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Chapter 3.29 The Great Hunnic War III , 535-538
Chapter 3.29 The Great Hunnic War III , 535-538 CE

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The Hunnic Empire dominates the east and the Ugekid is the most powerful Khanate in the West.

After the Hunnic Empire the most powerful Khanate was the Ugekid Horde, they had been the ones who had managed to turn off the light of the Etruscan civilization after centuries of glory (and decadence) and had expanded their domain to a large part of the Balkans and Germany, some even called them the "Hunnic Empire of the West " and they enjoyed a great prestige amongst their kin after their brutal conquest of Ravenna, the former capital of the Etruscan Empire. For the Mayan Empire, the Ugekid represented the barrier between peace and war in the long term which is why it was essential to continue the Great Hunnic War to the north and by doing that free more Christian territories from the nomadic yoke. The state of war was declared but the Mayan armies had to deal with a lesser threat before marching to the old Etruscan lands.

The Traditionalist revolt in North Africa had been happening in the background for the past six years without any advance on both sides aside from the liberation of some minor settlements in the Atlas mountains, because of it the Kuhul Ahau ordered the Imperial troops to hunt them down and put an end to that small rebellious fire before they could get support from the enemies of the Empire, For six years the Traditionalists fought to restore the old order in the Empire after the fall into heresy of the Kuhul Ahau, who not only consorted with heretics and was waging war against the Huns sacrificing the lives of the Mayan people in a conflict nobody wants and in the name of foreign interests but also was following the council of an Etruscan religious leader, the Pope. The Traditionalists did not revolt only to support the claim of Ixbalanque Q’uk’umatz, cousin of the Kuhul Ahau, but also to prevent the death of the old ways and the wrath of the Gods who were already being forgotten by the new generations of urban Maya in favor of the so called “Etruscan Faith” and alliances with foreigners, the same who in the past were enemies of the Empire, like the Germanic tribes who for almost a century used to raid and attack Mayan cities and villages.

Something that surprised the Traditionalists when they were restoring the old order in the Atlas Mountains was the discovery that the Maya-Berber who followed the Maya-Christian faith had not forgotten the ancient rituals and traditions of old and were pretty much supportive of the Traditionalist movement because the Kuhul Ahau was also forsaken his religious duties to them and was backing a foreign religious leader (the Pope). The Traditionalists in turn took the idea of the figure of Christ prohibiting human sacrifice and added it as an aspect of Q’uk’umatz, the feathered God serpent that was the patron of the royal house for generations, they could not accept a foreign deity into their pantheon like the Maya-Christians but this arrangement facilitated peace and the alliance between the two groups.

But the revolt, even if successful in a small scale was doomed to fail, and when the Imperial troops appeared in the horizon, both Maya-Christians and Traditionalist took up arms and fought in the Battle of Arebi.

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The defeat of the Traditionalist movement was not the end of the old ways and when the Kuhul Ahau Balam-Quitze showed mercy towards the rebels, exiling all the survivors to the Blessed Islands (OTL Madeira) many traveled to the distant island to continue with the rituals and beliefs of their ancestors. Ixbalanqué Q’uk’umatz became the religious leader of the Traditionalists on the islands and they came to increase the number of people living there and made the small settlement around the Temple of Itzamna grow into a small city.

At the same time, the sun was shining less strongly and the temperature had dropped a few degrees, at the beginning, from the poorest Maya to the very Kuhul Ahau they thought that this was a punishment from the ancient gods for betraying them and abandoning the ancient tradition. of his people, but later it was learned that this was happening at the same time in many places at the same time because the crops would have had difficulties even in Egypt, interrupting the trade in the Mediterranean.

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After that several plagues followed one after another with great rapidity, killing millions throughout the known world, in the Empire the mortality was concentrated in the coastal cities where they began to throw the corpses into the sea when they did not have space in the cemeteries to leave the bodies of the dead. In New Tikal the slaughter affected both the slaves and the nobles, dying thousands of Mayans, including the heir to the Imperial throne.

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For the Traditionalists this was a sign that the sins of the Kuhul Ahau had drawn the fury of the Gods and that they had been right to rebel against their authority. Meanwhile, for the converts to the "Etruscan Religion" this was a sign that the Kuhul Ahau had been too soft on the pagans and that the delay in recovering the Christian territories from the Huns had enraged God.

Meanwhile, The Ugekid Horde retook all the Mayan lands conquered from the Hunnic Empire in 535 and were advancing towards Sicily, the Christian armies disembarked in Melfi not expecting the Huns to be awaiting for them.

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Seeing that the battle was lost, the Maya troops fled to the south, where a contingent of mercenaries recently hired by the Kuhul Ahau were awaiting for them. Not all was lost and despite the great crisis that was being experienced throughout the world, the Maya and their allies still believed in their victory against the heathens.
 
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Chapter 3.30 The Great Hunnic War IV 538-553 CE
Chapter 3.30 The Great Hunnic War IV 538-553 CE


After the Battle of Melfi the Mayan armies were forced to retreat to the south of Italy while the victorious Huns had mysteriously retreated north, this created a window of opportunity that was quickly exploited by the Christians, who advanced and occupied most of the Italic peninsula while most of the Ugekid Horde were busy fighting an unknown force in the North. Pope Gregorius "The Black" returned to live the last years of his life in the old capital of the fallen Etruscan Empire that was now reduced to ruins by the nomads. The Pope died in 542 at age 77 while sleeping peacefully in his bed, the man who had survived the pagan Hunnic invaders and the Ostrogoths, traveled to China and united the Christians to recover Etruria had one of the most lavish funerals of the period despite the war, the crop failures and the general problems of the era.

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After a few skirmishes, in 543 the Ugekid Horde was forced to surrender to the Mayan Empire and after that their Khanate collapsed in a few months because of revolts in the Balkans, the Great Hunnic War and a mysterious force that expelled them from the old Germanic heartland.


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These new Greeks look somewhat different...


Soon the Mayans started to receive envoys from the peoples who really destroyed the Ugekid Horde, a group of people who migrated to the west in search of better lands and that were called “the slavs” by the Huns and that made the most surprising and unexpected migration of the entire period, they displaced what remained of the Germanic population of Central Europe, the Huns and even the Gauls bordering the Mayan Empire and occupied an extension of lands that went from beyond the river Vistula in the east to the northern fringes of Iberia, tales of the bravery of the Slavic peoples in their migration and their obscure origins began to be written by Etruscan historians but soon they discovered that their accounts contradicted each other and that how they were able to displace the powerful Huns, the quarrelsome Germanic tribes and even the Gauls would remain as a mystery for the centuries to come.

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This was completely unexpected, the Slavs in this mod have a migration mechanic that went out of control, but they are disorganized and their religion is unreformed, so they are not a problem...for now...

Meanwhile in the Mediterranean, the war between the Huns and the Mayan-Etruscan-Visigoth-Vandal-Ostrogothic alliance continued as the Mayan troops tried to liberate the most lands possible before the nomads reorganized themselves and counterattacked. Because of this Balam-Quitzé as the Kuhul Ahau and supreme commander of the combined armies changed his capital to Carthage as New Tikal was distant from the theater of operations.

With the war occupying nearly all the resources of the Empire, the Slavs were actively trying to settle in the new lands of the Mayan Empire and because of the constant threat represented by the Huns, the Pope Ioannes (of Phoenician descent) started to send missionaries to the Slavic Kingdoms in an attempt to neutralize the threat before the newcomers replaced the Huns as the enemies of Christendom, but it was a difficult task because the Slavs were already migrating to Christian lands and refused to convert to the Fraticelli faith, murdering the missionaries or kicking them out of their lands or just refusing to even listen to what the priests had to say.

In the summer of 551 the war was at its lowest intensity and the Huns were raiding the Italian countryside with impunity as the Imperial troops were busy dealing with the nomads in the Alps, this caused the war to become more intense and many Slavic tribes were vassalized in order to bolster the Imperial forces.

This new influx of Pagans inside the Empire caused the Pope to call in 553 for the Imprisonment of all pagans that refused to convert to the “true” faith, not matter how loyal they were or the position they occupied inside the Empire, Balam-Quitze as the Kuhul Ahau had to obey the new Papal Mandate to preserve the unity of his armies in the middle of a war with a religious nature.

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Stubborn pagans...


The Great Hunnic war officially ended in 554 CE with a treaty between the Ugekid Horde and their allies and the Mayan Empire, most of the Etruscan lands conquered by the easterners were added to the Empire and the Viceroyalties of Etruria (ruled by the Etruscans) and Italia (ruled by Ostrogoths) were added to the administrative structure.

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Not a month had passed when the different Viceroyalties started to discuss about the Independence of their Kingdoms, but after the sack of New Tikal in 556 CE (and the destruction of most temples and with that of most written records of the old religion) was clear that the Hunnic threat was far from over and with the backing of the Phoenician Pope the Imperial Authority was respected by all the Christian peoples.

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Never forget

But the discussion about the nature of the new “Not-so-Mayan” Empire continued in the Imperial Court and Balam-Quitzé Q’uk’umatz had a choice to make.

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New lands added to the Empire after the end of the Great Hunnic War and the Viceroyalty of Etruria.
 
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The Slavs o_O
 
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My Slavic heart enjoys immensely this turn of events :)
Could it be that Slavs will replace Germans?
If you think about it majority of Western European countries has Germanic origin. Visigoths, Franks, Lombards and Anglo-Saxons laid down the foundations of Spain, France, Italy (which are not considered Germanic countries, because of mixing with Latins, Celts or Iberians) and England (which is maybe considered Germanic country, mostly due to language, but their culture differs from "proper" Germanics in Austria, Germany and Scandinavia) respectively :)
 
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My Slavic heart enjoys immensely this turn of events :)
Could it be that Slavs will replace Germans?
If you think about it majority of Western European countries has Germanic origin. Visigoths, Franks, Lombards and Anglo-Saxons laid down the foundations of Spain, France, Italy (which are not considered Germanic countries, because of mixing with Latins, Celts or Iberians) and England (which is maybe considered Germanic country, mostly due to language, but their culture differs from "proper" Germanics in Austria, Germany and Scandinavia) respectively :)
The Anglo-Saxons tried to invade the Celtic Islands of the north but after a few decades were defeated, most Central Germanic peoples were genocided by the Huns and these who survived were wiped out by the Slavic Migration, the only Germanic peoples that still exist are the "Denziner" in Corsica, the Vandals in Sardinia, the Visigoths and the Suebi in Iberia, the Ostrogoths in southern Italy, some minor Frankish tribes in Gaulish territory and other minor tribes in Central Europe...it seems that the Slavs got to conquer many parts of Scandinavia so the Norse are in risk.

So its the most possible scenario, the Slavs replaced the Germans and maybe other peoples, the remaining Gauls are having hard times dealing with the newcomers, it seems that the Huns weakened and destroyed everything on their path only to prepare the grounds for the incoming Slavic wave :p
 
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Chapter 3.31 The Mediterranean Confederation. 553-565 CE
Chapter 3.31 The Mediterranean Confederation. 553-565 CE



The Imperial court of Carthage was bustling with dignitaries from all the viceroyalties trying to gain an advantage over the rest of their rivals and Balam-Quitze even if he enjoyed the different dishes that the cooks of the different Viceroys brought to the court and that had become fashionable in the court, the cultural differences, the endless parties between each audience and the rivalries between peoples that until a few years they were mortal enemies were beginning to take a toll on him.

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For the past three years many different religious revolts had been happening one after another fueled by the passion that the Pope Ioannes had for religious persecution, the Imperial troops had to travel from one side of the Empire to the other to oppress the pagans that just some years before were oppressed by the Huns and the priests of the faith were worked untiringly to convert all the subjects of the Empire to Christianity. Many Mayans were pretty unhappy about having foreign priests trying to convert them to a foreign faith and openly accused the Kuhul Ahau of betraying their own kin to please the Fraticelli Pope, it did not helped the fact that Ioannes was a Phoenician and as such kin to their people… enforcing an external religion over the traditions of the people was an open act of betrayal, did not mattered how sacred the Imperial family line were for them, it was supposed that the Kuhul Ahau had to be supreme leader of the Mayan faith and not a pawn of the foreigners.

In such complicated times a reform was necessary to keep the Mayans from revolting against his own Kuhul Ahau and after a life threatening experience with a strange disease that cost him an eye, Balam-Quitze decided to liberate all the foreign Viceroyalties to please his own people but after presenting that idea to the Pope and his council he was advised to not do that. At the end was decided that a new legal figure was necessary to keep all the peoples happy and focused in preserving Christendom against the pagan hordes that in the past nearly the Etruscan peoples who now were very busy rebuilding their cities, farms and roads while the Imperial forces patrolled the countryside in search of the enemies of the Empire.

In May of 559 the Kuhul Ahau (with heavy influence of his council and the Pope) decided the creation of the Mediterranean Confederation to replace the Mayan Empire as the ruling entity over the entire Christendom; it would be a highly decentralized Empire with local Viceroys autonomously ruling their lands after being appointed by the Emperor, the idea was received with acclaim in the court.

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The council and the Emperor decided the following reforms to start the new Confederation:

  • The title of Kuhul Ahau would be abandoned in favor of the one of the Emperor. The nature of succession would be Elective and only the most important men would be able to vote on that election.
  • The Banner/flag of the Condeferation would be white for the Papacy, Dark red by the Etruscan legacy and had a yellow cross of Iacobus (the Patron and the color of the Mayans) in the left side (the heart)
  • Maya-Christians and the remaining Tradicionalists that followed the old faith would be free of any interference of the Fraticelli Church in lands ruled by Mayans like New Tikal, Gaetulia, Mauria and Lusitania.
  • The Viceroyalty of Tolosa would receive Imperial funds so the Visigothic rulers could fortify the lands to protect them from the constant Slavic attacks on their lands, the Slavs that already settled them would be forced to convert to Christianity or sold into slavery.
  • The Viceroyalty of Etruria would receive Imperial funds to fortify the eastern frontier against Huns and other migrating peoples and they would be exempted of taxes while they rebuilt their cities.
  • The Viceroyalty of Italia, ruled and inhabited by the Ostrogoths would receive more priests to convert the local population and was ordered to send warriors to protect the frontiers.
  • The Viceroyalty of Carthage mostly inhabited by Maya-Berbers and Phoenicians would be the granary of the Empire and because of it their men were free of military service, as all the available men should be working on the fields to feed the Confederation.
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In the next years the Church sent men to many places to spread the Fraticelli faith, with the Imperial army protecting the borders of the lands peace and prosperity reigned supreme and the Church had all the time and tranquility to do their job.

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Emperor Balam-Quitze died in 565 and the nobles of the Confederation elected Hunahpú Q’uk’umatz, his son, as the successor to the Confederate throne. The last Kuhul Ahau would be remembered by the profound and abrupt changes he brought to the Mayan peoples and Christianity in general and would be remembered with reverence and hatred for the centuries to come.
 
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Chapter 3.32 The Gilded Decades 565-583 CE
Chapter 3.32 The Gilded Decades 565-583 CE


Right after the death of Balam-Quitze and the election of the new Emperor there was a political dispute about the succession rights on the Mediterranean Confederations because only a few nobles had voting rights and peoples like the Ostrogoth were excluded from electing the man that would rule over them for life. Hunahpú Q’uk’umatz tried to silence the constant discussions at court by giving trade concessions to the Viceroyalty of Italia, and even if that worked for a few years soon the election of Pope Marcus II, an Ostrogoth that was well known for buying the election and for engaging in all sorts of questionable behaviors created new and bigger diplomatic conflicts when the Cardinals and the Emperor tried to censor the Pope and ended imprisoning him in Rome when he tried to raise an army to defend his position.

When the Ostrogoth Pope was imprisoned the Viceroyalty of Italia rose up on arms against the tyranny of the Emperor claiming that the Confederation was as oppressive as the Huns and that Hunahpú wanted to imprison the Viceroy next. The Ostrogoth were fierce warriors and some would say that they were the best inside the entire Confederation followed by the Slavs protecting the eastern border, but they were not capable of confronting the combined armies led by the Emperor and ended being defeated after a few years of war. The Emperor then gave their lands to the Visigoths, who promised to keep their cousins under control.

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After the Ostrogoth crisis ended the Confederation experienced a bit more than a decade of peace and prosperity that seemed to never end. The Imperial capital was the greatest center of trade in the whole Mediterranean and this created an huge source of revenue to the Q’uk’umatz, ships from all over the known world came to the newly rebuilt Harbor of Carthage to buy, sell and engage in all sorts of diplomatic activities, even the Huns came in peace to trade.

In such times the arts flourished all across the Confederation, the Mayans, far from any threat distinguished themselves because of their poetry, plays and literature. Followings the conventions of Mayan historiography many artists told incredible tales about the “Atlantean Period” before the conquest of the Turdetanii, the most famous of these works was the play called “Death and Rebirth of Dido Yujnegi” telling the story of the most important Prophet of the Odiq’e and the history book titled “The Republic of Zinnridi” that told about the times when the first Phoenicians set foot on the Atlantean continent (OTL America) and had to organize a political system somewhat similar to the elective succession of the Mediterranean Confederation.

The Visigoths, being influenced by the lost splendor of the Etruscans became masters in the creation of intricate designs and metalwork, the most expensive and best swords and armor of the period were made by talented blacksmiths from Tolosa. The Phoenicians became famous for their beautiful clothes, curtains and fabrics, while the Etruscans became famous for their masonry. The Slavs, being the guardians of the eastern frontiers stood out for their imposing border forts and many in the Mediterranean believed that their military tactics were an unique form of art.

All the peoples inside the Confederation wanted to protect their culture from outside influence and remained somewhat isolated from each other even if they had strong trade and religious ties. The rivalry between the fallen Ostrogoths and the rising Visigoths was particularly fierce and was only surpassed by the rivalry between the ruling Maya and the greatly weakened Etruscans and the seconds still saw everyone else in the Confederation as less more than barbarians and resented the fact that they were ruled by them…but they were too busy rebuilding their cities to do anything about that.

Then, in the winter of 582 CE rumors of a deadly plague began to circulate in the Imperial court, tales of horror were told by traveling merchants about the now empty cities on the coast of the Red Sea and the thousands if not millions of human beings dying on most places east of Egypt…but nobody believed such a thing could affect the “gilded decades” of the Confederation and such tales were dismissed as mere fiction told by bored merchants.

But does not mattered what the nobles in the Imperial Court believed, the reality was that as a result of the climate changes of 535-536 a chain reaction was unleashed in the east and the deadliest plague on recorded history came to the shores of the Mediterranean Confederation so fast, that not even the most talented Etruscan bureaucrat could keep track of the thousands of people dying every day, entire towns got wiped out from existence and not even the wealthiest nobles of the realm could survive once infected and in February of the year 583 CE the Emperor himself died because of the Black Death.

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Many of the most prominent people on the entire Confederation died in the following months, including some of the strongest candidates to the Throne, this left Ek-Chuack Q’uk’umatz, nephew of the late Emperor to be elected as his successor in the worst moment possible because the plague would continue for five more years, weakening the Empire after almost two decades of prosperity and killing an entire generation of artists, poets, politicians and warriors.
 
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Ah yes, the plague of Hunahpu. What a horror it was.
 
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Ah yes, the plague of Hunahpu. What a horror it was.

Guess it's this world's Justinian Plague. I'd love to see political situation after the influenza :)

I was waiting for the plague to happen in the same timeframe that the Justinian Plague (because its coded in the WTWSMS mod) but it never happened. Then it happened and killed the Emperor and many of his heirs o_O
 
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Chapter 3.33 The Great Assembly 583-591 CE

Chapter 3.33 The Great Assembly 583-591 CE​



The Shambatid Invasion. Mediterranean Confederation. 590 CE​

The plague had claimed the lives of at least ¼ of the total population of the Confederation for the past five years and there were widespread famines because there were no people left to work in the fields, soon the viceroyalties were not able to fund their local armies or pay taxes to the throne and this caused a societal level of chaos never experienced before, groups of bandits ravaged what survived of the countryside and was common to hear tales of nomadic bands sacking towns that until then had barely survived the plague. The Emperor ruled only in name and could only afford to finance the local militia that protected Carthage, the capital.

In this moment of total vulnerability the Shambatid Horde, the successor of the fallen Ugekid Horde of old invaded the Mediterranean Confederation in full force, bypassing the Slavic frontiersmen by taking a long route to attack the undefended Viceroyalty of Italia.

The Emperor tried to call the Viceroyalties into arms without much success, not because the Viceroys did not wanted to send their levies for the defense of the Confederation but because they were not able to organize anything and were beginning to recover from the apocalyptic “Plague of Hunahpú” (as was called by the Etruscan Historians). Emperor Ek-chuak then recruited many mercenary companies to fight against the invaders but this time the Huns were not weakened by internal wars or the Slavic Invasion like in the First Great Hunnic War and the nomadic warriors absolutely destroyed the Confederate Armies and the Emperor had to concede the Viceroyalty of Italy to the Shambatid.

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I was completely powerless against this invasion.

This defeat represented a complete humiliation for the Christians because they created the Confederation to protect themselves from outside threats and failed miserably at it, and in the next years there were some minor revolts against the rule of the Emperor that were quickly subdued.


The Great Assembly of 591. Carthage. Mediterranean Confederation. 591 CE​


The prospect of the Huns reconquering the entirety of the Christian lands after this show of weakness and the failure of the Mediterranean Confederation to defend itself was sufficient excuse for Emperor Ek-Chuack to meddle in the affairs of the Viceroyalties and to summon all the Viceroys and the Pope to Carthage, he announced a Great Council to be celebrated to decide the strategy to follow before the Huns or even the Slavs decided the lands of the Confederation were up for the taking. In a matter of a few weeks they were all reunited in the Imperial Palace of Carthage.

The streets of the Confederate capital seemed like a veritable anthill with the number of diplomats, merchants and priests arguing about the nature of the discussions that were taking place in the Great Hall of the palace were only the Viceroys, the Emperor and the Pope were allowed, the victory of the Shambatid Horde felt like one of the signs of the Apocalypse and many were already thinking the worst, perhaps while they discussed what to do the nomads were marching to invade Carthage or Etruria, no matter where they attacked, everyone felt that they were not prepared to face another war against the Huns, the Plague had caused great damage to the Confederacy's ability to defend itself or to raise funds to wage war or at least that was what the common people believed. Many cursed the names of the Ostrogothic traitors that were believed to have summoned the hellish horsemen in another plot to free themselves from the Confederation…did not helped their reputation that the current Pope was another Ostrogoth and many rumors about how he managed to win the election while being a "cursed" Ostrogoth ran the length and breadth of the Mediterranean, many thought that perhaps God was punishing them all for tolerating people who had always fought on the side of the Huns.

Inside the Great Hall a heated debate was taking place, the Vicereine of Etruria was blaming the Mayan Pagans for the weakness of the Confederation in a completely offensive language and this enraged the Viceroy of Carthage…

- “You call us Barbarians, but guess what, while your women were being fed to the horses of the Huns and your men were fleeing to all the corners of the world like the complete cowards the Etruscans are, was MY people who fought to liberate your lands, Mayan steel, Mayan Blood and the will of OUR Gods allowed you to become a Vicereine and while OUR people were fighting against the Shambatid Horde you and your coward kin were… hiding in the mud huts you call your homes, trembling with fear!.

Viceroy Yaax’s face was red with a mixture of anger and shame, he was not known for being a great speaker or to be a violent man, but nothing offended him more than being called a “Barbarian” by people as poor and miserable as the Etruscans were according to his view. The Vicereine of Etruria waited with a face of utter disgust for her translator to tell her what the “pagan barbarian” said and then asked for the right to answer to the insults of the Viceroy of Carthage without even looking at the man:

“Every one of you can see my point after the intervention of the Viceroy of Carthage, if we are all equally free inside the Confederation to rule over our own people with the sole requisite of being Christians to be a full member it’s an injustice that these…pagans are free to adore their satanic demon-gods, even the…Slavs who live in our Confederation have been forcefully converted. If the Plague was not enough as a sign of the Divine Wrath against us… now God has punished us with the Shambatid Horde because we are allowing Satan to be worshipped inside our Holy Confederation!, you all know my people are brave warriors, our noble blood allowed us to conquer a glorious and enormous Empire in the past… but our present situation makes us not be able to send the few men we have to fight foreign wars without abandoning our fields and fortifications…

The Viceroy of Dalmatia made a mocking gesture after he was allowed to speak, he knew that he, alongside the Pagan Mayans were the most disliked persons in the Great Assembly, Visigoths, Vandals and Ostrogoths resented the Slavs for wiping out their kin in Central Europe and the Etruscans envied them for their rising status inside the Confederation and protested when such “a lowly peoples” were given lands that used to belong to the old Etruscan Empire. That created a natural alliance between the proud Maya/Maya-Berbers and his people.

“My people were never forcefully converted, the Pope could ask his priests how we react when someone tries to force anything upon us, we willingly accepted Christianity or just rejected it "– Viceroy Rodoslav made a pause to look at the hateful face of Vicereine Cemeia, smiled, and then continued- "but I don’t traveled across the sea and abandoned my lands to engage in petty squabbles, let’s talk about the plan of the Emperor. We can discuss about our differences later.

Many on the Great Assembly approved what Rodoslav said because fighting against the many privileges the Mayans had inside the Confederation was pointless in times such as this, when the Huns could be marching towards their homes in that very moment. They discussed the Strategic plan of the Emperor for the rest of the day and many seemed to be worried about it because proposed using all the gold reserves of the Confederation and all the income of the next years to wage a war against the Huns in Pannonia and the Balkans and after pushing them out of these lands building a series of forts alongside the course of the Danube River, what would become the natural frontier against the Huns and other invaders for the next generations, and the most conflicting subject was who would be the ruler of the new territories, the Etruscans had the claim to these lands but lacked the manpower or the resources to settle there, giving even more lands to the Mayans was a thing anyone but them wanted and if the current balance of power inside the Empire was built with great difficulties… the extension of the lands the Emperor was proposing to conquer could change everything for the worst.

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The most important rulers in the Great Assembly of 591 CE.

The next day the Pope, seeing that all the Viceroys had problems with the prospect of waging a political war to see how the new political order of the Confederation would be after fighting the inevitable war against the Huns asked for permission to propose an alternative to the Strategic plan of Emperor Ek-chuak Q’uk’umatz, the Viceroys and their respective retinues were reunited in the Great Assembly without much faith on what the Ostrogothic Pope had to say…

- “The proposal of the Emperor will definitely be something unavoidable if we want to fight the Huns before they prepare another invasion of our territories, but I have a different approach to the problem we are having right now” – The Pope made a pause and then signaled his servants to bring him many scrolls that were in turn given to all Viceroys and the Emperor.

“What you see is a map of the current state of the Viceroyalty of Italia we lost of the Shambatid horde the past year…as you can notice…the savages retreated from these lands a week ago according to my informants, what is left are many petty duchies fighting amongst themselves for dominance” – the Pope made another pause, this time to let the Viceroys read the scrolls and notice the changes and maybe, guess his proposal.


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The Huns began to convert after the Shambatid returned to their lands because of the game rule against bordergore


-“This is absurd”- exclaimed the Etruscan Vicereine with disgust- “We all know the Huns are incapable of converting to Christianity because they have no soul! And you are believing that we will believe your lies?, you are our Pope but you are still an Ostrogoth!”

- “This can be strange for everyone here”
– Said Rodoslav, the Viceroy of Dalmatia- “ But I agree with the Etruscan Vicereine, Pope Anicetus, with all due respect, you cannot believe that the war against our greatest enemies will be won by converting them all, the Huns have an unrelenting faith on their Sky-god and even if some of them are converting to Christianity as we speak… it will take decades if not centuries to convert them all into our faith, and we definitely don’t have that amount of time in our favor".

-“Exactly” – Said the Pope maybe expecting even worse reactions to his proposal- “We don’t have the time to convert all the Huns into Christianity, but if we converted half of the Mayans and a few Slavic tribes into our faith…we could try to convert all the peoples in the regions that border the Confederation and with that, stopping them from invading our lands and committing another act of extermination as they did with the Etruscans in the past…or as they did recently with my people bec...”. Pope Anicetus was then suddenly interrupted by Vicereine Cemeia of Etruria.:

- "But there is a great difference between what happened to my peoples and what happened to yours, we were invaded and nearly exterminated after centuries fighting against barbarians like your kin and the Huns, your people instead were allies and subjects of the Huns...and when we accepted your kin into the Confederation and gave them rule over lands they took from us...they revolted against the Confederacy and then you were punished by God himself with the Shambatid invasion, i tolerate your presence here because you are the Pope and leader of our faith....but i and many here think that..."

-"Silence!"- the Imperial herald interrupted the Vicereine using his attributions as moderator of the exchange, he had allowed too much nonsense in this Assembly and was tired of it.

The Pope looked into the Throne where the Emperor was seated with the intention of getting his support and Ek-chuak then spoke to protect his alliance with the Papacy:

- "I think we have discussed enough and i will not tolerate further discussion about the matter, we follow both strategies, if we convert the Slavic tribes at our borders we will have more allies against the Huns…and if the Huns convert to our faith we will stop having them trying to invade our lands every generation, our armies and the mercenaries will work together to push the Huns to the northern border of the Danube and the priests will have the funds to travel everywhere to convert more peoples to our faith. It is decided? Or we need to vote about something that will ensure the survival of our people for the centuries to come?."


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Emperor Ek-chuak


All the Viceroys and the Pope approved the two strategies and for the next years they stockpiled resources because the war about to happen not only needed men and gold to be successful, but also luck…a lot of it.
 
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That's interesting that Huns are pushing for Italia. They are nomads and even if some are partially stabilized and not nomadic anymore, they still should value horses. In mountainous region like Apenins that could be hard.
Italian armies were famous for their Pikemen and Crossbowmen, Cavalry was not really used in Italia, maybe besides the Kingdom of Naples.

I know it's obviously because of game mechanics, but from the logical point of view it doesn't really make any sense...

Maybe you have some idea how to explain that? :) You don't need to answer it directly, you can do this in AAR. I'm really curious what do you come up with :D

Btw. Word "people" is the plural form of word "person". There are no such things like "peoples" or "persons" :)
 
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Chapter 3.34 The Second Great Hunnic War Part 1, 591-601 CE

Chapter 3.34 The Second Great Hunnic War Part 1, 591-601 CE​



Hundreds of highly motivated priests departed from the Confederation into the unknown savage lands that surrounded it to become missionaries and save the souls of the pagans following the mandate of Pope Anicetus, most of them disappeared into the pages of History without even being acknowledged as martyrs because they died in total obscurity but the ones that had success aided the cause of the Confederation by creating new alliances with the most important Slavic rulers on the border regions, the strategy of the Pope was being successful.

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After seven years of preparations (597 CE) the combined armies of the Confederation quickly advanced towards the Danube without much opposition and began to siege the forts of the Shambatid Huns protecting the access to the River. With the different languages spoken by the commanders of the invading forces the coordination of the offensive proved to be a bit difficult because Visigoths, Suebi, Vandals and Ostrogoth spoke many dialects of Gothic that were still intelligible between them, the Phoenicians spoke their old Semitic Language, the Mayans spoke many dialects that varied depending if they were from the Maya-Berber areas, northern or southern Iberia, the Etruscans, Slavs and Lusitanian also spoke their own distinct languages. These differences also were evident in the battle tactics and weapons using by the soldiers and with the clear communication difficulties between the many commanders and mercenaries leading the offensive was only a matter of time until a disaster happened.

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And it happened the 25 of February of the year 598 CE when the Shambatid Horde unexpectedly crossed the Danube straight into the Confederate forces in a daring and dangerous maneuver that inflicted a crushing defeat upon the invaders, more than 12.000 Christian men died while the Huns suffered less than 1000 casualties in the biggest military catastrophe ever experienced by the Mediterranean Confederation or even by the Mayan Empire.

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I had a lot of funds to hire mercenaries after many years of peace, if not, this battle would have marked the end of everything.

After the Battle of Sopron the survivors told stories about the Ostrogoth warriors amongst the armies of the Mediterranean Confederation switching sides and openly betraying their brothers in arms to join their own kin that server under the Huns. Almost a decade before and during the Shambatid invasion of Italy many Ostrogoth had also joined the Huns to liberate their lands from the oppression of that the Confederation forced upon them. That betrayal was still in the minds of the people even if not all the Ostrogoth switched sides and most of them were loyal Christians, the Gothic warriors were not only strong and capable on the battlefield but they were especially effective in the battlefield against Mayan and Slavic heavy infantry. This apparent betrayal (with so many deaths nobody could tell of the few Ostrogoth that were part of the army switched sides) the Ostrogoth population became the scapegoats for the defeat and in the days that followed the defeat many innocent people from that group were expelled from the towns they had lived all their lives or murdered across the Confederation and soon many began to flee into the lands of the Shambatid or into the Hunnic Empire of the east.

After such an humiliating defeat what remained of the armies regrouped in the east after fleeing to the coast of Dalmatia, Anoki Q’uk’umatz, brother of the Emperor was in charge of re-organizing the army and after a few months was elected as the new ruler of the Mediterranean Confederation following the “surprising” death of Ek-chuak after he decided to host a banquet to try to ingratiate with what remained of the commanders of his armies.


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Never mess with the wife of your brother.


Anoki Q’uk’umatz started his rule by hiring more mercenaries and assigning Fraticelly Priests as advisors for every commander of the army, they spoke the same language because of their education (low Latin) and also their own native languages and that helped to accelerate and improve the reorganization of the army, with more even troops recruited from all the viceroyalties the Emperor himself led the counterattack and retook Sopron after three battles that almost emptied the coffers of the Confederation between the years 598 and 600 but caused a great deal of damage to their enemies after killing many of the valuable and irreplaceable warriors of the Shambatid Horde. Sopron became known since as the “field of the dead” for the thousands of bodies rooting in the vicinity of the fortified town.

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Just imagine the smell of Sopron, thousands of dead bodies just laying around

After many battles seemed that the Shambatid ran out of soldiers and the Confederation got the upper hand and conquered both sides of the Danube formerly controlled by the Huns, this led to a further expansion into their territory that was only stopped by economic concerns and the possibility of running out of funds in times when half of the armies of the Mediterranean Confederation were composed by mercenaries. With both sides exhausted by the carnage of the war a peace was signed and Emperor Anoki was now looking to the east, to the lands alongside the Danube controlled by the Hunnic Empire that constituted the last remnants of land to secure a border against future incursions from their kin. To rule over the new conquered lands the Emperor assigned two Slavic Viceroys who were in charge of building fortifications and cities and even settle more Slavs in these territories from the neighboring lands surrounding the Mediterranean Confederation, the Etruscans tried to protest against this measure claiming that these were the former lands of the Etruscan Empire and because of that belonged to them... but Anoki was too busy waging a war against the Huns to care about what his subjects had to say, the Etruscans had no manpower to take these lands and he needed to secure the border after all. The viceroyalty of Pannonia was created from the lands taken from the Shambatid while the Viceroyalty of Dacia was created from the recently vassalized (by force to secure the lands from Hunnic incursions) Duchy of Sarmuzegetuza, the same people who converted to Christianity in 595 CE.

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In the same year news came from the Deep South beyond the Sahara desert, as the missionaries had succeeded in converting part of the kingdom of Ghana to Christianity and had even performed a mass baptism where the pagans of the south accepted the true faith and thus joining the Church, more priests and funds were soon sent to help them build their first churches and to facilitate the spread of the religion.

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While this was happening, Confederate troops marched east, the Second Great Hunnic War should be ended before the Emperor ran out of funds...
 
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Does it mean that these events caused Ostrogothic Diaspora? Talking about Diaspora... What is the situation of Jews in this world?
A diaspora and maybe the disappearance of the Ostrogoths in the long run, Huns and other peoples are slowly replacing them. Jews had a Kingdom between 300 and 400 CE that fell due to infighting and the Assyrians conquering them at the end, they still live on their homeland but there are Ebionite, Karaite, Jewish, Apollinarian and Samaritan Hebrews in the area ruled by Assyrians and Egyptians. There are also Karaite Jews living in parts of Arabia and Ethiopia. From time to time Mayans had Jewish people migrating to the Empire following the Phoenician migrations.

In this timeline you replace the Romans with the Assyrians as their oppressors but they never experienced an "Emperor Hadrian-treatment" and who knows, maybe they will manage to create their own Kingdoms if they survive to the end-date of this part of the AAR.
 
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@Kazanov, thank you for the many hours of hard work that went into making the mods and writing the AAR. I owe you an apology because I realize that I read the beginning (EU4) when I was too chicken to leave comments and probably even "likes". Thank you again for providing entertainment to your loyal readers and please be safe.
 
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@Kazanov, thank you for the many hours of hard work that went into making the mods and writing the AAR. I owe you an apology because I realize that I read the beginning (EU4) when I was too chicken to leave comments and probably even "likes". Thank you again for providing entertainment to your loyal readers and please be safe.
That was a quick read, i was following your reactions for the past weeks and wondered if you would end before or after i ended this part ( there are a few Chapters left and im making the CK3 mod atm), thanks :)
 
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