"You foul and perfidious people, who have crossed an ocean to wage war and slaughter on a people who have never done you any harm, you will not get off that easily. Kill me and be damned."
-Reported final words of Negusa Nagast Andreyas, 1599
1625: Demetrios II does not have long to enjoy the news that the great foe of the Empire is no more. His health has never been the same since Nineveh and a fall down a flight of stairs in early February does not help matters. Taking to his bed on April 11, he is dead three days later. He was sixty five years old, having reigned as Emperor of the Romans for thirty eight of them.
Amongst the Romans there are few sad to see him go. His reign has seen almost continual warfare on multiple fronts, mostly unsuccessful, with little to benefit the Empire save Dalmatia and a tighter control of Egypt via the Articles. To be fair the creation of an Orthodox Japan is a major achievement but the Shimazu are responsible for that (despite some claims made by Demetrios for his ‘inspirational’ role); Demetrios just made sure that relations with the new Japanese Empire got off to a good start. It is a useful accomplishment, but hardly anything to catapult Demetrios II to a level comparable to his namesake, Demetrios Megas.
However Demetrios II does have a unique success to his name. He is the only Roman Emperor to have statues of him raised in his honor outside of the realm he ruled. In both Targoviste and Belgrade one can still see the statues of Demetrios II in the Old Market Square and the Court of the Kings respectively. The Belgrade one shows the Emperor pulling a battered, wounded Serb to his feet. To this day in Serbia he is known simply as “the Liberator”, an appellation even Andreas Niketas would respect.
Normally in the Ottoman Empire, the death of a Roman Emperor would be an event of great interest, but these are far from normal times. Unexpectedly the first storm breaks from the north, an event no one in Constantinople or Hamadan would’ve expected.
In 1620 Ioannes Laskaris, son of Giorgios I Laskaris, King of Khazaria, died in Kazan, and was succeeded by his middle son Theodoros, his elder brother having died in 1616. Theodoros’s early career is notable mainly for his capture of Vladimir and effort to suborn the Zemsky Sobor, events that were a direct cause of the Sundering of Russia.
Despite this black mark, his career in eastern lands has been far more distinguished and successful, continuing even after he gains the throne. He delivered the killing blow to the White Horde in 1618, the pale remnant of the once vast dominion of the Mongol Khans. Even more impressively in a flurry of campaigns in the past five years that some historians compare to Iskandar’s much more well-known exploits, he has smashed the Uzbeks and Oirats, reduced many of the lords of Moghulistan to heel, and stopped the rising Dzungar Khanate dead in its tracks.
As a result Khazar dominion now encompasses Ottoman Transoxiana’s eastern as well as northern borders. Theodoros wastes no time upon hearing of the Shah’s death, swooping in on Khwarezm, the lush region along the Amu Darya south of the Aral Sea. The area is only lightly garrisoned and quickly overrun, a powerful Khazar garrison including Cossack cavalry placed in Khiva.
Rumor has it that even at this early stage Theodoros has his eyes set on Samarkand but he refrains after securing Khwarezm. In the east the Zeng dynasty has finally reunited China after decades of bloodshed, the new regime decidedly disdainful of foreign barbarians and particularly eager for revenge for centuries of conquest and repression at the hands of Mongols since the days of Genghis Khan himself. Their attacks on both the northern Yuan and the Uyghurs in the old Urumqi lands have sent shockwaves throughout the steppe, threatening Khazar borders.
The loss of Khwarezm is an issue, but a minor one compared to the other trial facing the Persians. Prince Ibrahim was with his father in Delhi when he died and is immediately proclaimed Shahanshah by the Persian armies in India. This is an extremely useful boon, as these contain the bulk of the veterans and best-equipped forces in the realm. But it is also directly in the path of an immense Vijayanagari host at least four times its size, if not more.
Prince Osman is in Basra as governor of the rich port with 60,000 inhabitants. Naturally he hears of his father’s death and his elder brother’s acclamation after some delay but upon receipt immediately springs into action. He declares himself Shahanshah, the people of Basra instantly professing their loyalty. He rides north rallying all of Mesopotamia to his banner.
During the reign of his father, the center of power in both the military and civil spheres has moved to the Persians, much to the resentment of the Turks of Mesopotamia. He promises to restore them to prominence and even sets his capital at Baghdad, where he pledges to keep it. Before long he can field a respectable army, including Janissaries and the high-quality azabs and sipahis of the region. Except for the border districts garrisoned by Persian troops, Osman soon controls the Ottoman Empire from the Roman frontier to the Zagros Mountains.
However critically Osman’s initial attempt to break through the mountains is thrown back by the local Qizilbash troops and he fails to follow up with a second effort. As a result the resources of Persia are left available to Ibrahim. An envoy from Rhomania arrives shortly after this attempt offering military assistance in exchange for the return of the Mashhadshar territories, an offer Osman declines. He is reluctant to begin by ceding lands won at such great cost, and cozying up to the Romans might cost him Turkish support. The Romans let the matter drop for the moment, but Logothete Andronikos Sarantenos in an effort to regain his influence pens a pamphlet arguing for a ‘wait and see’ policy. Meanwhile sixteen hundred Castilian and Pronsky recruits for the army arrive in Constantinople.
Although Ibrahim had nothing to do with it, the Persian victory on the Zagros is a major, quite likely life-saving, boon. The resources of Persia are desperately needed. As much as Ibrahim would prefer to march west and slam a mace down on his little brother’s skull, abandoning his father’s Indian conquests without a fight is hardly an ideal start to his reign. If abandoning the Mashhadshar regions gives Osman pause, the loss of India is unfathomable. In particular, the wealth of India is a very useful sweetener to keep troops and officials loyal.
But keeping India is not going to be easy. Encamped around Delhi are forty five thousand Ottoman troops, with another twenty five thousand scattered across the Indian conquests. Facing them are 90,000 men of the Kaijeeta Sainya, 100,000 of the Amaranayaka Sainya, and 120,000 men belonging to the various vassals. The vassals have few cannons and their firearms are limited to matchlock arquebuses, but their arrows and lances are many and sharp. Included in the Kaijeeta Sainya are the Vijayanagari armored elephants, the soldiers atop them armed with snaphance or even flintlock muskets. Those that aren’t carry bamboo longbows, the steel-tipped shafts they let fly as lethal as any musket ball.
But Ibrahim does have one advantage. When Alexander the Great died, his empire fractured and Diadochi waged great wars over the remains. The most lethal weapon they could field in those wars were Alexander’s soldiers, white-haired veterans of decades of campaigning across the breadth of Asia, more than capable of smashing apart ranks of men a third their age.
Well Iskandar had his veterans too, greybeards who had served under him since Ras al-Ayn and al-Hasakah, some as far back as Merv and Samarkand. They have marched and fought and bled from Transoxiana to Syria to the Punjab, a record even the veterans of Alexander the Great would respect. Although there is no formal organization, around twenty thousand can be ranked as ‘Old Redoubtables’ as they’re styled.
The Old Redoubtables soon prove their worth as Ibrahim marches to battle. He does not dare not take the Vijayanagari head-on. His father defeated Indian armies that greatly outnumbered his own but they were coalition armies with all the weaknesses those entail. Instead he snipes at the enemy vanguard, bloodying it at numerous occasions, but the sheer size of the Vijayanagari army means that his efforts are ineffectual. Step by step he is forced to retire, evacuating Delhi with his father’s bones just three days before Venkata Raya marches in to take possession.
After Delhi Venkata Raya is now marching into lands populated mainly by Muslims which Ibrahim hopes will give him an advantage. It does. The natives would prefer being left alone but if they must be ruled by a foreign overlord, better one who shares the faith. But offshore is a massive Ethiopian armada storming its way up the Indus River annihilating everything in its path. Although they had no quarrel with the Ethiopians, the Sukkuri answered the call of jihad to wage war on the Ethiopians during the Great Uprising, killing the Emperor Andreyas at Alula in 1599. It is time to return the favor. Arranging that had been one reason why Venkata Raya had delayed his assault until now.
With the Ethiopians raising havoc on the lower Indus, Venkata Raya storms across the Sutlej into the Punjab, Ibrahim continuing to bleed his forward units but unable to halt his progress. When Multan and Lahore both capitulate within a week of each other, Ibrahim decides he has no choice but to sue for peace.
The ensuing peace is harsh, at a stroke annihilating nearly all of Iskandar’s Indian conquests less than a year after he has left this world. The new Ottoman eastern frontier is formed by the Chenab and Indus Rivers, so Ibrahim gets to keep the wastes of Baluchistan, hardly something to cheer his mood. The sliver of the Punjab he can keep is worth somewhat more and he can be grateful to the logistical problems of Venkata Raya to thank for that, plus the Emperor’s fears of discontent in his rear.
Something that lifts his mood more is that Venkata Raya, because of those concerns and so eager to gain a peace and also impressed by the body count piled up by the Old Redoubtables, agrees to compensate Ibrahim with a pile of cash and jewels whose combined worth totals around 3 million hyperpyra. It is a very useful addition to his war chest. It is not such a large concession from Venkata Raya’s perspective. His writ runs from the Vale of Kashmir to Cape Comorin, from Gujarat to Orissa; India has produced many great empires, but none so grand as this.
The Ethiopians too are rewarded for the aid they have rendered to the Empire of Vijayanagar. The valley of the Indus from the mouth up to the city of Hyderabad, created by the Emirs of Sukkur as their southern capital, is ceded to them. Garrisoned and with a naval squadron based at Thatta, it is the first serious Ethiopian possession outside of Africa and one well placed to harass Triune shipping in the Persian Gulf.
The Romans, although at a distance, have been following the Indian situation avidly. The Kephale of Surat is well placed to provide accurate intelligence, having sent three Roman warships to bolster the Ethiopian armada (peace treaty be damned) and 400 men to serve in the Vijayanagari army where they help to take Multan. But as peace is signed, the Romans in Constantinople are understandably distracted.
Empress Helena’s health has been declining steadily for several months. There is some surprise that she manages to make it to January but it is clear the end is near. On March 2 she goes to bed as usual but in the morning her head maid is unable to wake her. Just after 10:00, never regaining consciousness, she breathes her last. She was ninety seven years old, having reigned a grand total of seventy eight of them, the last of the three Drakina sisters to perish.
She took the throne in 1548 on the death of her father Andreas II Drakos. He had ended the Time of Troubles, the effort killing him. She had inherited a realm ravaged from frontier to frontier and restored its industry and prosperity. Her earlier reign, prior to the accession of Demetrios II, is known as the Flowering, a period of major economic and cultural vitality.
In domestic affairs she was a tremendous success. In foreign affairs her record is decidedly more mixed. She and her sisters Theodora and Alexeia forged marriage alliances with most of Europe. On Helena’s death, the progeny or spouses thereof of her and her sisters sit on the thrones of Rhomania, the Holy Roman Empire, Khazaria, Ethiopia, Georgia, Sicily, Prussia, Vlachia, Hungary, and Castile-Portugal. Rhomania’s relations with the kingdoms of Europe has improved greatly as a result, but this triggered an anti-Latin backlash amongst the Roman populace. Her concern for peace meant that the Roman Empire allowed the Ottomans to conquer Persia without Roman opposition and create a far greater eastern problem than had existed prior.
But her greatest concern had not been foreign threats. No, her greatest fear was a return of the nightmare that had plagued her childhood, which had killed her ‘uncle’ Giorgios and her father. Let the three corners of the world in arms stand against the Empire, provided that demon be slain. She had executed her firstborn son to keep that demon at bay. Only time would tell whether she had succeeded.
On March 7 Andreas is formally crowned as Andreas III, Emperor of the Romans. It is 109 years to the day since the death of Andreas Niketas.