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Sigurd's invasion of Austergautland was swift and effective. Moving with the advice of spies who told him that most of his enemy's armies would be concentrated in Tijust while his reinforcements would be attempting to consolidate to the south, Sigurd struck at the outnumbered Austergautland army with a force of two thousand men that marched at such a speed that his Austergautlander foe; King Hojvardr was caught off guard and his outnumbered army shattered, with Hojvardr fleeing from battle in disgrace upon seeing that he was outnumbered and leaving the Boy chief Hogne to direct his armies when he arrived with Hojvardr's captain and what were intended to be reinforcements. Hogne was brave and witty for a twelve year old who had simply come to watch the battle, but he was sorely outmatched in numbers and preparation. As the Sögur attests to (once again paraphrased and not literally translated, and due to the loss of the poetic nature of the Sögur when translated; I've decided to put it into standard prose)

"The warriors of the chosen moved swiftly with the blessings of Hermod, slashing through tree and rivers to fall upon their foe. The cry of brave warriors and shield maidens rang as arrows fell on the fields like rain."

"Wise King Sigurd sent forth his Javelins, and let the foe give chase, setting forth his cunning trap into the trees where his warriors lay in wait."

"A storm of arrows fell upon the warriors of Austergautland, when a bolt of winter's thunder struck down one of the captains of the foe; a Christman who had the ear of the foeking Hjorvardr. With the favour of Thor behind them, Sigurdr pushed as the foeking's armies were now beset by the shield maidens and huscarls he had in hiding, and fierce berserkers fell upon their side."

"Like a rotten shield, Hjorvardr's armies were splintered and fell in their hundreds, the axes of the wise King hewing them like wood. The Foeking's army broke, the fight out of them and the day won for the chosen of Asaheim."

"Yet over the hills came warriors from Hjorvardr's servant tribes under the banner of the boy-chief Hogne the Brave, son of Hjorvardr. Cursing the cowardice of their brothers the child chief of the servant tribes brought shame unto his father's heart. Challenged by his son, the Austergautland King faced battle once again. Giving new spirit to the defeated warriors to fight the already lost battle and bid them to charge the men and women of good king Sigurd so that they may go to Valhalla in glory."

"But even this rally was doomed, and even Hogne could not rally all the hearts of the defeated army of Austergautland. They fled to Oland, seeking to lick their wounds there as Sigurd allowed his soldiers their deserved plunder."

"But even there they were hounded, for the wise King sought nothing less than total conquest to fulfill his sacred task."

"This too, ended in glorious defeat for Austergautland as the strength, will, and favour of Asaheim of Svitjod brought it to victory once more. All that remained were scattered battles against scattered bands lead by Hojvardr to restore his honour, but soon he laid down his arms."

"A swift, glorious victory had been won and the lands of Sigurdr grew and the Gods smiled on the chosen. "

Hojvardr would be reduced from a king to another vassal of Sigurdr, but Hogne would be given honours, respected for choosing to fight where Hojvardr would not. He would be allowed to keep all his lands and be given a place among the chiefs beneath Sigurdr as the Af Munso King gloried in his victory over the East Keatish. With a swift war; he had doubled the size of his realm. However, the expansion of Jylland concerned him. Jylland's chiefs had started to expand into the islands of what is now Danemark. They too sought to expand their realm and would likely soon start to encroach onto the Peninsula itself. The petty King of Jylland proclaimed Sigurd to be a false man, daring him to challenge him and prove that he was truly favoured by the gods. However the time was not yet right.

Just as Sigurd had attained military glory for his Kingdom, his Jyllandish counterpart had also greatly increased the size of his domain with a swift conquest and his armies were enriched by the new lands they held. To truly outmatch his Danish counterpart, Sigurdr would have to quickly grow his dominion by conquering other weak realms before the Danish King could forge a powerful realm out of Danemark. He would have to turn his eye northwards, and sooner than he'd like to recoup from the losses he had suffered in his previous conquest. The Northern lands were certainly less wealthy, more sparse in their population and there was much conflict with the Lapplanders who lived even further North and herded their reindeer in that Tundra.

He was well aware that sooner or later, there could only be one King in the North, but the Sögurs speak of his deliberations; worrying about a premature conflict with the powerful Danish in his plans to expand across Scandinavia. These were cut short when Hogne, tiring of the bickering in the Althing, stood up and said "Am I a man surrounded by boys!? The thunderer does not pick cowards! Go and conquer the north then show the Danes who is strong!"

The choice was now clear, the Swedish would go north and conquer all the Norse realms there and bring them under heel so that a reckoning could be had with the Danes with the strength of all their realms combined.

Thousands of kilometers to the south, Seydou had launched an invasion of Songhay with an army that some chronicles boast of being more than a hundred thousand strong, having amassed additional troops for an irresistable attack force that would crush its way into Songhay to overwhelm any possible defense. Many of these soldiers were simply bandits he pressed into military service with the promise of coin, but serve they did. The first battle of the war was simply a massacre, the army of Zakoi amassed on a field, only for their scouts to report that a force that numbered more than six times greater than they did was marching towards them.

Zakoi was reported to have "despaired as his army was smashed like a child's sand sculptures before a great wave" that smashed into his forces and simply continued to push forward as they slammed into his army and wrapped around it, like water wrapping around a rock as it flows. With such poor odds, Zakoi's army broke and fled and was relentlessly pursued deep into Songhay. No rest was afforded to their army as the Ghanans split off two thousand warriors to pursue the Songhay army to the borders of the Sahara desert. The battered survivors of Zakoi's army, now diminished toa fourth of their strength, were pursued to Tadmekka from Gao and were swiftly overwhelmed.

The battle of Tadmekka was over quickly, as most of the survivors surrendered as soon as it was clear that they would not be escaping from the cavalry of Seydou's army. The rest of the Ghanan army in the mean time, were busily besieging Gao. The huge army swiftly battered down the defenses of Gao and demanded that Fabras Zakoi be brought to them, but they soon found that he had fled farther to the south, prompting a large manhunt for the Fabras of Songhai as the huge Ghanan army pushed farther south to hunt him down. They had no intention to kill him after all, in the future Mansa of Mali's words

"A dead man cannot surrender. Bring him alive to me so that he may swear his loyalty to me, so that I may build a kingdom worthy of Nyame and Asase Ye with his aid. You will not slay him, you will not despoil his lands, for I will not rule an ash heap."

Seydou caught his enemies in Zarma as his huge armies poured into the region, and after a quick siege, surprised many by offering a great deal of clemency to those he had vanquished, allowing Zakoi to continue to rule all of his old lands; as long as he did so in his name and recognized him as his King. This move apparently surprised the Arabic chronicler who followed Seydou around, who wrote glowingly of his mercy "He acted like he truly knew the mercy of Allah despite his fiercely heathen ways." And at the end of it all, Seydou stood upon a vast realm and held a lavish coronation ceremony as he declared himself King of his lands.

"With the Gold and the Salt of the land now firmly under his control, Seydou had created the foundations of an empire. He ruled over millions of subjects and was seen as favoured by many of the priests in his land who looked forward to future wars of expansion to bring all those who rejected the encroachment of the Muslims to the north under one crown. But Seydou was not satisfied, he hoped to bring his Kingdom farther to the north so as to prove once and for all that he had Nyame's blessing to bring all the world under the sight of him and finally unify the faiths of western Africa under one religion. For he had seen the benefits of organized religion that the Muslims enjoyed, and desired them for his own people though he would not countenance the idea of bowing to a religion from the Muslims or the Christians; but wise to the brevity of life, he made sure that his own family would be educated in ensuring the continuity of his plans for the world." Wrote Baba Anang, a famed historian from prior centuries on what many in modern west Africa see as the first great ruler of the region.






This is Ghana, almost twelve hundred years ago. We have come far have we not? But to forget our origins would be the act of a fool. Our nation's origins are interconnected with the development of Akanism, formalized by Seydou, and our history is inexorably tied with the history of our dominant religion. In these times, we were a rich land, with treasures built on the exchange of Gold and Salt. But throughout time this wealth was always passed to whomever ruled North Africa.



These people have long done business with the intent of enriching themselves. But in time these outsiders started to come seeking to bring more.



They sought to beholden us to foreign beliefs. Some may have come with the best of intentions, but the end result would have been the same; our chiefs would be spiritually bound to foreign authority.




Even in the most secular of states, religion is difficult at the best of times to separate from politics and in this era; religion was politics. For Ghana to be independent, we would need our own faith just as much as we needed access to the coasts to ensure greater control over our trade.




And often the price for this independence would be conflict with those who would wish to see us heel to their causes instead of treating us as equals in the courts of kings and emperors. The sad business of war is an all too common extension of the politics of courts and nations and thus of religion. When reason and understanding to solve conflict is refused, there is often little resort but violence. And when one is dealing with those who seek conversion, reason and understanding is the first casualty as it always is when the choice is "submit or die". Something that our enemies have cast to the winds now.