so the next stage is a tussle with the Europeans both in the Med and in India ... fascinating stuff
Unfortunately (or not), it opens with a loss for the Caliphate...
Lovely update. This AAR is really turning into a gem. Be sure to never drop it!
I was originally discouraged from reading this AAR, for whatever stupid reasons. But now that I have read the entire thing, I'm glad I didn't continue with that idiotic train of though.
I am lucky to have two such esteemed readers. Thank you very much, and I'm glad you enjoy it! Also, thanks for being honest Aliasing, and I wouldn't mind knowing why, if it would help me to make this a better AAR. An AAR that is discouraging at the start but good once you're into it is great, but one that is good from start to finish is even better!
Now though even more interesting developments, the Europeans have managed to make contact with a new and large area of Asia. I cannot see the Jalayirid Empire allowing this infringement to go unpunished.
Oh they will not
Chapter 17
The Nanban, part 2
It has only been 30 years since they became Moors [Muslims]...
- Fernão Mendes Pinto, 16th Century Portuguese traveler, adventurer, chronicler and sailor.
The Jalayirid fleet's sinking ships
Tattered flags swung in the distance. Dozens of ships lay mangled, destroyed, battered; their sails burning, their men drowning. A jubilant enemy left the strait, while the defeated were cast off into the ocean’s depths.
The Crescent had not been victorious today. For what slight the sailors did not know, but Allah had not been on their side that day. Early on, the wind swung behind the enemies’ sails, depriving the Muslims of its advantages; the damp weather they encountered before the battle had rendered several barrels worth of gunpowder humid and useless; the admiral of the fleet had been blasted off by a lucky cannon shot.
As the laments of the wounded was heard at Oran, the Christians were in jubilation, their victory hailed as a reversal of their fortunes, vengeance for Lepanto, 30 years prior.
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To commemorate its weakth and the victory at Gibraltar, Aedile João de Góis sent a live rhinocerus as a gift to the Pope.
At the battle of Gibraltar – fought between the Caliphate and the Republic of Lisbon, on March 23rd, 1525, Muslim control of the Mediterranean slipped away, if momentarily. The Christians recuperated their morale, dampened ever since Lepanto, and new calls for Crusade were issued. This moment of bliss did not last for long, as any and all expeditions that landed on Muslim soil were routed, and the seemingly pious princes of Europe soon returned to their secular concerns, wary of a foolish expedition into arid and hostile North Africa. Even the truly faithful had little interest, as the Protestant heresy engulfed Northern Europe. Soon, the Pope realized that he could not count of the help of anyone beside Spain and Austria-Naples, maybe even Lisbon – but the Republic saw the victory at Gibraltar as only a defensive measure, and sought no outright attacks into the Caliphate’s waters
On the Muslim side, it was seen as little more than a setback. The 30 year old ships had understandingly been defeated by the more advanced Portuguese ships and their experienced crews and newer ships were scheduled for building at Alexandria and Basra. Even when these new fleets were finished, the peaceful-minded, if not lethargic, administration of Muhammad II, who was more interested in administrating his already huge realm than taking on more distant territories.
Meanwhile, the Christians had control of part of the Mediterranean, and free reign in the Indian Ocean – since the ships there stationed were only equipped to hunt down the occasional greedy pirate. With nearly complete control of the Indian Ocean, the Portuguese attacked Muslim shipping at will, and brought home great riches; this lack of opposition allowed them to further cement their position. Calicut was taken and made the center of the Oriental Empire’s administration. The cities north of Diu were also taken, along with Cochin, the western and northern coast of Ceylon, the southern tip of India and the Bengal coast. Amid the political chaos that engulfed most of India with the fall of Vijayanagara, few dared oppose the mighty Europeans.
A map showing the voyages of both Paulo da Gama and Fernando Covilhã, as well as the Republic's Oriental Empire.
Several years later, in 1534, the Senate took the step to sponsor Fernando Covilhã’s Far Eastern voyage. An excellent and hardened sea dog, Covilhã had sailed with Da Gama as a lieutenant in one of his ships during his voyage to India. Since then, he had worked with the Consulate of the Indies – the name given to the Republic’s administration in the East – to continuously expand Lisbon’s territory in the Indian Ocean, as well as participating on the ‘Carreira da Índia’ (Route of India) – more or less equivalent to a ‘Treasure Fleet’, a huge armed convoy bringing great amounts of Far Eastern Goods every year. He had heard from Chinese merchants in India of their homelands, and hoped to further increase the Lisboetas’[1] grip as the foremost maritime traders in Eurasia.
Setting sail from the rechristened St. Paul, in eastern India, his fleet, helped by Chinese navigators, soon found its way to Malacca, setting up a small Jesuit mission and leaving shortly afterwards; the reason for this is given by Fernão Mendes Pinto as due to ‘an urging by the Mahometans to convene with their king’ – whose name he renders as Solomon II – ‘in the isle of Brunei’. Reaching the capital within a few weeks, they were received warmly by the Sultan, who desired their help in attacking the Khmer empire[2]. Politely refusing the offer – since Covilhã intended to use them as barter in China – the armada went northeast, to coastal Vietnam (which they referred to as ‘Cochinchina’), arranging for an embassy to make its way to Angkor, so as to lobby for the Republic’s commerce[3].
Portuguese Macao, several years after being leased by the Ming Emperors to the Lisboetas
Going north again, Covilhã bypassed Hainan and landed at Macao, meeting with the province’s magistrate, who was very enthusiastic of the foreigners’ arrival. Holding a meeting with him with the aid of their Chinese navigators, they expressed their desire to conduct trade with China; then, the magistrate informed them of the system of Chinese tributaries, which required those participating in trade with China to nominally accept the Emperor as their overlord. Pragmatic above all else, Covilhã accepted, and pledged to send an envoy each year to maintain relations with the Ming and in turn to profit from the products of China. Unfortunately for the magistrate, Macao was later to be handed to the Portuguese as a base of operations to conduct their business, and remained the Republic’s easternmost trade port until it dissolution, a place where goods from Korea, China, the Fernandines – named after himself by Portuguese colonists - and Japan were stored while awaiting for transport to Goa, and from there to Cape Town and finally Lisbon.
Proceeding along the prosperous ports of Fukien – which were to be the main trading partners of the Portuguese, as they were designated as ‘free zones’ – they soon made contact with the Korean Kingdom, with the southern islands of the kingdom too being designated as open ports, thanks to Covilhã’s skillful diplomacy. Westwards, they soon reached the land of the Rising Sun, Japan; more specifically Nagasaki.
Covilhã's fleet docked at Nagasaki.
Fernão Pinto correctly assigns to the expedition the honor of being the first Westerners to set foot in Japan, and described Kyushu’s customs in great detail, even though he mistakenly referred to the Daimyos as ‘Kings’. It was in the Shimazu clan that the Portuguese found great supporters. Having conquered most of the western Kyushu coast, and actively fighting piracy, the Shimazu had developed naval skills, and had previously sought foreign help in their quest to dominate their island – this they would do with the help of the Republic. Fully fitted with western arquebuses – though initially ill-received among the soldiery and prone to misfire, the Japanese made them their own, referring to them as ‘Nagasaki’, after the place where they were first introduced - cannon – and soon western morals – the clan would come to dominate the island, and by the end of the century, Japan itself.
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The Portuguese Landfall, as represented in a Japanese 16th Century screen
It is important to underline here the singular importance of this moment in Japanese history. Much like the Fall of Constantinople is referred as the beginning of the Renaissance in Europe, the Portuguese Landfall is the beginning where the Sengoku Jidai begins its sunset, and Japan enters its ‘Modern Era’. As important as the guns and cannon brought by the Portuguese was their fate, Christianity – specifically Catholicism. As much as the figure of an all-powerful priest – the Pope – did not appeal to the Japanese daimyos or commoners, he was conveniently placed on the other side of their globe; his faithful and – more importantly – their guns were not. Indeed, St. Francis Xavier, the patron saint of Japan, when questioned by his Jesuit brothers as to certain heterodoxies in doctrine - such as preaching in vernacular Japanese instead of Church Latin, as well as identifying Christian virtues in several Japanese mythological and folk heroes, which under Church policy, were at best virtuous pagans – responded simply with ‘
Estamos muito longe de Roma' - ‘
We are a long way from Rome'.
Thus it was that, while taught by foreign missionaries, Christianity took on undoubtedly Japanese characteristics – one of which is a simplified adaption of the complex tea ceremonies developed in Shinto traditions into the Christian rite of Communion, where the host and wine (which was substituted with sake in lieu of wine due to the extraordinary expense needed to import it) are given by the priest to the faithful – and was on its way to become integrated into mainstream society, and eventually to have its practices standardized by the Shimazu rulers of Japan.
It is vital to understand both early Christian converts and sympathizers in the light of the period – the Sengoku Jidai, or the ‘Period of the Nation at War’ - in which they were placed. In face of over a hundred years of brutal war and decay of the central authority with the Emperor - and the court at Kyoto - being little more than a distant figurehead, deprived of any real power by warlords seeking the title of Shogun, it is easy to understand the commoners’ desire for a new, exotic faith and, one which, to boot, promoted the equality of all men [4]- a fact which the Jesuits were very keen to remind the peasantry, oppressed by the bushi (warrior) class, which comprised the samurai and daimyo. The new faith found its most zealous members in the lower orders of society; only gaining support among the merchants – for the easier negotiations with Portuguese merchants – and the bushi – for access to European weaponry and, where the peasantry consisted mostly of followers of Catholicism, easier control over their subjects.
The Japanese flag. While the Chrysanthemum was the symbol of the Emperor and therefore of the old order, it was given, in true Christian tradition[5], a new meaning, suited to the new religion. The Chrysanthemum itself references St. Francis's miracle. Legend tells that St. Francis and his followers were smuggling Bibles, crucifixes and other Christian symbols and icons when they were approached and apprehended by guards. Upon closer inspection of the Christians' belongings, the items they were carrying were miraculously changed into chrysanthemum flowers, despite it being spring and them being out of season. St. Francis' followers - in which there were some of the first native Japanese missionaries - were released; St. Francis, however, being a Jesuit, was not, and was - in a show of irony by the guards - crucified in the same day. Furthermore, the flower's 4 golden intersecting petals and button symbolize Jesus Christ; the 12 paler ones represent the Twelve Apostles, and the 16 golden under-petals represent the Martyrs of Kyoto, who were crucified during the 'Bloody Night' of 1622.
The Shimazu would eventually unite Japan under their banner, but for now they were simply a moderately powerful state, on the southernmost main island of Japan.
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As the fleet set out for the soon-to-be Fernandines, Covilhã’s ships were loaded with goods. Once in the islands themselves, he embroiled himself in its politics, losing several fingers in a battle against opponents of his would-be-fief – the islands were later settled, on his recommendation, with Portuguese colonials, who built Manila and would continue to live on the islands long after the Republic of Lisbon fell. In the return trip thereafter, his troops attended the coronation of a Khmer prince in Angkor, and reported that the embassy that had been established there was making good progress.
After a few months of navigation, the fleet, packed with goods, was to arrive at Nossa Senhora das Índias (Our lady of the Indies), a bustling European port in Ceylon. Fernando Covilhã was received with honors by the Consul and his entourage, although he was not accorded the same deal of admiration that Da Gama enjoyed. However, it was Covilhã’s nautical genius and tactful approach to foreign peoples that guaranteed the Republic’s success east of the Strait of Malacca. And, more importantly, that introduced Christianity to the Far East for the first time since Nestorianism, where along with southern India, it was to find fertile ground.
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[1] Designation for the inhabitants of Lisbon, and, by extension, those in the service of its Republic.
[2] Sultan Suleiman II, who had succeeded Suleiman the Great as Sultan of Brunei, would later die in battle against the Khmer. The disorder that was expected from his father's death occorred at his death instead, an in this period of weakness of the Bruneian Empire, the Lisboetas siezed Malacca and northern Sumatra
[3] They were successful in procuring for the Lisboetas a special status in several coastal cities of Indochina, similar to that enjoyed in Fukien, Nagasaki and the southern Korean islands, in exchange for European arms to be supplied to the Empire
[4] This doctrine, later termed ‘Christian Egalitarianism’, while ignored in practice in Christian countries – by virtue of human nature – was extremely successful in gaining - much like the slaves and downtrodden of the Roman Empire during the first days of Christianity – the adherence of the disenfranchised of Asia: the Pariahs (‘untouchables’ or ‘caste-less’) and Shudras (laborers and artisans) of India; the Burakumin (similar to the Pariahs) and peasants of Japan.
This school of thought, so to speak, was based on a passage from St. Paul’s Letter to the Galatians (specifically 3:28) that states that:
There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.
[5] Notable earlier examples of non-Christian symbols adopted by the faith to represent and celebrate it were the cross - crucifixion being seen as the punishment to the most terrible crimes in Roman society, but by the Christians a symbol of Christ's sacrifice - and the feast of Christmas - which appropriated the date of the festival of Sol Invictus as the date of the birth of Christ (whose exact date is unkown).