The Birth of the Most Serene Republic of Appalazia.

DISSIDENT

Banned
"Signor Cardano. Signor Bagdoni. What has brought your most august persons across the ocean sea to this distant out post of Venice?"

"Quite frankly, Signor Brasini, the Doge and his lord the Great Khan are most concerned about rumors of unrest in the trading outposts Venice has founded in the New World with the permission of the Great Khan Kubodai. Most particularly, we are concerned with rumors that you, Signor Brasini, have begun preparation to declare your trading post in Appalazia an independent merchant republic of its own with the collusion of the Appalachee in Anhaica. With yourself as its Doge. Given the difficulties the Great Khan is having against his brother and cousins, the Doge has no wish to anger or trouble our most powerful trading partner. Or to lose a valuable trading post that is Venice's only link to the Aztec. We wish to ask of you, Signor Brasini, are these rumors true?"

"They...they are. They are indeed. And this...unrest is not confined merely to the few hundred Venetians who dwell here and our friends amongst the naturals. Our republic made that Devil's bargain with the Mongols three centuries ago. We betrayed God and man and all of Christendom so that we could own the Mediterranean and have those savage blood drinking beasts eliminate Florence and our other rivals while they turned every other kingdom into a bone strewn graveyard. And yes, the Doge and the Ten grew even richer off of this, but they were castrated as were we all. Not all citizens of our Most Serene Republic wish to be vassals of those bloodthirsty warlords from the Orient that burned all the rest of Christendom and reduced them to starving peasants."

"You Judas! You would prefer the alternative? You prefer their horsemen and their armies burned our city down as well and build pyramids of skulls and trample the Doge with horses in a sack, like they did in Paris, in Rome, in Berlin and Vienna? You would have us all die in some futile revolt they would see no restraint in crushing?!"

"Signor Cardano, it is hypocritical of you to lecture me of restraint, considering your attempt on my life last time I sailed home."

"I tell you, it was not me. I cannot tell you who it was, but I did not order those men upon you."

"Then it was your sister, Francesca."

"My sister had nothing to do with it!"

"Signor Cardano, Signor Bagdoni, my men tell me you have two armed vessels sitting in the Strait of a Thousand Keys. With both the soldiers of the Republic and the warriors of the Khan aboard. Is this rumor true?"

"Indeed it is. Send them in."

Four Mongols in leather armor entered behind them.

Brasini hit upon the wall behind him, signalling to the men he had in wait for such an occasion.

Eight Appalachee warriors he had recruited from the towns in the swamps entered with their bows drawn. They fired, cutting down the Mongols in short and bloody order and stood Cardano and Bagdoni up before him.

"Signor Cardano, Signor Bagdoni. The Khan's warriors are well deserved their reputation as unparalleled soldiers on land. But here, as in Cipangu, we are across the ocean sea. And the Khan's warriors are as famed for their lack of victory across water as their excess of it on land. I am indeed now Doge of Appalazia and we intend to take this entire peninsula or as we refer it "the pan's handle" as our Duchy, and we shall recognize no Mongol as our lord. You shall go and tell the Doge of this and tell him to accept it and learn to live with it...as will the Khan."

"You think these unclothed heathens with their rubber ball games and their bloodsports and human sacrifices who live in the swamps with the alligators are any better than the Mongols you castigate us for being subject to? We shall tell the Doge of your treachery that endangers our lives as soon as we return to the ships and then you see the punishment you deserve."

The Appalachee standing nearest them took a knife to the two men and held it to Bagdoni's throat.

"You will not be returning to the ships. Cambilaga...take them to the Okefenokee swamp and drown them so the alligators can make a fine meal of them."

"With pleasure. And their ships?"

"Tell your warriors to go down to the end of the pan's handle by the Thousand Keys and wait until nightfall and then send Sabriano and Distefano to them and lure them onto shore and then have your warriors kill the crews and we will take the ships for our navy."

"It shall be done. And I shall have my seat on the Ten of Appalazia?"

"You will Cambilaga. Five of the Ten shall be of the Appalachee, as it always unwise to anger one's own army."

"Very good."

The warriors dragged Cardano and Bagdoni to the Okefenokee and there they died of drowning, their corpses indeed eaten by the alligators they so disdained.

The Appalachee and the Venetian merchants among them ambushed the Venetian and Mongol crews aboard the ships three days later and took the ships for their own.

Brasini was now Doge of Appalazia and began the cutthroat work of making the pan's handle his duchy.

Cambilaga took his seat on the Ten, representing the Appalachee of the city of Anhaica, just as he began to feel very sick indeed.

To be continued...
 

DISSIDENT

Banned
Hmmm. No comments. Its that bad, huh?

I guess I was thinking of the OTL deal that Venice made with the Mongols where when the Mongols invaded Europe, they spared Venice as a vassal, eliminated Venice's rivals and gave them a commercial monopoly in the Mediterranean. This is like a scene from around 1600 where the Venetians have some small trading posts in the New World though nowhere near the scale of Spain OTL and a trading post in OTL Florida is going independent under an ambitious and rather bloodthirsty local leader.
 

DISSIDENT

Banned
The POD is that Ogadei Khan's son does not die and he drinks less because of this and Europe is invaded. His later death also delays and alters the various Mongol wars of succession and their invasion patterns elsewhere, slowing their conquest of China somewhat. The Mongol khanate in Europe ruled by Batu somewhat replicates their approach in Russia, razing cities that resist and using local vassals elsewhere. They use Jews, Spanish Muslims and Cathars as administrative bureacracy. This is around the time the vassals in Europe revolt on their own, but by the time the Mongols are out, Europe is a good deal more backward, the Renaissance has been aborted and there are still Mongol and Tatar successor states scattered around Europe raiding and starting wars ala the Crimean khanate.
 

DISSIDENT

Banned
The plagues, both the Black Plague in Europe and the epidemics among the Native Americans occur in TTL. Venice is a recent arrival, having only been in the New World a few decades at the point of the timeline. The Appalachee, a warrior people in Florida who were conquered in OTL by the Conquistadors, have become the allies of dissident Venetian merchants who need their numbers to establish themselves as independent from their Mongol dominated mother city, but since their meeting was quite recent, the epidemics are just starting to kick in. Cambilaga, a chief of the Appalachee city of Anhaica, who is already suspicious of his new allies, hence his anxiety to be on the Ten, will survive, but weakened, leading to a coup within the tribe and Appalazia interfering to reinstall Cambilaga, who is more friendly to their interests. Brasini will face more problems as he tries to bring the various native states of Florida to heel within his personal empire though Venice eventually gives up on him, as does their overlord.
 

DISSIDENT

Banned
Giovanni Brasini, as I imagine him is sort of like a cross between Nicollo Machiavelli and Aaron Burr. He's a Venetian merchant of some prominence and wealth, but frustrated in his ambitions to be Doge due to his personal hatred of the Mongols and volunteered to be governor of a trading post located near OTL Ormond Beach, Florida. Once there, he basically became the local dictator of the Venetians that lived there and then started making allies among the local native tribes to create his own private army.
 

DISSIDENT

Banned
Due to Ogadei surviving longer, Kublai Khan ends up sidelined somewhat later and Southern Song China doesn't get crushed. They get to America first, but don't do much with it, establishing one outpost near OTL San Fransisco that becomes a small colony until the Mongols in Northern China collapse, leading to a new and more aggressive Han dynasty in the North in the place of the Mongols that throws out the Southern Song Dynasty leading to the surviving Song prince going to the colony at OTL SF as an exiled ruler and building it up somewhat, establishing more ties with the natives. As the Song exile state on the west coast and Brasini's personal empire and his uneasy native allies are far apart and unaware of one another's presence, it will not affect matters until later.
 
Due to Ogadei surviving longer, Kublai Khan ends up sidelined somewhat later and Southern Song China doesn't get crushed. They get to America first, but don't do much with it, establishing one outpost near OTL San Fransisco that becomes a small colony until the Mongols in Northern China collapse, leading to a new and more aggressive Han dynasty in the North in the place of the Mongols that throws out the Southern Song Dynasty leading to the surviving Song prince going to the colony at OTL SF as an exiled ruler and building it up somewhat, establishing more ties with the natives. As the Song exile state on the west coast and Brasini's personal empire and his uneasy native allies are far apart and unaware of one another's presence, it will not affect matters until later.

This sounds interesting.

I think the focus of Southern Song maritime expansion would be southeast Asia though. Perhaps there's a general anti-Song revolt timed with the northern invasion so the remaining Song prince has to go somewhere else?
 

DISSIDENT

Banned
Basically the situation of TTL ends up by 1700 with a fractured and backward Europe that is ruled by autocratic and culturally backward monarchies along the lines of Russia under Ivan the Terrible, but in France, Austria, Northern Italy etc. with Mongol and Tatar successor states hanging on in parts of Hungary, Poland, Lithuania, Romania, etc. still being aggressive. The Cathars, being protected by the Mongols as a source of bureaucrats and ministers, are still alive.

China and the Song exile state end up dueling for supremacy in the Pacific for a long time.

The New World ends up a collection of Venetian descended city states merged with the survivors of the local Native Americans on the east coast, several native empires inland who picked up better technology and Chinese colonies on the west coast that mostly keep to themselves and limit their expansion at about the point of the Sierra Nevadas.
 
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