POD: Council of Constance
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A brief interlude: The East: 1450-1490
Rus
Muscovy had been locked in civil war for much of the earlier half of the century; with Vasili II finally defeating all his rivals, it was finally over, and they had a few years of peace. This lasted about until the reign of Ivan III, later surnamed the Great.
Ivan III began his reign in 1460, and quickly grew into the fact that Muscovy was the predominant Russian state. His careful policies crafted a new Principality that grew and grew, nibbling away at the neighboring states carefully, not ever putting the Principality itself in any danger, but expanding it all the same.
Around the same time, Moscow proclaimed its status as the direct successor to Constantinople, and thus of Romethe Third Rome, as it was. Armed with a new zeal and new ambitions, the Muscovy state had few rivalsthe only serious one was Lithuania, who they could normally best in diplomatic confrontations. The future looked bright.
The Middle East
For their part, the Ottomans were far more active than the Russians in this time period. Secure in their European possessions after putting down twin rebellions by the Albanians and the Greeks, they were able to focus their attention on more Eastern matters.
Absorbing the Khanate of the White Sheep Turks, they spotted and quickly exploited the local weakness of the Black Sheep Turks, taking the region of Mesopotamia and destroying the army of the Khanate. With a swift stroke, Turkish dominion over much of the East had changed hands... and as it happened, this had larger results as well.
The Timurids were able to exploit the fall of the Black Sheep Turks fairly easily themselves, and the Khan Ulug Beg found himself in an easy situation. Turned away from his fairly cloistered studies by the demands of the real world, he turned his brilliance into managing to forge a united empire out of the Timurids, a new empire which allowed Shia and Sunni religious freedom. He had managed to stem the schism in Islam, and this meant his empire simply flourished.
Quickly taking what was left of Persia under their wing, a quick campaign into Khorasan (OTL Afghanistan) and Sind (the Indus Valley) brought those regions back under Timurid control. Another quick campaign into Central Asia felled the Chatagai Khanate, and the Timurids further expanded at the expense of the Golden Horde.
Back to the Ottomans, the Empire expanded exponentially in the 1470s. A striking campaign against the Mamlukes brought the downfall of that dynasty in only a year, and Egypt under Ottoman sovereignty. More campaigns brought the majority of the Arab world into the Empire, in fact, from Arabia to Morocco.
Indeed, by 1490, one might think that the Ottomans were fairly overstretched, and they would be right. Everything from Damot to Oman, from Hungary to Fez, had to be carefully governed lest it fall into rebellion, and if just the right set of circumstances were to happen...
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Introduction
The War of the Roses
Europe to c. 1450
Europe: 1450-1455
Europe: 1455-1456
p): Your wish is my command!
So, I assume that I should get working on the next TL while you prepare the map, right? I'm not very sure as to which one of my ideas I should develop this time, though...
