The unstabile years 1515 - 1522
The story continiues...
~The years of rebellions~
To short things down and to get to the next interresting chapter in my history as the emperor of the north, I will summon up the next seven years, from the end of 1515 till may 1522.
In november 1515, I was married to Anna, daughter of Ante. She was born in Kola, 1489. One year later her father had died in a fight, revolting against our just rule. That was around the time when most of Scandinavia rose up in the first wave of rebellion. But my father did well quelling the rebels and holding the kingdom together, and by 1495 he had managed to defeat every single one of the traitors, after five years of uprising. At that time, the fatherland began its destiny towards becoming a world power as colonies were established in the west. Also, the three colonies of Bergslagen, Vestgötaland and Skåne was taken from the Swedes in the First Swedish War (april 1495 to august 1497). I was not born yet when these things happened, but as I said to you earlier, my father had told me many of the things that happened during his reign.
1508 was the year when the rebels started to mass around both in the homeland and in Vinland, the war with Sweden had to be cancelled after a few years then because the armies had to be dedicated to quell revolts. That is why the progress of conquering Sweden took so long time.
My marriage with Anna worked fine the first years. She gave birth to a daughter, whom I named after my grandmother Gunnhild. However we had no sons. I could not bare the tought anymore that when she came to me at night, she had been with many others earlier the same day. But this, I only re-paid by sleeping with other wimen. Surely, such could not matter in the days before syfillis was infested upon us by the Skrælings. That was not the reason she had to go... She tried to plot against my rule. In the winter of 1518 she was rallying some of the many nobles she had "contact" with. Twenty men stormed the royal room in Akershus with swords in their hands. Luckily Sigmund was in the room with me and we killed them all, well, he killed sixteen of them and I killed four. There were of course some of them who actually survived the real fighting, but we killed them after they told us who was behind the plot.
The nobles were then killed and Anna was inprisoned. There she could rotten for all I cared. The executing of the nobles started a new wave of revolts, this time in Norway and led by nobles. 22,000 rebels gathered in Bergenshus, only to be taken down one week later by the Royal Guard. I had heard the news that re-inforcements were needed in Vinland so ten thousand more troops were shipped. This time to finish off the new world rebellions for good, or at least for a while. Engelbriktsson died while fighting bravely against some rebel scum in Finland in the summer of 1518. It was a tragic loss, but he won the battle where he died, and the rebels had been crushed everywhere. We were still at war with Novgorod technically, and they had sent a few raids into Kexholm, only to be defeated by Engelbriktsson. But it was not them I worried about now.
The Swedes had conscripted 20,000 men during the peacetime. They were many but stood no chance against the grand army of the empire. The Royal Army marched in from Bergslagen with 20,000 brave cavalerists as the old man Knut Alvsson did his last service for the army before retireing. He invaded from Småland, with the army of Saint Olav consisting of 15,000 men, mainly infantery. It was a hard battle, and Knut retired in the spirit of a true Norwegian commander, he died on the field. But so did the Swedish commander, and he truly deserved it for his treason. The Swedes were killed one by one. After the walls of Stockholm had been assaulted, the entire male population was either killed or made slaves and the female population was shipped to entertain Norwegian nobles. And my self of course...
The two countries that had supported Sweden, Hessen and Kleves, unable to get their tiny wimp armies into Norway soon wanted white peace. I declined and demanded a sympolic sum of fifty thousand kroner (50D) out of each. Trembling in fear they both accepted. Thorstein had been appointed to take care of the economy, all I can say is, he did his best. It had gone down from -20,000 to -10,000 a month. He took a few loans and manage hired many merchants to compete with the other nation's merchants. He said to me "If we only held a few trade centers...", I answered "We will, we will most certainly...".
Erlend of Losna, a distant relative of me had taken the role of the national conquistador as Leif Sigurdsson died in the heart of Vinland. He had started a conquest of the Bahamas and Florida. And would soon move from Lousiana to the upper north of Vinland. Killing every godforsaken Skræling he came over.
The mighty power of Hungary was falling. It had seen its hayday during the period Norway was governed by my grandfather and my father. Bavaria rebelled shortly after the devils in Austria had made a gap between Bavaria and Hungary. King Lajos had to concentrate his forces to repell the Venetian attacks, but the Venetians would soon ravage through Hungary. And right after, the Bohemians rebelled too and the Serbians invaded Banat. And soon the Hungarian kingdom would belong to history as the two provinces left were inherited by the Austrian duke. I do not think of the Austrian emperors as Holy Roman Emperors, for that name do only belong to the one who unifies all of Germany by force.
Short after the conquest of Sweden, a new wave of revolts started in Finland. I lacked any good commanders, seemed like I was the only one left until men like Olav Galle and Harald the Black came to service. I personally had to defeat the rebels in Tavastland, Nyland and Finland. And we also faced a treath as our old ally Holstein declared war upon us from the south. Our Teutonic allies betrayed us as they resigned from the alliance, and our former allies in Prussia and Pommern were also long gone from the old alliance that had stabilized the Baltic. It was a change of politics for us Norwegians. Since our only ally was now the Lenape, (who had decided to ally us right after the Teutons betrayed us) I decided that Norway is not in the need of an ally. Our army consisted of over sixty thousand of the finest warriors in Europe at that time, Norway was ranked the third power in the world at that time, only beaten by China and then Spain.
I quelled rebellion after rebellion with my Royal Army. Olav Galle came in charge of the Hålogaland Regiment, which was currently in Jylland. The Holstein attacks were repelled, the only thing that saved them from losing their own lands was a rebellion in Sjælland, so Olav Galle had to withdraw. And when the rebels were defeated, there was not much left of his army to take Holstein, only two thousand men, unknowingly of our heavy losses to the rebels in Sjælland, Holstein paid us 100,000 kroner in indemnities.
Things were to get worse for a while before they got good. Not only had there been rebellions caused by settlers in Vinland, unwilling to pay tax to the fatherland, rebellions from Swedes and Danes wanting their land back, rebellion from un-happy nobles and stupid Finns who did not know better than revolting. But now it was religious rebellions! The heretics of Martin Luther decided to fight with the sword for their cause. Specially in Sweden and Southern Norway these heretics gained roots. So I made my efforts to send missionaries to root out these heretics. It would take some years, but the empire would have the true faith once again.
During the end of 1520 and the beginning of the new year, Thorstein and I made new efforts in expanding our trade all over Europe. Some places we were successfull, but in most cases we got competed off. However, the economy was on its way towards stability. The Teutons decided to join our invitation of alliance, since they lacked any from before. The truce with Novgorod was broken and troops were sent into Novgorod. I could not go myself as I had to take care of revolting heretics. But 20,000 men were sent in there. Ryazan and Ukraine joined the war on the side of Novgorod, but those Ukrainian cowards sued for white peace once our mighty army defeated the Novgorians. Ryazan however waited until we had been damaged enough by atrittion during the siege of Novgorod and then sent at least fifteen thousand men upon the joint Norse-Teuton army at about the same size. The men were tired and run like cowards back to Finland. Ryazan then tried to invade the Teuton lands but were repelled. The war continiued but no real action took place, for a while.
On another front, on january 2. 1521, the Swedes rose up in a so called national rebellion under Gustav Vase, also known as Gustav the Coward. Some fighting with the Swedes would happen until I rode in there with the Royal Guard and finished them off in june. Gustav was executed and his head placed on a torch, the shortlasting rebellion had ended.
In the autumn of 1521, the Novgorians had rebuild themselves an army of eight thousand cowards, Ryazan invaded with around the same amount. I decided to defeat them myself this time. Those cowards obviously did not know how to fight when they were not in their safe homes in winter Russia, all they could do was obviously retreating and take use of their large lands. For once a few sword strikes had been given by our mighty cavalery, they ran like rabbits. I chose not to persue them into Novgorod, learning from my experience last year. However, we helped the Teutons getting back Ingermannland.
The merchants were unhappy that autumn, but who cared, the economy had at least started to go on the right track again and so had the stability of the nation. I was twentyone years old by now and I had gained more experience in govern, Norway was getting back on its feets. Personally, I had gotten involved with many new wimen after getting rid of Anna. I had a secret relationship with the widow of some nobleman in Østlandet, I also had a relation to her older and younger sisters, two of her friends and her fourteen year old daugther. It was complex, but every woman wanted a piece of the king, in hope of becoming queen probably. But my intentions of getting a queen could not lay in some whore from within the realm, I had to have some kind of relations with the foreign powers. So I made royal marriages with the French and the Scots, establishing very good relations with them. I let the Scottish king know the thruth as his daughter was married to me, but I fooled the old senile French king as he married his daughter to me in the belief he was marrying her to my brother. And I did not have a brother.
Relations stayed good with the French and the Scots, and the Teutons were still allies, for now. Eindridi of Losna had established settlements along the north of the carribean gulf. His band of nine thousand adventurers, seeking glory, were heading north, into the unknown...
It encouraged me to get up another piece of the story on the table.
