Guilds, Gurjurs, and the Srivijayan Leviathan
As the ninth century rolled on, the Gangetic plain remained crowded with rival powers, roughly incapable of breaking the stalemate they created. Alliance networks, based on mutual self-interest and similar local identities and traditions began to form, deadlocking the cities and towns of the Ganges valley. In the center of this cluster, the guild armies began to atrophy somewhat. Due to the armed nature of the early revolution, the guilds had accumulated massive ceremonial and effective power, and with the relative peace of the post-revolution era, standing armies had gradually disappeared, leaving the guilds as the sole military forces of the state in many cases.
If these cities and sangha claimed the names of ancient kingdoms, it was in many ways an illusion - these were states centered around the city. The merchants who were their lifeblood may have recognized the critical importance of the agrarian hinterlands, but they viewed them as peripheral to true prosperity - which came through manufacturing. The greater of these powers, formed the kingdoms of Magada, Vrji, Kosala, and Kanykakubja (Kannauj) became known as the Pancharajya - and regularly exchanged hostages and embassies between each other.
Military cooperation between these powers, however, was rare save in times of great emergency. When the equal-kingdom of Vanga went to war with the city of Pundranagara, an ally and tributary of the Magadan government, the others quietly supported Vanga as a counterweight to the traditional power and prestige of the Magadans. The war, lasting between 826-834, dragged on without conclusion due to this covert support. Growing frustrated, the Magadan government sought out decisive engagements such as the Battle of Jamuna River and yet in spite of these triumphs could not prevail. The warrior-guilds on both sides were acutely conscious of the necessity of preserving their manpower, and thus their privileged position in society. If a guild was ruined, the carefully constructed balance might be upset. Accordingly, both sides used great caution and finally, to the frustration of the Vanga as well as the Pundranagara, the war ended effectively in a draw.
Henceforth, the mercantile and agrarian guilds, no small portion of society, would find themselves at odds with the military guilds, which had rapidly consolidated their positions as ceremonial defenders of society with few meaningful responsibilities. Attempts by the broader ayat-councils to chip away at their entrenched power had to tread carefully. In many cases this was rectified by various sangha hiring armed Turkic, Gurjar, or Nepalese mercenaries - ostensibly to secure their defenses against foreign powers, but practically speaking to rebalance the power dynamic in such a way that the military guilds did not have a monopoly on power.
In some cases, this was entirely unnecessary.Surasena, the westernmost of the Gangetic republics, could easily match the power of many members of the Pancharajya. Controlling vital trade and manufacturing hubs such as Indraprastha and Mathura, it represented the buffer between the Aghatsaghid empire and the rest of the subcontinent. Accordingly, its guilds did not have a chance to atrophy. The Raja of Surasena, (an elected military and religious position) Saktivarma kept the guilds at a high state of readiness, and in Surasena the rural populace was drilled for military readiness as well. In 821, Saktivarma tested the borders of the overstretched Aghatsaghid Empire, striking hard into the Punjab.
In this campaign, the Gurjar general Guhasena would earn his famous reputation, defeating two Aghatsaghid armies and taking the prominent cities of Jalandhara and Sagala. In the south, a general rebellion emerged, starting with the Buddhist clergy of the region and progressing like wildfire until the city of Arorkot was taken and the local garrison was in full retreat. Preoccupied with the Armenian rebellion and subsequent campaigns of the Kurdish general HweremanMughriyani, the Padivayan of Mosil, the Aghatsaghid Shahs were on the back foot. The great Perso-Turkic state seemed on the verge of being reduced to a rump centered around Afghanistan and Persia, and they lacked the resources to fight for all of it.
However, Surasena's mighty campaign would begin to run out of momentum by 824. Clashes with rebel Sindhis had not endeared them to that portion of the population, and their Gurjar federates, including Guhasena, were becoming increasingly difficult to appease. Meanwhile, the Gandharans would fight with renewed vigor to against the Surasenas, who they saw as occupiers and conquerors no different than the Turks. After a five month siege of Taksashila, Raja Saktivarma retreated south, his army depleted.
On the rest of the subcontinent, the great powers were primarily coastal and mercantile. The eastern coast played host to two republics - Andhra andTrikalinga (Orissa) were locked in a rivalry with each other and the Tamil dynasty of the Chola, who had eclipsed their local rivals through an embracing of the guild system combined with strong land management policies echoing the reforms of the north. The western coast saw fewer great powers, but the Gurjar republic of Surastra retained prominence, as did the Kuntala dynasty in Karnataka.
Further east, the great Srivijayan Empire was effectively the sole hegemony of a vast territory stretching from the Pyu cities to the Sulu archipelago. While it had some young rivals, such as the rising Cambodian republic of Indranokura, its fleets, both military and mercantile were unmatched. The whole of overseas trade with China was forced to pass through its waters, and this along with the Empire's own vast natural resources made it the pre-eminent trade power. Their naval technology was impressive, a mixture of Indian and Austronesian designs.
Srivijayan dominion was generally light, however. Where they conquered, they left client states and tributaries, organized at the local level. However, they were responsible for the further spread and entrenchment of their Indianized culture across South Asia and even into Southern China, where the Tai people proved receptive to their influences. A major Srivijayan mission at Guangzhou maintained trade with the Qi dynasty even during the height of the Great Rebellion of Sima Zhixen.
The greatest change to Srivijaya in the ninth century was the arrival of the foreign guild communities. Effectively colonies on Srivijayan soil, the government of the great trading power for the first time faced a serious existential threat - and smoothly co-opted it. By offering official government sponsorship to the guilds, and clearly regulating them simultaneously, they allowed the guilds to work for the benefit of their metropolises while also extracting tariffs.
As middlemen between China and India's insatiable desire for each other's goods, the Srivijayan Empire was ideally poised to become fabulously wealthy, and they did. However, that wealth inherently attracted the jealousy and suspicion of rivals. So long as the Srivijayans could maintain an outward veneer of strength and prestige, their position would go unchallenged. However, like the Sakalava in Izaoraika, they were in truth merely the first among equals - surrounded by peoples who dreamed of usurping their position.
The Cape of Storms
The first settlers of Cape Watya, as it became known, were hardly its first inhabitants, but you would not have known it by their histories. The stone-age peoples, both hunters and pastoralists who the earliest settlers displaced were few in number, and a few crudely-armed warriors would not displace the marching tide of history. The struggles of the indigenous Khoikhoi went largely unrecorded, and they left scant archeological evidence. Perhaps on the Great Lakes, where the Kings of the High Country ruled, the indigenous peoples could fight against the coming tide of the Easterners, but not here.
The Izaoriaka's first colonies on the Cape were almost incidental - the stranding of several great expeditions seeking the land of gold that had so captured the popular imagination of the already dramatically overpopulated island represented the first colonies. Most of these expeditions crumbled rapidly, lacking all but the most basic knowledge of agriculture and being unaccustomed to the climate and terrain, but one survived. Well-armed mariners fell upon several indigenous Khoikhoi villages after an earlier violent encounter on the beach. They took slaves and cattle, forcing the locals to teach them how to survive while they waited for the next expedition.
By the time they again sighted the white-sailed ships in the bay, the Izaoriaka were prospering in this new land. Young men and adventurers, they had little waiting for them back home. By contrast this was a land of abundant game, and plentiful "barbarians" to be taken as slaves and wives. The expansion from this point forwards was rapid. Savahila and Izaoriaka alike streamed across the water in search of opportunity. By 860, there were many small towns - mostly hugging the coast, but a few had begun bravely trekking inland.
The organization of these first colonies was loose. Theoretically the Izaoriakan monarchy might have claimed to rule, but in truth they merely funneled any who wanted to leave onto the boats and turned the other way. As such the first settlements on Cape Watya were mostly anarchic, in contrast to the more ordered but still semiautonomous Izaoriaka colonies further north. Roughly, all Izaoriakan settlements emulated the tribal hierarchies of the homeland - members important tribes such as the Merina naturally held more precedence in overseas as well. [FONT="]They would become the new ruling elite, or[/FONT][FONT="]Randryan, dominating individual towns which generally were forced[/FONT] to operate with little prospect of direct support from the homeland. This above all drove these new colonies to drive into the mainland - gathering expansive territory for agriculture and settlement, quite unlike the Savahila who had little interest in settling beyond their bountiful coasts.
[New post, wooo!
I imagine this answers some of your questions, Hobelhouse. More will be revealed in the next post or the post after, particularly regarding what's going on with those dastardly Kurds.]
