Lands of Red and Gold, Act II
- Thread starter Jared
- Start date
This is not a new chapter; that remains on schedule to be posted on 17 February or thereabouts.
In the meantime, I'm catching up on a couple of unanswered question posts in this thread.
If anyone is farming crocodilians, it would be in modern Queensland. So the Nuttana, or possibly the Hunter or one of his successors (assuming he has successors).
I'm still not sure whether Plirism would tolerate being described as a form of Buddhism, or would insist on being described as a successor to Buddhism. (Plirites tend to see themselves as following the complete truth and treat other religions as having been older and possessing only part of the truth). Then again, it might be in the messaging.
What might be a problem is that Plirites would have no problem with replacing the ministers who "advise" the Tenno with others, if there is misfortune. In other words, Plirites would view the Tenno as sacrosanct, but the shogun as eminently replaceable.
So Chinese and Dutch traders can only go directly to Nagasaki, Korean traders via Tsushima, the Ainu via the Matsumae, and the Nuttana can trade at the Ryukyus (basically Okinawa). There is also indirect Chinese trade via the Ryukyus, but they cannot directly go to the Satsuma domain.
So the Nuttana would be restricted to the Ryukyus or, at most, the Satsuma domain. This would give the Satsuma an incentive to convert, but not so much other daimyo.
In the meantime, I'm catching up on a couple of unanswered question posts in this thread.
As was mentioned upthread, the Yadji realm is far too cold to keep crocodilians. They would also have trouble finding them to import anyway.
If anyone is farming crocodilians, it would be in modern Queensland. So the Nuttana, or possibly the Hunter or one of his successors (assuming he has successors).
The Nuttana of this era are not major conquerors (barring a small Pacific island or two). There have been some Plirite-inspired revolts around the world, but probably not in places that Japan would hear much about or care even if they knew (Congxie, New Caledonia, fringes of Dutch South Africa, and a couple of others).
I'm still not sure whether Plirism would tolerate being described as a form of Buddhism, or would insist on being described as a successor to Buddhism. (Plirites tend to see themselves as following the complete truth and treat other religions as having been older and possessing only part of the truth). Then again, it might be in the messaging.
The Nuttana branch of Plirism would tend to view the role of the Tenno as being the essence of harmony, whose conduct is meant to bring balance to his nation. They would not encourage the Tenno to adopt hands-on rulership of the nation - not that this would be a problem in Japan.
What might be a problem is that Plirites would have no problem with replacing the ministers who "advise" the Tenno with others, if there is misfortune. In other words, Plirites would view the Tenno as sacrosanct, but the shogun as eminently replaceable.
Similarly to OTL, the various foreign trades are restricted to specific locations, and they cannot go to other trade locations even if different foreign traders are permitted there.
So Chinese and Dutch traders can only go directly to Nagasaki, Korean traders via Tsushima, the Ainu via the Matsumae, and the Nuttana can trade at the Ryukyus (basically Okinawa). There is also indirect Chinese trade via the Ryukyus, but they cannot directly go to the Satsuma domain.
So the Nuttana would be restricted to the Ryukyus or, at most, the Satsuma domain. This would give the Satsuma an incentive to convert, but not so much other daimyo.
A correction here, the Yadji realm is too cold to keep crocodiles. Alligators (which are crocodilians) are more cold resistant. The Chinese Alligator somewhat and the especially the American Alligator are far more cold tolerant. The northernmost edge of the American Alligator range will see 30 nights below freezing and a not insignificant number of nights at -5C. That would seem to cover most of the Yadji range.
Having said that, importing them from the OTL Southeastern United States would be difficult at this point.
Lands of Red and Gold #113: When Memory Fails
After many delays, the rest of the Hunter sequence is now going to start. The first post is below, and the remaining ones will be published approximately weekly until the sequence is completed.
As a final reminder for those who haven't re/read the timeline for a while, I've posted a summary recap of events so far here and the actual Hunter posts commence from #101 onward.
Lands of Red and Gold #113: When Memory Fails
“To him that tries nothing, everything is impossible.”
- Attributed both to the Hunter and to Pinjarra
* * *
Daluming: once the most populous state on the eastern coast of Aururia, dominated by the people who called themselves the Bungudjimay. A source of spices and home of head-hunters who sought to inter the skulls of favoured warriors behind glass in their great pyramid, the Mound of Memory.
Daluming: where the Closure had been foretold as the time when the Mound of Memory would be filled, the world would end and a new world would begin.
Daluming: where plagues, religious dissent, invasion by the English crusader known as the Prophet, then civil war led to the ravaging of much of its land and collapse in its population.
Daluming: where the former unified state had seen its western dominions fall to rebellion, and its prosperous lowland heartland divided.
Daluming: now separated into a larger rump state which still called itself Daluming, which was an English protectorate, and a smaller state called Ngutti [Yamba] backed by the Nuttana, and where both states had been turned into de facto extraction colonies for the maximum production of spices.
Daluming: where in 1712-13 the dispirited remnants of the once-proud people watched as in a few short months the forces of the strange warlord called the Hunter overwhelmed and conquered the entirety of the western highlands, which Daluming had not managed despite centuries of struggle.
Daluming: where the two states now wondered, with good reason, where the Hunter’s hammer would strike next.
* * *
In 1954, this letter was found preserved in the archives of the English East India Company. Its author, Munginday son of Ilangi, is a known historical figure, a priest of middling to senior importance in the surviving Daluming religious hierarchy. His father Ilangi had been the Father, the most senior priest in the Bungudjimay traditional religion. Munginday’s son Weelungmay would also prove to be even more notable as the composer of the Bareena Uranj (Orange Bible). This letter is undated, but based on its content it is believed to have been composed in 1713. It was written in English, a language in which Munginday was fluent. No other known records refer to the letter, nor is any response known, so it is presumed that events overtook the EIC before they received the letter, or at least before they composed a response.
To Sir John Eyre, Governor of the United Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies, from Munginday son of Ilangi, Bishop of Yuragir [Coffs Harbour] [1] in service to King Wollinibi of Daluming.
His Majesty has commanded me to speak to you of a matter of the gravest importance, and to convey His words to you directly rather than going through your agents in the city or in Madras. His Majesty believes that your agents will not grasp the full gravity of the danger which threatens the Kingdom.
Word had come to us, and doubtless also to you, that the Horse-Men beyond the mountains had been united under one banner. One blood-stained banner carried by a bold warlord whose warriors have proclaimed him as the Great Hunter. This much we had heard years before, but this Great Hunter has become a grave threat both to His Majesty’s dominions, and to the verbenas and peppers [i.e. the key spices] which your Company and country-men value so highly.
The Coral-Men [Kiyungu] have fallen to his banner, where in two great battles he wrenched them from the vassalage of the Nuttana and made them his own. Enemies of his the Coral-Men may have been, but now they march for him.
The Great Hunter has declared that he will conquer the rest of the Coral-Men, but for now he marches south. He has conquered the Mountains of Tin [2], subduing the highlanders who once declared their own great boldness. No more can bird-peppers be grown there or sold to those who desire them. He has not made pronouncement of a strike at Daluming, but it is clear that he will come with his Horse-Men and vassals, unless he is deterred.
His Majesty therefore asks that your Company delivers on its protection, and sends both soldiers and muskets to bolster the defence of Daluming against the Great Hunter...
* * *
Weemiraga's Day, Cycle of Bronze, 24th Year of His Majesty Guwariyan the Second (17 May 1713)
Estates of Gurragang of the Whites [3], near Tapiwal [Robinvale, Victoria]
Kingdom of Tjibarr
The manor house on the family estate was both large and ancient, having been built before the time of Gurragang’s great-grandfather. A two-storey edifice built atop a natural hill – always an important consideration near the flood-prone Nyalananga [River Murray] – its various upstairs rooms offered commanding views of most of the estate. The well-furnished ground floor rooms were numerous enough to host most of the notables of the Whites, back in the days before the Great Dying, when the kingdom was far more populous than today. In the modern time, the manor house had never reached its full capacity for distinguished guests [4] except when more than one faction had been invited here for a convocation, an event which had happened only twice in Gurragang’s lifetime.
Gurragang had many memories of this manor house, but perhaps the strongest were those of his father, Lopitja, sitting in one upstairs room or another, reading or politicking or simply enjoying the view. Perhaps his favourite room had been the same north-facing room where Gurragang now sat. A room which received the sun’s warmth throughout the day, which revealed much of the estate and, in the distance, the blue-green line of the Nyalananga. While Gurragang had never met his grandfather Wemba, his father had often said that Wemba had favoured this room, too.
Alas, his father had now joined his grandfather and more distant ancestors. Lopitja had enjoyed a long, prosperous life even in these uncertain times, surviving plague, war and private civil strife, but time was an enemy which no man could defeat forever. Gurragang now headed the family, its estates, and its place within both the Whites and the Endless Dance.
Grief had been natural and inevitable, with his father’s passing, but in truth Gurragang had regained his composure quickly. His father had been old, and his body decaying visibly over years while his mind remained active. Death had hardly been unexpected in those circumstances, and his father’s life had been long and, on the whole, happy.
No matter his private composure, Gurragang had withdrawn from society for a few months, ostensibly to grieve and honour his father. In truth, his reasons were naught to do with grief, but entirely for preparations and positioning in the Endless Dance. The time in seclusion gave him time to become fully informed of the family’s affairs. He had known some of this as a son, but there was much more to learn. The isolation gave him time to prepare his schemes and to become more familiar with the breadth of his family’s affairs and interests, and learn of its friends and opponents in the Dance. Of course, often the same people were both friends and opponents, depending on the circumstances.
Withdrawing from society also meant that people would think he was more sensitive and easily discomposed than he was in truth. An easy myth to believe, particularly in one who was still young and inexperienced in the Dance. Building such a reputation would be something he could play on when it suited him in future. Let people believe him too distressed to appreciate the subtleties of the Dance, and they would underestimate him.
The time in isolation, though, had been valuable. He could remember his father sitting in this room, and imagine his grandfather doing the same, looking out over the core of his family’s estates, the foundation of their wealth. That would let them see, as he had seen, much of what was important.
In his grandfather’s time, he could imagine how there were endless fields of wealth-trees [wattles] and yams, a few kunduri bushes, and then ponds and marshes maintained by water from the distant Nyalananga. The waterworks were the most important, supplying fish, reeds and other water plants for sale throughout much of the kingdom. Perhaps a few cypress pines would have been visible from the window too, regularly harvested for their resin.
Now... the staple crops were much the same, wealth-trees and yams, and in this time of year the vines were dying back leaving only the underground yam tubers. His grandfather would not have seen the tomatoes, though, since they were more newly-come to the kingdom. Gurragang would only imagine how much poorer cooking would have been without tomatoes on hand, as indeed it was poor enough now in the seasons when tomatoes were not available.
Other things, though, had changed much more. Where kunduri-bushes would have been few, now they dominated much of the view, with row after row of plants carefully pruned and maintained. Kunduri provided the single largest source of revenue from his estates, as indeed it did for most Tjibarri estates where it was capable of growing. The Raw Men and Nuttana all bought it eagerly, whether raw or, increasingly, flavoured and processed into snuff or cigars or chewable form.
His father, though, had realised that for all that the Raw Men and Nuttana came for kunduri, other sources of wealth were necessary. Other lands now grew kunduri too, albeit not the best forms. Better to have several sources of wealth than to rely on one. In this time, though, that could no longer come from waterworks or cypress pines. The private ponds and marshes which his father and grandfather would have seen were vanished from the estate; people simply did not care enough for fish or reeds to make them worth the selling. Nor was new-come harakeke [New Zealand flax] the best use of land or the workers to maintain the waterworks, not when so many estates could produce it. Even wineegal, which had once been a premium condiment sold across the Five Rivers, no longer commanded prices high enough for his father to bother producing it from local fish [5].
Likewise, resins were no longer harvested here. Unlike waterworks, resins still could provide wealth. Resins could be sold or used to make into incense, perfumes and other products which still found buyers within the Five Rivers, or Durigal, or even sometimes to Raw Men and Nuttana.
His father, though, had decided that resins and their products did not yield the most reliable wealth, and so the cypress pines had been sold for timber. What he had chosen instead could now be seen from the windows. Some of the fields were now covered in medium-sized oil-trees [eucalypts], smaller than the cypress pines they replaced, and with silvery-blue leaves and russet-brown bark. Silver-strings, as they were known [6]. Other fields, particularly closer to the Nyalananga, were covered with smaller shrubs, growing to about the height of a man, with green-blue leaves and stems coloured dark purple. Indigo, as both the shrub and its products were known [7].
What his father had realised, early after assuming leadership of the family, was that the Raw Men and Nuttana would pay very well for the right kind of dyes. The Nuttana’s predecessors had been trading dyes for centuries, including some produced in the Five Rivers, and it seemed that the Raw Men had similar interests.
Many dyes were commonplace, of course, but some were not. Those which produced rare, vivid and long-lasting colours were highly sought after, and very lucrative for those who could produce them. Better still, all of the work done to turn the dyes into their valuable form could be done on the estates. In contrast, most of the value in resins came from those who turned them into incense or perfumes, which meant more wealth to the manufacturer and less to the grower. Dyes needed processing too, but the family could perform that here, and even manage the processing for the crops of neighbouring smaller farmers, for a moderate fee.
This was why now, when he looked across the northern part of his family estates, he could see indigo plants clustered along the Nyalananga, replacing the marshes and ponds which had been there in years gone by. Indigo produced one of the strongest, most long-lasting of all dyes, and had been valued in the Five Rivers and beyond for centuries. His lands were dry enough to be suitable for its cultivation, and close enough to the great river that water was easily obtained. The indigo plant was very sensitive to rainfall; it needed the right amount of water, but no more, to produce the best colours. In lands where the rainfall was too high, then the plant produced much weaker shades. His lands had the benefit of receiving only moderate rainfall, sufficient to sustain the plants for most of the year, but easily irrigated from the river if more water was needed.
Better yet, indigo dye from the Five Rivers – and, admittedly, elsewhere in Aururia – offered a product which foreign buyers could not easily replicate. Varieties of the indigo plant grew overseas, by all reports, particularly in Bharat [India], but they were not as flexible in their use. Foreign indigo produced the same strong blue which Tjibarri indigo produced, but that was essentially its only colour.
In contrast, Tjibarri indigo was versatile, since it could produce deep blue, brilliant yellow or vivid green depending on the leaves chosen and the mordant [8] used. Raw Men traders desired each of those hues, but particularly the green, since they had few green dyes of their own, and none which could produce the same brilliant hue. Tjibarri indigo produced a brilliant green simply by using alum as a mordant, while Raw Men processes for producing green dye were more laborious and produced an inferior colour [9].
Knowledge of the alum process needed to produce a good green had been traded widely to the Raw Men whenever Tjibarri indigo was sold, since it made the dye more valuable than that produced in Bharat or elsewhere. Other aspects of dye-making, of course, were protected much more securely.
The silver-strings growing on his estates yielded a dye which was if anything more valuable. Their leaves could be used to produce several vivid hues of orange and red. Within Tjibarr, the electric orange hues had been the most preferred, since those were vivid hues but which did not mark allegiance to any faction. For the Raw Men, the brilliant, deep reds were incredibly sought-after, and they would pay truly remarkable prices to obtain them [10].
Apparently the Pannidj [Spanish] produced their version of bright, vivid red from some kind of plant seeds in Mexico [11], but with limited supply and at a high price. The crimson dyes produced from silver-strings were of equal quality, and if not quite as concentrated by weight, still much cheaper to produce. This meant that crimson dye could be sold to the Raw Men and Nuttana both, for excellent wealth, while still being cheaper than the Pannidj product [12].
Best of all, the silver-string’s crimson dye was not something which foreigners could easily match. The silver-string grew only in the Five Rivers, and needed careful care, the proper location, and correct processing to yield crimson dye. No outsider could match it, giving Tjibarr – and, grudgingly, their allies elsewhere in the Five Rivers – a monopoly over its production [13]. All in all, dyes and kunduri together meant that his family’s wealth was significantly greater than it had been in the days of his grandfather.
A discreet tapping at the door brought Gurragang out of his contemplation. When he gave permission, a servant entered and said, “Two White notables have arrived and asked to speak with you. Norang Dadi and Botjibilla.”
Those were indeed two of the most notable members of the Whites. Norang Dadi was the greatest single land controller [14] amongst the Whites, and while he did not speak absolutely for the faction, his voice carried the greatest individual weight. Botjibilla was a Whites-aligned Maranoa [chemist, approximately] who was renowned at the Panipat, and who also carried out private work to support the Whites. Another influential figure.
Ah well, I should have known better than to think I could sidestep the Dance entirely. He could contemplate and plan his next steps in the Dance, but others were not waiting for him to finish. “Bring them here.”
Soon enough they both arrived; Norang Dadi tall and softly-spoken, while Botjibilla was short and booming.
Botjibilla declaimed, “Enough of your solitary musings. The football season is almost upon us. Will you be attending?”
“I am still in withdrawal in my father’s honour... but I can speak to you now about matters of importance, if you wish.”
“Football is a matter of importance,” Botjibilla said.
“Football involves many matters, some of them important, some not,” Gurragang said.
“A significant distinction,” Norang Dadi said, in his quiet manner. “And speaking of matters of consequence, did your father have time to speak to you before his passing?”
“My father spoke of many things, naturally.” Gurragang paused while he considered how best to answer the question that was meant, not the one that was asked. “My father emphasised the need for Tjibarr to appear weaker than it truly is.”
That should be sufficient for those who already understood. He could not be sure of what they had learned, particularly Botjibilla. If they did not already know, then his response would not be too much of a hint.
“Excellent,” Norang Dadi said, his smile making it clear that he, at least, understood the reply.
His father had told Gurragang much more than that, naturally. Lopitja had described how it was important to appear less important and less prosperous than one was in truth, and how this applied both to Gurragang and the kingdom. Tjibarr needed to appear weaker than it truly was... until the moment was right.
Botjibilla said, “Football can wait, then. You will have heard, even in your musings, of this Hunter and his latest conquest.”
“Indeed.” Gurragang shook his head. Horses. His family had been the first in Tjibarr to possess horses, captured along with Pieter Nuyts. They still raised some, since it was cheaper than buying them from others; empty pastures had been in abundance since the Great Dying. But his family had not bred too many horses, since with competition from both other breeders and imported animals, horse-breeding was not much of a wealth-raiser. Now, with the Hunter and his cavalry conquering first the Kiyungu then the Gemlands, he wondered if that had been a mistake.
“What do you make of this, then?”
“I doubt even the most subtle Dancers expected someone like the Hunter to join the game,” Gurragang said.
“Is he certain to invade the Five Rivers?” Botjibilla asked.
“If he rules for long enough, inevitably,” Gurragang said. “He appears engrossed with the Sunrise Lands [east coast] for now, save for raids, but that could change at any time.”
“So, then, can this Hunter be defeated?” Norang Dadi asked. “He seems a master of warfare.”
Gurragang said, “He is a man of courage and organisation, without doubt. I also hear from the battles with the Kiyungu, that he likes to take the vanguard in battle. Good for morale, but risks his own death. Perhaps that can be taken advantage of.”
“A point to consider, but what if no such opportunity arises?”
Gurragang said, “Then I do not know. We can challenge him far more than any of the foes he has faced so far, and while his cavalry are excellent, they are few. But he is clearly not a fool. If he can unite the other Sunrise Landers under his banner as well as he is doing with the Kiyungu, we may be hard-pressed.”
Botjibilla said, “There are too many unknowns. Is his success due more to skill, or more to luck? Will our alliance with the eastern kingdoms hold, or will one of them break ranks or seek to take advantage of an invasion? Worst of all, what happens if the Yadji decide to renew war?”
Norang Dadi said, “With the alliance with the eastern kingdoms, most had thought that we were freed from fighting multiple enemies at once.”
Botjibilla said, “At least the Yadji have a new enemy on their east.”
“A weak one,” Gurragang said. “If we are too busy fighting in the north, then Tiyanjara [15] will fall.”
“Unless the Drendj [French] can support them.”
“Worthless to us even if they manage it,” Gurragang said. “If the Kurnawal are fully dependent on the Drendj, and not on aid and cooperation from us, they become useless in maintaining the balance.”
“Much to consider, then,” Norang Dadi said. “Thinking with one eye to what is to come, even if we halt the Hunter, do you think his empire will outlast him?”
Gurragang said, “Nothing is certain, but it may well endure. He seems to be bringing the Kiyungu quickly behind him. If he dies soon, perhaps his empire will fall apart into squabbling successors, but it would not do to rely on it. Best to assume that we will have a new enemy in the north from this time forward.”
“If that becomes true, then we will need to find someone else to balance this Hunter’s empire,” Norang Dadi said.
“If his empire endures long enough to need balancing, then the remaining Kiyungu cities will fall,” Botjibilla said. “That leaves only the Raw Men and the Nuttana.”
“We want nothing which will make the Raw Men’s grip stronger,” Gurragang said.
“Does that mean we should aid the Nuttana?” Botjabilla asked. “That has never been in our interest. They are merchants which we need to balance with the Raw Men to keep them coming for kunduri and other goods. The Dance becomes more complicated if the Nuttana are both merchants and allies.”
“A dance which is too simple would not be the Dance,” Norang Dadi said.
* * *
[1] There was, in fact, no such office as bishop in traditional Bungudjimay religion, nor was there any such office under the Daluming protectorate. Some Bungudjimay had converted to Christianity, but they were a minority and not represented by any official appointments. Munginday had apparently chosen to use a Christian clerical title rather than his own, and rather exaggerated his importance while doing so.
[2] The highlands west of Daluming. Also known as the Northern Pepperlands and the Southern Gemlands. Historically they are called the New England tablelands.
[3] Gurragang son of Lopitja son of Wemba, and so grandson of Wemba of the Whites, one of the most influential Gunnagal of the seventeenth century.
[4] Distinguished guests is not quite the same thing as hereditary aristocrats, since in Tjibarr the line of what qualifies as aristocracy is often blurry, and people can both rise and fall in status. Distinguished guest means those whose current status is that of an effective aristocrat, whether through inherited wealth, acquired wealth, or natural talent in some field which has been rewarded.
[5] Wineegal is the general Gunnagal name for a variety of sauces made from fermented fish, sometimes using the entire fish, or sometimes using only the intestines. The fish or fish products are mixed with brine, pressed, and allowed to slowly ferment, with longer fermentation times producing more intense and richer flavours. The finished product adds a savoury / umami flavour to foods.
Wineegal production is similar to fish sauces used in East Asian and Southeast Asian cooking today, and to garum and liquamen which was used in classical Greco-Roman cuisine. The pre-Houtmanian Five Rivers used fish from artificial wetlands to produce a variety of kinds of wineegal, with different flavours depending on the type of processing and other spices which were sometimes added during production. This made a useful cash crop for estates which could export it elsewhere within the Five Rivers, and more rarely to the Island or Durigal.
The export market for wineegal collapsed after European contact due to a combination of declining population and shifting tastes. The introduction of chilli peppers meant that these have become desired flavours instead, and are capable of being dried for storage and added to foods in a variety of forms, more efficiently and cheaply than wineegal. Wineegal is still produced, but in smaller volumes and largely for local consumption around estates, rather than favoured varieties to be exported around the Five Rivers.
[6] This is the tree which is historically called Eucalyptus cinerea, and is called by various names such as silver-leaf stringybark or silver dollar tree.
[7] This is Australian indigo (Indigofera australis), a relative of other plants which have historically been cultivated to produce indigo dye such as I. tinctoria in Asia and I. suffruticosa in South and Central America. Like them, Australian indigo can be used to produce dyes.
[8] Mordants are substances used alongside dyes that can help to fix a dye to a fabric so that it lasts longer, and in some cases change the colour of the finished product. Many dyes from native Aururian plants can produce a wide variety of colours depending on the preparation and mordant used, and millennia of experimentation with this is one reason their dye-making (and to a lesser degree, their applied chemistry) is relatively advanced.
[9] Green dyes have historically been rare in much of the world. European dye-makers preferred method of producing strong greens relied on dying first with indigo dye then with a yellow dye of another colour (or sometimes using the indigo dye second). This often proved unsatisfactory since indigo dye tends to produce longer-lasting colours, and as the yellow dye faded, the result was cloth which became bluer over time. Using Aururian indigo is superior because it can be done in one step (i.e. less labour-intensive), and produces a green which is both more brilliant and lasts longer than composite green.
[10] Natural red dyes are relatively common around much of the world, such as from plants like madder (Rubia tinctorum and other plants in the Rubia genus) or lichens. However, strong crimsons and scarlets were harder to obtain. In Europe, they were obtained from kermes, a product extracted from the dried eggs of an insect which laid them in oaks. Their rarity and strength of colour meant that strong reds became a colour associated with wealth and power, such as the scarlet of cardinals in the Catholic Church.
After the Spanish conquest of Mexico, they obtained access to cochineal, a strong, bright red dye extracted from insects which nest in some types of cactus. Cochineal dyes were stronger than kermes dyes, therefore requiring less dye per batch, and largely replaced kermes dyes in Europe, and were exported even further afield, as far as India. Cochineal insects were difficult to farm in plantations, and the dye thus remained rare and expensive; in total value it was Spanish Mexico’s second most valuable export after silver, and per weight was sometimes worth as much as gold. Cochineal insects were fragile in their life cycle and fed only on specific cacti, which permitted Spain to retain a lucrative monopoly in cochineal dye for three centuries.
[11] Cochineal comes from insects, not plant seeds, but this was a common misconception even in Europe in this era, since the Spanish tried to keep all aspects of cochineal production a secret, and largely succeeded until the nineteenth century.
[12] The crimson dye obtained from Eucalyptus cinerea is not quite as concentrated per unit of weight as cochineal, but the significantly cheaper price and comparable quality means that overall it is preferred by textile producers in both Europe and India.
[13] In fact, wild Eucalyptus cinerea is somewhat more widespread, occurring in parts of the continental divide and some coastal regions of historical New South Wales, and it is only naturally found in a small part of the Five Rivers. Nevertheless, the Five Rivers dye production is not easily duplicated. The trees grown in the Five Rivers are semi-domesticated and selected for the right hue of dye. To produce the desired carmine, they can only be grown in certain soil conditions – which limits its production even within the Five Rivers – need to be kept pruned, and the leaves dried using careful methods to produce the sought-after carmine. The Tjibarri have mastered this, and to a lesser degree so have the other Five Rivers kingdoms. Simply stealing some trees would not be sufficient to duplicate their carmine dye production; it would also require good intelligence of dye production and luck or skill in selecting the right soils.
[14] Land controller is approximately a noble. Under Tjibarri law, land is only controlled by a noble, since it belongs to the monarch, and land can be stripped from its current owners in the many machinations of the Endless Dance.
[15] Tiyanjara is the name which the mainland Kurnawal give to their state, in the former eastern regions of Durigal (the Yadji Empire). The Kurnawal had been amongst the most persistent rebels against Yadji imperial authority, and in 1674 established de facto independence. They have since functioned as a sovereign state, although the Yadji Regents have never officially recognised them as such, and continue to claim that entire region (and, indeed, claim some lands further east which Tiyanjara does not control either).
* * *
Thoughts?
As a final reminder for those who haven't re/read the timeline for a while, I've posted a summary recap of events so far here and the actual Hunter posts commence from #101 onward.
Lands of Red and Gold #113: When Memory Fails
“To him that tries nothing, everything is impossible.”
- Attributed both to the Hunter and to Pinjarra
* * *
Daluming: once the most populous state on the eastern coast of Aururia, dominated by the people who called themselves the Bungudjimay. A source of spices and home of head-hunters who sought to inter the skulls of favoured warriors behind glass in their great pyramid, the Mound of Memory.
Daluming: where the Closure had been foretold as the time when the Mound of Memory would be filled, the world would end and a new world would begin.
Daluming: where plagues, religious dissent, invasion by the English crusader known as the Prophet, then civil war led to the ravaging of much of its land and collapse in its population.
Daluming: where the former unified state had seen its western dominions fall to rebellion, and its prosperous lowland heartland divided.
Daluming: now separated into a larger rump state which still called itself Daluming, which was an English protectorate, and a smaller state called Ngutti [Yamba] backed by the Nuttana, and where both states had been turned into de facto extraction colonies for the maximum production of spices.
Daluming: where in 1712-13 the dispirited remnants of the once-proud people watched as in a few short months the forces of the strange warlord called the Hunter overwhelmed and conquered the entirety of the western highlands, which Daluming had not managed despite centuries of struggle.
Daluming: where the two states now wondered, with good reason, where the Hunter’s hammer would strike next.
* * *
In 1954, this letter was found preserved in the archives of the English East India Company. Its author, Munginday son of Ilangi, is a known historical figure, a priest of middling to senior importance in the surviving Daluming religious hierarchy. His father Ilangi had been the Father, the most senior priest in the Bungudjimay traditional religion. Munginday’s son Weelungmay would also prove to be even more notable as the composer of the Bareena Uranj (Orange Bible). This letter is undated, but based on its content it is believed to have been composed in 1713. It was written in English, a language in which Munginday was fluent. No other known records refer to the letter, nor is any response known, so it is presumed that events overtook the EIC before they received the letter, or at least before they composed a response.
To Sir John Eyre, Governor of the United Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies, from Munginday son of Ilangi, Bishop of Yuragir [Coffs Harbour] [1] in service to King Wollinibi of Daluming.
His Majesty has commanded me to speak to you of a matter of the gravest importance, and to convey His words to you directly rather than going through your agents in the city or in Madras. His Majesty believes that your agents will not grasp the full gravity of the danger which threatens the Kingdom.
Word had come to us, and doubtless also to you, that the Horse-Men beyond the mountains had been united under one banner. One blood-stained banner carried by a bold warlord whose warriors have proclaimed him as the Great Hunter. This much we had heard years before, but this Great Hunter has become a grave threat both to His Majesty’s dominions, and to the verbenas and peppers [i.e. the key spices] which your Company and country-men value so highly.
The Coral-Men [Kiyungu] have fallen to his banner, where in two great battles he wrenched them from the vassalage of the Nuttana and made them his own. Enemies of his the Coral-Men may have been, but now they march for him.
The Great Hunter has declared that he will conquer the rest of the Coral-Men, but for now he marches south. He has conquered the Mountains of Tin [2], subduing the highlanders who once declared their own great boldness. No more can bird-peppers be grown there or sold to those who desire them. He has not made pronouncement of a strike at Daluming, but it is clear that he will come with his Horse-Men and vassals, unless he is deterred.
His Majesty therefore asks that your Company delivers on its protection, and sends both soldiers and muskets to bolster the defence of Daluming against the Great Hunter...
* * *
Weemiraga's Day, Cycle of Bronze, 24th Year of His Majesty Guwariyan the Second (17 May 1713)
Estates of Gurragang of the Whites [3], near Tapiwal [Robinvale, Victoria]
Kingdom of Tjibarr
The manor house on the family estate was both large and ancient, having been built before the time of Gurragang’s great-grandfather. A two-storey edifice built atop a natural hill – always an important consideration near the flood-prone Nyalananga [River Murray] – its various upstairs rooms offered commanding views of most of the estate. The well-furnished ground floor rooms were numerous enough to host most of the notables of the Whites, back in the days before the Great Dying, when the kingdom was far more populous than today. In the modern time, the manor house had never reached its full capacity for distinguished guests [4] except when more than one faction had been invited here for a convocation, an event which had happened only twice in Gurragang’s lifetime.
Gurragang had many memories of this manor house, but perhaps the strongest were those of his father, Lopitja, sitting in one upstairs room or another, reading or politicking or simply enjoying the view. Perhaps his favourite room had been the same north-facing room where Gurragang now sat. A room which received the sun’s warmth throughout the day, which revealed much of the estate and, in the distance, the blue-green line of the Nyalananga. While Gurragang had never met his grandfather Wemba, his father had often said that Wemba had favoured this room, too.
Alas, his father had now joined his grandfather and more distant ancestors. Lopitja had enjoyed a long, prosperous life even in these uncertain times, surviving plague, war and private civil strife, but time was an enemy which no man could defeat forever. Gurragang now headed the family, its estates, and its place within both the Whites and the Endless Dance.
Grief had been natural and inevitable, with his father’s passing, but in truth Gurragang had regained his composure quickly. His father had been old, and his body decaying visibly over years while his mind remained active. Death had hardly been unexpected in those circumstances, and his father’s life had been long and, on the whole, happy.
No matter his private composure, Gurragang had withdrawn from society for a few months, ostensibly to grieve and honour his father. In truth, his reasons were naught to do with grief, but entirely for preparations and positioning in the Endless Dance. The time in seclusion gave him time to become fully informed of the family’s affairs. He had known some of this as a son, but there was much more to learn. The isolation gave him time to prepare his schemes and to become more familiar with the breadth of his family’s affairs and interests, and learn of its friends and opponents in the Dance. Of course, often the same people were both friends and opponents, depending on the circumstances.
Withdrawing from society also meant that people would think he was more sensitive and easily discomposed than he was in truth. An easy myth to believe, particularly in one who was still young and inexperienced in the Dance. Building such a reputation would be something he could play on when it suited him in future. Let people believe him too distressed to appreciate the subtleties of the Dance, and they would underestimate him.
The time in isolation, though, had been valuable. He could remember his father sitting in this room, and imagine his grandfather doing the same, looking out over the core of his family’s estates, the foundation of their wealth. That would let them see, as he had seen, much of what was important.
In his grandfather’s time, he could imagine how there were endless fields of wealth-trees [wattles] and yams, a few kunduri bushes, and then ponds and marshes maintained by water from the distant Nyalananga. The waterworks were the most important, supplying fish, reeds and other water plants for sale throughout much of the kingdom. Perhaps a few cypress pines would have been visible from the window too, regularly harvested for their resin.
Now... the staple crops were much the same, wealth-trees and yams, and in this time of year the vines were dying back leaving only the underground yam tubers. His grandfather would not have seen the tomatoes, though, since they were more newly-come to the kingdom. Gurragang would only imagine how much poorer cooking would have been without tomatoes on hand, as indeed it was poor enough now in the seasons when tomatoes were not available.
Other things, though, had changed much more. Where kunduri-bushes would have been few, now they dominated much of the view, with row after row of plants carefully pruned and maintained. Kunduri provided the single largest source of revenue from his estates, as indeed it did for most Tjibarri estates where it was capable of growing. The Raw Men and Nuttana all bought it eagerly, whether raw or, increasingly, flavoured and processed into snuff or cigars or chewable form.
His father, though, had realised that for all that the Raw Men and Nuttana came for kunduri, other sources of wealth were necessary. Other lands now grew kunduri too, albeit not the best forms. Better to have several sources of wealth than to rely on one. In this time, though, that could no longer come from waterworks or cypress pines. The private ponds and marshes which his father and grandfather would have seen were vanished from the estate; people simply did not care enough for fish or reeds to make them worth the selling. Nor was new-come harakeke [New Zealand flax] the best use of land or the workers to maintain the waterworks, not when so many estates could produce it. Even wineegal, which had once been a premium condiment sold across the Five Rivers, no longer commanded prices high enough for his father to bother producing it from local fish [5].
Likewise, resins were no longer harvested here. Unlike waterworks, resins still could provide wealth. Resins could be sold or used to make into incense, perfumes and other products which still found buyers within the Five Rivers, or Durigal, or even sometimes to Raw Men and Nuttana.
His father, though, had decided that resins and their products did not yield the most reliable wealth, and so the cypress pines had been sold for timber. What he had chosen instead could now be seen from the windows. Some of the fields were now covered in medium-sized oil-trees [eucalypts], smaller than the cypress pines they replaced, and with silvery-blue leaves and russet-brown bark. Silver-strings, as they were known [6]. Other fields, particularly closer to the Nyalananga, were covered with smaller shrubs, growing to about the height of a man, with green-blue leaves and stems coloured dark purple. Indigo, as both the shrub and its products were known [7].
What his father had realised, early after assuming leadership of the family, was that the Raw Men and Nuttana would pay very well for the right kind of dyes. The Nuttana’s predecessors had been trading dyes for centuries, including some produced in the Five Rivers, and it seemed that the Raw Men had similar interests.
Many dyes were commonplace, of course, but some were not. Those which produced rare, vivid and long-lasting colours were highly sought after, and very lucrative for those who could produce them. Better still, all of the work done to turn the dyes into their valuable form could be done on the estates. In contrast, most of the value in resins came from those who turned them into incense or perfumes, which meant more wealth to the manufacturer and less to the grower. Dyes needed processing too, but the family could perform that here, and even manage the processing for the crops of neighbouring smaller farmers, for a moderate fee.
This was why now, when he looked across the northern part of his family estates, he could see indigo plants clustered along the Nyalananga, replacing the marshes and ponds which had been there in years gone by. Indigo produced one of the strongest, most long-lasting of all dyes, and had been valued in the Five Rivers and beyond for centuries. His lands were dry enough to be suitable for its cultivation, and close enough to the great river that water was easily obtained. The indigo plant was very sensitive to rainfall; it needed the right amount of water, but no more, to produce the best colours. In lands where the rainfall was too high, then the plant produced much weaker shades. His lands had the benefit of receiving only moderate rainfall, sufficient to sustain the plants for most of the year, but easily irrigated from the river if more water was needed.
Better yet, indigo dye from the Five Rivers – and, admittedly, elsewhere in Aururia – offered a product which foreign buyers could not easily replicate. Varieties of the indigo plant grew overseas, by all reports, particularly in Bharat [India], but they were not as flexible in their use. Foreign indigo produced the same strong blue which Tjibarri indigo produced, but that was essentially its only colour.
In contrast, Tjibarri indigo was versatile, since it could produce deep blue, brilliant yellow or vivid green depending on the leaves chosen and the mordant [8] used. Raw Men traders desired each of those hues, but particularly the green, since they had few green dyes of their own, and none which could produce the same brilliant hue. Tjibarri indigo produced a brilliant green simply by using alum as a mordant, while Raw Men processes for producing green dye were more laborious and produced an inferior colour [9].
Knowledge of the alum process needed to produce a good green had been traded widely to the Raw Men whenever Tjibarri indigo was sold, since it made the dye more valuable than that produced in Bharat or elsewhere. Other aspects of dye-making, of course, were protected much more securely.
The silver-strings growing on his estates yielded a dye which was if anything more valuable. Their leaves could be used to produce several vivid hues of orange and red. Within Tjibarr, the electric orange hues had been the most preferred, since those were vivid hues but which did not mark allegiance to any faction. For the Raw Men, the brilliant, deep reds were incredibly sought-after, and they would pay truly remarkable prices to obtain them [10].
Apparently the Pannidj [Spanish] produced their version of bright, vivid red from some kind of plant seeds in Mexico [11], but with limited supply and at a high price. The crimson dyes produced from silver-strings were of equal quality, and if not quite as concentrated by weight, still much cheaper to produce. This meant that crimson dye could be sold to the Raw Men and Nuttana both, for excellent wealth, while still being cheaper than the Pannidj product [12].
Best of all, the silver-string’s crimson dye was not something which foreigners could easily match. The silver-string grew only in the Five Rivers, and needed careful care, the proper location, and correct processing to yield crimson dye. No outsider could match it, giving Tjibarr – and, grudgingly, their allies elsewhere in the Five Rivers – a monopoly over its production [13]. All in all, dyes and kunduri together meant that his family’s wealth was significantly greater than it had been in the days of his grandfather.
A discreet tapping at the door brought Gurragang out of his contemplation. When he gave permission, a servant entered and said, “Two White notables have arrived and asked to speak with you. Norang Dadi and Botjibilla.”
Those were indeed two of the most notable members of the Whites. Norang Dadi was the greatest single land controller [14] amongst the Whites, and while he did not speak absolutely for the faction, his voice carried the greatest individual weight. Botjibilla was a Whites-aligned Maranoa [chemist, approximately] who was renowned at the Panipat, and who also carried out private work to support the Whites. Another influential figure.
Ah well, I should have known better than to think I could sidestep the Dance entirely. He could contemplate and plan his next steps in the Dance, but others were not waiting for him to finish. “Bring them here.”
Soon enough they both arrived; Norang Dadi tall and softly-spoken, while Botjibilla was short and booming.
Botjibilla declaimed, “Enough of your solitary musings. The football season is almost upon us. Will you be attending?”
“I am still in withdrawal in my father’s honour... but I can speak to you now about matters of importance, if you wish.”
“Football is a matter of importance,” Botjibilla said.
“Football involves many matters, some of them important, some not,” Gurragang said.
“A significant distinction,” Norang Dadi said, in his quiet manner. “And speaking of matters of consequence, did your father have time to speak to you before his passing?”
“My father spoke of many things, naturally.” Gurragang paused while he considered how best to answer the question that was meant, not the one that was asked. “My father emphasised the need for Tjibarr to appear weaker than it truly is.”
That should be sufficient for those who already understood. He could not be sure of what they had learned, particularly Botjibilla. If they did not already know, then his response would not be too much of a hint.
“Excellent,” Norang Dadi said, his smile making it clear that he, at least, understood the reply.
His father had told Gurragang much more than that, naturally. Lopitja had described how it was important to appear less important and less prosperous than one was in truth, and how this applied both to Gurragang and the kingdom. Tjibarr needed to appear weaker than it truly was... until the moment was right.
Botjibilla said, “Football can wait, then. You will have heard, even in your musings, of this Hunter and his latest conquest.”
“Indeed.” Gurragang shook his head. Horses. His family had been the first in Tjibarr to possess horses, captured along with Pieter Nuyts. They still raised some, since it was cheaper than buying them from others; empty pastures had been in abundance since the Great Dying. But his family had not bred too many horses, since with competition from both other breeders and imported animals, horse-breeding was not much of a wealth-raiser. Now, with the Hunter and his cavalry conquering first the Kiyungu then the Gemlands, he wondered if that had been a mistake.
“What do you make of this, then?”
“I doubt even the most subtle Dancers expected someone like the Hunter to join the game,” Gurragang said.
“Is he certain to invade the Five Rivers?” Botjibilla asked.
“If he rules for long enough, inevitably,” Gurragang said. “He appears engrossed with the Sunrise Lands [east coast] for now, save for raids, but that could change at any time.”
“So, then, can this Hunter be defeated?” Norang Dadi asked. “He seems a master of warfare.”
Gurragang said, “He is a man of courage and organisation, without doubt. I also hear from the battles with the Kiyungu, that he likes to take the vanguard in battle. Good for morale, but risks his own death. Perhaps that can be taken advantage of.”
“A point to consider, but what if no such opportunity arises?”
Gurragang said, “Then I do not know. We can challenge him far more than any of the foes he has faced so far, and while his cavalry are excellent, they are few. But he is clearly not a fool. If he can unite the other Sunrise Landers under his banner as well as he is doing with the Kiyungu, we may be hard-pressed.”
Botjibilla said, “There are too many unknowns. Is his success due more to skill, or more to luck? Will our alliance with the eastern kingdoms hold, or will one of them break ranks or seek to take advantage of an invasion? Worst of all, what happens if the Yadji decide to renew war?”
Norang Dadi said, “With the alliance with the eastern kingdoms, most had thought that we were freed from fighting multiple enemies at once.”
Botjibilla said, “At least the Yadji have a new enemy on their east.”
“A weak one,” Gurragang said. “If we are too busy fighting in the north, then Tiyanjara [15] will fall.”
“Unless the Drendj [French] can support them.”
“Worthless to us even if they manage it,” Gurragang said. “If the Kurnawal are fully dependent on the Drendj, and not on aid and cooperation from us, they become useless in maintaining the balance.”
“Much to consider, then,” Norang Dadi said. “Thinking with one eye to what is to come, even if we halt the Hunter, do you think his empire will outlast him?”
Gurragang said, “Nothing is certain, but it may well endure. He seems to be bringing the Kiyungu quickly behind him. If he dies soon, perhaps his empire will fall apart into squabbling successors, but it would not do to rely on it. Best to assume that we will have a new enemy in the north from this time forward.”
“If that becomes true, then we will need to find someone else to balance this Hunter’s empire,” Norang Dadi said.
“If his empire endures long enough to need balancing, then the remaining Kiyungu cities will fall,” Botjibilla said. “That leaves only the Raw Men and the Nuttana.”
“We want nothing which will make the Raw Men’s grip stronger,” Gurragang said.
“Does that mean we should aid the Nuttana?” Botjabilla asked. “That has never been in our interest. They are merchants which we need to balance with the Raw Men to keep them coming for kunduri and other goods. The Dance becomes more complicated if the Nuttana are both merchants and allies.”
“A dance which is too simple would not be the Dance,” Norang Dadi said.
* * *
[1] There was, in fact, no such office as bishop in traditional Bungudjimay religion, nor was there any such office under the Daluming protectorate. Some Bungudjimay had converted to Christianity, but they were a minority and not represented by any official appointments. Munginday had apparently chosen to use a Christian clerical title rather than his own, and rather exaggerated his importance while doing so.
[2] The highlands west of Daluming. Also known as the Northern Pepperlands and the Southern Gemlands. Historically they are called the New England tablelands.
[3] Gurragang son of Lopitja son of Wemba, and so grandson of Wemba of the Whites, one of the most influential Gunnagal of the seventeenth century.
[4] Distinguished guests is not quite the same thing as hereditary aristocrats, since in Tjibarr the line of what qualifies as aristocracy is often blurry, and people can both rise and fall in status. Distinguished guest means those whose current status is that of an effective aristocrat, whether through inherited wealth, acquired wealth, or natural talent in some field which has been rewarded.
[5] Wineegal is the general Gunnagal name for a variety of sauces made from fermented fish, sometimes using the entire fish, or sometimes using only the intestines. The fish or fish products are mixed with brine, pressed, and allowed to slowly ferment, with longer fermentation times producing more intense and richer flavours. The finished product adds a savoury / umami flavour to foods.
Wineegal production is similar to fish sauces used in East Asian and Southeast Asian cooking today, and to garum and liquamen which was used in classical Greco-Roman cuisine. The pre-Houtmanian Five Rivers used fish from artificial wetlands to produce a variety of kinds of wineegal, with different flavours depending on the type of processing and other spices which were sometimes added during production. This made a useful cash crop for estates which could export it elsewhere within the Five Rivers, and more rarely to the Island or Durigal.
The export market for wineegal collapsed after European contact due to a combination of declining population and shifting tastes. The introduction of chilli peppers meant that these have become desired flavours instead, and are capable of being dried for storage and added to foods in a variety of forms, more efficiently and cheaply than wineegal. Wineegal is still produced, but in smaller volumes and largely for local consumption around estates, rather than favoured varieties to be exported around the Five Rivers.
[6] This is the tree which is historically called Eucalyptus cinerea, and is called by various names such as silver-leaf stringybark or silver dollar tree.
[7] This is Australian indigo (Indigofera australis), a relative of other plants which have historically been cultivated to produce indigo dye such as I. tinctoria in Asia and I. suffruticosa in South and Central America. Like them, Australian indigo can be used to produce dyes.
[8] Mordants are substances used alongside dyes that can help to fix a dye to a fabric so that it lasts longer, and in some cases change the colour of the finished product. Many dyes from native Aururian plants can produce a wide variety of colours depending on the preparation and mordant used, and millennia of experimentation with this is one reason their dye-making (and to a lesser degree, their applied chemistry) is relatively advanced.
[9] Green dyes have historically been rare in much of the world. European dye-makers preferred method of producing strong greens relied on dying first with indigo dye then with a yellow dye of another colour (or sometimes using the indigo dye second). This often proved unsatisfactory since indigo dye tends to produce longer-lasting colours, and as the yellow dye faded, the result was cloth which became bluer over time. Using Aururian indigo is superior because it can be done in one step (i.e. less labour-intensive), and produces a green which is both more brilliant and lasts longer than composite green.
[10] Natural red dyes are relatively common around much of the world, such as from plants like madder (Rubia tinctorum and other plants in the Rubia genus) or lichens. However, strong crimsons and scarlets were harder to obtain. In Europe, they were obtained from kermes, a product extracted from the dried eggs of an insect which laid them in oaks. Their rarity and strength of colour meant that strong reds became a colour associated with wealth and power, such as the scarlet of cardinals in the Catholic Church.
After the Spanish conquest of Mexico, they obtained access to cochineal, a strong, bright red dye extracted from insects which nest in some types of cactus. Cochineal dyes were stronger than kermes dyes, therefore requiring less dye per batch, and largely replaced kermes dyes in Europe, and were exported even further afield, as far as India. Cochineal insects were difficult to farm in plantations, and the dye thus remained rare and expensive; in total value it was Spanish Mexico’s second most valuable export after silver, and per weight was sometimes worth as much as gold. Cochineal insects were fragile in their life cycle and fed only on specific cacti, which permitted Spain to retain a lucrative monopoly in cochineal dye for three centuries.
[11] Cochineal comes from insects, not plant seeds, but this was a common misconception even in Europe in this era, since the Spanish tried to keep all aspects of cochineal production a secret, and largely succeeded until the nineteenth century.
[12] The crimson dye obtained from Eucalyptus cinerea is not quite as concentrated per unit of weight as cochineal, but the significantly cheaper price and comparable quality means that overall it is preferred by textile producers in both Europe and India.
[13] In fact, wild Eucalyptus cinerea is somewhat more widespread, occurring in parts of the continental divide and some coastal regions of historical New South Wales, and it is only naturally found in a small part of the Five Rivers. Nevertheless, the Five Rivers dye production is not easily duplicated. The trees grown in the Five Rivers are semi-domesticated and selected for the right hue of dye. To produce the desired carmine, they can only be grown in certain soil conditions – which limits its production even within the Five Rivers – need to be kept pruned, and the leaves dried using careful methods to produce the sought-after carmine. The Tjibarri have mastered this, and to a lesser degree so have the other Five Rivers kingdoms. Simply stealing some trees would not be sufficient to duplicate their carmine dye production; it would also require good intelligence of dye production and luck or skill in selecting the right soils.
[14] Land controller is approximately a noble. Under Tjibarri law, land is only controlled by a noble, since it belongs to the monarch, and land can be stripped from its current owners in the many machinations of the Endless Dance.
[15] Tiyanjara is the name which the mainland Kurnawal give to their state, in the former eastern regions of Durigal (the Yadji Empire). The Kurnawal had been amongst the most persistent rebels against Yadji imperial authority, and in 1674 established de facto independence. They have since functioned as a sovereign state, although the Yadji Regents have never officially recognised them as such, and continue to claim that entire region (and, indeed, claim some lands further east which Tiyanjara does not control either).
* * *
Thoughts?
Ephraim Ben Raphael
Banned
Good to this back.
I look forward to the continuing conquests of the Hunter.
I look forward to the continuing conquests of the Hunter.So Wemba's master plan (which is to loom weak) runs into scenario where Tjibarr needs strength.
A most troublesome scenario indeed.
A most troublesome scenario indeed.
Fantastic chapter, very happy to see this back. Also a good time to be eating tomatoes while reading. Tjibarr is always interesting to read about; their manner of dealing with the Europeans is quite unusual, much more reminiscent of the more successful Asian nations than most African or American ones. I strongly suspect that the Hunter is going to subjugate them though, as part of his 'circuit breaker' role in the story. How he eventually deals with the Europeans is something I am looking forward to a lot, as is the post-Hunter Aururia which I am certain will not remain united, but perhaps with more commonalities than before.
Great update, although I would have appreciated more on the Hunter's expansion.
There are certainly plenty more tales of the Hunter to come. Although much of the remaining sequence includes depictions of the reactions of various peoples who are current or potential targets, and also some of the things which the Hunter does while not directly conquering.Good to this back.
To be clear, that was only part of Wemba's master plan. (Well, the plan he developed with some others). Part of the plan is to appear weak, not necessarily to be weak. Of course, as was mentioned in the tale, the plan was developed for dealing with Europeans and the other known quantities - other Five Rivers kingdoms, the Yadji, etc. The rise of semi-nomadic horseback raiders and then their unification under the Hunter has thrown a complete curveball. They just didn't feature into anyone's plans - even the Europeans - and everyone is scrambling to work out how to deal with them.
I've always enjoyed writing from the Tjibarri perspective - although, really, that applies to most perspectives - but that doesn't mean that they get plot immunity from conquest or anything of the sort. It's certainly safe to say that the Five Rivers are on the Hunter's list of targets, though probably not the first target.
There will certainly be more interaction with Europeans, although in the short-term that will mostly be in the context of Europeans want the east coast spices, and now they have to work out how to deal with someone who's quite capable of telling them to get back into the sea - or sending them there if they try to take things directly.
There's a mix of chapters coming, some military, some not. The next chapter does feature the Hunter's next campaign, though.
When you play the endless dance, you either win or you die. Unless you're Wemba, and you do both.
Aboriginal Mongols driving the English out of Sydney is something I need to see.
Wemba never expected to live to see the fulfillment of his plan, although he did expect to live longer than actually happened to him...
Most outcomes from the Dance are mixed results; pure victories are rare, pure defeats more common than victories but not all that frequent either, while mixed results tend to dominate outcomes. Largely because if anyone wins too obviously they may as well paint a target on their back, and because inflicting a pure defeat is usually not preferred because you might need to deal with the defeated person again in the future. Or at least their friends and relatives.
Funny you should say that...
will there be a sequel serious about the rest of the world? because I love to see what the rest of the world looks like after you finish covering Australia. also, will we see more of New Zealand and the Maori because I could see the Maori likeing the hunter.
LoRaG is divided into three acts. Act II (this one) is very deliberately focused on seeing the world through Aururian (and *New Zealand) eyes. There will be some occasional scenes set elsewhere, but mostly through the perspective of Aururian/Aotearoan characters who are visiting different places.
Act III will be organised differently. It covers a much broader timescale, and shows more engagement with the rest of the world. It will also probably be organised thematically more than chronologically, so the world will be shown in different sequences.
I don't have any particular plans for a sequel series beyond that, except maybe a possible epilogue (not sure yet whether there will be a separate one or folded into Act III).
There is a low level of Maori involvement in the rest of the Hunter sequence, but by and large I cover Aotearoa separately. The Maori have certainly not finished their involvement with Aururia.
Not any time soon. The idea is that the readers will most find out about the rest of the world as the Aururians find out, so there are hints and so forth here and there, but nothing which shows the whole of the world.
There will probably be a world map at some stage during Act III, or possibly around the end of Act II. (Act II ends around the time of the Nine Years' War, which is a global-spanning war that is very slightly analogous to the Seven Years' War in terms of a struggle which originates in Europe but is played out over much of the globe. Act II depicts mostly about the Aururian front in that war, but there may be some information about other fronts too).
Lands of Red and Gold #114: The Serpent’s Tooth
Lands of Red and Gold #114: The Serpent’s Tooth
“Tjuwagga invited the Portuguese to send to him emissaries versed in their faith, so that he might converse with them and understand more of these who called themselves Catholics.
And they sent him three Wirrulee [priests] of their kind, and Tjuwagga spoke with them many times...
Tjuwagga said, “What absurdity is this, that these Christians revere their Creator by eating him?”
- From Bareena Uranj, usually known in English as the Orange Bible
* * *
16 August 1713
Ngutti [Yamba], Kingdom of Ngutti
The Hunter is coming.
Those words were on everyone’s lips, or in their hearts. Even when some of these local Bungudjimay did not mention it in their words, it showed in their pauses, in their flickering expressions of fear as they contemplated the likely future.
Tjaegl, trading-captain of the Muwanna bloodline, had heard and seen this, time and again during his visit. He had brought his ships south to Ngutti not at his own instigation, but on instructions from the Muwanna Lord himself [1]. The Six Lords were increasingly concerned with the fate of Ngutti, and wished a first-hand account from an observer trading-captain, rather than the official reports they had received from the local Nuttana port-captain.
So far, what he had seen left him feeling bleak. Ngutti was a city being gradually consumed by creeping fear, by a slow-growing terror which would have been unimaginable only a handful of years before.
The Hunter is coming.
The Horse-Men had long been pests who dwelt in the heart of the continent. Misguided followers of the Good Man, following an error-plagued sect founded by the over-conceited disciple named Tjarrling. Close to the true faith, but still imbalanced. Even before they acquired horses, their blind devotion to their errors had led them to make occasional raids as far as Daluming, back in the days when it was a united kingdom full of head-takers. Always they had been seen as troublesome but ultimately minor pests.
Now, the Horse-Men had turned into something far worse. Vanguards of a tide of conquest which so far seemed unstoppable. The Kiyungu’s southern homelands had fallen. Most of their League’s cities had fallen in a lightning conquest. Their last holdout Kabigara [Noosa Heads] had endured a lengthy siege but had recently surrendered, its beleaguered inhabitants losing all hope of relief from the forces outside. Now their scattered northern brethren were the targets; Tukka Nyukka [Maryborough] was besieged. Many of the Kiyungu had already fled even their northern homelands, coming to the Nuttana ports in preparation for a flight across the sea.
Worse, the Hunter’s conquest had gone further. While his subordinates led the further conquest of the Kiyungu, he had personally led his other forces southward. He had captured the Southern Gemlands [New England tablelands], just inland from Ngutti, in another rapid invasion. It was plain where his next assault would fall.
The Hunter is coming.
The Six Lords must be panicking, however much they tried to hide it. Of that, Tjaegl was sure. Sending him here had been proof of that. The Hunter had declared war on the Nuttana as much as on the northern Kiyungu. His armies had not yet come anywhere near the trading-ports, but the threat remained.
Even if the homelands were safe, their commerce had been savaged, and more of it was under threat. Losing the Kiyungu League had been a severe blow, costing them a market for products, their largest source of imported food, a supplier of valuable trade goods, and their main source of manpower.
The Hunter is coming.
While trying to find out more about the threat from the Hunter and the likely local reaction, Tjaegl had spoken to many people here in the guise of possible trade deals. He found plenty of people who wanted to discuss those; a reminder of how extensive trade here was, too.
Ngutti was a small state, but a valuable market. It sold many spices – though bird-peppers were already out of supply, since they came from the conquered Gemlands – and produced a useful quantity of jeeree. It was a large buyer of firearms for defence against its larger neighbour. Ngutti also bought many other Nuttana products prepared in the League-lands or imported from the Unbalanced Lands. The products which he had been asked to supply here included sugar, rum, candies, kratom, beeswax, Barrati [Indian] saltpetre, fine cottons, linens, harakeke [New Zealand flax] ropes, and salt, among others.
The Hunter is coming.
Tjaegl could have made plenty of money from trade here, if he had come with the right goods in hand. As it was, though, he had not been given time to gather a suitable cargo before being sent here, and in any case he thought it better to appear poor, given his instructions. He had made some token efforts to buy jeeree, trading for it with saltpetre and beeswax, as befit a trader who was down on his luck.
The problem was, every person he spoke to in Ngutti gave him a reminder that thanks to the Hunter, the entire Nuttana risked being down on their luck. Yes, a few were making very good money from sponsoring the exodus of Kiyungu across the Pacific, but that was only a few, and merely short-term gain. Wherever the Hunter expanded, the Nuttana were weakened... and it seemed that he would expand further.
* * *
Sandstone Day, Cycle of Water, 24th Year of His Majesty Guwariyan the Second (16 August 1713)
Estates of Malligo of the Blues, near Boolba [Kyalite, NSW]
Kingdom of Tjibarr
A hot wind blew out of the north-west, from the red heart.
Of course, winds from that direction were nearly always hot and dry, and often dusty besides. Some more superstitious men – which was to say, most men – might view such a wind as a bad omen.
Malligo, newly-raised land controller for the Blues, had always rejected such meaningless superstitions. Consequences flowed from the actions of men, not from the fickleness of weather, and omens were the delusions of fools. To understand consequences and proper harmony, one needed to examine the minds and deeds of men, not to look for coincidences and then proclaim them as signs after they had been fulfilled.
Consequences were what occupied his mind now. Possible consequences, that is. The actions he had begun were finely balanced between opportunity and problem, between reward and retribution. Such was always the nature of things, in the Endless Dance and in broader life, but these actions promised either great reward or great retribution.
Malligo gestured to the woman standing before him. “This is the message which you will carry with you. Never to be written down, never to be spoken aloud except in the presence of the recipient himself.”
He cleared his throat. “To Tjuwagga, Seeker of Truth, Conqueror of the Kiyungu and the Tin Lands. May you continue to grow in insight throughout the span of your days.
“Word has reached the Five Rivers of your accomplishments and prowess in fostering harmony, first in your own lands, and then in the Sunrise Lands. Your deeds demonstrate your understanding of the Seven-fold Path, particularly of the first and third paths.
“The teachings of the true faith are equally known both in your lands, and in these lands where the Good Man once walked and taught. I ask of you that you accept a delegation of priests from my local temple, whose travel arrangements I have provided for [i.e. paid for], that they might hold discussions with you so that all may progress upon the seventh path [i.e. grow in understanding] and comprehend how best to bring greater balance to the world.
“Malligo son of Bingeegum, in harmony.”
Malligo shook his head. “There ends the message. Repeat it back to me, please.”
The woman did so, flawlessly, word for word. She could not read or write, and experience had long taught Malligo that illiterate people often had strong memories. All the same, he asked her to repeat it once more before he was satisfied.
He said, “Naturally, tell no-one that you carry this message. As far as anyone else is concerned, you are simply accompanying your husband as he travels to the northlands to trade for gems, and helping him to appraise their quality.”
The woman bowed her head and voiced her agreement.
He said, “Thank you, and naturally, you will be suitably recompensed on your return.”
The woman repeated her thanks, then left.
Idly, Malligo wondered if he would have been as willing to risk so much if the estates he had acquired were ones where he could see himself living out his days. The previous land controller of these estates had been of the Grays, until stripped of his holdings in disgrace after some political manoeuvrings involving among other things suspected cheating in football. He did not know the truth of those allegations, but had been glad to accept the reward.
These estates were adequate lands. Not on the main branch of the Nyalananga [River Murray], but on the Middle Channel [2], which gave suitable water for growing specialist crops, and where there was usually sufficient depth for boats. It was closer to the border with Gutjanal than he liked; for all that there had been peace between the kingdoms for a long time, he did not want to rely on that peace enduring forever.
Besides, these estates had nothing exceptional in what they could produce. They grew a decent amount of kunduri, but then kunduri grew widely in the Five Rivers. They produced some resins, of whose worth he was skeptical, and grew some poppies, about which he knew little. He knew how to grow and process kunduri, of course, but he knew nothing about the other crops, and learning would be pointless if he acquired better estates elsewhere. He had welcomed these lands as better than having no estates at all, but they were not ones which would suit his lifelong ambitions.
Well, my ambitions have been changed with the emergence of this Hunter. Everything has changed with the emergence of the Hunter. Malligo just had to hope that he had drawn the correct insights from the Hunter’s rise, and begun proper actions as a result.
* * *
From: Jamberoo’s Decisive Battles in World History
Battle of Mandalong
The Battle of Mandalong was fought on 27 May 1714 as part of the Third Crusade. It marked the decisive battle of the Hunter’s bid to subdue the rest of the former kingdom of Daluming. It involved Dominion forces under the Hunter’s personal command fighting an alliance of the formerly opposing states of Daluming and Ngutti, together with some Māori and English mercenaries transported by the Nuttana and East India Company respectively.
Unlike many of the Hunter’s earlier battles, military historians have been able to compile a clear picture of where the battle was fought and how it progressed. Surviving primary sources about the battle include a detailed description in The Lord of the Ride; an after-action report by Chaloner Ogle, the EIC commander; a variety of letters, diary entries and other correspondence from some English troops; and a detailed letter sent home by Nikau, the senior surviving Māori mercenary...
Background
The Crusades era, often also called the Yaluma period, marked the emergence of the Dominion as a major new state in Aururia. More than any other Aururian state, the Dominion was the creation of a single individual, the Hunter, sometimes called Tjuwagga. The Hunter unified the disparate peoples of the Neeburra, forming them into an efficient cavalry force under his combined military-religious vision, then began the Crusades era of conquering neighbouring peoples.
The Battle of Mandalong marked the first time in the Crusades era when the Hunter faced a truly united coalition of his foes’ main forces. In his previous battles in the First Crusade he had been able to fight only part of his enemies’ forces at a time, while in the Second Crusade his opponents were politically divided and never fought effectively together. The Third Crusade launched the invasion of the state which had previously been – including the highland dominions already annexed – the most populous region of Aururia’s eastern seaboard.
While the Battle of Mandalong involved only Daluming, Ngutti and some foreign mercenaries, the Third Crusade had a broader target than just these two states. Beginning in mid-1713, the Hunter sent a variety of diplomatic demands by letter and emissary to every coastal polity between Daluming and his current southern border in the lands of the former Kiyungu League. He did not distinguish between independent countries and those which were protectorates of one mercantile power or another. The same demands were sent to all: submit to his rule, or be conquered.
The Dominion’s threats led Ngutti and Daluming to set aside their differences; it helped that their colonial overlords in the Nuttana and the EIC were also generally cooperating during this period. The two former enemies declared an alliance to defend both of their lands from the threat which the Hunter posed. They also found support from their protectors, with the Nuttana recruiting Māori mercenaries, while the EIC despatched a force of combined English and Indian company guards to support the defence of the two realms.
Europeans at the time – and, usually, afterward – thought of the Third Crusade as being only aimed at Daluming. The Dominion’s ambitions were broader, but Daluming and Ngutti together represented the most populous region, and their combined threat meant that the Hunter decided to invade them first...
The Dominion had conquered the Southern Gemlands recently in the Second Crusade, which brought its border close to Yuragir [Coffs Harbour], the capital of the greater state of Daluming. However, the rugged, forested geography of that region meant that only two widely separate roads led down through steep slopes, forests and waterfalls to Yuragir, which the Hunter immediately rejected as offering inflexibility of approach. The Dominion’s forces moved north into the Cottee valley [Clarence River valley], into the territory of Ngutti, so that they would have more favourable terrain and flexibility of manoeuvre.
In response, the allied Daluming-Ngutti forces moved upriver along the Cottee. They met the Dominion’s forces at Mandalong [Coutts Crossing], on the south bank of the Jinbilum [Orara River]. They accepted battle there because this town was built next to a ford across the Jinbilum. The allied forces set up artillery to defend the ford, so that in the event of defeat they could withdraw across the Jinbilum and then be safely away from the Dominion’s forces...
Forces
The precise number of forces on each side is unknown, except for the English and Māori auxiliaries. On the Dominion side, the Lord of the Ride lists the units involved: three units of cavalry which are described as regiments but probably smaller, and two Goanna battalions, meaning non-Yalatji recruits which fought as infantry [3]. However, it provides no numbers for the soldiers in each unit.
On the Allied side, the English Company troops numbered 312 infantry, while the Māori mercenaries numbered 598. It is clear that both Ngutti and Daluming’s forces outnumbered their auxiliaries, but again, no exact numbers are available...
Battle
...Daluming and Ngutti infantry tactics, influenced by European models, consisted of a mixture of spearmen and musketeers deployed in lines. These were reminiscent of the pike and shot tactics which had been prevalent on continental Europe for the seventeenth century but which by the turn of the eighteenth century had been largely abandoned in favour of muskets with bayonets. The Company troops used bayonets but were otherwise integrated into the core of the Allied line.
The Māori mercenaries were armed with a combination of muskets and hand weapons. Their favoured battle tactic was a shock charge involving one volley of musket fire during the charge and then charging into close combat; the closest analogue in European tactics was the Highland charge.
The Allied line of battle deployed the Daluming and Ngutti infantry in a core line, discreetly separated by Company troops. The Māori battalion was deployed on their left flank, furthest from the Jinbilum crossing.
The Dominion forces used two Goanna battalions as the core of their line. Similarly to the Daluming soldiers, these battalions used a combination of musket and spear troops. Two of the cavalry units were deployed on either flank; the third cavalry unit, led personally by the Hunter, was not visible on the line of battle...
The Hunter’s key tactic at Mandalong was feigned retreat. This had been a commonplace tactic amongst Yalatji and Butjupa forces in the Neeburra, and while it had been used at least once during the Second Crusade, apparently the Allied forces were unfamiliar with it...
The cavalry began by advancing on both flanks. Some of the Dominion cavalry were armed with bows that had a longer range than that of effective musket fire, and delivered several volleys of arrows at the flank units. This did not create meaningful casualties, and probably was not intended to do so. Both cavalry wings charged near-simultaneously, and were exposed to musket fire in response, although again with relatively light casualties. The cavalry units withdrew after the musket volley as if in panic – a few fast riders reached the line first, but most never made it – and kept going.
The Māori were reportedly the first unit to leave the line and chase in pursuit, and the Ngutti infantry followed. Their motivation appears to have been as much to flank the remaining infantry as it was to pursue cavalry, though they certainly butchered a few fallen horses and men along the way. The Goanna battalions also withdrew as if in fear.
Once the Allied line was decisively out of formation, then in an impressive display of coordination, the retreating cavalry reformed. The third unit of cavalry emerged from where it had been concealed behind a narrow rise, and then all three cavalry units launched a coordinated charge at the broken Allied lines.
The Allied forces were too scattered to reform their lines, and the result was a rout...
Aftermath
...The majority of the Allied forces were dead, wounded or captured during the battle, with only a relative handful, mostly Daluming infantry, managing a retreat across the Jinbilum. The Hunter paroled the English and Māori troops and escorted them back to the coast, with his much-repeated line that “these lands are my Dominion now, and no Englishman or Māori may enter here save by my leave.”
The core of Ngutti and Daluming military power had been defeated in a single battle. Indeed, Ngutti offered no further resistance; when Dominion forces reached the outskirts of the city of Ngutti, a group of local potentates overthrew the king and presented his head to the Dominion forces in submission. Daluming forces did fight one further battle, but by this stage they were outnumbered and outfought; the kingdom surrendered several weeks later...
The Third Crusade continued after the fall of Daluming, though with negligible European involvement. The Hunter led some of his forces north from Ngutti, while others moved south from former Kiyungu territories, demanding submission from all local peoples, which was usually imposed by the barrel of a musket. These chiefdoms and small states capitulated one by one, with the last to fall being the largest, the Warrbi Confederacy, a Dutch-backed confederation of chiefdoms along the Yimir [Richmond River]...
The Battle of Mandalong marked the first time when Europeans fought directly against the Hunter’s forces, and they did not perform notably better than Aururian forces. In the aftermath, English and Dutch corporate agents were expelled whenever the Dominion forces reached their territory, both in Daluming-Ngutti and their other coastal protectorates. The Hunter declared repeatedly that these regions were part of his dominion, and that trade with the Dutch and English would not resume until they had acknowledged his overlordship of these regions, and even then only on commercial terms which he found acceptable. In contrast, the Nuttana were excluded entirely.
The culmination of the Third Crusade saw the Dominion take control of a large part of the eastern coast of Aururia. Particularly, the Hunter now controlled the majority of elite spice production, spices which could not be produced anywhere else in the world other than eastern Aururia [4]. Only two major elite spice producers remained outside of his control, the lesser being the Dutch-backed Loomal protectorate along the River Lumbarr [Manning River], and the greater being the Patjimunra realm along the River Kuyal [Hunter River]. Unsurprisingly, many wondered whether these would be the Hunter’s next targets...
* * *
“The spices must flow.”
- Attributed to Joan van Hoorn, one of the Lords Seventeen of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), after news of the Dominion’s conquest of the Warrbi Confederacy
* * *
[1] Each of the six Nuttana bloodlines have a governing lord (sometimes figurehead, but usually with real power). Together these form the Six Lords, the ultimate governing authority of the Nuttana.
[2] In its middle course, the Murray has some anabranches (subsidiary channels of a river which branch off and rejoin later). The main one of these is historically called the Edward River, which branches off from the Murray, and then itself has a smaller anabranch, the Wakool River, with the two anabranches rejoining each other near Malligo’s lands and then rejoining the Murray. There are also some smaller rivers which flow between these two rivers and between the Wakool and the Murray.
Allohistorically, the Wakool is called the Middle Channel and the Edward is called the North Channel. They serve very useful purposes in the Five Rivers by providing further natural transportation and irrigation routes. The border between the kingdoms of Gutjanal and Tjibarr cuts through the middle of these rivers, which means that in times of war there is more than one water-based transport route to supply armies.
[3] The Goanna battalions were first recruited from the Kiyungu, who at this point continued to form the majority of troops in the battalions. By the time of the Third Yaluma, the Goanna battalions also included smaller numbers of other recruits and glory-seekers both from the Southern Gemlands and elsewhere, including a few from the Five Rivers.
[4] The term elite spice refers to seven spices which are rare and valued across much of the world: four kinds of myrtle (lemon, aniseed, cinnamon and curry), strawberry gum, Dorrigo peppers, and purple sweet peppers. These are cultivated only on the eastern seaboard between historical Newcastle, NSW and Moreton Bay, QLD. Aururia also possess a variety of other spices known as common spices, particularly common sweet peppers, native ginger and a few others which are produced widely across Aururia and can so be obtained from other sources even if the Dominion controls the eastern seaboard.
* * *
Thoughts?
“Tjuwagga invited the Portuguese to send to him emissaries versed in their faith, so that he might converse with them and understand more of these who called themselves Catholics.
And they sent him three Wirrulee [priests] of their kind, and Tjuwagga spoke with them many times...
Tjuwagga said, “What absurdity is this, that these Christians revere their Creator by eating him?”
- From Bareena Uranj, usually known in English as the Orange Bible
* * *
16 August 1713
Ngutti [Yamba], Kingdom of Ngutti
The Hunter is coming.
Those words were on everyone’s lips, or in their hearts. Even when some of these local Bungudjimay did not mention it in their words, it showed in their pauses, in their flickering expressions of fear as they contemplated the likely future.
Tjaegl, trading-captain of the Muwanna bloodline, had heard and seen this, time and again during his visit. He had brought his ships south to Ngutti not at his own instigation, but on instructions from the Muwanna Lord himself [1]. The Six Lords were increasingly concerned with the fate of Ngutti, and wished a first-hand account from an observer trading-captain, rather than the official reports they had received from the local Nuttana port-captain.
So far, what he had seen left him feeling bleak. Ngutti was a city being gradually consumed by creeping fear, by a slow-growing terror which would have been unimaginable only a handful of years before.
The Hunter is coming.
The Horse-Men had long been pests who dwelt in the heart of the continent. Misguided followers of the Good Man, following an error-plagued sect founded by the over-conceited disciple named Tjarrling. Close to the true faith, but still imbalanced. Even before they acquired horses, their blind devotion to their errors had led them to make occasional raids as far as Daluming, back in the days when it was a united kingdom full of head-takers. Always they had been seen as troublesome but ultimately minor pests.
Now, the Horse-Men had turned into something far worse. Vanguards of a tide of conquest which so far seemed unstoppable. The Kiyungu’s southern homelands had fallen. Most of their League’s cities had fallen in a lightning conquest. Their last holdout Kabigara [Noosa Heads] had endured a lengthy siege but had recently surrendered, its beleaguered inhabitants losing all hope of relief from the forces outside. Now their scattered northern brethren were the targets; Tukka Nyukka [Maryborough] was besieged. Many of the Kiyungu had already fled even their northern homelands, coming to the Nuttana ports in preparation for a flight across the sea.
Worse, the Hunter’s conquest had gone further. While his subordinates led the further conquest of the Kiyungu, he had personally led his other forces southward. He had captured the Southern Gemlands [New England tablelands], just inland from Ngutti, in another rapid invasion. It was plain where his next assault would fall.
The Hunter is coming.
The Six Lords must be panicking, however much they tried to hide it. Of that, Tjaegl was sure. Sending him here had been proof of that. The Hunter had declared war on the Nuttana as much as on the northern Kiyungu. His armies had not yet come anywhere near the trading-ports, but the threat remained.
Even if the homelands were safe, their commerce had been savaged, and more of it was under threat. Losing the Kiyungu League had been a severe blow, costing them a market for products, their largest source of imported food, a supplier of valuable trade goods, and their main source of manpower.
The Hunter is coming.
While trying to find out more about the threat from the Hunter and the likely local reaction, Tjaegl had spoken to many people here in the guise of possible trade deals. He found plenty of people who wanted to discuss those; a reminder of how extensive trade here was, too.
Ngutti was a small state, but a valuable market. It sold many spices – though bird-peppers were already out of supply, since they came from the conquered Gemlands – and produced a useful quantity of jeeree. It was a large buyer of firearms for defence against its larger neighbour. Ngutti also bought many other Nuttana products prepared in the League-lands or imported from the Unbalanced Lands. The products which he had been asked to supply here included sugar, rum, candies, kratom, beeswax, Barrati [Indian] saltpetre, fine cottons, linens, harakeke [New Zealand flax] ropes, and salt, among others.
The Hunter is coming.
Tjaegl could have made plenty of money from trade here, if he had come with the right goods in hand. As it was, though, he had not been given time to gather a suitable cargo before being sent here, and in any case he thought it better to appear poor, given his instructions. He had made some token efforts to buy jeeree, trading for it with saltpetre and beeswax, as befit a trader who was down on his luck.
The problem was, every person he spoke to in Ngutti gave him a reminder that thanks to the Hunter, the entire Nuttana risked being down on their luck. Yes, a few were making very good money from sponsoring the exodus of Kiyungu across the Pacific, but that was only a few, and merely short-term gain. Wherever the Hunter expanded, the Nuttana were weakened... and it seemed that he would expand further.
* * *
Sandstone Day, Cycle of Water, 24th Year of His Majesty Guwariyan the Second (16 August 1713)
Estates of Malligo of the Blues, near Boolba [Kyalite, NSW]
Kingdom of Tjibarr
A hot wind blew out of the north-west, from the red heart.
Of course, winds from that direction were nearly always hot and dry, and often dusty besides. Some more superstitious men – which was to say, most men – might view such a wind as a bad omen.
Malligo, newly-raised land controller for the Blues, had always rejected such meaningless superstitions. Consequences flowed from the actions of men, not from the fickleness of weather, and omens were the delusions of fools. To understand consequences and proper harmony, one needed to examine the minds and deeds of men, not to look for coincidences and then proclaim them as signs after they had been fulfilled.
Consequences were what occupied his mind now. Possible consequences, that is. The actions he had begun were finely balanced between opportunity and problem, between reward and retribution. Such was always the nature of things, in the Endless Dance and in broader life, but these actions promised either great reward or great retribution.
Malligo gestured to the woman standing before him. “This is the message which you will carry with you. Never to be written down, never to be spoken aloud except in the presence of the recipient himself.”
He cleared his throat. “To Tjuwagga, Seeker of Truth, Conqueror of the Kiyungu and the Tin Lands. May you continue to grow in insight throughout the span of your days.
“Word has reached the Five Rivers of your accomplishments and prowess in fostering harmony, first in your own lands, and then in the Sunrise Lands. Your deeds demonstrate your understanding of the Seven-fold Path, particularly of the first and third paths.
“The teachings of the true faith are equally known both in your lands, and in these lands where the Good Man once walked and taught. I ask of you that you accept a delegation of priests from my local temple, whose travel arrangements I have provided for [i.e. paid for], that they might hold discussions with you so that all may progress upon the seventh path [i.e. grow in understanding] and comprehend how best to bring greater balance to the world.
“Malligo son of Bingeegum, in harmony.”
Malligo shook his head. “There ends the message. Repeat it back to me, please.”
The woman did so, flawlessly, word for word. She could not read or write, and experience had long taught Malligo that illiterate people often had strong memories. All the same, he asked her to repeat it once more before he was satisfied.
He said, “Naturally, tell no-one that you carry this message. As far as anyone else is concerned, you are simply accompanying your husband as he travels to the northlands to trade for gems, and helping him to appraise their quality.”
The woman bowed her head and voiced her agreement.
He said, “Thank you, and naturally, you will be suitably recompensed on your return.”
The woman repeated her thanks, then left.
Idly, Malligo wondered if he would have been as willing to risk so much if the estates he had acquired were ones where he could see himself living out his days. The previous land controller of these estates had been of the Grays, until stripped of his holdings in disgrace after some political manoeuvrings involving among other things suspected cheating in football. He did not know the truth of those allegations, but had been glad to accept the reward.
These estates were adequate lands. Not on the main branch of the Nyalananga [River Murray], but on the Middle Channel [2], which gave suitable water for growing specialist crops, and where there was usually sufficient depth for boats. It was closer to the border with Gutjanal than he liked; for all that there had been peace between the kingdoms for a long time, he did not want to rely on that peace enduring forever.
Besides, these estates had nothing exceptional in what they could produce. They grew a decent amount of kunduri, but then kunduri grew widely in the Five Rivers. They produced some resins, of whose worth he was skeptical, and grew some poppies, about which he knew little. He knew how to grow and process kunduri, of course, but he knew nothing about the other crops, and learning would be pointless if he acquired better estates elsewhere. He had welcomed these lands as better than having no estates at all, but they were not ones which would suit his lifelong ambitions.
Well, my ambitions have been changed with the emergence of this Hunter. Everything has changed with the emergence of the Hunter. Malligo just had to hope that he had drawn the correct insights from the Hunter’s rise, and begun proper actions as a result.
* * *
From: Jamberoo’s Decisive Battles in World History
Battle of Mandalong
The Battle of Mandalong was fought on 27 May 1714 as part of the Third Crusade. It marked the decisive battle of the Hunter’s bid to subdue the rest of the former kingdom of Daluming. It involved Dominion forces under the Hunter’s personal command fighting an alliance of the formerly opposing states of Daluming and Ngutti, together with some Māori and English mercenaries transported by the Nuttana and East India Company respectively.
Unlike many of the Hunter’s earlier battles, military historians have been able to compile a clear picture of where the battle was fought and how it progressed. Surviving primary sources about the battle include a detailed description in The Lord of the Ride; an after-action report by Chaloner Ogle, the EIC commander; a variety of letters, diary entries and other correspondence from some English troops; and a detailed letter sent home by Nikau, the senior surviving Māori mercenary...
Background
The Crusades era, often also called the Yaluma period, marked the emergence of the Dominion as a major new state in Aururia. More than any other Aururian state, the Dominion was the creation of a single individual, the Hunter, sometimes called Tjuwagga. The Hunter unified the disparate peoples of the Neeburra, forming them into an efficient cavalry force under his combined military-religious vision, then began the Crusades era of conquering neighbouring peoples.
The Battle of Mandalong marked the first time in the Crusades era when the Hunter faced a truly united coalition of his foes’ main forces. In his previous battles in the First Crusade he had been able to fight only part of his enemies’ forces at a time, while in the Second Crusade his opponents were politically divided and never fought effectively together. The Third Crusade launched the invasion of the state which had previously been – including the highland dominions already annexed – the most populous region of Aururia’s eastern seaboard.
While the Battle of Mandalong involved only Daluming, Ngutti and some foreign mercenaries, the Third Crusade had a broader target than just these two states. Beginning in mid-1713, the Hunter sent a variety of diplomatic demands by letter and emissary to every coastal polity between Daluming and his current southern border in the lands of the former Kiyungu League. He did not distinguish between independent countries and those which were protectorates of one mercantile power or another. The same demands were sent to all: submit to his rule, or be conquered.
The Dominion’s threats led Ngutti and Daluming to set aside their differences; it helped that their colonial overlords in the Nuttana and the EIC were also generally cooperating during this period. The two former enemies declared an alliance to defend both of their lands from the threat which the Hunter posed. They also found support from their protectors, with the Nuttana recruiting Māori mercenaries, while the EIC despatched a force of combined English and Indian company guards to support the defence of the two realms.
Europeans at the time – and, usually, afterward – thought of the Third Crusade as being only aimed at Daluming. The Dominion’s ambitions were broader, but Daluming and Ngutti together represented the most populous region, and their combined threat meant that the Hunter decided to invade them first...
The Dominion had conquered the Southern Gemlands recently in the Second Crusade, which brought its border close to Yuragir [Coffs Harbour], the capital of the greater state of Daluming. However, the rugged, forested geography of that region meant that only two widely separate roads led down through steep slopes, forests and waterfalls to Yuragir, which the Hunter immediately rejected as offering inflexibility of approach. The Dominion’s forces moved north into the Cottee valley [Clarence River valley], into the territory of Ngutti, so that they would have more favourable terrain and flexibility of manoeuvre.
In response, the allied Daluming-Ngutti forces moved upriver along the Cottee. They met the Dominion’s forces at Mandalong [Coutts Crossing], on the south bank of the Jinbilum [Orara River]. They accepted battle there because this town was built next to a ford across the Jinbilum. The allied forces set up artillery to defend the ford, so that in the event of defeat they could withdraw across the Jinbilum and then be safely away from the Dominion’s forces...
Forces
The precise number of forces on each side is unknown, except for the English and Māori auxiliaries. On the Dominion side, the Lord of the Ride lists the units involved: three units of cavalry which are described as regiments but probably smaller, and two Goanna battalions, meaning non-Yalatji recruits which fought as infantry [3]. However, it provides no numbers for the soldiers in each unit.
On the Allied side, the English Company troops numbered 312 infantry, while the Māori mercenaries numbered 598. It is clear that both Ngutti and Daluming’s forces outnumbered their auxiliaries, but again, no exact numbers are available...
Battle
...Daluming and Ngutti infantry tactics, influenced by European models, consisted of a mixture of spearmen and musketeers deployed in lines. These were reminiscent of the pike and shot tactics which had been prevalent on continental Europe for the seventeenth century but which by the turn of the eighteenth century had been largely abandoned in favour of muskets with bayonets. The Company troops used bayonets but were otherwise integrated into the core of the Allied line.
The Māori mercenaries were armed with a combination of muskets and hand weapons. Their favoured battle tactic was a shock charge involving one volley of musket fire during the charge and then charging into close combat; the closest analogue in European tactics was the Highland charge.
The Allied line of battle deployed the Daluming and Ngutti infantry in a core line, discreetly separated by Company troops. The Māori battalion was deployed on their left flank, furthest from the Jinbilum crossing.
The Dominion forces used two Goanna battalions as the core of their line. Similarly to the Daluming soldiers, these battalions used a combination of musket and spear troops. Two of the cavalry units were deployed on either flank; the third cavalry unit, led personally by the Hunter, was not visible on the line of battle...
The Hunter’s key tactic at Mandalong was feigned retreat. This had been a commonplace tactic amongst Yalatji and Butjupa forces in the Neeburra, and while it had been used at least once during the Second Crusade, apparently the Allied forces were unfamiliar with it...
The cavalry began by advancing on both flanks. Some of the Dominion cavalry were armed with bows that had a longer range than that of effective musket fire, and delivered several volleys of arrows at the flank units. This did not create meaningful casualties, and probably was not intended to do so. Both cavalry wings charged near-simultaneously, and were exposed to musket fire in response, although again with relatively light casualties. The cavalry units withdrew after the musket volley as if in panic – a few fast riders reached the line first, but most never made it – and kept going.
The Māori were reportedly the first unit to leave the line and chase in pursuit, and the Ngutti infantry followed. Their motivation appears to have been as much to flank the remaining infantry as it was to pursue cavalry, though they certainly butchered a few fallen horses and men along the way. The Goanna battalions also withdrew as if in fear.
Once the Allied line was decisively out of formation, then in an impressive display of coordination, the retreating cavalry reformed. The third unit of cavalry emerged from where it had been concealed behind a narrow rise, and then all three cavalry units launched a coordinated charge at the broken Allied lines.
The Allied forces were too scattered to reform their lines, and the result was a rout...
Aftermath
...The majority of the Allied forces were dead, wounded or captured during the battle, with only a relative handful, mostly Daluming infantry, managing a retreat across the Jinbilum. The Hunter paroled the English and Māori troops and escorted them back to the coast, with his much-repeated line that “these lands are my Dominion now, and no Englishman or Māori may enter here save by my leave.”
The core of Ngutti and Daluming military power had been defeated in a single battle. Indeed, Ngutti offered no further resistance; when Dominion forces reached the outskirts of the city of Ngutti, a group of local potentates overthrew the king and presented his head to the Dominion forces in submission. Daluming forces did fight one further battle, but by this stage they were outnumbered and outfought; the kingdom surrendered several weeks later...
The Third Crusade continued after the fall of Daluming, though with negligible European involvement. The Hunter led some of his forces north from Ngutti, while others moved south from former Kiyungu territories, demanding submission from all local peoples, which was usually imposed by the barrel of a musket. These chiefdoms and small states capitulated one by one, with the last to fall being the largest, the Warrbi Confederacy, a Dutch-backed confederation of chiefdoms along the Yimir [Richmond River]...
The Battle of Mandalong marked the first time when Europeans fought directly against the Hunter’s forces, and they did not perform notably better than Aururian forces. In the aftermath, English and Dutch corporate agents were expelled whenever the Dominion forces reached their territory, both in Daluming-Ngutti and their other coastal protectorates. The Hunter declared repeatedly that these regions were part of his dominion, and that trade with the Dutch and English would not resume until they had acknowledged his overlordship of these regions, and even then only on commercial terms which he found acceptable. In contrast, the Nuttana were excluded entirely.
The culmination of the Third Crusade saw the Dominion take control of a large part of the eastern coast of Aururia. Particularly, the Hunter now controlled the majority of elite spice production, spices which could not be produced anywhere else in the world other than eastern Aururia [4]. Only two major elite spice producers remained outside of his control, the lesser being the Dutch-backed Loomal protectorate along the River Lumbarr [Manning River], and the greater being the Patjimunra realm along the River Kuyal [Hunter River]. Unsurprisingly, many wondered whether these would be the Hunter’s next targets...
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“The spices must flow.”
- Attributed to Joan van Hoorn, one of the Lords Seventeen of the Dutch East India Company (VOC), after news of the Dominion’s conquest of the Warrbi Confederacy
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[1] Each of the six Nuttana bloodlines have a governing lord (sometimes figurehead, but usually with real power). Together these form the Six Lords, the ultimate governing authority of the Nuttana.
[2] In its middle course, the Murray has some anabranches (subsidiary channels of a river which branch off and rejoin later). The main one of these is historically called the Edward River, which branches off from the Murray, and then itself has a smaller anabranch, the Wakool River, with the two anabranches rejoining each other near Malligo’s lands and then rejoining the Murray. There are also some smaller rivers which flow between these two rivers and between the Wakool and the Murray.
Allohistorically, the Wakool is called the Middle Channel and the Edward is called the North Channel. They serve very useful purposes in the Five Rivers by providing further natural transportation and irrigation routes. The border between the kingdoms of Gutjanal and Tjibarr cuts through the middle of these rivers, which means that in times of war there is more than one water-based transport route to supply armies.
[3] The Goanna battalions were first recruited from the Kiyungu, who at this point continued to form the majority of troops in the battalions. By the time of the Third Yaluma, the Goanna battalions also included smaller numbers of other recruits and glory-seekers both from the Southern Gemlands and elsewhere, including a few from the Five Rivers.
[4] The term elite spice refers to seven spices which are rare and valued across much of the world: four kinds of myrtle (lemon, aniseed, cinnamon and curry), strawberry gum, Dorrigo peppers, and purple sweet peppers. These are cultivated only on the eastern seaboard between historical Newcastle, NSW and Moreton Bay, QLD. Aururia also possess a variety of other spices known as common spices, particularly common sweet peppers, native ginger and a few others which are produced widely across Aururia and can so be obtained from other sources even if the Dominion controls the eastern seaboard.
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Thoughts?
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Oh snap, the Hunters pulling a Genghis. The advantage to having a nomadic army is that the Hunter really doesn’t have to worry about mobility. Has he incorporated any of the conquered soldiers into his army?