Hadrian's Consolidation - reboot
- Thread starter Hecatee
- Start date
Thanks all for the feedback. As previously stated Ancient China is not my strong point so any mistake being pointed to me is good
I read that the Yellow River was navigable by ancient ships up to Luoyang. Don't forget that while the design of the Roman ships is new, they are still rather shallow draft ships, not junks or 15th century caravels... They are made to go close to the coast, even possibly beach. The "deep keel" mentioned should not fool anyone, they are deep in comparison with traditional Mediterranean building techniques, so I think they could go up to the capital.
As for the bow, I'll keep that question for a later update
Ah ok I was thinking that it was fairly deep keeled, but if it's just a big trireme or something it should be fairly navigable to Luoyang depending on the time of year.
Guessing that wouldn't do much good for relations with China though, I remember Justinian did that and it destroyed the Chinese and Persian silk monopolies. While I'd imagine that kicking Persia while it's down would be a good idea to keep them from having a threat again, stealing a key Chinese manufacturing secret at the first meeting would probably wreck any chance of good relations with them. Maybe a trade in knowledge could at least get them paper making though. I could have sworn that the problem of short supplies of writing material was holding back the Roman printing press that was discussed earlier.
Ohhh Yessss... The 2 most developed civilization of time finally meet for the first time. Awesome
More like two civilization-states. Keep in mind that there are other civilizations who would dispute the status of "most developed", it is just that those civilizations are not under one unified state.
Well I was trying to say that the 2 most developed civilization of The time.
Can't wait to see what Rome looks like on its 1000th anniversary, AD 247. Another milestone would be AD1453 of course, and by then I expect the tech to be at least comparable to what we have today.
Hecatee
Donor
Excellent question... I've not thought about it yet. In fact I've not looked further than Marcus Aurelius at this point, and would certainly skip a few reigns before I go back to the story, but the AD 247 date will certainly be a part of the story.
Currently I see the following main dynamics, that do cover a few centuries :
- Contact with China lead to a number of new ideas including some that help make Germania more profitable, especially thanks to the cultivation of hemp and some that help with navigation technology. But the era of discoveries will not use the usual ways...
- Contact with Rome causes a shock in China that leads to reforms and prevents the Eastern Han downfall, which mean stronger reaction against northern barbarians and new wave of developpement in China proper
- Steppe tribes (Huns, ...) are caught between hammer and anvil but get to escape the blow by going south in the middle : Parthia and India screw, major league
- Less pressure from the East means less Germanic barbarian cohesion and more Roman expansion in central Europe
- Elimination of the last free parts of Britannia
- Stronger roman influence in Hibernia but no conquest, creation of stronger states on the western coast thanks to trade with Britannia and earlier unification of the island
Of course I also need to throw some wrenches in the path of the Romans, they can't have it all go well, but in general I see the Pax Romana era last at least a century more than OTL, which means a lot more infrastructure in Europe and a much more solid population base
Rome could totally steal silkworms pretty soon with little consequence. The Han dynasty is about to collapse.
Oh wow that's quite a large time skip it will be interesting to see how much the empire will have changed by then considering how different it already is in just 3 reigns from the POD. I'm also intrigued by the thought of a heavily romanized Irish kingdom in ireland. Man there's so much to look forward to in this timeline keep up the good work. Lastly I'm a romanophile but I think for this story my soft spot is the bosporan kingdom so please don't forget about them and they're beautiful wall I'm wondering if the Roman's will build any great wall.
Edit: almost forgot to ask I swear this is my final question if the nomads invade India and Parthia then does that mean when they eventually assimilate Zoroastrianism and Hinduism will spread across central Asia instead of Islam iotl
I wonder if this new roman-han trade will help the Indonesian kingdoms as well. they will be in the center of a direct trade between the two superpowers of the world, and anyone controlling the straight of Malacca at this point can reap the enormous benefits from this - maybe an earlier Srivijaya-like kingdom sprouting from either side of the straights?
At this point in time I don't think there was any kingdom on the straits but yes whoever controls those straits will become very very rich very very quick
I'd say that if no kingdom controls the straights, one is going to form very quickly once people realize the heaps of wealth coming from that trade. we could see some mixed indian-roman-chinese-austronesian
state forming on the basis of this trade and flourishing, perhaps conquering java as well and becoming a fully fledged empire.
either that, or one of the main partners in this trade (probably china, although rome is much more open to conquests than them) will conquer the straights, and probably the spice islands as well.