And From Many Came One

Disclaimer: Since this is me we’re talking about, the chances of this continuing to completion are close to nil (but we can dream, can’t we?)

Anyways, after reading Malé Rising and other timelines, I have become interested in these sort of “hybrid peoples”- the titular people of Rising, the ghost-men of LTTW, the Maroons, Magyarabs, etc. And I decided to write about various hybrid peoples within a singular TL (this universe, which I will call Dimension-610, has a vague POD somewhere in the Middle Ages).


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“The Children of Guadelupe: The Dalgo”

The “Dalgo”, as they are called in most languages, are an interesting case even amongst other intercultural peoples brought to being by the explorations of Europe and the expansion of the system of global trade.

The origins of the Dalgo first come with the exile of various Castilian rebellions taking place in France-Castile in the early 16th Century. Firstly, there were the infamous Comuneros, who upon defeat were sold to the French India Company as indentured servants meant to settle Africa. They were followed by common criminals from across the Franco-Castilian realm. Then, the survivors of the infamous “Rising of the Faithful” were sent to Africa- the authorities hoped the Castilian Catholics would die against the unknown and fierce tribes of the interior.

From about 1534 to 1544, these groups farmed the land around the Cape and the fledgling port of New Orleans located at the Cape of Good Times, before being joined by an incredibly large and diverse group of peoples from the New World. A nascent Castilian community was being created in Africa, as it had in Anouaque (where Castilians had made up a large percentage of the conquerors)

The French conquest of the fractured Mesoamerican city states had created a system of exploitation of natives, forced conversions and rapid spread of European pathogens into a virgin population. In addition, the harsh rule of the conquistadors, who set themselves up as feudal lords, engendered great bitterness in the survivors of Anouaque.

Eventually, the Slave Wars began, sparked first on the coast of the Gulf, and then spreading to much of the Pacific coast in 1544-1547. Although most of the rising natives were put down (requiring the taking of slaves from near the Cape and from West Africa), some groups survived. These organized native groups could have been re-enslaved, but many of them had already proven that they knew how to escape- and their lords wouldn’t feel safe owning them as slaves. Instead, the governor, outside of royal consent, decided to deport five groups of these peoples: the small Seri group, the Purepecha, the Huave, the Totonaques, and the Huasteques. They were shipped across the ocean, and soon became independent farmers in the Cape (they resisted any other fate). The rest of the natives (making up the large majority of the population, and largely part of the Nahua peoples) were re-enslaved, as we know from the accounts of the period by churchman Pierre Alvarado.

Of these unfortunate souls, many died from disease and the long voyage. The remainder intermarried with the Castilian population (many of whom had died from raids and diseases of their own). It was this intermarriage, and the conversion of the exiled Mesoamericans to Catholicism, that laid the earliest basis for the Dalgo people. Indeed, the earliest accounts of what would become the Dalgo as a separate community date to 1551, when a Portuguese priest visiting the region described the “Castilian exiles, accompanied with Indigens from across the Sea”.

These groups largely stayed out of the affairs of New Orleans, and New Orleans let them pray in relative peace. The famous Don Quixote wrote in 1593

“For twenty and five years after the arrival of the Indigens, the French in New Orleans, and those Castilians outside of Mother Church, let us and the Indigens pray and live peacefully, working our farms and trading with Portuguese ships. We survived the raids and the plagues, and we even gained new men and women from the Coycoy in those twenty years, particularly after the second and final Rising in Castile. And then Bartholomew de Guise became Governor…”

Bartholomew de Guise was the scion of a cadet branch of a minor French noble family, and saw the French explorations into India and the New World as a way to make his own fortunes. After years of service in Africa and elsewhere, he was made Governor of the Cape. However, to the detriment of the exiles living outside and even inside the fort at New Orleans, he was a zealot of the new French faith, and a devoted anti-Catholic. He opened his term by banning Catholics from the city, and continued to levy abuses onto the Catholic populations of the French Cape.

This abuse came to a head in 1572, when de Guise burnt down the only monastery in the region and attempted to blame it on the Africans. The Catholics, remembering their pasts as rebels of all stripes, uprooted their farms, slaughtered the tax men of de Guise, burnt down the small chapels he had built in their main towns, and fled out into the bush. In the aftermath of their violence, they liberated the Coycoy slaves of the French, and brought them with them to the bush.

They named themselves, as Quixote tells us, Hidalgos (noblemen), which was quickly shortened to Dalgo. The children of Castilian Catholics, Comuneros, Coycoy and Indigens from Anouaque had launched themselves from obscurity into history…
 
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And now, for a sojourn to the mystical Orient!


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“Mamelukes of the Southern Seas: The Gankou”

In the records of the Chinese mandarins from the Early Modern Era, two groups of sea bandits stand out. First are the Wokou, the pirates of mixed origin (although the name itself only refers to the Japanese) who raided the coasts of China and even the coasts of the Japanese portion of Korea as men marginalized by society. The second, and far more impactful, are the Gankou, the Korean pirates who sailed farther south and set up various petty states in the southern oceans.

The Gankou were, by all accounts, originally Korean Wokou and Korean peasants. Their livelihoods, however, were threatened by the Japanese conquests of Jeolla, Gyeongsang and Chungcheong (Zenra, Keishou and Chuusei provinces) in the late 14th century. This motley group of peasants, former soldiers, Korean pirates and even Japanese Burakumin decided to take to the seas to try and make their fortune, hoping to prey on Chinese coastal towns and eventually make their way to the southern oceans, where they could act as mercenaries or even find land to farm.

The Chinese accounts first speak of the Gankou as separate from the Wokou in the year 1414, when the Gankou, having amassed a fleet under Eo Gyun, sailed up the Yangtze and sacked Nanjing. The First Yuan Dynasty was suffering a period of great turmoil, and did not have the materiel or the men to stop the quick and total sack of Nanjing. But the accounts did note that these men were Korean- and thus the infamous pirates gained the name Gankou. Shortly afterwards, what remained of the Yuan fleet, along with a separate Japanese expedition to pacify Jeju, kicked the Gankou out of Taiwan and sent the men, still holding on to their riches and captives, down south. It was there that the Gankou would truly become famous.

The Gankou, after their expulsion from the northern seas, broke up into various groups (and were even joined by the Later Gankou, who left in the decades and centuries after the first, original Gankou). Most groups dispersed into Indochina and the Spice Islands, and assimilated into the local population, including the famous Gankou Muslims in Mindanao. Other individuals served as admirals or generals for kings in Indochina, or even India.

The distinct groups of Gankou were those who either ended up conquering the lands in which they settled and assimilating, or formed their own separate states in the southern seas. The latter, the more common type, formed the erroneously-named “Ganco Republics” as they were called by the Portuguese, across the Spice Islands- the greatest being the state in Irian Jaya and its rival in Buru. The former are well-known and infamous, the greatest of all the Gankou fleets…

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“The Sweetest Isle: Hainão in the Colonial Era”

Portugal, of all the nations of Europe, was the first to reach out into the oceans and try and find the mythical lands of Asia. I could write many books about their travails in Africa and the New World- instead, I will focus on one locus point of their far-flung Asian domains: Hainão.

The Portuguese first arrived in China in 1492 (according to both Portuguese and Chinese sources), only 50 years after the fall of the Yuan Dynasty. China at the time was still fractured after the failure of any one faction to regain control over the entire country, and the island itself was ruled by the last vestige of Yuan rule. Many of the Yuan gentry that had benefitted during Mongol rule had fled to the island, along with the last dynastic vestige of the Yuan: the young granddaughter of the last Yuan emperor. The Portuguese, having been turned away from Canton, decided to enter into trade in Hainão, establishing a feitoria at the port of Haikou in late 1492.

In 1496, the decentralized authorities of the island decided to try and tax the Portuguese, or to kick them out. Despite a lack of support from the nobles in Canton, the Hainanese managed to destroy some of the other feitorias on the island, leaving only the now-fortified port at Haikou. This prompted a response from the Portuguese Armada da Asia (separated in 1494 from the Armadas da India), and a group of troops was organized. Most of these troops were colonial converts- some from Guinea, many from Goa, and some from the islands of Flores and Timor, with Portuguese officers and cavalry. They were led in this by the now-legendary Valentim Fabião Zeimoto, a native of Sevilha and scion of an old Andalusian family through his mother. Although he was young, the charismatic and well-connected man had managed to attain command of the expedition, hoping to gain glory and wealth in Asia.

Zeimoto landed at Haikou, reinforcing the fort with supplies and the Guinean troops. Awaiting him were allies from among the Hainanese- Mongol gentry who had fled to the island and who had been dispossessed of their lands by the Han nobility of the island. They brought with them a great amount of weapons, including crucial rocket launchers and other gunpowder weapons, along with some cavalry. Zeimoto, now reinforced, went straight for the heart of the island- he went to Qiongzhou (Chanxo in Portuguese accounts) and started a siege in early 1497.

While this happened, ships, with royal blessing, went across the Portuguese Empire, picking up men. The system used to recruit soldiers was that of land- men would be given land or mercantile contracts once in Hainão, provided they helped conquer the island. These ships arrived back in Haikou in mid-1498, when Zeimoto was fighting off the rulers of Hainão and hoping to continue the siege of Chanxo.

These men quickly went to help Zeimoto, and the Han Chinese soldiers were beaten outside Chanxo. The city fell, and Zeimoto himself charged the residence of the granddaughter of the last Emperor. The nobles of the island would hold out until mid-1500. Hainan was from then on a Portuguese possession.

The “birth of the Hainanese” began as soon as conquest ended. The Han nobility and merchants largely fled the island, and the Portuguese and their soldiers began to settle parts of the island. Many of them stayed as merchants in Haikou, the new capital of the island, while some others went out to be gentleman farmers. All of these men needed wives, and took both wives from Hainão and from the rest of Portuguese Asia.

Zeimoto himself, now Captain-General of Hainão, married Temulun, the last Yuan princess, who herself converted to Catholicism and took the name Raisa. They are, to the modern Hainanese, considered the first Hainanese people...


 
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On the Maya: I must first and foremost give credit to 9 Fanged Hummingbird, who illuminates so much on them in his own works. From him, I have taken the general idea of a non-collapsed Maya, although most of my Maya will hopefully be distinct from his. I also use his Mayan name (Bolon Koh Tz’unun) for one of the important figures here.

This update is one I will call “Multiple Guerreros”. You’ll see why shortly. And the accounts of Texeira are a translated version.


History of Euro-Mayan Contact

The Portuguese reached the New World just as Bolon Koh Tz’unun finished subduing much of the lands of the Maya. Their own Anarchy had lasted for about two centuries, and the reunification of most of their patrimony had reinstalled a strong power in a region used to decentralization.

The Portuguese, as we know, established their first bases in the islands we now know as the Muitos Santos, starting with the prime island of São João and its capital, Porto Negro. From there, they sent out trade expeditions to see if any local powers had goods they could buy, for exclusive resale into Europe. Notably, further colonization beyond the Muitos Santos was not a priority. They had already reached India, and the gold mines in Guinea and the trade from the Indies was far more valuable to the Crown and to merchants than newly discovered lands.

In 1473, the fourth year of Tz’unun’s reign, some Portuguese ships sailed to the west, looking for land and hopefully, people willing to trade. A massive hurricane split the ships. While most of the ships sailed back to Porto Negro, two went in the opposite direction towards unknown parts of the New World. One, moved off course, sailed due south and eventually crashed. The other crashed somewhere near Chaktemal. The local governor of Chaktemal sent men to capture the survivors and seize the latter ship. It is in that storm that three legends began- those of Xelmiro Soares Texeira, Nelinho Montoya, and Juan Carlos Bennasir.
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The ship of Texeira and Montoya had a few survivors- the named two, and 10 others (Texeira writes of the group, all named, as Apostles, in jest). Texeira was a navigator from Faro, Montoya a doctor from Tangier, and the rest from various Portuguese ports and towns. Almost immediately, the men were taken into Chaktemal, and sent off to various fates. Two men, named by Texeira as Fra Diego Peres Alvarado and Gregorio Gonsalves Granda were immediately sacrificed in the local manner. Then, the rest were taken as slaves, to be sold. Over the next few days, all but Texeira and Montoya had been sold away- later, Texeira found out that the other eight had been sent to the lord at Chichen Itza after finding one of the survivors, a Rui Vidigal from Guimarães, in Kuutsmil.

Texeira and Montoya were kept as slaves by Nachan Kan, the governing lord of the great port of Chaktemal and one of the former generals of Tz’unun. They, over a long series of months, learned the local dialect of the Mayan language and served as retainers to Nachan Kan. In particular, Kan was interested by the capabilities of their guns and their armor, which Texeira demonstrated, and in the medical knowledge of Montoya. Over time, the two eased into life as Mayan slaves, especially Montoya, who adopted more of the culture than the restless Texeira. Eventually, Montoya saved Nachan Kan during an attack by bandits, and was freed. He then accompanied Kan, along with Texeira, in his travel to Tz’unun’s capital at Lakam Ha in the year 1475.

In Lakam Ha, the two were considered a great oddity, as seaborne barbarians from the far, far west. Tz’unun in particular wanted to know their purpose in his kingdom. Texeira, representing the two of them, spoke of a desire for trade and peace with the great lord (whom he called in his own accounts Caesar out of respect), and to discover the peoples and states of the New World. Texeira described, as best he could, what Portugal and Europe were, how they arrived in the New World, and their ways. Tz’unun was intrigued, and pleased with Texeira’s demonstration of European weaponry- Texeira was then freed by Nachan Kan.

The retinue of Kan then returned to Chaktemal. Montoya, a free man and respected scholar amongst the high classes in Chaktemal, eventually married the daughter of Nachan Kan, Zazil Ha in 1476. After seeing their wedding, Texeira requisitioned a canoe, some goods, and left, as chronicled in his own accounts. The next we hear of Montoya is during the trade expedition of Serrão in 1488, where he acted as the translator and representative of Nachan Kan (the individual lords were allowed a broad set of negotiating rights in regards to trade by Tz’unun) in negotiations.

The tale of Texeira, meanwhile, only got more interesting…


Journeys: The Abridged Accounts of Xelmiro Texeira

After the Lord tried us with his great storm, my ship crashed into land in a place I would come to know as Xacatemal. The only survivors were us 12 Apostles, a fitting name for a priest, a doctor, and a gallery of 10 rogues. We had no clue where God had led us, nor did we know what our fate was about to be. Indeed, I hoped for a peaceful people, but only God knows his plans for us…

After many years a slave and sometime a free man amongst the Maya, I at last acquired a canoe, my armor and sword, and other goods, going forth to once more find our land, one that basked in the light of the Lord, along with some Mayan companions, led by my old friend Balam. At first, I went north, and found an island I knew to be Cusamil from my time amongst the Maya. And on Cusamil I found yet another Apostle surviving in this strange land- Rui Vidigal of Sevilha. I went to the leader’s house, and saw Rui as a free man therein. I spoke with Rui, and we embraced each other. I decided to stay in Cusamil for a bit.

Over the days we stayed in Cusamil, I learned of what had happened to the rest of us wretched Apostles- Rui and the others had been sent to a place called Chichen Issa, and were slaves of that place’s governor. He described to me a great temple, a stepped pyramid with a snakes head at the bottom. He also told me that Fra Paulo, one of us, was thrown down the steps of said temple for attempting to destroy their idols. I knew him to be an idiot from his time among us, and as a word to smarter men: do not mess with the idols of the Maya. They are venerated as icons there, and should not be trifled with.

Eventually, I acquired more goods, and Rui left with us in our canoes (we had acquired a second canoe, along with some more Mayan companions). Our blessed canoe left Cuzamil (and, if Rui is to believed, a pregnant lover of his, lustful man that he is), and my two months stay in that land ended. We sailed west…


An Abridged History of the Bennasir Dynasty

Islam got its start in the New World in the same storm that produced the great Texeira and Montoya. The ship, one carrying African slaves and a bunch of Moriscos, had come to the New World to act as labor and to find a place to exile Moriscos (this particular ship, and a third of this particular expedition, was financed by Castile, whose King wanted to exile Moriscos, in contrast to the lax attitude of the Portuguese). According to legend, the ship had 100 survivors, out of whom 40 would go on to prominence.

The ship crashed near the place where the old Portuguese feitoria of São Tomas once stood (although it hadn't been built yet)- the local Maya, independent of the northern Maya Empire (as Texeira called it), took the men as slaves. They were marched far south, and sold to one of the Pipil lords.

As slaves, these men were kept as workers, and then, soldiers. Although they lacked the iron implements of the Old World, they were seen as a way to guard the King in Cuzcatlan. They were officially declared the Black Guards, and were given weapons. They lived amongst the servants and lower-ranking vassal soldiers- all of whom spoke K’iche or Kakqichel languages. It would be these people that the soldiers learned from.

Eventually, these soldiers, having learned the servile languages, began evangelizing Islam to them. The story of Muhammad and the prospect of overthrowing the hated Pipil helped convert many of the servants, and many of these servants, periodically replaced, went back to their villages, speaking of the One God and his prophet. Although Islam would at first be a minority faith, its adherents in the New World had access to weapons, and the guard would get its chance for freedom as well.

Eventually, King Atonatl died in 1484 (of the diseases brought by his favored Guard), and freed the Guard on his deathbed. His only child, a daughter, was brought into the “protection” of the leader of the Muslims, Juan Carlos Bennasir. As civil war broke out amongst the Pipil lords, the Guard gathered the converts in Cuzcatlan, and sent out the call for other soldiers to come and help overthrow the Pipil. Bennasir and his fellows went west, to join up with their K’iche and Kakqichel allies.

In 1489, the Guard, accompanied by a mass of Muslim converts and pagan allies from amongst the non-Pipil peoples in the region, met the now-united Pipil lords in battle. According to legend, the clouds parted at the climax of the battle, and lightning hit the trees surrounding the valley in which the battle was taking place. As the thunder roared across the sky, a cry of “Allahu akbar” went out, and the Muslims and their allies charged, slaughtering the Pipil host.

This resounding victory, although probably apocryphal, helped convert the part of the Guard’s army that stayed with the guard, and cemented Islam as the religion of the new state established by Bennasir. Many of the K’iche and Kakqichel, meanwhile, went back to the highlands, and the northern parts of their lands fell under the vassalage of Bolon Koh Tz’unun, along with the lords of Copan and that region.

Bennasir, meanwhile, made a new capital city at Acashudila, and married the daughter of Atonatl. He declared the Sultanate of Kushakastan (a bastardized semi-native name meaning “land of jewels”), and established Islam within his kingdom, helped by native preachers labeled as Sufis by later works. As for the Black Guard, the remaining 40 established themselves, along with a few raised native converts, as the noble families of Kushakastan. The writ of Bennasir extended from the Pipil lands along the Pacific coast, never extending into the highlands as the former Pipil kingdom did. As for the Pipil, many died to disease and battle, or converted and joined the new order (which took as much from the Pipil as it did from the K’iche). The rest were sold as slaves over a number of years.
 
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And now back to Asian affairs, this time taking a look at Kirishitan and other interesting places. The Jesuits are in, but obviously have different founders and circumstances.


Early Japanese Catholicism

Catholicism in Japan began with the earliest Portuguese contact in the late 1510s, when traders from Hainão sailed up to find the root of the Wokou and the islands told of by some of the traders in Canton (Guangzhou). These traders would casually trade at Kagoshima, and in 1521, the first priests came to service these traders and to preach the Gospel.

In 1523, these traders would build a feitoria at a town called Nagasaki, which would then become one of the primary points of Portuguese contact into Japan. The town boomed because of Portuguese trade- it, along with Kagoshima, became centers of cosmopolitan contact with Portugal and her subject peoples. Curious natives, thinking Christianity another sect of the Buddha, began attending the small Catholic services run by the Portuguese, but remained a small community.

As opposed to China, where Catholicism flourished in the fractured political and social environment of the time, Japan had been united for over a century by the ascendance of the Imperial Family. The Emperor, for much of Japanese history, had been a plaything of competing military nobles called daimyo, and had largely been a figurehead compared to the Shogun, the warlord in charge of all of Japan.

In 1351, the Empress Kyoko came to power. Raised by loyal military retainers and borne to the singular daughter of the Shogun at the time (along with, of course, the Emperor), Kyoko was a strong, independent woman in a time and place unsuited for such things, despite the various Empress Regnants of the 8th century. She came to power just as the Tachibana shoguns were falling from power- her maternal grandfather had died in 1347, and his successor, her cousin, was notably unsuited to power.

For five years, as the Shogunate slowly decayed, Kyoko built up her forces and prepared to restore the Imperial family to power. Although many of the nobles who supported her thought this would lead to civilian government, Kyoko, as we see, was dedicated to making the Imperial Family itself the shoguns, combining military and civilian power under the monarchy itself. In 1356, she launched a coup in the capital, and by late 1357 had control over all of western Japan. She finally subdued eastern Japan at the Battle of Fukushima in northern Honshu in August 1358, installing her own government and ending the Tachibana family’s previous dominance (although the family would still maintain local power in northwestern Kyushu). Over the next 49 years, Kyoko centralized the government and crushed both noble and daimyo dissent, setting up the powerful Imperial government that existed at the time of Portuguese contact and that continues to exist, in a more ceremonial form, to this day. She is also, indirectly, the cause of the Gankou- she led the campaigns that conquered much of what Korea herself.

In Kagoshima and Nagasaki, Catholicism attracted a few followers- but most of the missionary energies of Portugal were being channeled into Ceilão and southern China, along with other missions into the Khmer Empire and the Spice Islands. However, the Christian faith did draw followers in the towns with Portuguese feitorias: Nagasaki, Matsuyama, Takamatsu, Kagoshima, and Edo. The first three, in particular, would become centers of the Catholic community in Japan. In 1534, the Jesuits arrived in Japan, and began preaching from these feitorias, educating native priests in the faith and generally spreading the Gospel. Part of the reason Catholicism didn’t penetrate further was the Lusitanization of many converts, and the strict discouragement from the government.

While Christianity was largely left alone for the first 4 decades of Jesuit missions in the country, the 1570s brought the Imperial government down upon the Jesuits (whom were already taxed by a manpower drain to China, India and the Spice Isles). The spark of persecution came with the conversion of daimyo.

The daimyo saw the great potential of Western trade and Western technology, and were intrigued by the new faith of the nanban (lit. southern barbarians). While some civilian potentates had converted early on, the power of the Imperial establishment and the ties of that establishment to the divinity of Shinto and the Buddhist temples had discouraged the nobility and daimyo from converting. In 1572, two major clans and their retainers converted- the remains of the Tachibana, who ruled northwest Kyushu, and the Chosokabe, who ruled Shikoku. The faith had already spread from the feitorias in their lands, and they saw the potential for their own independent power bases from conversion. Despite these ulterior motives, the conversion was genuine; in addition, Japanese priests had begun moving into Honshu and the rest of Japan in greater numbers, hoping to spread the Gospel. The daimyo hoped to use Portuguese arms to restore a Shogunate, or at least a weaker Imperial establishment- this only inflamed long-held fears that Portugal would try and conquer Japan, as it had Hainão, or hold undue influence over Japan, as it did in China before the rise of the Second Yuan Dynasty.

The Emperor Reigen, after hearing of these conversions and the growing power of the Jesuits in Japan, began the persecutions of Christians. Christians in Honshu fled to the towns with feitorias. The feitoria in Edo was burnt down (although the town continued to grow into a major city) and 33 Christians were crucified at the summit of Sakurajima in Kagoshima, the rest expelled to sympathetic Nagasaki. Reigen, however, did display some pragmatism- he allowed the Portuguese to continue trading at Nagasaki, Matsuyama and Takamatsu, and the Kirishitan, as they were called, were allowed to live on Shikoku and in Nagasaki and its environs. The Tachibana fled, but the Chosokabe, still supporters of the Emperor despite their newfound faith, remained in control of Shikoku. Despite these measures, the heavy taxes on Japanese Christians, and the zealotry and corruption of local rulers, caused many to flee…

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The Conquest of the Tawantinsuyu

After the persecutions of Reigen (called in Christian accounts Reigen Nero) began, the Kirishitan began to flee to the far-flung parts of the Portuguese Empire. Many ended up in Hainão or in the Spice Islands, while others went to live in Portuguese Africa. A large group (unrelated to the Tokugawa group) even ended up settling in

However, the most famous of the Kirishitan was Bartolomeu Tokugawa, who led a large number of other minor Kirishitan daimyo, samurai and other laypeople to Floriana, from which he would launch a legend.

To the south of Floriana lay the enigmatic Tawantinsuyu. Portuguese involvement in the region had always been sparse compared to the intense efforts in the Caribbean, Africa and Asia, and the gold mines of Guinea and Mutapa largely eliminated the economic incentive of adventurers to try and conquer the place (especially considering that it was better organized, better armed and more stable than the disparate city states of Anouaque). Instead, Floriana grew on a plantation economy, slowing conquering native tribes and settling the areas around Lake Maracaibo and expanding outward from there.

Bartolomeu Tokugawa came to Floriana with a large group of soldiers, all devoutly Catholic, the officers speaking Portuguese along with their native Japanese. They found in Floriana restless young men, and some European mercenaries who had, by then, heard of a kingdom of gold in the mountains to the south. Tokugawa soon united with these mercenaries, and some other Portuguese soldiers, hoping to conquer the southern kingdom for God (and, cynics say, for gold). The Portuguese king didn’t care if they conquered or not- wars in Europe and the Asian, African and Caribbean trades were more important than what was regarded as a rich but backwater kingdom high up in the mountains.

They waited until the time was right (the Tawantinsuyu were very powerful, and no one wanted an abortive expedition against a major power). In 1583, Tupac Inca died, and a civil war started between his three sons. After obtaining the right to pass through the lands of the independent Chacapoya kingdom, the expedition marched down into the lands of the Tawantinsuyu, and into history.

With about 10000 men, including horses, artillery, and infantry, the professional force had a serious advantage over the weakened Inca state. Over the course of two years, the entire empire was conquered by the Kirishitan and their Portuguese allies. Tokugawa himself married the daughter of the middle son, Manco Capac, and declared himself The Most Christian Emperor of Dawansuyo. Soon, Portuguese men and a few more Kirishitan immigrated in, forming the backbone, along with native converts, the backbone of the new nobility, and formed a new society on the carcass of the old, sophisticated Tawantinsuyu. The genesis of the modern Dawansuyo language, its deeply held Catholicism, and the multicultural rituals of its people, draw from this conquest…
 
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And now, to show exactly where the Turks end up TTL. Never seen this before, so I hope it is good. Rather short, but hey, it is what it is.


The Turkish Migrations

… The Tang incursions into Central Asia forced out even more of the Turkic peoples than before. Many went into the lands of the Cumans, others into Persia, and many more beyond Persia, into the service of the Abbasids and the Fatimids. In the latter, they found a regime crumbling into the dustbin of history, in need of soldiers and slave guards, ready to be settled by the nomadic Turkic peoples.

The once-mighty Fatimids were in need of soldiers, to put down Sunni rebellions and to stop the incursions of the Nubian kingdoms to their south. Thusly, they hired more and more Turkish mercenaries, promising them lands in conquered Nubia. Under the auspice of Turkish warriors, Makuria and Meroe were at last laid low by the Fatimids, and their new Turkish subjects took to Ismaili Islam as well as anyone else.

Turks began serving as the Caliphal guard, and more and more Turkish soldiers demanded land grants and places to settle as more and more revolts and incursions were put down. Cyrenaica, the lower Levant, and much of southern Egypt and Nubia had Turkish nobility, and, increasing, Turkish populations. In 1202, the situation, which had been grower ever the more tense as the Fatimid regime finally began its final descent, boiled over with the death of Caliph al-Mutamim

A civil war was started on behalf of a Caliphal candidate supported by the Mamluk guard and the Cyrenaicans, and, in 1204, Cairo was at last captured, the candidate having “mysteriously died” in the night before its capture. The Mamluk sultanate was begun in Egypt, its sultan (a bastard son of the penultimate Caliph by a Nubian Turkish woman) declared Caliph of the Faithful. More Turkish Muslims from Central Asia were hired or bought, along with black slaves from Zanzibar, thus restarting the cycle and bringing more Turkic peoples into Egypt.

The Mamluk sultanate collapsed in the face of the Mongol onslaught, and, after the infamous sack of Cairo in 1260, Egypt, Cyrenaica and Nubia collapsed into many little beyliks- the Arab nobility had, over many rebellions, finally spent itself, and the Turkish clans that had come as soldiers now ruled as petty kings in what was once Mamluk Egypt.

Over the next century and a half, these beyliks consolidated themselves- the Osmans of Tobruk fell, the Nubians consolidated into a large kingdom, and most of Egypt proper remained fractured between disparate clans- Ramazan, Eretnids, Dulkadir, Karaman, and many, many others. The Caliphate had fallen with Cairo, and, while remaining devout Ismailis, the beyliks did not have the Prophetic lineage to declare a new one.

In 1399, the Sarumanoglu Turks of Nubia, Nubian in appearance but Turkish in language and faith, launched an invasion of the richer north, hoping to take Cairo and the wealthy Nile Delta. The Ramazans and Eretnids had been weakened by constant warfare, and, in 1407, the great Porsuk Sarumanoglu declared himself Sultan of Egypt in the new capital in Alexandria (Cairo, having been capital of the defeated Eretnids, was seen as too reminiscent of their foes for Porsuk).

Immediately, the Sultanate, better known as the Saruman Empire, launching an invasion of the Emirate of Cyrenaica, hoping to subjugate its Tuareg-Turkish lords under the infamous White Hand banner. Porsuk would win, and his sultanate would last another 500 years…

 
And now, friends, for some of the impact of India upon Dimension 610. Vedic is the TTL term for “Hindu”. I have changed around the second part of this update somewhat, in an effort to improve it.

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“Muhajirun: The Indian Muslim Diaspora”

The fall of the Saffarids of Delhi in the 1220s coincided with the falling fortunes of Indian Muslims outside of the Northwest. The Muslim communities that had been built amongst the Kannada and Telugu and that had been protected by the massive Saffarid sultanate suddenly found themselves amongst restive Vedic populaces, and the Vedic Chola, ascendant once more, moved into the destabilized Deccan in order to unite the south of India under their own rule. In the Bengal, migrations from Indochina and the great Assamese king Suphenphaa helped defeat the Muslim polities of that region. And while the great portion of Indian Muslims soon reasserted control over Northwest India, the other, more far-flung communities suddenly found themselves adrift…

The fall of Indian Islam prompted the great diaspora of Indian Muslims across the Indian Ocean and elsewhere. The Ismailis, for example, fled to Egypt. However, the greatest portion of these Indian Muslims fled into Indochina and Nusantara, as merchants, mercenaries, scholars and missionaries to local rulers.

The first magnet for Muslims was Aceh. The local Raja was free of the domination of the Majapahit, and had accepted Bengali Muslims into his court as soldiers and administrators. His son converted to Islam in 1207, and established the Sunni Islam of the Bengali as the official state faith when he came to the throne in 1212. In the 1220s, many of the Bengali Muslims fled to Aceh, joining the Sultan’s army and becoming his subjects. The Sultan, with this fortuitous boost in manpower and weaponry, conquered most of Sumatra during a Majapahit civil war in the late 1220s, establishing Islam across much of Sumatra. The Bengalis who helped him became the nobles of much of the island, and the influence of Bengali culture on the faith and customs of the island can be seen to this day.

A smaller group of these Muslims, mainly Shiites, went to the independent kingdoms on Sulawesi, and became merchants therein. Eventually, the kings of the island converted to the Islam of the influential merchants, and established the Sultanate of Makassar in the late 14th century. As with Aceh (and the other islands of the archipelago of the Vedic faith), the impact of Indian culture can plainly be seen, in architecture, food, dress, language and religion.

The Kannada and Telugu Muslims, however, fled not to Nusantara but to other lands…

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“Rajas Over the Water: The Pandyans”

Of all the kingdoms and dynasties of India, none have had such a far-flung impact as the Pandyans. Among the various dynasties of Southern India, they are noticeable for their maritime focus, sending sailors, soldiers and their own culture across the ocean, bringing trade back to the Tamil Nadu and creating the noticeable Tamil-Malayali cultural sphere. The territories they historically controlled stand separate from the Muslim polities of Southeast Asia (either Bengali-influenced or Kannada-Telugu influenced) and from the other Indian influences in the region.

The Chola had been on the decline in the late 12th century, slowly losing ground to the Pandyas who rivaled them in Southern India. Eventually the Pandyans overtook the Chola, and established control over much of the "Dravida Nadu" from their capital at Madurai. These lands that were notably more centralized than the fractured Muslim polities of the Northwest or the petty kingdoms of the Maratha. A popular interpretation of Vedic religion- a combination of a far looser caste system, Shaktist devotion (along with the traditional devotion to Murugan), the Nyaya school of Hindu philosophy and Sruti ritualism- was adopted (but not officially imposed) by the Pandya, and soon became even more popular as time went on (with exception of common laborers and farmers, who were more Shaivist or Vaishnavist in their leanings).

The centralized Pandya state soon took to the waves, hoping to take tribute from Indochina and to generally expand the power of the state internationally. At their absolute peak in the 1540s, the Pandya drew tribute not only from places like Siam and the fractured kingdoms of Nusantara, but from Assam, the Khmer and even the Portuguese, for a time. In addition, the Pandya had, by this point, direct control over parts of the Pattani peninsula, and the island of Borneo, settling the major towns with Tamil settlers and spreading the Tamil language across the region as a lingua franca of trade.

 
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And now, for another small update, this time on the Prussians.

Always Order: The Prussians

The genesis of the Prussians come from the Baltic Crusades, when German and Scandinavian knights came to the Baltic pagan states to conquer and convert them in the name of Christ. An Apostolic Order, the Order of Fraternal Knights of the Holy Spirit, was formed to organize these Knights, and they, in 1187, conquered themselves land in Prussia from the locals. They were commonly called "The Teutonic Order"

Over the next two centuries, the Teutonic Knights, competing with the Poles and the heretic Russians, conquered much of the Baltic, from the lands of the Ests to Pomeralia. They consolidated these lands by assigning lands to individual knights as feudal/military holdings, to convert in the name of the Lord. In a far-seeing move, the Order also started allowing genuine converts of military prowess from these lands into the Order, and giving them smaller holdings (always away from their native lands, of course). Thusly, the ranks of the elite Knights began to grow, and the common soldiers under them soon learned their intense discipline and military skill.

However, the Knights also had to deal with regional rivals Poland and the Russia. The latter was conquered by the Mongols, and the Knights famously negotiated peace with the Mongol hordes at the shores of Lake Peipus, giving up Russian lands of the Order, a fair deal of gold, and a small band of Baltic soldiers to the Khan. This secured them their peace against the Khan, and diverted the Khan into Poland and Hungary, instead of into the smaller Baltic state.

Eventually, the Mongols retreated back into Russia, and Poland, no longer in thrall to the Khans, recovered. For about 70 years, the Polish fought small wars with the Order and tried to form coalitions against it, without much success (including the great failure of their marriage pact with Norway, when the Polish heir died on the night of his wedding). Finally, in 1410, a decisive blow was struck. At the Battle of Tannenberg, the Order smashed the Polish Hussars, and killed the flower of the Polish landed nobility, including the King, Jerzy II, and his heir, Boleslaw. These deaths led directly to the weakening of Poland and the formation of the Polish-Hungarian Union in the 1460s.

The Order, by the early 15th century, was a state of Baltic peoples with a German nobility and German veneer. A common "bastard tongue" had formed with trade, time, and a somewhat multi-ethnic nobility (Ests ruling Pomeralians, Pomeralians ruling Kurs, Kurs ruling Liths, etc. And Germans and Norsemen ruling all.), and, with the Reformation, this identity was firmly established.

The Order's Hochmeister, Kuno Xavier von Funk, secularized the Order in 1527. The Order had resisted the first wave of the Reformation, but Funk was taken with the hardline theology of the Munich school, led by Adolf Ratzinger. This harsh new faith, although not as harsh as the incredibly dour Castilian strain of Mayorianism, would bind the people to the nobility, and would transform the lands of an Apostolic Order run by Germans into a modern nation-state, the famous "army with a country": Prussia. Speaking a Prussian tongue rather than the old German and praying in that same language (von Funk himself helped write the first great dictionary of Prussian) bound the disparate, conquered peoples of the Baltic into a small state, a bulwark against Hungary, the Russian Hordes, and the Kaiserreich to the west...

 
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I don't know how I managed to miss the last few of these. Between the Morisco sultanate in *El Salvador and the Tokugawa conquistador in Peru (damn!), TTL's New World will be a crazy quilt.

I'm curious about Portugal, which seems to be the main seafaring power of TTL's Age of Exploration. France has conquered or absorbed Castile - has Portugal taken over the rest of Iberia, or is it a patchwork of *Spanish (and maybe even Andalusian) states?

I'm also trying to figure out the POD, which has to be well before the New World conquests if it affects 14th-century Japan and the India and Turkey of the 13th century. I'm guessing that the epicenter is somewhere in Central Asia, which would give it maximum potential to spread in both directions. My first thought would be "no Mongol conquests," but the Mongols are mentioned all over the place, so that isn't it. Something along the Silk Road or northern India in the tenth or eleventh century, maybe?
 
I don't know how I managed to miss the last few of these. Between the Morisco sultanate in *El Salvador and the Tokugawa conquistador in Peru (damn!), TTL's New World will be a crazy quilt.

I'm curious about Portugal, which seems to be the main seafaring power of TTL's Age of Exploration. France has conquered or absorbed Castile - has Portugal taken over the rest of Iberia, or is it a patchwork of *Spanish (and maybe even Andalusian) states?

I'm also trying to figure out the POD, which has to be well before the New World conquests if it affects 14th-century Japan and the India and Turkey of the 13th century. I'm guessing that the epicenter is somewhere in Central Asia, which would give it maximum potential to spread in both directions. My first thought would be "no Mongol conquests," but the Mongols are mentioned all over the place, so that isn't it. Something along the Silk Road or northern India in the tenth or eleventh century, maybe?

The first POD I can think of is the Seljuqs permanently sticking with Nestorian Christianity, along with a greater initial Turkish exodus into the Middle East. A lot of those initially pagan Turks go into Egypt, and India. I'm sort of a fan of the "multiple points of departure" idea. There is also the POD of the conquests of Basil II the Bulgar-Slayer sticking (in the East) by having a son.

The Morisco sultanate is going to be rather interesting, but a very small power protected by its Mayan neighbors and the Portuguese style of colonization. As for Tokugawa conquistadors- Japanese Christians with a large amount of Portuguese auxillaries and some Portuguese officers sounded pretty badass. Especially because of Tokugawa anti-Christian policies OTL.

As for Iberia- Castille really messed up when the Jimena family fractured, and they didn't do nearly as well at the Reconquista. Portugal took Galicia, Seville, Cordoba, Algeciras, Gibraltar and Malaga, while Aragon, usurped by the House de Barcelona, took Murcia, Almeria and Granada. Castille-Leon has La Mancha and Toledo, but not very many ports in the North- and France's initial focus on continental affairs makes Castillian efforts at colonization unlikely. Culturally, the Portuguese have more Arabic influence in their material culture, and Catalan has begun to totally absorb Aragonese.

In North Africa, Portugal also owns Tangier, Ceuta and Infa, and the various islands of the Canaries, Madeira and Azores. They'll have an earlier foray into the wider world, and a fairly long period of dominance, especially when the sugar, coffee and tobacco plantations of the Muitos Santos start pouring in money. They treat the more developed New World like they did Asia- much less attempts at direct conquest, much more dominance of trade. They are the first "great global power" as it were TTL, and their impact on global culture is sadly neglected OTL. From Portuguese influences on Sinhala to Portuguese influences on Japanese cuisine to Portuguese influences in Africa (hello, converted Kongo Kingdom), they really spread themselves around.
 
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And now, for a very homogeneous culture: the Empire of the Romans.

An Fire in the East: The Medieval Romans

Amongst the peoples and kingdoms of medieval Europe, none, except maybe the ultimately doomed Andalusians and their enlightened Portuguese successors, had such a claim to civilization and heritage as the Roman Empire. As the West fell into feudalism and de-urbanization, the Roman Empire remained in the East. Even after the advent of the great Caliphates, the Roman Empire managed to survive, beating back Abbasids, Avars, Bulgars and internal clashes over Iconoclasm.

In the late 10th and early 11th centuries, the trend of slow decline and losses to Arab rulers would be permanently pushed back. John Tzimisces, the great general, would retake much of Syria, including such cities as Edessa and Aleppo. He also sacked Damascus and built a great citadel at Palmyra, in order to further use Syria in campaigns against the Abbasids. His survival against the assassination attempts of various rivals, including Basil Lekapenos, allowed him to consolidate Roman power in the East, and launch a third campaign against the Abbasids in 977. This campaign was the most successful of all- he killed the Abbasid Caliph and his son at Hattin, although he failed to take Jerusalem. After consolidating Syria and the northern Levant under the military command of his co-emperor, the future Basil II, Tzimiskes launched a campaign into Mesopotamia, aiming to permanently neuter the Abbasid Caliphate. In 978, Baghdad was taken by Tzimiskes, its books taken back to Constantinople and its riches despoiled. The Abbasids were permanently weakened, and their threat to Rome was over. Tzimiskes then returned to Constantinople, and ruled in peace until his death in 985.

Basil II would come to power after his death, seeking to further consolidate control over the Levant. The Fatimids had been in a state of flux since the assassination of the Caliph al-Aziz in 976 (by a Roman- sources say that al-Aziz was preparing his own campaign into the Levant and Syria), and the resulting civil war. By 985, they had consolidated under a new Caliph, and were prepared for a holy war to recapture Syria. At the second battle of Hattin, Basil II defeated the Fatimids, but failed, like Tzimiskes, to capture Jerusalem, thanks to rumors of a Bulgarian campaign into Thrace.

The rest of Basil II's reign was devoted to Imperial consolidation and conquest. The Caucasus was put under Imperial control, the Bulgars were famously smashed, the Serbs were conquered, and southern Italy remained under Byzantine control. However, Basil's successor would jeopardize the gains made in the West, losing much of the Roman control over Southern Italy, despite maintaining Roman power in the East. His successor, Irene II, would instigate the Great Schism that split Orthodoxy from Roman Catholicism. In this, Basil had failed- the Croats, Serbs, Poles and Hungarians all went with Rome, although Russia still bowed to Constantinople.

The Empire, after Irene, fell into a state of stagnation ended by the civil war of the early 1060s, ended by the rise of Manuel Komnenos to the throne. Although Italy had been lost to the Normans and to the independent Spartenoi lords of Sicily, Komnenos expanded Roman power against the Pechenegs, taking control of Wallachia.

The Komnenoi, as a whole, preserved the Empire against the threats of the Nestorian Seljuqs, the Abbasids, and the Fatimids. The greatest Komnenoi emperor was John II Komnenos, who ruled from 1123-1187. His reign saw the Turks move into Egypt, and the defeat of the Abbasids, along with the capture of Jerusalem permanently for Christianity. In addition, his sacks of Cairo and Baghdad crippled the Fatimids for decades, and permanently ended the Abbasid Caliphate. The Empire, under John, was made master of much of the Middle East, beating both Muslims and Nestorians in battle. The far northern parts of Mesopotamia were annexed into Roman control (the Seljuqs took the rest), and the Roman Empire was, once again, master of the East.

The Komnenoi would rule into the 13th century, and only ended after the death of Sergios I Komnenos "Soter". Sergios would infamously defeat the Mongols at the Battle of Damascus, preventing the Mongols from seizing Jerusalem (although they did take the lands south of Jerusalem, including Hebron, Eilat and the Sinai Peninsula. His death in 1234 led to the ascendance of the Doukas dynasty.

This branch of the Doukas, descended from the old Bulgarianized branch of the family, had been made lords of Vaspurakan and Suenik by marriage under Manuel Komnenos. They rose to the throne bloodlessly under Emperor Mleh (Mileios) I, whose mother was the youngest sister of Sergios Soter. The Doukids would be rather unremarkable, ruling until the 1340s. They were then succeeded, after a short civil war against the Angeloi, by the Wallachian Dynasty (also known as the Drakuloi), who themselves were rather unremarkable until the reign of Sergios II "the Impaler" from 1441-1492.

Sergios the Impaler retook the Southern Levant, along with Petra and other lands, sacked Baghdad for a second time, and, most infamously, sacked Mecca and Medina, impaling the corpses of pilgrims around the Kaaba before returning to Constantinople. In addition, he is known as the only man to ever defeat Porsuk the Great in battle, killing the man personally in the Battle of Farama in 1453 (ending the short Saruman-Roman War) His conquests extended the Roman borders to include Tabuk and the entirety of the Sinai, along with a small sliver of the Nile Delta on the African side of the Sinai. Known for his cruelty, the man also returned Rome to a state a military dominance rather than quiet neutrality. His reign, in addition to cruelty (including the final suppression of Islam in Roman territory during the Muslim rebellions of the 1470s), also produced a re-flowering of classicism and culture. His reign is considered to mark the end of the Medieval Roman Empire.
 
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Deleted member 67076

Good stuff Chief. I have to ask though, are all of these peoples from the same timeline, or is each new mix its own separate timeline?
 
Just a little teaser, to spark speculation.

The official title of the great Russian ruler, Tsarina Roksana "the Great":

Tsaritsa and Autokrator of all the Russias, High Khanum of the Red Horde and Lady of the Steppes, Princess of the Caucasus, Princess of Cherson.
 
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iddt3

Donor
Just a little teaser, to spark speculation.

The official title of the great Russian ruler, Tsarina Roksana "the Great":

Tsaritsa and Autokrator of all the Russias, High Khanum of the Red Horde and Lady of the Steppes, High Lady of the Caucasus, Princess of Cherson.
High Khanum of the Red Horde is an AWESOME title.
 
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