That would be how they get out of this intact, yeah. To get there would be a tricky path that no one but B444 has any control over.
An Age of Miracles Continues: The Empire of Rhomania
- Thread starter Basileus444
- Start date
Evilprodigy
Donor
That or.
You know.
The Japanese just leave once their foreign policy goals of maintaining their buffer state, ally, and trade partner in Korea are accomplished.
You know.
The Japanese just leave once their foreign policy goals of maintaining their buffer state, ally, and trade partner in Korea are accomplished.
There’s going to be a big thing about turtle-ships in the next update.
I’m calling it the Eulhae War, since I believe that’s the Korean year name that matches up with 1635. (The 1634 skirmish is considered a prelude, with the war only beginning in earnest in 1635.)
Yes, very interesting, in the Chinese sense, times.
The bit with the palisades and climbing over the dead was taken from Byzantine history, where Khan Krum ambushed and destroyed Nikephoros I’s army.
There’s not much of anything in Taiwan at the moment, save the natives.
Zeng are in a much better shape than the OTL Ming, since they’re still a fresh rather than stale dynasty. Ming in the 1590s had a lot of other things on its plate besides the Imjin War, while here the war in Korea is the only really big issue for the Zeng.
The Romans are doing this mainly to stay in the Japanese’s good books. But the Ship Lords providing aid can expect some sweet trade concessions in Japan, and Korea is a new market.
I have fun with that too. It wasn’t intended in the early years of the TL, but it grew in reaction to how the British Empire is so often portrayed on this site.
How about a compromise, say a division on the 38th parallel?
Yeah, even if the Zeng just keep the Liaodong (which they’ve already taken) and nothing less, that still counts as a win, since that is the last bit needed to reunify China.
Yeah, at best Korea-Japan pushes the Zeng back to the starting line. There’s no way they’re dismembering China.
The 150,000 is a lot, but that’s what Japan supposedly threw at Korea in the 1590s IOTL. There’s a good reason Roman policy directive #1 for the Far East is keep the Japanese happy. (IOTL there’s one time when a Red Seal ship sailed through a Dutch-Spanish battle; both sides put the battle on pause to let the ship pass because neither wanted to anger the Japanese.)
Thanks. I’m actually going with the Eulhae War as the war only begins in earnest in 1635. The 1634 skirmish is a pipsqueak compared to what follows.
World War: My thought on what constitutes a ‘world war’ is a bit different. The adjective is ‘world’. To me that means a world war only needs to cover the whole world or at least the majority, not necessarily that it is a mass industrial meat grinder slaughter. That’s my rationale behind the War of the Roman Succession/Great Latin War being considered by some the first world war ITTL.
Important nitpick. The Great Siege of Pyrgos was against the Tieh, and was defeated by a combined armada in which the Zeng were, in numbers of ships and troops, the biggest players. Luoyang has a point when it comes to Roman ingratitude.
The effects on the Jurchen will be one of the long-term consequences of the war.
The 5 ships sent were a quarter of ALL Roman big ships in the east. The wooden walls update specified that in all Rhomania-in-the-East, from Taprobane to Pyrgos, there are 19 4th and 5th rates. Most western naval strength in the east is still comprised of armed merchantmen instead of thin-on-the-ground dedicated warships.
I believe in EU3 there was a Spanish Inquisition decision and the description was “no one expected this.”
The Ottoman economic troubles have to do with the Ottomans being at war almost constantly for the past few decades, between Iskandar’s wars and now the War of the Roman Succession. Iskandar brought in enough loot from his conquests and squeezed enough money for the Romans to make up for it but it was still a strain. Now Ibrahim has just had the war without any compensatory loot, with the promise of a swift renewal of said war. That’s really not good so every little bit such as the Chinese trade helps. Give the Ottomans a generation of peace and they’ll bounce back.
This.
The Japanese also produce a lot of silver (this is from OTL as well as TTL) so they don’t want or need Mexican silver. Plus if the Romans start messing with other people’s trade, everyone can just relocate back to Ryukyu and have them be the convenient middleman, in which case the Romans get squat.
Given China’s high (and therefore complacent) status in the pre-industrial world, I can’t see them avoiding a very rude shock when the Industrial Revolution hits. That said, I want it to be much less rough on China than OTL. (I think China would’ve had it better IOTL if the Qing hadn’t clearly been past their ‘best by’ date by the early 1800s.) They’ll have to scramble and play catch-up, but nothing like a century of humiliations.
My goal is that when the TL gets to the tech-equivalent of OTL 1920, a unified China is one of the great powers, but just one of the boys as opposed to a superpower.
We’ll be getting back to Constantinople and the Sideroi. But there’s been a change of plans. It makes more sense to me now to go from the Korean War to the Spanish War, wrap up all the current eastern threads, and then head back to Constantinople and see what’s been going there during all this time.
Yeah, that’s always a risk. But then Danjong isn’t exactly the sharpest spoon in the drawer.
TL popularity: Yeah, there’s absolutely no chance in hell that something like this could be made into an HBO show. Alternate history can only be popular when people know the actual history; that’s why most popular alternate history is Nazi or Confederate victories; people know that’s not what happened in reality. While most of the general public doesn’t know the Byzantine Empire even existed, much less anything about it.
I’ve occasionally toyed with the idea of turning the young Andreas story, from the Black Day to the fall of Rome, into a fantasy story in a fantasy world. Turtledove’s done a lot of that; many of his fantasy books are fantasy versions of portions of Byzantine history.
Evilprodigy
Donor
There's a local author here named Guy Gavriel Kay who's pretty damn prolific at writing fantasy stories based on real history and/or historical settings. I've read his books on Celtic Mythology and got his one on the collapse of the Song Dynasty for a friend.
I think he did one set in a world inspired by the reign of Justinian.
This the single best description of what I wished happened to China OTL that I could possibly give to anyone
Why do I get the impression that they aren't going to get that anytime soon?
Cause probably they wont have that peace. They're at war with the afghan warlord if i recall correctly and that's right after the truce with romans happened. Its not that easy to defeat the afghans especially in that mountainous area. By the time it ended, im sure that their still on the slumped in both military and economic sense.
They might have some few years at peace but that will end immediately with the truce expiration. And we know that they are going to lose hard and braking the back of their empire.
They'll have peace once they have reorganized themselves after that brutal war, but even then their so diminished.
Cryostorm
Monthly Donor
But they will still be enough of a power to give Rhomania a bloody nose and take back some of the lost land if the foreshadowing is to be believed. They probably get that peace they need by writing off the west as "Here be Dragons, or Phoenixes. Avoid at all costs." until they get their northern and eastern theaters back in order and reorganize their core territory.
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I wouldn't call him "local", his book are even in smalltown libraries in Croatia. Given he's from Canada, that's a nice reach. And he usually mentioned as one of the better modern fantasy authors.
The book (actually series of two books) about Justinian is Sarantine Mosaic. Great books.
This is only a guess/speculation of mine i think khorasan and the afghan area will probably be independent. It's always been a rebellious area for the persians. I think it will take atleast 2-3 generations for them to recover from anything short of having a military capable of bloodying Romans and holding said lost lands. Well it wouldn't matter for Rome to lose some lands in Central Mesopotamia. It only needs erbil and mosul after all it effectively chokes any invasion down. As long that frontier cities hold as well as its ally georgia holding some fortress and cities in northern western persia peace will finally be set with the christians in a position of strength.
Ok now that i think about it its actually a more beneficial in the long run that rome losses the land that they have overextended.
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Evilprodigy
Donor
I say local more because he's from my city than because he has lack of reach but that is an impressive distance.
I'd actually argue that you're thinking about it from the wrong angle. Instead of presenting it as alternate history they'd present it as historical fantasy without actually changing much. Most people would relate to it as a medieval warfare show akin to Game of Thrones (just without the magic) if they don't look into it. Maybe something like The Last Kingdom (itself about history hardly anyone knows about, though not alternate).
Not going to lie, I’m going a little crazy waiting on the next installment. Can’t wait to see how this turns out (and hopefully get some great turtleship action)!