Nice to see not only a successful Indian empire still the top dog on the subcontinent but a Dravidian, the southern Indian peoples, and Hindu one at that.
It is a nice twist. (One of my ‘historical writings’ pet peeves is how general histories of India seem to forget that the Deccan and South India even exist.)
In OTL the Mughal Empire controlled something like 1/5th of Humanity's collective GDP. Let's hope that this India manages to retain that level of strength and avoid fragmentation.
TTL Vijayanagar is channeling some of the OTL Mughals’ vibe. I plan on India remaining proud and powerful and prosperous to the present day, although not necessarily to this height. Vijayanagar’s current advantages aren’t guaranteed to be permanent.
I wouldn’t mind seeing them less op in the long run, maybe like all the other powers they could overextend in their arrogance and get a decent beat down.
Vijayanagar won’t always be at this pinnacle but considering the time period there should be powerful eastern empires that dwarf anything the west has to offer. Pre-modern India and China dwarfed Europe in wealth and the Mughals at their height were far more splendid than the Ottomans.
Are Rome and the Triunes the only western powers with overseas possessions in india?
Ethiopia has a small bit in the Indus Delta. Other western powers have trading posts/quarters/factories.
Also exactly how far west has ethiopia expanded into africa?
About to the present-day Ethiopian-Somalia-Eritrea-south Sudan to Khartoum area. Slave raids have gone deeper into the interior (Darfur used to be part of the empire) but not political authority.
Well part of what makes this Vijayanagar so strong is that it hasn't tried, successfully at least, to go past what you would call the natural borders that they have already reached. They may attempt to go farther north to the east and west but both directions already have powerful nations that can push them back. They won't be near as powerful as the Mughals, they have none of the Indo-Gangetic plain that was and still is the wealthiest part of the subcontinent, but in the long run that may be to their benefit since they will need to work far earlier to maintain their independence and strength.
Yeah, even Vijayanagar’s wealth would dissipate really quickly if it tried to hold down North India as opposed to even just a quick offensive like against Ibrahim. At best it’d play out like Aurungzeb’s invasions of the Deccan with the directions reversed.
Won't lie, I read that update and all I'm waiting for is the "but" there's always one. In this case it seems to be the potential for a Gangetic and/or Indus rival state. An Indus buffer state would work well for the Ottomans, a strong ally with more to gain in India than Iran, and the same in the Ganges and Bangladesh.
I sort of love the idea of a Nepalese rival emerging in India. It's the sort of thing that I can see external powers supporting to undermine the V's, only to be terrified if it succeeds too well, perhaps going east into Burma and Indochina. (A similar imperial structure might make sense there too). Are the Nepalese Hindu or Buddist atm?
Still, a tripartite India that is balanced would be a really interesting situation. Especially as part of a network of strong South Asian states.
India was originally going to be one update, and turned into 2.5 instead. A united North India would overshadow Vijayanagar.
Nepalese are Hindu.
Yah the ottamons are screwed there gonna get double team from the behemoth in India and the Romans they are over stretched exhausted with rising ethnic tension and no longer having a god level generals... think don’t look so good for them I bet romans take a bunch of land in the west and the Indians take the rest of India maximum being up to Pakistani western border
The Ottomans have the Iranian plateau so they have a good fallback position. There’s no way Vijayanagar can project power that far and while the Romans can, they couldn’t sustain it for long either.
Is the vijayanagar empire normally this strong or they just happen to have an excellent ruler? I mean didn't they just got push around by the ottomans like 20 years ago. Even with half of their troops in rebellion, the ottomans still give them a bloody nose.
Besides in this age economic power don't really mean much. Mughals was even richer otl, but a string of civil wars and bad rulers pretty much ended them.
The Ottomans gave them a bloody nose, in the process of Vijayanagar kicking the Ottomans out of 90% of their Indian conquests. And the Ottomans had Iskandar’s veterans, who were at the time probably the best troops on the planet.
Vijayanagar’s strength does wax and wane though, and is at one of its higher points at the moment.
Great to see this, always loved Vijay. I hope this strenght and stability (and especially modern navy) endures.
It won’t stay this dominant, especially once industrialization takes off, but I play for Indian states to be proud, powerful, and prosperous through to the present day.
“BHARAT: SUPERPOWER BEFORE 2020”
Not even a meme ITTL, the Vijayanagari are fucking rolling in it, AND they combine modern military power with vast economic might.
I suspect that the only thing that could undercut their dominance in South Asia is a massive increase in Transatlantic and Transpacific shipping.
Barring political collapse, it will take the Industrial Revolution to remove India (a united North India state, especially with Bengal, would be even wealthier than Vijayanagar) from its prominent position. Once textiles aren’t the only game in town, it’ll be lots more difficult. Europe didn’t burst past India and China until the Industrial Revolution after all.
A question I just realized on a different subject:
Did the Romans use Regnal numbers? Or was that more of a "Latin" thing?
To my knowledge they did. I’ve never seen a historian bat an eye at using ‘Leo III’ or ‘Nikephoros II’ or so on.
Indian unity/disunity:
I hope we get a situation like this too. I think B444 has said the long term plan is for India to consist of 3-5 countries instead of the one we have in OTL.
Fragmented countries are one of my favorite AH tropes so here's hoping that continues to the present day.
That is my long-term plan. Perhaps something like an Indus State, an Upper Ganges state, a Lower Ganges/Bengal state, and a Deccan + South state (Vijayanagar), plus any Himalayan states that are the TTL equivalents of Nepal and Bhutan and minor polities. Details may vary but it is certain that the subcontinent will not be united under any one state.
Whoa finally managed to finish reading this behemoth. Truly an amazing fic.
This story is so big it crashed chrome when I opened the story only thread.
Thanks and lol. I try not to think how big this has become lest I question my sanity more than I already do.
I respectfully disagree. Indian history shows a marked tendency to disunity, like Europe, as opposed to, say, China (which still has substantial periods of being divided). There have been some imperial states that have been the clear ‘big boy’ of the subcontinent, but the likes of the Mauryans and Mughals, while coming close, never managed to conquer it all. And those periods of closeness were very short-lived and the empires collapsed afterwards.
The British could be argued to be an exception, but even they need a few caveats. Their control over all of India was just a century, going from the end of the Anglo-Sikh Wars to partition, which really isn’t that much when looking over thousands of years. They actually never quite controlled it all as Portuguese Goa and French Pondicherry both outlasted the Raj. Finally, the princely states made up something like a third of India’s area and a quarter of the population.
In short, I think it’d be very easy to have an Indian Empire dominating the subcontinent, but I think it unlikely, although not impossible, to have an Indian Empire controlling all of the subcontinent.
As for the future course of India and Vijayanagar’s future, your first scenario matches with my current plans.
Perhaps Vijayanagar's possible Industrial Revolution will be like how Basileus444 has described how Rhomania will industrialize? He says that they lack the necessary resources to really be the top dog in the early Industrial Revolution, owing to there not being much industrial resources in their territory, but would eventually find their niche in the second Industrial Revolution, especially in the realm of chemicals. Resources aren't everything in this sense, a properly managed state can industrialize with enough effort and competency on their parr, if Vijayanagar finds advantage in those labor saving devices, they probably won't be too shy in importing or making their own variations.
I haven’t given much thought to Industrialization as that’s a long way off. The only ones I’ve considered are the Triunes, who will lead the way as Britain did IOTL, and Rhomania, which will lag until the second Industrial and then take off since at that stage dependence on large piles of coal and iron mean less.
The only thing I think which could hold it back is difficulty interacting with the rest of academic world. IOTL The Mughals, Safavids, and Ottomans formed an academic continuum based on Persian while Europe formed one based on Latin and later French, English, and German. Vijayanagar does not have a unified language, in fact it doesn't even have the same language families within its borders. Acceleration of academic advancement requires easy access to other potential innovators and a quick spread of information. Vijayanagar will thus have difficulty getting developments from other parts of the world that OTL Mughal India could access via the Middle East's academic tradition in Persian. No one outside of India speaks whatever language is predominant in a Hindu-ruled country with the sole exception being some parts of Indonesia, which significantly lacks in biopower. Even in India Vijanagar could be isolated from North India's acadmeic world as much of it is Muslim oriented and would publish in Persian or Arabic.
Language and communication is a hurdle which can be overcome, especially since India has so many people who can be potential innovators if Vijayanagar can improve its biopower enough to make them such, but is still a hurdle which will isolate their academia from developments outside their borders which could make them even more effective.
That’s a cool idea to have Vijayanagar be a pioneer in mathematics and perhaps architecture, one that I didn’t think of. But this is a very important point. Vijayanagar has a lot of different languages inside the empire, and it’s not like Rhomania where one (Greek) is so much bigger than the others that it can function easily as a lingua franca.
Madagascar could be a good future conquest. Between the Ethiopians and Romans it could be easily taken over. It would help lessen the impact of the Triunes settling the Cape.
It would be a good place to police the traffic in that area.
A 3 way partition of the Island between Rhome, Ethiopia and Oman could be interesting although not too practical
Actually holding the island might be too expensive for the others. They would probably prefer access and berthing rights in the island.
Perhaps installing a friendly kingdom with a Sidori on the thrown could work and help keep the latins off of it
Madagascar did not see permanent European presence until 1820 and that was limited to British missionaries until the 1880s when the French established control and presence.
If you're looking for places to counteract Triune settlement on the cape just do what happened OTL and colonize Natal or get something along the eastern coast of mainland Africa be it in Mozambique, Tanzania, or Kenya. Madagascar is inhospitable to Europeans and didn't have anything worth trading for other than slaves for most of its history. A colony there would not survive as it could not support itself financially or demographically until modern medicine.
Evilprodigy brings up the reasons why Madagascar isn’t ideal at this point. Outside of South Africa, living in Africa was often a death sentence for Europeans because of disease prior to the mid/late 1800s.
That said, the Mascarenes have none of those issues.
In size no, the real loss though is that Latin doesn't start to get the preeminence that it had in Europe and then the world, which then easily transferred to French then English. We could easily end up with a world that instead of one language being the language to publish in to matter to having several different, and competing, scientific circles.
I get the feeling that rather than one language for all disciplines the language of science will very much depend on what field it is. So astronomy may be French, physics and chemistry are Greek, mathematics is Sanskrit, material science is German and so on. It could lead to a modern world where there is a small group of "elite scientists" who are multi-lingual who act as essentially intermediaries between the various disciplines when a cross-over is necessary.
One goal of this timeline is that western Europe won’t become nearly as dominant ITTL as it did IOTL. So in the present, one would need to know a few (4?) languages that combined fill the niche that English does IOTL today.
To what extent are the old Carthaginians revered by the current one? I know there was a big revival and even had a guy named Hannibal as leader a while ago if I recall but I think that may have been a one time fluke. Do they still revere Hannibal as hero of sorts? Are there any current attempts to to revive Punic art and architecture?
That Punic revival was a flash in the pan (one of my not-so-well-thought-out ideas). There’s the occasional callback, with ships being named Hamilcar and the like, but the present-day Carthaginians don’t see much of a connection to the ancient Carthaginians.
what the situation in the carthaginian area? are they gradully expanding there borders with settlements and slowly pushing the bebers out? or are they slowly being enchoracnhed on? or somewhere in the middle
They were steadly expanding until the marnanids reset that and now I think they only control northern Tunesia. Hopefully after Ody is done beating the ottomans into a pulp he can focus on north africa but I'm not sure if a war with the marnanids would would be worth it since they seem to be leaving the Romans alone for now
Perhaps the next emperor after Ody can wipe the floor with the marnanids and possibly even reclaim the black stone
I think a Christian power holding the Black Stone is way more trouble than it is worth.
The Carthaginians got knocked back by the Marinids when the Romans were facing issues on all sides. But as the history from 1500-1800 shows, invading North Africa is something easier said than done.
As for the Romans getting the Black Stone again, they’d do the same thing they did the first time. Find the best moment/target of diplomatic advantage and then promptly get rid of it. It’s too much trouble.
I think we'll still see an influx of Turkish migrants from Ottoman Iran into Roman Anatolia, like in our timeline. This of course, will happen over the span of several centuries.
Yes, Anatolia is the population center of the Roman Empire but eventually I speculate that differences between Balkan and Anatolian Greeks will emerge. Also Anatolia is home to Armenians, Georgians, and Kurds.
There are regional differences already, although I haven’t gone into detail (OOC for lack of ideas of how to elaborate on this point).
There’s a strong Turkish element in Anatolian society, but the Romans wouldn’t tolerate Turkish (Islamic) migration into what is again the heart of the Empire. And in these days of musketry, nomads can’t go wherever they want anymore.
How different is this tributary system compared to that of Imperial China? One thing I note is the inclusion of troops as tribute. Does Vijaynagar maintain an active policy of protecting its tributaries or does it act on a per case basis? For example, what would they do if the Spanish show up to bag the nice ports of their tributaries in Odisha? Do they send demands of tribute to the new owners of the land or prosecute them?
Has Vijaynagar already sent demands to Bengal for tribute? And is Sindh still ruled by various groups of raider-adventurers?
Didn't Vijaynagar primarily use Kannada in OTL? Depending on Vijaynagari policy, I think it enjoys a position similar to Greek in the Mediterranean, with many learning it as a second language to progress socially, especially in South India where the closely related Devanagari languages prevail. I think it is already the lingua franca of South India and a good portion of Coastal and North India. With its increased wealth, its literature and culture should be experiencing a renaissance of its own.
Vijayanagar will defend the vassals within the main frontiers. There are some “vassals” in North India but the vassalage there is purely ceremonial, with both sides doing it for the sake of cheap prestige but know it has no substance. If a foreign power though were to attack vassals in the Deccan or South India, the Vijayanagara would come right at them, although it’s possible they might settle in a peace treaty for the invaders to become vassals for those holdings. Roman Surat is a vassal of Vijayanagar, the city bequeathed to them as payment for the Romans throwing out the rebel vassals who’d controlled the city at the time.
I thought a large population of turks are in anatolia? So are we discounting them as turks or was there some population transfer/slaughter which has happened which caused Anatolia to have a turkish minority? Are turks which are imperial muslims/orthodox, speak greek, intermarry with romans and faithfully serve/lead parts of the roman empire just romans at this point?
The Turks in Anatolia at this point are culturally Roman, although with a Turkish element. They diverged from their Mesopotamian cousins three hundred years ago by this point; a lot has changed.
As I recall during one of the minorities update Islam within eastern Anatolia more or less disappears during the mid-17th century. Also given the current Roman mindset of convert,die, or leave with respect to new conquests I’d expect the Levant and Northern Iraq to more or less have only a minimal Muslim population by the end of the century.
In another update it was mentioned that Rome pushes hard on speak Greek and be Orthodox even in their colonies. The thought of them doing that throughout island Asia but allowing Muslim immigration into their heartland just does not seem at all likely.
Like it or not Rome is an Orthodox Christian Theocracy that would have the Iranian Ayatollah telling them to cool it down. They will undoubtedly moderate over the coming decades and centuries but asking Rome to become some secular multi-cultural melting pot would be similar to asking the same of a mix of Saudi Arabia and the Vatican to do the same thing. It’s just not going to happen. For 1000 years Rome has been the eastern bulwark against Islamic expansion and they have suffered mightily for it.
It is a cultural imprint at this point and the brief tolerance of Islam in the 13th-15th century was driven as much by necessity as anything. Rome Has no reason to accept immigrants that from their eyes would only be loyal so long as it suited them.
Yeah, this period marks the last flickers of Islam in eastern Anatolia. That said, a lot of local saints in eastern Anatolia were probably Sufi fakirs originally.
So islam in this tl is has collapsed. Its lost majorty of its followers and all it seems to be doing it constantly losing. Mecca destroyed all islamic heartland lost, india and Indonesia are not becoming muslim (in more regards to the latter). Lastly at the mercy of non-muslim states.
Islam looks bad compared to its OTL state at this time (but then, almost anything would look bad compared to that benchmark).
The Ottomans and Marinids (might replace them with another North African state, but it would fill the same niche) will remain great powers up to the present day. Fortunes fluctuate over time, but that is true of all states.
Regarding our later comment about a Muslim colony, there’s the former Andalusi colony of Al-Jahmr in OTL northeast Brazil. It’s now part of Spain, but the colony is still Muslim. Spain forbids Muslims from immigrating to its other colonies, but Muslim migration to Al-Jahmr is allowed.
Personally, I'm quite happy with how the Middle East is going. Maybe because it just gets boring after a while to have 'Arab Muslim State #2482 fights Arab or Turkish State #3201' over and over again. I would also suspect that, no matter how Iraq goes, Syria and Palestine are going back to the Romans simply because the Ottomans would need to crack the rest of Syria and Armenia to actually supply Damascus and such.
OOC, the reason for having Islam hit a brick wall in India and Indonesia was that I was really annoyed that in all my EU3-MEIOU games Islam would always wipe out Hinduism, or near enough.
