Perfectionist
Angel of Verdun
The Chobanids were firmly in possession of the initiative when the war in Anatolia began. The Chobanid standing army, under the personal command of the Sultan, crossed the border within days of the outbreak of war, while it would take the Romans a couple of months to raise the allagia and organize their transport to Anatolia. In the interim, the Chobanids were opposed only by the forces of the Anatolian grandees. The Roman plan called for these to form up with the syntrophiai and allagia before engaging the Chobanids. This was easy for the Emperor to order; it was much harder for the grandees to endure, since in the interim it was their lands and their money the Chobanids were despoiling. Georgios Notaras, being first in line for conquest, flatly refused to abandon everything and march west, and opposed the Chobanids on his own. This went about as badly as you'd expect: the Chobanid Turkmen vanguard outmaneuvered and destroyed Notaras' field force, forcing Notaras to retreat to his fortress at Tephrike. The main body of the Chobanid army arrived shortly later, and, after Notaras refused to surrender, their guns brought down the walls in little more than a week. Notaras was publicly tortured to death, and the Chobanids quickly reduced the last holdouts in the area and resumed their westwards march. After seeing Notaras' fate, the rest of the grandees insisted on opposing the Chobanids; the imperial generals protested, but in the end had little choice but to acquiesce. The combined Anatolians met the Chobanids at Kaisareia, having mustered nearly equal numbers. The result was predictably catastrophic for the Romans; the army was more or less destroyed and half a dozen grandees captured by the Chobanids. Kaisareia provoked something of a panic in the Roman ranks, though the citadel of Kaisareia, manned by the survivors of the battle, held out for some time more. It appeared that the old Roman nightmare would come to fruition, and a general Turkish revolt occur, as riots broke out in Cappadocia and pastoralists massacred a Roman column outside of Ancyra. But before things got out of hand the allagia began to arrive in force. Overwhelming Roman numbers quickly suppressed the disturbances, and allagia garrisons kept the lid on, at least in the sedentary areas, though ever more nomads, heavily courted by the invaders, crossed the Chobanid lines. By the fall of 1503 nearly 80,000 Roman soldiers were on the ground in Anatolia, including all the allagia and nearly all the syntrophiai. The need to maintain order drew off a significant proportion of that force, and logistical problems complicated maneuvers for the rest, but nevertheless the Romans mustered a pair of field armies that each separately outnumbered the Chobanid army. Omnipresent Turkmen light cav made Roman communications and supply something of a nightmare, but against such large number of Romans couldn't really win any signal victories. 1503 ended with no major confrontation, thanks in no small part to the aforementioned communications problems, but the Romans did maneuver to stop the Chobanid advance well short of Ancyra. In early 1504 the two Roman armies gradually closed in on the Chobanids around Lake Tuz. Running out of options and unwilling to outright retreat, Husayn decided to force the issue, and try and defeat the Romans in detail. In mid-summer, the Chobanids forced a confrontation at Mokissos. The Chobanids managed a certain amount of surprise against the first Roman army, and handily defeated it, but the Romans escaped destruction and did inflict some damage on the Chobanids. Three days later, Husayn's exhausted army met the second Roman force ten miles further south, and this time was enveloped, defeated, and only escaped destruction thanks to a timely breakdown of discipline in some of the Thracian allagia. Defeated, and with the reformed first Roman army soon back in the game, the Chobanids had no choice but to run. The Romans retook Kaisareia a couple of weeks after Mokissos, and Husayn retreated towards Cilicia. If the Romans had promptly pursued him, the Chobanids might have been in real trouble, but disagreements between the Roman commanders prevented prompt, decisive action, and while the Romans suppressed rebels and Turkmen in central Anatolia, the Chobanids reformed. By the outset of 1505, most of the Chobanid gains in Anatolia had been retaken by the Romans, who now attempted to cross the Taurus and invade Cilicia. Of course, the Chobanids had been preparing for such an eventuality for nearly fifty years; the Romans spent a month trying, without success, to find an undefended pass, before resolving to try and force the Cilician Gates. But against the well-prepared, well-maintained and modern Chobanid fortifications, backed by Husayn's army, the Romans, not really prepared for such a major undertaking, made little progress. Unwilling to commit to a meatgrinder, the Romans pulled back, and ,keeping a screening force by the Taurus, ground down most of the remaining Chobanid outposts in Anatolia.
(+1 Roman Prestige, -1 Anatolian Grandees Strength, -1 Allagia Confidence (they don't like being called up en masse), -35 Chobanid Companies, -16 Roman Companies, -54 Roman Levy Companies)
The Italians likewise piled on the Romans, but the Italians front in the Balkans was far less exciting than the Aegean or Anatolian forts. A smallish Italian army marched out of Carinthia, chiefly hoping to tie down Roman forces away from the more crucial fronts. The Italians found, however, that there were virtually no Roman forces in the region; virtually every fighting man in the Balkans had been sent to Anatolia. Against extremely scant resistance, the Italians conquered a wide section of Croatia, taking full advantage of the newly improved Roman military infrastructure in the area. They might have gone further, but by 1504 garrisons for the captured territory required nearly all the troops assigned to the area.
(-200,000 taris from Roman revenue, -2 Italian Companies, -2 Roman Levy Companies)
Under ever increasing pressure, Zygimantas has acted increasingly erratically the last few years. Early 1503 brought a number of unpleasant reverses to Zygimantas' cause. First the Volynians, fearing Hungarian intervention, bowed out of the war, then the Order pulled its men out of the campaign against Algirdas to focus on Polotsk, and finally Poland, having made a deal with the Prince, entered on Algirdas' side. In desperate need of manpower, Zygimantas spent his entire treasury raising another mercenary army in the west. Much less sensibly, he decided to impress the entire male population of Minskas into service. The men of Minskas were, naturally, not at all happy about this, but Zygimantas had a cunning plan to convince them to play ball. Ducal soldiers took the women and children of Minskas hostage, and declared that noncompliance would lead to the execution of the families of those responsible. After Zygimantas had the families of a few prominent resistors publicly executed most of the population fell into line, though, of course, the military value of a few thousand old men and boys with no military experience and every reason to loathe their comrades-in-arms was extremely dubious, especially considering the number of loyal soldiers necessary to keep them from deserting en masse. On a brighter note for Zygimantas, Algirdas' forces in the north spent 1503 squarely on the defensive, allowing the Ducal reinforcement column to easily reach Minskas and disperse the lackluster Princely siege of the city. Zygimantas then went over to the offensive, but his continual attempts to force a decisive battle with Algirdas' smaller force came to nothing, as the more mobile Princely forces dodged Zygimantas at every turn. Having learned from the mistakes of 1500, Zygimantas refrained from chasing Algirdas deeper into the east, and instead expanded his region of control around Minskas. The other theatres of the war were only slightly more eventful. In the south, the Volynians kept their word and withdrew their garrisons. However, Volynian noble levies, nominally acting without central authorization or backing, continued to raid Lithuanian territory. Unfortunately for said Volynians, Algirdas had suspected something like this might happen. The Lithuanians had left a mobile and powerful army guarding the Volynian border, and the raiders were hunted down and eliminated almost immediately. The Polish invasion, meanwhile, was not intended as much more than a distraction, but Zygimantas calculated, correctly, that it wasn't enough of a threat to justify pulling large numbers of men away from the west. Instead of Ducal regulars, the Poles had to contend with local defense forces and, more importantly with the Vildmark, the largely roadless and sparsely inhabited wilderness of southwestern Lithuania, where they spent most of 1503 thoroughly bogged down.
In 1504 Algirdas' southern army was recalled to the north, where it linked up with the northern force. Now having more or less equal numbers, Algirdas at last offered battle to Zygimantas at Marjina. The center of the Ducal forces, having adopted the wagon-fort tactics deployed so successfully by Algirdas in previous years, successfully resisted the first Princely charge, whereupon Zygimantas inexplicably abandoned his defensive wagon-forts in favour of an all-or-nothing countercharge. This was initially somewhat successful, as Algirdas' center was sent reeling backwards. However, at this point the remaining impressed men of Minskas, stationed in the Ducal camp, at last turned on their captors, egged on by agents of Algirdas. With chaos in Zygimantas' camp and communications breaking down, the Ducal charge faltered. Afforded a few minutes to act, Algirdas' men quickly reformed and counter-counter-attacked, and the disordered Ducal forces were overrun. Zygimantas barely escaped, and although the core of the army managed to escape and reform, many of the levies and newly raised companies were lost. Ominously, many of the captured nobles chose to renounce Christianity and enter Algirdas' service. With the Poles having hacked a crude way through the Vildmark and Algirdas quickly closing in, Zygimantas decided Minskas could not be held. The Ducal forces burned the city, massacred what was left of the population, devastated as much of the surrounding territory as they could, and retreated back across the old border. Once back in his own territory, Zygimantas had to rush to the west, as the Poles were steadily advancing up the Neman, taking forts as they went. As he had to leave garrisons in the border forts, Zygimantas, after outmaneuvering the Polish screening force, met the Poles while they were besieging the major fort at Strawa. The battle was a close-run thing, but a sortie from the garrison swung the tide in Zygimantas' favour, and the Poles retreated back towards the Vildmark. Algirdas, meanwhile, was busily trying to force his way through Zygimantas' border forts, but the early onset of winter and the devastation of Minskas' hinterland forced him to retreat before managing to make an opening. In 1505 Algirdas changed his approach. While Zygimantas checked a renewed Polish advance up the Neman, Algirdas swung through Polotsk to hit Zygimantas from the east. The great ducal fort at Daugpils held out for a month, despite being undergarrisoned, but Algirdas' new cannons ultimately opened a breach, and the fort fell before Zygimantas could relieve it. By comparison with the southeast, Zygimantas' eastern flank was relatively lightly fortified; with the fall of Daugpils, the way into Aukstaitija or Zemaitija was largely open. As Zygimantas positioned his army to block a direct march on Kaunas, Algirdas instead launched a raid in force into Zemaitija, with the aim of detaching the formerly resolutely pagan lowlanders from Zygimantas. This was not entirely successful, but enough of the locals were induced to switch sides to provide a secure base for further operations, and Algirdas focused for the rest of the year on expanding his control of the north.
As 1505 ends Zygimantas is still kicking, but his rule has never looked shakier. The pagans grow more confident all the time, while some of the nobility are now openly debating whether to switch sides. Without some sort of outside intervention, Zygimantas' odds of survival do not look good, and some of his East Danish advisers are agitating for an appeal to Denmark as the only way to save his rule.
(+2 Prince's Lithuania Prestige, -1 Duke's Lithuania Prestige, +60,000 taris to Prince's revenue, -200,000 taris from Duke's revenue, +1 Pagans Strength, -1 Nobility Confidence, -1 Hurzurai Confidence, +1 Lithuanian Nobility Confidence, -36 Duke's Companies, -3 Duke's Levy Companies, -8 Prince's Companies, -19 Prince's Levy Companies, -5 Polish Companies, -9 Volynian Levy Companies, 7 Duke's Levy Companies to Prince's)
Polotsk and the Order both played little part in the broader struggle for Lithuania, as they were both preoccupied with fighting each other. Benedikt planned to end the war with one quick strike at Polotsk itself. Unfortunately, quick, decisive strikes are not the Order's forte at the best of times, and in this particular case they were further hampered by their siege train, and particularly by the huge cannon they called Doven Ben. This was, in fact, so huge that its value as a strictly technical instrument was probably not worth the cost, though it made up for this to a certain extent as a weapon of terror; at any rate, it scared the hell out of the poor gunners who had to operate it. Anyway, as the Order slowly made its way towards Polotsk, the Polotskians had plenty of time to pull their field army out of Lithuania and counter the Order advance. The Order managed to force its way through Polotsk's army when the latter tried to bar the way thirty miles northwest of the city, but did not destroy or cripple Polotsk's army. Judging that trying to besiege a well-fortified city when an army of nearly equal strength was loose nearby was unconscionably risky, even for Order siege engineers, Benedikt stopped the march on Polotsk. By forcing Polostk to pull its army out of Lithuania, the Order had accomplished its chief goal anyway. Thereafter, the war assumed a form that was far more familiar to the Order: Doven Ben and their cannons knocked down Polotsk's forts, while Order engineers erected their own fortifications and the front gradually crept forward. Andrei of Polotsk, for his part, knew perfectly well that trying to beat the Order at its own game was a fool's errand, and so instead of trying to take back the Order forts focused on harassing Order detachments and containing any Order raids. This policy achieved some notable successes, including the destruction of the partially constructed fort at Disna in 1504, but the Order nevertheless advanced. By the end of 1505, however, the Order forces were mostly occupied by garrisoning their forts, and the rate of advance slowed to a crawl.
(+1 Order Prestige, +1 Polotsk Prestige, -9 Order Companies, -6 Polotsk Companies, -7 Polotsk Levy Companies)
Both sides seem to have lost interest in the war on the upper Volga. In 1503 Veliky Novgorod scraped together another couple thousand of levies off the bottom of the barrel and tried to restart the march on Tver. On the other side, Moscow at last was persuaded, thanks to Nizhny's lack of movement, to join in on Tver's side. Reinforced by the Muscovites, the allied forces on the Volga outnumbered Novgorod's forces. The Novgorodian advance was sharply checked in a battle at Rzhev, but Vasili of Tver was strangely quiescent, and the allies did not follow up the victory. Stalemate ensued in 1504 and 1505, as Novgorod lacked the forces and Tver the energy to advance. Further east, small forces from Yaroslavl continued to skirmish with baskaci-organized tribesmen, to little effect.
(-3 Veliky Companies, -11 Veliky Levy Companies, -2 Tver Companies, -3 Tver Levy Companies, -1 Muscovite Company, -2 Muscovite Levy Companies, -3 Yaroslavl Levy Companies)
Early in 1503 both Bengal and Delhi realized that Bengal's position on the Ganges was untenable. Altai called up more of his zamindars, stepped up recruiting, and tried to encircle and destroy the Bengali army. Shams ad-Din, fully aware of his peril, didn't wait for the trap to close; he immediately pulled out east, taking everything valuable and movable with him, intending to crush Arghun's army against Patna before Altai could reach him. By the time Altai realized what had happened, the Bengalis had too much of a headstart to be caught. Arghun's position before Patna would have been in serious jeopardy at this point, if he had in fact remained there. However, Arghun had pulled the majority of his force out of the siege at the same time that Shams ad-Din had starting marching east, and the skeleton force left behind had, by various classic ruses, managed to prevent the Bengalis in Patna from becoming aware of this fact. Thanks to haste and a breakdown of scouting, neither army became aware of the other's presence until they were virtually on top of each other. Arghun and Shams ad-Din both made the snap decision to engage, but the battle rapidly degenerated into a confused melee between a dozen barely coordinated contingents. The Bengalis won through, and had probably the better of the engagement, but both sides wound up badly bloodied and disorganized. Since Delhi had another couple of fresh armies and Bengal didn't, this was probably a win for Arghun. Shams ad-Din fell back south into Bengali territory and struggled to get his army back into fighting trim, while Altai picked up the remnants of Arghun's army and joined the siege of Patna. With Shams ad-Din's army still lurking in the south, Altai judged it prudent to delay the planned campaign deep into Bengal until 1504, in the hopes that Shams could be beaten in the intervening period. As it turned out, he couldn't, and in 1504 events intervened, and the campaign never did take place. Because by early 1504 Patna was clearly on the brink; having been undersiege for all or part of the previous four years, and bombarded by Delhi's expanded and modernized siege train, the fortifications were in a poor state, and the garrison scarcely less so. Shams ad-Din knew this perfectly well, and he and his nobles were simply unwilling to countenance the loss of the city. And so he decided to risk everything on one last decisive confrontation at Patna. By an extraordinary effort over the winter, and by alienating most of the Hindu elites, he scraped together the funds to rebuild his army, conscripted as many peasants as he could find, and marched on Patna. The Last Battle of Patna was fought on a virtually inconceivable scale. It lasted a week, involved more than a quarter of a million men, and Shams ad-Din seemed on three occasions to be on the brink of victory, but in the end Delhi held and Bengal retreated, leaving almost the entire Bengali nobility dead on the field. Patna fell, at long last, two weeks later; Shams ad-Din, exhausted and depressed, committed suicide two days after that.
Patna marked the end of large-scale Bengali resistance to Delhi, but the state did continue to exist in some form. Shams' young son, Muhammad ibn Shams, took what little was left of the Bengali nobility and army into the east, where he carried on a guerilla campaign against Delhi's forces. Altai, meanwhile, after his triumphal entry into Patna, slowly marched down the Ganges, and the ex-Bengali cities opened their gates one-by-one. By 1505 Muhammad's guerilla activities had placed enough of a strain on the depleted army of Delhi to halt the victorious march at the Brahmaputra. A large section of southern Bengal has not yet acknowledged the supremacy of Delhi, and Muhammad's loyalists still hold the far east, but Delhi's war with Bengal is finally over.
(+3 Delhi Prestige, +1 Moguls Confidence, +1 Mansabdars Confidence, +complicated stat reshuffling for Bengal, -49 Delhi Companies, -196 Delhi Levy Companies, -186 Bengali Companies, -194 Bengali Levy Companies)
With Delhi and Bengal preoccupied, the Pandyans stepped into the anarchy in former Orissa. Diplomatic efforts mostly failed to convince the post-Orissan warlords to bend the knee, but an invasion led by the Viceroy of the Andhra was far more successful, and even secured the old capital of Bubaneswar. Most of the spoils were snapped up by the Viceroy, who is now overwhelmingly the most powerful of the Pandyan feudals.
(+1 Viceroy of the Andhra Strength, -6 Pandyan Companies, -16 Pandyan Levy Companies)
The Raja of Jaffna, after tripling the size of his fleet, despatched the entire fleet, carrying most of his army, on, of all things, a raid of Gujarat. The new fleet was not particularly skillful, but the Pandyans allowed the Jaffnans to use their naval bases on the Malabar Coast, and so the expedition made it most of the way with little trouble. North of Pandyan territory, problems arose; the overloaded Jaffnan fleet had trouble resupplying, and was nearly forced ashore by storms a couple of times. Still, they made it to Diu, where the army disembarked, overwhelmed the completely shocked Gujarati defenders, and sacked the outpost. The Jaffnans spent a bit more time plundering the coast of Kathiawar, but, loaded down with plunder and facing increasing resistance, had to leave for the south without attacking Surat, as they'd planned. The way back proved more problematic for the Jaffnans; a couple of ships were swamped, and a lot of the plunder confiscated by Pandyan authorities. Those that made it back brought some plunder, but the Jaffnans by and large don't see the point; the Gujaratis are of course furious, and pressuring the Khan to demand some sort of restitution.
(-1 Gujarati Merchantry Confidence, -1 Royal Court Confidence, -3 Jaffnan Ships, -5 Jaffnan Companies)
The Nanhai had a cunning plan to wipe out the Guangzhou Society at one fell swoop. The peace treaty they signed with Guangzhou included the stipulation that Guangzhou allow the transport of Nanhai regiments down the Pearl, and thence by sea to Fujian. The Nanhai intended to use this as an opportunity to easily transport an army into Guangzhou itself, where it would conquer the city and destroy the center of Society power; an invasion from Fujian would follow, mopping up the remnants of Guangzhou power. Unfortunately for the Nanhai, Guangzhou agents, having been ordered to be on the lookout for that sort of thing, noticed anomalous troops movements in Fujian in early 1503. With its suspicions thus aroused, Guangzhou kept a close watch on the Nanhai's progress down the Pearl. By the time the expeditionary force approached Guangzhou itself, Society intelligence had thoroughly compromised Nanhai opsec. As the Nanhai flotilla approached Duanzhou, mere miles from Guangzhou itself, it was met with a Guangzhou barricade. The Guangzhou liaisons politely explained that security considerations required a brief stop and inspection before the flotilla could proceed. The Nanhai were delayed for a couple of weeks, while Guangzhou feverishly gathered troops and ships and tried to avoid arousing Nanhai suspicions. By the time the Nanhai realized that they'd been made and tried to force the barricade, it was too late. Guangzhou fireships, hastily constructed upstream, destroyed a large portion of the flotilla, and dispersed the rest. As the Nanhai troops struggled ashore in small groups, many were slaughtered on the spot by the waiting Guangzhou soldiers. There were too few Guangzhou to round up all the Nanhai, but the Nanhai never were able to form a cohesive body, and although the survivors caused Guangzhou a great deal of annoyance, they were ultimately nearly all rounded up.
(-1 Nanhai Prestige, +1 Guangzhou Prestige, -61 Nanhai Companies, -25 Nanhai Ships, -11 Guangzhou Companies, -2 Guangzhou Ships)
Undeterred by the failure of their cunning plan, the Nanhai went ahead with their secondary invasions. The army in Fujian, 20,000 strong, marched west, and initially faced relatively scant resistance, as Guangzhou forces were busy mopping up the remnants of the Pearl River expedition, and the Guangzhou levies weren't yet ready. By late summer, though, both those factors had changed, and the Nanhai invasion force found itself opposed by a Guangzhou army that badly outnumbered it. The Nanhai army, comprised mostly of relatively low-quality peasant levies, was moreover fairly badly outclassed by the Guangzhou elite regiments. The Nanhai managed to avoid being completely obliterated, but that's about the best that can be said. By the end of the year, the broken remnants of the Nanhai army were back in Fujian, preparing for a Guangzhou counterattack. They were spared this fate by developments further west. With Guangzhou attention focused on the immediate vicinity of Guangzhou, the small Nanhai invasion of the far west faced much weaker resistance. Guangzhou's problems in the theatre were compounded by the outbreak of a series of disturbances and minor rebellions in Jiaozhi, which drew away soldiers badly needed at the front. By the end of 1503, it appeared plausible that Guangzhou might lose the west entirely, but in 1504 the tide turned. Reinforcements poured in to restore order in Jiaozhi; the rebellions there turned out to be largely led by inveterate troublemakers lured by Nanhai money, and never acquired enough traction among the elites to seriously threaten Guangzhou authority. By the end of 1504, the Nanhai in the west had been ground down by every growing Guangzhou numbers and were back beyond the pre-war border. 1505 saw a series of Guangzhou counterattacks. The defenders of Fujian, having had a year to recover from their mauling, mostly succeeded in blunting Guangzhou's attacks; those in the west were less successful, though nothing really significant was lost.
(-1 Jiaozhi Confidence, -1 Jiaozhi Strength, -/+1 Rural Gentry Confidence, -23 Nanhai Companies, -38 Nanhai Levy Companies, -22 Guangzhou Companies, -21 Guangzhou Levy Companies)
In mid 1503 Guangzhou warships intercepted a Nanhai convoy bound for Hainan and carrying a large quantity of silver, for the presumed purpose of supporting similar unrest on the island to that in Jiaozhi.
(+100,000 taris to Guangzhou's treasury)
(+1 Roman Prestige, -1 Anatolian Grandees Strength, -1 Allagia Confidence (they don't like being called up en masse), -35 Chobanid Companies, -16 Roman Companies, -54 Roman Levy Companies)
The Italians likewise piled on the Romans, but the Italians front in the Balkans was far less exciting than the Aegean or Anatolian forts. A smallish Italian army marched out of Carinthia, chiefly hoping to tie down Roman forces away from the more crucial fronts. The Italians found, however, that there were virtually no Roman forces in the region; virtually every fighting man in the Balkans had been sent to Anatolia. Against extremely scant resistance, the Italians conquered a wide section of Croatia, taking full advantage of the newly improved Roman military infrastructure in the area. They might have gone further, but by 1504 garrisons for the captured territory required nearly all the troops assigned to the area.
(-200,000 taris from Roman revenue, -2 Italian Companies, -2 Roman Levy Companies)
Under ever increasing pressure, Zygimantas has acted increasingly erratically the last few years. Early 1503 brought a number of unpleasant reverses to Zygimantas' cause. First the Volynians, fearing Hungarian intervention, bowed out of the war, then the Order pulled its men out of the campaign against Algirdas to focus on Polotsk, and finally Poland, having made a deal with the Prince, entered on Algirdas' side. In desperate need of manpower, Zygimantas spent his entire treasury raising another mercenary army in the west. Much less sensibly, he decided to impress the entire male population of Minskas into service. The men of Minskas were, naturally, not at all happy about this, but Zygimantas had a cunning plan to convince them to play ball. Ducal soldiers took the women and children of Minskas hostage, and declared that noncompliance would lead to the execution of the families of those responsible. After Zygimantas had the families of a few prominent resistors publicly executed most of the population fell into line, though, of course, the military value of a few thousand old men and boys with no military experience and every reason to loathe their comrades-in-arms was extremely dubious, especially considering the number of loyal soldiers necessary to keep them from deserting en masse. On a brighter note for Zygimantas, Algirdas' forces in the north spent 1503 squarely on the defensive, allowing the Ducal reinforcement column to easily reach Minskas and disperse the lackluster Princely siege of the city. Zygimantas then went over to the offensive, but his continual attempts to force a decisive battle with Algirdas' smaller force came to nothing, as the more mobile Princely forces dodged Zygimantas at every turn. Having learned from the mistakes of 1500, Zygimantas refrained from chasing Algirdas deeper into the east, and instead expanded his region of control around Minskas. The other theatres of the war were only slightly more eventful. In the south, the Volynians kept their word and withdrew their garrisons. However, Volynian noble levies, nominally acting without central authorization or backing, continued to raid Lithuanian territory. Unfortunately for said Volynians, Algirdas had suspected something like this might happen. The Lithuanians had left a mobile and powerful army guarding the Volynian border, and the raiders were hunted down and eliminated almost immediately. The Polish invasion, meanwhile, was not intended as much more than a distraction, but Zygimantas calculated, correctly, that it wasn't enough of a threat to justify pulling large numbers of men away from the west. Instead of Ducal regulars, the Poles had to contend with local defense forces and, more importantly with the Vildmark, the largely roadless and sparsely inhabited wilderness of southwestern Lithuania, where they spent most of 1503 thoroughly bogged down.
In 1504 Algirdas' southern army was recalled to the north, where it linked up with the northern force. Now having more or less equal numbers, Algirdas at last offered battle to Zygimantas at Marjina. The center of the Ducal forces, having adopted the wagon-fort tactics deployed so successfully by Algirdas in previous years, successfully resisted the first Princely charge, whereupon Zygimantas inexplicably abandoned his defensive wagon-forts in favour of an all-or-nothing countercharge. This was initially somewhat successful, as Algirdas' center was sent reeling backwards. However, at this point the remaining impressed men of Minskas, stationed in the Ducal camp, at last turned on their captors, egged on by agents of Algirdas. With chaos in Zygimantas' camp and communications breaking down, the Ducal charge faltered. Afforded a few minutes to act, Algirdas' men quickly reformed and counter-counter-attacked, and the disordered Ducal forces were overrun. Zygimantas barely escaped, and although the core of the army managed to escape and reform, many of the levies and newly raised companies were lost. Ominously, many of the captured nobles chose to renounce Christianity and enter Algirdas' service. With the Poles having hacked a crude way through the Vildmark and Algirdas quickly closing in, Zygimantas decided Minskas could not be held. The Ducal forces burned the city, massacred what was left of the population, devastated as much of the surrounding territory as they could, and retreated back across the old border. Once back in his own territory, Zygimantas had to rush to the west, as the Poles were steadily advancing up the Neman, taking forts as they went. As he had to leave garrisons in the border forts, Zygimantas, after outmaneuvering the Polish screening force, met the Poles while they were besieging the major fort at Strawa. The battle was a close-run thing, but a sortie from the garrison swung the tide in Zygimantas' favour, and the Poles retreated back towards the Vildmark. Algirdas, meanwhile, was busily trying to force his way through Zygimantas' border forts, but the early onset of winter and the devastation of Minskas' hinterland forced him to retreat before managing to make an opening. In 1505 Algirdas changed his approach. While Zygimantas checked a renewed Polish advance up the Neman, Algirdas swung through Polotsk to hit Zygimantas from the east. The great ducal fort at Daugpils held out for a month, despite being undergarrisoned, but Algirdas' new cannons ultimately opened a breach, and the fort fell before Zygimantas could relieve it. By comparison with the southeast, Zygimantas' eastern flank was relatively lightly fortified; with the fall of Daugpils, the way into Aukstaitija or Zemaitija was largely open. As Zygimantas positioned his army to block a direct march on Kaunas, Algirdas instead launched a raid in force into Zemaitija, with the aim of detaching the formerly resolutely pagan lowlanders from Zygimantas. This was not entirely successful, but enough of the locals were induced to switch sides to provide a secure base for further operations, and Algirdas focused for the rest of the year on expanding his control of the north.
As 1505 ends Zygimantas is still kicking, but his rule has never looked shakier. The pagans grow more confident all the time, while some of the nobility are now openly debating whether to switch sides. Without some sort of outside intervention, Zygimantas' odds of survival do not look good, and some of his East Danish advisers are agitating for an appeal to Denmark as the only way to save his rule.
(+2 Prince's Lithuania Prestige, -1 Duke's Lithuania Prestige, +60,000 taris to Prince's revenue, -200,000 taris from Duke's revenue, +1 Pagans Strength, -1 Nobility Confidence, -1 Hurzurai Confidence, +1 Lithuanian Nobility Confidence, -36 Duke's Companies, -3 Duke's Levy Companies, -8 Prince's Companies, -19 Prince's Levy Companies, -5 Polish Companies, -9 Volynian Levy Companies, 7 Duke's Levy Companies to Prince's)
Polotsk and the Order both played little part in the broader struggle for Lithuania, as they were both preoccupied with fighting each other. Benedikt planned to end the war with one quick strike at Polotsk itself. Unfortunately, quick, decisive strikes are not the Order's forte at the best of times, and in this particular case they were further hampered by their siege train, and particularly by the huge cannon they called Doven Ben. This was, in fact, so huge that its value as a strictly technical instrument was probably not worth the cost, though it made up for this to a certain extent as a weapon of terror; at any rate, it scared the hell out of the poor gunners who had to operate it. Anyway, as the Order slowly made its way towards Polotsk, the Polotskians had plenty of time to pull their field army out of Lithuania and counter the Order advance. The Order managed to force its way through Polotsk's army when the latter tried to bar the way thirty miles northwest of the city, but did not destroy or cripple Polotsk's army. Judging that trying to besiege a well-fortified city when an army of nearly equal strength was loose nearby was unconscionably risky, even for Order siege engineers, Benedikt stopped the march on Polotsk. By forcing Polostk to pull its army out of Lithuania, the Order had accomplished its chief goal anyway. Thereafter, the war assumed a form that was far more familiar to the Order: Doven Ben and their cannons knocked down Polotsk's forts, while Order engineers erected their own fortifications and the front gradually crept forward. Andrei of Polotsk, for his part, knew perfectly well that trying to beat the Order at its own game was a fool's errand, and so instead of trying to take back the Order forts focused on harassing Order detachments and containing any Order raids. This policy achieved some notable successes, including the destruction of the partially constructed fort at Disna in 1504, but the Order nevertheless advanced. By the end of 1505, however, the Order forces were mostly occupied by garrisoning their forts, and the rate of advance slowed to a crawl.
(+1 Order Prestige, +1 Polotsk Prestige, -9 Order Companies, -6 Polotsk Companies, -7 Polotsk Levy Companies)
Both sides seem to have lost interest in the war on the upper Volga. In 1503 Veliky Novgorod scraped together another couple thousand of levies off the bottom of the barrel and tried to restart the march on Tver. On the other side, Moscow at last was persuaded, thanks to Nizhny's lack of movement, to join in on Tver's side. Reinforced by the Muscovites, the allied forces on the Volga outnumbered Novgorod's forces. The Novgorodian advance was sharply checked in a battle at Rzhev, but Vasili of Tver was strangely quiescent, and the allies did not follow up the victory. Stalemate ensued in 1504 and 1505, as Novgorod lacked the forces and Tver the energy to advance. Further east, small forces from Yaroslavl continued to skirmish with baskaci-organized tribesmen, to little effect.
(-3 Veliky Companies, -11 Veliky Levy Companies, -2 Tver Companies, -3 Tver Levy Companies, -1 Muscovite Company, -2 Muscovite Levy Companies, -3 Yaroslavl Levy Companies)
Early in 1503 both Bengal and Delhi realized that Bengal's position on the Ganges was untenable. Altai called up more of his zamindars, stepped up recruiting, and tried to encircle and destroy the Bengali army. Shams ad-Din, fully aware of his peril, didn't wait for the trap to close; he immediately pulled out east, taking everything valuable and movable with him, intending to crush Arghun's army against Patna before Altai could reach him. By the time Altai realized what had happened, the Bengalis had too much of a headstart to be caught. Arghun's position before Patna would have been in serious jeopardy at this point, if he had in fact remained there. However, Arghun had pulled the majority of his force out of the siege at the same time that Shams ad-Din had starting marching east, and the skeleton force left behind had, by various classic ruses, managed to prevent the Bengalis in Patna from becoming aware of this fact. Thanks to haste and a breakdown of scouting, neither army became aware of the other's presence until they were virtually on top of each other. Arghun and Shams ad-Din both made the snap decision to engage, but the battle rapidly degenerated into a confused melee between a dozen barely coordinated contingents. The Bengalis won through, and had probably the better of the engagement, but both sides wound up badly bloodied and disorganized. Since Delhi had another couple of fresh armies and Bengal didn't, this was probably a win for Arghun. Shams ad-Din fell back south into Bengali territory and struggled to get his army back into fighting trim, while Altai picked up the remnants of Arghun's army and joined the siege of Patna. With Shams ad-Din's army still lurking in the south, Altai judged it prudent to delay the planned campaign deep into Bengal until 1504, in the hopes that Shams could be beaten in the intervening period. As it turned out, he couldn't, and in 1504 events intervened, and the campaign never did take place. Because by early 1504 Patna was clearly on the brink; having been undersiege for all or part of the previous four years, and bombarded by Delhi's expanded and modernized siege train, the fortifications were in a poor state, and the garrison scarcely less so. Shams ad-Din knew this perfectly well, and he and his nobles were simply unwilling to countenance the loss of the city. And so he decided to risk everything on one last decisive confrontation at Patna. By an extraordinary effort over the winter, and by alienating most of the Hindu elites, he scraped together the funds to rebuild his army, conscripted as many peasants as he could find, and marched on Patna. The Last Battle of Patna was fought on a virtually inconceivable scale. It lasted a week, involved more than a quarter of a million men, and Shams ad-Din seemed on three occasions to be on the brink of victory, but in the end Delhi held and Bengal retreated, leaving almost the entire Bengali nobility dead on the field. Patna fell, at long last, two weeks later; Shams ad-Din, exhausted and depressed, committed suicide two days after that.
Patna marked the end of large-scale Bengali resistance to Delhi, but the state did continue to exist in some form. Shams' young son, Muhammad ibn Shams, took what little was left of the Bengali nobility and army into the east, where he carried on a guerilla campaign against Delhi's forces. Altai, meanwhile, after his triumphal entry into Patna, slowly marched down the Ganges, and the ex-Bengali cities opened their gates one-by-one. By 1505 Muhammad's guerilla activities had placed enough of a strain on the depleted army of Delhi to halt the victorious march at the Brahmaputra. A large section of southern Bengal has not yet acknowledged the supremacy of Delhi, and Muhammad's loyalists still hold the far east, but Delhi's war with Bengal is finally over.
(+3 Delhi Prestige, +1 Moguls Confidence, +1 Mansabdars Confidence, +complicated stat reshuffling for Bengal, -49 Delhi Companies, -196 Delhi Levy Companies, -186 Bengali Companies, -194 Bengali Levy Companies)
With Delhi and Bengal preoccupied, the Pandyans stepped into the anarchy in former Orissa. Diplomatic efforts mostly failed to convince the post-Orissan warlords to bend the knee, but an invasion led by the Viceroy of the Andhra was far more successful, and even secured the old capital of Bubaneswar. Most of the spoils were snapped up by the Viceroy, who is now overwhelmingly the most powerful of the Pandyan feudals.
(+1 Viceroy of the Andhra Strength, -6 Pandyan Companies, -16 Pandyan Levy Companies)
The Raja of Jaffna, after tripling the size of his fleet, despatched the entire fleet, carrying most of his army, on, of all things, a raid of Gujarat. The new fleet was not particularly skillful, but the Pandyans allowed the Jaffnans to use their naval bases on the Malabar Coast, and so the expedition made it most of the way with little trouble. North of Pandyan territory, problems arose; the overloaded Jaffnan fleet had trouble resupplying, and was nearly forced ashore by storms a couple of times. Still, they made it to Diu, where the army disembarked, overwhelmed the completely shocked Gujarati defenders, and sacked the outpost. The Jaffnans spent a bit more time plundering the coast of Kathiawar, but, loaded down with plunder and facing increasing resistance, had to leave for the south without attacking Surat, as they'd planned. The way back proved more problematic for the Jaffnans; a couple of ships were swamped, and a lot of the plunder confiscated by Pandyan authorities. Those that made it back brought some plunder, but the Jaffnans by and large don't see the point; the Gujaratis are of course furious, and pressuring the Khan to demand some sort of restitution.
(-1 Gujarati Merchantry Confidence, -1 Royal Court Confidence, -3 Jaffnan Ships, -5 Jaffnan Companies)
The Nanhai had a cunning plan to wipe out the Guangzhou Society at one fell swoop. The peace treaty they signed with Guangzhou included the stipulation that Guangzhou allow the transport of Nanhai regiments down the Pearl, and thence by sea to Fujian. The Nanhai intended to use this as an opportunity to easily transport an army into Guangzhou itself, where it would conquer the city and destroy the center of Society power; an invasion from Fujian would follow, mopping up the remnants of Guangzhou power. Unfortunately for the Nanhai, Guangzhou agents, having been ordered to be on the lookout for that sort of thing, noticed anomalous troops movements in Fujian in early 1503. With its suspicions thus aroused, Guangzhou kept a close watch on the Nanhai's progress down the Pearl. By the time the expeditionary force approached Guangzhou itself, Society intelligence had thoroughly compromised Nanhai opsec. As the Nanhai flotilla approached Duanzhou, mere miles from Guangzhou itself, it was met with a Guangzhou barricade. The Guangzhou liaisons politely explained that security considerations required a brief stop and inspection before the flotilla could proceed. The Nanhai were delayed for a couple of weeks, while Guangzhou feverishly gathered troops and ships and tried to avoid arousing Nanhai suspicions. By the time the Nanhai realized that they'd been made and tried to force the barricade, it was too late. Guangzhou fireships, hastily constructed upstream, destroyed a large portion of the flotilla, and dispersed the rest. As the Nanhai troops struggled ashore in small groups, many were slaughtered on the spot by the waiting Guangzhou soldiers. There were too few Guangzhou to round up all the Nanhai, but the Nanhai never were able to form a cohesive body, and although the survivors caused Guangzhou a great deal of annoyance, they were ultimately nearly all rounded up.
(-1 Nanhai Prestige, +1 Guangzhou Prestige, -61 Nanhai Companies, -25 Nanhai Ships, -11 Guangzhou Companies, -2 Guangzhou Ships)
Undeterred by the failure of their cunning plan, the Nanhai went ahead with their secondary invasions. The army in Fujian, 20,000 strong, marched west, and initially faced relatively scant resistance, as Guangzhou forces were busy mopping up the remnants of the Pearl River expedition, and the Guangzhou levies weren't yet ready. By late summer, though, both those factors had changed, and the Nanhai invasion force found itself opposed by a Guangzhou army that badly outnumbered it. The Nanhai army, comprised mostly of relatively low-quality peasant levies, was moreover fairly badly outclassed by the Guangzhou elite regiments. The Nanhai managed to avoid being completely obliterated, but that's about the best that can be said. By the end of the year, the broken remnants of the Nanhai army were back in Fujian, preparing for a Guangzhou counterattack. They were spared this fate by developments further west. With Guangzhou attention focused on the immediate vicinity of Guangzhou, the small Nanhai invasion of the far west faced much weaker resistance. Guangzhou's problems in the theatre were compounded by the outbreak of a series of disturbances and minor rebellions in Jiaozhi, which drew away soldiers badly needed at the front. By the end of 1503, it appeared plausible that Guangzhou might lose the west entirely, but in 1504 the tide turned. Reinforcements poured in to restore order in Jiaozhi; the rebellions there turned out to be largely led by inveterate troublemakers lured by Nanhai money, and never acquired enough traction among the elites to seriously threaten Guangzhou authority. By the end of 1504, the Nanhai in the west had been ground down by every growing Guangzhou numbers and were back beyond the pre-war border. 1505 saw a series of Guangzhou counterattacks. The defenders of Fujian, having had a year to recover from their mauling, mostly succeeded in blunting Guangzhou's attacks; those in the west were less successful, though nothing really significant was lost.
(-1 Jiaozhi Confidence, -1 Jiaozhi Strength, -/+1 Rural Gentry Confidence, -23 Nanhai Companies, -38 Nanhai Levy Companies, -22 Guangzhou Companies, -21 Guangzhou Levy Companies)
In mid 1503 Guangzhou warships intercepted a Nanhai convoy bound for Hainan and carrying a large quantity of silver, for the presumed purpose of supporting similar unrest on the island to that in Jiaozhi.
(+100,000 taris to Guangzhou's treasury)
