I admit that outright vassalage is unlikely, but the Ottomans will at very least try to keep Central Asia independent. Constantinople probably would be interested in the North Caucasus to protect their interests in the South Caucasus and Crimea, as well as to deny the Polish access to Astrakhan and the Caspian Sea. Maybe they can vassalise and prop up the Astrakhan Khanate if it still exists?
Pecari rex, Equus regina: American Domesticates 3.0
- Thread starter twovultures
- Start date
twovultures
Donor
The Silence of the Lamb
The spring sun filtered thinly through the trees, lighting but not warming much. It had been a cold year, and Johan Heavyfoot shivered slightly as he brought the docile lamb on a leash to the front of his home.
There, his family waited impatiently. Days like today were good working days, when hoeing and weeding helped dispel the cold a little, but Easter was too important a day to spend toiling in the fields. Even the children were assembled to witness what the M’icmaq called “The Sacrifice”-the recreation of Christ’s glorious crucifixion and the hope that it gave the world.
Johan would lead the modest assembly in the Lord’s Prayer, over the lamb which bleated plaintively. Then, Johan knelt, forcing the lamb to the ground and pulling its head back to expose the throat. His eldest son Samuel knelt with him, pulling out a long knife. This was a special knife normally given to guests to cut their meat; a long steel blade ending in a whale tooth handle with a St. Peter’s cross carved on one side and the ascending Virgin on the other. Samuel was quick and steady, the knife sliding easily across the lamb’s throat.
Johan held the animal as it kicked weakly, while Samuel rose to lead the invocation.
“We thank you oh Lord, for the gift of salvation, and for our good Christian King Gustav. We accept Jesus and reject Satan, and pray for all the souls that have come before us…”
This was a M’icmaq innovation, praying for the pagan dead who had died in innocence but without salvation. The priests did not approve of it, but they were too far removed from their own pagan ancestors to know the fear of their relatives dying without God. The living M’icmaq prayed for peace for the dead.
Their prayers for the living, on the other hand, were decidedly less peaceful.
“We pray for the destruction of Babylon” said Johan, standing up as Samuel finished. “We pray for the destruction of the wicked kings of this world. Let the pagan Sultan be cast down.”
“Let the Sultan be cast down” replied his family.
“Let the heretic Elise of Denmark be cast down.”
“Let Elise be cast down.”
“Let Red Raven of the Andhastorrheon be cast down.”
“Let Red Raven be cast down.”
“Let the Dark Lords of Irinakhoiw be cast down.”
“Let the Dark Lords be cast down.”
Johan cried, a plaintive wail that cut through the cold air. Around him his family members sobbed, beating their breasts and calling out the names of the ancestral martyrs, the foreign Christians who had come to seek refuge among the M’icmaq.
“Let all who follow the barbaric falsehoods of Irinakhoiw and Hainteroh be cast down” Samuel cried to the sky. “In justice for those whose blood was spilled like yours. We will never forget the Crucifixion, Lord. We will never forget the martyrs of Rome. We will never forget the martyrs of Conestoga.”
That night the children smiled and laughed, playing games after they had finished eating the roasted lamb and potatoes. But some of the older children did not join in the games. They asked Johan what Conestoga and Rome were, and why the martyrs died. Johan would tell them.
The spring sun filtered thinly through the trees, lighting but not warming much. It had been a cold year, and Johan Heavyfoot shivered slightly as he brought the docile lamb on a leash to the front of his home.
There, his family waited impatiently. Days like today were good working days, when hoeing and weeding helped dispel the cold a little, but Easter was too important a day to spend toiling in the fields. Even the children were assembled to witness what the M’icmaq called “The Sacrifice”-the recreation of Christ’s glorious crucifixion and the hope that it gave the world.
Johan would lead the modest assembly in the Lord’s Prayer, over the lamb which bleated plaintively. Then, Johan knelt, forcing the lamb to the ground and pulling its head back to expose the throat. His eldest son Samuel knelt with him, pulling out a long knife. This was a special knife normally given to guests to cut their meat; a long steel blade ending in a whale tooth handle with a St. Peter’s cross carved on one side and the ascending Virgin on the other. Samuel was quick and steady, the knife sliding easily across the lamb’s throat.
Johan held the animal as it kicked weakly, while Samuel rose to lead the invocation.
“We thank you oh Lord, for the gift of salvation, and for our good Christian King Gustav. We accept Jesus and reject Satan, and pray for all the souls that have come before us…”
This was a M’icmaq innovation, praying for the pagan dead who had died in innocence but without salvation. The priests did not approve of it, but they were too far removed from their own pagan ancestors to know the fear of their relatives dying without God. The living M’icmaq prayed for peace for the dead.
Their prayers for the living, on the other hand, were decidedly less peaceful.
“We pray for the destruction of Babylon” said Johan, standing up as Samuel finished. “We pray for the destruction of the wicked kings of this world. Let the pagan Sultan be cast down.”
“Let the Sultan be cast down” replied his family.
“Let the heretic Elise of Denmark be cast down.”
“Let Elise be cast down.”
“Let Red Raven of the Andhastorrheon be cast down.”
“Let Red Raven be cast down.”
“Let the Dark Lords of Irinakhoiw be cast down.”
“Let the Dark Lords be cast down.”
Johan cried, a plaintive wail that cut through the cold air. Around him his family members sobbed, beating their breasts and calling out the names of the ancestral martyrs, the foreign Christians who had come to seek refuge among the M’icmaq.
“Let all who follow the barbaric falsehoods of Irinakhoiw and Hainteroh be cast down” Samuel cried to the sky. “In justice for those whose blood was spilled like yours. We will never forget the Crucifixion, Lord. We will never forget the martyrs of Rome. We will never forget the martyrs of Conestoga.”
That night the children smiled and laughed, playing games after they had finished eating the roasted lamb and potatoes. But some of the older children did not join in the games. They asked Johan what Conestoga and Rome were, and why the martyrs died. Johan would tell them.
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Martyrs of Conestoga? Where IOTL is this? I take it Christianity adapted to take root in some parts of North Columbia?
An interesting local brand of Catholicism took root in Greenland, IIRC.
twovultures
Donor
IITL, the Conestoga river will be site of terrible, terrible things happening to Christians. Beyond sectarianism, that river's name will be a black spot on all friends of humanity.
Because, if you'll recall, you asked me to do something in that area.
I'll be going over the growth of Christianity on the east coast in the next update. But the nutshell is: Lutherans are in what's OTL Prince Rupert's land and are working lukewarm on conversions. Catholic priests are working harder on conversion on the east coast, and increasing numbers of European Lollardists are settling there.
twovultures
Donor
1674 AD: “If a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.” –Mark 3:25
This particular gem of biblical wisdom would have been lifesaving had the Christians of the Andhastorrheon Empire listened to it but the believers of this northeastern empire were deeply antagonistic towards each other.
European Lollardists of various stripes were now well established in North Columbia, there settlements dotting the entirety of the Atlantic coast as they fled persecution. More sparsely populated than Europe, there was room on this continent for communities to split up which encouraged a blinkering pursuit of ideological purity. If there were 3 Lollardist communities in walking distance of each other, you could bet that the members of all 3 had left from the other two over the most niggling little questions of doctrine and spent every Sunday condemning their neighbors to hell.
In their focus on each other, the Lollardists often forgot that they were sharing a continent whose population (outside of malarial zones, anyway) was very rapidly growing. The destruction wrought by measles and the minor plagues was now being overcome because the abundance of land cleared by disease was encouraging the Native Columbians to produce vast surpluses of food. This in turn was fuelling a demographic boom the likes of which had not been seen since the introduction of maize to North Columbia.
This population growth and freedom of land was creating social uncertainties, and many were turning to the priests who appeared in their midst from across the sea. These missionaries were well funded by their governments and private donations and so could display a lot of wealth to impress the peasants of the countryside. In addition their message about eternal life and salvation seemed comforting after the cultural trauma of measles. Entire Catholic villages were springing up around the homes of missionaries, populated often by minority tribes who felt left out of the existing power structure, such as the Algonquians under the Andhastorrheon dominion.
But without coercion from a colonial government to force people to live on missions, the tribes and clans self-segregated, staying apart and keeping their ancestral mistrust of each other. So, one mission would be populated by Wenrohronon and another by Lenape. Neither would attend mass at the other’s villages, and neither would speak to each other. The only inadvertent cooperation they had was telling their pagan neighbors not to do any business with the Lollardists heretics.
Had the Andhastorrheon emperor Raven’s Pole realized how divided Christians were, history might have gone differently. But the emperor did not see their divisions; he just saw an increasingly powerful bloc of European interlopers gaining an unseemly amount of followers. They could challenge his power, which was already deeply shaken due to the freedom people had to settle emptied land.
The emperor’s reassertion of power came shortly after Easter in a lightning attack on the village of Les Anges. Dragoons rode into the village at dawn, burning the surrounding fields and firing at the population until they fled into the village church, which was burned down. Outriders sent messages to the nearest ethnic Andhastorrheon villages: the Christian towns were going to be destroyed, and they had best grab as much loot as they could before it happened.
Over the next few days the Andhastorrheon civilians laid siege to Christian towns. Catholic clerics were killed as witches, the male converts killed while their wives and children were enslaved by the local population. Lollardists of all genders and ages were outright killed, though men who were believed to be skilled in some way-such as blacksmiths and carpenters-were spared and sold off to foreign merchants.
Without clear communication between their communities there was no understanding that attacks had been initiated at the order of the Emperor. Christians fled in all directions over the next few weeks, many going north into M’icmaq land but the largest bulk attempting to seek the Emperor’s protection at his lodge on the Conestoga River. Thousands crowded into what had once been a royal deer park, eating boiled leather and bark to assuage their hunger and wait for the Emperor to grant them an audience as his son White Raven Pole promised he would do.
When a column of riders approached the camp, the refugees cheered, believing that it was the emperor’s retinue. Certainly the host included numbers of the emperor’s inner circle but they were there to prove their worth by killing as many Christian traitors as they could.
When they opened fire, the crowd realized there was no hope for their salvation in this world and panic broke out. Thousands died that day, some killed by spear and bullet and others crushed by horses or their own fleeing co-religionists. Many attempted to escape by swimming in the Conestoga River, only to drown or be killed by arrows when they surfaced for breath. Mothers killed their children rather than have them taken by the pagan enemy, a fact that would result in persistent legends that Christians were child killers among the Andhastorrheon.
Only one Christian community survived unscathed-an Algonquian mission called Manhattan. The small island was the outpost of the French navy, just another neglected backwater of the Regency period. But when loads of panicked Lollardists and Columbian converts showed up on the island’s shores on hastily assembled rafts, the governor quickly ordered all ships to surround the island, rescue any Christians in the water and blow any invaders straight to hell.
If the Andhastorrheon had any plans to attack Manhattan, they did not follow through on them. Perhaps the ships intimidated them, or perhaps they realized that establishing a beachhead with their small coracles and canoes would be ineffective. The Emperor realized that this island was essentially lost to him, but he saw it as an opportunity to keep European goods close while minimizing Christian influence. Raven’s Pole would decree that not only was Christianity now outlawed, but that no Christians would be allowed in the empire. If citizens of the Empire wanted to trade with Europeans, they would need to do so at Manhattan. Soon after he would convert to the Irinakhoiw faith and urge all loyal citizens to do the same.
The Conestoga massacre and its aftermath shook up the entire Atlantic. In France it became proof of the Regency government’s weakness in defending the nation’s interests overseas. The British and the Portuguese hardliners in the colonies presented the massacre as proof that a ‘live and let-live’ co-existence with their native neighbors was not possible. In the Irinakhoiw Federation the conversion of Raven’s Pole was seen by the River Flints as a signal that their calls for reform would not be heeded. Instead, the Irinakhoiw elite would simply co-opt the elites of neighboring states to strengthen their hold on power instead of giving the downtrodden River Flints a fair shake.
This particular gem of biblical wisdom would have been lifesaving had the Christians of the Andhastorrheon Empire listened to it but the believers of this northeastern empire were deeply antagonistic towards each other.
European Lollardists of various stripes were now well established in North Columbia, there settlements dotting the entirety of the Atlantic coast as they fled persecution. More sparsely populated than Europe, there was room on this continent for communities to split up which encouraged a blinkering pursuit of ideological purity. If there were 3 Lollardist communities in walking distance of each other, you could bet that the members of all 3 had left from the other two over the most niggling little questions of doctrine and spent every Sunday condemning their neighbors to hell.
In their focus on each other, the Lollardists often forgot that they were sharing a continent whose population (outside of malarial zones, anyway) was very rapidly growing. The destruction wrought by measles and the minor plagues was now being overcome because the abundance of land cleared by disease was encouraging the Native Columbians to produce vast surpluses of food. This in turn was fuelling a demographic boom the likes of which had not been seen since the introduction of maize to North Columbia.
This population growth and freedom of land was creating social uncertainties, and many were turning to the priests who appeared in their midst from across the sea. These missionaries were well funded by their governments and private donations and so could display a lot of wealth to impress the peasants of the countryside. In addition their message about eternal life and salvation seemed comforting after the cultural trauma of measles. Entire Catholic villages were springing up around the homes of missionaries, populated often by minority tribes who felt left out of the existing power structure, such as the Algonquians under the Andhastorrheon dominion.
But without coercion from a colonial government to force people to live on missions, the tribes and clans self-segregated, staying apart and keeping their ancestral mistrust of each other. So, one mission would be populated by Wenrohronon and another by Lenape. Neither would attend mass at the other’s villages, and neither would speak to each other. The only inadvertent cooperation they had was telling their pagan neighbors not to do any business with the Lollardists heretics.
Had the Andhastorrheon emperor Raven’s Pole realized how divided Christians were, history might have gone differently. But the emperor did not see their divisions; he just saw an increasingly powerful bloc of European interlopers gaining an unseemly amount of followers. They could challenge his power, which was already deeply shaken due to the freedom people had to settle emptied land.
The emperor’s reassertion of power came shortly after Easter in a lightning attack on the village of Les Anges. Dragoons rode into the village at dawn, burning the surrounding fields and firing at the population until they fled into the village church, which was burned down. Outriders sent messages to the nearest ethnic Andhastorrheon villages: the Christian towns were going to be destroyed, and they had best grab as much loot as they could before it happened.
Over the next few days the Andhastorrheon civilians laid siege to Christian towns. Catholic clerics were killed as witches, the male converts killed while their wives and children were enslaved by the local population. Lollardists of all genders and ages were outright killed, though men who were believed to be skilled in some way-such as blacksmiths and carpenters-were spared and sold off to foreign merchants.
Without clear communication between their communities there was no understanding that attacks had been initiated at the order of the Emperor. Christians fled in all directions over the next few weeks, many going north into M’icmaq land but the largest bulk attempting to seek the Emperor’s protection at his lodge on the Conestoga River. Thousands crowded into what had once been a royal deer park, eating boiled leather and bark to assuage their hunger and wait for the Emperor to grant them an audience as his son White Raven Pole promised he would do.
When a column of riders approached the camp, the refugees cheered, believing that it was the emperor’s retinue. Certainly the host included numbers of the emperor’s inner circle but they were there to prove their worth by killing as many Christian traitors as they could.
When they opened fire, the crowd realized there was no hope for their salvation in this world and panic broke out. Thousands died that day, some killed by spear and bullet and others crushed by horses or their own fleeing co-religionists. Many attempted to escape by swimming in the Conestoga River, only to drown or be killed by arrows when they surfaced for breath. Mothers killed their children rather than have them taken by the pagan enemy, a fact that would result in persistent legends that Christians were child killers among the Andhastorrheon.
Only one Christian community survived unscathed-an Algonquian mission called Manhattan. The small island was the outpost of the French navy, just another neglected backwater of the Regency period. But when loads of panicked Lollardists and Columbian converts showed up on the island’s shores on hastily assembled rafts, the governor quickly ordered all ships to surround the island, rescue any Christians in the water and blow any invaders straight to hell.
If the Andhastorrheon had any plans to attack Manhattan, they did not follow through on them. Perhaps the ships intimidated them, or perhaps they realized that establishing a beachhead with their small coracles and canoes would be ineffective. The Emperor realized that this island was essentially lost to him, but he saw it as an opportunity to keep European goods close while minimizing Christian influence. Raven’s Pole would decree that not only was Christianity now outlawed, but that no Christians would be allowed in the empire. If citizens of the Empire wanted to trade with Europeans, they would need to do so at Manhattan. Soon after he would convert to the Irinakhoiw faith and urge all loyal citizens to do the same.
The Conestoga massacre and its aftermath shook up the entire Atlantic. In France it became proof of the Regency government’s weakness in defending the nation’s interests overseas. The British and the Portuguese hardliners in the colonies presented the massacre as proof that a ‘live and let-live’ co-existence with their native neighbors was not possible. In the Irinakhoiw Federation the conversion of Raven’s Pole was seen by the River Flints as a signal that their calls for reform would not be heeded. Instead, the Irinakhoiw elite would simply co-opt the elites of neighboring states to strengthen their hold on power instead of giving the downtrodden River Flints a fair shake.
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This seems ominous, I hope things don't get much bloodier. It looks like the east coast is in for some rough times though. 
The Gun Genie coming out within an hour's walk of the birthplace of the Pennsylvania Rifle?!?
Awful, but thrilling to see what happened in an ATL version of my old stomping grounds. Thanks!
twovultures
Donor
This seems ominous, I hope things don't get much bloodier. It looks like the east coast is in for some rough times though.
Unfortunately, yes. Chornarus cannot absorb the entirety of Europe's excess population, and sooner or later there will be a much larger exodus to the Columbias. Things are liable to get quite bloody, though North Columbia will be better able to fight off the invaders than temperate South Columbia.
Iksnyski said:
The emperor is definitely overconfident. In Meso Columbia, the conquest of the Greater Antilles and the recent pushes to the Martial Ocean have shown the native powers there exactly what Europeans are capable of when they put their minds to it, and how capable they are of playing a very long game politically. The northeast hasn't seen that yet, they've just seen a few stragglers and don't quite appreciate the full power of the nations those stragglers come from.
spdoyle said:
I definitely planned to have this happen in the Andhastorrheon Empire, but it was your request that led me to set the massacre on the banks of the Conestoga specifically.
Something quite funny, it seems that even in this TL Manhattan becomes the island for the tired, poor, and huddled masses that are homeless.
To be fair, it's not too different from what the Japanese OTL did quite successfully for a very long time. On the other hand, the Japanese were much more distant from the metropole than the northeastern United States is...
twovultures
Donor
I didn't even think of that
New York is a great natural harbor though, it will probably become a stopping point for huddled masses no matter how history goes. Workable Goblin said:
Thing is, the Andhastorrheon aren't really pulling a Japan. They still have a great demand for (and growing dependence on) European-manufactured metal goods, and trade and contact hasn't been effectively abolished, merely restricted. Like Iksnyski said, Manhattan isn't really far enough to keep the Europeans away.
twovultures
Donor
The Revolts
The Irinakhoiw alliance broke apart peacefully in the spring of 1678. At the great meeting of the Irinakhoiw council that year, a group representing the River Flints appeared and demanded that they be given full membership in the Alliance and that universal reforms be implemented. Many among the council wanted to punish them for their impudence, but the council was being held on the land of a powerful noble named Hiawatha. He was not eager to see bloodshed and so kept his brethren in check and listened to the emissaries.
He was not pleased by what he heard. The River Flints wanted the same canard about abolishing the practice of nobility being the ones to conduct rituals and even more radically wanted land redistribution. As far as Hiawatha was concerned, this was not acceptable. Yet, he approached this problem in a rational and calm manner that the European Christians would have done well to emulate. Instead of declaring that the heretics must convert or die, he offered them the chance to secede from the Irinakhoiw nation.
He wasn’t necessarily tolerant, but as a good Irinakhoiw he believed in right practice of religion and that if the River Flints displeased the Creator with improper rituals He would weaken them so that they could be easily reconquered. His proposal was met enthusiasm from the Huron and the Eriechron, although the Flints were not happy to see their vassals go. But enough supported secession that it became official.
Of course, the Flints launched an attack on the River Flints soon afterwards, but this attack was quickly repulsed without the aid of the other Irinakhoiw tribes. The River Flints would go on to work on two important issues-controlling the fur trade, and choosing a new and better name for themselves.
The latter was easy. The River Flints were a modern, cunning people. They were not hard like flint, but adaptable like metal, and so they would call themselves the Iron People (the name would be translated into Ironborn by most Europeans and Coeurs de Fer or Iron Hearts by the French). Controlling the fur trade would be a little less easy, as this involved trying to control the Askimawey peoples. These were well armed by the Danes, and with their nomadic societal structure were a lot less easy to intimidate than the oligarchs of Irinakhoiw. They fought off the Ironborn’s punitive raids, and emboldened by their success would begin to launch attacks against the Irinakhoiw proper, sowing confusion and leading some of the faithful to mutter that maybe the heretic Hainteroh was right after all and the Creator was now punishing the truly immoral people.
The Shiwi’ma Revolt
The Iviatam believed that their Shiwi’ma vassals were lazy, shiftless, and good for nothing. They were wrong, as they found out in the fall of 1679 when the Shiwi’ma revolt began. It’s true that the Shiwi’ma had always resisted being forced to mine for their Iviatam masters, but they were quite happy to mine (in a limited way) for their own profit, and even made trips out to the land that would never be called California to moil for gold.
They invested their wealth wisely, hiding it from imperial tax collectors and selling it to merchants from Tlatokan in exchange for firearms. Even better, they began to make connections with the nomadic tribes who roamed near the streams they moiled for gold in.
This was probably how the Niamniam warrior Coyote’s Tail got wind that the Iviatam were going to be making tax collecting visits in the fall, and always went around with fine horses and European firearms. In September when the Imperial tax collectors made their annual trip from village to village to take resources and dole out labor assignments, they found themselves attacked by guerilla fighters who robbed them and then vanished like smoke into the deserts. On their home turf of the Southern Plains they could easily have defended themselves, but on the unfamiliar terrain of the Shiwi’ma territory this was a little harder.
In the confusion of the raids the Hopi were the first to revolt. They quickly moved from acting as scouts for the Niamniam to openly attacking the Iviatam leaders who tried to shelter in their villages from the raids. But it was the charismatic rebel Po’pay of the Tewa who truly rallied the Shiwi’ma together by making the risky journey from village to village and calling upon them in their shared liturgical language to overthrow the heathen overlords.
Shiwi’ma of all tribes boiled out of their villages in response to Po’pay’s urging, attacking and massacring the tax collectors in tandem with the Niamniam raiders who would serve as their de facto cavalry. The Iviatam could not put down this rebellion, especially since doing so could take away men from protecting their northern borders. By the end of winter, they grudgingly withdrew from the Shiwi’ma land, giving birth to a brand new nation.
This Shiwi’ma nation lasted all of two years before it crumbled. Po’pay attempted to create a religious oligarchy somewhat like that of the Irinakhoiw. But where the Irinakhoiw were willing to put their differences aside and share power he had a totalitarian mindset which disgusted the other Shiwi’ma. Particularly galling were his attempts to ban the cultivation of Iviatam imports such as watermelons and to forbid the Niamniam to cross Shiwi’ma land when they raided the southern plains.
The Shiwi’ma were expert farmers and not eager to give up their new agricultural treasures. Most of the Shiwi’ma leaders were also politically savvy enough to know that the Niamniam would not be impressed with threats of spiritual damnation and were necessary allies to keep their villages independent. And so Hopi, Tewa, Taos and all others simply went back to living independently and ignored Po’pay’s increasingly unhinged proclamations. The Shiwi’ma nation was stillborn, at least for now.
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twovultures
Donor
Updated Map!
Europe (and European Colonies):
Dark Green: Hapsburg Empire
Dark Blue: French Empire
Light Red: Tudor Empire
Pink: Portuguese Empire
Grey Blue: Swedish Empire
Dark Red: Polish-Lithuanian-Kyiv Commonwealth
Dark Green: Ottoman Empire
Columbias:
Yellow: Pachayep Kingdom
Gray: Tilxochitl
Red: Tlatokan
Brown: Iviatam Empire
Dark Red: Irinakhoiw Confederacy
Yellow (just north of the Irinakhoiw): Iron Republic
Africa:
Orange: Jolof Empire
Purple: Ethiopian Empire
Yellow: Songhai Empire
Asia:
Grey: Mughal Empire
Blue: Vijayanagara Empire
Purple: Dun Dynasty
Green: Second Yuan Dynasty
Europe (and European Colonies):
Dark Green: Hapsburg Empire
Dark Blue: French Empire
Light Red: Tudor Empire
Pink: Portuguese Empire
Grey Blue: Swedish Empire
Dark Red: Polish-Lithuanian-Kyiv Commonwealth
Dark Green: Ottoman Empire
Columbias:
Yellow: Pachayep Kingdom
Gray: Tilxochitl
Red: Tlatokan
Brown: Iviatam Empire
Dark Red: Irinakhoiw Confederacy
Yellow (just north of the Irinakhoiw): Iron Republic
Africa:
Orange: Jolof Empire
Purple: Ethiopian Empire
Yellow: Songhai Empire
Asia:
Grey: Mughal Empire
Blue: Vijayanagara Empire
Purple: Dun Dynasty
Green: Second Yuan Dynasty
twovultures
Donor
The Ural War is mostly known within the annals of the nations who fought it as “the Phony War” due to its briefness and the half-heartedness of the actual war part.
Both the Swedes and the PLK (Polish-Lithuanian-Kyiv commonwealth) had been sending explorers past the Urals for decades before this particular spat. At that point, the Sibir Khanate was a distant memory of the nomads who roamed the land. The fractured tribes bogged down European interlopers in constant fighting, but were not coordinated enough to drive them out of the land. So merchants and soldiers from both empires pushed forward, fighting each other as well as the locals.
The Swedes were the more determined colonizer. In the Arctic Circle they found musk-ox farmers and valuable wool as well as whaling and sealing stations to supplement the potential profits from timber harvests, and from the Gulf of Ob quickly moved up the Ob River.
The PLK never stopped them because it was distracted by the situation in Chornarus (OTL Muscovy and surrounding areas). The Bathorys were trying to break the boyar class by creating a nouveau riche class loyal to them through elevating select peasants to landowners (though forbidding from having serfs) and giving land to Western European immigrants (also forbidden from owning serfs). While this program is credited with modernizing Chornarus and turning it into the modern breadbasket it is, it was in many ways an outright brutal conquest. Entire villages of peasants were razed when they protested their commons being divided up and sold off, and the survivors turned to guerilla warfare which further slowed down the Bathory’s consolidation of power.
This was part of why the PLK’s invasion of Siberia in May 1684 failed to dislodge the Swedes along the Ob-Irtysh Rivers. A large portion of the troops sent from the Ukraine had to stay in Chornarus to fight a new wave of guerrillas. The Chornarussian auxiliaries who crossed the Urals mutinied and refused to fight when rumors spread that in their absence their villages were being attacked. By the time a few Cossacks were able to find the Swedish forts the Swedish soldiery had dug itself in and fought viciously to defend both their outposts and their access to a valuable discovery in the southeast.
At the headwaters of the Ob they had found the westernmost outposts of the Yuan Empire, government-sponsored Gelug monasteries. These monasteries had been placed to help pacify the Oirat Mongols and were considered a hardship post. As such the demoralized monks and bureaucrats working out of them were easy to corrupt and gladly sold off luxury Chinese goods in exchange for soft and warm musk-ox wool and sealskin clothes.
In 1687 the demoralized Commonwealth general Joseph Stanislavas sent a letter to his counterpart Tuomas Putansu to discuss the PLK’s terms of surrender. Much to his shock, Putansu offered him exceptionally generous terms-he agreed to allow Commonwealth merchants to operate east of the Urals, but limited their wares to grains (the main product of Chornarus anyway) and laid out a plan for peace talks.
The Swedes knew that their hold over Siberia was relatively precarious. They needed a guarantee that the Bathorys would remain distracted and unfocused on the East. For this reason, they took the somewhat drastic step of agreeing to hand over their Columbian colony of Prince Eric’s Island (OTL: Prince Edward’s Island) to the PLK in exchange for guarantees to Siberia
The gambit worked. From the port of Gdansk, PLK ships spewed into the Atlantic to initiate the transfer of the colony and see how easy it would be to reach the main trade routes from it (the answer was not very, but it was a start). To keep Chornarus calm, the Bathorys granted the Chornarussian and settler communities the right to trade grain freely to the Swedes and limited military activity in Chornarus. This did a lot to appease the Chornarussian boyars while simultaneously giving their social rivals great economic opportunity. Although the region would continue to see rebellions and oppression, after the Phony War things would calm down immensely.
The Bathorys were excited by their new playground in the Columbias, though the M’icmaq were somewhat less enthused about being traded like cattle. Luckily, the PLK would mostly use their coast as a way station, leaving the inland farmers and small fisherman to their own devices and sailing southward.
The Swedes would continue to sail (or sled, depending on the time of year) on the Ob-Irtysh Rivers to the Altai Mountains. Although this trade was both immensely profitable and brought them a great degree of prestige, it was also a very vulnerable industry. Their outposts were largely dependent on Chornarussian grain for food, vulnerable to attacks by Mongol and Turkish nomads, and could only last as long as Yuan officials were willing to turn a blind eye to the corruption they were engendering. It was not a situation that could be permanent.
Below: Depiction of a serf graduating to Kulak status with the gift of land from the PLK.
Both the Swedes and the PLK (Polish-Lithuanian-Kyiv commonwealth) had been sending explorers past the Urals for decades before this particular spat. At that point, the Sibir Khanate was a distant memory of the nomads who roamed the land. The fractured tribes bogged down European interlopers in constant fighting, but were not coordinated enough to drive them out of the land. So merchants and soldiers from both empires pushed forward, fighting each other as well as the locals.
The Swedes were the more determined colonizer. In the Arctic Circle they found musk-ox farmers and valuable wool as well as whaling and sealing stations to supplement the potential profits from timber harvests, and from the Gulf of Ob quickly moved up the Ob River.
The PLK never stopped them because it was distracted by the situation in Chornarus (OTL Muscovy and surrounding areas). The Bathorys were trying to break the boyar class by creating a nouveau riche class loyal to them through elevating select peasants to landowners (though forbidding from having serfs) and giving land to Western European immigrants (also forbidden from owning serfs). While this program is credited with modernizing Chornarus and turning it into the modern breadbasket it is, it was in many ways an outright brutal conquest. Entire villages of peasants were razed when they protested their commons being divided up and sold off, and the survivors turned to guerilla warfare which further slowed down the Bathory’s consolidation of power.
This was part of why the PLK’s invasion of Siberia in May 1684 failed to dislodge the Swedes along the Ob-Irtysh Rivers. A large portion of the troops sent from the Ukraine had to stay in Chornarus to fight a new wave of guerrillas. The Chornarussian auxiliaries who crossed the Urals mutinied and refused to fight when rumors spread that in their absence their villages were being attacked. By the time a few Cossacks were able to find the Swedish forts the Swedish soldiery had dug itself in and fought viciously to defend both their outposts and their access to a valuable discovery in the southeast.
At the headwaters of the Ob they had found the westernmost outposts of the Yuan Empire, government-sponsored Gelug monasteries. These monasteries had been placed to help pacify the Oirat Mongols and were considered a hardship post. As such the demoralized monks and bureaucrats working out of them were easy to corrupt and gladly sold off luxury Chinese goods in exchange for soft and warm musk-ox wool and sealskin clothes.
In 1687 the demoralized Commonwealth general Joseph Stanislavas sent a letter to his counterpart Tuomas Putansu to discuss the PLK’s terms of surrender. Much to his shock, Putansu offered him exceptionally generous terms-he agreed to allow Commonwealth merchants to operate east of the Urals, but limited their wares to grains (the main product of Chornarus anyway) and laid out a plan for peace talks.
The Swedes knew that their hold over Siberia was relatively precarious. They needed a guarantee that the Bathorys would remain distracted and unfocused on the East. For this reason, they took the somewhat drastic step of agreeing to hand over their Columbian colony of Prince Eric’s Island (OTL: Prince Edward’s Island) to the PLK in exchange for guarantees to Siberia
The gambit worked. From the port of Gdansk, PLK ships spewed into the Atlantic to initiate the transfer of the colony and see how easy it would be to reach the main trade routes from it (the answer was not very, but it was a start). To keep Chornarus calm, the Bathorys granted the Chornarussian and settler communities the right to trade grain freely to the Swedes and limited military activity in Chornarus. This did a lot to appease the Chornarussian boyars while simultaneously giving their social rivals great economic opportunity. Although the region would continue to see rebellions and oppression, after the Phony War things would calm down immensely.
The Bathorys were excited by their new playground in the Columbias, though the M’icmaq were somewhat less enthused about being traded like cattle. Luckily, the PLK would mostly use their coast as a way station, leaving the inland farmers and small fisherman to their own devices and sailing southward.
The Swedes would continue to sail (or sled, depending on the time of year) on the Ob-Irtysh Rivers to the Altai Mountains. Although this trade was both immensely profitable and brought them a great degree of prestige, it was also a very vulnerable industry. Their outposts were largely dependent on Chornarussian grain for food, vulnerable to attacks by Mongol and Turkish nomads, and could only last as long as Yuan officials were willing to turn a blind eye to the corruption they were engendering. It was not a situation that could be permanent.
Below: Depiction of a serf graduating to Kulak status with the gift of land from the PLK.
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And a quick note: I'm sorry that I've been slow with the updates/commenting on other timelines, but grad school has started so now I'm busy juggling that and my part-time job (not to mention trying to apply for an on-campus job so I can be eligible for that sweet, sweet in-state tuition). Thank you to everyone for your patience!