Recent content by Zwide

Hard disagree on all of this. Dara losing one battle against Aurangzeb doesn't mean that down the line, he would have been incapable of handling Rajput/Jat revolts. Aurangzeb had better strategic support from generals like Mir Jumla, and while at the Battle of Samugarh he did make some effective...

I don't think it was inevitable at all. The Mughal Empire was severely weakened by the defeat of Dara Shikoh and the reign of Aurangzeb. Had Dara won, the Mughals would have taken a much more liberal and cosmopolitan turn, and Indian history would be completely different. Aurangzeb's reign was a...

Yeah I'll be honest it was kind of hard to write these chapters. The inhumanity of the shit that I have to write be historically consistent in this TL makes it difficult to keep going with this. It feels bad to write about slavery and inhumanity to this extent tbh

Chapter Thirteen: My Mother’s Honor Part Four of the baSotho Interlude The sons of Mantatisi Among all of Sekonyela and Mantatisi’s enemies, the amaHlubi by far were the most hated. The poisoned beer sent by the Mokholong was long forgotten – that vendetta had been settled with the murder...

Thanks man! I actually used Fotor for this. Next chapter we'll see what the baTlokwa can really do on horseback I do plan to include him in the story. His trajectory will be different since so much of his success was based on Mfecane - Moshoeshoe gave a number of tribes refuge and defended...

Chapter Twelve: A Nightmare Alliance Part Three of the baSotho Interlude The final play in Mantatisi’s game had now begun. Pieter Botha and his fellows would not be the last Griqua that she captured. By the spring of 1825, four more bands had been abducted and questioned. The Phuting country...

Chapter Eleven: To Catch a Griqua Part Two of the baSotho Interlude The baTlokwa of 1824 were a different animal than the baTlokwa of 1823. They had no real army to speak of, no regimented impi trained in the Shakan method. What they did have, however, was an aptitude for theft. The winter of...

Thanks man! The baSotho at minimum will be a much tougher nut to crack than OTL. Easily one of my favorite comments ever haha. Yes Mantatisi and Sekonyela have a surprisingly wholesome relationship, but that doesn't mean that the baTlokwa are going to play nice in the coming updates. I'm...

Thanks man! Yup, you can view a map here. Can't host it on the site unfortunately due to size limitations.

Chapter Ten: Hail, the Great Female Elephant Introduction The next few chapters will focus on the baSotho, who develop in parallel to the Mthethwa and have a very different history from OTL. OTL modern-day Lesotho and the surrounding South Africa provinces were hit very hard by Mfecane, and...

Thanks for the reviews y'all. The historical Robert Cowan (or Andrew Cowan) basically disappeared somewhere in his travels with Dingiswayo - I used his murder here to represent that. Sabela is a pre-Shaka Nguni clan. If y'all have any feedback on writing style, narrative etc please lay it on...

Last and final prologue chapter - back to the main plot next week. Prologue Chapter Five: The Leopard in the Goat Kraal “What are you doing, black man?” Hooves crunched the sand as Dikkop lurched to a stop, panting for breath. He looked down at Dingiswayo, grinned toothlessly. “What are you...

This would be tough in Southeast Asia IMO. India tends to assimilate every new arrival that doesn't have an Abrahamic religion. The Huns, Saka, Scythians etc disappeared into the Indian population with no trace. Something similar likely would have happened with the Indo-Greeks. The ancient...

Thanks boys. One more prologue chapter and then we're back to our regularly scheduled programming.

Awesome man, love to hear it. It is fun to write these. I'll intersperse "story" chapters like this whenever the mood strikes me. My own experiences with depression (much better than it used to be) definitely helped me write Dingiswayo's perspective here. Thanks everyone else for all the...