Chapter 11: God Gold Guns and Steel
With the major religious questions of the day settled, the consequences would now begin. Cathay with authority over its subjects and tributaries now had full incentive to expand further into France and Germany to increase its influence. Which of course it did almost immediately despite Catherine's lack of interest in warfare on the continent.
The First Target was the Republic of the Hansa, which had been allowed their independence since the last major war becuase of the trade and economic benefits that had continued to bring to the English Channel. Now those Benefits had waned in recent years with the Hansa's loss of Germany and Russian Colonies and the rise of Colonial Trade.
The only Major power willing to come to the Aid of the Hansa was the King of Sicily who felt opposing Cathay now as opposed to later was the only way to ensure the Empire remained contained within its borders and would not expand further south and east to solidify its alliances with Bohemia and Ferrara. Of the course problem came in that Sicily could not reach Cathay except by ship, and so could do very little to save the Hansa and attack lightly defended shipping across the European seas.
In Great Britain the annexation of Wales and Scotland had led to a massive shortage in Wool produced from these areas. The Local Celtic populations were of course none to pleased to have the British as overlords now and were preparing to resist occupation for as long as possible, which of course mean the local sheep industries had become worthless. The English desperate to reclaim the trading deals of Welsh wool had invested heavily in making due with less, producing draperies and other fabrics in house using as little wool as possible and shipping that instead. Once the technology reached the mainland the Price of wool crashed while the demand for fabric only increased and Great Britain was in an ideal location to exploit such a change.
In America, Cathayan explorers hearing tales of a Mythical spring said to grant eternal life had begun scouring the mainland far and wide. Similar tales of El Dorado and the City of the Caesars was providing motivation for similar expeditions into the Jungles of South America. In North America, or Camelot the natives were more organized and generally tried to dismiss most explorers' beliefs in such fantasy locations but still they pressed on, as the Irish spent thousands of ducats searching for King Arthur's Castle and the the Mythical Lady of the lake.
At home Tragedy had struck in short order, Catherine one of the greats of Uther's line had died suddenly of a heart attack leaving her inept son Sande I as King Emperor of Cathay. Sande while educated in matters of state was by no means competent. Though the mechanisms to compensate for such an inheritance were in place, and the Imperial Council took up much of the slack of ruling, though they also demanded far higher pay as a result.
Catherine's sudden death however did enable the Sicilians to smuggle an army into Hansa territory by way of the Channel. While the Sicilian Fleet soon found itself surrounded and destroyed as a result the army did managed to liberate the Islands of Zeeland before General Ralph Sibel arrived to run them back into the sea, defeating the King of Sicily himself with superior numbers of Cavalry and Cannon.
Defeat at Zealand saw the Hansa surrender their independence to the Kingdom of Cathay. For the first time in over a century the Dutch Merchants once again bowed to the Khitan. Though the once powerful and rich Republic of the Hansa was a shadow of its former self by this point and in a few decades the republic would be fully integrated into Cathay.
In other matters Sande and his Consort Esclarmonda of aquitaine had produced an Heir. Little Lyra was hoped to be a turn of force for the Dynasty as Sande's abilities as a monarch were relatively lack luster. However as Lyra grew into childhood it quickly became apparent that she was simple to many in court, Sande however would refuse to disinherit his daughter which would cause significant issues at court later.
In the Caribbean Cathay's hold over the large Island of Cuba was secured, and the Caribbean territories as a whole were handed over to an appointed governor for the foreseeable future. With the Territories in America being several months away by sea and the King being unable to properly handle such a territory it was considered a necessary sacrifice as after all the Caribbean colonies did not have much use for the empire besides providing regular Sugar and Tobacco which a governor could handle just fine.
In Europe the Fall of Germany continued in full force, and the Military was not about to let valuable territories end up in Bohemian or Bavarian Hands. The Northern Territories were invaded and conquered in short order with the King of Germany able to do nothing but protest and futilely resist as his Kingdom shrunk ever smaller.
In the East Bohemia had managed to connect its Russian and Eastern European Territories through war with Trebizond and sicily. Previously Bohemia's power had been offset by the fact that large swathes of it's russian claimed territory were blocked by the Kingdom of Lithuania in the North.
As Bohemia expanded it's Carpathian territories however the Northern route was seen as more and more impossible to achieve as Lithuania was powerful and held an crucial alliance with the Shah of Persia, and so a Southern Route was achieved instead, now allowing Bohemia to govern its russian territories by crossing the Carpathians, a Nonideal solution but Bohemia successful in the Balkans now dreamed of controlling land from the Baltic to the Black Sea.
Back in the Caribbean, expanding colonies had created an almost endless demand for Labor, specifically in Sugar plantations owned by Great Britain and Cathay. With the Natives insufficient as a Workforce and most white settlers looking for wealth and opportunity and not hard labour the African Slave market had become the natural choice. While already established by this point the Establishment of the Royal British Sugar Company marked the start of what would be known as the Triangle Trade.
The Principle was simple, Manufactured goods from Europe would flow down to Africa, specifically the Mali, Irish and Iberian colonies within Africa for slaves. These slaves would be brought across the Atlantic to work Plantations in America while often Iberian Traders would continue around the cape of good hope with European Manufactured goods to sell in Asia. The American colonies would then feed raw materials and cash crops back to Europe generating an absurd amount of wealth for those with hands in the Colonial sphere.
From this point forward Controlling Atlantic Trade, would forever be intertwined with the success or failure of nations such as Great Britain and Cathay.
Of course Colonization efforts were no longer restricted to south America and the Caribbean. Opportunism after all has no limits and the relative empty and temperate lands of North America attracted them Enmasse.
With the Carribean growing crowded and more tightly controlled by the various colonial governments many more independent ventures found themselves taking the Northern Route, and sailing across the Atlantic past Ireland and Greenland and down into the Wooded lands between the Hudson river and the bay of Fundy.
Temperate by European Standards these colonies were not particularly rich but soon found support from Cathay for their valuable ports and access to North American Furs which previously had been controlled mostly by the British and Swedes.
Such moves always came with compromises however, Many of these North American Settlers were initially dutch fleeing relatively oppressive conditions in Cathay brought on by the Wars against the Hansa Republic. The settlement of New Amsterdam in particular on the Island of Manhattan was of great use the Crown and so a compromise was made. The Dutch people would be given royal protection and equal rights as the Khitan within Cathay and in exchange control of the New Amsterdam Colony would go to the crown. A good deal for the local dutch nobility, but it would mean the effective erasure of much of the post Collapse Dutch culture due to its proximity to the Khitan heartland in Flanders and Brabant.
In Europe, the Crown was still expanding the Imperial borders as much as humanly possible. The Crown of Aquitaine and the remains of the Karling dynasty in particular had become of interest as of late with the Expansion of powers such as Toulouse into Iberia.
With recent conquests in Germany and the Netherlands still being incorporated however the Karlings in Aquitaine would find themselves lucky as Sande only wished to create a French buffer state between Khitan lands and the Occitan and Iberian states to the south.
It was at this time that new waves of innovations had begun to be implemented. With the rise of the Imperial court in face of a weaker monarch the Bureaucracy of Cathay expanded, and with an expanded Bureaucracy came new changes to the Military and Navy.
Control of the Army in particular was more formalized with veteran officers holding higher ranks than newer less experienced trainees. At sea new Warships were built with a focus on more firepower and less speed and of course within the administration more emphasis was placed on institutions than on the individual and more educated Bureaucrats ensured the entire system could run quietly and efficiently.
For a start better efficiency was to cut out the middle man in the Triangle Trade quite swiftly. The Iberians had been fairweather partners at best in West Africa and so colonies along the Ivory Coast were established in short order to provide Cathay with its own supply of slaves, Ivory and African gold.
It wouldn't' take long for the Administration to pass laws banning the trade with Iberian and British Colonies in Africa almost entirely forcing Cathayan merchants to trade only with Cathayan colonies or the home country, and thus ensure the entire system could only benefit the influential persons who ran the fledgling imperial Bureaucracy.
Back in Europe of course the popularization of the Printing Industry had hit an alltime high. Printers in Venice and in other major cities had made astounding amounts of progress devicing new and more efficient reproduction techniques for written works brought on by demand from the religious reforms of Martin Luxor, and the councils of Brandenburg and Paris.
For the most part these printers made much of their income on the translation of the reflections, holy works and intellectual writings stored away in universities and monasteries, but this was steady work and it was drying up rather quickly. News on the other hand was increasing in popularity, though lacked a large story to truly gather the interest of the European Nobility.
That Story was about to arrive, and with it, a boom in the printing industry like that which Europe had never before seen.
With Cathay as a rising power it would only be natural that Scandal within it's court would once again be a show the entire world would watch.