Exploration and Trade - 1354-1611 AD
The Age of Discovery began at the end of the Black Death in 1354 AD, when the Mercantile Clans of Sagaria began to launch trading expeditions to the east through the Red Sea, establishing trade routes to India, Iran, and East Africa. At first, sailors used world maps based on the work of Ptolemy to plot their courses. By the late 15th century, however, they had begun to draw their own maps based on the observations of traders and new surveying techniques, as the invention of the magnetic compass and the navigational quadrant enabled increasing accuracy.
The desire to find the Spice Islands and a sea route to China drove innovations in shipbuilding, navigation, and cartography. Knowledge that quickly spread to the rest of Europe in the beginning of the 16th century thanks to the printing press. Between 1507 and 1516 AD, Sagarian explorers such as Nalash Lirinu Edutirou and Ciristina Salena Felan explored and drew up detailed maps of Southeast Asia and East Asia, while also making trade deals with the peoples they encountered as well as buying land. One of the most notable and important of these was the purchase of Jeju Island from Korea, which turned into a major trading hub in the region.
The ever increasing wealth that was flowing into Sagaria made many other European realms more than a little envious of the Kingdom. However, given that Sagaria held Sinai—which had come to be seen as the Gateway to the East—and the Pope had ruled that the Kingdom had a monopoly on all maritime trade east of the Mediterranean, there was little to nothing any other realm could do to challenge their primacy.
The events leading up to the Reformation began to change this state of affairs as Papal authority weakened in Western Europe. Even so, West Asia and Africa were an insurmountable barrier preventing the other European powers from accessing the wealth of the east directly. However, some were not deterred by this. Enter Duncan MacIntyre, an Irish navigator and a subject of the Kingdom of Scotland, who conceived of the idea of reaching Asia by sailing west. Like other navigators of his day, he knew that the Earth was round—it is a myth that the common belief of the time was that the world was flat—but he accepted Ptolemy’s incorrect estimation of its size. Thus he believed that East Asia was much closer to Western Europe than it actually was. The realms of the British Isles had been great seafarers for much of their history and over the years they had adopted many of the innovations made by Sagaria, allowing their ships to sail further away from shore. Because of this, MacIntyre believed that the British kingdoms were in a perfect position to attempt his ambitious voyage, and in 1509 AD, proposed his plan to King Kenneth IV of Scotland. Kenneth IV brought MacIntyre's proposal to his advisors, who opposed it on the grounds that MacIntyre's estimate for a voyage was only a quarter of what it should have been, as they knew that Ptolemy’s estimate of the Earth’s size was incorrect. After many setbacks, MacIntyre opted to instead go to the English court where he managed to persuade King Edmund III to fund his voyage in 1512 AD. MacIntyre departed England that same year with three ships.
MacIntyre lands in the Caribbean.
When MacIntyre spotted the islands of the Caribbean in 1512 AD, he assumed them to be part of Asia. Three further voyages in 1513-1516 AD, 1518-1520 AD, and 1522-1524 AD failed to convince him that he had in fact found a previously unknown continent. It wasn’t until 1521 AD when Sical Diren Talafar, a Sagarian explorer and navigator who led several voyages to the western lands on behalf of England, realized that they weren’t part of Asia, but of a continent new to the Europeans, which she called “Terra Nova,” or the “New World.” Not long thereafter, cartographers began to label the new continent “Sicalia” in her honor, and within only a few decades, the name became permanently affixed to the landmass.
Following MacIntyre’s return from his first voyage to report his success to King Edmund III, word of his discovery of new lands began to rapidly spread throughout Europe. The English were initially disappointed with the discovery, as the indigenous people of the Caribbean had little to offer in trade. Instead the islands came to be the focus of colonization efforts, resource extraction, and cash crop farming. The locals were subjugated and enslaved to be used as a cheap source of labor, but Old World diseases and overwork rapidly decimated their population. Because of this, the English began to import slaves from West Africa in the mid-16th century, creating a triangular trade system where Europe sold textiles, rum, and manufactured goods to Africa, Africa sold slaves to Sicalia, and Sicalia sold sugar, tobacco, and cotton to Europe.
The majority of the English who colonized the Caribbean were Catholics who had come to escape religious persecution in the homeland. Additionally, many English sergals had refused to accept the Protestant faith, and so migrated to the colonies. With Catholicism becoming the predominant religion in the Caribbean, tensions eventually grew between the English and their colonial subjects.
Diseases from the Old World are estimated to have wiped out 80 to 95 percent of the indigenous population of Sicalia.
Arguably, the most impactful legacy of the European discovery of the New World was the MacIntyrian Exchange. When Duncan MacIntyre first landed in the Caribbean, he brought with him an assortment of horses, mules, sheep, goats, cattle, chicken, and cats—all of which were unfamiliar animals to the indigenous Sicalians. From there, a widespread transfer of plants, animals, precious metals, commodities, culture, human populations, technology, diseases, and ideas began to flow from the Old World to the New and vice versa.
The introduction of Old World diseases was by far the most dramatic aspect of the MacIntyrian Exchange, as it is estimated to have resulted in the deaths of 80 to 95 percent of the indigenous population of Sicalia. Of course, the introduction of numerous invasive animal and plant species, the resulting famines and civil strife, as well as European aggression most likely contributed to these numbers. European colonists and African slaves largely replaced the indigenous populations in most of Sicalia. Meanwhile, the introduction of potatoes, maize, tomatoes, and chili peppers transformed the cuisine of the Old World. Potatoes in particular became an important staple in the European diet as they yielded two to four times more calories per acre than grain did and could be grown in lands formerly thought unfit for use as farmland. Potatoes, along with other New World crops, lead to an estimated 25% population increase in the Old World.
The Swedish colony of Silvermark in 1541 AD.
The Swedish colonies of Silvermark and Peru in 1570 AD.
It did not take long before other European rulers took an interest in the New World. In search of silver and gold, Sweden established the colony of Silvermark on the southeastern coast of South Sicalia in 1527 AD. They were later followed by other European powers, such as France, Frisia, Galicia, Castile, Saxony, and Scotland. Although the Swedes did find silver in Silvermark, it wasn’t until the late 16th century when they found an abundance of it in the mountains of Peru. This attracted the attention of the Mercantile Clans of Sagaria, who relied on bullion for their trade with China. Marin Calas Edutirou, the Matriarch of the Mecklenburg Clan, met with King Björn IV of Sweden in Dagskrona in 1578 AD to propose a deal wherein Sweden would sell 80% of all silver and gold extracted from their Sicalian colonies to Sagaria, and in exchange Sweden would be allowed to purchase trade goods and hire mercenaries from Sagaria at a reduced price. Björn IV eagerly took the deal, which would become known as the Treaty of Dagskrona. This agreement firmly established Sagaria as the one truly global trade empire and provided it with all the bullion it could ever need, while setting the stage for Sweden to become one of the greatest powers in Europe.
The Treaty of Dagskrona would also motivate Sagaria to explore and chart out the Pacific Ocean, as it was obvious to the Mercantile Clans that it would be more efficient to transport gold and silver from South Sicalia to China via an eastern sea route rather than through the bottleneck of Sinai.
The English severely underestimated the Mesosicalians.
England’s own quest for gold and silver in the Sicalian mainland was disaster after disaster. Between 1537 and 1545 AD, the English sent multiple armed expeditions to explore the Yuckatan peninsula and later other parts of the Mesosicalian east coast, where they would end up battling the locals, and every time most of the men sent were either killed or captured. Mesosicalia at this time was a giant patchwork of city-states, kingdoms, and small empires, each vying for power over the other. Although Old World diseases decimated their population, the Mesosicalians were able to adapt. And while the European invaders initially had the advantage of having guns, horses, and steel, these would be stolen and turned against them in a matter of years. And because the sergals of Britain were defecting to Mercia in droves, England had too few sergal troops to send on these expeditions to make any difference. The indigenous people of Mesosicalia proved to be so resilient and resistant to foreign occupation that they weren’t fully subdued until the end of the 18th century, and even then it was only because their conquerors made several concessions with them.
England was only ever able to colonize the far north and south of Mesosicalia, regions that were too rural and sparsely populated to effectively put up a fight against them. Even so, the northern territory of Mechicko was the only colony on the Sicalian mainland that the English were ultimately able to hold on to.
The growing trade power of England in the mid-16th century attracted the attention of the Mercantile Clans of Sagaria, who began to view the English as potential rivals. This coupled with the fact that England was Protestant whereas Sagaria was staunchly Catholic resulted in a growing sense of animosity between the two powers. Although Sagaria would continue to trade with England, the Mercantile Clans began to take steps to sabotage English trade and colonization. They prohibited them from hiring Sagarian mercenaries and started funding the enemies of England, such as Scotland and Mercia. The Treaty of Dagskrona also served to help Sweden, a longtime Sagarian ally, become a major colonial power in the New World. Additionally, the Mercantile Clans began to use privateers to weaken English trade. However, this would end up backfiring as several privateers turned to piracy and went after the Swedish treasure fleet in addition to English merchant ships. The English also began to hire privateers to go after Swedish trading ships and treasure fleets. This of course prompted Sagaria to use warships to escort Swedish ships carrying gold and silver from the New World to Taiwan and the Baltic Sea. This was the dawn of the Golden Age of Piracy, which would span from 1570 to 1700 AD.
In 1542 AD, the Kingdom of Maghreb began to explore and chart sub-Saharan Africa, as improvements in naval technology made maritime trade routes more appealing than by going through the Sahara as the Berbers had done traditionally. Furthermore, the discovery of the New World had created an interest in exploration for its own sake, and so they began to send ships to survey the coast of sub-Saharan Africa. Maghreb explorers such as Yula Awan and Mennad Yusuf led these voyages and mapped out the coast of the entire continent of Africa in great detail. The Kingdom Maghreb created an extensive maritime trade network that reached all the way to East Africa, although they never ventured past the Horn of Africa as the sea north and east of it was considered to belong to Sagaria. Even so, the Maghrebs found their new trade routes to be quite profitable.
Maghrebi colony in South Africa in 1600 AD.
The Maghrebs established an outpost in South Africa in 1555 AD that was intended to supply passing ships with provisions. This quickly grew into a full-fledged colony by 1564 AD, and in 1597 AD England established a small colony of its own to the west of it.
Although Sagarian explorers were the first Christians to discover Australia and charted its coast, they never had any interest in the continent as it did not seem to have anything of value. It did end up drawing the attention of Abyssinia, however, as the Coptic Kingdom wished to have a colony of its own. Of course, as Sagaria had what it considered to be a God-given monopoly on all maritime trade in the east, this immediately drew its ire, and so envoys from the Mercantile Clans were sent to Abyssinia in 1602 AD to discuss this with King Iskander III. As the Sagarians had no interest in Australia, they gave the Abyssinians permission to colonize the continent on the condition that they refrain from trading with India, Southeast Asia, or East Asia. Iskander III agreed to these terms.
The Age of Discovery finally ended in 1611 AD, when nine Galician ships under the command of Alvaro de Villena completed the first global circumnavigation by sailing from Europe, around South Sicalia, across the Pacific and Indian Oceans, and then around Africa.