Update 5 1520-1524
Germany 1520-1524
Even with peace, war still rages. The reformed thinking of Martin Luther has caught fire among the people and clergy of Germany and the passion of a new theology and ways of thinking about God and faith leap from church to church and town to town all across central Europe. The new reformers like Luther and Zwingli find fertile ground in the rampant Papal spiritual laxity, indulgence in the politics of the temporal world and greed. Vernacular bibles, printed treatises and enthusiastic discussion carry the new faith quickly and far. By 1524 whole towns and provinces have thrown off the yoke of Rome and declared their spiritual independence: Zurich, Wittenberg, Nuremburg, Thurgau, Strassburg, Konigsberg, as well as, all of Livonia and Estonia. The death of Pope Leo X may provide an opportunity for the Catholic faithful, but until the new Pope speaks to these matters the tide of change rises higher. The new reformists priests and clergy fear for their lives and show no interest in traveling to Rome when beckoned.
Peace in the Middle East
1520 opens with an Egyptian expedition to the east to map the mysterious and distant Spice Islands of Indonesia. Captain Ashraf Sayf and his small fleet rode the waning tide out of Safaga and caught the monsoons to India and his first port of call: Cochin and the Sultan of Vijayanagar, where is economic aid was gratefully accepted. From there it was onto Colombo for restocking and the sail east to unknown waters. The fast galley from Safaga missed their departure by two days so Ashraf sailed on without the news that was chasing him. Ignorance is bliss and Ashraf was in heaven. For a year he sailed and mapped the complexities of the Indies from Sumatra through intricacies of Borneo, Indonesia all the way to Luzon and Mindanao. With his rudders Egyptian traders would soon bring the riches of these waters directly to the Nile. Well stocked with charts he returned to Ceylon. He sailed from Colombo west towards the Red Sea in early 1521 and found a new Egypt in turmoil.
As Sayf learned, the trouble started soon after he left. The Jihadists assaulted the Portuguese holdings at Aqaba. The well supplied and well armed Portuguese withstood attack after attack that flailed ineffectively against the fortifications. But in the long run persistence and Islamic fervor wore the defenders down and they were over run and put to the sword by mid 1520. From there the Muslim tide turned west, swallowed the forts at Suez and moved across the Nile delta to Alexandria. In their wake the population rose up in support and cried out in praise of Allah and a new Islamic Empire. It was outside of Alexandria the army of Muhammad-Saladin II met the Egyptian army of Sayf al-Din, hastily withdrawn from wars in western Tripoli. At first clash it appeared that the armies were evenly matched and a bloody test of wills would drag the battle out late into the day. It would not be so. The jihadist fever soon broke the Egyptian will to fight and by mid morning the struggle was over. A few battalions took refuge in the city while the rest melted away. Within a week Alexandria had fallen. By fall the new Caliph stood atop the Great Pyramid and surveyed the heart of his new empire.
Ashraf Sayf re-boarded his ship and took his charts and maps out to sea..
To the east Persia lurks in the Ottoman shadow. The Safavids continue their relentless war of expansion; this time Samarkand is the target. With the precision of skilled campaigners, three armies maneuver across the dry lands of central Asia from oasis to oasis until the high walls of Samarkand lie before them. But not for long; the sandstone walls turn to rubble under the pounding siege cannons. A desperate sally fails and one more trophy hangs upon the Sultan’s belt.
[B
]Outcomes:[/B]
-All trade agreements with Egypt terminated
+Jerusalem as TC
-10 Jihad divisions
-Egypt as nation
+Islamic Empire as nation
+1 Islamic Empire army confidence
-6 Divisions Persia
+Samakand TC to Persia
Germany again
From his trading house in Augsburg, Nicholas Verner was well connected to all of Europe and many places beyond the traditional thinking of most merchants. From his second story window he could see the dye works, where he got his start some 20 years ago, and the complex of store houses that were his wealth today. Dispatches, both read and unread, littered the large desk. The latest map from the end of the crusade had the best guess at the new borders; it was studded with colored sticks that marked his storehouses and those of his associates and partners. More than 35 paraded in a colorful array across the map from the English Channel to Cairo and his latest addition in Kaffa on the Black Sea.
His business had survived the war years, barely, and now he wondered if he would survive the peace. Martin Luther had brought the crazies out of the dark corners of the abbeys and monasteries and into the streets where they continued to get folks all worked up about the Pope and practices of the Church. They were bad for business and he wished they would go away.
Nicholas had spent the morning reading the reports his son Pietro had left as he passed through last week. Pietro had been hard art work repairing the war damage to trade through the Balkans and had detoured to the Crimea when he saw the new opportunities in Kaffa. It was to be the new capital and administrative center of the Polish-Lithuanian state. Glinski had great plans for a whole new city and trading center. The Imperator’s palace would be there and he would establish his council of advisors there also. Verner made a mental note of how the old nobility of the traditional Polish heartland around Krakow might be a bit upset. Change can be tough and it is even tougher if it means a loss of power and prestige. Polish merchants now had ties to Persia and through Persia to India and all of East Asia. Kaffa would provide a nice alternative to Cairo which had seen nothing but trouble for many years. The rise of the Islamic Caliphate out of the dead body of Egypt was unnerving and scary. He hoped that Kaffa would be just the back door he needed. His son had done well.
Nicholas was finding it harder and harder to keep up with the daily operations of his business because so much information was coming in from distant places. It had been easy when he just bought and sold in Augsburg, Antwerp, and Venice. The world was changing too fast for him and he hoped his son would be able to cope as he took over more and more of the work load. The dispatches alone were burying him.
He picked one up. It was three months old and from his agent in Muscovy. Little seems to be happening that could affect his trade, but Nicholas’ agent did say that the Prince was taking steps to exert better control over his lands and granting a bit more freedom to the moneyed class. The fact of peace in the area was enough to make him smile.
The next in the pile was from Vienna and was from M. Entwig, one of his customers. Customers often wrote to bring him up-to-date on the local events that made it difficult for them to pay their bills on time or ask oh so subtly for better prices. Austria was feeling enriched by the war’s expansion and the bonding with Hungary. Clearly, M. Entwig was trying to create some uncertainty in the House of Verner. He read on. Ah…Athens will be the site of a magnificent construction project aimed at both Catholic and Orthodox believers. Perhaps it would rival the great church in Istanbul in grandeur. From the little he knew now, the King of Austria was thinking big. Such a project would need many supplies and take many years. It would be an opportunity. He would thank M. Entwig and send a small gift with his next correspondence. M. Entwig had also inquired if the House of Verner had attended the great fair organized by the King of Kalmar. He had celebrated the union of his three kingdoms and had thrown a party; well three parties in fact, one in Oslo, one in Stockholm, and one in Kalmar. Yes, he had had his agents there and they had even been there for the unveiling of the new stature of Queen Margaret.
One of his son’s epistles, written from Berlin, was already open, but unread from the morning. The Elector of Brandenburg seemed to be taking a stand against Luther and his reformists while his son was an early convert. “Can a house divided stand?” The thought crossed his mind and fled when he read that Glinski, King of Poland had sold Pomerania to the new Kingdom of Brandenburg. The Emperor was moving fast to consolidate his power and prestige. And in spite of his son, he was speaking out against the reformists throughout the Empire and pressing princes to remain within the Catholic fold. It appeared that little Brandenburg was to be a contender in Germany.
It was the last dispatch he read before lunch that raised Nicholas’ concern. It was from his office in Antwerp. Tension was rising between Henry of England his Scottish neighbor. Trouble there could threaten the wool trade that was so important to Antwerp and the House or Verner. Henry was being provocative without subtlety. English ships harassed Scottish shipping as the King made pronouncements in court that the exact opposite was true. Trouble in Ireland was blamed on Scottish agents as the King himself talked of invading Ireland if the chieftains did not disband their armies. Rumors were widespread and fanciful: Ships laden with Scottish colonists had been sunk at sea by English captains; the English navy was in cahoots with the Mediterranean pirates and sharing booty; the outpost at Calais would be expanded when Henry invaded the Spanish Netherlands; Henry had broken with the Church and confiscated all church lands. If true, any one of these would hurt his Antwerp office. He needed to know more and was glad his son was already on the road north.
Outcomes:
+project Austria “Really Big Choich” (+2 culture) 1/3
+1 EP England
-1 Squadron England
Rome
Donatello Ameche, former secretary to the now dead Pope Leo X was unsure of what to do next. Two months ago, just 10 days after Leo died and while the cardinals were secluded, a French army made camp outside the city. The had marched up from Naples as soon as Leo had breathed his last. Their message was quite clear: elect Guilio d’Medici of Florence, Pope. He was smart and popular and not a bad choice, so the conclave bowed to the army at hand and sent white smoke up the chimney within 26 hours. Guilio took the office as Celestine VI. Within weeks he had addressed the Curia with talk of change and reform, a return to orthodoxy and unity among all Catholics. He reached out to the Germans and beseeched them to come back to the arms of the Blessed Mother Church. Donatello anguished. The Pope had spoken, but he held out his hand to heretics when he should have used a lash or red-hot tongs. Donatello would fade from the Papal court, but he knew there was a place for him not too far away.
With their Pope installed the French army departed for Naples and then home. Italy remained quiet, but the undercurrent was one of worry, people crossed themselves a bit more frequently and prayed for peace and enough food during the winter.
+Little Boots as player for Papal States
+Rockstar as player for ???
Americas: Florida, Nova Scotia, New Sweden, Mexico, Spain
Joseph Albo sat quietly in his trading house in Hispaniola and contemplated his next move. The year had started well and continued to be even better. He was well connected both in the Americas and with his “Spanish brethren in Europe. His family were conversos (Jews who converted to Catholicism under pressure) and while for all outward appearances he appeared Spanish, he was still a Jew at heart. The new trading settlement in North America at Isabellatown held great promise for him and more exotics were coming out of the Mexica with every shipment. They were a shrewd bunch and clearly knew what they were doing. For the right items he could demand gold or silver anytime he wanted. He had already put away a tidy stash for the horses and weapons he’d picked while doing his normal course of trade. He envied his son though. Stephan was a blacksmith and he had made the trip to Tenochtitlan and hadn’t been back in five years. From his occasional letters Joseph knew he was well and treated like a noble for his skills in making weapons. Apparently there was a small community of skilled Europeans working for, and being paid in gold, by Moctezuma. The cocoa beans his son sent were growing in popularity all over Europe and looked like it would be another winner along with the feathers.
The news from Cuba was mixed though; the renegade slaves, or what was left of them, had been brought under control and the whole island was peaceful. But the cane plantations were failing because the grandees had no one to work the fields. The native population was mostly gone: dead or fled apparently. Well the good thing was that it was not his problem. He wondered sometimes about his king and the strange expeditions he undertook. Rumors had drifted in from sailors that he had now invaded Ireland and Egypt, as quickly as he stopped his endless and fruitless war in Florida. Who knew what was real and what was the product of the rum rattled brains of those who lived their lives on the sea. He would call his servant Pedro to bring him writing implements so he could ask his cousin who lived in Toledo for the truth. Now Pedro wasn’t his servant’s real name; it was “tubo buno” or some such silly combination of sounds that the natives called talking. Pedro was a young Indian originally “imported” as a field hand, but he had shown promise and was moved to the household of a cane plantation in the north. Joseph bought him three years ago and was never happier with his decision.
Pedro left the Sr. Albo’s office early, well before the streets were busy and made his way to the quay. He slipped a few coins to the sailor at the gangway and quickly strode on to the ships where he disappeared below deck. No one except Sr. Albo would notice him gone, let alone miss him. He had no choice, but to run and never return. To return would be a death sentence under the laws of Spain, so it would be forever. The news he carried though was earthshaking and powerful like the storms that come in summer. The little trading caravel would carry him to Cuba and from there he would find a canoe making clandestine trips between there and Florida. Florida was his home and he missed it every day of the eight years he had been gone. Such news he carried that he could hardly contain himself as the morning tide carried him out of the harbor and to the west.
And further north…
Soco heard the news about his father long before he embraced the messenger and he knew that the gods stilled shined on the Calusa. With the Cuban revolt abandoned and a wave of new “citizens” now taking up residence in Florida, he had been busy. New crops and ways of thinking about things came with the influx and all would be put to good use. He was reorganizing the army and had begun a project he called “Noble Warriors” to make his already formidable army even more so. Peace had the upper hand for now and they had prospered. “Pedro” was bearing great tidings north and much needed to be done.
And still further north…
It was along the upper reaches of the Delaware that the kilt clad Scot met the breech clothed Iroquois. Thaddeus Macgregor and Little Bear got high on nicotine, drunk on whisky and became blood brothers. Each, to his own companions, boasted he had bested the other in single combat and the loser had sworn to do his bidding and would make them all rich (furs and woolens being the immediate standard of wealth). It helped enormously that they genuinely liked each other. In the end the Scots did get furs, but also tobacco, corn, and peace on their borders for prosperous farms, farms that attracted many settlers to Nova Scotia. The Iroquois also got their woolens, a few steel tools and weapons and--much to their pleasant surprise—horses.
And yet again to the north.…
The trading outpost of New Sweden blossoms. Timber, fur, fish and good cropland attract many from Kalmar to America and by 1524 a full colony has a sliver of land on the new maps sold in Copenhagen. Veteran Captain Aguirre hardly gets home from his first expedition when he sets out on another in 1521. This time he steers south into waters no Norsemen ever sailed. It would be a year before he saw home again and carried his treasure trove of newly charted waters into the palace to place before the king.
Madrid 1524
The Duke of Salamanca paced. He had been pacing all day. Pacing kept him from running the king through with is rapier. Not that he really would, but he was frustrated. The bold ideas of the king seemed to always end up on rocky shoals far away and needlessly fail. But he was king and did not need to listen to reason. He ordered and everyone obeyed. He ordered too much to be done with too few resources. These last few years had been terrible. The Spanish fleet was tiny to begin with, only four squadrons, and yet the king had demanded two new trading posts in North America be set up, 4 divisions delivered to Cuba, invasions of Egypt and Ireland, uprisings in the Americas and an anti-pirate patrol of the western Mediterranean Sea. The king certainly had great vision, but little common sense. He didn’t even seem to care when any of it took place just as long as it did.
Salamanca had done his best and tried to salvage something. The agreed upon deal with Kalmar for charts of the North American coast never materialized so the new trading post didn’t happen. Cuban sugar production plummeted when the slaves all died or fled; two divisions landed in Ireland only to be destroyed a year later when they could not be re-supplied because there was no navy. The expedition to retake Jerusalem was sunk at sea by pirates as it make its way east because the escort was too weak to fend off their repeated attacks.
Outcomes:
+1 TP Spain at the mouth of the Mississippi Isabella Town
- Cuba as a colony until it finds new slaves for the cane plantations
- 4 Spanish Squadrons
+ Noble Warriors project Calusa (+1 civilian leadership, +1 Military Leadership) 1/3
+1 Population Calusa
+ Trade between Scotland and Iroquois
+Scottish TP further north on the Atlantic: McDonald Town
+Nova Scotia TP at Guthrie upgraded to TC
+ named explorer Callum MacDonald +1 experience
+VOD ESA (East coast of S. America) to Kalmar
+1 experience to Captain Aguirre
Pirate Havens
By 1524 pirate activity in the western Med was on the wane. The destruction of the Spanish invasion flotilla destined for the Holy Land had been their last hurrah. Portuguese and Genoese squadrons steadily reduced the pirate fleets and brought order to the chaos that had gone before. The English for all their bluster had been more trouble than they were worth. The pirates for their part took their plundering ways inland and pillaged the caravans moving across the desert and the border settlements of their neighbors. In the east the Ottomans and Venetians cleaned up the Aegean and life settled into what all hoped would be routine and quiet.
From the Far East little news finds it way west: Princess Chanthavy of Ayutthaya gives birth to twin daughters and a year later, another son. Talk of other goings on within this distant nation seems abnormally inconsequential and boring. But in 1524 Portuguese sailors bring news that is picked up by one of Nicholas Verner’s agents in Lisbon and forwarded to Augsburg. Trouble in the Spice Islands has interrupted the flow of cinnamon and pepper and none are sure why.
Of the furthest end of the world, Japan, less is known or even heard.
