TWC history of world -EU4 .

[Owlparrot3]

This history book will focus on a great multiplayer game of EU4 played by some amazing dudes .I wish it to be moved to Non-TW aar's section .This one will go very slow .Just a few chapters per month .

This AAR was made possible by the labours undertaken by .
1)Baba Yetu(Englishman with a monocle)
2)True world leader .(A handsome face)

(https://youtu.be/OJMJFE124MQ)-Link to timelapse .May not go exactly as timelapse .Its 'creative' writing after all .

My last try was failed .But this one will be much better cause we have done a lot of research .

Forgive me for all my mistakes and praise those two for their hard work in making this aar come true .

Lets roll .

Index .

1)Japan before the Ming conquest .

2)North India from the Lodis to the Bahamanis .

[Owlparrot3]

1)Japan before the Ming conquest .



Ming China here is depicted as the evil invader , as the samurais (representing the various clans,chief among which is the Usegui clan) make a last stand .


Throughout the early middle ages Japan was ruled by the Ashikaga shogunate who had since their rise to power in 1336 maintained an iron grip on Japan .By the end of the 15th century however this grip was steadily decreasing .A number of factors which shall be discussed here led to this fall of authority .By the end of this period ,the Uesugi daimyos from the north were de facto rulers of the Japan .While all this was going on ,the emperor was still powerless and his post remained purely ceremonial .

When Ashikaga Takauji established his government he had little personal territory with which to support his rule. The Ashikaga shogunate was thus heavily reliant on the prestige and personal authority of its shoguns. The centralized master-vassal system used in the Kamakura system was replaced with the highly de-centralized daimyos (local lord) system, and because of the lack of direct territories, the military power of the shoguns depended heavily on the loyalty of the daimyos.
As a result of this ,the various warring clans or Daimyos could only be held under shogunate control as long as their was a strong ruler to keep them in line. The situation also heavily depended on the economy and the harvest .An economic crisis in a province meant that the shogun had to give more favourable powers to the local warlord so that he may in return restore order to the province .

Below is a map of Japan in 1444 .

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

A chain of bad harvests ,weak rulers ,frequent coups and civil wars thus weakened the control of the shogun over the warlords .The most vicious of these civil wars however took place in 1467 .It is coined as the Onin war .
A dispute between Hosokawa Katsumoto and Yamana Sōzen escalated into a nationwide war involving the Ashikaga shogunate and a number of daimyōs in many regions of Japan.

There was no clear victor in this war, both sides were militarily exhausted and the Ōuchi abandoned Kyoto. Hosokawa clan gained control of the shogunate and Ashikaga Yoshihisa declared himself Shogun .But while it brought temporary peace ,a larger challenge to the shogunate power was coming from up north.


A painting of the Onin war .

The Usegui clan ruled the provinces of Echijo as Daimyos .Unlike the any other powerful Daimyos ,they were Buddhist and not Shinto .The monks and clergy had a large part to play in the day to day administration of the Usegui .The Usegui were one of the few Daimyos to not participate in the Onin civil wars .But their power steadly rose thanks to the efforts and reforms of their lord Noritada Uesugi(1424-1495) .The name was also pronounced as Usegui .

Noritada ascended the throne of the Daimyo at the age of 20 .His father's constant bouts of disease and his dominating wife had reduced the power of the Daimyo in Echijo .The monks and clergy had too much power .At his accession to the throne in 1444 there were two factions formed in the province .One faction wanted Noritada to regain the power enjoyed by the Daimyos before his father and another being led by some high ranking clergy and nobility wanted further reduction of the Daimyo's power in the province .

In a brief skirmish taking place in Echijo on the night of 18th March 1446 Noritada and his supporters purged and murdered all the opposing faction leaders and arrested their supporters .This event which has been given the name 'Night of the long knives' effectively increased the power of Noritada and stabilized his domain .

Symbol of the Usegui clan .

Noritada's next move was to press several reforms unseen in Japan until then .As a child he had been sent as a hostage to the Ming embassy in Korea .He had been tutored there by a Ming teacher .He thus carefully decided to model his army on Korean and Chinese military principles .

Until that time the armies of Japan were built in a very traditional manner .Samurai's dominated the battlefield supported by peasantry .Noritada made a major change to this system .While the Samurai's retained there privileges ,the peasantry was also improved .The more skilled pf those peasants were given more intensive training and were also allowed to use weapons like swords and also horses which wasn't allowed until then .To make up for it ,the Samurai's pay was increased .This created a powerful second class unit of the military which was only slightly weaker than the regular Samurais .The warrior monks were also forced to adopt more disciplinary tactics and training .Any dissent was swiftly crushed .

With these reforms Noritada now decided to fullfill his ambition of conquering Japan .Unlike the other Daimyos vying for the same goal ,he did not wish to become Shogun because for him the 'Shogun' was a Shinto title which did not fit with his Buddhist principles .

Noritada's early conquests were against the alliance of the Ogaswara and the Takeda(the dominant partner) .The Takeda military was very horse intensive and thus it was easily defeated by the second class spearmen and the Yari spearmen samurai .At the peace concluded on 10th December 1457 the two clans were abolished and conquered by the Usegui clan .

This brought an instant reaction from the Shogunate court at Kyoto and they warned against further conquests .To counter this the Usegui allied with the Shiba clan to the north .In exchange for an alliance and the marriage of Nobitara with their princess Mitsuko ,some land was ceded to the Shiba clan .This created such a powerful alliance that Nobitara's conquests of the Satake(1459) and Chiba(1462) domains were overlooked by the Shogun .But the Usegui court knew that war with the Shogunate was destined to be someday and so Nobitara began to look for even more powerful allies .

While this was going on ,the shogun was having problems of his own and his position became weaker and weaker .

At the same time ,the Yamana clan to the south had conquered the lands of the Daimyos and vassals of Hosokawa and Amago .Like in the case of the Usegui ,there was no way for the Shogun to maintain effective control over these happenings .

So Nobitara forged an alliance with the powerful Yamana .Once again ,there was no way for the Shogun to oppose these moves .But a bigger war was on the horizon .

In late 1465 the Yamana ,Shiba and the Usegui declared a war of conquest on the powerful Date clan .Unlike the smaller wars of before ,the Date fielded a powerful army and had formidable allies like the Oda to the south and the Nanbu and Ando to the north .The situation looked tough and so the Usegui reverted to diplomacy .Nobitara himself traveled to the court of Kyoto and pledged the Shogun to help them in this war .He warned that a victory in this war would lead to the already powerful and Shinto(meaning that they ,unlike the Usegui would try to snatch the title of Shogun)Oda clan would grow more powerful and rebel .After many days of arguments the Shogun agreed to help in return for half of the Usegui treasury which surprisingly enough Nobitara agreed to give .

Thus forcing the Shogun himself to join the war ,the Usegui had played the game of diplomacy well .The war which became known as the Kirā war began .It would go on for 5 long years during which the economic strength of all the factions was severely exhausted .As a result at the treaty of Owari in 1470 the lands of the Oda ,Nanbu and a part of the lands of Ando were annexed by the Usegui .The Ashikaga shogun recieved his monetary payment and a part of the lands of Ando were gifted to the Shiba clan .

After the Kirā war the Usegui clan and their allies became supreme as the Shogun continued to lose power .By 1495 at the death of Daimyo Nobitara the domain of the Usegui had increased many times over from what it had been at Nobitara's accession .

Below is a map of Japan at Lord Nobitara's death in 1495 .

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Nobitara was succeeded by Lord Gengi .Like his father he was an expansionist .In 1527 a fire accident in the Shiba palace killed off all of his maternal uncles due to which he inherited all Shiba lands .During his reign ,the Ainu were subjugated .The wild lands even further north from Hokkaido were also subjugated .His successors however renewed their interest in becoming Shogun and this led to wars with the Ashikaga .

By the late 16th century ,hate for the Usegui had increased so much ,that all the southern Daimyos gave direct control of their domains to the Ashikaga Shogun .

In the wars of 1579 ,after nearly 4 and a half years of continuous war it was agreed upon that the Usegui would not officially hold the tile of Shogun ,but they would claim safeguardianship of the emperor and by extension of the province of Kyoto .

Map of Japan in 1579 at the peace of Kyoto .

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Arts and religion .

The increase in the powers of the Buddhist Usegui made Buddhist art mainstream in Japan .Japanese painting began to integrate more and more Chinese and Korean styles of art .This was also given an impetus by a large volume of paper import .


Demonic Samurai fighting against the pious ones.Such distinctly Buddhist and bolder styles were never seen in pre Usegui period Japan .

The Usegui rulers built magnificent Buddhist monasteries and as their conquests increased ,so did the scope and grandeur .Beginning from 1584 the then Usegui lord Fugi started building the largest Buddhist monastery on Japanese soil .It took him 12 years to complete .The Korean merchant Gwon Seong Rwong who visited it said "The grandeur of this monastery surely is the best way to define the wealthy status of the country " .Inside was an imposing Buddha statue ,the largest in the country .

Below is a painting of the Monastery .

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Below is another picture ,of the imposing Buddha statue .

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

While this did not mean an immediate expansion of Buddhism among the nobility ,the lord Fugi did force the emperor to declare the status of Buddhism equal to Shintoism in 1582 .

In the south however ,insecurity for a loss of ancient culture became a trigger for an era of revival for ancient Japanese Shinto art .

The main diffrence was that like the north ,the southern estates had also recieved Chinese made paper in large quantities from Korean merchants and thus Heian period art was recreated on paper .


'Tochi No Josei' or 'The lady of the land' .A typical example of Southern Japanese paper painting of the period .Done on paper .

Improvement in administration .

The Usegui period saw a tangible improvement in the over all administration of the land .The centralized nature of the domain facilitated this .
Among his other reforms ,lord Nobitara started a very efficient system of mail .Runners and horsemen were employed at every few miles to deliver mail .
Tax system was more controlled and corruption was minimized .Sometimes with brutal punishing for the offenders .The judiciary was improved to mirror Ming styles .
Agricultural subsidies were given .
For the first time good roads were built and regular lodging houses for the Nobility were established .
It was a period of prosperity for Japan ,but already signs of decline were apparent from the death of Nobitara .

Decline.

Many historians argue that there was no real 'decline' to Usegui period Japan .The main reason for its fall was a successful invasion by a numerically superior enemy which in this case were the Ming .
There were many problems though .
After the death of lord Fugi in 1586 a succession crisis started amongst his three sons .
The victor was his second son Lord Nobitara2 .But to win the support of the nobles ,he reinstalled the system of Feudalism .This harmed the domain in the long term .
The 'Hokkaido' plaque which was brought to Japan from the conquest of the Ainu remained dormant for many years .But in the 1580s a tangible change in temperature in the region made it active .
The loss from it proved to be unbearable .This contributed to the famine in the next decade .


At the end of this period ,the Ming invasion began .

[True World Leader]

At this point in the EU4 game, Ming was focusing more its mandate than expanding. For context, I am the Ming player.

[The Wandering Storyteller]

Nice! Looking forward to it!

[Baba Yetu]

I am also a player, and I started as Brandenburg, and formed Prussia. My mighty nation shall be covered at a later date

[Owlparrot3]

Thanks so much for commenting to the three of you .
To the true world leader -Thanks again for your work and for commenting .
San Felipe -Thanks for commenting .Your comments are like fuel to me .
Baba Yetu -Thanks man for your work and commenting .

[Alwyn]

This history book will focus on a great multiplayer game of EU4 played by some amazing dudes .I wish it to be moved to Non-TW aar's section .

I've moved this thread from Creative Writing to Non-TW AARs, as requested.

It's good to see a new AAR. This looks like an interesting period of history and the use of a multiplayer game is unusual.

Welcome to TWC, True World Leader and Baba Yetu!

[Owlparrot3]

Thanks so much dear director .
I wish i could rep you again but i cant .
Thanks so much for commenting too .

[The Wandering Storyteller]

Np!

[Owlparrot3]

Thanks for commenting .I know that you would only mean something good or positive but i didn't get the meaning of 'NP!' .

[Baba Yetu]

It means 'no problem'

[Owlparrot3]

2)North India from the Lodis to the Bahamanis .

From the decline of the Delhi sultanate to the eventual annexation of the region by the Bahamanis .North India went through an era of political anarchy .

Following the invasion and sack of Delhi by Timur in 1398 ,the Delhi sultanate steadily declined .

Timur .
Timur sacks Delhi .


That was during the reign of the Tughlaq dyansty which until a few decades before ruled over the whole subcontinent .After the attack of Timur ,the Tughlaqs gradually lost authority until they were displaced by the Sayyids who in turn were displaced by the Lodis under Bahlul Lodi in 1451 .

Below is the map of India during 1444 ,considered to be a crucial year in Indian history .

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Bahlul Lodi is considered by historians to be a great ruler because he converted the declining sultanate into a major power in North Indian politics atleast(though not as great as the sultanate of yore) .

After consolidating his power ,the Lodi sultan annexed the Rajput state of Jangaldesh in 1454 .In 1473 the Timurid grip over Kashmir weakened and its Sultan Ghiyas-Ud-Din snatched power again .But Ghiyas-Ud-Din was a Shia Muslim and Bahlul Lodi was a Sunni .So he declared a jihad and annexed Kashmir in a short campaign of 6 months .In 1482-83 his son and general Babrak Khan annexed the mountanious regions of Kangra and Garwhal .In 1494 he led a last campaign against the Sultan of Juanpur to honour an alliance with the exiled Rajah of Mewat .After a fierce battle fought in Jaunpur itself ,the Delhi army proved itself superior ,Mewat was annexed as a vassal of the sultanate .A month after that campaign Bahlul Lodi passed away in his sleep .


Below is the map of North India at the death of Bahlul Lodi in 1494 .

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Bahlul Lodi was succeeded to the throne by Sikander Lodi who had been nominated to the throne by his father despite being the second son .This led to a civil war with his elder brother Babrak Khan whom he defeated in 1495 .The latter fled to the Sultan of Multan who gave him protection .When Bahlul Lodi demanded the Sultan to return Babrak back ,the Sultan rashly refused .This led to war in 1495 .Meanwhile at the same time the Timurid prince of Afghanistan Ulugh Beg invaded Multan from the West ,thus Multan was dissolved and divided between Delhi and Afghanistan .Babrak khan was hanged in Delhi later .

In 1510 Sikander Lodi married a Juanpuri princess and received a few provinces as dowry .He died in 1517 .

The next ruler Ibrahim Lodi was weak and during his time Mewat was again lost to Juanpur .

He was succeeded in 1551 by his son Sultan Mahmud 'the great' .

A severe drought at the time ruined the economy of Juanpur .Mahmud saw the chance and expanded his empire .In a one sided war in 1552 ,most of the Juanpuri generals betrayed their ruler and joined Delhi .As a result ,most of Bihar and other parts of Juanpur were annexed by 1554 .

But Mahmud was the first Sultan since the Tughlaqs who concentrated on administration and economy .He improved the condition of small landowners and gave them subsidies .During his time ,arts and culture flourished .A new style of painting called as the 'Indo-Turkic' painting evolved during his reign which was a mix of Islamic and Hindu art .He was thus ,a great patron of arts and culture .He also built great Mosques and encouraged the Sufi sect of Islam .In 1577 he abolished the Jizya tax which was a tax paid only by Non Muslims .In the later years of his reign ,the sultanate remained at peace .It was a relatively peaceful age .He died in 1595 .

The sultanate at the death of Mahmud .

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Until Mahmud ,the Delhi Sultans had not dabbled in the politics of the three sultanates to the south(which shall be discussed later).

In 1595 Mahmud was succeeded by his only son Koum Khan who crowned himself as Sultan Ghiyas-Ud-Din .Unlike his predecessors he saw the feud of the three sultanates as a chance of expansions .It is said that Koum Khan was a very strong soldier on the battlefield who fought bravely in the front ranks but he was a poor administrator ,all of his 3 sons rebelled against him at some point .He annexed several parts of Rajasthan and Sindh .He also fought another war against Juanpur conquering a few frontier territories .His rule extended from Bihar in the east to Baluchistan in the west .At his death in 1624 the sultanate was at a very dominant position .However disaster was about to strike soon .

The Sultanate at Ghiyas-Ud-Din's death in 1624 .

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The Delhi sultanate was at its peak during the reign of Ghiyas-Ud-Din's death .However his sons quarreled among themselves after his death .Two sons became dominant .One of them declared himself Sultan Jahangir in Delhi while the other fled to Afghanistan where he invited the Afghan ruler Selim to invade India .The resultant war displaced Jahangir and weakened the Delhi sultanate and its north Indian allies to a position from where recovery was impossible .
Map given below shows the Delhi Sultanate in 1644 under the weak and blind Sultan Sher Shah .By this time Afghan influence and the rising power of the Bahamanis had weakened the sultanate .

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The four sultanates era .

The 200 years from 1444 to 1644 was the most chaotic era in the history of southern North India .The era is characterised by the three sultanates of Gujarat ,Nagaur,Sindh and Malwa .
The main reason for their rise to power was the downfall of the peninsula spanning Delhi sultanate after Timur's invasion .
Malwa .
Dilawar Khan Ghori was governor of the Malwa province of central India during the decline of the Delhi Sultanate. After serving at the court in Delhi, he was appointed governor at Dhar in 1390-91. Dilawar Khan took the title of 'Amid Shāh Dā'ūd and caused the khutba to be read in his name in 1401-02.[2] He passed his kingdom – the Malwa Sultanate – to his son Hoshang Shah upon his death in 1406.

The most famous ruler was Ala-ud-Din Mahmud Shah I(1436-1464) who conquered various parts of Gujarat ,Rajasthan and defeated the sultans of Juanpur and Bahamani in smaller wars .
Map at Alaudin shah's death in 1464 .

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

After his death the Malwa sultanate declined until in 1574 by sultan Firuz shah of Nagaur .

Below is a map of North India in 1594 .Notice the small initial domain of Quadir khan below Gujarat .

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

But in 1600 the North Konkan branch of the Malwa synasty led by Quadir khan took advantage of a dynastic feud in Gujarat and conquered it .His successor Nadir Shah went even beyond and expanded the empire to include parts of central India .

Towards the end of this period ,Malwa was annexed by the Bahamanis .

Below is a map of Malwa in 1644 .

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

[Alwyn]

Good update, it's helpful to be able to follow the progress of the sultanates on the map.

[Turkafinwë]

I truly love EU IV and its great potential for storytelling although in a more history telling way, as you have portrayed here. I adore the way you included the cultural shifts, especially in the one about Japan. As Alwyn has stated, the use of maps is very helpful and the works of art added are a fine addition to the narrative.

Hope to see more of this!

[Owlparrot3]

I truly love EU IV and its great potential for storytelling although in a more history telling way, as you have portrayed here. I adore the way you included the cultural shifts, especially in the one about Japan. As Alwyn has stated, the use of maps is very helpful and the works of art added are a fine addition to the narrative.

Hope to see more of this!

Thanks for commenting man .Yeah, unfortunately, we lost all the old screenshots and only the timelapse itself is remaining .
Once again, sorry .

On another matter -If you or for that matter anyone, reading this thread has any neatly catalouged EU4 screenshots, then you may(If you would like to) get them featured in my next history book .Because i would like to write in this style once more .
A few disappeared screenshots don't deter me .