Baghdad in the Sky with Diamonds - A Jalayirid AAR

Most ‘feitorias’, prevalent mainly in the Indonesian archipelago, fortified trade posts where goods were kept until they were shipped to Goa and then Europe, fell into disrepair; others were appropriated by the local sultanates or even transformed into pirate strongholds, led by mixed crews of renegade Portuguese sailors and natives that turned to piracy in hopes of escaping poverty.


Macau, which could be said to halfway between the Republic’s Indian policies and these fortresses, remained mostly as it was. Leased for an indefinite period to the Republic by the Ming, it served as a gateway for European arms and expertise into China, and as the main base of operations for Portuguese trade in the Far East; circumventing Chinese bans of trade with Japan by bringing these goods to Macau first, they amassed great wealth as intermediaries in Far Eastern trade. Unlike elsewhere, missionary activity was low and uneventful. A large amount of Portuguese had in the meantime settled and taken Chinese brides; given Macau’s much smaller population and size, their cultural impact – besides that of Christianity - was far larger, and a distinct, yet small population of ‘Macanese’, neither Chinese nor Portuguese, developed. With the end of the Portuguese Oriental Empire, while the main reason to keep the isolated European outpost was gone, the Ming Emperors chose to ignore it. The Macau Senate, led by the area’s most prominent merchants, was to remain the main administrative body. Macau engaged in small-scale trade with Japan, but, due to increased external trade by Japan, fostered by the Shimazu Shoguns, it never acquired the same level of importance that it enjoyed under the Lisboetas.


With the demise of the Lisboetas, Christianity was hit hard in Japan. At least eighty percent of the clergy was foreign, and one of the main reasons for conversion was access to European aid. With the end of said aid, the Jesuits were forced to change their strategy. Up until now, they had adopted a policy of propagating their religion ‘from the top’; if they managed to convert the leader of a polity, his people would surely follow. With promises of help and the technical skills of the well-educated Jesuits at their disposal, many lords found baptism to be a quite palatable option. As expected, their subjects were also baptized. Unfortunately, with the vast decrease in European trade[1], rulers were increasingly reluctant to give up their faith. The powerless Ashikaga Shogunate was unable to decisively affect Christianity in its time of weakness.


Thus, the Company of Jesus changed its means, adopting the tactics used by Dominican and Franciscan friars – who were in far smaller numbers - in Japan. Groups of missionaries flocked to various towns, teaching the people Christian ways, building churches and chapels and even distributing translated Bibles. They held theological discussions with Buddhist monks and intellectuals to increase their faith’s exposure and popularity among the learned classes, and constructed St. Francis Xavier’s Cathedral[2] through donations taken from Nagasaki’s merchants. While having previously relied on foreign priests and a strong Japanese laity – that helped keep the church, say mass and evangelize – a number of seminars were created, and the proportion of native clergy would steadily rise in the following years.


Besides donations, the Jesuit order in Japan financed itself through merchant trade, overtaking somewhat the Portuguese as intermediaries in the trade between China and Japan. The wealth generated was used to promote Christianity, and on more than one occasion, to build fortifications in Christian towns, most prominently Nagasaki. The Jesuits’ educated background enabled them to administer the money wisely, although their material wealth was also a source of criticism. A series of corruption scandals lead the Company of Jesus to, under Matteo Ricci – who had settled down in Japan after failures to convert the Chinese – control its economic operations tightly. The Company was seen with increasing distrust even by some Christian Daimyo due to its power, but Ricci’s wise policies mended the Jesuits’ relations, and missionary work progressed. By the end of the 16th Century, the Church could claim some 300,000 faithful in Kyushu alone.

Christianity, in the light of contemporary thought, was becoming an increasingly dangerous tide. Often compared to the Ikko Ikki, a Buddhist egalitarian sect that engaged in several bloody uprisings against samurai rule, the Christians’ refusal – as polished as it could be – to worship the Emperor (although they maintained normal at least nominal vassalage to the Bakufu, and by extension, the Emperor) was seen as a dangerous factor; therefore Christians were held to be of questionable loyalty.


Other than through conversion, territory under Christian control grew steadily as the Shimazu clan and their allies seized more and more land. Like in the Malabar, a common religion was a unifying factor between kingdoms that otherwise had little in common, and the ‘Christian Bloc’ of alliances - based mainly in Kyushu and western Honshu and Shikoku – which possessed troops well-versed in the use of arquebuses and cannon, as well as a few western-style ‘naus’, which dominated the naval battlefield thanks to the firepower granted by their western artillery. Most of these innovations were due to the technical expertise of the Jesuits.


Evangelization and Christian life in Japan continued uneventfully until 1622. Contact with the Holy See was difficult and rare, although an overland mission managed to reach Beijing and reported good progress to the Papacy. The power of the Christian lords, championed by the Shimazu was slowly increasing through San'in and San'yō – the two regions of the ‘peninsula’ that comprises the westernmost part of Honshu - and, outside their lands, large Christian congregations were threatening to destabilize their neighbors’ lands. As tensions ran high, the Shogun, Ashikaga Yoshinari, died. A sickly man, he suffered at one point from what appears to have been a case of adult mumps, which is usually blamed for his incapability to produce offspring. However, infertility as a result of mumps and consequent orchitis is rare, and a number of different reasons are theorized; regardless, Yoshinari died on April 28th 1622, leaving his two brothers to squabble for the Shogunate.


The junior, Motouji, was raised as a fosterling in the Shimazu clan, in an attempt to diffuse the specter of religious war. He was seemingly open to Christianity, though not necessary an adherent of it, as stated by his opponents. He was an individual of mostly average character, without any really outstanding traits, although his stay in Satsuma was said to have given him an admiration for fishermen and naval thought in general. Although he was unsure of his capabilities to rule the nation – as far as the daimyo would let him – he went about gathering supporters for his cause right away, demonstrating some energy; during the war, however, he would be brushed off as a puppet, and didn’t complain much. He was mostly endorsed by the ‘Christian Bloc’, who feared that his brother’s inclinations could threaten their faith.

The elder, Naohiro, was schooled in the court itself. A calm and stoic man, he had occupied several government titles with good performance; he was expected to succeed his older brother. Eleven years before, an accident occurred: his wife and his one son died in the Great Kyoto Fire of 1611. While his stoicism helped him overcome his grief, he eventually fell into a deep depression, from which he emerged determined to retire from public life and become a monk. Despite his brother and the court’s objections, he refused to abandon his idea and joined a monastery. Seeing him as a pious Buddhist who could help curtail the power of the Christian lords, the traditionalist Daimyo managed to convince him to assume the title of shogun when they relayed their fears of his brother being, secretly, a Christian. He was reportedly shocked, and hurried to Kyoto, to meet his brother.


Tensions ran high, as negotiations continued for several months. Faced with the problem of the statute of Christians inside the Empire of Japan, the negotiations had negligible results, and the topic of succession was not yet resolved. A year passed and, impatient with the bureaucratic aspect of the negotiations, the supporters of both would-be Shoguns sought a way to bring their candidate into power. A minor disagreement in the city’s market boiled over into a massacre.

According to a later account of the story, a group of buyers accused the Christian merchants of high prices. These replied that the high numbers of soldiers in the city were stretching their supplies; the dispute soon devolved into slurring, at which point someone either stole a bag of rice or one of the merchants called their guards. A violent religious clash began, and continued into the night, earning the name of ‘The Bloody Night’. The veneer of civility disappeared and the negotiators’ retinues clashed. The event’s climax came when a number of soldiers, under Imagawa Ujizane, attacked the quarters where a large part of the Christian delegation was staying. A number of them escaped, but sixteen, including the head of the Shimazu clan, Shimazu Yoshihiro, were beaten and then crucified already dead, as a warning. These would be known as the Martyrs of Kyoto. Just as Kyoto was pillaged and destroyed - much like it had been during the Onin War – the two Shoguns retreated to their supporters’ lands, albeit in disgust for the barbarianism showed on that night.


Thus began the decisive war that would end the Sengoku Jidai. Both sides sharpened their swords and wits, and braced for a conflict that would undeniably result in the annihilation of one party and the other’s supremacy.


Thank you Loki! I thought we were needing some light on what happened after the Lisboetas disappeared from the stage

bananafishtoday said:

Great update! India and Japan are shaping up to be very different places... And the last image is a particularly cool find.

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Yes indeed... But what will happen when the British and friends try their luck in the East? Will their heretical Protestantism do them any favors?
Oh, you didn't ask that. But as an author I'm obliged to drop cliffhangers once in a while And I love that Maddona and Child painting. I also found another one, very pretty too, as well as a few of Jesus in Chinese imagination. It was with much effort that I staved off religious painting overload. I can send some to you if you'd like!

loki100 said:

they are both genuinely informative and well integrated into your game events. I like the correlation between conversion to Christianity and access to weaponry et al, and thus once you've cut the transmission route for the latter then the conversion rate dipped.

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Thank you! My thinking is that Christianity simply reached 'critical mass' in Kyushu and whereabouts, allowing it to survive on its own. Japanese Catholicism is somewhat different than its Indian and European cousins, though I'll go into greater detail later, besides the sake and wine thingy . For starters, pork is consumed neither in Japan nor in the Malabar; traditions carried over and adapted from previous faiths

morningSIDEr said:

And treat us you certainly have! Fascinating stuff, the detail which goes into these updates continues to astound me. The ending of the second update is highly promising, hopefully details of who emerged victorious between Naohiro and Motouji are soon to come.

News of Christianity's wide spread at this point is far from surprising considering the earlier updates detailing Portuguese exploration but what is something of a suprise is how well Christianity is actually retaining a hold in areas such as India and the like. Already this seems to be understandably causing religious tension and I daresay this will merely continue to be a problem for years to come. Still, probably not a problem the Jalayirid Empire need worry itself with at present. Probably!

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Thank you, though you'll have to wait a bit for the resolution, since it is located some 35 years from the Caliphate's current time. Long-fuse cliffhanger Religious 'brotherhood' also means that the Malabar evolved culturally in a different way than its northern cousins, so Christianity ends up affecting far more than just strictly faith-related areas.

Also, I imagined these two updates as sort of annexes to the larger 'book'. Perhaps 'Baghdad in the Sky with Diamonds: An Abridged History of the Modern World'? Or 'History of the World, Part 2'

bananafishtoday said:

"Ahh, nothing like a nice relaxing stroll through the streets of Baghdad..."
"Hey, do you see that?"
"See wh--oh... my god..."
Suddenly, thousands of Christian samurai! With guns!

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:rofl: This made my day!

Update will follow soonish, and I'll delete this post and add this 'feedback' bit to it to prevent the specter of double posting.

flyguy117 said:

Am I the only one that wants to see the Caliphate descend into a massive civil war?

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Oh it will be !FUN! once the pieces start tumbling down


The Forty Years’ War is the name given to a series of conflicts – mainly of religious nature, but with a scope far beyond faith - that occurred at the end of the turn of the 17th century onwards, mainly in the Holy Roman Empire. The unmitigated growth of Protestantism[1] throughout central and northern Europe, exacerbated by the perceived weakness of the Catholic Church and its supporters[2] - including the Holy Roman Emperor himself – having driven many away from the arms of the Mother Church, now threatened to change the very nature of the Holy Roman Empire.

The defeat of the Bohemian Emperor and the Archduke of Austria in the Roman Crusade, along with their smaller vassals and allies, can be traced to several reasons: The war was mainly fought in Greece, Macedonia and Thrace, away from the Christians’ homelands; the overall technological superiority of their enemies; the attrition suffered in Greece, a mountainous land unsuitable for the maintenance of large armies through foraging (after the Roman supply lines were cut); and finally the numerical superiority and faster replenishment rate of the Muslim forces. This last point is worthy of reflection: how could the Emperor, nominal overlord of one of the most populous and wealthy lands in Europe, lead so little men from outside his personal demesne?


The reason lies in the gradual fragmentation of Imperial power since the promulgation of the Golden Bull, 250 years before. The Holy Roman Empire, though at times united behind a strong Emperor, was more of a confederation of heterogeneous states, bound by common institutions and a nominal liege. Decentralization of power, neglect by the Bohemian Emperors and economic affluence (allowing the funding of bellicose ventures) lead to the appearance of larger and larger regional powers, such as the Hansa in the north and the Duchy of Baden in the southwest. Their wealth and military power allowed them to ignore and – at times – actively oppose Imperial decisions and decrees with little fear of punishment.

These gestures only became increasingly frequent with time. The inability to detain the encroaching Jalayirid Caliphate and the spread of Protestantism worsened the situation. Religious differences lead to open political disobedience, as the Emperor’s power crumbled after the Kingdom of Bohemia’s losses in the Roman Crusade. The free cities of the Hansa, now outright rebellious, ignored the tolls and tributes they owed to their overlord. As Emperor Boczek struggled to recuperate his kingdom from the evils of war and famine, this even further lack of Imperial oversight allowed a lull of prosperity. The failure to levy taxes removed a strain from the princes’ treasuries, and they invested this overflow in public projects and in the increase of agricultural output though the building of canals, dikes, mills and granaries. One could call it the calm before the storm; however, such stylistic concerns and observations tend to deviate from a factual recounting of History, and must be avoided to maintain objectivity.


The man who would attempt to undo all this was Maximilian von Luxemburg, the future king of Bohemia. Brought up by Jesuit tutors, they remarked on his deep religious devotion and brilliance, calling him a prodigy. While he mostly kept his fierce convictions to himself, his charisma and intelligence attracted a good following among the other noble boys at court. Blessed with beauty and physical aptitude as well as a sharp mind, he, besides participating in the social events at court, was remarkably little outgoing, preferring to study the Holy Scriptures rather than taking part in hunting or horse riding.

With his fathers’ death, he was to ascend to the throne at the age of 23 in 1579, still unwed. Bohemia had recovered admirably, and was on par with, if not better than before the Crusade. Maximilian prepared to take action and to restore the Emperor’s suzerainty over the rebellious Princes – as well as Catholicism. He began by strengthening his rule in Bohemia through centralization. The nobles who opposed his rule were exiled or executed, and a substantial crackdown on non-Catholics followed, both upon Protestants and Hussites;. ‘Heretics’ in positions of power – ministers and officials, guild masters - were replaced by Catholics loyal to their new king, although Maximilian went to great lengths to assure their competence, so as to maintain the workings of the machine of state. The Hussite nobility, as well as the Protestants, began once more to band in leagues of their own; fearing expropriation and banishment, they rose up in revolt in 1581, and were violently suppressed. Most of their lands were either incorporated into the crown or handed over to loyal retainers. Those who weren’t forced to renounce their faith fled to Austria, to the south.


However, while he had inherited his father’s kingdom, he had to be elected as King of the Romans if he wanted to assert any form of meaningful authority outside of his own lands. For this, he needed the backing of four of the Empire’s seven Prince-electors: the archbishop of Cologne – which had gained the title of Primas Germaniae) the Archduke of Mainz[3], the Elector Palatine, the Grand Duke of Baden, the Margrave of Brandenburg (Tsar Peter of Russia), the Prince of Saxony and himself, as King of Bohemia. He joined them at their deliberations in Frankfurt, and soon gained support among the mostly Catholic electors[4]. Through courting[5], he gained the support of Tsar Peter’s plenipotentiary delegation, as well as that of the Archbishop of Cologne and the Grand Duke; these were supplemented by his personal vote, which he was to cast on himself. The remaining electors were Protestant, and supported Rudolph III, Count Palatine, to the throne.

On the day of the vote, a most peculiar event occurred, one that would be decisive in the gradual escalation that would lead to the outbreak of hostilities. Faced with a tempting sum, courtesy of the Hansa, as well as the chance to appropriate the massive Church lands in the Rhineland for himself, Otto, the Legatus natus – the Pope’s substitute north of the Alps – converted to Protestantism and renounced his ecclesiastic office, proclaiming it extinct and adopting, much like the bishop-turned-archduke of Mainz, a pompous feudal title to denote his new, secular powers. As was to be expected, his vote shifted to the Protestant faction’s candidate, Rudolph.

Ecclesiastical authority in Germany was periodically turned into a flux. It was later resolved with the granting of the title of Legatus Natus to the Archbishop of Trier, ostensibly as reparations for his loss – long ago – of the title of Elector to the Grand Duke of Baden, as well as due to being the remaining Archbishop.


Still, while the election of the first Protestant Emperor failed to materialize in the widespread prosecution feared by most Catholic circles, Maximilian returned to Prague empty-handed, having lost the crown and some of his pride. Retaining his stoic temperament even after the loss of what he viewed as his birthright, he began to prepare his army. Foundries across the kingdom churned out weaponry and other bellicose implements, and men were levied throughout the provinces, trained to retake Germany for Catholicism.

The Emperor was neither blind nor deaf, and he too began to arm his troops. Both sides began diplomatic offensives, with a unified Catholic front – the Holy League - soon appearing under Maximilian, as well as a Protestant-Calvinist coalition – the Reformist Union - lead by Emperor Rudolph Wittelsbach. At first, the Catholics’ prospects seemed dim, facing the combined might of the Austria, the Hansa and the Swiss confederation. Maximilian managed to rally the Grand Duke of Baden, the Brandenburgers, Brunswick, and Hesse, as well as the support of the French and Russians, the smaller lordships and the remaining ecclesiastical domains.

The Austrian mobilization moved at a morose pace, and in the meantime, Maximilian – free of worries as to the security of his southern border – won a series of battles against the neighboring lords, and managed to secure a decisive lead over his adversaries.


The war that would mark all of Central Europe for half a century was beginning, one of unparalleled scope and destruction. Tactics, formations and military thought in general were to advance by leaps and bounds, amid the human tragedy; nearly 50% of Germany’s population was to perish to war, disease and famine. When there were no more men to fight, or those who did were tired and demoralized, the Great Companies, composed of the hardiest mercenaries, came into play. While pillaging was common in wars during the modern period as a method of sustaining armies, the acts of cruelty and rapacity perpetrated by those with no allegiance but to coin were – and are - beyond imagining. Large expanses of arable land were scorched, towns and cities sacked and burned to the ground. Perhaps among the most famous victims is the city of Hamburg, which was nearly totally destroyed following the Bohemian retreat southwards in Spring 1605; the modern city’s historical center is largely a reconstruction following the wars’ end at the Peace of Ulm, in 1623.


On the whole, these conflicts left an indelible mark on the combatants – which included nearly the entire population – and not merely in the fields of demographics and economics. Equitable with the morbid fervor that occurred during and after the Black Plague, literature and art of this period shows a bleak view of the world, dominated by the bloodiness of battle and the misery of the hungry; drawing a clear contrast with the baroque style in vogue in Italy, with its familiar golden exuberance and imposing magnificence. Amid the constant stream of military treatises, German and French literature shows a general disenchantment with worldly affairs, including extensive criticism of the Renaissance ‘ideal Man’ – in the works of Friar Hannes and Jean Mallier - as described by the Italian humanists, chiefly among them Giovanni Pico della Mirandola. This followed closely the disdain towards anthropocentrism and a marked turn towards God.

The areas of Germany and France were to take quite some time to return to their former prosperity, although census data suggests full demographic recovery 50 to 70 years later. In what could be referred was the only positive – outside of religious or ideological concerns - of the wars was the general betterment of the peasants’ liberties. While they found their land and sustenance taken away from them during the conflicts themselves, after their end, the vastly reduced amount of farm hands allowed the serfs (German: Leibeigenen) to acquire more rights from their landlords in exchange for a roughly equal volume of work. While the manorial system and other borrowings from the feudal system that prevailed in ages past continued, the servile population declined significantly, with many becoming free men. Wages increased, and some tenant farmers, over time, went so far as to purchase their lands from their feudal lords, many of which were heavily indebted from wartime expenditures. These were mainly concentrated in Brandenburg, Bavaria and the Rhineland, which had seen some of the hardest fighting.

Thus, while likely the most devastating war in pre-contemporary Germany, its end also meant a new era in her social history, with the appearance of an unprecedented class of wealthy peasants, who were neither burghers nor nobility. These, unlike some of the clergy and nobility, had an avowed interest in further exploiting their small lands, in which they often personally worked along with hired hands. Their disenfranchisement from the nobility and rural character were to make them the staunchest Physiocrats, and their status as agricultural entrepreneurs was to mark the Agricultural revolution that swept Germany and most of Europe from the mid-18th century onwards.

loki100 said:

again, a great integration of events in and out of game. Good explanation for the lack of power of the HRE in your recent wars linked back to the Religious Wars in and around the HRE

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Calipah said:

Very good updates - I especially liked the Japanese installments. Your skill keeps improving, mashallah!
As a reward for your efforts, I'll give you a traditional Yemeni song "Let's cut love into two pieces": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iF9wtTf6dOg&feature=related

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Thank you both! As to the video, the song is nice, but there is something off in the looks they have. I can't put my finger on it.

morningSIDEr said:

Very gripping stuff. Quite shocking the anarchy which followed the Empire's defeat at the hands of the Jalayirids, but unsurprising considering the religious tensions. Whoever emerges triumphant from this war will be in a strong position, a position from which they can threaten the Jalayirids.

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The Caliphate is about to get a bit of the anarchy everyone loves

Alfredian said:

Still excellently written and very well thought out. One of my favourite historybook AARs ever.

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Thank you so much!

ptan54 said:

Awesome AAR! See if you can conquer Italy, France and Germany!

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I don't quite think that will be the case, but hey, what could happen...
This update has history-book bits and narrative-ish parts. I like to think of the latter was tales, not necessarily true but mirrors of what happened at a certain time or period. Enjoy.


Clap clump; clump clap. The worried shoes of a dozen bureaucrats hit the ground as they hurriedly raced to their offices. Each absorbed by some trivial yet necessary affair of state, they looked eagerly to the doors at the end of the long corridor, oblivious to the elaborate, multicolored mosaics – arranged delightfully – that lay before them.


Clump clap; clap clump. The familiar sound continued as the shoes drummed the tiles. The doors creaked, then closed. A loud noise was propagated throughout the room; it soon ceased. The twin doors were once again latched firmly to each other. The corridor returned to its previous silence.

Hasan had found it difficult to take to the affairs of state as energetically as he once did. A year of isolation had aged him, if not only for the longer beard he now sported. His children kept on growing, and he – atoning for the machiavellian treatment he had given his own siblings and his father’s own absence – was bent on being present whenever his duties were not in the way. Besides, Anna’s skillful bending of the bureaucrats’ combined will – putting them to some use - wielded him considerable spare time. Still, he was torn by the ever-present issue of succession; why would one of two twin brothers have more right to succeed than the other?


These issues faded away as he was given a debriefing by some faceless spy and two others. The situation in the Holy Roman Empire was worsening by the day. As the spy and the two viziers ended their reports, he mused on who to support. A steady supply of arms and funds could turn the tide in any conflict. “All of them”, he said; this was met with a gleeful smile from the spy, who was, unlike what one would expect, a tall and well-built man. Somehow, his demeanor and pose more than made up for this particularity, and he seemed to Hasan to be as sneaky as a sewer rat. With no more issues to resolve, he trailed off, imagining some far-fetched cloak-and-dagger tale as he exited the room. He found Uwais and Ali playing with toy horses at the foot of a diwan. Ah, the joys of childhood.


Anna, as wife of the Caliph, unexpectedly took to the keeping the day-to-day palatial administration up and running with glee; she had ensured a seamless –yet partial - return of power to her husband. For Hasan, never having had much of an appetite for war, and content with the day-to-day governance of his state, the only meaningful events in foreign policy following his return from isolation were support for the various factions in the Holy Roman Empire and in Russia – who was suffering troubles of its own, amid revolts of the large aristocratic estates as the Tsar attempted to seize further power – as well as the strengthening of ties with the Bosporan Republic; the treaty of friendship and assistance between the two realms - first ratified by Caliph Muhammad II during the Crimean War nearly 60 years before – was extended, and the Caliphate pledged to extend its protection to the new, inland Bosporan colonies in de iure Russian land.

Much like in previous years, the road network was expanded, breaching yet another record. The unwieldy bureaucracy was once more put into line, as it had to be every so often; the civil servants were understandably upset, but the favorable economic climate and Anna’s iron-fisted – but tactful – approaches staved off anything but grumbling. Hasan had grown more temperate; he was not the flamboyant mastermind of his youth. He saw his realm as an odd but functioning beast: what would otherwise be a rather chaotic mess of titles and remote feudal – for as much as the word was worth outside of Europe – obligations and territories worked as a series of symbiotic organisms, and Baghdad stood at the head. It wasn’t truly turned to neither the Mediterranean nor the Indian Ocean; it was fiercely urban, but inland; with a vast expanse of farmland along the Euphrates and Tigris – even more so thanks to recent canal works – but still a hub of commerce and manufacturing. The Caliph was content to simply lay back and let the various parts of his empire work, and solve any dispute that might arise.


Winter gave way to spring, spring turned to summer, summer to autumn and autumn to winter, thus beginning the cycle anew. The flowers blossomed, only for fruits to rise in their stead; these too would be gone by the seasons’ end. So it was for all men and things: birth and growth, apogee and deluge.


‘Now there’s an idea for a poem’, Hasan muttered to himself, as he stored the book he had been reading - complete with illustrations – in a small sandalwood chest. The printing press really was a magnificent device. He’d have them installed all over the Caliphate someday. Hasan passed through a room; his son Ali was having a Latin class but, much to his tutor’s exasperation – though he dared not express it openly – he seemed far more interested in the two girls walking down the corridor than in the conjugation of the various forms of the infectum. He nodded to his teenage son, clad in an unassuming tunic.

Once Hasan left the room, his fascination with the printing press gave way to darker thoughts. He was 42, and his days of youth were behind him; he could accept that, but the absurdity of death? Of a Caliph? What would be of his dominions once he left? Who would be his successor?

The years of peace following Hasan’s return hid the trouble brewing. Merchants flocked to the cities and across the vast breadth of the Caliphate, and grew wealthy as they participated in both individual trade and in the chartered trading companies[1] – who facilitated long-distance trade under a sole group, allowed easier taxation of commercial activities. The more virulent defenders of the old order – curiously, comprising mostly lower nobles, seeing their small estates, as well as their army and civil service posts endangered by the wealthy burghers - had been crushed in previous years, after their insurrection. Still, the higher orders now felt the same pressure that had lead their peers into a desperate rebellion years before.

One would be mistaken to portray this struggle as one between liberal-minded burghers and an ultraconservative, oligarchic elite. The wealthy merchants formed oligarchies of their own in the cities; like elsewhere in the world, they arranged the devolution of power in the cities from either crown or local landowners – who sometimes acceded, while they were frequently bought off - to a senate – ostensibly controlled by them, although they claimed to rule in the name of the population as a whole[2] – through a charter or edict by the central administration. They could scarcely be said to have been more benevolent masters to the working masses; artisans and their activities were controlled and enforced by guild-like associations, with a growing rift between the actual artisans and their superiors, who increasingly dedicated themselves to trade and matters of politics, integrating the new urban governments. Agricultural workers were scarcely affected, and were to remain ostensibly under the rule of the landed classes until much later, in the aftermath of the Riot on the Shatt al-Arab and the August (Rabi al-thani) Revolution of 1803 (1205 AH).


Furthermore, the crossover of the urban well-to-do into the ranks of the – central -high administration and of the military further inflamed the situation, and the problem was exacerbated by the sale of titles to these same wealthy merchants by the crown, in order to prop up state funds. While honorific, these titles blurred the boundary between the two groups, which, even then, was not as strictly defined as in Europe. Nobility supposedly came from adhesion to and knowledge of Islamic texts and practices – in other words. Trained in the arts of investment and business, little time was devoted to extending their knowledge of Islamic law; Oftentimes wealthier than their social superiors, they engaged in wildly reported extravagant parties – as did the ‘nobles’ – and in usury. Whatever the truth of statements regarding their lack of piety, this socially mobile class was met with resentment.

This hidden crisis was adequately managed by Hasan and Anna; yet still, the unfortunate birth of two twins, Uwais and Ali, who became next in line after the death of their brother, Fudail, was to muddy the situation. Palace intrigue was to dictate the increasing alienation of the two brothers following their mother’s death, which would later lead to the Tailors’ War[3].


Hasan let out a fit of cough. A green pestilence overshadowed the room. The delicate sheets covered his body and the red silken robe he wore, with its goldwork moving delicately through the fibers, letting out a rose-like pattern. The comfortable white fur on its sleeves did little to mask the frailty of his hands, worn by time and work.

He was dying.

Whatever the promises the doctors gave to him, no salve, ointment, remedy nor diet seemed to shake off the disease’s hold on his body. Lo! What misfortune. With his dear Italian rose gone before him just a few months before, he felt the closeness of death. A strange torpor had overtaken him. He found little gave him drive now. Was it her departure, or the disease? Outside, in the palace halls, a silent civil war was battled. His two sons – and the legitimacy they represented - were being fought over. Hasan’s proposals of joint rule after his passing had seemingly fallen on deaf ears.

He was being nursed by his daughter, Fahima, and a maid. Hasan stroked his white beard as he reluctantly gnawed on a date. He felt a deep pain in his chest all of a sudden. ‘This is it’, he intended to say, but his lips remained stiff, refusing to comply with the strangely stoic statement. Instead, they let out a yelp. Fahima rushed to him. Her face - delicate but firm, with a handful of tears shed – and her black hair, arranged in a bun, reminded him again of his wife. The image, the cries, the tight embrace of the robe, the smell of the ghastly ointments… All began to slowly fade.

morningSIDEr said:

Wonderfully written as ever, the last scene especially. So peaceful a passing for Hasan, who proved a good ruler for the Jalayirids, and yet it seems as if it will be nothing but anarchy following his death. Anarchy which I look forward to reading!

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Thank you for your kind words, and I hope to be able to portray the civil war(s) as vivid as they always are, in their carnage!

loki100 said:

agree ... the phrase in my mind was 'sumptious' superbly written, engaging shifts of tone & focus from a cynical decision to ensure the wars in the HRE are sustained (to the Caliphate's advantage) to the struggle for power between merchants and the old order in the cities & we have anarchy on the way (who as Shelley once claimed, had a face like Castlereagh ... actually it was murder but close)

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Thanks! And the best thing is, wars are simply more juicy than peace! Cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war!

KaiserMuffin said:

Such a pleasurable read, just wondering if you're save modding these new nations in or just using author fiat?

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Both Usually I just give new names to most.

Retrograde said:

Bump for justice, and a question. Can you post your modded Caliphate decision? I can't find one elsewhere and I'd love to play a game with yours

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For great justice!: CaliphateMod. Tell me how it goes later! I'm planning to release this as a full-fledged mod in the distant future, with more stuff. I do need some experience first... One can't rely on EU3Wiki guides for everything


As the 17th century CE dawns on the world, important, long-running processes begin to rear their heads. Processes which will affect the world as we know it today beyond any reasonable doubt. Still, the same can be said for all relevant – in whatever way one chooses to bestow said quality – historical events. So what distinguishes these in such a way that they merit a closer examination?

The rebirth of city culture in Europe from the 12th century onwards and the – gradual, though some insist in pinpointing it later, during the Italian Renaissance – discovery of Western culture’s shared Greco-Roman heritage would lead to the demise of the old orders. These cities relished in their power and culture, acquired through commerce; protected from the ambitious nobility by charters given by the crown, these small bubbles – provinces of the bourgeoisie - where the arts flourished, alongside the bustling trade, conducted by far-off travelers and townsfolk, were in stark contrast with the rural domains that surrounded them, in which serfdom – in whatever form – was to last well into the 18th century, sometimes even further.

The kings and princes of Europe soon found able allies in the burghers of the cities. They shared a common goal; the cutting down to size of the nobility. The former desired these unruly, ambitious subjects to cease with their quarrels and accept their role as instruments of the State and – oftentimes synonymously - royal authority. The latter desired the removal of a dangerous enemy, who lorded above them, enforcing heavy taxes and tariffs – the so-called ‘robber barons’ – and treating the cities as little more than fiefs, ready to do their bidding. The steady hand of a king was often as tyrannical, but unlike a petty count or duke, this king had a vested interest in keeping the peace, both inside and outside his personal dominions; he alone could finance the building of roads and ports, and conduct wars to further the merchants’ interests.


A good analogy to the feudal times of old can be found in the Arthurian legends: the Round Table, where, in order to please his Knights (and vassals), the King had carved. No one enjoyed a superior position to another, and all lived – theoretically - in harmony. Soon, the table was substituted with a throne, alone and unchallenged in its magnificence, and the Knights with subservient ministers. What few remained were decimated in the midst of the thunderclap and fury of the pike and shot, their castles reduced to rubble by cannons, from royal foundries. The feudal order, where the sovereign accorded extensive privileges to his vassals, who were loyal to his person and not to a state as understood today - for example, French lands that integrated the Holy Roman Empire were ruled as fiefs (with the proceeds of these territories suffering from the same feudal obligations as any other) granted by the Emperor, where the laws of France held no sway – began to totter. The king, once a primus inter pares, now nestled himself in his supposedly God-given position.

The widespread analysis and imitation of Classical patterns and styles during the Renaissance was to herald a new period in political and philosophical thought. In the old Roman Empire there existed no sub entities; all provinces were under the Emperor’s heel, who himself controlled all powers of government, ensuring harmonious and prosperous rule. Thus a case was made for absolutism, as, paradoxically, the sole defender of individual freedom and industry. The learned gentleman could quickly retort with an examination of the Greek city states; as small, fiercely independent statelets, they had originated Western culture as we know it, banding only when in response to an external enemy, forming leagues, composed of members of equal footing, with no hegemon. Yet another case was made, but this time for a union of equals, the dream of many defenders of the old order. Regardless of the truth of these statements, they demonstrate how both sides – the royalist absolutists and the feudalists, as loosely assembled ideologically as they were – defended their own ideal of freedom, as they interpreted it from classical sources.


Hailed as the magnum opus concerning autocratic regimes, and by extension, the absolutist monarchies that were to be established later, The Prince reflected the inevitable divorce between morality and power. The eponymous ruler would concern himself with the raw pursuit of power, either through force of arms or subterfuge. Glory is a valid end, and, while not explicitly said in the book, the ends do justify the means. It takes little skill to extrapolate this to other situations facing a ruler, be them the ideal of order, the crushing of internal dissent, or the subjugation of other states.

Many have been those who have read said book and questioned themselves as to Machiavelli’s apparent lack of a moral compass. However, the reading of this seminal work is not to be done without the perusing of its equally virtuous twin, Discourses on Livy. While the first deals with a monarchies, where the ruler’s will matters above all else, the second talks of republican forms of government which, unlike the former, ‘require popular consent to function properly’. While Machiavelli’s usual realism is patent, the Discourses paint a more favorable version of the man, with a stronger emphasis on liberty as a paramount ideal. It is linked to Machiavelli’s life, having been written after his expulsion from his beloved city, feared as an agitator after the toppling of the Pazzi. After witnessing the failure of a rigid monarchy he personally counseled in such minute detail, one can only help but link the events to a shift of his personal philosophy. Still, details remain nebulous as to his true beliefs; some, like Rousseau, defend the idea that he was fiercely republican, The Prince being more of a means to an end, so as to curry favor among the Pazzi rulers of Florence. Still, it would be best to leave such matters, somewhat outside of the scope of this work, to other men.


However, these processes did not occur everywhere, or at the same speed. The rise of the central state in Europe contrasted with the already entrenched state apparatus present in China long before; in Southeast Asia, the ‘mandala’ – wherein a central power dominates the periphery but does not fully attempt to integrate it, as a more centralized administration would - state structure persisted. The New Khmer Empire policed its borders with a set of vassal states and princelings while, to the South, a series of hegemons rose and perished, each establishing a network of satellites, only to decay and be replaced with one of their former subjects.


A more suitable comparison can perhaps be made with Japan. In the various European states, the patchwork of blood-related fiefdoms and titles – while not nearly as independent as the Japanese daimyo – oblivious to or openly ignoring the central authority were to be subdued – though usually in a slightly less explosive fashion – bar the Forty Years’ War, but this topic requires a more detailed examination later on – than the Kirishitan Ikki (キリシタン一揆), the civil war that eventually instituted the Shimazu Shogunate. Both had overarching, unifying structures, inspired in or inherited from periods of stronger state authority: Japan had the Ashikaga Shogunate and the Tenno (天皇); Europe had the Holy Roman Empire and the Catholic Church. All of these institutions were to be altered or substituted in order to conform to the new age that followed, in a myriad of aspects, whether economic, social or political in nature.

The Forty Years War provides ample examination of the emerging new order. A most curious phenomenon, this war, while fought – at least officially – over matters of religion, reflected far deeper matters. In its aftermath, both the power of the Catholic Church and of the Empire (what little remained) were vastly weakened. The spiritual dominance of the former and the feudal hierarchy of the latter were supplanted by the self-determination of princes; whereas the Kings of Europe sought to unite their fragmented realms into one state under their dominion, the princes (both spiritual and secular) practiced their new-found absolute powers within the rapidly unraveling superstructure of the Holy Roman Empire. Not only was this primacy dutifully carried out in the sphere of politics, but also in spiritual matters.

Ignacio de Toledo was quick to ingratiate himself with the princes, who constituted his main support base. Initially an anti-hierarchal movement, bent on stripping the Catholic Church of its vices, the Reformation eventually dropped most pretense of action within the church, believing the very structure of the Church to be corrupt; Toledism thereafter ossified as a proponent of statism, an ally of the princes. Toledist rulers were expected to expropriate church land, and a great deal of them did joined the movement on account of this, whatever their personal beliefs, given the great wealth of ecclesiastical land. Even the more radical reformists, such as Zwingli and Calvin, with their focus on egalitarianism, failed to draw clear lines between ecclesiastical and secular powers. Still, the latter advocated to some degree the right of revolution[1], and was popular mostly in the Netherlands and in some Swiss cantons, along with pockets in Germany.


With the gradual acceptance of ‘cuius regio, eius religio, a ruler’s (especially a protestant one) power, in all matters, within his lands was as undisputed as that of a king, perhaps more so. Thus, the old order gave place to the new: the decided estates of medieval Europe were slowly united into a unified territory, with territorial integrity and managed by a central state. At the top of this state was usually a monarch, of divine right, who lorded over his subjects. His word was theoretically absolute, though bound by morality.

The importance of this lies in the fact that it heralds the rise of the modern state. Without this shift in power, the revolutions of the late 18th and 19th centuries, which established the responsibility of the government to its citizens and (more or less) democratic and liberal rule. How could these have occurred in a society where power was still divided among the nobility, where the revolutionaries could not operate within the present state machinery (with its efficient system of magistrates and posts) to achieve their goals? Indeed, Absolutism allowed the fostering of a new, urban middle class, which engaged in overseas trade and in timid industrialization, and which was to impose its ideals on ways of government once the present system began to decay.