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Rock climbing, eh? And what happens to the massive stamp collection? Sold to the highest bidder - Phillip of Burgundy perhaps? Bigger, fatter and most likely hungrier.
 
Gee Farq, Troggle sets another milestone in another one of your AAR's. You must be honored, eh? :rofl: Congrats anyway Troggle!

I'm thinking after your rock-climber, you need.... oh, I dunno, maybe a butterfly collecter! That should give him lots of reasons to wage war, eh? :rolleyes:
 
Rythin the Major Tomato: Shouldn't that be "another tomato bed"? :p

J.Passepartout: Yes, I'm afraid stamp-collecting is out now in Gujarat - but what will become of all those stamps??

Vincent J.: Absolutely - glad to see someone who's grasped what it's all about! And any suggestions about the all-consuming passions of future Sultans are very welcome.

Crimson King: Ah - if only you had posted sooner, I'd have been warned... :eek:

Draco R & Boss: Great - when is the Boss going to start his own AAR, then? ;) As for butterfly-collecting, well, butterflies are kind of similar to stamps aren't they...

CatKnight: No, not a great strategist, but he had some cool ideas for uniforms, as you'll see...

Judas M.: Well! Just because I made a cheap joke about those great men of Baden! I've half a mind to try annexing Baden now... :p

Troggle the Mega-Tomato: Yup - Gujaratis hate spoon-collectors! And oceans, for that matter! And congrats on the big 12-Oh-Oh (at last! :rolleyes: )

coz1: As usual, I was inspired by some of the comments posted!

Zenek: Hmm - Terra incognita, eh? Don't think I have a CB on them at the moment...
 
Chapter 6: 1443-1452
Ghiyas ud-Din Gets High

Climbing-Wall.jpg

Yusf ul-Fellah clung on in terror halfway up the climbing wall in what had once been a perfectly normal council chamber in the Royal Palace in Rajkot. He had been summoned by the Sultan, and was now getting himself entangled in a length of climbing rope.

Yusf ul-Fellah: Must we always have these sessions halfway up the wall, Sire? I can’t concentrate very well here.

Sultan Ghiyas ud-Din Muhammad Shah I: How many times do I have to tell you, ul-Fellah? Don’t call me “SIRE”! What do you call me?

Yusf ul-Fellah: Your Highness! Sorry, Your Highness! I just forgot momentarily in my abject terror clinging here for dear life.

Ghiyas ud-Din: Well don’t let it happen again!

Yusf ul-Fellah: Yes, Si- I mean, Your Highness. Oh dear, it wasn’t like this in your father’s day, you know.

Ghiyas ud-Din: My father! Pah! He was wimp, ul-Fellah. A total wimp! I mean, stamp-collecting - can you imagine?

Yusf ul-Fellah: Since you mention it, Your Highness, I was wondering what you wanted done with the Royal Stamp Collection? Yeee-AAARK!

At this point Yusf ul-Fellah’s foot slipped and he fell half a metre, dangling by the safety rope before scrabbling to get his hold once again.

Ghiyas ud-Din: Burn it!

Yusf ul-Fellah, in shock: What? But - you can’t be serious Your Highness! The Royal Stamp Collection is worth a fortune!

Ghiyas ud-Din: Really? You mean people pay good money for these little sticky-backed bits of paper?

Yusf ul-Fellah: Oh yes, Your Highness. Perhaps we could auction them off to clear some of our crippling war debts?

Ghiyas ud-Din: Well, if you think you’ll find anyone else as wimpish as my father you can have a go. Meanwhile, I want to discuss more important matters. Such as the total lack of good rock-climbing terrain in Gujarat.

Yusf ul-Fellah: You do have your climbing walls, Si-... Your Highness.

Ghiyas ud-Din: A climbing wall, ul-Fellah, is for PRACTICE. Where am I supposed to go do to the real thing?

Yusf ul-Fellah: There must be some nice cliffs around somewhere, Your Highness.

Ghiyas ud-Din: Name one!

Yusf ul-Fellah: Well, I... er... well, um...

Ghiyas ud-Din: Look at this!

He hands ul-Fellah a climbing magazine opened to a page showing a breathtaking mountain vista:

Mountains.jpg

Yusf ul-Fellah: Well, that certainly looks like some nice rock-climbing terrain, Your Highness. Where’s that?

Ghiyas ud-Din: Near Kabul, ul-Fellah. Not currently part of Gujarat. But it soon will be if I have my way!

Yusf ul-Fellah: Kabul, hmm... let’s see. That’s part of the Timurid Empire, Your Highness.

Ghiyas ud-Din: And the Timurid Empire is part of the Hyper-Baddie Alliance, right?

Yusf ul-Fellah: Ah, no Your Highness, not any longer. Latest news just in - Arakan have declared war on Bengal and those worthless Timurids dishonoured the Alliance. They are now without allies!

Ghiyas ud-Din: Ah, wonderful news, ul-Fellah! So let’s declare war immediately!

Yusf ul-Fellah: Ahem, well, we do have a truce with them until December of next year, Your Highness. Plus we still have to pay off 400 ducats of war debts.

Ghiyas ud-Din: Are you saying I’ll have to wait to get my hands on this?

He waves the climbing magazine.

Yusf ul-Fellah: I’m sure it will be worth the wait, Your Highness!

So Ghiyas ud-Din spent his days practising his techniques on the many climbing walls which now graced the Royal Palace, both inside and out. In December 1445 the Royal Stamp Collection was auctioned off for 200 ducats, which paid off half the war debts, while the rest was finally cleared in January 1448. About then the Timurids declared war on Uzbek and the Chagatai Khanate, and two months later the Gujarati Army underwent it’s first reform, graduating to level 2. In honour of the occasion, Ghiyas ud-Din issued them all with spanking new uniforms:

Spiderman.jpg

A member of the new Gujarati Special Assault Force​

By now the Sultan was growing positively restless, but Yusf ul-Fellah pointed out that Gujarat’s reputation was still rather bad, and that it would be far better to wait until there was a just cause for invading the Timurid Empire. In October 1448 the opportunity finally came along when the Timurids cynically annexed neighbouring Transoxiana. The international community were outraged, and Ghiyas ud-Din was delighted, for the Timurids had still not found any allies. Yusf ul-Fellah managed to persuade the Sultan to spend the two years available to them building up the army to it’s maximum capacity. Then, in October 1450, Gujarat and her allies, Vijayanagar and Orissa, declared war on the Timurid Empire. (Their third ally, Mysore, had been annexed by Bengal during the last war.)

Quetta province had recently declared independence from the Timurids as Afghanistan, so the Gujarati Army marched straight on Kabul, only to find Afghan troops already besieging it. They spent a couple of months pillaging, and capturing minor fortresses, pictures of which were sent back to Rajkot to make the Sultan positively drool with pleasure:


Fortress.jpg

By a stroke of luck the Afghan government collapsed in December, and the Gujaratis immediately began to besiege Kabul, easily defeating a Timurid relief force in January 1451. Then in February came some terrible news. The Sultan had apparently travelled north to start climbing on some of the cliffs already in Gujarati hands. There appeared to have been an accident, but when they finally found his crumpled body at the bottom of a ravine, the rope that lay in coils around the Sultan was not frayed - rather it had clearly been cut through with a knife. They were, after all, still in enemy territory.

And so, for the second time in under a decade, the Sultanate of Gujarat went into mourning. Ghiyas ud-Din’s young son, Qutb ud-Din Ahmad Shah II was not old enough to rule by himself, but he did express the desire that the climbing territory which his late father had so coveted should be won from the Timurids in his memory.

Kabul fell in June 1451 and the army advanced into Surkhandarya, which was captured the following April. Next stop was the Timurid capital of Herat, where General Multan now encountered stiff opposition. The Timurid Army was driven out of the province, but returned three times to try to dislodge the Gujaratis. By now help had arrived in the form of a large Vijayanagar contingent, and the Timurids were driven back each time, though with considerable losses to both sides.

Finally, in September 1452 the city of Herat surrendered and the Timurids quickly agreed to hand over Kabul and Surkhandarya for peace. The war was over less than two years after it had begun, no war debts had been incurred and Gujarat had grown by two more provinces. Alas, however, the late Ghiyas ud-Din Muhammad Shah I would never enjoy the wonderful climbing that was to be had in the newly won mountainous terrain. And for some strange reason his young son did not share his passion for dangling halfway up cliff faces, much to Yusf ul-Fellah’s relief.


Gujarat1452.jpg

South Asia in 1452
Note the two small one-province nations completely enclosed by Gujarat - Baluchistan (khaki, our vassal) and Afghanistan (grey)
Note also Transoxiana (pale green, to the north), Mysore, which has appeared again, and the Gujarati TP in Kerala!​
 
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Farq, maybe you had (just by accident) random event 'Agricultural Revolution'? You could write that they started to cultivate new strain of tomatoes and it was named Rythin. It would pleased him. ;)
 
Goodness. I hope the boy is not into stamps... :rolleyes: Terrible luck, that. But at least the war was a success.
 
I personally think that the Shah had a run in with a mountain goat. I mean, such an accomplished climber could overcome human malice, but those goats are pretty mean.

That's a pretty good spot for a fort. I'd like to climb there. :)
 
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Nice update.... so how about the newest Sultan being a fan of..... hummm, elephants? Kinda like a horse breader mayhap? Gee, where do I come up with these silly ideas? :rolleyes: Must be the influence of my job! :wacko:
 
He could be a D&D player. Sees everything in fantasy terms. "Let's go invade them, they're ruled by an evil necromancer! See those skeletons?"

"They're Halloween decorations."

"Same thing!"
 
:rofl: Great update! Ghiyas ud-Din didn't seem to reign too awfully long. I'd go with my brother's mountain goat theory on that.

If Rythin is ever included in an update, I think it should be because the king is a vegetable gardener. :)
 
It's a shame trains haven't been invented yet. Perhaps a future Sultan can be a camel-spotter or something.