of entry would just be further south.
I would love to see one of their thoughts.
Hecatee
Donor
I did not know about Junks getting into Antioch in the Classical period (using the Pharaoh's canal or being carried on land then ?).
The tax is indeed on everything entering the empire, but those lands are not only trading place but also production place for incense, myrh, turtle shells, and other luxury products : conquering them is thus potentially source of a direct tax loss and/or new costs to secure them. Better to keep them happy and use the sea Jewish middlemen for the trade.
I won't garantee a post of a Chinese's view of the cities, but I'll think of it
I literally don't know where this meme came from. While chinese envoys did make it as far as antioch they did so by land.
Honestly I'm more suprised the Romans haven't encountered or sent any missions to the Javanese. It was from them that the Chinese learned how to sail and navigate thousands of miles away from China.
While I'm not sure about the sails (or if they were even invented yet) the Hull plan for a junk (chinese at least we have no Idea what the Javanese did) is only good if you want to build really big on really calm and predictable seas ala the indian ocean.
Their maneuverability wasn't so great and if it weren't for sectioned off hull compartments it just wouldn't be viable for long distance.
But that's Chinese junks, while we don't have much idea what the Junks the Javanese had they were apparently more navigable and had a more resiliant hull design.
So does that mean its official name is something like Germania Albanensis ?
As well as financing the occupation of a desert.....
But who knows, if they open up tradewith the Javanese they could start importing even more exquisite spices. How long before someone gets the idea to turn Rome into a partial Thalocracy and go full on Roman East India Company?
This used to be referenced in the history section of the Junk article on Wikipedia, but it was edited out by someone who didn't realize the canal of the pharaoh's existed and said it was impossible because it would have required circumnavigation of Africa.
I quoted it in another thread, so I still have the reference
While a 25% tax on these cities trade goods coming into the Empire no doubt produces a hefty sum, unless you present me a spreadsheet with the numbers, there's no way I'm going to believe that even a very low tax rate on property and trade on whole cities and the surrounding country won't produce more over all
revenue. You're vastly underestimating the value of trade that goes on within the cities themselves and with nearby polities which is going to be orders of magnitude larger than what they ship to Rome.
Just out of curiosity, I was wondering if you have a source for that.
Hmm. Another possibility is they'd confused syria with upper Mesopotamia or somesuch because there would probably be at least some mention of the Canal and even then I'm not sure on whether the canal was deep enough for ocean going ships and was traversed by shallow draft river boats. Essentially its purpose was probably just making the 'portage' a little bit cheaper as opposed to camels.
Especially given the more southern camel routes were still economical when the canal was refurbished by Trajan.
Well I suppose Wikipedia always will have some doubt to it but here you go
Now those quite an awful lot like the treasure fleet junks under Zheng He...
Now theres not a whole lot of written evidence for Javanese or Malays introducing navigational and ship skills aside from some anecdotal accounts from western sailors some hundreds of years after the fact and some mentions of Javanese crewmen on the Treasure fleet.
However it should be noted that the surge in chinese maritime interest coincided with the Chinese diaspora into South Asia due to the Mongol invasions.
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UHHHHHH
I think you're underestimating the value of the import tax. That garbage made up something like 50% of the countries revenue at times. It was by no means small potatoes.
That's based on the trade with India and points East which will still continue.
True but Frankincense and other redsea goods did make a fairly large part of it.
the imbalance of trade between Rome and the Far east will always be there, the only thing that made it go away OTL was Opium........ mind you it would make sense if the merchant class saw the profit they could set up 'opium factories' in India under local ownership then ship it to China in return for the high value goods that originate only there. Not nice but I suspect highly profitable as opposed to the Chinese just wanting Silver/Gold and a small quality of glass. one further additional thought what about exporting perfume in bulk from Rome to China? Of course this would depend on the development of fractional distillation so maybe Brandy as well..... I recall reading somewhere about perfume bottles from the west being exported to China during the Roman period so now that there is regular Rome to China trading fleets so Bulk products become viable unlike the OTL with triple or more middle man arrangements........
Wouldn't trading Red Sea goods help offset the trade deficit with the East though.
the issue here would be two fold, who controls the trade red sea or India/china route, Jews, locals, Chinese or Romans? as far as Tax goes more exports to offset imports are good as you can tax that to win win!
How? Where would you would the extra bullion come from? While increased trade may raise tax income, it doesn't help the bullion crisis.
With silver and gold flowing out of the Empire, and the imperial economy expanding (more trade, more manufacturing, more area, more people), coins are going to have to be massively adulterated. Which will lead to a crisis in confidence in the currency.
perfect conditions for a fiat currency..............
or massive mineral exploration which might turn up the Balkan silver deposits or the German ones...
or improve metal extraction techniques so that for instance lead deposits could extract more silver etc
hydraulic mining could be refined pre-gunpowder invention. marginal deposits would be mined for their precious metal content efficiencies could be introduced to reduce labor/transportation costs of extraction (steam cargo ships, canals, waterwheels, primitive steam pumping engines and hydraulic accumulators water power for mills/smelters the already nad possible list goes on) if it costs half what it used to transport your silver and gold bars and coins to china there should be more value there for one thing? well maybe not lol however the reduction in transport costs and the increase in volume are comparable in my mind to the situation somewhat in Europe 1650 or so vis a vis far eastern trade pre east India companies in OTL
I assume he meant that the Red sea goods could be sold to the east instead of bullion.
Are any of the Red Sea goods wanted in China, at least?
I can see India being interested in Frankincense.
As for pearls, say, surely there are as good sources closer and hence cheaper to the markets in India and China.