Dumanios: I have an idea where an Abbasid Caliph leads a general Muslim revolt against the Empire (potentially concurrent with the final stages of the Time of Troubles). It's stage one in my how-to-arrange-a-Coptic Egypt-plan.
Tanderyyn: Thanks.
I do have plans for Japan. Right now they're in the early Sengoku period (TTL version). I plan for it to be longer and nastier than OTL, so when the Portuguese show up, it's still a patchwork of dozens of minor states, some of which convert to Catholicism (Christ has cannons, Buddha doesn't). The Romans show up a bit later, convert some more to Orthodoxy, with the end result being a Japan with a Shinto-Buddhist majority, but large Catholic and Orthodox minorities. Haven't decided whether or not it'll ever unify again, but I like the idea of the Koreans trolling the Japanese (reverse of OTL) so I'm leaning towards no.
As for Wales, I don't have any plans there. I know absolutely nothing about Wales, so anything I did regarding them would almost certainly be wrong.
Ireland: Yeah, I know my Ireland idea was iffy at best. It's cool, but difficult to manage. After this discussion, I'm leaning towards Plan B, which is Ireland gets conquered and the Plantaganet Empire turns into a triple monarchy of France-England-Ireland. That could make the whole array more stable, since the French element is no longer so dominant which would help the English relax.
"God is the Creator of all. We hold that to study the creation is to further one's knowledge of the creator. Therefore to learn of God's creations is to learn of God, and should be encouraged amongst all Christians."-Photios II
1478: In all, eight hundred and four paintings are created for the exhibit which is held in the Bucoleon Palace. Opening in April, it is open to the public for free for the rest of the year. Previously invitations had been sent to all the major courts of Europe, with representatives coming from Calais, Munich, Milan, Novgorod, and Tbilisi. The monarchs Dragos I of Vlachia, Louis I of Arles, and Wali (Governor-often translated into English as Lord) Yusuf of Al-Andalus come in person.
All three are not just there to admire the artwork, but to discuss expansion of trade with the Roman Empire. Overall the talks go well, with the Roman trading quarters in both Odessos and Marseille gaining the rights to have their own bakery and tavern, although in both cases the establishments have to pay the same taxes as any local business of the same type. Yusuf however wants more, and requests that the church sent a bishop to Cordoba to oversee the Orthodox churches there. It is a proposal immediately accepted, with the bishop placed under the Patriarch of Rome.
Andreas also receives a delegation from Ismail, the eldest son of Sultan Janbulat, asking for help in the Mameluke civil war. He has been steadily loosing ground for the past fifteen months, and his prestige has been badly shaken by a successful revolt in the Hedjaz led by Najd tribesmen under the command of Ali ibn Saud. In May he declares himself Sharif of the Hedjaz, Defender of the Holy Cities of Islam.
Although the Emperor is not ready to invade the Sultanate, yet, he does not hesitate to get involved when invited, but his price is high. In exchange for Roman military and economic aid, once he regains his throne Ismail must cut the export duties on grain, slaves, and kaffos carried out by Roman (or Roman vassal) merchants by two-thirds, expand the borders of Roman Egypt from the gates of Alexandria ten miles outward (finally giving the city a hinterland capable of providing the city with at least some of its foodstuff requirements), and recognize Andreas as ‘Defender of the Syrian and Coptic Christians’, a title originally claimed by Theodoros IV, with the right to intervene (what exactly that means is left vague) on their behalf in the Sultanate. Ismail, with his back to the wall, accepts.
Both fifteen-year-old Leo and fourteen-year-old Zeno accompany Strategos Alfredo, commander of the thirteen thousand men dispatched to aid Sultan Ismail. As the Apulian defeats a Mameluke army of sixteen thousand, Kaisar Demetrios arrives in Egypt to perform a ceremony he had arranged with his father’s approval once he’d heard the terms of the Roman intervention. As Roman guns begin bombarding Cairo, the Kaisar solemnly transfers the relics of St. Mark, stolen from Alexandria by the Venetians in the ninth century, back to the keeping of the Coptic Patriarch of Alexandria.
Shaban races back to defend his capital, but is caught and crushed in between Alfredo and Ismail, with Leo in particular demonstrating extraordinary bravery participating in a kataphraktoi charge against the Sultan’s personal guard. Although wounded in the leg, he makes a complete recovery save for a scar. It is behavior of which Andreas approves, stating that ‘though not always, there are times when a good prince must be willing to fight alongside his men’. Ismail keeps his end of the bargain, especially since Alfredo refuses to leave until he does.
Shortly afterwards, an Ethiopian delegation (not including Brihan) arrives in Constantinople to ask for shipwrights and sailors to help improve their navy. They had been unable to come earlier due to the civil war in Egypt. The armies of Ethiopia have managed to capture a coast and ports, but holding them has proven far more difficult. The Yemeni, seeing the obvious threat against their control of the Bab el-Mandeb, have been throwing everything they have at the Ethiopians. Although far smaller than the Christian kingdom, they are far more experienced in maritime warfare.
And they do not fight alone. As the faithful undergo the hajj imams in the Holy Cities preach. They are well aware of the threat an Ethiopian fleet on the Red Sea would pose to Medina and Mecca, and so the ranks of the Yemeni are bolstered by Muslims from all over the Islamic world. The most important are ships and seamen from the Swahili coast, who are inspired not only by religious fervor but also the desire to prevent a potential trade rival from appearing.
Old Negus Yohannes, aggravated at fighting a war in which he can only defend (attempts to combat the Muslim fleets on the open sea have all ended in disaster and slaughter), vents his frustration in the west. In the Sennar, several massive counterattacks are hurled at the Oromo tribesmen, who have continued raiding and migrating into the region. Yohannes, taking the field for the first time since the Battle of Soba almost thirty years earlier, is determined to end the threat once and for all, so that Ethiopia might direct all her energy to the struggle with the House of Islam.
Every Oromo male above the age of twelve, regardless of the circumstances of their capture, is killed on sight. The women are sold into slavery, while the children are taken to be raised as Ethiopian Christians. In his zeal, Yohannes takes his army further south than any Ethiopian army has gone before, pitching his tents in the land of the Turkana (who are forced into vassalage while he is there). Although the Oromo are not completely destroyed, they never recover from the campaign.
The Ethiopian delegation in Constantinople is pleasantly surprised when they are greeted in (heavily accented) Ge’ez by Kaisar Demetrios, who had been taught by two Ethiopian monks from the Holy Land. Ever since he saw the rhinoceros at the Venetian triumph, Demetrios has been fascinated by Africa, and has studied and learned much about it. Andreas has encouraged him in his studies, helping to arrange texts and tutors, as well as focusing the prince’s attention on the Copts. After questioning the delegates about all facets of Ethiopian life, Demetrios convinces his father to agree to all of the envoys’ requests (admittedly Andreas did not need much convincing).
In the south, people try to take to the sea. In the north they already have. The armies of the Reich have already overrun all of Danish Germany and are now pushing into Denmark itself. No one is quite sure of Frederick’s goals here, and numerous rumors abound. Some say that he is angling to place Christoph as King of Denmark, others that he wants it as a vassal or even desires the crown for himself, or that he intends to break it up into several minor duchies. One of the loudest, trumpeted by the Danes to all the peoples of the north, is that the Hansa to secure complete and utter dominance of Baltic trade have convinced the Emperor to take over the whole of the Baltic lands.
There is indeed great fear amongst the Nordic peoples that Denmark may only be the beginning of a general Teutonic attack. The vast size of the Frederickian realm by itself inspires trepidation. In Sweden, the peasant militias are ordered to be ready to muster at a moment’s notice. At the same time, Gustav, great-grandson of Olaf Tordsson, leads Finnish volunteers in a series of fierce naval raids on the Pomeranian coast, striking with fast and light ships much like the Vikings of old. The Hansa vessels, seeing no commercial advantage to defending the area, do little to stop him, while Russia allows the raiders to shelter and supply in Prussia.
1479: Ever since the Council of Constantinople, there have been grumblings in the Queen of Cities. Patriarch Maximus III, who desires to raise the power of the patriarchy to that enjoyed by the Popes of Rome in their heyday, has been gaining enemies because of his heavy-handedness. Many clergy argue that the sentencing of Iason Kokkinos was unjust, that the bible cannot be treated as an astronomical text, and that the Patriarch’s argument that Joshua ordered the sun, not the earth, to stand still in no way proves the astronomer’s heresy. “Joshua was not an astronomer,” the Bishop of Chonae said, “So his opinion cannot be taken as a scriptural proof of an astronomical theorem. That the miracle took place can be explained by the fact that God, Creator and Knower of all, understood what Joshua desired, even if his request was inappropriate to achieve that end’.
According to the Patriarch’s enemies, Iason’s only crime was calling the Patriarch ‘an illiterate bore who wouldn’t know Aristotle if it hit him in the face’. Nevertheless Maximus has continued to prosper, as Andreas has no interest in intervening in church affairs, especially since the Patriarch has backed off commenting on the Emperor’s personal life, even when Kristina gives birth to another son, Herakleios.
But now Maximus decides to take on hesychasm, which though rare amongst the upper classes and in the cities, is extremely popular in rural areas and amongst the peasantry. His hope is that such an attack will rally the urban bishops to his side. In a short series of sermons, he questions the orthodoxy of the practice, and immediately incurs the enmity of an enemy that can make even Patriarchs tremble, the monks of Mount Athos.
Mt. Athos, the Holy Mountain of Orthodoxy.
In the furor over the controversy, several of the monks come into the city to whip up opposition against the Patriarch with demonstrations, one of which devolves into a riot. During said riot, many take the opportunity to start looting, a few starting fires. Before the blaze can be put out, much of the district surrounding the church of St. Mamas is burned to the ground, with over eight thousand dead and thirty thousand homeless.
Andreas, who had been in Macedonia, returns to Constantinople in a rage. Those found guilty of starting the fires are publicly burned at the stake, with the statement that ‘the punishment should fit the crime’. The two monks responsible for the incident that started the riot are thrown into prison, which sparks another round of protests until Andreas releases them, but only after decreeing that they are barred from ever entering Constantinople again. He then turns on the Patriarch, who has lost his last major ally.
Vlad Dracula has passed away at the age of sixty nine on his estates in Bithynia, giving all his earthly possessions in his will to his grandson Demetrios. As a gesture of respect, Andreas commissions two special paintings, one of Vlad in his duel with Sultan Barsbay at the Battle of Adana, and another of him leading the attack on Shah Rukh at the Emperors’ Battle. The new Megas Domestikos is Krikor Zakari, scion of a noble Armenian family that emigrated to the Empire in the mid 1300s.
Andreas has a new Megas Domestikos and is determined to get a new Patriarch as well after this incident. Faced with an unified opposition consisting of the Emperor, the monks of Mt. Athos, and many of his own bishops, Maximus is forced into involuntary retirement and sent to a monastery in Epirus. The bishop of Chonae is elected the new Patriarch, taking the name Photios II.
His first act, at Andreas’ insistence, is a re-trial of Iason Kokkinos where the astronomer is found innocent of any charges of heresy, ‘as a certain ordering of the celestial spheres is not a belief necessary for the Christian life, on which all Orthodox believers must obey to be considered a part of the one true Church.’ His second is to officially recognize hesychasm as orthodox (before it had merely not been condemned as unorthodox).
As the situation calms down in the Empire, the Reich has continued to advance, with Schleswig-Holstein now completely under Frederickian control. Logistics and outbreaks of cholera are the most dangerous enemies the Holy Roman Emperor faces. Only Gustav’s continued raids into Pomerania pose a serious military threat, but one that is guaranteed to continue now that Gustav is the Danish king’s son-in-law (both as a reward and a means to keep him fighting, Gustav was offered the hand of the youngest Danish princess in marriage during the winter).
In August peace arrives in the Baltic. Denmark is stripped of all her German territories and vassals, Frederick keeping Schleswig and Holstein for himself. The close proximity of such a powerful foe helps bring Denmark and Sweden closer together, and the latter takes a couple of Russian loans to help expand iron production and reduce the need for German imports. At the same time Gustav and his Bonde family members in Finland begin casting their own cannons.
Six weeks later the guns fall silent in Persia. Persia hands over Hamadan, Gilan, and the western half of Mazandaran to the Ottoman Empire. Although both Husain and Mehmed want to keep fighting, both have their reasons to desist. Husain’s poor performance is causing the recently cowed emirs and tribal chieftains of Persia to start intriguing again, and he will need all his resources to keep his young and still only semi-centralized state together. Meanwhile the Ottoman pashas have been growing increasingly alarmed with their sultan’s bloodthirsty tactics, which have cost both the Persians and Turks dearly.
During the siege of Lahij, an attempt to storm the fortress was being thrown back, when the enraged sultan ordered all artillery batteries to fire upon a particular gate. The volley annihilated the Persian troops there, along with two companies of janissaries fighting to hold the gate. At the peace negotiations, Husain agrees to exchange all prisoners without any ransom. He hands his over and learns that Mehmed had executed all of his the day before the signing.
As Sultan Mehmed returns to his court in Baghdad, tensions grow between the Turks and Romans. During the final stages of the war, the Sultan had executed several Roman merchants who had fallen into his hands, and he has refused to pay compensation. In retaliation Andreas ordered the deaths of all Ottoman smugglers currently in Roman custody. Alexeia remains there as ambassador, despite several letters of protest sent to Constantinople by Mehmed. He wrote that ‘such a great empire as yours should be represented by a person of quality, wisdom, nobility, and strength, not traits to be found in women.’ Andreas’ response is ‘that woman slew Galdan of Merv. But do not bother thanking her. The ingratitude of the Turk is already legendary.’
