l'Antarctique: A French Brazil TL
- Thread starter Kurd Gossemer
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Chapter 4: Many ongoings of Europe.
Portugal:
The defeat at the hands of France had proved to the crown as well as the court that while Portugal did indeed contain a mighty powerful empire in the seas, it was too much spread out and badly defended, enemies were constant and local populations weren't exactly fond of them either, therefore reform was necessary in order to avoid another power from taking over their hard earned territory, the Queen Regent Catherine assembled the Conselho Ultramarino (the organ responsible for overseeing the colonies), the former governors of Brazil, seasoned admirals and generals alongside important nobles and even bishops in order to redraw their whole strategy in the colonies and beyond.
Firstly, it would be the division of the administration of these territories since a place like Goa for instance oversaw not only the whole of India but also the East Indies as well as far as the outpost in Japan, it was clear that would no longer be viable and thus the Portuguese government divided the colonies as such:
Viceroyalty of Angola and the Viceroyalty of Mozambique: Both places would be overseen by different viceroys chosen by the crown initially but who could choose his successor based on whom he thought was capable although the crown(and only the crown) could choose to ignore the succession and select a viceroy themselves (this system would initially only be applied in Africa given it's relative closeness to Portugal and amount of white colonists in there but would later be expanded to the rest of the empire). The economy of the colony still mostly ran on selling slaves but the Portuguese took their knowledge of sugar growing as well as of other tropical fruits they had found in Brazil and began their own plantations in the place, using black slaves brought over from the other regions of Africa, the soil while not ideal for sugar was still good enough to have several fruits be planted and make a profit selling them in Europe as well as being useful to resist scurvy given the stop to eat oranges resulted in the disease amongst Portuguese sailors going to and from Africa drop severally, the connection was made quickly and oranges were soon to be planted on every major colony in order to supply sailors.
In the Viceroyalty of Mozambique it would also be extended it's authority[2] first by having both Mombasa captured by the Portuguese in order to stop any incursions by the local sultan and the establishment of a fort, meanwhile Zanzibar was going through a reversal of previous policy, Catholicism was aggressively pushed both by missionaries and an inquisition and any rebellions were brutally put down and survivors sent as slaves to other parts of the empire as well as the Americas, Christian slaves were brought over to work in extracting all sorts of spices from pepper to nutmegs, twin fortress named São José and Santa Maria were built on the two islands in order to serve as advanced posts in Africa and patrol the Indian and East African oceans. Furthermore, the Portuguese started exploring and mapping Madagascar, which they called São Lourenço and found a perfect natural harbor in what they decided to call Diogo Soares(OTL Antsiranana) and founded a city where it would be the other main Portuguese naval base in the East African oceans as well as a place to build ships, the Portuguese started a process of relations with the natives to supply wood and food while also bringing slaves in order to work in the first plantations of the island, alongside friars sent over to convert the locals and learn more about the island in the process.
An Small Detour to the lands of Prester John
The mythical lands of Abyssinia, once known as Axum and currently as the Kingdom of Prester John was seemingly a godsend to the Portuguese who found a receptive native old Christian power in an island of Moorish Muslims and that was exactly the problem, boxed in between the Mamluks and later on the Ottomans, not to mention Yemen as well as the Adel Sultanate that had often than not attempt to conquer the kingdom and while failing, did more and more to weaken it.
Portugal wanted to change that, having a strong friendly power in the region would be perfect for both profiting off the trade but also having an ally in the eternal war against the Ottomans out in the sea[3], although they didn't exactly dear themselves to anyone given their usual insistence in having the rulers and people convert to Catholicism [4] something that was a constant source of tension that prevented a fully formed alliance between them. Now however with the changes in attitudes and policies in the Conselho Ultramarino another approach was needed, mainly by the Portuguese arriving at the court of Emperor Gelawdewos and proposed a full alliance between them, where Portugal would teach them how to build firearms and cannons as well as training their army, in exchange all the Portuguese wanted was able to trade in the region alongside the building of a fortress alongside allowing catholic friars to come over and convert those who wanted to, something the emperor found agreeable and a partnership between the two was truly born with even ambassadors being exchanged.
This would be important in the two important events of Abyssinian history: the conquest of the Sultanate of Adal as well as the halting and successful conversion of the Oromo[5] people.
This also had another trend from the Omoro migration as under Meslé, they had reached as far as into the Abyssinian core territories however with the help of the Portuguese this would change too as the Euro-Afro troops battered Meslé forces again and again[6] with their settlements being destroyed and them forced to pay tribute to the emperor in the form of their newly acquired mules and horses[7] as well as allowing missionaries of the Orthodox to operate in the region and who slowly began to convert the people there. The Oromo wouldn't be dealt with permanently but Emperor Gelawdewos could take pride in having defeated them after having his kingdom threatened by them so much.
The alliance with Portugal proved extremely beneficial for Gelawdewos who destroyed some of his main rivals, subdued an raiding threat and more than doubled his empire in size, he would use the revenue from the trade for continued encouraging of missionaries as well as expanding commercial ties in India, the middle east and even southeast Asia. Alliances with Persia were also prepared since both had an enemy in the Ottomans and the production of gunpowder and weapons was going a great way in both modernizing his army as well as centralizing Imperial power in his hands, the Portuguese of course managed to get a bunch of slaves and essentially have a dual monopoly with Abyssinia of the Red Sea trade, something that would seriously damage Ottoman power in the region as well as creating another thorn they couldn't deal with since they had other more immediate enemies to deal with.
Abyssinian troops moving in to combat Oromo raiders. No whitewashing this time except on their clothing of course.
Viceroyalty of India and Viceroyalty of Ceilão: India was the original prize that the Portuguese always sought after, it's spices, it's riches, it's emperors were famous throughout the world and entire trade routes were centered around this colossus of culture and influence and the Portuguese wanted nothing more than to take that pie for themselves.
The Portuguese Empire in India, notice the use of natural harbors and rivers in order to control the best trading places.
Several changes were made in the way the Portuguese administered their regions, firstly they would start collecting taxes from the local villages as well as from the commerce itself, mainly by incentivizing private merchants and trading companies and by taxing them, having the transport of goods both in and out be made only by Portuguese ships, the military was also updated that in order to meet the requirements of guarding and defending the place, first by changing gear and training tactics in order to better deal with the climate of the region and the most important was the recruitment of local auxiliaries, therefore boosting the Portuguese garrison by a lot and allowing for better defenses of India.
Another very important aspect would've been the ending of the Goa Inquisition and the reversal of the Synod of Diamper that attempted to put the Catholic church above the local Syrian Rite Church that while indeed saw many converted it just led to a schism between the one who accepted and those who were against it, instead Catherine wanted to rally ALL Christians against "The Moorish Horde and the Pagans of the Indies", to that end, the Portuguese allowed and incentivized the local Syrian Church to continue converting of the locals as well as sending order after order like Dominicans, Franciscans, Jesuits, etc, in order to convert the local population, another very important aspect was that inspired by the French, the Portuguese implemented their own version although aimed against the Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims who would pay it, something that drove conversation rates as well.
The other important aspect would've been the decision of having Goa be the main seat of the empire in India, having control of all the outposts in the subcontinent and how they should operate as well as it being the main military seat of the fleet with the local fortress and harbors being expanded upon, this mixed in with the control of the Red Sea trade made the Ottomans very nervous about their secondary sea route being threatened by the Portuguese especially since they had been bottled up in the Red Sea already and were losing revenue there, something would have to be done.
Finally, the second major event would be the expansion of the empire in India as well as Ceylon, first an impressive fleet of over 40 ships were sent over alongside veteran troops to join alongside the recruited army of locals and capture both strategic ports as well as increase the areas of control of the already captured cities with the Sultanates of Gujerat, Ahmandagar and Bijapur alongside the Empire of Vijaya-Nagar all being targeted or at least, negotiated with since many of them did not exactly desire a war with the Portuguese given that the successive attempts of dislodging them out resulted in defeat, places like Somnath (which would be translated to Somata in the new Luso administration) were captured and giving more harbors for Portugal to control the trade of the Indian ocean, the Lusitanian control of the western sea of the subcontinent was nothing to laugh at and while the eastern part wasn't seen as much of a priority it was still highly valuable.
While Portuguese control of the island had been limited to the coasts and any influence they had was thanks to the conversion of the King Karalliyadde Banḍāra and his daughter Kusumasana Devi to Catholicism, the fact was that resistance to the Portuguese was a constant the Lusitanians realized should be cut in the bud already, they landed in already 1563 and began the subjugation of the island. Even with military might and the navy essentially putting the island inside a naval cage, the fight was very fierce as disease and local resistance did all it could to blunt the Portuguese assault but thankfully the use of both Indian as well slave soldiers from Africa (who would be freed after 5 years of service if they could survive)[8] was the major tipping point that allowed the Portuguese to exercise control over the land completely and subjugate it.
Sultan Alauddin al-Kahar woke up to a unpleasant morning when he saw and especially heard his capital of Kutaraja being bombarded at dawn by the massive Portuguese fleet that had previously and swiftly captured the island of Weh to use it as a advanced base, the sultan had previously attempted to get contact with the Ottoman empire in the hopes that they could form an alliance to expel the infidel Iberians, however with the Abyssinians now masters of the Red Sea [12] as well as increased Portuguese presence in the Indian Ocean, help would not be arriving neither now nor later, so while his navy knew the waters well and even had some cannons, they were unable to compete with the much larger and well armed navy of Portugal who's brutal bombardment of the capital had seen it being quickly occupied alongside the sultan and his family being captured in the palace, places like Paria Am and Padang alongside Muko Muko and Indrapura were conquered by the Portuguese navy that was blitzing as hard as it could in order to try and shut off the response of the Sultanate armed forces as fast as it could, the strategy was a success and thus the Sultanate was capitulated and brought under control of direct Portugal and would be part of the new Viceroyalty of Gutão (a Portuguese pronunciation of the capital's name), where the capital of Kutaraja became the sit of a "fortress city", where the locals were forced to build a massive fort by the name of São Cosme, where it would be another "main entryway", key cities that Portugal would use as strongholds against attacks and tax and control all trade of the region.
The next target would be the Sultanate of Johor, already an long time enemy when Portugal had destroyed the Sultanate of Malacca and the son of the deposed sultan founded it, for years there had been a back and forth between the two, with the Portuguese wanting to stay in and Johor wanting them out, while a peace treaty had been signed with the founding Sultan Alauddin Riayat Shah II, it seemed now that nothing would stop the Portuguese greed other than full conquest.
The Johor Sultanate was dismembered, with the Sumatra lands like the Karimun islands, the islands of Bintan, Bulang, Lingga and Bunguran, and Bengkalis, Kampar and Siak all going to the administration in the Viceroyalty of Gutão while the rest would be administered by Malaca, although a fun fact would be that the Portuguese would find the island of Singapura , as the locals called it, to be a much better place for defense as well as overlooking their new conquests in the region and overseeing trade, so they built another massive fortress by the name of Fort São Domingos in the island of the now named Cingapura[14] and for all intents and purposes became the new capital, although Malaca was in theory still relevant because of the new forced redirected trade, it was clear it would never outshine the new capital.
While these conquests had been impressive, the Portuguese needed time to assimilate and digest such conquests before they could go into the offensive against their last target in the Sultanate of Demak, so they built their infrastructure, they restocked and gunpowder and more importantly they trained new armies, mainly to stay behind and guard the new conquests while the veterans would be used for the attack on Demak itself, however events on the island would force action by the Portuguese.
The Banten and Demak Sultanates, control of their coasts gave access to yet another critical trading point as well as the fertile lands to plant all sorts of spices.
Control of the whole coast makes the Portuguese built a new capital on the city of Jakarta, building the fort São Jorge and renaming the city to Japarta (which saw many would be funny Portuguese sailors and soldiers always asking the garrison there if they had left already, a terrible pun based on the new name for the city which sounds like "go already" in Portuguese), the Viceroyalty of Japarta is the last military expansion the maritime empire of Portugal would do for a very long time.
With the new parts of the East Indies already added to the their control of Timor and the Moluccas alongside their trading presence in Borneo and Sulawesi (states who saw their share of refugees from the other realms that soured their opinion of the Portuguese although they didn't want to be conquered so they didn't risk a war, never mind Portugal would spend several decades digesting these conquests and would be in no position to try given how already overstretched they were), Portugal essentially had the spice islands region under their command, initially only under the coast that would've see them being raided by kingdoms of the interior as well as the occasional revolt, the Portuguese would fully subvert the local way of administering things and turn the islands into the most profitable but deadliest spice and sugar production in the world.
Firstly, farmers would be forced under the same system of planting stuff like clover, nutmegs, peppers, maces, cinnamon, ginger, etc, except unlike the farmers from Ceilão who only needed to do it of a third of their plantation, the Portuguese forced them to do a full two thirds of their productive lands given how well it grew spices, attempts to revolt(which were many) saw the farmers and their families dispossessed and sold into slavery to faraway parts of the Portuguese empire like India and Africa and their lands taken over by "homens bons" from Portugal who would bring in mass African slaves to work in the plantations of not only spices but also sugar(where many locals were forced to work in as well) and the harvesting of tropical fruits like oranges that were important to combating scurvy in the Portuguese navy.
The ethnic makeup of the island was also changed as the several deaths from the war and hunger saw the Portuguese bringing in thousands of African slaves to work in the plantations alongside many Indian and slave African soldiers who were offered their own plots of lands as reward for their services, not too dissimilar with what the Spanish did with the Conquistadores, as well as whites from the metropole coming in to settle and traders from China, Japan and even Dai Viet came in order to take advantage of the new order, many of the native women married(mainly by force and treated as “war conquests” by many soldiers) to the arriving men, which quickly muddled up the genetic pool even further and saw the rise of mixed race individuals that with their mixed cultural background would alter the culture of the region entirely.
Finally, in the very far East, Portugal decided to expand and change some of the ways they would operate in the region, especially when it came to trade and religion.
In the trading aspects, the Portuguese started to increase the amount of products they were importing into those countries from sugar made from all over the empire, spices from their new plantations in Zanzibar, Ceilão and the East Indies as well as more miscellaneous items like muskets and cannons, in particular to the Japanese in the warring states period, while their exports of silk, porcelain, silver and copper(Japan had a lot of those two) and other trinkets from Japan and China would be sold at a high price at not only in Europe, but also in Africa, in India, in the East Indies, realizing they could make even more money by making trade flow between their colonies.
In order to sail around that issue, the Portuguese founded fort Nossa Senhora da Aparecida in Formosa island, mainly serving as a docking station and resupply station, the island is filled with mosquitoes and malaria carrying insects that decimate the European troops stationed there, so the Viceroyalty in Macau decides to instead have it under the slave soldiers who also cultivate the land and man the fort, with them being rewarded with their own land after a full year of service. The Portuguese don't throw themselves into conflict with the natives that are curious about these strangers, mainly focusing on trading with them for food and of course, sending catholic missionaries to try and convert them, to little success.
An final interesting thing to notice is Portugal selling their conquests in Hormuz and Muscat and in the coast of Eastern Arabia in general to the Persians, not only because the constant conflicts between them had essentially killed any trade in the region but also because they needed to fund all their conquests and reforms somehow, in return, they would get some trading rights in the region as well as train the Persian army so it could better stand up to the Ottomans the Portuguese hoped to weaken.
All these reforms and changes to the administration while very expensive (Portugal took several loans from many banks and Queen Regent Catherine even sold many of her jewels in order to help finance it) the returns were worth all the trouble, crates upon crates of spices, sugar and "exotic items" all came to Portuguese harbors were they went through customs duties and properly taxes, before being sold throughout all of Europe by Portuguese ships. The introduction of sugar especially was responsible for driving down prices slightly given it still took a full year to arrive and customers just preferred buying it from French Brazil in many cases, however it would still accelerate the diversification of the colony's economy further [18].
With these more flexible changes, Portugal stands atop of their massive empire, one where the money never stops flowing and the blood never runs dry…
Spain
If one took one look at Spain, they would’ve recognized it as the main empire and indeed the most powerful nation in Europe and arguably on this side of the world. It’s armies had bested the Ottomans, the Barbary Pirates, the Moriscos, the French, the Italians and the Germans, it’s bloodline controlling the True Successor to the Roman Empire in the HRE, it took only a few of their clever Conquistadores in order to topple the two most powerful empires there had been in the Americas so far and replace them with their own rule, that stretched from the deserts of Patagonia towards the mountains in California, ships pregnant with silver and gold unlocked in Seville or went towards Manila in their expanding colony to trade directly with the most revered empire on the planet, Plus Ultra “Go Beyond”, the perfect motto for an revered empire who had acquired so much in but a few decades, with Charles V being the closest thing to a new Charlemagne that Europe had seen.
The Spanish Empire in it's extent at the height of Filipe/Phillip II's reign. Not pictured the Netherland because they were revolting.
But behind this massive imponent Pyramid who looked indestructible and magnificent from a far, it didn’t take too many steps to see the erosion and cracks showing up in the structure: the armies of Spain, the dreaded Tercios and especially it’s army of Flanders were the most feared units in Europe and beyond, yet it’s soldiers often went weeks without pay and most were not even Spanish given the actual negative growth Spain was going through thanks to a mixture of exceedingly high taxes to fund wars and even plagues that had hit the country, the heavy amounts of silver and gold only caused inflation and more often than not, ended up inside the vaults from the banks that Spain owned money too(and they always were owing money) and Spain was often having to trade with its neighbors to import manufactures that it needed in detriment to its own industries, the territories it administered were very unequal in their treatment: The Crown of Castile was essentially the center of power where the high positions usually went to yet the people were poor and suffering badly from the high taxation, the Crown of Aragon was extremely resistant to ANY attempts at taxing them more as well as messing with their individual rights, the Crown of Naples and the Italian territories in general were devastated after decades of war with France and whatever richness remained was in the hands of bankers who were the ones holding much of the Spanish debt or in the Papal States(who themselves had been ransacked by Spanish troops who had went unpaid, showing that this trouble had been present even in the times of Charles V) and the very much valued Burgundian Inheritance, won with blood and diplomacy by Maximillian Habsburg and passed down to the Spanish Branch in the desires of Charles V, it was an extremely wealthy region in general thanks to it’s guilds and cities and trades as well as a center of proto industrialism given it’s wool weavers, it had nevertheless been slowly chipped away by France as well as being the target of constant increased taxes in order to pay for continued Spanish supremacy alongside a rise of Calvinism in the population that led to a iconoclastic fury in Flanders and a repressive government against it that only solidified the antagonism the population was feeling against the Spaniards, not to mention the loss of being the distributors of sugar in Europe after Brazil had fallen to the French and were in control of production, refinement and distribution into Europe and beyond, making the already tax paying merchants and cities even poorer, resulting in a revolt from the Calvinists in 1566, all the while the French thanks to all the money they were gaining in Brazil[20] were expanding their navy and modernizing their army and looking hungerly at the Netherlands while the Ottoman fleet seemed to grow by the day, especially with that fearsome admiral Barbarossa in charge and even the protestants in Germany and Scandinavia were looking to tear apart the HRE for their own gains, it seemed that all it would take was one good rock throw for the whole rotten structure to come crashing down.
Yet Spain wouldn’t just take this lying down, the country was in bankruptcy sure but the fearsome armies would still be deployed, the navy still ready to defend the many kingdoms and Filipe II still ready to defend The Faith and his people from Moors, Heretics, Traitors and Perfidious Frenchmen. In the Netherlands, while Wilhelm of Orange was undoubtedly a good leader and commander, facing off against the Tercios proved difficult and more often than not with the retreat of the army, the Spanish Road leading the troops from Castile to Italy and Germany and arriving with reinforcements, the current Pope Pius V was able to form a Holy League made up of several Italian states and Spain in order to curtail Ottoman ambitions to turn the Mediterranean into a Moorish Mare Nostrum. Even in the far east in Asia, the Spanish troops bolstered by the Portuguese conquests of the East Indies did renewed assaults at the lower edge of the peninsula against the Muslim Moro people, finally bringing the Philippines under full control of Madrid [21] who of course started their own version of the Ceilão inquisition in order to bring Catholic orthodoxy to the islands.
While Phillip was preparing for war, he needed to consider which targets were ideal since the French victory at St. Quentin and Gravelines had seen Spanish assaults blunted and while Genoa was able to be freed from French grasp, Savoy would remain in the French orbit as well as Phillip having to rest his ambitions of having a French territory both to attack the country more effectively as well as to better supply his troops in the Netherlands, France was too much of a growing beast and attacking them now was a road to disaster, therefore the Spanish focused on fighting the Dutch heretics and more importantly on the sea against the Ottomans.
Meanwhile at sea against the Ottomans the results were mixed as during the Battle of Lepanto [23] both fleets were battered enough against one another that neither side could claim victory over the other as neither could get a clear victory over the other, yet it was a moral and technical victory over the Ottomans as they were contained to the eastern Mediterranean, shattered the myth of "Ottoman Invincibility" and could no longer raid into Italy and Iberia again, the establishment of better shipyards in Venice, Naples and Malta were to serve as advanced posts in order to act as further bulwarks against Ottoman attempts at expanding, despite this, the battle over the Mediterranean would be far from over and would be another factor that kept Spain tied up investing into their navy to keep the Ottomans at bay, which would keep straining their finances further.
England and Scotland
On the rainy northern island, things seemed to be almost ideal compared to tensions and outright wars raging on the continent, sure the Catholics in the country and Ireland were still irate over the fact a Protestant sat on the throne, or that despite the loss of Calais and the burial of English continental ambitions relations with France remained frosty especially as the French debt disappeared and their fleet grew both in number and experience, Spain itself was a dangerous enemy given Philip II's ambitions of having his daughter in the throne and bringing back Catholicism via whatever means necessary and while the English navy was very formidable, the Spanish Tercios were feared for a reason and should they land on the country it would've been a disaster for Elizabeth I and her ministers.
Okay, so maybe things weren't that peachy but they were trying.
On Scotland meanwhile, the thought of a Valois ruling them wasn't exactly unpopular, maybe controversial given the tension between Catholics and Protestants (especially the Presbyterians) but the majority of the population seemed ready to a have a new dynasty ruling over them, the merchants and lords of all religions imagined all the opportunities being either in personal union or at least ruled by the same royal family would have, from Scottish merchants being able to enter the lucrative sugar trade towards the nobles who would want French defense and a continuation of the Auld Alliance, not to mention that while Henry II's policy was divisive to say the least, it did brought up the question if some sort of similar toleration couldn't be achieved, Mary wasn't exactly tolerant but whatever heir came would either grow up in Scotland or would be accepting of some sort of toleration given the example in France, either way, the Scots had much to win.
In Ireland too the news were well received as many hoped that a French monarch would either make Britain catholic again or at the very least, stop the religious oppression going against them in their own island, not only that but those merchants from cities like Cork, Dublin and Ulster also wanted access to the French market, especially with its luxury and colonial goods as being able to trade directly with the source would've been more profitable not to mention the best chance at making contacts.
The most important one however, was her giving authorization for English corsairs to act not only against Spanish America but also French Brazil, resulting in Francis Drake to capture and loot Olinda[26] before being driven off by the irate Frenchman with his ships filled with sugar and tobacco which give the coffers quite the filling, most importantly however would end up be the mapping of the coasts of America and especially the Caribbean, Elizabeth knew the French and to a lesser extent, the Portuguese were making a good profit for themselves and their states if she could secure a colony for England, she would have the same amount of wealth flowing in as well as weakening Spanish power in the region and having a better base for Corsair activities in the region.
Many targets were looked after: Cuba was dismissed as too populated and well guarded to be captured safely, Puerto Rico and Santiago while having smaller populations were deemed as too small and therefore as easy to lose as it was to obtain, the other small islands dismissed for the same reason.
Santo Domingo with it's population mixed from the broken racial castes after the economic downturn the island was going through did not particularly resist the invaders despite them being weary of these heretic Englishmen, the garrison guardian the fort in the capital simply weren't prepared for an invasion and as soon as their fort was bombarded by Drake, they decided to surrender instead of fighting a war where they knew reinforcements wouldn't come, they were allowed safe passage back to England where they would be repatriated towards Spain if they so desired, the Corsair commander meanwhile set about rebuilding the fort and naming it Fort Avalon in homage to a land he saw as beautiful as the mythical land of the fairies.
Now to deal with the local population and more importantly, the maroon community [27] made up of runaway slaves, Drake's first assurance was that slavery would not be imposed on the original inhabitants of the island nor would discrimination based on the Spanish racial caste would be imposed on them either, plus they would be free to exercise their religion as the colony was intended to have both Catholics and Protestants live in peace. The population wasn't exactly jumping in happiness and the maroons were still distrusting and didn't offer any token of friendship but they didn't start rebelling nor attacking the troops so it was seen as a victory by Drake. He proceeded to secure the other half of the island and built another fort in the island of Tortuga he called fort Elizabeth in homage to his sovereign, he left a trusted subordinate in charge and left for England where he was received for his success. Elizabeth decided to name the colony Sipang, in reference to how when Columbus had landed there he had thought he reached Cipangu (or as we know it now, Japan) and soon the first flood of colonists(many Catholics, especially Irish who wanted to flee from oppression) came there to inhabitant the land, due to the fact the sugar producing wouldn't start for another 2 years to be fully online, they soon started mixing and marrying with the mostly mulatto and freedman population, creating already a different racial mixture in the island who grew up speaking Spanish as well as English, the more adventurous ones found themselves living with maroons in the harsh interior of the island, the introduction of potatoes as well as the presence of yellow fever that was particularly devastating to Europeans soon made the mixed and black population from those islands flourish, resulting that they would be the reluctantly loyal subjects of Queen Elizabeth.
Another final important aspect of British colonial action was the establishment of the Gold Coast Company in London where the British established a presence in Africa, they built the fort St. George in West Africa (OTL the border between Ghana and Cote D'Ivoire) and soon like the Portuguese and the French would start trading and profiting from the slave selling towards their colony but for now, it was just a trading post where they would exchange guns, drinks and some other items for gold and ivory.
Denmark-Norway
Denmark had once been the dominant kingdom in northern Europe through its control of the whole of Scandinavia as well as Baltic trade monopoly, sure it had to contend with the likes of the Hanseatic League and the realities of ruling a big territory in a time where nobles weren't still fully subdued but they manage to hold the line.
That was until Sweden broke away in 1521 and went on to do their own thing, weakening the Danish position especially in the trade aspect of managing the Baltics where Sweden seemed busy collecting lands in Eastern Europe and Germany, thus coming in conflict with Poland-Lithuania and therefore gaining the alliance of Denmark (as well as Lübeck) that in the Northern Seven Years War saw both realms ganging up on Sweden, Lübeck and Poland-Lithuania because they felt threatened by Swedish expansion and Denmark who wished to absorb it's "runaway province".
The war didn't amount to much outside of battering both armies and draining their treasuries as well as further dividing the two nations and deepening the hatred between them.
More importantly too, he built better relationships with neighbors like Poland and Russia (both for trade reasons and because they wanted to expand on Swedish turf) as well as countries like France and England (again for trade reasons and because they were against the Habsburgs which would allow for Danish expansion into the HRE, the latter one gave fruit when one of ministers gave an idea for a small deal with France.
After the expeditions towards North America that had failed to produce a direct path towards India, it had been mostly forgotten with the exception of preachers and traders of fur, barely settled with only Arcadia(OTL Newfoundland and the Maritime Provinces) having a decent population made up of Breton fishermen but was now being better settled alongside the region near it's south due to the fact the choppy cold waters meant it was the perfect place to train sailors and the navy as well as catching cod.
The proposition was simple: Denmark would settle the St. Lawrence river valley and get it as a colony, French traders of fur would still be allowed in the region but the missionaries would have to leave and in return Denmark would guard France's Arcadia and settled land would be done in their favor, France would also make the Danes the main supplier of sugar in the Baltics via getting a share of the profit in the form of a transportation tax. The regency of Catherine de Medici accepted and soon recalled the missionaries in North America and sent them to Brazil.
Sweden
Under Danish domination for nearly two centuries, Sweden managed to win its independence after a long great struggle against their Copenhagen rulers, led by Gustav Erikson, who converted to Lutheranism and seized church property, which greatly increased his wealth and power and ultimately ended with him managing to keep his independence despite repeated Danish actions to reverse it.
Currently under the king Johan/John III, the Swedish monarch is busy with the war against Russia as well as rebuilding his realm after the war against Denmark, under the peace of Stettin that sees no major changes of territory and essentially made the last war a waste of money and men.
Another factor John was worried for was colonial expansion, he was not blind to immense profits the French were making with their sugar nor to the Portuguese expansions into Asia or the English conquest of Santo Domingo and more recently, the Danes establishing themselves in North America, this could not stand, John knew Sweden would be powerful but it could not compete with the population of Poland-Lithuania or Russia but it could however be richer than them and use that for their advantage.
It was with this that he founded the kontor för koloniala angelägenheter(office for colonial affairs) in order to organize three colonial expeditions in order to establish a Swedish presence in key economic areas of the world, first one after a small settlement of negotiations with England that would not intervene in their establishment, sees the Swedish navy invade the island of Santiago and name it Lilla Krim (later shortened to Krilla) the "little Crimea" as the warm waters reminded the swedish settlers of the peninsula, a fortress named St. John is built and thanks to the negotiations with England, the slaves that will work on the sugar plantations in the island are supplied by the Gold Coast Company for the next 10 years, which will allow for the island to start making money.
The second establishment was in North America and this was done in a similar agreement with France that they had done with Denmark, essentially the border is set up at OTL Saco river where the north of it belongs to France and everything bellow goes to Sweden, the French colonists in the region would be allowed to hunt for fur as well as help supply the Swedish colonists with cod. The first 200 settlers set up Johansen (OTL Portsmouth NH) and there started both farming as well as hunting and doing exchanges with the local tribes, a small fort named Erickson is set up to defend the colonists, much like Vestland, it would grow quickly given it's natural population growth and "healthy airs" that allowed for the population to keep alive in the now dubbed Nya Sverige, unlike Krilla that was seeing a drainage of swamps in order to make it inhabitable and yellow fever decimating the colonists meant they were constantly sending new people.
The final step would see an establishment in the southern tip of Africa, this was also done with French help as the 500 colonists as well as soldiers were first to make a stop at Henriville (where they managed to recruit some disgruntled Huguenots on the way, swelling up the party to 800 people) and refuel there, taking care to not get too close to Portuguese colonies, they set up themselves in a incredible natural harbor they call Stenigtland(OTL St. John Port) due to rocky formations in the bay, a fort named St. Magnus is built to protect the settlement where animal raising and farming is done and more importantly, it would serve as a gateway to India where the Swedes would explore the waters and see what better place there would be in order to avoid the Portuguese presence in India so they can establish themselves there.
A side result of this colonial expeditions is that the Swedish coffers are depleted once again and King John enters negotiations with Tsar Ivan the Terrible about leaving the Livonian war[29], something the Russians are eager to take, via the treaty of Kalmar, the status quo ante bellum is held up and a peace of 20 years is established, Sweden and Russia agree to trade agreements between one another (like Swedish iron for Russian wood, a necessity given the Swedish plans for their colonies), with this, John can go back to rebuilding finances and strengthening the realm.
Via the treaty of Riga its stated that:
To the Russians, it's a major victory that sees both the keeping of the Baltic province(as well as its expansion into the important city of Riga) and annexation of territory. Tsar Ivan continues incentivizing of trade in the Baltic (especially with Sweden, Denmark and northern Germany) as well as strengthening of the army in preparation for the eventual Polish response, the reparations money is also used to further upgrade defenses in the Baltics territories and conquered regions, Russia is quickly rising up to becoming THE major player in Eastern Europe and only time will tell if the Russian star will scorch it's neighbors or if it will be snuffed out before it can shine too brightly.
Because this chapter wasn't long or took too long to come out! Not at all!
Seriously though, I promise and try to keep chapters shorter because I don't want to deviate too much from the main premise nor do I want to force my readers to read blocks of text.
I will also slow down on production of this a bit because my exams week will start in the next weeks already and I need to study for them, not to mention I have assignments to do afterwards so I'll be plenty busy, but you can enjoy this last chapter of filler before it all and we get back at the main juicy bits of the story.
Footnotes and they're pretty long this time too:
[1]: Yes, that means the Portuguese are settling into OTL Namibia where it will mainly supply fish and cattle for Angola and Mozambique, it's small for now but will grow naturally soon enough
[2]: Another thing that changes as the Portuguese administration was really centralized in their colonies in only a few places which led to bad administration that took long for messages and orders to be relayed and implanted, with a notorious example being Goa administering fucking Macau, obviously this is changed here allowing for a more dynamic control.
[3]: true from OTL where the Ottomans sent several fleets towards the Red and Indian oceans in order to try and curb Portuguese influence in the region, both for the reason of helping their Muslim brethren that was chafing under Lusitan control as well as ensuring that those trade routes where only controlled by them, they failed of course, both OTL and ITTL.
[4]: a pretty big point of tension between the Abyssinians and Portuguese that prevented them from fully allying together with one another was the latter's insistence at having the local Ethiopian Coptic Orthodox Church (which totally wasn't at least as old as the Roman one and just as prestigious) submit or at the very least be sidestepped by the Catholic one, here with Queen Regent Catherine of Austria in charge and her wanting to have a standing ally against the Ottomans, she orders the attempts at converting the country to be made willingly instead of as a demand, meaning the relationship between the two realms is much healthier.
[5]: OTL the Omoro people were converted to Islam both via traders as well as the fact they settled in Somalia and thus were adapted to the main religion of the place, here with them being stopped for now as well as Abyssinia controlling the whole of the Horn of Africa means that the Orthodox and Catholic missionaries are the ones responsible for converting them.
[6]: The Oromo migrations of OTL still happen but this they're much more shifted towards northern eastern Africa and unable to penetrate the Ethiopian Highlands, with them being majority Christian this will have some changes to the ethnic and religious make up of the region.
[7]: One big advantage the Omoro had against the Abyssinians and Somalis peoples was their use of horses and mules that allowed for Lightning attacks against settlements and troops. Here with their horses and mules being taken away as monthly tribute means that not only do their capacity for raiding gets worse but also that the Abyssinian troops themselves can start their own cavalry units and use mules for supply lines, couple that with homemade gunpowder and firearms production means that neither the Egyptians or Ottomans will be able to push them aside so easily.
[8]: A pretty big important aspect on the development of the way the Portuguese will approach their colonial subjects and what it means to be Portuguese in the greater context of the Empire.
[9]: Again, mostly made up of blacks and Indian soldiers that can better resist the heat and local diseases and in the case of the latter, some knowledge about the land that will prove useful on how to deal with issues.
[10]: One of the biggest factors to why Portugal wasn't able to contend with the many assaults against their positions in the East Indies as they only used white Portuguese soldiers who would've taken months to arrive there and would've been exhausted from the trip, not to mention the question of the tropical diseases and the heat those troops simply weren't used to. Here seeing their effectiveness during the conquest of Ceilão, the high command will be making extensive use of them in the colonial regions as well as at home if the situation calls for it.
[11]: Here Martim lives a bit longer and just so he can lead the conquest of the East Indies, alongside him are other former governors and military men from the colony who are out of jobs and Portugal decides to put their experience fighting in jungles and with tropical environment to good use.
[12]: Another major deviation from OTL, with Portuguese ships as well as Abyssinian ones prowling in the region, the Ottomans have pretty much lost the Red Sea and any control over it.
[13]: True from OTL as both realms attempted to expand against one another and just ended up exhausting each other, something that will prove fatal ITTL.
[14]: Very original I know
[15]: Because Sebastian is alive and well here, he continues being a Cardinal and leading the Portuguese faction in the Vatican.
[16]: something that will have a effect on how certain places are approached by missionaries and how that version of Christianity develops there.
[17]: Yes, this will affect the Sengoku Jidai.
[18]: Will be touched in the next update.
[19]: A major change from otl where he imagined himself as a modern day crusader and got himself and his top brass killed sieging a town that had little to no value. Here he will be focused on running the empire but is still a very devout Christian as well as zealous given what is going on in the East Indies and Ceilão
[20]: Man who knew diversifying your economy would give such tidy profits right?
[21]: Has the result of Spain controlling the whole of Philippines which will affect how the island develops.
[22]: True from OTL and shows just how much of indebt the Habsburgs were even then, people give a lot of flak to the Spanish branch for having squandered the empire and there's some merit to that, but Charles V was really the one that gave his descendants a massive list of payments that he had accumulated defending his hideously bloated and far flung empire, something that will be dealt with but still cause a lot of grief for Spanish monarchs as times goes on, especially with France looming so large.
[23]: Another major deviation as it means that instead of decisively defeating the Ottomans, they just blunted them and both share control of the Mediterranean, meaning that Spain will still have to contend with them at seas which will drive money away from fighting a certain rebellion in the Low Countries. A thing to notice too is that the French admiral was watching the whole thing unfold and has made his own notes about it….
[24]: I could make a joke here about coming and going but I'll just restrict myself to saying that this is obviously a huge pod that while essentially putting France in a regency soon enough, will still mean that the royal line is very much secure
[25]: Yes, this means a small British presence in southern India that will mean a source of conflict with other powers later on.
[26]: Will be explored in the next update.
[27]: One of the main reasons Spain failed and eventually abandoned Santo Domingo since the Maroons just raided enough to the point only the coastal areas were safe.
[28]: Recent analysis of Erick's skeleton revealed that he died of arsenic poisoning.
[29]: Something that will have huge impact on Russia's position and power on the Baltics as well as of its neighbors
[30]: He still rises to the throne ITTL but he won't be remembered as a great hero who defeated Russia and pushed them out of the Baltics, at least, not now...
The defeat at the hands of France had proved to the crown as well as the court that while Portugal did indeed contain a mighty powerful empire in the seas, it was too much spread out and badly defended, enemies were constant and local populations weren't exactly fond of them either, therefore reform was necessary in order to avoid another power from taking over their hard earned territory, the Queen Regent Catherine assembled the Conselho Ultramarino (the organ responsible for overseeing the colonies), the former governors of Brazil, seasoned admirals and generals alongside important nobles and even bishops in order to redraw their whole strategy in the colonies and beyond.
Firstly, it would be the division of the administration of these territories since a place like Goa for instance oversaw not only the whole of India but also the East Indies as well as far as the outpost in Japan, it was clear that would no longer be viable and thus the Portuguese government divided the colonies as such:
Viceroyalty of Angola and the Viceroyalty of Mozambique: Both places would be overseen by different viceroys chosen by the crown initially but who could choose his successor based on whom he thought was capable although the crown(and only the crown) could choose to ignore the succession and select a viceroy themselves (this system would initially only be applied in Africa given it's relative closeness to Portugal and amount of white colonists in there but would later be expanded to the rest of the empire). The economy of the colony still mostly ran on selling slaves but the Portuguese took their knowledge of sugar growing as well as of other tropical fruits they had found in Brazil and began their own plantations in the place, using black slaves brought over from the other regions of Africa, the soil while not ideal for sugar was still good enough to have several fruits be planted and make a profit selling them in Europe as well as being useful to resist scurvy given the stop to eat oranges resulted in the disease amongst Portuguese sailors going to and from Africa drop severally, the connection was made quickly and oranges were soon to be planted on every major colony in order to supply sailors.
Another important aspect is that, deciding having a better pathway to India was needed, the Portuguese founded the fort Santa Catarina(OTL Walvis Bay)[1] and thanks to the abundance of fish as well as whales, was soon to be settled by fisherman who would grow food and catch fish in order to supply both the colony as well as the navy and merchant ships heading to Asia, nobody knew it yet but this would be the beginning of a bigger impact in the African continent on the long run.
In the Viceroyalty of Mozambique it would also be extended it's authority[2] first by having both Mombasa captured by the Portuguese in order to stop any incursions by the local sultan and the establishment of a fort, meanwhile Zanzibar was going through a reversal of previous policy, Catholicism was aggressively pushed both by missionaries and an inquisition and any rebellions were brutally put down and survivors sent as slaves to other parts of the empire as well as the Americas, Christian slaves were brought over to work in extracting all sorts of spices from pepper to nutmegs, twin fortress named São José and Santa Maria were built on the two islands in order to serve as advanced posts in Africa and patrol the Indian and East African oceans. Furthermore, the Portuguese started exploring and mapping Madagascar, which they called São Lourenço and found a perfect natural harbor in what they decided to call Diogo Soares(OTL Antsiranana) and founded a city where it would be the other main Portuguese naval base in the East African oceans as well as a place to build ships, the Portuguese started a process of relations with the natives to supply wood and food while also bringing slaves in order to work in the first plantations of the island, alongside friars sent over to convert the locals and learn more about the island in the process.
An Small Detour to the lands of Prester John
The mythical lands of Abyssinia, once known as Axum and currently as the Kingdom of Prester John was seemingly a godsend to the Portuguese who found a receptive native old Christian power in an island of Moorish Muslims and that was exactly the problem, boxed in between the Mamluks and later on the Ottomans, not to mention Yemen as well as the Adel Sultanate that had often than not attempt to conquer the kingdom and while failing, did more and more to weaken it.
Portugal wanted to change that, having a strong friendly power in the region would be perfect for both profiting off the trade but also having an ally in the eternal war against the Ottomans out in the sea[3], although they didn't exactly dear themselves to anyone given their usual insistence in having the rulers and people convert to Catholicism [4] something that was a constant source of tension that prevented a fully formed alliance between them. Now however with the changes in attitudes and policies in the Conselho Ultramarino another approach was needed, mainly by the Portuguese arriving at the court of Emperor Gelawdewos and proposed a full alliance between them, where Portugal would teach them how to build firearms and cannons as well as training their army, in exchange all the Portuguese wanted was able to trade in the region alongside the building of a fortress alongside allowing catholic friars to come over and convert those who wanted to, something the emperor found agreeable and a partnership between the two was truly born with even ambassadors being exchanged.
This would be important in the two important events of Abyssinian history: the conquest of the Sultanate of Adal as well as the halting and successful conversion of the Oromo[5] people.
The first one was done with complete Portuguese support as a fleet of 20 ships alongside 2000 troops were sent to aid Emperor Gelawdewos as he led an massive attack with his warriors and auxiliary lusitanian troops to overwhelm the weakened Sultanate, the one who had been first in line to suffer from the Oromo migrating and raiding, meaning that the already crumbling Sultanate was swept away by the Christian army with the Sultanate of Dankali falling next in line, it essentially meant Abyssinian control of the Red Sea trade and the Horn of Africa which basically meant it was also under Portuguese control where they would build a naval base and fortress called Bom Senhor Jesus in the tightest spot between the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean while their Abyssinian allies would help them supply the fortress as well as to Christianize many of the locals in the newly conquered territories or in the case of the more greedy Portuguese, take away many of those from the Horn of Africa as slaves to be sold throughout the empire, something that upset the emperor but the Portuguese assured him they would not enslave any of his subjects and were just "taking their war's due", this enslavement combined with the victory meant many of the people left, either for Egypt of Yemen and much like the moriscos would become pirates, harassing ships in the region and having a understandable hatred against the Portuguese in particular.
An anachronistic painting showing the slaying of the Sultan by the Luso and Abyssinian, all of whom were white of course.
An anachronistic painting showing the slaying of the Sultan by the Luso and Abyssinian, all of whom were white of course.
This also had another trend from the Omoro migration as under Meslé, they had reached as far as into the Abyssinian core territories however with the help of the Portuguese this would change too as the Euro-Afro troops battered Meslé forces again and again[6] with their settlements being destroyed and them forced to pay tribute to the emperor in the form of their newly acquired mules and horses[7] as well as allowing missionaries of the Orthodox to operate in the region and who slowly began to convert the people there. The Oromo wouldn't be dealt with permanently but Emperor Gelawdewos could take pride in having defeated them after having his kingdom threatened by them so much.
The alliance with Portugal proved extremely beneficial for Gelawdewos who destroyed some of his main rivals, subdued an raiding threat and more than doubled his empire in size, he would use the revenue from the trade for continued encouraging of missionaries as well as expanding commercial ties in India, the middle east and even southeast Asia. Alliances with Persia were also prepared since both had an enemy in the Ottomans and the production of gunpowder and weapons was going a great way in both modernizing his army as well as centralizing Imperial power in his hands, the Portuguese of course managed to get a bunch of slaves and essentially have a dual monopoly with Abyssinia of the Red Sea trade, something that would seriously damage Ottoman power in the region as well as creating another thorn they couldn't deal with since they had other more immediate enemies to deal with.
Abyssinian troops moving in to combat Oromo raiders. No whitewashing this time except on their clothing of course.
Viceroyalty of India and Viceroyalty of Ceilão: India was the original prize that the Portuguese always sought after, it's spices, it's riches, it's emperors were famous throughout the world and entire trade routes were centered around this colossus of culture and influence and the Portuguese wanted nothing more than to take that pie for themselves.
The Portuguese Empire in India, notice the use of natural harbors and rivers in order to control the best trading places.
Several changes were made in the way the Portuguese administered their regions, firstly they would start collecting taxes from the local villages as well as from the commerce itself, mainly by incentivizing private merchants and trading companies and by taxing them, having the transport of goods both in and out be made only by Portuguese ships, the military was also updated that in order to meet the requirements of guarding and defending the place, first by changing gear and training tactics in order to better deal with the climate of the region and the most important was the recruitment of local auxiliaries, therefore boosting the Portuguese garrison by a lot and allowing for better defenses of India.
Another very important aspect would've been the ending of the Goa Inquisition and the reversal of the Synod of Diamper that attempted to put the Catholic church above the local Syrian Rite Church that while indeed saw many converted it just led to a schism between the one who accepted and those who were against it, instead Catherine wanted to rally ALL Christians against "The Moorish Horde and the Pagans of the Indies", to that end, the Portuguese allowed and incentivized the local Syrian Church to continue converting of the locals as well as sending order after order like Dominicans, Franciscans, Jesuits, etc, in order to convert the local population, another very important aspect was that inspired by the French, the Portuguese implemented their own version although aimed against the Hindus, Buddhists and Muslims who would pay it, something that drove conversation rates as well.
The other important aspect would've been the decision of having Goa be the main seat of the empire in India, having control of all the outposts in the subcontinent and how they should operate as well as it being the main military seat of the fleet with the local fortress and harbors being expanded upon, this mixed in with the control of the Red Sea trade made the Ottomans very nervous about their secondary sea route being threatened by the Portuguese especially since they had been bottled up in the Red Sea already and were losing revenue there, something would have to be done.
Finally, the second major event would be the expansion of the empire in India as well as Ceylon, first an impressive fleet of over 40 ships were sent over alongside veteran troops to join alongside the recruited army of locals and capture both strategic ports as well as increase the areas of control of the already captured cities with the Sultanates of Gujerat, Ahmandagar and Bijapur alongside the Empire of Vijaya-Nagar all being targeted or at least, negotiated with since many of them did not exactly desire a war with the Portuguese given that the successive attempts of dislodging them out resulted in defeat, places like Somnath (which would be translated to Somata in the new Luso administration) were captured and giving more harbors for Portugal to control the trade of the Indian ocean, the Lusitanian control of the western sea of the subcontinent was nothing to laugh at and while the eastern part wasn't seen as much of a priority it was still highly valuable.
The most significant conquest however, would have to be against the Kingdom of Kandy that controlled the island of Ceylon (or Ceilão for the Portuguese), the Viceroy D. Francisco Coutinho was very much keen in controlling the island for in his words: "if we successfully manage to capture and Christianize the island, we'll be undislodgable from India", therefore he used the fleet that had been sent alongside several troops and ordered the attack.
Queen Kusumāsana Devi(or Dona Catarina in her Christian name) was a key player in ensuring that the Portuguese would be able to control the island. She probably thought all the cod was worth it.
While Portuguese control of the island had been limited to the coasts and any influence they had was thanks to the conversion of the King Karalliyadde Banḍāra and his daughter Kusumasana Devi to Catholicism, the fact was that resistance to the Portuguese was a constant the Lusitanians realized should be cut in the bud already, they landed in already 1563 and began the subjugation of the island. Even with military might and the navy essentially putting the island inside a naval cage, the fight was very fierce as disease and local resistance did all it could to blunt the Portuguese assault but thankfully the use of both Indian as well slave soldiers from Africa (who would be freed after 5 years of service if they could survive)[8] was the major tipping point that allowed the Portuguese to exercise control over the land completely and subjugate it.
Now named the Vice-Reinado de Ceilão, it would formally keep the monarchy alongside the nobility for appearances sakes but for all intents and purposes the island was run by the Portuguese who quickly began building forts and updating harbors as well as starting a system of corvee of sorts where peasants would have to grow certain spices alongside their regular crops for their Portuguese overlords, the Goa Inquisition would be moved there and be called the Inquisição de Ceilão and would be responsible for the Christianization of the island, through horrific crackdowns in the local faiths and burning of several "pagans" that invited rebellions that were swiftly punished via the permanent army presence [9], the island would quickly alongside Goa become the most important Portuguese base in Indian subcontinent.
The Viceroyalty of Japarta, The Viceroyalty of Gutão and the Viceroyalty of MalacaWhile the Portuguese victories in Ceilão and India had been great, they were just the prelude to the main expansion of the Portuguese empire in Asia as well as testing the effectiveness of black and Indian troops who were more resilient to the seemingly endless amounts of diseases that befell the common Portuguese troops[10], meaning that for this operation, the Portuguese started the training of a large army made up of those, thanks to their control of many ports of Africa as well as their expanded empire in India, by 1565, the Portuguese had a big enough army of an impressive 20 thousand "Native" troops alongside 5 thousand veteran Europeans soldiers, many of whom were stationed in Brazil and amongst the officers indeed were many former administrators and commanders of Portuguese Brazil who had returned "home" after the conquest by the French, men like Estácio de Sá and Martim Afonso de Souza [11] who with their knowledge on dealing with a tropical climate would be very much appreciated instead of languishing about in their defeats.
The Portuguese high command in Malaca had come up with the four main targets of conquests: the Sultanates of Johor, Aceh,Banten and Demak, with the priority being the complete annexation of at least Johor and Aceh given their importance towards the key trade between India and the rest of East Asia, plus it would essentially nullify any potential native threats to Portuguese rule, Demak and Banten was also valuable given they would be ideal place for planting of sugar and other spices. After lengthy hours of going through maps and sea variations, discussing enemy tactics and strategy as well as preparing an additional fleet in Ceilão and India alongside the 40 ships Portugal had already sent, Aceh was chosen as the first target.
Map of the Aceh Sultanate, unfortunately all those pretty borders only made them a better target for everyone.
The Portuguese high command in Malaca had come up with the four main targets of conquests: the Sultanates of Johor, Aceh,Banten and Demak, with the priority being the complete annexation of at least Johor and Aceh given their importance towards the key trade between India and the rest of East Asia, plus it would essentially nullify any potential native threats to Portuguese rule, Demak and Banten was also valuable given they would be ideal place for planting of sugar and other spices. After lengthy hours of going through maps and sea variations, discussing enemy tactics and strategy as well as preparing an additional fleet in Ceilão and India alongside the 40 ships Portugal had already sent, Aceh was chosen as the first target.
Map of the Aceh Sultanate, unfortunately all those pretty borders only made them a better target for everyone.
Sultan Alauddin al-Kahar woke up to a unpleasant morning when he saw and especially heard his capital of Kutaraja being bombarded at dawn by the massive Portuguese fleet that had previously and swiftly captured the island of Weh to use it as a advanced base, the sultan had previously attempted to get contact with the Ottoman empire in the hopes that they could form an alliance to expel the infidel Iberians, however with the Abyssinians now masters of the Red Sea [12] as well as increased Portuguese presence in the Indian Ocean, help would not be arriving neither now nor later, so while his navy knew the waters well and even had some cannons, they were unable to compete with the much larger and well armed navy of Portugal who's brutal bombardment of the capital had seen it being quickly occupied alongside the sultan and his family being captured in the palace, places like Paria Am and Padang alongside Muko Muko and Indrapura were conquered by the Portuguese navy that was blitzing as hard as it could in order to try and shut off the response of the Sultanate armed forces as fast as it could, the strategy was a success and thus the Sultanate was capitulated and brought under control of direct Portugal and would be part of the new Viceroyalty of Gutão (a Portuguese pronunciation of the capital's name), where the capital of Kutaraja became the sit of a "fortress city", where the locals were forced to build a massive fort by the name of São Cosme, where it would be another "main entryway", key cities that Portugal would use as strongholds against attacks and tax and control all trade of the region.
The next target would be the Sultanate of Johor, already an long time enemy when Portugal had destroyed the Sultanate of Malacca and the son of the deposed sultan founded it, for years there had been a back and forth between the two, with the Portuguese wanting to stay in and Johor wanting them out, while a peace treaty had been signed with the founding Sultan Alauddin Riayat Shah II, it seemed now that nothing would stop the Portuguese greed other than full conquest.
This was very bad news for Sultan Muzaffar Shah II, already his realm had been in a war against Aceh [13] that wrecked his realm and saw his navy and army weakened, he had heard from the fall of Kutaraja thanks to refugees fleeing to his realm and while he was assembling troops and the ships, the Portuguese were quick to fall into him, firstly by decimating his navy and capturing the islands around the Malay peninsula and Sumatra and then, by firstly attacking the Johor possessions in Sumatra thanks to reinforcements from Gutão and then, by attacking the possessions in the Malaysian peninsula itself, with the capital of Johor Lama being obliterated by cannon fire and the Sultan himself being captured although his family managed to flee, he would be paraded around town and made to renounce all his powers to the governor of Malaca before being throw in a cell where he would die of disease.
The Johor Sultanate, because the Portuguese were ever hungry for coast.
The Johor Sultanate, because the Portuguese were ever hungry for coast.
The Johor Sultanate was dismembered, with the Sumatra lands like the Karimun islands, the islands of Bintan, Bulang, Lingga and Bunguran, and Bengkalis, Kampar and Siak all going to the administration in the Viceroyalty of Gutão while the rest would be administered by Malaca, although a fun fact would be that the Portuguese would find the island of Singapura , as the locals called it, to be a much better place for defense as well as overlooking their new conquests in the region and overseeing trade, so they built another massive fortress by the name of Fort São Domingos in the island of the now named Cingapura[14] and for all intents and purposes became the new capital, although Malaca was in theory still relevant because of the new forced redirected trade, it was clear it would never outshine the new capital.
While these conquests had been impressive, the Portuguese needed time to assimilate and digest such conquests before they could go into the offensive against their last target in the Sultanate of Demak, so they built their infrastructure, they restocked and gunpowder and more importantly they trained new armies, mainly to stay behind and guard the new conquests while the veterans would be used for the attack on Demak itself, however events on the island would force action by the Portuguese.
Mainly that the last ruler of the Sultanate of Demak, Arya Penangsang had gotten in the throne thanks to a few assassinations and ruthless actions, mainly against the now deceased Sunan Prawata, who himself had killed Penangsang father's before, which didn't stop Prawata's younger sister Ratu Kalinyamat from seeking justice which led to her husband being killed and her barely surviving and sought aid from her brother in-law, Hadiwijaya (popularly known as Jaka Tingkir), Adipati of Pajang to avenge her husband, thanks to this as well as unrest from his ruthless actions and the outflow of refugees from Johor and Aceh urging the sultan to strike against the infidels, Penangsang would be killed by Hadiwijaya who essentially ended the Demak Sultanate by shifting all the power to Pajang and starting a kingdom there, taking advantage after 3 years of preparation, the Portuguese began their assault in 1570, using a fleet of 50 ships in order to completely blockade the island as well as the veteran army made up of a mixture of Portuguese, blacks and Indians, they quickly bombard Demak, Pajang and other key coastal towns and quickly bring the island under heel, costal control of Java sees the already weakened forces of the kingdom capitulate towards an better organized and equipped army who's ready to deal with hot tropical climate, the Portuguese don’t lose momentum and quickly invade Banten as well and using overwhelming firepower alongside the army moving in to quickly surround the capital and prevent an escape from the Sultan Maulana Yusuf and his family that also saw him capitulate the rest of his kingdom.
The Banten and Demak Sultanates, control of their coasts gave access to yet another critical trading point as well as the fertile lands to plant all sorts of spices.
Control of the whole coast makes the Portuguese built a new capital on the city of Jakarta, building the fort São Jorge and renaming the city to Japarta (which saw many would be funny Portuguese sailors and soldiers always asking the garrison there if they had left already, a terrible pun based on the new name for the city which sounds like "go already" in Portuguese), the Viceroyalty of Japarta is the last military expansion the maritime empire of Portugal would do for a very long time.
With the new parts of the East Indies already added to the their control of Timor and the Moluccas alongside their trading presence in Borneo and Sulawesi (states who saw their share of refugees from the other realms that soured their opinion of the Portuguese although they didn't want to be conquered so they didn't risk a war, never mind Portugal would spend several decades digesting these conquests and would be in no position to try given how already overstretched they were), Portugal essentially had the spice islands region under their command, initially only under the coast that would've see them being raided by kingdoms of the interior as well as the occasional revolt, the Portuguese would fully subvert the local way of administering things and turn the islands into the most profitable but deadliest spice and sugar production in the world.
Firstly, farmers would be forced under the same system of planting stuff like clover, nutmegs, peppers, maces, cinnamon, ginger, etc, except unlike the farmers from Ceilão who only needed to do it of a third of their plantation, the Portuguese forced them to do a full two thirds of their productive lands given how well it grew spices, attempts to revolt(which were many) saw the farmers and their families dispossessed and sold into slavery to faraway parts of the Portuguese empire like India and Africa and their lands taken over by "homens bons" from Portugal who would bring in mass African slaves to work in the plantations of not only spices but also sugar(where many locals were forced to work in as well) and the harvesting of tropical fruits like oranges that were important to combating scurvy in the Portuguese navy.
As a result of this draconian policy of forced spice raising, farmers couldn't sustain themselves enough with just what they produced given the Portuguese also placed priority on having the food feeding the administration and army, and if they could, there was no surplus to be sold, meaning that in general, farmers and especially city dwellers had to pay for imports of food coming from India, Africa and Portugal and when they couldn't, famines would happen and overfishing became a real phenomenon alongside it also having the consequence of driving up conversations since Islam and Hinduism both prohibited the eating of certain animals (most famously pigs and cows respectively) but when someone is in hunger, those codes can be bended and in many cases given the oppressive Religious atmosphere, converting to Christianity was seen as easier.
The ethnic makeup of the island was also changed as the several deaths from the war and hunger saw the Portuguese bringing in thousands of African slaves to work in the plantations alongside many Indian and slave African soldiers who were offered their own plots of lands as reward for their services, not too dissimilar with what the Spanish did with the Conquistadores, as well as whites from the metropole coming in to settle and traders from China, Japan and even Dai Viet came in order to take advantage of the new order, many of the native women married(mainly by force and treated as “war conquests” by many soldiers) to the arriving men, which quickly muddled up the genetic pool even further and saw the rise of mixed race individuals that with their mixed cultural background would alter the culture of the region entirely.
That was the other marking aspect of the Portuguese Spice Islands, mainly that the Goa Inquisition that had become the Ceilão inquisition would reach its biggest and most oppressive form in the form of the Inquisição de Malaca where it was tasked with "converting the infidels to the proper faith" and counted with the help of several religious orders with members coming from all over the world and heavy involvement from the papacy who congratulated Portugal on "destroying the Mohammadian threat in the Far East and bringing in the godly light". Much like what happened in Ceilão, religious buildings were converted into churches, the burning of heretics and unbelievers (especially those caught with forbidden texts), the Quinto tax was implemented in order to further extort the population and hindu and muslim celebrations were made illegal to celebrate while at the same time the churches became some of the few places where the natives could get treated at the Casas Santas or food would get distributed for free in Christian holidays and festivals, alongside orphans(there were many of those after the Portuguese conquests) getting taken in by the religious orders, where many of them would receive at the very last a “Christian” last name and become the next generation of priests and nuns who had a knowledge of the land and thus were more successful than their European peers at getting conversions.
This relationship of love and hate the church had with the native Indonesians was something that while saw rising Christianization of the areas under Portuguese control alongside a little bit of the hinterlands(mainly by Fugidos or “Runaways”, preachers who ventured deep into the jungle to spread the word of Christ and either died or created small cults devoted to Jesus that would’ve seen Colonel Kurtz green with envy), this also further radicalized those in Java, Malaya and Sumatra and even Borneo and Sulawesi who were convinced the Portuguese were infidels that needed to be expelled at all costs, uprisings were encouraged, Muslim pirates harassed and even dared an attack or two in towns with Christian churches being targeted especially and raids from individual groups and even army battalions against the Portuguese strongholds were attempted, thanks to how tight Portugal kept the leash on the region, these attacks similarly hardened Portuguese approach to islands and saw the increase of convoys to protect their new trade routes, from bloody fields fertilized by blood and rising amount of corpses, Portugal built a powerful empire in the East Indies they were more than determined to expand upon and they would not let anyone make them let go of it…
The Viceroyalty of Macau, The Viceroyalty of Formosa and The Viceroyalty of Nagasaki.
This relationship of love and hate the church had with the native Indonesians was something that while saw rising Christianization of the areas under Portuguese control alongside a little bit of the hinterlands(mainly by Fugidos or “Runaways”, preachers who ventured deep into the jungle to spread the word of Christ and either died or created small cults devoted to Jesus that would’ve seen Colonel Kurtz green with envy), this also further radicalized those in Java, Malaya and Sumatra and even Borneo and Sulawesi who were convinced the Portuguese were infidels that needed to be expelled at all costs, uprisings were encouraged, Muslim pirates harassed and even dared an attack or two in towns with Christian churches being targeted especially and raids from individual groups and even army battalions against the Portuguese strongholds were attempted, thanks to how tight Portugal kept the leash on the region, these attacks similarly hardened Portuguese approach to islands and saw the increase of convoys to protect their new trade routes, from bloody fields fertilized by blood and rising amount of corpses, Portugal built a powerful empire in the East Indies they were more than determined to expand upon and they would not let anyone make them let go of it…
The Viceroyalty of Macau, The Viceroyalty of Formosa and The Viceroyalty of Nagasaki.
Finally, in the very far East, Portugal decided to expand and change some of the ways they would operate in the region, especially when it came to trade and religion.
In the trading aspects, the Portuguese started to increase the amount of products they were importing into those countries from sugar made from all over the empire, spices from their new plantations in Zanzibar, Ceilão and the East Indies as well as more miscellaneous items like muskets and cannons, in particular to the Japanese in the warring states period, while their exports of silk, porcelain, silver and copper(Japan had a lot of those two) and other trinkets from Japan and China would be sold at a high price at not only in Europe, but also in Africa, in India, in the East Indies, realizing they could make even more money by making trade flow between their colonies.
Another very important aspect was the religious manner in which Portugal would try converting people, they could not enforce their inquisition on these centralized realms(in the case of China) or in such a far away realm like Japan that would made it impossible to send reinforcements in any reasonable amount of time, instead, the Portuguese crown turned towards Pope Pius V in order to lay down the order when it came to many religious organizations that were messing up their missionary activities in China with their orthodoxy by claiming that ancestor worship and Confucian thought were idolatry while the Jesuits (by far the favored one by the Lusitans) saw it as respectful traditions of the people that was compatible with the Christian doctrine, the Portuguese authorities cleared favored the latter given it both made them look respectable as well as driving up conversions. While Pius V was very much an Orthodox himself, he also wished to see the faith expanded to the people of the East, plus, the arguments made by the Cardinal Henrique [15] of how many pagan rituals had been adapted before were enough to convince the stern Pope to confirm the "Jesuit Thought"[16], as a result, the Jesuit schools in Macau continued to both educate and convert many Chinese people, while it wouldn't even make the surrounding regions have a large Christian minority, it did make it grow in the country, especially in the south and in the Guangdong region.
The Jesuit college in Macau, responsible for educating many Chinese in not only western sciences but religion and philosophy as well.
In Japan, this was no different as the Jesuits in Nagasaki were already in the process of adapting certain practices to Christian thought in order to make it more palpable to the locals, something that saw an increase in the number of Christians in Nagasaki and the Kyushu island, the Portuguese became especially close with Shimazu Yoshihisa, head of the Shimazu Clan who were currently on a warpath to unify Kyushu, while the Shimazu leader himself didn't convert, he did allow for missionaries in his lands in return for the Portuguese providing him with cannons and muskets and support him with their navy, something they agreed to in order to guarantee an ally in region, something that affected the war not only in Kyushu as the Island began to fall faster to Shimazu rule but also affected the continent [17] as the leader of the Shimazu made contact with a certain Oda Nobunaga who was in his own path to unify Japan and decided that allying with him and guaranteeing that at least some of their conquered lands would remain with them in case Nobunaga won, thus they officially ally with him and soon the Portuguese navy is also assisting Oda, although not as much given the distance from their supply lines.
The Jesuit college in Macau, responsible for educating many Chinese in not only western sciences but religion and philosophy as well.
In Japan, this was no different as the Jesuits in Nagasaki were already in the process of adapting certain practices to Christian thought in order to make it more palpable to the locals, something that saw an increase in the number of Christians in Nagasaki and the Kyushu island, the Portuguese became especially close with Shimazu Yoshihisa, head of the Shimazu Clan who were currently on a warpath to unify Kyushu, while the Shimazu leader himself didn't convert, he did allow for missionaries in his lands in return for the Portuguese providing him with cannons and muskets and support him with their navy, something they agreed to in order to guarantee an ally in region, something that affected the war not only in Kyushu as the Island began to fall faster to Shimazu rule but also affected the continent [17] as the leader of the Shimazu made contact with a certain Oda Nobunaga who was in his own path to unify Japan and decided that allying with him and guaranteeing that at least some of their conquered lands would remain with them in case Nobunaga won, thus they officially ally with him and soon the Portuguese navy is also assisting Oda, although not as much given the distance from their supply lines.
In order to sail around that issue, the Portuguese founded fort Nossa Senhora da Aparecida in Formosa island, mainly serving as a docking station and resupply station, the island is filled with mosquitoes and malaria carrying insects that decimate the European troops stationed there, so the Viceroyalty in Macau decides to instead have it under the slave soldiers who also cultivate the land and man the fort, with them being rewarded with their own land after a full year of service. The Portuguese don't throw themselves into conflict with the natives that are curious about these strangers, mainly focusing on trading with them for food and of course, sending catholic missionaries to try and convert them, to little success.
An final interesting thing to notice is Portugal selling their conquests in Hormuz and Muscat and in the coast of Eastern Arabia in general to the Persians, not only because the constant conflicts between them had essentially killed any trade in the region but also because they needed to fund all their conquests and reforms somehow, in return, they would get some trading rights in the region as well as train the Persian army so it could better stand up to the Ottomans the Portuguese hoped to weaken.
All these reforms and changes to the administration while very expensive (Portugal took several loans from many banks and Queen Regent Catherine even sold many of her jewels in order to help finance it) the returns were worth all the trouble, crates upon crates of spices, sugar and "exotic items" all came to Portuguese harbors were they went through customs duties and properly taxes, before being sold throughout all of Europe by Portuguese ships. The introduction of sugar especially was responsible for driving down prices slightly given it still took a full year to arrive and customers just preferred buying it from French Brazil in many cases, however it would still accelerate the diversification of the colony's economy further [18].
Outside of just paying their debtors, the new King Sebastian who had grown up alongside his mother seeing her and the ministers taking action in order to improve and reform Portugal and decided he wanted to do the same [19], his first years in reign were a continuation of his mother's policies in colonial expansion as well as reforms of his own realm, mainly by the introduction of a exam based posts in the administration, especially in the Fazenda(the Portuguese name for the ministry responsible for the finances) because the military and navy and other high positions were still mainly made up of the high nobility, many commoners still got the chance to integrate into the middle management to lower positions of important parts of the state apparatus.
King Sebastian of Portugal and it's Overseas Territories. While a very devout king, he would nonetheless be more interested in governing and paying off debts than to go around playing as a modern day crusader.
With these more flexible changes, Portugal stands atop of their massive empire, one where the money never stops flowing and the blood never runs dry…
Spain
If one took one look at Spain, they would’ve recognized it as the main empire and indeed the most powerful nation in Europe and arguably on this side of the world. It’s armies had bested the Ottomans, the Barbary Pirates, the Moriscos, the French, the Italians and the Germans, it’s bloodline controlling the True Successor to the Roman Empire in the HRE, it took only a few of their clever Conquistadores in order to topple the two most powerful empires there had been in the Americas so far and replace them with their own rule, that stretched from the deserts of Patagonia towards the mountains in California, ships pregnant with silver and gold unlocked in Seville or went towards Manila in their expanding colony to trade directly with the most revered empire on the planet, Plus Ultra “Go Beyond”, the perfect motto for an revered empire who had acquired so much in but a few decades, with Charles V being the closest thing to a new Charlemagne that Europe had seen.
But behind this massive imponent Pyramid who looked indestructible and magnificent from a far, it didn’t take too many steps to see the erosion and cracks showing up in the structure: the armies of Spain, the dreaded Tercios and especially it’s army of Flanders were the most feared units in Europe and beyond, yet it’s soldiers often went weeks without pay and most were not even Spanish given the actual negative growth Spain was going through thanks to a mixture of exceedingly high taxes to fund wars and even plagues that had hit the country, the heavy amounts of silver and gold only caused inflation and more often than not, ended up inside the vaults from the banks that Spain owned money too(and they always were owing money) and Spain was often having to trade with its neighbors to import manufactures that it needed in detriment to its own industries, the territories it administered were very unequal in their treatment: The Crown of Castile was essentially the center of power where the high positions usually went to yet the people were poor and suffering badly from the high taxation, the Crown of Aragon was extremely resistant to ANY attempts at taxing them more as well as messing with their individual rights, the Crown of Naples and the Italian territories in general were devastated after decades of war with France and whatever richness remained was in the hands of bankers who were the ones holding much of the Spanish debt or in the Papal States(who themselves had been ransacked by Spanish troops who had went unpaid, showing that this trouble had been present even in the times of Charles V) and the very much valued Burgundian Inheritance, won with blood and diplomacy by Maximillian Habsburg and passed down to the Spanish Branch in the desires of Charles V, it was an extremely wealthy region in general thanks to it’s guilds and cities and trades as well as a center of proto industrialism given it’s wool weavers, it had nevertheless been slowly chipped away by France as well as being the target of constant increased taxes in order to pay for continued Spanish supremacy alongside a rise of Calvinism in the population that led to a iconoclastic fury in Flanders and a repressive government against it that only solidified the antagonism the population was feeling against the Spaniards, not to mention the loss of being the distributors of sugar in Europe after Brazil had fallen to the French and were in control of production, refinement and distribution into Europe and beyond, making the already tax paying merchants and cities even poorer, resulting in a revolt from the Calvinists in 1566, all the while the French thanks to all the money they were gaining in Brazil[20] were expanding their navy and modernizing their army and looking hungerly at the Netherlands while the Ottoman fleet seemed to grow by the day, especially with that fearsome admiral Barbarossa in charge and even the protestants in Germany and Scandinavia were looking to tear apart the HRE for their own gains, it seemed that all it would take was one good rock throw for the whole rotten structure to come crashing down.
Yet Spain wouldn’t just take this lying down, the country was in bankruptcy sure but the fearsome armies would still be deployed, the navy still ready to defend the many kingdoms and Filipe II still ready to defend The Faith and his people from Moors, Heretics, Traitors and Perfidious Frenchmen. In the Netherlands, while Wilhelm of Orange was undoubtedly a good leader and commander, facing off against the Tercios proved difficult and more often than not with the retreat of the army, the Spanish Road leading the troops from Castile to Italy and Germany and arriving with reinforcements, the current Pope Pius V was able to form a Holy League made up of several Italian states and Spain in order to curtail Ottoman ambitions to turn the Mediterranean into a Moorish Mare Nostrum. Even in the far east in Asia, the Spanish troops bolstered by the Portuguese conquests of the East Indies did renewed assaults at the lower edge of the peninsula against the Muslim Moro people, finally bringing the Philippines under full control of Madrid [21] who of course started their own version of the Ceilão inquisition in order to bring Catholic orthodoxy to the islands.
Of course, all of this costed money, so naturally Spain took loins not only from their usual Italian and German bankers but also the French and Portuguese one who were just as greedy in seeing their vaults line up with Habsburg silver and gold, another factor was the creation of the treasure fleet where in order to protect against the Corsair activities not only from French and British pirates but now also Dutch ones, several galleys would go alongside the transport ships in order to protect it, this tactic proved actually successful in keeping the treasure fleet well guarded with one or two exceptions where it would be captured, finally, the King Phillip II also had the idea of selling Venezuela towards the Welser banking family, both as to rid himself of the debt as well to reward an ally who had been so key in financing the Habsburgs again and again, the Welsers had actually bought the rights to colonize Venezuela back in the times of Charles V [22] but had their charter revoked by the emperor who found their actions there little appealing, now however, the empire was in dire economical straights and radical ways of raising funds was needed, the only clause in the contract was that Spain would still be able to use ports in the cities as well as allowing for trade with the rest of the Spanish colonies (possibly the only place free of the Colonial pact), something which the Welsers found acceptable and thus Klein-Venedig was reborn.
The Welser colony, dark purple the area where the Germans actually controlled and light purple the area they had influence in.
The Welser colony, dark purple the area where the Germans actually controlled and light purple the area they had influence in.
While Phillip was preparing for war, he needed to consider which targets were ideal since the French victory at St. Quentin and Gravelines had seen Spanish assaults blunted and while Genoa was able to be freed from French grasp, Savoy would remain in the French orbit as well as Phillip having to rest his ambitions of having a French territory both to attack the country more effectively as well as to better supply his troops in the Netherlands, France was too much of a growing beast and attacking them now was a road to disaster, therefore the Spanish focused on fighting the Dutch heretics and more importantly on the sea against the Ottomans.
The first one seemed to be in a paradoxical situation as the more victories his commanders like the Duke of Alba achieved, the more the region and population grew to hate him and the more the rebel armies swelled, this of course ignoring the many civilians killed by the hands of the overzealous duke, with the army of Flanders swelling and collecting victories against the rebel army, notably at the Battle of Mookerheyde in 1574, seeing Louis of Nassau and his brother Henry both killed and the victims pilling up, the Spanish were in a position that even as they won, they lost more and more support of the population. While the Duke would eventually be replaced by Alexander Farnese the Duke of Parma who was more careful with civilian lives and was much more competent military given his string of victories won by a mixture of military prowess and of generous terms of surrender, despite this, the fact something like the Spanish Fury that had wrecked Antwerp or the chronicle lack of funds from Spain would eventually doom the efforts of Parma, both in winning the war and in holding the Netherlands for Spain.
The Fernando Álvarez de Toledo y Pimentel, 3rd Duke of Alba and Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, commanders of the Spanish Armies in the Netherlands, It's quite clear who was the best commander given one looks the Good General Fighting in the Evil Army and the other looks like The Evil General.
The Fernando Álvarez de Toledo y Pimentel, 3rd Duke of Alba and Alexander Farnese, Duke of Parma, commanders of the Spanish Armies in the Netherlands, It's quite clear who was the best commander given one looks the Good General Fighting in the Evil Army and the other looks like The Evil General.
Meanwhile at sea against the Ottomans the results were mixed as during the Battle of Lepanto [23] both fleets were battered enough against one another that neither side could claim victory over the other as neither could get a clear victory over the other, yet it was a moral and technical victory over the Ottomans as they were contained to the eastern Mediterranean, shattered the myth of "Ottoman Invincibility" and could no longer raid into Italy and Iberia again, the establishment of better shipyards in Venice, Naples and Malta were to serve as advanced posts in order to act as further bulwarks against Ottoman attempts at expanding, despite this, the battle over the Mediterranean would be far from over and would be another factor that kept Spain tied up investing into their navy to keep the Ottomans at bay, which would keep straining their finances further.
While Phillip wanted to reform his realm further and just be able to relax without the threat of war, the fact was he lacked the money, the time and the peace in order to try and improve things outside of some short term reforms, everywhere was rife with enemies and his allies either too weak, too busy or too far away to make a difference.
England and Scotland
On the rainy northern island, things seemed to be almost ideal compared to tensions and outright wars raging on the continent, sure the Catholics in the country and Ireland were still irate over the fact a Protestant sat on the throne, or that despite the loss of Calais and the burial of English continental ambitions relations with France remained frosty especially as the French debt disappeared and their fleet grew both in number and experience, Spain itself was a dangerous enemy given Philip II's ambitions of having his daughter in the throne and bringing back Catholicism via whatever means necessary and while the English navy was very formidable, the Spanish Tercios were feared for a reason and should they land on the country it would've been a disaster for Elizabeth I and her ministers.
Okay, so maybe things weren't that peachy but they were trying.
By far the biggest dilemma that Elizabeth would face was the prospect of marriage brought by the 139 Question, essentially the fact that her sister had gotten pregnant with triplets [24] via the now deceased Dauphin Francis II meant that the possibility of a union between the kingdoms of Scotland, England and France, or at the very least, a Valois ruled Britain by the seemingly eldest of the new children who had been baptized as Henry in homage to his grandfather, meaning that if he were ever to ascend to the throne he would be Henry I of Scotland, Henry III of France and Henry IX of England, while it was unlikely he would receive the British claims since both Catherine and Henry II wanted their grandson to focus on France instead of some islands who really wouldn't want to join up with France, the fear of a "Second Norman Yoke" was very much felt not only by the British elites but especially by the more radical Protestants (who already despised Henry II for his Catholicism, his profiting off protestant belief and being French). The pressure on Elizabeth to simply go ahead and marry so she could produce a heir was very telling throughout the whole country but already being in her 40s, the doctors stated that it was unlikely she would produce a heir, thus leaving a looming shadow to fall over England as the threat of a invasion, not of arms or ships but of bloodlines and foreign nationals was seemingly ready to overtake them.
Elizabeth I of England and her sister Mary Queen of Scots. The first did everything she could to keep her nephew away from the throne and the other ensured that her children could have the potential of having three whole kingdoms or at least one by simply performing her "wifely duties", truly different sisters.
Elizabeth I of England and her sister Mary Queen of Scots. The first did everything she could to keep her nephew away from the throne and the other ensured that her children could have the potential of having three whole kingdoms or at least one by simply performing her "wifely duties", truly different sisters.
On Scotland meanwhile, the thought of a Valois ruling them wasn't exactly unpopular, maybe controversial given the tension between Catholics and Protestants (especially the Presbyterians) but the majority of the population seemed ready to a have a new dynasty ruling over them, the merchants and lords of all religions imagined all the opportunities being either in personal union or at least ruled by the same royal family would have, from Scottish merchants being able to enter the lucrative sugar trade towards the nobles who would want French defense and a continuation of the Auld Alliance, not to mention that while Henry II's policy was divisive to say the least, it did brought up the question if some sort of similar toleration couldn't be achieved, Mary wasn't exactly tolerant but whatever heir came would either grow up in Scotland or would be accepting of some sort of toleration given the example in France, either way, the Scots had much to win.
In Ireland too the news were well received as many hoped that a French monarch would either make Britain catholic again or at the very least, stop the religious oppression going against them in their own island, not only that but those merchants from cities like Cork, Dublin and Ulster also wanted access to the French market, especially with its luxury and colonial goods as being able to trade directly with the source would've been more profitable not to mention the best chance at making contacts.
Elizabeth of course wasn't ignorant to these feelings, because if her realm truly did enter a personal union with Scotland (or God forbid, Scotland AND France) she needed to be prepared to strengthen her realm in order to make it the leading unit in a potential union, firstly she renewed the alliance with Portugal and was able to negotiate an English presence in the coast of Golconda [25], therefore giving the East India company a place to call their own and conduct business, she also continued measures of pushing English wool into continental Europe, especially the Netherlands despite the revolt going on there, as the looms kept spinning despite the brutality.
The most important one however, was her giving authorization for English corsairs to act not only against Spanish America but also French Brazil, resulting in Francis Drake to capture and loot Olinda[26] before being driven off by the irate Frenchman with his ships filled with sugar and tobacco which give the coffers quite the filling, most importantly however would end up be the mapping of the coasts of America and especially the Caribbean, Elizabeth knew the French and to a lesser extent, the Portuguese were making a good profit for themselves and their states if she could secure a colony for England, she would have the same amount of wealth flowing in as well as weakening Spanish power in the region and having a better base for Corsair activities in the region.
Many targets were looked after: Cuba was dismissed as too populated and well guarded to be captured safely, Puerto Rico and Santiago while having smaller populations were deemed as too small and therefore as easy to lose as it was to obtain, the other small islands dismissed for the same reason.
Finally, the island of Santo Domingo was selected, it was large enough to eventually boast a high English population as well as plantations yet the colony had been neglected population and defense wise and in general had been left to languish like the rest of the Caribbean, the old racial barriers broken down as sugar from Brazil and the silver and gold from continental America meant it produced minimal quality of sugar, cattle and mostly relied on contraband and smuggling, in other words, it was an ideal target that Elizabeth entrusted Francis Drake with capturing, he set off from Devon with a fleet of 30 ships, including 5000 men as well as material to build a fort.
Santo Domingo the capital and Francis Drake, an unexpected but glorious relationship.
Santo Domingo the capital and Francis Drake, an unexpected but glorious relationship.
Santo Domingo with it's population mixed from the broken racial castes after the economic downturn the island was going through did not particularly resist the invaders despite them being weary of these heretic Englishmen, the garrison guardian the fort in the capital simply weren't prepared for an invasion and as soon as their fort was bombarded by Drake, they decided to surrender instead of fighting a war where they knew reinforcements wouldn't come, they were allowed safe passage back to England where they would be repatriated towards Spain if they so desired, the Corsair commander meanwhile set about rebuilding the fort and naming it Fort Avalon in homage to a land he saw as beautiful as the mythical land of the fairies.
Now to deal with the local population and more importantly, the maroon community [27] made up of runaway slaves, Drake's first assurance was that slavery would not be imposed on the original inhabitants of the island nor would discrimination based on the Spanish racial caste would be imposed on them either, plus they would be free to exercise their religion as the colony was intended to have both Catholics and Protestants live in peace. The population wasn't exactly jumping in happiness and the maroons were still distrusting and didn't offer any token of friendship but they didn't start rebelling nor attacking the troops so it was seen as a victory by Drake. He proceeded to secure the other half of the island and built another fort in the island of Tortuga he called fort Elizabeth in homage to his sovereign, he left a trusted subordinate in charge and left for England where he was received for his success. Elizabeth decided to name the colony Sipang, in reference to how when Columbus had landed there he had thought he reached Cipangu (or as we know it now, Japan) and soon the first flood of colonists(many Catholics, especially Irish who wanted to flee from oppression) came there to inhabitant the land, due to the fact the sugar producing wouldn't start for another 2 years to be fully online, they soon started mixing and marrying with the mostly mulatto and freedman population, creating already a different racial mixture in the island who grew up speaking Spanish as well as English, the more adventurous ones found themselves living with maroons in the harsh interior of the island, the introduction of potatoes as well as the presence of yellow fever that was particularly devastating to Europeans soon made the mixed and black population from those islands flourish, resulting that they would be the reluctantly loyal subjects of Queen Elizabeth.
Another final important aspect of British colonial action was the establishment of the Gold Coast Company in London where the British established a presence in Africa, they built the fort St. George in West Africa (OTL the border between Ghana and Cote D'Ivoire) and soon like the Portuguese and the French would start trading and profiting from the slave selling towards their colony but for now, it was just a trading post where they would exchange guns, drinks and some other items for gold and ivory.
With these actions, Elizabeth was determined to see England putting herself not on Europe anymore but on the world stage, realizing that the world was opening up and they needed to find their share in the pie before others gobbled it up. As recognition of his deeds, she knighted Francis Drake and gave him the position of Governor of Sipang as well as his continued service in raiding Spanish commerce in the region, especially from the island of Tortuga where many privateers and corsairs of all stripes started settling in the western part of the island and also mixing in with the local population, they decided to settle in the barely defended fort Santa Maria de la Paz Verdadera where they rebuild it and named it Fort Fundy, thanks to the natural harbor in the place, it would soon become an ideal settlement in the west alongside Tortuga, if the island was where the corsairs would prepare their raids, the city was where they would be spending their cash, gambling, drinking, whorehouses as well as proper ammunition and repairing facilities, due to how "luxurious" the city had become, it was soon being compared to the palaces which their monarch lived in, meaning that the town was soon named Whitehall.
Denmark-Norway
Denmark had once been the dominant kingdom in northern Europe through its control of the whole of Scandinavia as well as Baltic trade monopoly, sure it had to contend with the likes of the Hanseatic League and the realities of ruling a big territory in a time where nobles weren't still fully subdued but they manage to hold the line.
That was until Sweden broke away in 1521 and went on to do their own thing, weakening the Danish position especially in the trade aspect of managing the Baltics where Sweden seemed busy collecting lands in Eastern Europe and Germany, thus coming in conflict with Poland-Lithuania and therefore gaining the alliance of Denmark (as well as Lübeck) that in the Northern Seven Years War saw both realms ganging up on Sweden, Lübeck and Poland-Lithuania because they felt threatened by Swedish expansion and Denmark who wished to absorb it's "runaway province".
The war didn't amount to much outside of battering both armies and draining their treasuries as well as further dividing the two nations and deepening the hatred between them.
Despite his reputation as a brute and a drunkard, Frederik II was actually a pretty smart guy, surrounding himself with learned men and being responsible for the creation of the university of Copenhagen, not to mention the building of several Renaissance buildings and in general being wised up from his wars, he decided to seek a more prudent policy, especially foreign one, he rebuilt the coffers via taxation, kept the aristocracy happy via a fusion of not rocking the boat too much as well as being very present with them in feasts and drinking.
Frederik II of Denmark-Norway wearing the German flag as clothing before it was cool.
Frederik II of Denmark-Norway wearing the German flag as clothing before it was cool.
More importantly too, he built better relationships with neighbors like Poland and Russia (both for trade reasons and because they wanted to expand on Swedish turf) as well as countries like France and England (again for trade reasons and because they were against the Habsburgs which would allow for Danish expansion into the HRE, the latter one gave fruit when one of ministers gave an idea for a small deal with France.
After the expeditions towards North America that had failed to produce a direct path towards India, it had been mostly forgotten with the exception of preachers and traders of fur, barely settled with only Arcadia(OTL Newfoundland and the Maritime Provinces) having a decent population made up of Breton fishermen but was now being better settled alongside the region near it's south due to the fact the choppy cold waters meant it was the perfect place to train sailors and the navy as well as catching cod.
The proposition was simple: Denmark would settle the St. Lawrence river valley and get it as a colony, French traders of fur would still be allowed in the region but the missionaries would have to leave and in return Denmark would guard France's Arcadia and settled land would be done in their favor, France would also make the Danes the main supplier of sugar in the Baltics via getting a share of the profit in the form of a transportation tax. The regency of Catherine de Medici accepted and soon recalled the missionaries in North America and sent them to Brazil.
The new colony called Vestland (the western land) initially, would soon start it's own settling of people as control of Greenland and Iceland allow for easy supply stations as well as bringing in more colonists, meaning that the first batch was of some 500 people settling in the river valley, mostly focusing on farming they founded Frederiksburg(OTL Quebec) in homage to their ruler, fur trapping was also getting popular alongside trading their agricultural products for cod caught in Arcadia, for now it was only a small settlement but subsequent Danish colonists and natural growth would see it expanding soon enough. Especially as Denmark would stay in a period of relative peace during the reign of Frederik II, focusing on rebuilding the treasury, building intellect as well as expanding the colony and alliances.
Sweden
Under Danish domination for nearly two centuries, Sweden managed to win its independence after a long great struggle against their Copenhagen rulers, led by Gustav Erikson, who converted to Lutheranism and seized church property, which greatly increased his wealth and power and ultimately ended with him managing to keep his independence despite repeated Danish actions to reverse it.
Currently under the king Johan/John III, the Swedish monarch is busy with the war against Russia as well as rebuilding his realm after the war against Denmark, under the peace of Stettin that sees no major changes of territory and essentially made the last war a waste of money and men.
Another big factor of his realm was that he attempted (thanks to influence of his Polish wife) to bridge the gap between Lutheran and Catholic churches, at least in Sweden itself, something that did not help his already shaky popularity since he had gotten the throne after couping his brother (which to be fair, Eric was suffering from insanity that was already seeing him opposed by his own government) that alongside his marriage meant that there was at least three different coup attempts against him, to the point he grew weary enough of having someone put Eric in the throne as a puppet that he outright told the guards to kill him if the situation seemed it would get to that level, something that would've explained how Eric would die later on[28]
Johan/John III of Sweden. Like any good Scandinavian, he cultivated the "Viking Beard"
Johan/John III of Sweden. Like any good Scandinavian, he cultivated the "Viking Beard"
Another factor John was worried for was colonial expansion, he was not blind to immense profits the French were making with their sugar nor to the Portuguese expansions into Asia or the English conquest of Santo Domingo and more recently, the Danes establishing themselves in North America, this could not stand, John knew Sweden would be powerful but it could not compete with the population of Poland-Lithuania or Russia but it could however be richer than them and use that for their advantage.
It was with this that he founded the kontor för koloniala angelägenheter(office for colonial affairs) in order to organize three colonial expeditions in order to establish a Swedish presence in key economic areas of the world, first one after a small settlement of negotiations with England that would not intervene in their establishment, sees the Swedish navy invade the island of Santiago and name it Lilla Krim (later shortened to Krilla) the "little Crimea" as the warm waters reminded the swedish settlers of the peninsula, a fortress named St. John is built and thanks to the negotiations with England, the slaves that will work on the sugar plantations in the island are supplied by the Gold Coast Company for the next 10 years, which will allow for the island to start making money.
The second establishment was in North America and this was done in a similar agreement with France that they had done with Denmark, essentially the border is set up at OTL Saco river where the north of it belongs to France and everything bellow goes to Sweden, the French colonists in the region would be allowed to hunt for fur as well as help supply the Swedish colonists with cod. The first 200 settlers set up Johansen (OTL Portsmouth NH) and there started both farming as well as hunting and doing exchanges with the local tribes, a small fort named Erickson is set up to defend the colonists, much like Vestland, it would grow quickly given it's natural population growth and "healthy airs" that allowed for the population to keep alive in the now dubbed Nya Sverige, unlike Krilla that was seeing a drainage of swamps in order to make it inhabitable and yellow fever decimating the colonists meant they were constantly sending new people.
The final step would see an establishment in the southern tip of Africa, this was also done with French help as the 500 colonists as well as soldiers were first to make a stop at Henriville (where they managed to recruit some disgruntled Huguenots on the way, swelling up the party to 800 people) and refuel there, taking care to not get too close to Portuguese colonies, they set up themselves in a incredible natural harbor they call Stenigtland(OTL St. John Port) due to rocky formations in the bay, a fort named St. Magnus is built to protect the settlement where animal raising and farming is done and more importantly, it would serve as a gateway to India where the Swedes would explore the waters and see what better place there would be in order to avoid the Portuguese presence in India so they can establish themselves there.
A side result of this colonial expeditions is that the Swedish coffers are depleted once again and King John enters negotiations with Tsar Ivan the Terrible about leaving the Livonian war[29], something the Russians are eager to take, via the treaty of Kalmar, the status quo ante bellum is held up and a peace of 20 years is established, Sweden and Russia agree to trade agreements between one another (like Swedish iron for Russian wood, a necessity given the Swedish plans for their colonies), with this, John can go back to rebuilding finances and strengthening the realm.
To the Russians this is great news as it allows them to pull troops from the Swedish possessions in the Baltics and go into the offensive against Poland-Lithuania and start damaging the countryside, especially using Cossacks to reap devastation, this was terrible for the Poles who were already pretty pissed about the whole Sweden abandoning them and in 1576, the worst passes: the city of Riga itself falls and King Sigismund II Augustus open up peace talks with Russia.
Via the treaty of Riga its stated that:
- The city of Riga and surrounding region up to Courland becomes part of the Tsardom of Russia
- Russia gets the regions in Polockie and Witebeskie(including the city of Witebsk) up until the bank of the Daugava river
- The territories of Kozackie, Cznernichowskie and Mscilawskie up until the Dnieper River( alongside the city of Kijow/Kiev) will also be annexed by Russia.
- Poland-Lithuania will also pay reparations to Russia.
- A peace of 30 years between them.
It's a great loss for the Poles who lose territory and are still forced to pay indemnities, King Stephan Bathory[30] rises in the throne under a weakened realm that sees it abandoned by Sweden and Denmark, he'll spend much of his realm filling up the coffers, rebuilding the damaged territories and of course, building up the army for revenge against Russia.
To the Russians, it's a major victory that sees both the keeping of the Baltic province(as well as its expansion into the important city of Riga) and annexation of territory. Tsar Ivan continues incentivizing of trade in the Baltic (especially with Sweden, Denmark and northern Germany) as well as strengthening of the army in preparation for the eventual Polish response, the reparations money is also used to further upgrade defenses in the Baltics territories and conquered regions, Russia is quickly rising up to becoming THE major player in Eastern Europe and only time will tell if the Russian star will scorch it's neighbors or if it will be snuffed out before it can shine too brightly.
Because this chapter wasn't long or took too long to come out! Not at all!
Seriously though, I promise and try to keep chapters shorter because I don't want to deviate too much from the main premise nor do I want to force my readers to read blocks of text.
I will also slow down on production of this a bit because my exams week will start in the next weeks already and I need to study for them, not to mention I have assignments to do afterwards so I'll be plenty busy, but you can enjoy this last chapter of filler before it all and we get back at the main juicy bits of the story.
Footnotes and they're pretty long this time too:
[1]: Yes, that means the Portuguese are settling into OTL Namibia where it will mainly supply fish and cattle for Angola and Mozambique, it's small for now but will grow naturally soon enough
[2]: Another thing that changes as the Portuguese administration was really centralized in their colonies in only a few places which led to bad administration that took long for messages and orders to be relayed and implanted, with a notorious example being Goa administering fucking Macau, obviously this is changed here allowing for a more dynamic control.
[3]: true from OTL where the Ottomans sent several fleets towards the Red and Indian oceans in order to try and curb Portuguese influence in the region, both for the reason of helping their Muslim brethren that was chafing under Lusitan control as well as ensuring that those trade routes where only controlled by them, they failed of course, both OTL and ITTL.
[4]: a pretty big point of tension between the Abyssinians and Portuguese that prevented them from fully allying together with one another was the latter's insistence at having the local Ethiopian Coptic Orthodox Church (which totally wasn't at least as old as the Roman one and just as prestigious) submit or at the very least be sidestepped by the Catholic one, here with Queen Regent Catherine of Austria in charge and her wanting to have a standing ally against the Ottomans, she orders the attempts at converting the country to be made willingly instead of as a demand, meaning the relationship between the two realms is much healthier.
[5]: OTL the Omoro people were converted to Islam both via traders as well as the fact they settled in Somalia and thus were adapted to the main religion of the place, here with them being stopped for now as well as Abyssinia controlling the whole of the Horn of Africa means that the Orthodox and Catholic missionaries are the ones responsible for converting them.
[6]: The Oromo migrations of OTL still happen but this they're much more shifted towards northern eastern Africa and unable to penetrate the Ethiopian Highlands, with them being majority Christian this will have some changes to the ethnic and religious make up of the region.
[7]: One big advantage the Omoro had against the Abyssinians and Somalis peoples was their use of horses and mules that allowed for Lightning attacks against settlements and troops. Here with their horses and mules being taken away as monthly tribute means that not only do their capacity for raiding gets worse but also that the Abyssinian troops themselves can start their own cavalry units and use mules for supply lines, couple that with homemade gunpowder and firearms production means that neither the Egyptians or Ottomans will be able to push them aside so easily.
[8]: A pretty big important aspect on the development of the way the Portuguese will approach their colonial subjects and what it means to be Portuguese in the greater context of the Empire.
[9]: Again, mostly made up of blacks and Indian soldiers that can better resist the heat and local diseases and in the case of the latter, some knowledge about the land that will prove useful on how to deal with issues.
[10]: One of the biggest factors to why Portugal wasn't able to contend with the many assaults against their positions in the East Indies as they only used white Portuguese soldiers who would've taken months to arrive there and would've been exhausted from the trip, not to mention the question of the tropical diseases and the heat those troops simply weren't used to. Here seeing their effectiveness during the conquest of Ceilão, the high command will be making extensive use of them in the colonial regions as well as at home if the situation calls for it.
[11]: Here Martim lives a bit longer and just so he can lead the conquest of the East Indies, alongside him are other former governors and military men from the colony who are out of jobs and Portugal decides to put their experience fighting in jungles and with tropical environment to good use.
[12]: Another major deviation from OTL, with Portuguese ships as well as Abyssinian ones prowling in the region, the Ottomans have pretty much lost the Red Sea and any control over it.
[13]: True from OTL as both realms attempted to expand against one another and just ended up exhausting each other, something that will prove fatal ITTL.
[14]: Very original I know
[15]: Because Sebastian is alive and well here, he continues being a Cardinal and leading the Portuguese faction in the Vatican.
[16]: something that will have a effect on how certain places are approached by missionaries and how that version of Christianity develops there.
[17]: Yes, this will affect the Sengoku Jidai.
[18]: Will be touched in the next update.
[19]: A major change from otl where he imagined himself as a modern day crusader and got himself and his top brass killed sieging a town that had little to no value. Here he will be focused on running the empire but is still a very devout Christian as well as zealous given what is going on in the East Indies and Ceilão
[20]: Man who knew diversifying your economy would give such tidy profits right?
[21]: Has the result of Spain controlling the whole of Philippines which will affect how the island develops.
[22]: True from OTL and shows just how much of indebt the Habsburgs were even then, people give a lot of flak to the Spanish branch for having squandered the empire and there's some merit to that, but Charles V was really the one that gave his descendants a massive list of payments that he had accumulated defending his hideously bloated and far flung empire, something that will be dealt with but still cause a lot of grief for Spanish monarchs as times goes on, especially with France looming so large.
[23]: Another major deviation as it means that instead of decisively defeating the Ottomans, they just blunted them and both share control of the Mediterranean, meaning that Spain will still have to contend with them at seas which will drive money away from fighting a certain rebellion in the Low Countries. A thing to notice too is that the French admiral was watching the whole thing unfold and has made his own notes about it….
[24]: I could make a joke here about coming and going but I'll just restrict myself to saying that this is obviously a huge pod that while essentially putting France in a regency soon enough, will still mean that the royal line is very much secure
[25]: Yes, this means a small British presence in southern India that will mean a source of conflict with other powers later on.
[26]: Will be explored in the next update.
[27]: One of the main reasons Spain failed and eventually abandoned Santo Domingo since the Maroons just raided enough to the point only the coastal areas were safe.
[28]: Recent analysis of Erick's skeleton revealed that he died of arsenic poisoning.
[29]: Something that will have huge impact on Russia's position and power on the Baltics as well as of its neighbors
[30]: He still rises to the throne ITTL but he won't be remembered as a great hero who defeated Russia and pushed them out of the Baltics, at least, not now...
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Will probably take some time to "digest" and comment on the whole update
But amazing, there's just so much information and this world feels so alive that Im just thrilled
For now though have this offhand comment:
But amazing, there's just so much information and this world feels so alive that Im just thrilled
For now though have this offhand comment:
Missed opportunity to call it Drakia!
I appreciate the comment. I sometimes feel like this TL gets too wild when I'm writing so it's a good reassurance that I'm actually doing good stuff.
And ngl, I kinda hate the name Draka because of the TL as well as the desire to name it something more original.
Me too and Im glad you went with something more original(was lowkey expecting something like Saint Sunday, Elizabeth Islands, New England or New York) but I do think its funny how the Draka name would actually have worked here, cause you know, Drake actually conquered this colony
That makes me very happy
Have confidence, your writing is great and even more impressive considering its your first TL here
You have my full support too, and not just because you supported me with my first TL
Yeah, honestly it's fun coming up(or trying) with original names for the colonies, especially with something like the Portuguese or English taking the original names of the places and them saying in their own way that ends up with in a brand new name.
Thank you for the words and I really mean that, encouragement is always great and I try and make quality stuff.
Damn this timeline isn’t even up to 1600 yet and the world already looks to be drastically different than at this point IOTL.
I will also add I have a personal interest in this TL(besides we being buddies) because(I think I've said this before? In Vini's TL probably) I actually almost "became french" when I was a kid due to a relative inviting me and my mom to go live there with them, so seeing this combination of Brazil and France is like getting to see my own would-be cultural heritage in the form of another world, and to me thats just wonderful
Damm really? That's pretty neat.
Reminds of that one cartoon where they have these conjoined twins that are part of the main gang and of them is a stereotypical Frenchman named Gaston(he has the Beret, the stripped shirt and the curly mustache) because they were born in the exact border between Brazil and French Guyana, with Gaston being born on the French side of things so despite having all the same ancestors and everything, the dude is basically just a Frenchman that speaks Portuguese and lives in Brazil.
Yeah I'm trying to imagine all the differences that a stable France who holds France would have not only in Europe but also other parts of the world, as shown, things have changed a lot already.
Reminds me of the Disney and the Sonic the Hedgehog frenchman characters
Guess the alt-me would be the polar opposite of that being a brazilian that lives in France speaking "brazilian french"
What better way to remind the audience that someone is French them by having them with the beret, stripped shirt and ridiculous accent combo?Reminds me of the Disney and the Sonic the Hedgehog frenchman characters
Guess the alt-me would be the polar opposite of that being a brazilian that lives in France speaking "brazilian french"
I can only imagine that The French language purists would be losing their minds hearing "Brazilian French" that would be choke full of Native American and African loan words, something that was actually mentioned in Casa Grande e Senzala, where priests that educated the children of the elites kept complaining about how "they talk like their slaves educated them" instead of the "proper Portuguese"
Silly priests, God sided with the slaves not the slavers
Maybe they all needed a reminder of Exodus...
Based and feijoada'd!
Makes me wonder how many people I would have pissed off with my french had I ended moved there
Shh don't tell them or the cognitive dissonance will kick in and make them feel bad!
"Noooo! You can't just say feijoada, you must say le feijodie!"
"KKKKK, Loan words go brrrr!"
GloriousCareful with the Ks, this is a english forum
Then again ITTL I wonder if Ah.com would be francophone, imagine that
Indeed, I'm not an expert on cooking but I'll try and make predictions on how French cuisine would mix in with native, African and even Jewish influences on the colony
It looks like we might need a new world map sooner than I thought with more parts of the world colonized here than IOTL and most of those places with very different colonizers.
Yeah, French Brazil is basically the best place to be a Jew (among places where Jews actually lived in this time period). Full freedom of religion so long as you don't proselytize, which the Jews by this point in time didn't means that the Jewish population in French Brazil is going to soar, first with Sephardic Jews and then Ashkenazi Jews later on down the line. I could see a Jewish population similar in size to OTL's U.S. developing in Brazil.