The Mongols of the blazing desert - a Basran AAR.

Uwais the second, khan of Basrah, paced around his tent, searching his mind for a way to save his nation. There were, of course, a couple obvious steps to take. First, he would have to declare independence... twice... throwing his nation into a turmoil it didn't have the resources for, and risking war with his only protectors.

Okay, maybe this wasn't "first" -- besides, he couldn't find a single diplomat who agreed with him, and his attempts to send someone out to get the message, or threats to send the declarations himself, led to renewed talk of a coup. Coups were, of course, common in greater Mongolia -- so common, in fact, that the average student of their history can generally figure this out just by reading the monarch lists, filled as they were with repeating khans, khans running multiple nations at different times, and generally speaking, khans were lucky to last three years.

Uwais the second had already lasted five years, and he didn't want to stop it now. So he waited, launching a couple more purges, and one night in his tent, a few months later, Genghis himself appeared in a dream.

The text is preserved here, in an English translation, of the following day at the Basran court.

"Stuck in the Arabian desert, I admit, many of us have found ourselves with a crisis of identity. I, too, have heard the cries; that we should all learn Arabic, that we should embrace the Shi'ite heresy, that we should at least *try* to settle down, become another Arab sultanate, and at least save what power we have!

To this, I say the following: Are we not Mongols? Personally, as I look out at our yurts, I say we are! And as for what route we should take... Tell me, what exactly is it that Mongols do?"

"Invade countries on horseback!" A non-descript man by the name of Mohammed shouted out from the crowd, giving a determined point to the south.

"Exactly!"

"Who do we invade?"

"Try Al-Haasa, they're heretics anyway."

"But aren't we inhabited, apart from us, by that same type of heretic? They'll probably be annoyed." Despite the wisdom of this comment, it was fast ignored. A few months later, after a vast economic effort that would ensure inflation for years to come, six thousand men on horseback rushed into Damman.



The army of Al-Haasa was no match for the ferocious lances of the southernmost of the Mongol hordes. However, the burden of supplying nine thousand horsemen while giving most of their treasury to foreigners in tribute was far beyond the power of the city of Basrah, and the economic troubles soon saw the Khan himself stabbed in the depth of night.

To this day, the identity of the assassin remains controversial. Some claim it was a patriotic mongol noble, angered by a foreign policy he saw as destroying the nation, and sure to end up with his country(or personal lands which would not be respected by another ruler, as the more cynical saw it) getting overrun. Others have pinned the blame on spies sent by Al-Haasa, angered as they saw the capital under siege, or even a Shi'a arab peasant who saw no reason why he should go broke paying for war against a country which he quite frankly identified more with than he did the Sunni Mongol court in his hometown.

The new ruler, a man by the name of Mohammed, fast ascended the throne by virtue of being the only competent leader *not* currently laying siege to Qatar. In a flurry of diplomatic activity and guts, he declared independence from Iraq and the Black Sheep alike, a gamble which many saw as risking the empire's very survival, and destroyed the country's newfound stability made when they unified around the war*, and continued the siege of Al-Haasa.

Still, the war continued to drain the fast-minting treasury, and even a loan from the local Jewish exiles and the generous assistance of the Golden Horde's deposed Khan could not last forever -- especially with the interest rates on said loan costing almost as much as the upkeep for the army!

Two years after the declaration of war, with the generous assistance of the Iraqi branch of the horde, which had continued fighting on Basrah's side even after they declared independence, the apparent apathy of the Black Sheep towards their new loss of tribute, and the legendary skill of the Mongol horsemen, the sultanate of Basrah now found itself an independent nation which possessed... twice as much useless desert as before. But for what it mattered, this was a patch of desert that even the great Khans had never quite managed to subdue.



Mahmud Khan would not live long enough to see the current truce with Al-Haasa expire, and in a time far removed from that of Genghis, a time when nations would descend like vultures upon any who annexed all but the smallest countries, he was forced to settle for tribute and leave the capital free. But even without the ability to count Qatar in his empire, he couldn't avoid the feeling that this war was the start of something legendary, something which would shape the Arabian peninsula for generations to come... though of course, they could just as easily get conquered in a few years by an angry group of sheep.

*Actually, I *lost* stability when I went to war with Al-Haasa -- though I did get an "heir to the throne" event I could RP out as Uwais' pre-war speech. But it makes more sense than "small countries regain stab quickly."*

Fingal: I'm playing AGCEEP.
Rocketman: If so, I haven't seen it. I'm not actually that good yet, playing on normal difficulty here and whatnot... so if such a thing *does* exist, I'd certainly be interested.

As 1423 dawned, Mahmud Khan sat in his tent, missing the old Mongol winters. Thankfully, their horses were tough enough for the desert, but there was just a certain somberness he gained when he looked at the map, and realized he'd need to ride across Persia just to see snow.

Militarily, it didn't mean much; Arabia, being a desert, didn't actually *have* any rivers to cross when frozen. But still, as he looked out on the sands, he couldn't help but miss the snows of his ancient land, and forced himself to find contentment in the fact that the rest of his nobles felt the same way.

The war, all in all, had been a disappointment: They had fought well, claimed victory, and... settled for an utterly useless patch of desert around the town of Damman. The best he could say of it was that it had a port -- but so did Basrah, and the Jalayirid state wasn't about to launch any amphibious assaults in the new future.

At this point, to his great surprise, the ambassador to Al-Haasa came riding by with excitement, crashing into him and his tent.

"What is the meaning of this? I should have you beheaded for your insolence!" Mahmud shouted, angrily brandishing his bow, wishing he had bothered to study close-range combat.

"Forgive me, oh Khan, I couldn't contain my excitement! It turns out that Al-Haasa, being a group of heretical Shi'ites, is so unpopular that no one will mind if we annex them!"

Mahmud put his hand on his chin, smirking. "Interesting... very interesting. Bring me the head of the idiot who said to make peace, and your life will be spared."

The ambassador sighed. This advice, all in all, would already cost him his job, as he was advising his Khan to conquer the country to which he was currently posted to as ambassador. And now, to think he would not have a single reward...

"Oh, and as thanks, I'm appointing you mayor of Qatar if we win." The Khan said, smiling. "Now, let the horde assemble!"

~~~

There were two items on the agenda of the Great Meeting of the Basran Horde, this time around. The first, which the Khan had called mostly as a way of killing time, though one which possessed some importance, was the debate on new government policy: They could only change so much without plunging the country into unnecessary chaos, and thus could only announce a single policy change.

"Let's centralize the realm!" A man on a black horse, Mahmud's cousin Hussein shouted, looking at the disturbingly federal nature of the current state. "The other hordes had weak central governments, and look what's happening to them!"

"Are we not mongols?" Mahmud Khan answered, echoing the words of the predecessor he had overthrown. "And it's just un-mongolian to have a strong central government. On the other hand, its also un-mongolian to have serfdom -- did any mongol on the great steppe work for the nobility?"

"No, but these are Arabs." Hussein answered, shaking his head.

"What about narrow-mindedness?" A priest shouted out, glancing over to the desolate, half-abandoned Sunni mosque surviving only on government funds. "We might be able to convert the heretics that way."

"Yeah, but we're Mongols. And the early khans made many great innovations for humanity, amidst the trail of blood they left behind! Can we really afford to become less Mongolian, become narrowminded in favor of some faith which doesn't even originate here?"

The horde paused, wondering, all putting forth various military doctrines, but the khan shook his head. And despite the howls of protest about how they're just Arab heretics, Mahmud Khan announced a policy to ease restrictions on the serfs, then turned his attention to the next matter.

"Also, there's the matter of the truce with Al-Haasa. It won't expire until 1427, no one likes them, and they have no army right now... I say we strike while they least expect it!"

"And ruin our honor?" Hussein shot back. "Genghis never broke his word! The riches of Qatar are hardly worth this national disgrace!"

"So? Who will really care, Yemen? There isn't a nation around which will mind if we violate the truce... and had they not deceived us into thinking the other sultans liked them and cared about their survival, we wouldn't have made it in the first place! I hereby order an invasion of Qatar!"

A few minutes later, the horde had suited up on horseback, and rushed across the border where a thousand Al-Haasan soldiers awaited them. After a few days of combat and riding, the swords and arrows of the steppe faced off against the determined resistance of a much smaller group, dressed in such a way that they almost vanished into the desert sands.

The mongols fired aimlessly, the sand getting into their eyes as the Al-Haasan troops approached, swung their scimitars, then disappeared back into the desert sands. A few managed to keep their bearings -- some had good eyesight and shot their arrows clear through the sandstorm, others used their arrows as improvised spears, thrusted blindly, and caught enemy blood. But despite these few casualties, they lost to the much smaller force just the same, and rode back to Damman in defeat.

This defeat, on a national level, was horrible. It was one thing to break a truce, but to break a truce *and lose the next battle*? Hussein soon found more followers in his camp, and the hard-won stability of the Basran state soon vanished as every major warlord made their own bids for power.

But for the time being, after two months spent recovering and practicing desert warfare, only obeying Mahmud for the sake of military cohesion, but with many plotting their khan's demise, the horde tried again. This time, it was a clear day, and they could see their foes -- and after a couple volleys of arrows, Al-Haasa was soon placed in the unenviable position of not having any actual military during wartime.

As the troops went to siege the Qatar fortress, the military budget was cut. (The Khan reasoning that, since they would only be sieging, they could do it at half-strength) This has frequently been blamed by earlier historians for the length of the siege, but given their mostly-cavalry army and lack of training on assaulting fortresses, most now agree that Qatar fell as quickly as possible.

On the night of the new year, Hussein challenged Mahmud to a duel, angered by his blight upon the honor of the Mongol state. Mahmud Khan, a survivor of the Timurid wars, had seen far too many Mongols fight each other, and thus declined and retired to his tent.

Cursing his own dishonor, but viewing it necessary to destroy the cowardly Mahmud, Hussein waited for the Khan to fall asleep. He then bribed the guards, decapitated Mahmud and, after presenting the ex-Khan's head in the traditional Mongol way, was proclaimed ruler by right of assassination of the Jalayirid horde.

~~~

However, although he had overthrown the previous ruler for his dishonor, there wasn't a pure-blooded Mongol around who would make peace when victory was at hand! Despite the grumblings and coup plots (But there were *always* coup plots) of his generals and nobles. Some hated him for continuing the dishonorable war and wondering why the coup was needed, others hated him for overthrowing the rightful Khan who had brought the nation glory, but one thing was clear: Despite his efforts to stake himself out as a moderate and insistence that the coup was necessary to prevent *future* disgrace, but the nation had already been disgraced by breaking the truce and peace now would mean nothing, there was hardly a Mongol in Basrah who wanted him alive. And the Arabs, who had found their rights increased by the past Khan, weren't all that happy with him either.

Recent historians have oftentimes pointed to the succession method of the Jalayirid state(And many other Mongol polities, chief among them the late Golden Horde) as the key reason for their rampant instability. Indeed, history professors these days often teach it as an example of what *not* to do, stating that a tradition where one becomes leader by beheading the previous leader is the absolute worst way to gain a stable nation, and soon leads to nation collapse.

Still, despite the chaos, the siege continued, and in February of 1425, the city of Qatar and surrounding deserts were annexed by the reinvigorated Khanate of Basrah.

stnylan said:

Now to the pathetic remnants of the Kaliphate.

Click to expand...

Who, Iraq? If so... In AGCEEP, Iraq represents a junior branch of the Kara Konyulu, and also happens to be my ally and a *very* valuable buffer state against the main branch of the Black Sheep.

Hussein II Khan, despite his purely Mongol blood, was not a warlike man. Sure, he was descended directly from Genghis Khan, and sure, he had refused to lift the siege of Qatar, famously stating “We have already betrayed our truce, already tarnished our reputation in the eyes of the world, and making peace now will not change that... So let us at least benefit from the fruits of our conquest!” However, in spite of this, he had come to power on a platform of peace, and it was peace he intended to deliver.

The same could not, however, be said of everyone within the Khanate. After the annexation of Qatar to the horde, the leading Mongol nobles soon called another kurultai to determine policy matters, where Hussein II faced some of the harshest opposition yet of his reign.

To summarize the matter, this kurultai was harshly divided, with one faction, led by a man named Ulugh, believing that the cavalry should be increased in size, taking additional loans if necessary, that the Baghdad Black Sheep kicked out of their alliance(By virtue of their occupying the ancient Jalayirid city of Baghdad, which was considered a legal casus belli and reason to dissolve alliance under the laws of war at the time), that a new alliance be signed with the Mamlukes, the White Sheep, or some other group the Black Sheep would not easily mess with... and then, that they would ride on Baghdad!

Another faction, which was more or less the Khan, his supporters, and referred to themselves as the Fiscal Solvency Party, although their policies would still guarantee a few more years of hyperinflation. They, believing in long-term thinking, favored reducing the size of the military to the point where the treasury would no longer bleed money – but this also meant that the Basran Mongol army would now consist of little more than two thousand horsemen.

(A small, third faction favored instead riding further into the Arabian desert, launching an unprovoked war, taking the wealthy, unguarded trade hub of Suhar and forcing the sultans of Ormuz to swear fealty, pay tribute and cede some territory. However, said sultans also owned the island of Bahrain, and ever since the failed attempt to invade Japan, the men of Mongolia had generally judged fleets as more trouble than they were worth, to say nothing of the difficulties of gaining naval supremacy and the risk that there were still plenty of troops hiding in Muscat and Ghara.)

The debates were fierce, with Basrah, so recently victorious, falling into heated arguments and accusations of treason, Hussein shouting that Ulugh's policy would leave them either bankrupt or crushed by Iraq, if not both, Ulugh roaring that, with their economy as it was, they must expand to survive, and that disbanding most of the army will do nothing more than leave the khanate at the mercy of its enemies!

In addition to speaking to the lust for conquest still beating in the hearts of Mongolia, Ulugh was also a more convincing speaker, and his question of “how could we survive with two thousand men while even the Iraqis keep ten times more?” was one Hussein was unable to inadequately answer.. And thus the Kurultai, by a vote of eighty-one to fifty-two(The ten men of the Ormuz faction voting with the Iraqi party) voted down Hussein's proposal to cut the military and ordered a tripling of the size of the military, along with sending all emissaries possible to secure the necessary pacts.

Hussein II Khan, however, was not the sort of pacifist to roll over and play dead. As his cry soared out across the desert, a group of about 2300 men on horseback rode out of the barracks, moving slowly, intimidatingly towards the council. “The army is hereby reduced to a size of 2,337 horsemen. If you wish to defy me, I shall teach you to respect my power!”

“Treason! The Khan has committed treason! We will--” Ulugh shouted, howling with rage as he ordered his horse forward and lunged at the Khan, only to find his lance hopelessly clanging off the ruler's armor.

“You will what? While I admit you may be able to summon more men to fight than I... I am certain that, when the battle is over, the army will be left with about as many men as I have ordered, and the country will have no ability whatsoever left to wage the ruinous war you seek!”

At this, Ulugh jumped from his horse, then took a knee before the khan in a gesture of submission. “You ruthless bastard... Hussein, I have to admit I underestimated you. I hereby withdraw my opposition.” And at this, the Kurultai dispersed.

The next night, a nervous, victorious Khan sat in his tent at night, looking out at the desert sands of Basrah, still wishing for a sleep which would not come, but the old man was too nervous to rest his tired eyes. Had he slept that night, he would never have awoken.

But instead, when seven dejected, beaten nobles from the war faction rushed into his yurt, he and his guards were prepared, and the plotters were slaughtered in the act. And then, his power secured, the opposition further embarassed, the pacifist Khan at last found sleep.

~

The rest of Hussein's reign passed in a fairly uneventful manner, at least at home. Internationally, the Mongol world was rocked by the civil war in the Golden Horde and newfound independence of the Crimean Khanate, a foreboding indicator of things to come, while Yemen, owing to its position as the only Shi'a nation left on earth, had soon become host to a ton of Al-Haasan exiles. The country, awed by Hussein's ruthless pacifism, gradually began to stabilize, albeit with an inflation-wracked economy, and the military slowly but surely began to rebuild, reaching a size of over five thousand horsemen by 1428, and while inflation was still ongoing, it had at least halved from the breakneck rate of the past. Not all was well, however; relations with the Black Sheep, never particularly strong, had plummeted, with both branches now claiming Basrah as their own territory – though luckily, the alliance with Iraq was still nominally in place. Quietly, Hussein etched the military's training in a more land-based direction – an easy move, given the lack of a fleet – and after a wealthy gift from Ulugh's estate, raised five thousand more horsemen to guard the Iraqi border.

At Hussein's death in 1432, although inflation had actually reached over 20% of its status in 1419, although there was still the ever-extant threat from the north which drained the state's economy just to keep a reasonable defense force, Basrah had at last known eight years of peace, and was beginning to seem more and more like a fixture of the Arabian desert.

(As an aside, because the Jalayirid state was historically conquered in 1432, I'm out of monarchs/events – any ideas? And let it never be said that I'm doing a good job, it just looked that way... playing on normal, anyhow.)

The problem with waiting for the Timurid collapse is that the newly-released provinces are generally wrong-culture, wrong-religion. That said, its collapse is the perfect thing to script an event over, though probably not a particularly positive one.