An Age of Miracles Continues: The Empire of Rhomania

Not government, civilization. The people have reverted to hunting, gathering, and small scale agriculture. The people are still there but what they have is not sophisticated enough for shipbuilding industries to allow migration.
They lost the concept of currency. The Wu are a bunch of primitives now.

I'm sure many of them joined the aboriginals in their primitive ways when civilization deteriorated. However, it's hard to discount the possibility of a few leaving when economic conditions started to go downhill, way before total collapse. They didn't have to have a native shipbuilding industry when they could just buy passage on merchant/explorer ships that visited before collapse of Wu.

Furthermore, when I mentioned remnants I also included secret loyalists still in hiding in China and those who migrated to other places aside from Nan too. In OTL Ming resistance persisted even in the late 17th century.
 
Question re: the Wu, did they make any substantial contact with the Maori in New Zealand prior to their fall? And for that matter, have any non-Polynesian people "discovered" NZ yet TTL? If the Wu did, was there any lasting contact? If they had a trade relationship, their influence would certainly be felt in Aotearoa even now that they have collapsed, and Maori society could be tremendously different by the time Europeans arrive in force.
 
The difference between Ireland and Anatolia is both the climate and soil. Anatolia does not have the same drainage issues Ireland does, which was one of the contributing factors to the blight.
 
Imagine if a potato famine hits ala Ireland. At least it won’t make the region depopulated to this day.
Access to a variety of potato strains will reduce the likelihood of a blight ruining the crop in the whole country, and the good relations with Mexico also gives them access to the entire range of maize, which will be a boon all on its own.
 
We are actually in the era of the development of Norfolk four-course system of crop rotation. Or will be soon.

I would hazard to guess that the development of these tax brackets, creating business-minded peasant landowners, will see some degree of experimentation in the field of Agricultural Science that could well lead to diversification of agriculture through adoption of foreign crops and, far FAR more importantly, a sustainable or semi-sustainable method to utilize them on a mass scale.
 
The difference between Ireland and Anatolia is both the climate and soil. Anatolia does not have the same drainage issues Ireland does, which was one of the contributing factors to the blight.
Ah, makes sense. Plus the government would be more caring if a famine of that magnitude would hit.
 
Last edited:
Good question. The soil in the ERE has been farmed for thousands of years by 1635. Only figures that some degradation has taken place after countless harvests.
Maybe one Charolambos Chaldonridis can foresee the need for other innovations and maybe we'll see a more focused development of hydroponics ITTL as the idea was already around in the 1600s in OTL
 
What would be the average diet of a Roman around this time? I’d imagine the new crops could fix some deficiencies.

By this point (I have to use the latter 15th century as a bit of a benchmark) the Roman diet was diverse in that they did have varieties of salads, fish was a big part too with the Aegean and Mediterranean right there. In truth they were more epicurean than northern Europeans simply by their climate and dietary history of Greece. Bread was a massive staple but generaly speaking produce was as widely available. Well war requesitions not withstanding.

Byzantine Gardening, which B444 pointed me to, is an excellent source.
 

Vince

Monthly Donor
We are actually in the era of the development of Norfolk four-course system of crop rotation. Or will be soon.

I would hazard to guess that the development of these tax brackets, creating business-minded peasant landowners, will see some degree of experimentation in the field of Agricultural Science that could well lead to diversification of agriculture through adoption of foreign crops and, far FAR more importantly, a sustainable or semi-sustainable method to utilize them on a mass scale.

This got me thinking re: four-course system. Technology has to be more advanced in this TL with a surviving Empire. I don't know the Ottoman education system vis-a-vis Rhomania but I have to assume the Civil Service and Administrative state is much more advanced. There is probably a much better education and university system as updates have said Roman literacy rates very high for the world at this point. You could can go back to updates back during D2's reign after the War of the Five Kings where it talks about a large system of universities so this has existed in the Empire for centuries. I would take all this as meaning the world could be a bit more advanced not hugely but a couple of decades ahead wouldn't be unreasonable.
 
This got me thinking re: four-course system. Technology has to be more advanced in this TL with a surviving Empire. I don't know the Ottoman education system vis-a-vis Rhomania but I have to assume the Civil Service and Administrative state is much more advanced. There is probably a much better education and university system as updates have said Roman literacy rates very high for the world at this point. You could can go back to updates back during D2's reign after the War of the Five Kings where it talks about a large system of universities so this has existed in the Empire for centuries. I would take all this as meaning the world could be a bit more advanced not hugely but a couple of decades ahead wouldn't be unreasonable.
B444 has previously said technology has in fact developed a bit more quickly for exactly this reason.
 
Top