Greed Holds Court In The Hearts of Men

Note: Deleted the Mexico segment because I was dissatisfied- a re-done Mesoamerica update will come at some point.

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The Aragonese Revolution was not, as was initially thought, a hearkening back to old liberties, like the British and Carthaginian Revolutions. This revolution was far more similar to the ancient revolution in Corcyra, as covered by Thucydides and analyzed by the Roman political theorist Pyrophore in his seminal work "The Titan".

The Aragonese Kingdom had, at one point, ruled most of the Western Mediterranean. At its height (although Kabylie was not yet conquered) under King Llorenc III, Aragon controlled its home territories in Iberia, Oran, Carthage, Naples, and had suzerainty over much of northern Italy and the duchy of Dyrrachium . Within 50 years of Llorenc's death, Dyrrachium was back under Roman control, Northern Italy had declared independence, Hungary had taken southern Italy, and the Carthaginians had their revolution, taking Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia with them.

Aragon did manage to conquer Kabylia in the 1580s, but eventually lost Kabylia in the 1660s. In 1717, Provence was also made independent, as a result of the Treaty of Paris that ended the 5 Years War. Aragon from that point onward was a neutral power, a shadow of its former glory. At the same time, its population began to grow after the reforms of King Anton II. Food prices slowly climbed during the 18th century, and the incompetent and autocratic King Micolau II only exacerbated matters.

From the mid-17th century onward, the urban middle class had grown in size and influence, even as the geopolitical influence of Aragon waned. Barcelona, the capital, grew in size.

The winter of 1771 was one of the coldest on record. Crops died in the fields, and the burgeoning population of Aragon cried out for food. The urban middle class cried out for political reform as King Micolau and his autocratic court completely mishandled the crisis. The King's wife, Princess Lucrezia Gero of Naples, notoriously spent mass amounts of treasury money on dresses and galas, even as the people starved. In April, the King, recognizing the severity of the crisis, called not only the noble Cortes but the clergymen and burghers as well (with exception of the Muslims and the Jews).

For three months, reform and action stalled as the incalcitrant nobles and clergymen refused to budge on key issues of power and governance. The people continued to starve. The burghers left in mid-June. Of all of these delegations, it was the Barcelona delegation that was the most radical.

And on July 4th, the tension broke. A bread riot was fired upon by zealous Royal troops. A sympathetic burgher speaker was arrested and shot near the market. The people and burghers revolted. Barricades were erected, and the Aragonese Revolution had begun. Three days later, the Rights of the Citizen were established, nailed to the door of the tavern for all to see. It would be these declared rights, and the new principles of Equality and Solidarity that would run the revolution (some burgher factions noted the lack of Liberty- this would be important later).

The capital, Barcelona, was quickly seized. Sympathetic soldiers soon bolstered the ranks of the Provisional Revolutionary Government, which was held in an old mosque that had become a tavern. The King stayed in his rural estate for now, hoping that the revolution would die down. But it did not. Foreign support from Britain and Carthage began to trickle in- they hoped for another republic to support them in geopolitical struggles.

In late August, the King idiotically returned to his capital, to try and negotiate with the revolutionaries. He was captured and imprisoned, and forced to make large concessions to the revolution. The moderate factions were pleased- they had no desire to overthrow the monarchy if they could have their freedoms with a king. This shaky compromise persisted until mid-November, when the nobles and reactionaries tried to free the King.

The moderates won their battles with the nobles, but at great loss. The radicals were politically enriched by the whole fiasco, and the culture of paranoia permeated Barcelona.

A climate of tension lasted until late December- opponents of the regime, from the captured nobles to clerics to people falsely denounced, were put up to fake trials and were publicly executed by impalement.

And on Dec. 25th, it was the King and his wife who were executed. By this time, anti-clerical elements had completely seized control of the Council of State, and some churches had already been ransacked or burnt, even in the countryside. In defiance of religious norms of Christmas and various other things, the King and his wife were crucified next to each other. They said a few words to each other- they had never been terribly close- and then took their punishment. They were supported by wood blocks. Their legs were nailed to the cross, as were their arms. They were already weakened by ill-treatment in prison- the Queen had watched her daughter be debauched by her guards, before being taken to a whorehouse in Barcelona somewhere. And, late on Christmas night, the two died. The crosses were lit on fire, and the image of their corpses burning on the crosses would become the defining image of the conservative victims of the Revolution. In death, their significant flaws in life would be forgotten.

The execution of the King also marked the ascendance of the radical faction under Tirs Fonda. Fonda would rename the Council of State into the Committee of Public Safety, a convenient euphemism for the organ of the revolutionary purges.

The outside powers could not tolerate such blasphemy, violent regicide (in spite of earlier examples) and revolutionary ideas. The British and Carthaginians withdrew their support, and the First Coalition, made up of the Italies, the Castilians, the French and the Scandinavians, marched to war. The Germans, Basques and Portuguese were all conspicuously neutral at the time.

Under Fonda, the paranoia in Barcelona and elsewhere reached a fever pitch. The conservative nobles and clerics had fled or had been killed, and the country was under the control of Barcelona and its revolution. Suspects from all villages, whether innocent (more likely) or guilty (less likely), were crucified upon the roads as punishment for crimes against "the People". People ratted each other out for old grievances, and he who advocated extremism was the most trusted. The cautious moderates were regarded with suspicion as "noble spies"- and most were executed.

Religion was abolished, as were some forms of private property (but not all). Noble estates were confiscated, and land reform was enacted. The new rights and the slogan of Solidarity and Fraternity were enacted. The old Royal colors of Red and Yellow were abandoned. Instead, a green flag was made, with a black fist in the center. Green and black were the colors of bourgeois revolution from then on- specifically green, with black signifying revolt beyond ideological lines. This would be proven in Aragon soon enough.

The Killing Time of Fonda lasted from Christmas 1771 to March 15th 1773. In this time, the moderate factions and the conservatives either became more extreme temporarily, or were killed. These actions were supported by the brash writings of Pere Mas, who roiled up the people into a frothy rage against clerics and noblemen. Brother ratted on brother, child told on mother, and the crucifixes lined the roads from Rosello to Malaga.

The forces of the Revolution managed to hold off the Coalition, in part because of Castilian peasant revolts and the incompetence of the French officers. The Italian navies were defeated off the coast of the Balearics, and most of their troops were sunk and drowned. The Scandinavian contingent, smaller than the rest, decided to strike in the north in concert with the French. Although Rosello was taken, the advance towards Barcelona was decidedly slow.

However, this extremity was not without consequences. The Killing Time was less severe the farther away one got from Barcelona, but the fear of extremism and the rural anger at blasphemy and revolution was palpable. Aragon's minority Jewish and Muslim populations feared for their lives. The Jews, being seen as neutral and loyal burghers (loyal because of their permanently established legal rights), were largely safe, although the ghetto in Cartagena was burnt to the ground. The Muslims, who were more conservative, poorer and slightly more rural, were not as safe. And in Granada, Muslims and the Christian majority had always gotten along well.

From the Alhambra in Granada, a counter-revolt was declared. Banners of Christ and Allah were raised. The well-armed peasants, who had once had to contend with piracy, organized themselves better than the revolutionary armies. Soldiers who had resented the King but feared Fonda flocked to Granada in revolt. The Granadine conservative-royalist revolt would be a continuing sore, from its establishment in September 1772 until it was defeated. Led by the famous young reactionary and charismatic leader Carles Marxuach, shortened to Carles Marx, the Grenadines would basically run Granada as an independent nation. Long-held regionalist sentiments were encouraged- this would prove important in the century to come.

Eventually, the purges burned themselves out. The other revolutionaries turned against Fonda and his friend Mas. Mas was killed by a young woman, Catalina Argerich, who managed to escape and live famously in Monomotapa- but that is another story. The moderates, invigorated by Fonda's slow madness and the discontent of the people against the "shirtless radicals", spoke against him. Fonda went to speak to his people on March 15th, 1773. But the people, once again starving thanks to bad economics and bitter at continuing executions, were in no mood. History does not record his speech. The angry crowd rushed Fonda, and killed his guards. He was not given a trial- instead, he was ripped limb from limb and fed to the dogs.

Afterwards, the moderates seized power, and made truce (but not peace!) with France. Although a King was not yet restored, any change was an improvement on Fonda. The Committee of Public Safety was disbanded, and the radicals were quickly and privately purged in the Night of Drownings, where the radicals were wrapped with chains, along with their families, and sunk into the ocean. No death would follow- Aragon would rebuild. The crucifixions and open blasphemies, along with the other less successful social reforms, would be halted.

An attempt was made to retake Granada, but the forces sent were slaughtered by guerilla warfare. The Granadines were largely left alone for a few months, to allow for manpower and materiel to recover.

But foreign events would disrupt the peace. The brotherhood between Castilians and Aragonese had recovered after the end of the religious wars, and the idea of Hispanism, that the two countries should unite in a recognition of Visigothic heritage, had blossomed during the Enlightenment. And the "theocracy" was no longer truly a clerical government. The military had seized power in the 1740s, and had proceeded to exacerbate Castilian poverty and the famine in the 1760s. And so, on July 3rd, 1773, the garrison in Toledo was overthrown. The inefficient government at Valladolid was slow to respond to the crisis, as the Castilian revolutionaries overthrew Salamanca and the city of Leon as well. The Aragonese, even with the Granada problem, were quick to help their fellow revolutionaries. Castile's government, against revolutionaries, revolutionary-allied peasants and the Aragonese, did not last long. Even with French troops marching towards Rosello, the Aragonese did not halt. On November 14th, 1773, the Castilian government fled their last city at Santander and fled abroad. Bernambuco would declare independence, while the government set itself up in the Caicos.

A Spanish Republic was declared at Toledo, with the capital moved to that city (Barcelona was both burnt out from purges and a bit too close to France). The rights and laws of Aragon were applied to Castile, and Spain was declared. With the manpower of both Aragon and Castile, the Second Coalition was not as much of a threat. The Portuguese continued to remain neutral, even as they mobilized Guinean troops back to Portugal. They also funded the Granadine revolt with guns and money. The French, Italians, Scandinavians, Carthaginians and Basques moved to crush the new Spanish state.

This coalition was more successful- the naval defeat in the Bay of Biscay and the Carthaginian beachhead at Cartagena were very threatening. The French and Basques were edging closer to Barcelona. That is, until the actions of one Lleïr Bardem.

Bardem had been born in Oran, the son of a local Kabyle Catholic woman, descended from fleeing Kabyle Catholics, and a fifth-generation Aragonese merchant. Bardem had, at a young age, shown talent for strategy and martial matters, and his father managed, through connections, to get him into the great military academy near Valencia.

Now, at the young age of 33, Bardem had inherited the command of the siege of Saragossa, which had risen against the Republic and which was defended by a large Basque garrison. Before assuming control of the siege, Bardem had led his largely-outnumbered force in a rout of the Basques. Under his command, the siege went swimmingly. Eventually, a young traitor within the city betrayed the gates to Bardem, and the city was taken. The Basque lines were then cut in two- without Saragossa, the supply line from the Barcelona siege was imperiled. Bardem swiftly took the surrounding towns, and cut off Barcelona. He was then assigned to the defeat of the French. It was also around this time that he married Monica Zaida Ayala y Cojuanco, a 25 year old Castilian Catholic from Leon.

While Bardem went to defeat the French, the Carthaginian beachhead expanded and hooked up with the Granada rebels. Southern Aragon and parts of La Mancha were now controlled by the Carthaginians, along with the Balearics. Carthaginian general Hamilcar Bunabar expertly defeated Republican forces in the south, and would continue to be a thorn in the side of the Spanish Republic.

Bardem would first defeat the siege of Barcelona, before striking north and quickly capturing lightly-defended Narbonne. The slow French forces were trapped by his fast movements and success, and were ground down from both directions. Although France could have sent more troops, the heretofore uninvolved King demanded peace (his third and youngest son had died as a young officer at the Battle of Empuries).

The French and Basques would, after their defeats, make peace with the ineffectual Directory in Toledo. This allowed the Spaniards considerable breathing room. Bardem, for his victories, gained significant popularity and was allowed command in the south against the Carthaginians, as part of a two-pronged assault against the rebels and the Carthaginians.

The rebels had been slowly ground down for years by General Lluis Melcer. In 1775, as Bardem fought Bunabar in La Mancha, he decided for a larger strike. This strike would succeed- the Devil's Columns, as they were called, would ravage the villages of the Granadan countryside. In particular, Muslim villages and citizens were targeted, mainly because Melcer was part of the Islamophobic party in government, despite his lax Catholicism.

Bardem, despite his significant talents, had trouble defeating Bunabar. Bunabar, a Corsican, was a general the equal of Bardem, although a good 14 years older. The two would fight many large battles, until Bunabar was defeated not by Bardem but by politics. Much like the intrigues of the Directory in Toledo, and in contrast to the healthier politics in Britain, the Carthaginian Senate was full of jealousy and schemes. Bunabar was called back by the Senate, to be replaced with the incompetent, nepotism-appointed General Balu Fisbig. Bunabar, whose armies were largely loyal to him and who were composed of the famous Carthaginian Foreign Legion, Granada rebels fleeing the Devil's Columns, Tuaregs and an elite contingent of Carthaginian infantry, were absolutely incensed. Bunabar quickly sent for his family and their most valuable belongings. Bunabar took his troops (including his loyal navy contingents), his family and his possessions and wealth to Monomotapa, where he would be of service against the Viceroy's many enemies. Fisbig, on the other hand, would be an utter failure against Bardem, famously being killed by a gunshot in the Siege of Cartagena in 1776.

Before Bunabar left, he would actually meet with Bardem. By the accounts of both men, they liked each other, and noted how they both more Catholic than their rulers. Bunabar respected the younger mans talents, and Bardem enjoyed his discussions with his strategic equal. In many respects, Bunabar would be Bardem's sole equal for a long period of time- but more on that later.

Spain was afterwards secure- the reactionaries had been defeated, the moderate royalists were back in government, the Directory was stable, and the borders were secure. Bardem benefited from his victories, and was definitely the most popular man in the country at the time.

For 4 years, the Directory would run the country as a stable republic. While foreign propaganda railed against the radicals, the country was on the whole returned to sanity. Spanish institutions began to develop- common law and political freedoms were ensured. The economy and the people were beginning to recover. Britain even signed an alliance with the Directorate under the more radical Consul Selwyn Evans. But behind the surface lay rot.

The Council of 400 that ran the Directorate was corrupt and ineffective. The rights established back in 1771 were ill-defined and haphazardly established. The economy continued to stagnate. The Portuguese, under the aging King João III, were becoming more threatening on the border. Rule by committee did not work. An insurrection was brewing in the cities- bread was getting... more scarce. The Castilians felt under-represented. And so, a faction of 24 men, led by Bernat Noy, approached Bardem and his loyal cohorts that made up a majority of the military officers to save the Republic. And so, Bardem acted.

The military overthrew first the opposing officers, who were imprisoned. Then, the army left their barracks and pacified the cities. Many of the officers and soldiers were Castilians, pacifying those who thought that Castile was being dominated (it was). And then Bardem took control of the government as Prime Citizen. Consul was not used due to the British use of the term in a different manner.

Bardem would, over the ensuing months, purge his enemies from the top posts of state. He would also end the religious restrictions, which had been eased away after Fonda but which had never been ended. This was applied differently in different places- while Catholicism was largely restored, radical strains of Mayorianism were not allowed. Bardem kept his faith to himself, mainly to keep the Mayorians pacified (they hated Popery).

The Republic, within those months between April 1780 and February 1781, was slowly turned into a one-man show. Notably, Bardem was offered the title of Dictator in 1782, and he accepted. Much like the early Roman emperors, the title was not one of a monarchy initially, and Bardem's title was "Dictator of Spain, Father of the People and Guardian of Liberty".

Bardem would avoid becoming a monarch, although royalist and radical plots in 1782 and 1783 did prompt him to become an autocrat. The Roman salute soon became common in connection with Bardem, and the Dictatorship centralized itself in Toledo.

But Bardem was not content with just being Dictator. His centralization and aggressiveness soon prompted a Third Coalition being formed in 1784. Portugal, France, Provence, Carthage and the various Italian states all joined. Bardem had Britain and Scandinavia among his allies. The latter alliance was sealed with the betrothal of Alarigo Bardem to the sole daughter of the Scandinavian King, Ursula Maria. Alarigo, 9 at the time, was four years younger than the 13 year old Ursula Maria.

Germany continued to stay neutral, in part because Germany felt confident. Despite the loss (with a few token territorial losses) in the Five Years War, Germany was already establishing itself as the quiet hegemon of Continental Europe. The German population was loyal, and the rights guaranteed to the Germans were the best among the traditional monarchies of Europe. Eastern Europe largely ignored the developments in the West, although this would not be the case forever. In particular the "Eurasian" powers, Rome and Russia, were focusing on Indian affairs and, in Russia's case, the Orient. The Basques, recognizing their great losses in the last war, stayed neutral.

And so, in 1784, the Dictator marched to war against Portugal. Generals Melcer and Roig would focus on the French, while Admiral Juan Duran y Duran would focus on thwarting Carthaginian and Italian invasion attempts.

The War of the Third Coalition would be one of the longest- it would also cement Bardem as a master commander. While Melcer and Roig did manage to take most of Aquitaine and Tolouse, their advance was a slow grind against the competent French Duke of Poitou. Bardem, on the other hand, managed to beat a well-prepared and still moderately wealthy Portugal. Portugal had played the long game, and it was Guinean and colonial troops that faced the brunt of Bardem's initial assault. Even against overwhelming numbers and naval superiority, Bardem managed to win. However, this ignores the internal politics of Portugal.

King João III had had two children. The sickly son, Infante Pedro, died in 1772. This left the Infanta Clara as the sole heir. However, Portugal had not had a Queen since Santa Maria I in the 14th century. Furthermore, Clara was the unofficial head of the significant liberal faction in Portuguese society. This faction of lower nobles, sympathetic higher nobles and merchants wanted to enact basic political rights and modernize the country. They were opposed by Pedro, Duke of Braganza, himself a member of a distaff branch of the Tangerines (descended from the bastard of Sebastião's youngest brother's eldest son).

Pedro was supported in his claim by more of the high nobility, and had quietly prepared military forces in the north to stake his claim. Pedro, a cavalry man, also had military experience. Clara knew this, and Clara also knew that, while she commanded the loyalties of more of the colonial lords and much of the Armada, she lacked the land forces (although she had command of the feared Royal Guard and other famous infantry units) and domestic support to enforce her claim. Instead, she married the son of the Viceroy of Monomotapa, Principe Alejandro. She also, unlike Pedro, recognized the threat of Bardem. She had ownership of the Palace of the Moors, and had slowly prepared that art to be moved with her, along with other royal treasures, in case of attack.

A few months into Bardem's invasion, the King died. Clara, recognizing the imminent threat to her life and the lives and livelihoods of her faction, called for the exodus to Monomotapa. Most of Portugal's intellectual elite, many of her richest merchants and some of her brightest nobles all accompanied Clara across the ocean. where the recently ascendant Viceroy Alejandro awaited. Clara urged Alejandro to declare independence, and so he did. He became King Alejandro II of Monomotapa (using the old Viceroys as part of the numbering system). Immediately, Monomotapa began to liberalize, and, soon after, the Portuguese territories of Asia swore fealty to Alejandro and Clara (who ruled as co-rulers until her death).

At a swift stroke, Portugal had lost a large swath of its navy, most of its best and brightest, and untold amounts of physical wealth. When Bardem visited the Palace of the Moors, he noticed the absence of some of the art and some of the books. Pedro, who was only getting older, never got to be King. Instead, he died in the siege of Lisbon on the day he was supposed to be crowned.

Portugal would be captured. Pedro's son, Filipe, would flee across the oceans. The nobles of the Guinea elected one of their own as an interim governor, loyal to the King of Portugal. However, Filipe was never coronated, and so he was not allowed into Guinea with his court. Filipe, a petty absolutist, would execute the surviving "traitors" upon his return.

Bardem, upon capturing Portugal, made it the Province of Lusitania, and extended a limited program of reform and rights to the people. The Church was allowed to keep its privileges, and would notably support Bardem for this mercy. The Jews were also extended mercy. The Muslims, however, feared another Granadan Rebellion. Those who had fled Aragon, and those who had supported the Muslims in Granada, largely fled to the Republic of Sale.

He then declared war upon the Basques, and quickly conquered them by early 1786. He now controlled the entire Iberian peninsula and the Duchy of Tangiers. Bardem then went north, into France. With his reinforcements, Melcer and Roig beat the Duke of Poitou, who was killed in battle (some say in personal combat) by Bardem. Melcer went to Provence, while Roig launched a naval expedition to Naples.

The Carthaginians had been defeated at sea, and Corsica, Sardinia and Sicily had been seized by the amphibious forces under Admiral Duran y Duran. They sued for peace, and thus left the war.

After Provence was conquered by Melcer, the Italian states and France began to panic. Bardem was advancing through France, and Naples was being invaded. Naples would fall in 1787, and the various Northern Italian states would fall in late 1787.

Britain and Scandinavia would largely defeat the French navy, before stealing foreign stations overseas from the French and the Portuguese. Despite the profitability of the alliance, the British recognized the danger of Bardem, and would let the alliance lapse in 1791. The Scandinavians, more closely bound to Bardem, would remain steadfast allies.

The fall of France was helped by British raids and embargoes, but also by the Parisian Revolution. The 1780s were lean ones in France, and the Parisian people tired of constant wars against the revolutionaries and absolutist incompetence. In early 1789, Paris erupted into revolt. The royalists were thrown out of the city, fleeing directly into the spearhead of Bardem's invasion. The royalists were defeated, and the French king was killed by the Parisian mob. The rest of the country mourned the martyred King, while the "radical cities" of Lyon and Paris rejoiced. The Radicals tried to seize power, but were defeated and executed with the help of Bardem. Aquitaine and Toulouse were integrated into Hispania along with Provence, whilst the rest of France became "The Republic of France". Brittany was liberated as a client of the British. Thus ended the War of the Third Coalition. Bardem now controlled Iberia, France and Italy.

Despite all this, the German hegemon remained neutral. It was pleased to see its enemies in the West humbled, and the war-torn landscape of Western Europe would have trouble producing the food and men necessary to take down the Reich.

For a period of two years, there was peace. Bardem integrated more territories into his domains. Northern Italy became the Republic of Etruria. The Papal States became a vassal of Bardem, and Naples became a client Kingdom under the puppet boy-king Giovanni I- although it was a de-facto Republic.

During this time, Bardem prepared his planned invasion of the Hungarian Commonwealth. He planned to encircle Germany completely before invading it, recognizing the inherent difficulties in invading the strong, internally stable and formidable Reich.

In 1791, he invaded the Hungarian Commonwealth, and quickly seized Yugoslavia. He created a puppet kingdom out of Yugoslavia, giving the title King of Yugoslavia to victorious General Jordi Alcocer. His war into Hungary and Poland lasted until 1794. It was at this point that Germany invaded.

Bardem returned to France, to lead from the west, whilst Alcocer and Roig invaded from the East. Alarigo Bardem would accompany the Scandinavians from the North, and Melcer would strike from the South.

These assaults had varying levels of success. The campaign in the East was completely defeated, with Alcocer fleeing back to Yugoslavia and holding that territory against the German assault. The campaign from the south also failed, with Melcer being captured and executed. German forces flowed into Italy, and quickly captured the peninsula. The Carthaginians opportunistically took back their islands.

The assault led by Bardem was more successful- by mid-1795, the border was set at the Rhine. In the north, the Scandinavians had puppetized the Danish Republic and had seized Jutland. German assaults to retake these areas were largely unsuccessful, but more forces were coming. At the time of truce, the Germans were re-invading the Rhineland, and were initially succeeding.

A truce was made- status quo borders in the West and North, recognition of German success in the East and the restoration of the puppet king in Naples. The Republic of Etruria was disbanded, and the Pope remained a vassal of Bardem.

Bardem, at this point, was furious. He had finally failed in battle. He wished to remain at peace for a few years, to prepare another campaign against Germany. One advisor even said he should first strike East once more, and then take Russia- that person was discharged from the army. Invading Russia from the west, probably in winter or the mud season, Bardem said, was the height of military stupidity. To this day, in many languages, "invading Russia in winter" means something impossible or a very stupid idea.

However, the French Republic would force his hand. The overzealous man in France decided to invade Brittany in 1797. This brought in the British, led by a more conservative consul James Kennedy. Unbeknownst to Bardem, the British were already planning an opportunistic invasion. Kennedy would invade northern France and would defend Brittany. In early 1798, Paris was taken by the British. Scandinavia attempted to help their ally, but their navy was sunk in the North Sea, and their British invasion force was slaughtered at Lindisfarne. The Germans marched from Jutland and through the Danish Republic into Skane.

It was then that Bardem's reign began to disintegrate. The Germans suddenly struck, taking Naples and Provence (their monarchs either freed from puppet-ness or restored). Bardem attempted a campaign in Central France, only to be defeated by the new German Kaiser Friedrich II.

To add to his woes, a Portuguese royalist revolt in favor of Filipe I broke out. The Galician revolters soon seized Porto and Braganca, and the King, informed by faithful followers, returned to Portugal in late 1798 to assume control of the rebellion. By April 1799, Portugal was lost. Scandinavia would also sue for peace at the time, even with their General Alarik Bardem fighting for them.

Bardem was reduced to Castile and Aragon, and he continued to fight. For the next year, brutal, bitter war raged from north and west. The British freed the Basques, and also landed at Santander. The Germans captured Barcelona. But the tenacious Bardem would continue to fight, until finally he was left only with the most loyal core of troops. In August 1800, he and his loyal supporters, along with his beloved wife , would attempt to flee to Oran. They succeeded.

Bardem and his troops initially stayed in Oran, but Bardem's wife died of fever in October. The nihilistic and grieving Bardem, with support from the people (who wanted to continue the Republic), returned to Iberia. Troops were raised, and revolts soon pushed the Germans back to the Ebro, and the Portuguese back to their own borders. Bardem's last gasp would last until late 1800, when, on December 12th, he died in the siege of Toledo. His body was retrieved by supporters, and conveyed back to the cathedral he had built in Oran, where it was buried in a mournful ceremony on Christmas, next to his wife. Oran would surrender on December 29th. The Revolution, and the existence of "Spain" was over.

A Congress was to be held in the city of Aachen. And the reactionary forces of monarchy and old-style republicanism would attempt to undo the past 29 years of change and upheaval.
 
Now for a new Mesoamerican update, to replace the one I deleted.

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Upon the arrival of the Portuguese in the Western Caribbean, the Valley of Mexico was, in sharp contrast to the united Mayan state to its east, quite divided. Portuguese accounts would note that political disunity started to the west of the Great Isthmus, also known as the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. The city-states or altepetls (altepelos in Portuguese) of the valley, called Mesoquemata (Meso-kymata, a Hellenization of "between the waves"- the native word for the world, Anahuac meant between the waters) by the Portuguese, were born of various ethnicities, including the Otomies, the Nahua, the Zapotecs, and a few other isolated states, such as the Purepecha. The Portuguese largely traded with the Western Caribbean, as opposed to more direct involvement. First, the feitoria at Xacatemal was established, and a few years later, a second feitoria was built in Papantla, the capital of the Totonacs in 1492.

From Papantla, the Portuguese would trade their weapons for vanilla, and they slowly exerted more and more influence over the state. Eventually, the Totonacs would become a Portuguese vassal, their king converted to Catholicism and taking the Portuguese name, in addition to his own, Dom Diogo. But the main product of the Portuguese presence in Papantla, outside of their dominance of the global vanilla trade for centuries, was the historiography.

The Flower Wars were a combination of endemic warfare and religious significance in the region, wherein captives were taken and sacrificed, cities rose and fell, and the order of things shifted. The Flower Wars between the cities were temporarily halted by the Mayan invasions of the early and mid-15th centuries. The great emperor Bolon Koh Tz'unun had sent out some expeditions across the isthmus, taking tribute and performing perfunctory raids to establish Mayan dominance. His son and grandson would attempt to conquer all of Anahuac as part of a greater Mayan imperium.

The threat of the Maya united, for a time, the disparate city states of the region. The Mayans were thrown back first in 1453, and then again in 1569. In 1483, the great invasion of Yax Nuun Ayiin would rock the region. A coalition of the great and small city-states would fight for five years to throw back the Mayans. Outside of the ruins of old Teotihuacan, a great victory was made, and the invasion ended in 1488, defeated.

Afterwards, the city-states fell back into endemic warfare. Three city-states would prove to be the greatest- the Nahua in Cholollan and Tenochtitlan and the Otomi in Xaltocan.

The new war, starting in 1500 after growing from a smaller conflict between the Tlaxcalans and the Zapotec league, would be recorded in history by the Portuguese historian Faroco Milazar. Milazar had been born to an Luso-Moorish merchant and a Nahua woman in Papantla, and had grown up learning the various languages of the region and his ancestry- Royal Mayan, Portuguese, Otomi, the Nahua dialects, Arabic, Latin, Greek and Totonac. He would notably write his accounts in Portuguese, with native words interspersed and translated for European audiences. For the entirety of the war, across nearly three decades, Milazar would travel as a neutral and record the actions of the various states and generals in the war. He was inspired in this by Thucydides, who had been re-introduced to Western European audiences in the late 14th century, and who had been translated into Portuguese from the Greek in the 1450s. Milazar was accompanied by some companions- his wife, and a couple of interpreters and friends from Papantla and elsewhere. During his travels and mercantile wanderings, Milazar would also write the definitive western accounts of the native faiths and languages- his Nahua-Latin dictionary would preserve the classical "trade Nahuatl" language for years to come.

Milazar's History of the Mesoquematan War would be one of the greatest works of history to date. The history was much less philosophical than Thucydides' work, which had overtones of political theory and "the human thing".

Portuguese reactions to human sacrifice were unequivocal in their condemnation. However, missionary work was largely confined to the Maya and to the Totonacs, seeing as the resources of the Jesuits were largely invested in Asia and Africa.

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The intervention of the Tenochca in 1515 would spell the end of the short era of Cholulan dominance. The Tenochca had first involved themselves fighting as a neutral third party against the Purepecha, in which the famous general Zolton sacked their major cities and sacrificed their nobles back in Tenochtitlan.

Xaltocan had fallen in 1511. The Otomi upper class was seized as captives for sacrifice and other duties, including slavery. The city was made a client of Cholula, and had swelled with a variety of ethnic groups fleeing the war to the south. Many of these new settlers were Nahua, solidifying Cholulan dominance in the northern part of Lake Texcoco.

These developments irked the quiet Tenochca, who had largely stayed neutral due to their own strength in the region, and due to the schadenfreude and benefit of watching the three other powers in the region- Xaltocan, Cholula and the Tlaxcalan League- destroy each other. After Xaltocan fell, the Cholulans and Tlaxcalans started a war over a relatively minor incident with some temples in nominally Tlaxcalan territory.

However, the ambitious Tlaxcalans also stirred up trouble near Tenochtitlan. When the client altepelo Coyohuacan rebelled against Tenochtitlan, it was supported by the Tlaxcalan general Cacama. The tlatoani Citlapopocatzin acted with extreme prejudice, and slaughtered both the rebels and the Tlaxcalan troops.

Against both Tenochtitlan and Cholula, Tlaxcala stood little chance of winning the war. In 1515, Cholula sacked two of the four Tlaxcalan altepelos, Quiahuiztlan and Tepeticpac, and the other two altepelos sued the Tenochca for help.

Citlapopocatzin agreed to the incredibly generous Tlaxcalan terms. The Tlaxcalan alliance fell under the "liberating" suzerainty of the Tenochca, and the two largest Nahua states went to war.

For six year, Tenochtitlan fought, with great success, the exhausted Cholulans, before finally winning peace in May 1521. Cholula was made a vassal of Tenochtitlan, having lost most of its premier soldiers, all of its allies, and all of its clients after 21 years of ceaseless and brutal warfare. The Tenochca were suddenly the main rulers of not only Lake Texcoco but of all Anahuac. Tenochtitlan began, even more so than before, to boom. The city matched any of the great metropolises of the old Mediterranean and Middle Eastern worlds.

But the Tenochca domination did not sit easy on the backs of the defeated. Resentment brewed against the greatest of the Nahua cities, and that resentment would eventually be exploited for the benefit of Europeans.

In 1541, a Franco-Castilian expedition, led by Jean Forquaist, landed at a place they named Ville d'Or, signifying the precious metal that had precipitated their expedition. The expedition was, despite its French leader, mainly Castilian. The army of the expedition, 1200 strong plus slaves and other helpers, was divided into 10 divisions. 6 companies of 100 men (with another three companies having 150 men after artillery), led by an officer, and another 150 men under Forquaist. They set out from French Ayiti, which had been first founded in 1506 and expanded upon since that time (along with the other French colonies in the New World). The three other "main officers" were Lain Cortes, Gil Ceron and Jacques Picard.

The expedition landed at an uncertain time for the declared Empire of the Mexica. Citlapopocatzin had died in 1533, and his successor Zolton was slowly dying of European diseases. The subjects of the Mexica were resentful of their domination.

The expedition had an unauspicious start. A local attack cut off the 2000 Morisco light infantry brought as soldiers and slaves, and these Moriscos would be, after some dying in sacrifice, be sold down to the Pipil.

After this, Forquaist attempted to make contact with disgruntled subjects, but they were uninterested in his appeals. Instead, the expedition traveled to Tenochtitlan with the help of some interpreters, to take another tactic to earn some gold.

Zolton, unlike his resentful subjects, was more open to the Europeans (unknowing that disease from Totonacapan was ravaging his body). Particularly helpful was the doctor-theologian Jacques Kerouac, who was hired as a court doctor for Zolton. Kerouac was notable, along with the other Christian devout, for not urging conquest on the basis of human sacrifice. Instead, these French and Castilian Protestants, under Kerouac, used their services to Zolton and his family to bring toleration to certain preachers. The few Jesuits in Tenochtitlan were quietly killed- in exchange, legend says, the Jesuits assassinated Zolton's sole son, leaving only his 11 year old daughter alive. These men also avoided, quite smartly, commenting on many Mexica norms that were alien to Europe. Most of the 1200, being malleable to assimilation and rather lax in their faith, dove into the culture of Tenochtitlan. One of the officers, Claude Herment, became famous for his whoremongering.

The soldiers impressed Zolton with their horses and their guns, which were previously only rumors from Totonacapan. Zolton hired them as a personal guard and elite fighting force. Although he had once been a mighty general, fighting in the wars and killing the Tlaxcalan Tlatoani in personal combat, his disease and distant nature alienated him from the Jaguar and Eagle warriors. The pale men and their demon beasts and fire sticks would become an integral part of Zolton's reign.

Even as Zolton recovered, the subjugated peoples rose up. Forquaist and his men were crucial in the suppression of revolts, and they received ample reward for their actions. As rebels and bitter nobles fell to the Europeans hired by the Tlatoani, the European men accrued wealth, influence and land. The Purepecha, for example, were suppressed under the command of Jacques Picard, who would become its Lord as a "vassal" of Zolton. Lain Cortes defeated a revolt on the Pacific coast, along with rooting out and destroying a conspiracy of nobles against Zolton. For his valor, and due to his special closeness with Zolton and his family (the two regarded each other as friends), he was given Zolton's daughter in marriage and land near the Pacific, which he named Nueva Asturias. His Asturian soldiers were settled as soldier-colonists, and more Astur-Leonese settlers would come in the coming decades.

This cycle continued- European officers usurping noble powers and earning land and gold, royal power from Tenochtitlan weakening and more resentment building from the "conservative" faction. Eventually, another coup was stage, this one successful.

On "La Nuit Tristesse", July 19th, 1553, Zolton, about 100 Europeans and many of Zolton's allies were assassinated by a group of avenging nobles and Jaguar warriors. The Europeans were sacrificed at the great temple in Tenochtitlan. In particular, the priest Pierre Perez and his friend Sancho Alvarado were brutally murdered by the Nahua priests. And, even though Perez and Alvarado were disliked by the other Europeans, the insult could not stand for long. Some, like Kerouac and a few associates, were in other provinces at the time. And, in place of Zolton's pro-European daughter, the jingoistic and zealous Cacama was made Tlatoani.

The Europeans, particularly Cortes, were enraged. They found a candidate- the Christian Louis Philippe Salcedo, an associate of Kerouac who went by the name Cuauhtemoc among his own people. Their considerable land holdings, soldiers and wealth helped them. But at first, they waited.

Cacama, although he was urged to wipe out the Europeans in his own territory, first decided to attack the Totonacs. In this attack, he was unadvised- a merchant or knowledgeable noble would have been able to describe the slowly modernizing military of the Totonacs, and their European-trained officer corps. And the support of not only the Mayans but their Portuguese allies. The Europeans in Anahuac were allowed to keep their lands for a time, but they lost their government positions, military commands and systems of tribute. Their reckoning, the nobles said, would come after the war.

The war went terribly. In an attempt to win, he allowed some of the Europeans to fight for him. Claude Herment was the only European commander to fight for Cacama- he was also one of the most formidable generals in the war. And internal turmoil would end him.

In spring 1555, Herment and the three other great generals met in Tizatlan, with a small amount of troops. Their main companies were out fighting the Totonacs and the Portuguese to no avail; the other armies were more successful holding the line at the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. What these four men and their retinues did not know is that Tizatlan was the center of old Tlaxcala- and that the local population hated not only the Mexica nobles but Herment as well (Herment had helped reduce the city during an earlier revolt under Zolton). They rose up, captured the generals and their retinues, and captured the generals. These revolutionaries then executed Herment and his three fellows with much brutality.

The death of the four greatest generals in the Mexica war effort crippled the war. Cacama had been paranoid before, but now his paranoia spiralled out of control. The few Europeans in his court, and most of his noble advisors, were sacrificed. So were captured rebels and non-Nahua peoples, in a series of bloody festivals and state-sponsored executions. The people soon began to doubt the sanity of the Tlatoani.

In January 1556, another coup was launched. The Europeans and their candidate Cuauhtemoc seized the throne, and revamped the war effort. The settled European soldiers and their native serfs marched to war. The Totonac thrust towards Lake Texcoco was blunted, and the Mayans were stopped at Tehuantepec once more. A peace was made with the Portuguese prime resident at Papantla. Some border adjustments were made, and a treaty of 50 years peace was signed. The Portuguese received a fortune in treasure, and the Mayans received treasure and slaves. The Totonacs received gold as well.

Cuauhtemoc relied on his European advisors even more than Zolton, seeing as he was Christian. Pagan revolts against his rule were brutally suppressed. Castilian and French missionaries criss-crossed the land. The great temples were converted into churches. Some cities were burnt to the ground by the conquering Europeans. And a mixed Nahua-European nobility began to develop.

In 1563, Tlatoani Cuauhtemoc of the Mexica, named Louis Philippe Salcedo to the Europeans, agreed to become a distant and loose vassal of the French king. French settler began settling in Mesoquimade, as the European diseases made another periodic round through the land. European disease had been present for decades, but the rise of Cuauhtemoc made these epidemics worse. The actions of Kerouac and his fellow doctors, traveling the land and trying to prevent the disease, made him one of the great heroes of the new Mesoquimate.

Castilian settlers would also come in, initially in far greater numbers than the French. The Astur-Leonese, who made up a good 65% of Castilian settlers, settled in Lain Cortes' fiefdom in Nueva Asturias. The city of Acapulco, on the Pacific Ocean, soon became a major port of Pacific trade. After the Franco-Castilian Union dissolved and Mayorianism became more in vogue in Castile, Castilian settlement dried up. French settlement would repopulate and help rebuild some of the major cities.

In addition, African slaves were brought from the French slave ports in Cayor. Wolof slaves and captured slaves of the Wolof were sold to Mesoamerica, to natives and Europeans alike. The Africans soon became an underclass, although the mixed-race individuals largely moved up after gaining freedom. Gold made its way back to France, although the graft of nobles, particularly the Cortes family, kept a lot of capital in Mesoquimade proper.

The French settlers largely spoke Occitan and other southern French dialects, seeing as Bordeaux was the main port for French overseas trade at the time. Some also hailed from northern France.

The languages of Mesoquimade changed over time. Nahua remained as a prestige language and as a Church language, whilst adopting many European loanwords. Native languages also had an influence on the local French and Asturian dialects. Eventually, a trade argot developed. It was largely a mix of Classical Nahua, Astur-Leonese, Occitan, and Otomi, with largest emphasis on the first two. This language, called Mexican after the valley and the ethnonym, soon spread to the urban semi-European middle class and the free rural farmers. Rural nobles spoke either Nahua or a European language, and the peasants spoke their own tongues.

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The involvement of Europeans into New World politics meant that the regional wars would now have widespread consequences. Mesoquimade may have technically been a French vassal, but it was welcoming in French settlers as a colony. The Totonacs were still a Portuguese vassal, but were also allies with Mayans. The Morisco-Pipil Emirate of Kukashastan was threatened by the Maya, and had been Mexican vassals for 4 decades. The Taino-Pirate Kingdom of Jamaica had fought off the French before, and had allied with the Maya (and not the Portuguese). The Portuguese promised to protect the Mayan alliance system from French incursions.

The Emperor Tangaxoan Alexandro had died in 1684, succeeded by his son Ahcambal Claude. Claude was a religious man, and a foolhardy one as well- he had not transitioned to the post-religious war mindset that had settled over Europe. He was a zealot in the old fashion, wishing to displace the Popery from all parts of Mesoamerica. In particular, his ego and faith demanded he conquer the hated Catholic Mayans, and the Portuguese lapdogs in Totonacapan.

His pursuits were not checked- his crafty father had managed to gather even more power to the position of Tlatoani, and had desired independence before his death. Ahcambal Claude had all the powers of governance available to make war. And so he did. The French were drawn in as allies, as were the Kukashastani (fighting the heathens, Claude said, would come later). The Portuguese, Totonacs, Mayans and Jamaicans were also drawn in as allies. Men from neutral powers decided to fight as mercenary soldiers. The Great Mesoamerican War was on.

Although Portugal was well past its cultural and military prime, it still had the wealth and men necessary to fight such a war. France, although it was a rising power in the colonial game, was not so strong as to fully eclipse Portugal. In addition, Portugal had the advantage in terms of native allies- the Mayans in particular would be hard to fight.

For 16 years, the war raged inconclusively. The Mayans got past the Isthmus, and the Totonacs nearly took Lake Texcoco. But French reinforcements arrived, and the Jamaicans took their plunder and ducats and made peace. Eventually, the Mayans, taking their plunder and having crushed the Kukashastani and humbled the Mexicans, also made peace for large sums of money. This left the Totonacs and the Portuguese.

Eventually, a white peace was signed after Ahcambal and his sons died in battle. The line of Cortes, led by Tizoc Belmiro, would assume the Emperorship. The powers accrued to the Tlatoani were lost, leading to further French involvement and greater resentment from the nobles and the people, particularly in matters of faith. The Totonacs largely kept their internal status quo, having stood against the larger Mexican forces on their own merits. The Kukashastani transferred to French vassalage, for a time.

The war, having also been fought in Africa and Asia, would bankrupt the French (who hired mercenaries far more than Portugal) and hurt the Portuguese economy for years. Manuel I would outlive the war by a few months.

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The Chinese diaspora was a changing beast, a shifting wave on the sea of time and immigration. The great ancient communities in the southern seas had been driven out or assimilated- only the tiny communities on Ternate and Tidore remained of the once great Nussantara diaspora community. The Hui in Africa had long since assimilated with their brothers in faith, the Afro-Koreans or the Swahili. And so, the second wave of the diaspora had gone forth, with the western barbarians, in search of labor and money.

The non-Christians of the Chinese diaspora were more limited in their destinations. The Cantonese, the Christians of Cambodia and the Japanese had an easier time being allowed into countries. There was a fear of a Confucian peril in many nations. In addition, Chinese laborers often had competition- the Javanese and Japanese in Hawai'i, the Korean "Christians" in Bernambuco and other Asian peoples in various colonial territories.

The Chinese diaspora of the 19th century would not become a valued middle class, as it had once been in Southeast Asia. Instead, these new migrants would be laborers, fruit-pickers, a new proletariat for the growing nations of the New World, and for the colonial territories in French East Africa and Australie. The Cantonese diaspora, counted as separate from the Chinese, would largely go to British-held territories or to the Republican Confederacy of America.

The main destinations on the Pacific for non-Cantonese immigrants were Acapulco in Mesoquimade, Palma and Guayaquil in Floriana, and, to a lesser extent, Arequipa. These sub-diasporas were different in character.

The Mesoquimade diaspora was mixed between the predominantly male laborers and a smaller contingent of families from Shandong. The laborers were likely to assimilate, and possibly convert to Christianity- they were also likely to intermarry with the other members of the proletarian and agrarian underclass, the mixture of Africans and non-Nahua natives (and occasional European blood in bastards) that had formed over the centuries. The families, on the other hand, were more urban, and largely formed small ethnic neighborhoods in certain cities (Acapulco, Villedor, Quiahiztlan, Tepeticpac, Coyohuacan and Cholula).

In the Andes, the Chinese laborers and families all worked and died in the mines, or trying to build roads through the mountains. The center of Chinese culture was in the east, where it maintained a small presence in the large cities there. The Chinese here would largely assimilate.

In Floriana, the Chinese came as families for the most part, laboring on plantations and in fruit fields or deep in the jungle. In fact, a good 60% of the Florianese Chinese population would end up away from the Pacific. The main Chinese culture centers were Guayaquil, Quito, Brazzapolis, the Surinenas and the city of Belem. These Chinese populations stayed together in cultural unity, although the slow pull of assimilation brought the "black sheep" of these migrant families into the larger circle of Florianese life. The Chinese populations, for a few generations, would remain bilingual, speaking Florianese Portuguese and whatever Chinese dialect they started with. The Chinese neighborhoods or Chinese towns in the Surinenas often had dialectical divisions- immigrants from one part of China stayed together for the most part. Religion also began to change these populations. Although Christianity was a thoroughly Cantonese proposition back in China, it had always been a faith of the poor. Catholicism began to spread amongst the Chinese middle class in the great cities, whilst immigrants in rural areas or the jungle either kept their traditional beliefs or mingled with the syncretic faiths of the rainforest.

In Floriana, the Chinese would have competition from other Asian groups, thanks to Floriana's progressive immigration policy. However, the Chinese possessed an advantage in numbers- to the modern day, most Asian Florianese are descendants of Chinese immigrants.

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Eng Guoliang had come from China in search of work. The current emperor, the latest in the second line of Mongols to rule China, was ill-advised by his eunuchs. The western barbarians had control over many ports, and spheres of influence beyond those ports. A bad war against Canton and the northern barbarians had ruined the treasury and humbled the dragon. The people were not doing well, young Eng among them. And so, he had taken a recruiter's offer to go work in infrastructure across the ocean.

That had been 9 years ago. He was still a young man, but also a hardened one. The railroads took many lives, from explosives and heat and bandits. The motley crews of mixed-race proles and Chinese immigrants had learned to get along, although it had not always been easy. Eng wanted, one day, to own his own plot of land, to get away from a life of labor. That was far easier said than achieved.

The labor system kept many in constant debt, living in the temporary housing and kept out of the towns, where the rural populations wanted nothing to do with the half-pagan native underclass and the foreign Chinese. Racism was a problem- among the mixed-race people, skin color and other visible characteristics determined whether or not you could advance in life. This had, over time, created a visible divide in mixed-race populations. Overtly native or African facial features, nappy hair, darker skin or large lips were all considered "underclass". The isolation of this underclass was only broken by upper-class affairs with underclass servants. The lighter-skinned children of these unions occasionally moved up- it depended from case to case.

Eng occasionally thought of his brother, Zedong. Eng Zedong, the elder of the two, had married before Guoliang had left, and had soon afterwards moved to the city of Mombasa in French East Africa. Eng hoped his brother was doing well- Eng knew precious little about Africa, except that the blacks had been taken from those lands centuries before as slaves, and that the western barbarians sought to divide it up.

Guoliang was now 24, having worked on the rails and roads for 9 years in Mesoquimade. His skin had turned to the golden brown that marked all laborers, no matter what racial background. He bore scars from accidents and from overseers. And he wore a laborers clothes- the large hat of the people here, and the rags of what little clothing he had brought from his homeland.

He was to be married soon. He had not wed, as his brother had, a demure Chinese woman. Instead, he was marrying out of love and experience, to a native woman named Marina. She had the straight black hair of the Indigens, and a dark skin color indicating descent from the Africans. Her facial features were most similar to the Euro-Indigen children- she was a child of all of the races of Mesoquimade, like most in the underclass. She had worked as a laborer as well, for 4 years. She had helped Eng learn the various languages- she had an uncommon knowledge of Mesoquimadien French, and also taught Eng the trade argot and Nahua. Eng had grown close to her, over her four years, and the two were going to quietly marry next month.

Maybe, if they got lucky, they could start a business or buy some land. Eng had been saving for years- and so had Marina. They were not rich people, nor educated people, nor important people. But they were, like any other, prone to dreams of advancement, of a better tomorrow. And that is what kept them working, through the heat and the drudgery, in the silver mines.

Both had been quietly stealing silver for over a year. Soon, they would be able to buy what they needed to leave the mines. Soon, they could face the sun with a new shirt.

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The days of colonialism were over in Estafrique. The Republic of France had tried to come to Estafrique, only to be rebuffed. Now, that Republic existed only on Zanjebar, and the settled peoples of Estafrique- Christian Frenchmen, Gujarati merchants, the ancient Swahili classes, laborers from the Punjab, Balochistan, French Nussantara, the French sphere in China and French Siam- now ruled the roost. Joining them were the Metis, the mixed-race free farmers, craftsmen, townspeople and merchants who separated themselves from the native black underclass.

Some parts of Estafrique broke free, particularly the Great Lakes kingdoms united under Zoroastrian Bunyoro. They had always been vassals, rather than colonized peoples, and easily asserted their independence when the Republic crumbled. Other peoples were co-opted into the system- black nobles were married to Indian or Asian women, and brought into the upper and middle classes. The great native mass, the semi-tribal blacks whom had been conquered and stripped of their ancient culture- they were left subjugated.

The racial diversity of the upper and middle classes did not prove to be a roadblock to unity. All the races and all the faiths united against the black underclass. It was said in the hidden halls of black radicals that "one fist brown, one fist white, both conspire to deny our rights".

Some blacks, depending on their skills, were allowed into the universities, and thence into the middle-class. These Africans often intermarried with another race, symbolically shedding their African-ness. Most blacks, if they did not have connections or merit, were forbidden from the universities or from emigration to other countries. They formed the proletariat. Some managed, if they knew good French, to Australie, where they could have better pay in the mines and relatively better treatment.

In this climate of racial oppression and religious divisions, the black radical movement splintered. One group were the messianic Christians. Their syncretic and charismatic Christianity preached the overthrow of the old system, the conversion of all people in Estafrique to their idea of the black Christ and the expulsion of all those who did not comply. This expulsion idea was notable in that people of other races who converted would be allowed to stay.

Another were the Muslims, who were divided on sectarian lines. The Ismailis and Ibadis amongst the natives had gone to the coasts and had joined the Swahili classes. This left the Sunnis, who had largely been converted by Indian or Acehnese laborers. These Sunnis, however, had been most influenced by Maghrebi penal laborers. Instead of nonviolence, however, these Hanbali blacks were both radical and violent, preaching a semi-racial and very religious jihad against the decadence and oppression of the elites. They would kill anyone who did not convert- but only after the whites, Asians and Indians were removed.

Then, there were the Communists. Estafrique, on the whole, was fairly religious, whether under various forms of Islam (Ismaili, Ibadi, Cosmopolitan Sunni) or under the various forms of French Protestantism (Gallicanism being the most prominent). The Communists were more radically secular than even the Centurions, and preached racial and class warfare to overthrow the bourgeoisie. Of all the radical groups, they preached the most race warfare- no non-natives would be allowed to stay or to live in Estafrique. The Swahili would have to be purged of "counter-revolutionary" influence. They painted a stark contrast to the multiracial, milquetoast Social Democrats, who wanted to end the racial oppression system slowly, in the same Fabian manner they wanted to end capitalist oppression.

One native group managed to make accomodations with the government. The Iraqw would become a semi-autonomous small region within Estafrique, and their limited rights would be guaranteed. Iraqw people soon took advantage of education and economic benefits denied to rebel-held regions.

These radical associations were also remarkable in that they helped erase massive ethnic divisions between the varied peoples of vast Estafrique. A Somali from Maqdishu could make common cause with a Luo over Allah, and a Kisuyu could fight for revolution with a Yao. Ethnic divisions were already being destroyed by the education systems- but the hatred of the colonizers and the immigrants papered over all ethnic conflicts.

These black radical groups were expertly played off each other by the immigrant elites. Only the Christians maintained unity through the decades- the Muslim and Communist groups splintered, and the government often played these splinter factions against one another, Muslim fighting Muslim and Communist fighting Communist. Eventually, the Muslim factions lost, in no small part due to lack of funding from the Maghrebi, who despised the violent rebels and their radicalism. The Communists were re-united under one splinter faction, the Brown People's Army, in the 1950s. After this, the Communists and the Christian rebels fought each other and the government sporadically, with the Christians largely withdrawing in order to stockpile materials and recruit/kidnap more followers and soldiers. The Communists would, in the void, start fighting even harder against the government.

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The Republic had fallen, but things were looking up for Eng Anhong. Under the Republic, non-white immigrants had, despite some rights, been considered second-class citizens. Now, they were allies with the whites, considered full partners amongst the cosmopolitan natives (the Swahili) and the immigrants. Eng's grandfather, Zedong, had managed to invest in a diamond mining company and had become wealthy. The family shipping business across the massive Lake Sango, both to other parts of Estafrique and to the port of Entebbe in the Zoroastrian Bunyoro Empire, was very profitable. The Eng symbol, emblazoned on these boats, was a common site on Sango's waters.

Anhong was a young man- he had only just been spared the horrors of the war. He was a capable ship captain, and a good boss to his men. He was coming back to Mwanza from Entebbe. What he heard in the city disturbed him.

The poor native neighborhoods were barricaded- the city's black poor were partisans mainly of the Martyr's Brigade of al-Qaeda, the premier mujahedin group in the vast country. They were being assisted by men not of the city- a few Somalis from the far northeast, some Luo, and others. They had, from which neighborhoods had been burnt down, destroyed the Communist faction, and were now fighting the police.

Eng hoped the police won- the Muslims were a threat to the peace. His crew was largely neutral, many of them living in the neutral rural towns. Three of them were lax members of the Christian militias. Eng himself was Muslim, but not in the same vein as the radical Sunnis in the city. He had lived for a time in Mombasa, and had adopted Ibadi Islam. He had also found the same conservatism that bound all the non-native peoples (including the " race/God-traitor" Swahili) of Estafrique.

Eng avoided the urban warfare, even as the poor neighborhoods were surrounded and gassed. He headed to the isolated Ibadi community, a few hundred souls strong, that he had come to live in. His extended family lived in a walled compound in the countryside. All the non-native farmers had walled in their compounds and taken up arms, often provided by the government. The radicals were ruthless in their causes- the cause of race, of God, or of revolution. Either way, an Indian, Chinaman, or white was bound to be killed.

Eng went to his house, the largest in his Ibadi neighborhood, and found his lover, hopefully soon-to-be wife, sitting at the table. Mhina was a Mombasa girl who had accompanied him back to Mwanza. She had come from the ancient Korean-Swahili community of the city, which had converted to Ibadi Islam back in the 1500s. Anhong loved her, much as he loved his city and his job, as he loved the calm waters of Sango and the wildlife.

He had a few things that demarcated his ancestry- a few motifs, some passed-down belongings from old China. His wife's clothing was itself a gift from his maternal aunt. But, in most other things, he was a man of Africa. He spoke multiple languages, but no Chinese. He adopted the styles of his African home. He abhorred the black radicals, but was also quietly disturbed by the paucity of their circumstances.

The Ibadi neighborhood was small and isolated enough to be protected from the urban warfare. The gas had worked- the gunfire stopped. He embraced his Mhina, and sat at the table. They were going to a communal dinner tonight, sparing Mhina her long day's work. She smiled upon seeing her husband-in-spirit return from his days work.

The 1920s were a turbulent time here in Estafrique. The natives desired freedom, and the elites desired to keep them subjugated. Anhong did not dwell on the unsustainability of the situation. Instead, he kissed his wife, and said a little prayer to Allah. He would provide and protect.

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He was a Luo man with Kisuyu tactics, the son of Muslim Luo transplants moved by the authorities back in the 1930s. He was an educated and angry young man, who hated the government that kept the black men down. He hated the Muslims and the Christians, who lured the proletariat with their addicting lies. He sought but one thing- revolution.

He had fought earlier in Aceh, against that government. He still maintained some of the lax Islam that had permeated both the Luo and the Acehnese fighters, but he was in all things a consummate communist.

The Martyr's Brigade had failed in its aims, splintering infinitely back in the 1940s before being destroyed by the righteous forces of Communism. The Christians had waited, and had stockpiled their arms- their armed communities had created a country within a country, one that he wanted to destroy.

Barack Hussein Obama was an angry young man, fighting the good Communist fight against the man. In his hand, he had a Yugoslav machine gun, and on his head, he had an Indian helmet. To his men and peers, he was one of the greatest comrades, a charismatic man of the revolution. To the ladies among them, he was debonaire and charming. And, he hoped, he would lead the revolution that freed Estafrique. It was telling that all tribes could coexist in the rebel groups, freed of their old biases by the lash of oppression. Communism was the future, communism was freedom, communism was equality. The bourgeois pigs shook in their little cities and towns, pretending to be safe behind farm walls. But they knew, in their hearts, the inevitability and justice of the Revolution.

This farm was larger than most, but inexplicably less protected. The soil was less fertile than elsewhere, although that mattered little to Obama. They could cling to their Bibles and their weak guns- Obama had the force of arms and the majority of men. It was time to reclaim the land and the wealth. He gave the signal, and they rushed the farm.

From what he could see, these people were not whites, but rather an extended family of mixed-race farmers. He picked out a few prayers from the sons- they were Christians, although obviously not the messianic kind. Obama saw one of his men fall, before shooting his killer. Obama was a good shot.

They rushed the farm and killed and wounded the sons. They convened a court of soldiers, and sentenced the people to death before ransacking the farm. The daughters were lucky- if the Muslims had been the attackers, they would have been sold as whores. Instead, Obama had their throats slit. The soldiers unleashed their... tensions on the mother, who was much younger than her husband. The farm was returned to the people. Justice was done. And these bourgeois pigs were killed. Their corpses were thrown in the ditch, and the mother was taken, weeping, back to the camps. The female comrades would be displeased- rape was not exactly good in the eyes of those who wanted gender revolution- but they would also be ignored. Obama left his personal sign, next to the crude symbol of the Communist militias.

The carnage was found the next day, with no trace of the militias. Just another tragedy in the string of attacks, just another cause for the paranoia that ruled 1960s Estafrique.
 
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The Congress of Aachen was the grand reactionary Colossus, standing astride the tides of Revolution and History screaming stop. In its aims, Aachen was overly optimistic- the system it attempted to create would fail within 4 decades of the Congress.

Held from March 1801 to October 1801, the Congress sought to undo most of the great revolutionary changes that had swept Europe under Bardem. Spain was abolished, and the Basque and Aragonese monarchies were restored along with the already-restored Portuguese. In Castile, the pretensions of the theocrats were thwarted by putting a German aristocrat, Wilhelm von Oranje, on the throne of Castile. Oranje, a quiet if devout Reformed Christian, would bring some of the stylings of his native Amsterdam to Spain, whilst simultaneously adopting many of the Mayorian tenets in his religious life.

In France, the King was restored once more. However, Brittany remained as an independent, pro-British duchy. In Italy, the Kingdom of Naples was restored its government powers, whilst Northern Italy was once again split into a number of weak and feuding states. The Pope was reduced to the Vatican by the Protestant members of the Congress.

In Yugoslavia and Scandinavia, mercy was the rule of the day. Jordi Alcocer kept his rule over parts of Yugoslavia as a Hungarian vassal, and Alarik Bardem was allowed to become King of Scandinavia as a co-ruler with his wife. The Germans decided not to press the issue, instead being content with their self-evident military domination of Europe. Germany had, unknown to the other powers, already begun its nascent industrialization. Germany's massive size and industrial power would allow it to cement its neutral hegemony over Europe. Germany had, after the humbling of France and the Hungarians, come into its own as master of the European continent.

Colonially, all of the changes that had taken place during the war were enforced. Portugal had lost all of its possessions south of Guinea and east of the Caribbean- this is considered the end of "Old Portugal". Some colonial possessions were ransomed back- the Castilians were given back their possessions for significant amounts of money, bankrupting the newly independent country. Aragon managed to retain Oran and the Balearics, along with hidden stores of looted gold from across Europe. Although these stores were small, and although much of it had been paid to Germany for... agreeable silence, Aragon's boosted treasury would help it in the coming years. Many New World possessions had declared independence during the wars, and would not be retaken. The old colonial order had been radically altered by the presence of even more independent states (along with the few native states and the existing independent post-colonial power).

Britain had also come into its own as a player in European politics. Although Britain would continue to be distant and would consider itself non-European, the British role in the wars was not forgotten. The lack of scruples displayed by the British would later be aped by the Centurions, who also cared very little for the ideological pretensions of their allies in the naked pursuit of power and territory.

The powers walked away from Aachen hoping that they had contained the old revolutionary sympathies. In this hope, they were foolish. The ideas of the Aragonese Revolution could not be taken back- the old order was a dying one. Some powers adjusted better than others, particularly the two republics and the Scandinavians. For other powers, economic prosperity and technological advancement would allow for a gradual increase in rights. And in other, more obstinate countries, the battles between secular and religious, republican and monarchist, traditionalist and futurist, conservative and progressive would rage on across the coming century...
 
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Just catching up with this. I like how "old-style republicanism" is part of TTL's ancien regime - the old aristocratic republics evidently felt they had more in common with the monarchies than with Robespierre/Fonda or Bardem/Napoleon, much as OTL's middle-class republics did with respect to the USSR.

Am I right that there was an earlier exposure to Eurasian diseases that allowed the Mesoamerican peoples to recover and wage a more even struggle against the conquistadors? I'm reminded a bit of Iberia during the Reconquista, with shifting alliances that cross racial/religious lines.
 
Yeah, the Portuguese contact with the Mayans, and then the Totonacs, allowed more of a resistance among the Mesoamericans. TTL, the conquistadors conquer from within, sort of like the Germanic peoples in late Rome serving in the armies. The early conquests are complex and confusing, and native peoples definitely have more of a stake, as nobles and otherwise, in colonial Mesoquimade. Specifically the Nahua elites, who are often entrusted to rule over Otomi, Mixtec, Zapotec and other non-Nahua populations. There is also a slightly more distinct Afro-descended population.

And yeah, it's neat here that the mercantile/aristocratic republics feel more towards the monarchists than the Aragonese revolutionaries. Among the British, there was a significant pro-Aragonese sentiment, but opportunistic power/land-grabbing won out on that front. Revolutionary sentiment will eventually lead to the reform of many of the old republics during the 19th century.
 
Islam had suffered much since the end of its Golden Age in the 13th century. Defeated and often eliminated in Iberia and Ifriqiya, isolated in the Maghrib and West Africa, and outcompeted in the east, Islam was a religion that had lost its dynamism.

Of all the indignities of the House of Peace, none were so great as the three sacks and losses of the Holy Cities. Dampildorg Khan, grandson of the great Shiraghul Khan, invaded Arabia as the general of his father, Budragchaa, who ruled much of the Middle East as the Elkhan.

Dampildorg, the third son, would be given Arabia as an ulus. His father had, on his way to conquer Egypt, already taken and spared (relatively- the Dome of the Rock was destroyed, as were some other mosques) Jerusalem. Dampildorg, who was both more ruthless but also more arrogant and stupid than his kin, would ride into the Hejaz and burn Mecca and Medina to the ground, before attempting to subdue the rest of Arabia. In this, he had a Pyrrhic victory. He won control over all parts of Arabia not already controlled by the Elkhans or the Ethiopians, but lost much of his men doing so. He also caught fever.

Laying at his camp near the burnt remains of the Kaaba (which survived somewhat, moreso than other buildings), he lay, dying. In his dreams, he was visited by what he would allege to the be the Archangel Jibril, who told him he would burn in Hell for his crimes unless he converted to Islam. Scholars purport that he was actually converted by his Muslim wife and nurse, Hawwa. In any case, Dampildorg adopted Sunni Islam with great fervor, rebuilding the two holy cities with his share of loot from around the world. Pilgrims would be protected on the way to Mecca, and he became a pious, Zakat giving Muslim. If also one who killed heretics and especially Jews and Christians.

Dampildorg would, towards the end of his reign, adopt the title of Sunni Caliph. The Shia Caliphate had passed to his devout Ismaili brother Kassar through his brother's Fatimid wife. Kassar, as opposed to Dampildorg, had not burnt down most of Egypt, on account of being Shia before he conquered the region. Jerusalem was kept under Persia. Dampildorg, after the passing of their father and the acension of his irreligious (Kuzhuk would actually write some of the earliest texts on atheist thought, backed up by ancient texts and other theories on the primacy of Man) brother to Persia and the Elkhanate, would declare war on Kassar, that ended in a bloody white peace. Kassar would recover somewhat, but Dampildorg would die in the war.

The sons of Dampildorg and Kassar would cooperate in the next war, this time hoping to conquer Ethiopia and put it under the Elkhanate and hopefully a Muslim. In this war, they would fight the indomitable and young Negus Negast Hizqayas. Hizqayas was the best military commander Ethiopia had seen in generations, seizing the last of the independent lands that had once belonged to Ethiopia before their decline. Hizqayas would first defeat the Sunnis in Arabia, leaving them to slink back north. He would then allow the Shia into Ethiopia, before slowly bleeding them with guerilla warfare and cut-off supply trains. Mustansir bin Kassar would leave Egypt in disgrace, his forces depleted and his reign in Egypt tottering. Hizqayas would then cross into Arabia, and crush the Sunnis. He would slaughter them outside of Mocha, before marching north into the Hijaz. The Ethiopians would sack Medina and Mecca, sparing only a few religious buildings out of what passed for magnanimity. The "caliphate" would be abolished, although the line of Dampildorg, fleeing into the interior, would come back to prominence centuries later.

The last sack would the worst. The Roman Emperor Sergios II "the Impaler", marching from Roman Jerusalem against Arabian raids in 1453, would come into the Hejaz during Hajj. At Medina and Mecca, he sacked the cities, and killed all the pilgrims and all the inhabitants that could be found. All of the gold and jewels restored to the city under the line of Dampildorg, and then under the restored Hashemites, was pillaged. And the Black Stone, the great cornerstone of the destroyed Kaaba, was taken back to Constantinople and added to the throne room. The silk covering of the Kaaba was burnt as the corpses of pilgrims rotted on stakes.

The city would be rebuilt afterwards, but the loss of the Black Stone after a third sack of the Holy Cities within three centuries (13th to the 15th) was particularly painful. In addition, Jerusalem had been opened up to Jewish settlement by Sergios, and the place that once housed the Dome of the Rock was allowed to be made into a Third Temple of Jerusalem.

In these terrible times, the isolated branches of Islam began to break some norms, in particular the one on translating the Koran. The Koran was translated into Turkish (for Egypt), Iranian, Nussantari, Korean, Berber, Indian languages- all languages spoken in the Dar al-Islam. The branches of Sunni and Shi'a Islam began to diverge slowly- Maghrebi popular Islam became much more conservative, for example.

When colonialism came about, these branches were reunited, most under the aegis of France. France controlled Hindustan, Egypt outside of the Canal Zone, Estafrique, Aceh, Macassar, Mindanao, Thailand, the Maghrib and Muslim West Africa, all of which were Muslim in some capacity. The Koran was first translated into French from the classical Arabic by a French India merchant in the 17th century. This translation, once refined by another merchant, would enter Islam into the Francophone world.

The French merchants in the East were remarkable in their cultural malleability, but also in what they retained. For the most part, whilst they learned local languages and adopted some local fashions, they remained Frenchmen at heart, speaking French and writing in French and enjoying their birth culture. In religion, however, they were remarkably malleable. The earliest Frenchmen in India found that converting made it easier to accrue profits, to negotiate with natives, and to interact with the surrounding communities. Called the "anti-Jesuits" by one scholar, these Frenchmen adopted Islam and the French Koran (most became Sunnis, like the Hindustanis and the Acehnese). Cosmopolitan Islam, as it would be called, began to develop.

Medieval Mutazili ideas about rationality had been re-evaluated by the Tartar-Rajput sultans in the 16th century. These more rationalist strains of Sunni Islam were enthusiastically adopted by Franco-Indian merchants, as they began to evaluate their new faith on their own terms. Cosmopolitan Islam would be based on Muslim rationality, and the Mutazili schools of Muslim science and theology. Combined with a use of French (and occasionally native languages) and a general tolerance and liberalism within the faith, Cosmopolitan Islam soon spread to all the Franco-Indian merchants.

These merchants stood in contrast to the "New French", who came after the establishment of the Second Republic and the abolishment of the company. These culturally chauvinistic and religiously resolute Frenchmen stuck to themselves, and the Franco-Indians became just another community in India. That is, until their ideas spread to the other areas of the French Empire.

In Paris, a community of Muslim colonials and Franco-Indians began to write theological literature on Cosmopolitan Islam. Islam began to spread in the non-Muslim parts of the French empire, often more successfully than Gallicanism. One of these places was Korea, where Korean Muslims from Southeast Asia and East Africa traveled back to French-held Shandong, and from there into French protectorate Korea. Cosmopolitan Islam became a faith of the people, more popular than the distant Confucianism of the king. It would develop slowly over the coming century in Korea.

Muslim trading networks began to spread in French Asia, as Francophone Muslim merchants traded out of Zanjebar and Gujarat, and into French parts of Australia and Oceania. Islam often became associated with the French republic in other countries. In Africa, Cosmopolitan Islam spread with laborers imported from Hindustan and elsewhere, and from non-Cosmopolitan Maghribi Muslims.

Cosmopolitan Islam also bridged Shi'a and Sunni gaps (although not as much to the Ibadi, who learned French but kept more of their theology). In the 1870s, an Ibadat Khana was established in Mombasa, as a place of debate between the Muslim denominations. Eventually, an annual conference developed at the Khana, wherein all the Muslim denominations of the French Outremer would come and discuss and debate their faith.

After the return of the King and the closing of French borders to colonial immigration (the immigrant populations in the metropole had never been particularly large), these Francophone Muslims stuck to the Indian Ocean. Even as radicalism struck Estafrique, the Muslim communities kept contact. The population of French Australie became majority Muslim, as imported colonial laborers intermarried and outbred the small settler populations. The draw of the mines brought more immigrants from the former territories of the French empire, especially West Africa. Some white settlers even converted.

 
The dynasty of Silla, greatest of all the Korean kingdoms, had lasted from 57 BC to 1000, lasting in various states of power and influence for 1057 years. They had united the Korean/Shiragi Peninsula in the 660s with the help of the Tang, but had lost control of most of the peninsula by 935. After 935, Silla would slowly decline until it was conquered in full by the dynasty of Goryeo in 1057. The Kingdom of Goryeo would control the peninsula in full until the coming of the Mongols, after which the peninsula was split into two states- one controlling the central and north of the peninsula, and a rival dynasty controlling Jeolla, Gyeongsang and Chungcheong, along with the island of Cheju.

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Yim Eunkyhung left his sick wife and his grown son, Pilkwan, back in the homeland. He was a soldier now, for the nobles and their Mongol masters, going to invade the islands of the Yamato in order to install the suzerainty of the Emperor in Kaifeng. He did not willingly fight, although this was not known by others, for he wished to protect his family. He fought for meager gold, at the behest of his "betters". The ships had not hit storms- now was time to land.

The Yamato, unfortunately, were prepared. Their armored ships came forth and destroyed large parts of the fleet- Eunkyhung saw their small fleet sink, but also saw horsetail banners on large junks sink as well, the Mongol troops burning as they sank. The soldiers waded out to shore, and were met by the prepared soldiers of the Yamato. It was a bloodbath. The enemy fought like demons possessed, cutting down his fellow men left and right, fighting off clusters of his fellows with strength and presence of mind unheard of amongst the Yuan/Korean fleets. Eunkyhung continued to fight, for his money and for his life.

The invading forces were failing. More ships burned as rocket launchers unleashed hell on the Yuan fleet. More soldiers continued to fall as they were pushed into the ocean. Eunkyhung felt cold steel pierce his stomach, and his life flashed. He thought of his wife, who had died as he sailed to this land, and his 16 year old son Pilkwan, who had arranged to get married. He fell to the sand, and died as the tide lapped his body. The Yamato, their emperor, and their samurai, had won the day. No divine intervention had come- but the victory of human aims had.

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Pilkwan was an old man now, having lived, through Providence, until the age of 74. He had had three children- his two sons, and his youngest, his daughter. Posun had moved north, to the Kingdom of Goryeo, away from the province of Jeolla. His daughter lived 5 miles away, and he lived, a widower, with his other son Injung. Injung himself had had five children, although two had died in the famine and epidemic that had taken Pilkwan's wife (and, unbeknownst to him, his daughter as well).

And now, Yamato invaders came. The Yuan dynasty had lost its grip on the southern part of the peninsula, even as it maintained a grip on other parts of the wider region. And the Yamato remembered the role the southern kingdom had played in the failed invasion of 1219, when Pilkwans father Eunkyhung had died in battle. But the Yamato, bolstered by a strong fleet and excellent commanders, would be more successful.

The conquerors had already hit the village, extracting tribute. He himself had attempted to fight them, only to be dissuaded by his son. His son had worn a mask in the fighting, and had lost an eye; when it came time for the village to accept the conquest, he was not recognized.

Pilkwan hated the conquerors. In a way, he connected this conquest with the death of his father, and the loss of his country. The Mongols had ruined the cities, and split mighty Goryeo under their thumb, and now three provinces, Jeolla, Gyeongsang and Chungcheong, were lost to foreigners, without any help from the Mongol in Kaifeng.

He was dying now, laying in bed much as his mother had all those years before. Injung and his family were at the side of Pilkwan. He kissed his grandchildren on the forehead, and gave them sweet nothings to reassure them. He told Injung and his wife to always remember the indignity of the conquest. Pilkwan died with hate in his heart, hoping that one day, a Yim clan would help throw out all conquerors from these southern provinces.

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He was named after his great-grandfather, Pilkwan. But this latter man would be young when hate for the conquerors gripped him. Yim Injung had died 18 years earlier, and his father Yim Donghong, and many others among the Yim and other families, had died of the plagues and famines that swept all the world.

Yim Pilkwan marched with his fellow farmer-rebels, accompanied by the Buddhist peasants who formed the backbone of the anti-Japanese revolt. The northern kingdom of Goryeo was apparently sending help to what the Japanese called "Shiragi", and Pilkwan awaited the righteous vengeance of the people. But that vengeance would not come.

The nobility here retained a martial spirit, like many Japanese warrior nobles. They were daimyo, not the shrinking, effete nobles of Goryeo and China. And these peninsular daimyo were descended from men who had fought Mongols, Jurchen and Koreans for years, who dealt with revolts in a ruthless manner.

The rebels met on a field in Chungcheong, and were slaughtered. Yim Pilkwan charged manically at the enemy infantry, swinging his sword in order to kill the hated Japanese. He thought of his large extended family, some of whom were fighting in other companies. He thought of his younger wife, and his children. And he crumpled to the ground after being knocked out.

When he woke up, he was in the public square of his little town, accompanied by the other members of his family and the rebels from their part of Jeolla. They were to die by being boiled. It would take longer- winter rains had made the wood soggy, which made lighting fires harder. It would be a slow death.

The extended Yim family would be pared down here, and Pilkwan was subdued. Hatred and zealotry achieved nothing- the conqueror still ruled over the provinces. But yet, he maintained the hope of his great-grandfather, that the recovered family would march with the other peasants and farmers, and throw out the conquerors.

Unbeknownst to Pilkwan, more indignities faced his family. The Yim had been deprived of their independence, made into serfs for a particularly martial daimyo in the area. Their farms now paid suzerainty to him as serfs, rather than tax-paying free farmers. And his young second wife, the one he had come to love (although it was less reciprocal than he believed), was made into a whore for the daimyo. Such was the price of failed rebellions.

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Serfdom and plague had not been kind to the diminished Yim family. It was now 1377, and a second peasant rebellion had already failed. The rebellion of Yim Pilkwan and others had brought serfdom to their families and humiliation to their women.

Yim Byungchul, in many ways, resented his dead grandfather, and even his bitter and now dead father, for the serfdom which now hung on him. He was lucky to inherit the meager savings of most of the dead branches of the family- only three disparate branches of the Yim remained in the area, the last being located farther north in the Kingdom of Goryeo as a well-off clan of devoutly Buddhist merchants. Byungchul had a ldutiful if distant wife, and four children, two of each gender- his eldest son, Sohyon, was training as an apprentice to become a carpenter.

Sohyon was a strapping young man, but also an intriguing one. He knew Japanese and letters fluently from the blacksmith, and associated less with the other Korean serfs. Sohyon was less resolute in the ancient dream of throwing out the conquerors. He agreed it would be nice, but, like Byungchul, thought rebellion was pointless. Both had heard of recent rumors- ideas of the Ikko-Ikki had been nigh-eradicated in the Home Islands, but had spread back to Shiragi and into the subjugated peasantry. Soon, the discontented peasants might again take up the banners of the Buddha and freedom, to throw out the nobles.

Byungchul had made it clear that he would nothing to do with the rebellion, although most of the other serf families under his lord plotted rebellion. His two son-in-laws also planned to join the rebellion. Byungchul would not rat them out. This rebellion, however, would have less support- less townspeople wanted to join the rebellion, fearing the kind of retribution that had been laid upon them in the past.

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Sohyon had, through loyalty to the hated Japanese (really to his daimyo, who had was himself a partisan of the Imperial family against the declining Shogunate), gained back prosperity for the again-reduced members of his family. The two branches that had rebelled had been punished severely, but Yim Sohyon, the loyal carpenter's apprentice, had told of the rebellion to his lord. No one had told Sohyon- he had overheard talk in the serf dwellings whilst visiting his parents. Sohyon may have betrayed that ancient hate of the conqueror, but loyalty paid truer than failed rebellion.

Sohyon had means, land, relative independence, and a loving family. He was now the main architect for his local daimyo, and the other free townspeople. His descendants would never know the indignity of serfdom, nor would they, as his brother had, die in the mud fighting futilely against trained samurai. At least, he hoped.

Sohyon represented a small turning point- he was part of the small but increasing segment of the Shiragi populace that was learning some Japanese, and some letters, in order to assimilate. This population was larger in the cities, but it was growing, at a glacial pace thus far. More and more bitter and anti-Japanese peasants died with every rebellion, and plagues and famines struck serfs and the unassimilated urban poor the hardest.

Sohyon wanted better for his family, and wisdom as well. Rebellion led to nothing good, but loyalty combined with hidden resentment and respect to old traditions was a wiser way of doing things.

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He had been a second son. But Yim Kon had greater dreams- dreams of literacy and wealth. He had learned to be a banker in town, as his idealistic and devout brother Intak learned to be a carpenter. Kon was, even by the standards of a slowly assimilating family, more like the conquerors than his kin. He prayed not only to the old deities, but to imported Japanese boddhisatvas and gods, like Susano'o and Amaterasu. Kon spoke Japanese as well as he did his own language, and wrote Japanese poetry.

Kon had, five years before, decided to leave for the ancient former capital at Geumsong, to truly become a banker. He took with him his own money, and sums of money from his family's home, given freely to him. After his grandfather Sohyon (who had taught him letters) had died, Kon left for the city. He knew, in his heart, that he would not see his family again, but greed and hope for the future drew him away. It was rare for a man of his background to be able to travel- a distant ancestor had gone north into Goryeo centuries before, but the Yim family had by and large stayed in their lands.

Once in the city, Kon assimilated even quicker. He began writing his name as Ren Kon, and only used his Korean name in conversation with fellow Koreans. He lived in the Japanese quarter, and married a Kin Sayuri, whose family had once been Korean nobles and who had assimilated soon after the Japanese conquests. He loved his wife, and wrote haiku for her. He lived in the manner of a Japanese man, and hated the enemies of Japan. He even came to hate Goryeo, which had long been an object of aspiration and hope amongst the Koreans, for Goryeo had attempted to invade during a peasant rebellion in Jeolla. A peasant rebellion that had, unbeknownst to Ren Kon at the time, been in part led by his brother Intak and the other branches of his extended family.

He had met a neighbor from his old village, traveling in the city the other day. The man told Kon how the carpentry business had passed to his brother-in-law Sam Jan, and how Intak and the other extended parts of the Yim family had been executed for their rebellion. Intak had failed to learn the lessons of the ancestors, including their grandfather- rebellion was a high-risk venture, but loyalty cost little and paid dividends. The survivors amongst Kon's extended kin had fled to the coasts, to become pirates, and were either dead or in the far southern seas by now.

On the one hand, he should hate his overlords, for killing his family. The oft-told tale of the first Yim Pilkwan, and the great hate of the conquerors, had been passed on for centuries. But time healed all wounds and rounded all edges. As did the love of a Japanese wife, and the amity with Japanese neighbors, and the appreciation of a conqueror's culture. Hate lost its lustre, its fire over the years. And so, the descendant of a bitter, conquered man became a man with two souls- a Korean farmer boy, and a successful Japanese banker.

At this point, three main branches existed of the extended family. The oldest branch was that of Kon. The second oldest was that of a minor merchant family in the city of Pyongyang. Another was an older branch of pirates from a century before, who lived in the city of Mombasa. And the last were these failed rebels, who moved to become merchants and farmers on the island of Aceh.

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The western barbarians came after the plague, that had left the Ren family led by a twenty year old and childless young man. These nanban brought not just trade goods to mighty Japan- they also brought men in black cloaks, called Jesuits. These priests, called iruman in a corruption of the Portuguese word for "Brother", traveled the Shiragi and Kyushu countrysides, and even in Honshu, talking to the people about their God. Many had learned Japanese- a few also learned the Korean dialect of Shiragi, although that was firmly secondary to Japanese amongst the Jesuit mission.

Ren Doppo was a devotee of the iruman. He had never been a particularly devout Buddhist, much like his grandfather Kon and his own father. The Christian faith had first spread to the daimyo of the province, and then into the city. Kirishitan teachings of redemption, peace, love and egalitarianism appealed to a population disenchanted with the Buddhist hierarchy and the ossified Korean and Japanese faiths. The poorest Korean serfs still kept to the old ways of the Ikko-Ikki, ignorant of the origins of their teachings. The iruman were most successful amongst the lower-middle class and the free farmers and townspeople- Doppo was one of the former.

Doppo was not only the first Christian in his family. He was also the first to not know Korean. He considered himself Christian first, and Japanese second. Although he knew of his origins, his family had been living in the Japanese parts of Gunsan since his late grandfather was Doppo's age. Doppo represented, in the grand, unspoken tale of his family, the definitive break with the past. They had gone from serfs to free farmers back to serfs to carpenters, and now to Japanese bankers. The ancient hate of a conquered people no longer belonged to the Yim- and their eldest and greatest branch was now Ren.

Doppo was, however, a devotee of the popular preacher and recent saint Ryoo Daniel. The Korean Daniel had preached the Good Word after finishing his apprenticeship as a carpenter in a village in Jeolla under the Sam family. He had been crucified in the capital of Jeolla- Doppo had been in attendance, since his aging father was still running the bank at the time. Doppo had taken the middle fingers of the man, who had, according to secret Jesuit merchants, been canonized as a saint by the Pope.

Doppo hoped that the genial tolerance of the Emperor was maintained. The Imperial family had been weakening since the death of the great Empress Kyoko 80 years ago. The more anti-Nanban nobles were growing in power and influence, helped by the threatened Buddhist priestly caste. But Doppo had faith. The Virgin Goddess would not let the light of her immortal and immaculate son, the Crucified God, be snuffed out in these lands.

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Ren Tarozaemon hoped the young Emperor Reigen won the civil war. Although his daimyo, a fellow Christian, had kept the faith strong in the city, other Buddhist daimyo had begun kicking out and killing Christians. Western technical knowledge was shunned alongside the Lord- and if the Shogunate was given back its ancient powers, then all the children of Jesus in these lands would suffer.

Tarozaemon was a bit too old to fight- the conflict in Shiragi had been settled quickly, seeing as Shiragi and Kyushu had the highest populations of Christians, even after the expulsions of the Portuguese and the Jesuits 40 years ago. The faith of Christ was strong in these lands, although syncretism had begun to creep in without the dedicated Jesuits maintaining orthodoxy and challenging the Buddhists. Many orthodox followers had already left, seeking money and peace in the lands of the Portuguese. Many Christian ronin had left with Tokugawa Bartolomeu, seeking employment as soldiers in the lands to the far east, across the ocean.

And now, new Westerners had begun sailing into Japanese ports. The Jiruman were largely mercantile, selling guns and taking semi-control of the Japanese colony-island of Takasago as a mercantile center. The Emperor allowed them this privilege, in exchange for valuable Jiruman guns and other supplies. Although the Portuguese were the original Nanban, the influence of these new barbarians on the more Westernized portions of Japanese society was felt. Takasago was, for example, becoming more Protestant. Shikoku was the only other part of Japan to have any Protestant congregations.

From the north came the Roshi, who were also Christians. They brought missionaries with them as well. Although they were not like the old iruman, the word was still applied to their bearded, married missionaries. The few Orthodox congregations had already begun Russifying their practices, while maintaining a few theologically sound native practices that had been developed after the Jesuits were expelled. The most devout Catholics had already left- and many native preachers began adopting Russian practices alongside their own. Even more significantly, the printing press in Gunsan had begun translating the Roshi bible into Japanese- in both a bastardized Cyrillic and in Japanese characters.

Tarozaemon himself still belonged to his congregation, a syncretic congregation. But he knew a few followers of the Roshi iruman... Perhaps he would check out their church as well.

=====​

It was good to be a devout Orthodox banker in Gunsan, particularly one with Roshi and Jiruman trade connections dating back to his great-grandfather Tarozaemon. Japan had adopted Christianity- but not that of the long-gone Portuguese. Instead, a new Orthodox rite had been created, combining Japanese practices, remnants of Jesuit teachings, and Orthodox theology and practices. The new simplified Japanese alphabet, installed by the recently late and incredibly long-lived Emperor Reigen, had made reading and the Japanese Orthodox Bible available to all the people.

Catholic congregations still existed- in Nagasaki, Edo, and in Kagoshima, along with isolated villages in Jeolla. The dwindling non-assimilated Korean populations either worshipped radical Buddhism, old-fashioned Confucian Buddhism, bastardized Shinto-Korean Mahayana, or ultra-syncretized Jesus-was-a-Buddha Buddhism. Protestants were only in Takasago (which was really a Jiruman property) and in Shikoku, where they dominated the congregations and split into varying denominations. Otherwise, Orthodoxy was the faith of most Japanese, the old Shinto-Buddhist faith having dwindled under years of popular and Imperial pressure. Shinto rebellions still occured, every decade or so, but were swiftly crushed. Most remaining Shinto believers belonged to charismatic Koshinto movements, which removed Buddhist influence from the faith. Shinto-Buddhism was a majority only in the Ryukyus- it was a plurality in Kansai as well.

Ren Monzaemon was one of the richest men in the city, and held more influence than even the weak local daimyo. He was friend to the church- he had helped finance the grand local cathedral, decorated in a mix of architectural styles. He spoke multiple languages so as to deal in finance, and he was married to the daughter of the most powerful noble in Hokkaido. Life was good, the faith was thriving, and the Goryeo, even with the backing of those Furenchi Nanban, could not threaten Shiragi.

He prayed to St. Danil Ryoo, who had been made a saint by the Roshi decades before, copying the Papacy. The Ren family had the middle fingers of the saint, and the preserved fingers were part of the ikon shrine of the family.

In a village in Jeolla, the last Yim was dying. She had been a part of a failed Shinto-Korean Buddhist rebellion, and the rest of the dwindling family had died of the famine that had helped spark off the rebellion. This woman did not know of the Ren family, or of the minor Yim merchant family in Pyongyang, or of the Yim nobles in Mombasa, or the Yim merchants in Aceh. Of these branches, only the Pyongyang branch worshipped the ancient faith of the forgotten Yim Pilkwan. The Ren were Japanese Orthodox. The Mombasa Yim were Ibadi, and the Aceh Yim were Sunnis.

Hate of a foreign conqueror had driven this woman, her brothers and cousins, and many of her failed ancestors. The same hate had driven other Shiragi Koreans over the years, rallying to faith and language even as the occupation dragged on. Shiragi had been Japanese for almost 500 years by this point. Five centuries had worn down the population, through assimilation, death, and religious conversion. Korean Christians had adopted the Japanese language. The Koreans were by now a separate group, isolated in their small villages and slums. More and more people abandoned their ancient culture. Time healed all wounds, and rounded all edges. And, in time, a glaring peasant could become a loyal subject, identifying as a conqueror people rather than as the conquered.

=====​

Yim Ilsung was the scion of what had once been a minor Pyongyang merchant family. In the early 19th century, the fortunes of the family had turned grim as the decrepit Joseon dynasts, based in Hancheong, became increasingly the puppets of the French. The French had strangled minor merchants, even as the stronger mercantile families entered into the structure of the protectorate. Trade with Russia and Japanese Shiragi was restricted because France and Russia were enemies.

France attempted to convert the people as well, much as the Jesuits and then the Russians had done in Japan. This ignored the sociopolitical state of both Joseon and the Japan of yesteryear. The Japanese were, in contrast to the rest of Asia, a modernized power. German technology, Russian faith and Japanese spirit combined into a potent force of modernity.

Joseon had, under France, rotted internally. Corruption became more rampant. The poor sent their children abroad to be laborers, many ending up in Bernambuco. The Yim had become a blue-collar family, reduced slightly in wealth but greatly in status. For a time, they had attempted to become farmers, living near holy Mt. Baekdu. Ilsung would, later in life, claim he had been born on the summit under a double rainbow.

Ilsung would pick up a new faith from French colonial laborers. Since he could speak and read French, Ilsung worked in the docks at the booming port of Inchon, living in the Korean quarter but spending a lot of time in the French quarter.

It would be in the French quarter that Ilsung would meet Yim Moonjun Muhammad, an Acehnese Korean who had signed up as a French colonial overseer for the adventure and the money. Moonjun was, unbeknownst to either man, a very distant relative of Ilsung. Moonjun spoke Acehnese Korean, a dwindling dialect that sounded like incredibly archaic Jeolla dialect interspersed with foreign loanwords. Both spoke serviceable French, and thusly conversed in that tongue. Moonjun told Ilsung about Sunni Islam, and gave the man a French Koran. Ilsung would become devoted to the foreign faith, as did his earliest followers in the community. The Muslim laborers would make Islam a potent faith in the port cities of Joseon, and Ilsung would make that faith one for all the people.

It would be Allah that maintained Yim Ilsung in the war against the Russians and the Japanese. France and Borzeng's China were allies against the mighty Russians and their Chinese allies. Ilsung was part of the unlucky offensive that had to march into Chungcheong, and then attempt to take Gyeongsang before sailing to Kyushu, like the ancient Mongol invasions. The offensive was ill-planned, and the French were noticeably absent, having signed away most of their Korean protectorate to Borzeng's control in exchange for money and other concessions in Shandong (which Borzeng planned to buy back with war loot).

The Chinese forces had rushed ahead as Ilsung prayed to his God. Ilsung hoped he lived- he had not yet married, nor had he made the holy Hajj. Ilsung wanted to do both. He wanted to, in the name of his God, live and fight. He wanted to tear down the decrepit Joseon kings, and the French colonials, and the possibility of being ruled by Dung Borzeng. Ilsung's company was more disciplined, led by a French-educated Korean officer who had converted to Gallicanism. The officer was, in spite of his Christianity, a tolerant man, if a distant leader. The charismatic Ilsung spoke to his and other Korean companies, of God and liberation from colonialism and from the yoke of the monarchy. These ramblings were a mix of Islam, jumbled leftism, and ancient peasant nationalism and discontent.

The warfare was brutal. Shrapnel and shells decimated the ill-disciplined Chinese as the famously disciplined and religiously resolute Japanese forces tore through the conscripts of Borzeng. Eventually, it was only the Koreans left, and they were captured. Many of them died, although Ilsung was not among them. It was then that they were sent to the POW camp in the peninsula, the massive camp at Busan. Only Koreans were kept here- Chinese were sent to another, much worse camp, specializing in forced labor. Europeans were sent to a much smaller third camp, and the worst of the Europeans were sent north to the "tender" mercies of the Russians.

Ilsung was, even in the camp, allowed to preach. He did not resist the camp guards- indeed, he and many others blamed the French and Chinese for the impoverishment and future subjugation of their country. Ilsung's charismatic brand of Islam soon attracted followers, and other apostles to spread the faith. This Islam gave a common strength and thread to the prisoners. The originally small congregation of Muslims did the five daily prayers, and followed Muslim law. The POW congregation soon grew; by wars end, 60% of the POW camp survivors would be followers of Ilsung.

Ilsung first, however, met the Japanese man in charge of the camp- a man by the name of Ren Kiyoemon. Kiyoemon was, in fact, an incredibly distant relation. He was also a devout Orthodox Christian, and the second son of the head of the largest bank in Shiragi, Ren Hikozaemon.

The two discussed politics and theology, and Kiyoemon allowed them their worship in exchange for the peace being kept. Kiyoemon was a merciful man at heart, a man motivated by piety and kindness, even in war. This is not to say he was weak or a push-over, but neither was he a vengeful camp commander bent on breaking POWs.

After the war, Ilsung would learn Classical Koran Arabic, and would produce a detailed and accurate translation of the Koran into Korean. He moved back to the city of Pyongyang that had been the long-time home of his family before they became laborers near Inchon. There, he met the first of his four wives.

The Joseon monarchy had been maintained by the Russians, but only after the country had been divested of most of its money and a variety of other concessions. The Japanese counteroffensive out of Gyeongsang (Keishou) had been brutal and total in its aims, and the Japanese gladly threw out the Chinese occupiers in the rest of the country. The small Korean population, Buddhist and bitter, had been a fifth column, and all non-Christian Koreans were expelled. Most of these would disperse across the Southern Hemisphere as laborers of some kind.

The current king, Sukjong, had been ruling since the 1870s, and his long reign had been marked with stagnation, decline, and a reliance on the French. The Russians alleged that his successors had been killed by retreating Chinese troops (some were), but most of his successors and wider royal family was in fact kidnapped by Russian forces and quietly killed in a remote part of northwest Korea. Sukjong, by this time infirm, barely registered the deaths. He would die in 1923, and would be succeeded by his sole surviving son, Sado.

Sado was a cruel, maniacal sexual deviant, bent on ancient authoritarian rule and a bizarre concoction of ideological positions. His rule existed on popular support of the monarchy, the support of the nobility (which had gorged themselves with Borzeng's help on power and wealth), and the Buddhist priesthood. He also had support of parts of the armed forces, mainly the navy (where he had served for a time), and the old-fashioned units, mainly the older infantry battalions and the cavalry wing. The small, modernized part of the army had little political support at the time, but they did have ideas. Most of them were trained by the old French Republic, and many of them desired a secular republic to replace the King. They would wait.

During the first years of Sado, Ilsung and his Muslim comrades continued to preach Allah to the increasingly impoverished Korean people. Contrasted with the pro-regime Buddhist temples and the weakened Christians (most Korean Christians had fled when Borzeng intervened and "helped" Korea), the vigorous, virtuous and populist Muslims appealed to the people. Secret printing presses helped spread the Korean Koran, along with literacy programs enacted by the apostles of Ilsung. In 1929, Ilsung and his four wives, and their children, would make Hajj. This trip was not just religious- Sado did not exactly approve of the Muslims, their anti-regime ideas, or their actions in the countryside. Im Ilsung was just a few steps ahead of Sado's police.

Ilsung would return and continue preaching after four years of travel and study, having refined his theology in Mecca. Now called Dr. Im Ilsung Ismail El Hajj, Ilsung would build up his personality cult alongside his faith. New followers often bowed to a popular ikon of Ilsung with his four wives- and even though it was clear idolatry, Ilsung allowed it. It is during the 1930s that the myth of Ilsung being born on Mt. Baekdu during Eid under a double rainbow began...
 
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Readers-

I am planning to restart this TL under the same name or a similar name during my winter break. I find myself ambling aimlessly as I write, due to the lack of TL structure. I often find myself contradicting past updates as I write, something which any good TL writer wouldn't do. I still need to polish up my dialogue, seeing as I can write details about places, but cannot do dialogue very well.

Some of the bits of this TL will remain, in particular the updates pertaining to Portugal. My next TL, I hope, is more organized, without random flashes to the future. I will PM y'all when I post it. To the five-plus of you who read and commented, particularly Jonathan Edelstein, I give thanks. I know this TL wasn't the most popular, or the most read, but it was nice to get feedback. I hope to see the same in Greed Holds Court Part Two.

To lurkers: please comment! It is exceedingly hard to motivate one's self to write when so few people comment, even if those comments are substantive and encouraging on their own.

As for now, I will be working on both my actual work, and two side-TLs: An Alternate History of the Peloponnesian War, and a new TL dealing with a surviving Joseph Ferdinand, Prince of Asturias and an alternate Queen Anne's War.
 
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