Military Events
After expanding the common fleet, the king of Ceredigion pushed a common overseas raid through the Council, aimed at the Frisians. The expedition was generally too far to attract a whole lot of followers, especially in the rather crummy ships that make up the usual Cambrian navy, which was probably a good thing as the paltry loot that the Cambrians did score went into their pockets. The take might have been larger, but the Cambrians were worried about Nerwian interference (unnecessarily, as it turns out; see below) and so avoided fighting wherever they could. Wise of them, as their currachs probably wouldn’t have stood up to anything sharper than a fingernail.
(+10 talents to the Cambrian treasury)
Aethelric, dryhten of the Rygi, has taken the rather drastic step of dissolving his navy, on the grounds that it wasn’t doing him much good anyway.
(-30 Rygian ships)
Nerwia has collapsed into internal fighting, with Ammatas, the younger son of the recently-deceased Gunthamund, claiming the throne to contest the claim of his elder brother Gibamund, who actually did become trehten. The Asdings and the Bagacos Silings soon rose in revolt to support Ammatas, and have begun to push royal forces back, especially after the key battle of Theudrum in 604. Still, the war hangs in the balance, and neither side has gained a truly decisive advantage.
(+7,500 Nerwian levy infantry, +1,000 Nerwian levy cavalry)
(-1 Nerwian Prestige, -4 Bagacos Silenga Confidence, -1 Silenga Lords Strength, -2 Asdinga Confidence, +1 Asdinga Strength, -1 Belgic Natives Confidence, -250 talents from Nerwian income, -50 talents from Nerwian treasury, -1,500 Nerwian infantry, -1,000 Nerwian levy infantry, -250 Nerwian cavalry, -500 Nerwian levy cavalry)
A titanic struggle for Italy has kicked off, starting with the conclusion of an alliance between Chaonia and the Republic of Panormos, aimed squarely at the Aorsi. The threat to the Aorsi was obvious and undeniable, therefore murunda Zanvar chose to attack first. In 601, while the Panormans were still organizing their expeditions, Zanvar led nearly thirty thousand horse into Romania, wiping the small town of Kipranon off the map. That was more or less the end of the ‘easy part’, though, for Zanvar’s outriding columns soon made contact with a Panorman force of near-equal size. This army, comprised of a motley mixture of urban levies and regulars under the command of the strategos Alkibiades Kaudios, was busily fortifying the northern passes into Campania proper. A few brief skirmishes at Torai and Auronkeia ensued before Zanvar decided that, with his horsemen, he could not force the Panorman defenses; instead, he returned north, and his army spent the remainder of the year stripping Romania of virtually everything of value. Only Stoma was untouched by the attackers. In retaliation, the Panorman general Philippikos Mystakon conquered Aithalia and the other islands in the Tyrrenian Archipelago.
By 602 the main allied expedition, under the command of Deukalion Amyntor, was ready. While, in the spring, Zanvar made another try for Campania, the Panorman fleet sailed around the tip of the Italian peninsula, linked up with a detachment of Chaonians, and made for the Patta River. Their target was the town of Patikapatta, and if any place could be called capital of the Aorsi lands that was it. Though the ships were harassed by some Aorsi cavalry on the way upriver, it was nothing serious. The allied expedition duly reached Patikapatta and set up camp to besiege the town. Their supplies were low, and the nearby land had been denuded of food, but to counterbalance that they had the aid of light siege artillery from their warships. It would take a mere two weeks to break into the town. As it happens, they only barely had two weeks. Patikapatta fell and was duly ransacked (most of the important stuff, including the treasury, had been moved already), while the Markomanna who lived there were given money and weapons and urged to go kill Aorsi.
They wouldn’t have to go far, because Zanvar and his horde had reached the area some time before; curiously, the allied expedition was dispatched to the Patta plains with no cavalry, which totally kept them in the dark as the Aorsi expeditionary force that had been in Campania massed several miles away. Not long after the sack of Patikapatta had begun, the Aorsi rushed in and attacked the disorganized Panorman and Chaonian troops, who were outnumbered three to two. Unit cohesion dissolved in places, and both Panorman and Chaonian troops were all too willing to pull back to save their own skins at the expense of their allies’. Several thousand Greeks managed to fight their way back to the ships, but at the cost of thousands dead and the loss of most of their loot.
Similar naval descents were conducted along the Aorsi coastline over the next few years, but the Panormans were strongly dissuaded from another major effort by the heavy casualties they had taken and the qualified nature of their military success. As for the Aorsi, their ability to push into Campania was seriously compromised by the new fortifications and Alkibiades’ large army, which refused to be drawn out into an open battle where all the advantages would belong to the Aorsi. Instead, Zanvar was forced to crush Markomanna uprisings. In short: the military situation continues to hang in the balance.
(+17,000 Aorsi levy cavalry, +8,000 Panorman levy infantry)
(+2 Aorsi Prestige, +2 Panorman Prestige, +1 Chaonian Prestige, -1 Markomanna Confidence, -1 Markomanna Strength, +1 Megale Hellenic Poleis Confidence (Panormos) -50 talents from Aorsi income, -110 talents from Panorman income, +90 talents to Aorsi treasury, +10 talents to Panorman treasury, +5 talents to Chaonian treasury, -1,500 Aorsi cavalry, -3,000 Aorsi levy cavalry, -5,500 Panorman infantry, -500 Panorman levy infantry, -500 Panorman cavalry, -1,500 Chaonian infantry, -1,000 Chaonian cavalry)
The Aegean Sea and the lands around it are once again the focus of a major conflict, as Basileus Archelaos of Makedonia has declared war on Thraikia, on the grounds that those rebellious city-states rightfully belong to them anyway. In 602, after assembling a truly enormous invasion force of some fifty thousand troops, Archelaos moved into Thraikia, proclaiming the formation of a Thraikian League with himself as hegemon, and demanding that the Thraikian poleis join him. Abdera surrendered without a fight. Neikolaos, basileus of Thraikia, attempted to lead out the unified Thraikian army, bolstered by levies, but his troops were first badly bloodied at Dikaia and then smashed at Maroneia in the fall. Doriskos, dangerously close to Demotika, fell at the end of the campaigning season. And during the winter, more defections ensued. After the Makedonian fleet under Polyxenidas annihilated part of the Thraikian one off Imbros, Lysimacheia and Sestos accepted Makedonian ‘protection’ as well, and Byzantion moved into the orbit of Mysia. Ruxsalannoi raids also began to massively increase in intensity.
In 603 and 604, things fell apart entirely. The kalarauka of the Ruxsalannoi took advantage of an internal political struggle in Mesembria to enter the city. In the fall of 603, Neikolaos managed to beat back part of the Makedonian army under Patroklos Bardanes on the Hebros River, but it was clear Thraikia’s doom was sealed through sheer numbers and centrifugal force. Bardanes broke into Demotika in the fall of 604 and permitted extensive looting; Neikolaos was captured, more or less ending the brief existence of the Thraikian state.
This, of course, did not end the fighting. While most of the Makedonian army was in Thraikia, the Perseid satrap of the Peloponnesos, Achaios, was ordered to launch a surprise attack on Attika in 603. Having levied extensive numbers of troops and massed a truly gigantic army, the minuscule Makedonian guard at the Isthmus was swept aside, the great fortress at Dekeleia assaulted, and Athens itself placed under siege. In the spring of 604 the Athenian boule offered to surrender the city, and Achaios acquiesced, luckily for his army, as supplies were running low. With Attika itself mostly occupied, Achaios’ army took up positions in Boiotia, and used Perseid naval superiority to conquer some of the Kyklades. Most of the Makedonian army was still tied up in Thraikia, and soon enough isolated detachments began getting into engagements with the Ruxsalannoi, too, limiting the number of troops that could be sent south. Archelaos judged the Ruxsalannoi to be the greater threat, because the Perseids could easily be blockaded by much smaller numbers of troops, and didn’t seem too interested in moving beyond Attika anyway. Most of the encounters between the three rival claimants to the legacy of Thraikia have been skirmishes thus far, though that is certain to change one way or another soon enough.
(+5,000 Ruxsalannoi levy infantry, +15,000 Ruxsalannoi levy cavalry, +20,000 Makedonian levy infantry, +5,000 Makedonian levy cavalry, +3,500 Mysian levy infantry, +20 Mysian ships, +15,000 Perseid levy infantry)
(-Thraikia, +1 Ruxsalannoi Prestige, +2 Makedonian Prestige, +2 Mysian Prestige, +3 Perseid Prestige, +1 Mauya Ruxsalanna Confidence, -Attika (Makedonia), +1 Peloponnesos Confidence, +350 talents to the Ruxsalannoi treasury, -1,500 talents from Makedonian income, +700 talents to the Makedonian treasury, +1,000 talents to the Perseid treasury, -1,500 Ruxsalannoi levy infantry, -1,000 Ruxsalannoi cavalry, -2,500 Ruxsalannoi levy cavalry, -4,500 Makedonian infantry, -2,000 Makedonian levy infantry, -250 Makedonian cavalry, -500 Makedonian levy cavalry, -15 Makedonian ships, -250 Mysian levy infantry, -2,000 Perseid infantry, -1,500 Perseid levy infantry, -500 Perseid cavalry)
Basileus Nesilios of Pisidia has embarked on a fortification expansion in the western parts of his territories, providing funds to several fortified towns to improve their walls. The limited funds provided were in most cases matched by the towns themselves. While these forts cannot be said to be fully modernized, they are a significant improvement on what came before.
(+1 Pisidian Prestige)
The energetic megas basileus of the Seleukids, the god-king Nikandros, convinced that an Areian invasion was imminent, spent much of 601 spinning up his army with some hurried military reforms. He was thus surprised when no such hammerblow fell; undeterred, he elected to invade Areia anyway, starting in 602. Properly, this war can be said to have started the year before, as Mazsakata raids in Parthyaia and Traxiane intensified and Seleukid-paid privateers from Herakleia-Tyleia and Nikaia began to prey on Areian shipping.
Expecting assistance from the pro-Seleukid satrap of Areian Sousiane, Sosibios, Nikandros ordered his general Alypios to march on nearby Sousa itself, to link up with whatever forces this ally could bring to bear. Further troops were dispatched north, to Media, to seize Ekbatana as a base of operations. Unfortunately for them, Sosibios was executed before the Seleukid army arrived, and a more loyal satrap, Alexandros, was put in place to organize the satrapy’s defenses. This was a futile project in the face of the overwhelming Seleukid army, but perhaps he could delay things for awhile while levies were raised. Sousa was duly captured by the Seleukid army, which began to fan out to establish more solid control of the province and act as flank guards for the attackers to the north.
The Seleukid army dispatched towards Ekbatana, under the command of one Euboulides, was slowed by the Kossaians and Dialans, pastoralist mountain folk who, in addition to supplying the newest light infantry units to the Areian army, really really despised the Seleukids. It took most of the winter of 602-3 to fight through the Zagreus Mountains to Ekbatana along the main road to Hekatompylos. By then, Arkadios had organized a proper levy, and nearly equal-sized Seleukid and Areian armies made contact at the town of Herakleia-Bagistoneia. Improved Seleukid reconnaissance capabilities negated much of the Areian advantage in terrain and surprise, and their improved infantry were able to hold the line against the Areians, but Areia’s advantage in cavalry proved decisive. The Seleukid troops were able to pull back in good order, though.
With the Zagreus held more or less incontestably, the Seleukid troops concentrated on fully securing Sousiane and Persis to prevent a flank attack by the Areians during 604, which the Areians were more or less happy to permit due to their troubles in the north. Starting in 603 after the fall of Sousiane, the Mazsakata had really stepped up their raiding. Areian efforts to rebuild the old ‘Hyrkanian Wall’ were more or less frustrated by the heavy Mazsakata raiding, which had disrupted the building efforts up to that point; now they escalated dramatically, with spadahaura Ardashir himself calling his yabghus together for a grand descent on Hekatompylos. The capital, however, was better defended than they had expected, with a sizable army guarding it under the personal command of Arkadios. Instead, the Mazsakata were forced to go on the run, using their superior mobility to both avoid Areian efforts to catch them and surprise major fortified places. This worked for awhile, as Tapurian Susia was sacked in 603, but soon the Mazsakata found that their enemies were fortifying more and more of their territory. An elaborate game of cat-and-mouse in 604 yielded little but skirmishes, but in 605 the Mazsakata managed to overwhelm the defenders of Antiocheia-Margiane and sack that city, too.
The Hellenoarabic ships, added to the Seleukid fleet, were able to overwhelm a local Areian naval force off Gogana in 604 and have spent much of the intervening time raiding the Areian coast and shipping lanes.
(+25,000 Seleukid levy infantry, +3,000 Seleukid levy cavalry, +23,000 Mazsakata levy cavalry, +48,000 Areian levy infantry, +6,000 Areian levy cavalry)
(+2 Seleukid Prestige, +2 Mazsakata Prestige, +1 Areian Prestige, +2 Sousiane Confidence, -2 Sousiane Strength, -1 Parthyaia Confidence, -1 Parthyaia Strength, -1 Merchantry Confidence (Areia), -1 Merchantry Strength (Areia), +1 Daha Yabghu Confidence, +400 talents to Seleukid treasury, +150 talents to Mazsakata treasury, -2,000 talents from Areian income, -3,500 Seleukid infantry, -4,750 Seleukid levy infantry, -4,000 Seleukid cavalry, -750 Seleukid levy cavalry, -6 Seleukid ships, -2,750 Mazsakata cavalry, -3,500 Mazsakata levy cavalry, -5,000 Areian infantry, -7,250 Areian levy infantry, -500 Areian cavalry, -2,750 Areian levy cavalry, -23 Areian ships)
Negusa nagast Gersem has ordered an attack on the Avalites, a surprising move due to the Avalites’ historic role as peaceful trading partners of Aksum. Nevertheless, determined to conquer new lands and secure more port facilities, Gersem dispatched a small army to intimidate the Avalite port into surrender in 603. As it turns out, the army was too small, and failed to do anything more than anger the Avalites. Some casualties were suffered in raids and ambushes, and the expedition was turned back. The Avalites have begun to raid Aksumite shipping in retaliation, albeit (mostly) unsuccessfully due to the actions of the stellar Aksumite fleet.
(-1 Aksumite Prestige, -25 talents from Aksumite income, -300 Aksumite infantry, -50 Aksumite cavalry, -2 Aksumite ships)
War has returned to the Subcontinent. After failing to successfully bribe the Viceroy of the Gurjaras into disloyalty, the Chola maharajadhiraja Arinjaya launched an all-out attack on the Pala Empire in 602. The invasion did not catch the Palas completely by surprise, for they had been working to rebuild the walls of many border cities for the past two years. Still, part of the Pala army was in Bengal, and much of the rest had been dispersed. It was either a stroke of genius or a lucky roll of the dice, but the Chola military leaders chose to attack northwest, into Malwa. Here, the Palas had not yet built fortifications, and the Viceroy was tardy in collecting his troops. At Ujjain in 603, the Chola Great Viceroy of Maharashtra, Satakarni, defeated the Viceroy of Malwa and conquered much of his territory. By the next year, though, the Cholas were thrown back on the defensive as Pala numerical superiority began to exert itself. A Chola attempt to besiege Nandivardhana in 605 turned into a Pala ambush, and the Chola general Aditya was only narrowly able to cut his army’s way out. A few scattered outposts have been reconquered by the Pala, but the Chola armies are all still on northern soil. Still, even now the Palas have not yet brought their current numerical preponderance to bear. Things are certain to get nasty for the Cholas if they manage to do so…
The naval war has been much more one-sided; the Chola fleet has largely driven that of the Palas into harbor, and currently is involved in interdicting any Pala seaborne trade.
(+30,000 Pala levy infantry, +6,000 Pala levy cavalry, +25,000 Chola levy infantry, +2,000 Chola levy cavalry)
(+1 Pala Prestige, +3 Chola Prestige, -500 talents from Pala income, +50 talents to the Chola treasury, +1 Viceroy of the Gurjaras Confidence, +1 Viceroy of Malwa Confidence, -1 Viceroy of Malwa Strength, +1 Great Viceroy of Maharashtra Confidence, +1 Viceroy of the Nalas Confidence, +1 Viceroy of the Nalas Strength, -4,500 Pala infantry, -7,000 Pala levy infantry, -500 Pala cavalry, -1,000 Pala levy cavalry, -15 Pala ships, -2,000 Chola infantry, -5,500 Chola levy infantry, -1,000 Chola cavalry, -500 Chola levy cavalry, -3 Chola ships)
The Tantan and Xianbei seem to be concentrating more on each other than anyone else recently. Liang and Houqin in particular seem to have gotten off rather easily.
Yunfendi of Wu’s bureaucratic examination program has been married to a military examination program, significantly more practical than the bureaucratic tests. The Shi clique, already enraged over the alterations to the bureaucracy, took the opportunity to rebel in 603, as did many of the buqu. Most of the navy stays more or less loyal. After beating back a hasty assault on Jianye, the loyal elements of the Wu army, led by Yuan Rong, pursued the vanguard of the Shi army to the Zhe River, where the rebels were again heavily defeated. They have retreated into the old lands of Minyue, where their leader, Shi Kang, has declared himself Emperor.
(+Shi, various faction readjustments)
Invasions from some Thai tribes have forced Funan out of part of the western Mekong region. The government response was lackluster at best.
(-750 Funanese infantry)
The Yamato are beginning to try to spin their fleet up again. Though the cost of conducting effective training exercises is far beyond the sum allotted thereto, at least an effort has been made to sharpen the saw.
(No honestly.. look what happened to those you wrote about!) 
