1001 Sultans - A Jalayirids Succession AAR

[Malurous]

Well done in a tough situation Taylor. Indus will be simple to conquer for ourselves if/when we reach that area, so no big loss. Peacing out with the Indian nations should allow you to get rid of the rest of the rebels (for now, unfortunately).

Murgan is a decent gain as well, only QK province worth anything IIRC. I did have some plans for QK as well but had rotten luck with my colonists.

A well written report as well as a solid performance. Also I hope that Ming eventually find their way to us, would make a great mid game enemy.

Thanks. I really don't know where that Ming declaration came from, but looking at the map my guess is that it has to be us that find our way to them if we wish to meet them.

[Taylor]

Shah Walad Jalayirid (1518-1552) - part 2.

With the nationalists all but defeated and the threat from the East averted, the Jalayirid armies now moved to tackle the problem called Rusul Hussain, who had taken the opportunity of distraction to move even closer to Baghdad by taking the province of Khuzestan, and recruit another army, led by Shah Walad Ahmad, a namesake of the young malik. He then moved north into Luristan. The Jalayirid army concentrated into Khuzestan and then moved north to confront Rusul's massive army in force.

With the help of the nearby Yemenite army, Rusul was defeated, but not destroyed. He pulled back into Iraq-i-Arab, and was defeated there, too.

He then moved West, across the desert and to the border province of Hawran. On the face of it, it may seem as if his days were numbered, but this was not true. The battle of Luristan and subsequent battles had all cost the Jalayirids a considerable portion of their men and, after 4 years of continuous warfare, they were beginning to have trouble replenishing their losses. The victories over Rusul were Pyrrhic. Unable to finish him off, the loyalists had no choice but to wait while the Council rounded up more recruits for reinforcements – something Rusul seemed to be much better at.

Meanwhile, new revolts started in Arabia and, more worryingly, Persia.

Rusul, having replenished his forces, moved back East in February 1523, where he delivered a crushing blow to the Jalayirid armies.

Then followed about ten months of relative peace, where the two sides stalled and waited for the other to move, slowly replenishing their losses. Near the end of December, the Council declared that Shah Walad had come to age.

Before we move on, let us look at some of the non-military actions the Council took. They persecuted the religious dissenters in Armenia so successfully, that by August 1518, the job was considered done.

They worked to bind the province of Sharizor more closely to the government in Baghdad. They secured an alliance with the Ottoman Empire (should the Mamluks decide to attack).

Horrified by the manpower losses they incurred during this period, they worked to improve the quality of the army. They established an Ibadat Khana (a meeting house where leaders of different religious movements met and discussed matters of religion).

When master of mint Rusul Mohsin died, he was replaced by Mahmud Zaman.

Finally, they managed to turn a boundary dispute into an international recognition of the Jalayirids' claim to Mamluk-controlled Dayr Az Zor.

On the 17th of December, the Council declared that Shah Walad had come of age and was fit to rule. By doing so, the Council hoped to gather the nation around the new malik, and so deprive Rusul of his support. The opposite happened. The transfer of power was seen by the tribal leaders as an act of desperation and a sign of weakness, and large hosts of nationalist powers rose up once more. With the loyalists out of manpower and Rusul's army growing, the crisis had just entered its darkest and most chaotic period yet.

[Cade Shadow]

Damn, that does not look good. We're not about to have a dynasty change are we? A second TSC, when the first one still isn't finished and no manpower? Keep going, I need to see what happens next

[Malurous]

Hormuz can't core soon enough - those 13k stacks are just nasty. The sad thing is, if the first pretender had had something like the Gilan army in this second one instead of the 26k plus friends due to the unlucky location, there likely would have been no problems.

Are you fighting without generals? There are none visible in the screenshots and the treasury looks full enough to hire one. Fortunately that treasury also allows for emergency mercenaries if the rebels start getting out of hand with the manpower situation.

[Edgewise]

Good times.

[Axelius]

This actually looks like a good and proper civil war!

[Grey78]

Damn, this is what a call a cliffhanger.

[Hawkiee]

Download here, year is 1552. AAR follows tomorrow or so.

For some reason my save file won't load, I played about 25-30 years. Would guess it's somehow damaged.. As my time is more or less up and it would suck to start all over from 1552, I'm wondering if the next in line or the one of the subs would take over from where Taylor ended it. And as I have my final test before Christmas on Friday, I don't have time to start all over myself. Sorry people

[Malurous]

For some reason my save file won't load, I played about 25-30 years. Would guess it's somehow damaged.. As my time is more or less up and it would suck to start all over from 1552, I'm wondering if the next in line or the one of the subs would take over from where Taylor ended it. And as I have my final test before Christmas on Friday, I don't have time to start all over myself. Sorry people

You don't have a functional autosave or something?

If not, maybe Damien can take it already...

[Taylor]

Shah Walad Jalayirid (1518-1552) - part 3.


(the stats displayed are those of Shah Walad's heir Qasim)

With the outbreak of new revolts and the difficulty of finding new recruits for the army, the Jalayirid dynasty was now in real trouble. Being short on men, they changed their strategy to avoiding open battles, and focusing on regaining control of fortresses that fell to rebels. When they did engage in battle, it was usually against small, outnumbered armies. In this way, they managed to keep pace with new revolts that appeared (so as to not allow the number of rebel armies to increase) whilst at the same time saving their manpower. In line with this strategy, open battle with Rusul was avoided altogether, and he took this opportunity to first move to Mosul, then Sharizor and finally Baghdad (the city fell early 1525).

But everywhere he left, loyalist armies moved in and started retaking any fortresses and cities Rusul had captured.

Another party that attempted to profit from the situation were the Qara Koyunlu. Their declaration of war in 1524 was largely ignored by the Jalayirid regime, until the Black Sheep Turks captured the province of Armenia. After this, the Jalayirids managed to scrape together an army that soundly defeated the Qara Koyunlu army in Armenia, quickly recaptured the various fortresses in the province and moved a small army into the Qarabagh region (the main army was now diverted to fighting rebels again).

After capturing Baghdad, Rusul foolishly led his army into neighboring Luristan. The Jalayirids moved back into Iraq-i-Arab and started sieging the city, while in Luristan, they also engaged in their first open battle with Rusul since early 1523 (In fact, Rusul himself did not command anymore; by now it was usually his son Usuama (by an earlier marriage) that commanded his vast army).

The Jalayirids concentrated their armies but were forced to retreat. This concentrated army then moved against, and defeated, Isma'il Sa'id, who had been making a nuisance out of himself in Basra.

It then moved north and recaptured Baghdad.

The fact that the Jalayirids were able to spare such a large army against these two pretenders signifies that the nation was slowly recovering. The nationalist revolts in Persia, while initially troublesome, were slowly petering out and the local loyalists were regaining the upper hand.

The Arabian nationalists were never a big threat. In the North, the Qara Koyunlu had been defeated, which removed another nuisance from Shah Walad's mind.

Rusul moved his army back to Baghdad in mid 1526. The loyalist army retreated to Basra and waited for Rusul to move. They used the time bought in this way to free up another army in Persia, which started moving in the direction of Baghdad. Before it could arrive, however, Rusul marched on Basra.

Shah Walad decided to once again make a stand there, but this time his army was better prepared and under the command of a young, charismatic and competent general.

This general was Yasir Hussain, the second son of Rusul Hussain himself. Apparently, Rusul had been refusing to give Yasir command of an army of his own, even though his first son Usama had been commanding one from the start. For that matter, Yasir had been excluded from any position of power within Rusul's camp and, disgruntled by this lack of respect, he had decided to offer his services to Shah Walad instead. Shah Walad seized this opportunity, raised the young man to the rank of general immediately and gave him command of his Basra army. In the Battle of Brothers (early 1527), fought in sight of the city of Basra, Yasir proved himself the military genius he is now well-known for. With an army of 17000, he held off Usama's army of 52000, while causing significant losses on the rebel side.

The arrival of the Persian army (18000 more men) and then the Arabian one (4000) proved to be more than enough for Yasir to deal a crippling blow to Rusul's armies. Of the original 52000 men, only about 20000 were alive when Usama finally called retreat; Yasir lost only 15000 of his original 39000 men.

His subsequent pursuit of the rebels across the Arabian desert is perhaps even more impressive. In the final Battle of Al Karak (August 1527), Rusul had only about 1000 men left, while Yasir lost a mere 5000 men in total.

With the battle of Al Karak, Yasir had finally ended over nine years of civil war; and he needed only 6 months to do it.

[Mods]

Holy crap, some intense rebel bashing right there!
May I ask, what's the government tech? Far away from Despotism?

[Axelius]

The hero of the nation Yasir Hussain defeats his treacherous father! At least someone from the family knows how his place.

[Malurous]

Well done retaking provinces even when the situation was tough, now everything's under control again! And I like the family angle. 6 shock, 6 maneuver? Pretty insane.

[Kommando23]

Holy crap, some intense rebel bashing right there!
May I ask, what's the government tech? Far away from Despotism?

Gov tech is already beyond despotism, the problem is that you cannot leave tribal stage without a decision and that requires a ruler with ADM level 7.

[Grey78]

Nice work¡ The battle of Basra was truly epic.

[Taylor]

Shah Walad Jalayirid (1518-1552) - part 4.

After almost a decade of civil war, the Jalayirid nation finally had time to recover from its losses. The civil war had confirmed that the Persian provinces of Gurgan, Laristan and Dash-i-Lut were part of Jalayirid patrimony.

Efforts were undertaken to improve the infrastructure of the nation. In June 1528, a religious mission to Murgan had ended in success, which convinced the regime to commence several similar missions to Oman.

Soon after the civil war, another war that the Jalayrids had been (in name only) embroiled in ended: the war between the Ottomans and a European coalition headed by Burgundy ended with the Ottomans signing a humiliating peace treaty that forced them to release the nation of Mentese.

The government was gaining popularity, a fact illustrated by an enormous sum of money gifted to the state by patriotic tribal leaders in October 1528.

After having built up the infrastructure of Hormuz, Shah Walad decided to also try to convert the Hindus there to Sunni Islam. This attempt proved successful in April 1531.

When statesman Yasir Hussain (a namesake of the famed general) died, he was replaced by the talented Harun Mahmud.

Efforts to integrate the vassal state of Baluchistan were so successful that the nation was altogether absorbed in December 1529.

One of the Arabian missions brought success; the inhabitants of Nizwa were considered converted in January 1530.

In 1530 also, the Ottomans invaded the Jalayirid ally of Trebizond.

The Jalayirids chose to side with the Ottomans in this conflict, as they judged one strong ally would be more useful than two weak ones.

Alas, peace was not to last. As the years went by, calls for conquest were getting stronger. It was believed by many that Yasir Hussain, the Savior of the Nation, would be able to defeat any foe, and that the neighboring nations were just ripe for the picking; they wondered what the malik was waiting for. Yasir Hussain himself was eager to prove his skill and did little to discourage people from thinking he was invincible. Shah Walid, on the other hand, was a little more conservative than the hawks, and had for years argued that the nation first had to recover from the civil war. But this argument grew flimsier each day as the nation was clearly doing very well. Furthermore, as he grew older, the malik began to have the personal desire for glory – he too, like his ancestors, should achieve great things! And had it not been the Indian nations that had shamelessly attacked the Jalayirids when it was fighting for its very existence? Yes, and Vijayanagar had canceled its treaty of military access to Rajputana in 1528, and could thus be expected to have difficulty sending reinforcements to their Persian possessions.

It was in this spirit that in March 1531, war was declared against Vijayanagar.

The overconfident Jalayirid armies first engaged Vijayanagara armies in April near Kandahar. Here it was proven that Yasir Hussain was not, after all, invincible, as is army was sourly routed by a cavalry army under the Vijayanagara commander Tirumala Malini, forcing the Jalayirids to retreat back to Sistan.

In the time lost this way, the Vijayanagara armies managed to capture the province of Khurasan.

Yasir, in the meantime, moved south to engage a large Vijayanagara army that had invaded the province of Makran. Here, he once again proved his excellence through a crushing victory, followed by a ruthless pursuit ending in the destruction of the entire 16000 strong enemy army.

In the absence of Yasir, Vijayanagar forces drove the Jalayirids out of Baluchistan and then Makran but, fortunately for the Jalayirids, failed to follow up these victories, instead retreating back into Vijayanagara territory.

It was clear to all, though, that this war was not going to be an easy one at all, and that a troublesome time loomed ahead.

[Kommando23]

Looks like history is repeating itself but it doesn't seem like a farce at all.

One of these days we're so going to own these Indian ********s.

[Malurous]

Really happy with the conversions, Hormuz had had a missionary forever and a few others succeeded now as well.

Good to see that the Vijayanagar-Rajputana alliance doesn't exist anymore. It made expansion to that direction even trickier than it seems to be now.

[Taylor]

Shah Walad Jalayirid (1518-1552) - part 5.

The Jalayrids regrouped and Yasir attacked the Indians in Sistan, where he delivered another handsome victory.

He then delegated his army to the able commander Yusuf Ahmad, who followed up Yasir's victory by a costly but necessary one in Herat.

Yasir, in the meantime, took command of an army in Khurasan tasked with retaking the territory. Yusuf followed the survivors of the battle of Herat into Kandahar, where he destroyed them. He then descended on a Vijayanagara army in Makran and destroyed that as well.

He retook the territory and won another battle in Sistan, and then another in Herat.

While this happened, another Vijayanagara army was being pursued all the way into Arabia, where it was finally destroyed.

Finally, two years into the war, the Jalayirids were gaining the upper hand.

Small armies were dispatched to capture the fortresses on the southern front, while Yasir's and Yusuf's army were holding off the remaining Vijayanagara armies. Only after their southern provinces had been lost to the Jalayirids did Vijayanagar move again, by attacking Yasir Hussain in Kandahar.

This time, the Indian army was led by the Vijayanagara king himself: Sriranga I Qutb Sahi was, if possible, an even better general than Yasir.

In any case, it didn't help much, as the more numerous Jalayirids defeated his army and subsequently pursued and destroyed it in Balkh in April 1534. The war was practically won, as the fall of Herat illustrated.

But alas, it was not to be.

Already in 1532 the malik's eagerness to improve the country's shaky economic system had resulted in destabilization of the nation when he ruthlessly cracked down on smuggling practices all over the nation.

The resentment against the government only increased as the war with the Indians dragged on with no clear end in sight. In fact, by the second half of 1534, the nation was already struggling to keep dissenters at bay. Shah Walad chose this, of all moments, to reform the monetary system, so as to better control inflation – a hugely unpopular reform that destabilized the country significantly.

And as if that wasn't enough, he opted to also reform some segments of the military to improve the overall army quality, resulting in even more stability loss. The Indians meanwhile stubbornly refused to admit defeat and the war dragged on, while the situation at home slowly but surely spiraled out of control.

In September 1535, the Jalayirids had to give up their ambitions towards the East entirely, and had to sign a humiliating peace treaty.

During the discussed period, the Jalayirids were engaged in two other wars. One of these was fought together with the Ottomans against a coalition of such diverse nations as Mali, Austria, Algiers and Saruhan.

They left this war (without having fought a single battle in it) in 1532.

The other happened near the end of the war with the Indians, when the Jalayirids once again defeated the Qara Koyunlu (1534).

Free from their obligations in Vijayanagara Persia, the armies there present turned around and raced home to restore order. They had a difficult task ahead.

[loki100]

that is a really impressive list of revolt risks ... the stuff of champions