Complete 1375 checkpoint: Timur, Ilkhanate strength, Western Europe internals

Timur (~1370-1405):
- Unifies Chagatai, breaks from Great Khanate
- Cannot conquer Ilkhanate (too strong/modernized)
- Sacks India, vassalizes Mongol Khanate, allies with Tibet vs Song
- Supports Egypt semi-independence against Ilkhanate

Ilkhanate revised: strongest period, approaching industrialization
- 100yr Silk Road wealth + Persian bureaucracy + Shia centralization
- Closest to industrialization outside Song

Western Europe:
- No Avignon Captivity → no Great Schism (Papacy stable in Rome)
- Hussite movement becomes pure religious reform, spreads across borders
- Greater Germany: confederation with monarchy vs republic as core tension
- Castile: Pedro I survives (no Trastámara), more tolerant kingdom
- Portugal: Avis crisis proceeds as historical → Atlantic orientation
- Plantagenet France: consolidating, potential Papacy tensions developing

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>

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 ### Greater Germany: Independent (~1360s-1370s)
 - Formal break from Great Khanate vassalage
-- Hanseatic-led federal structure forming
+- Hanseatic-led **confederal structure** forming — but deepest internal tension is **monarchy vs. republic**
+  - Hanseatic north: wants merchant republic / confederation with no monarch
+  - Southern nobility (Austria, Bavaria): wants hereditary or elected monarchy
+  - Eastern Germany weakened by Mongol devastation → power balance favors Hanseatic north
+  - Constitutional debate may last decades/centuries (parallels: Dutch Republic stadtholder controversy)
+  - V3 core event chain: government reform / constitutional crisis
 - Alliance with Bohemia formalized
 - Begins importing Song technology via Italian Mediterranean trade routes
 - Early proto-industrial development in Hanseatic cities
 
+### Timur's Rise and the Chagatai Breakaway (~1370-1405)
+- Timur rises in Transoxiana, seizes control of Chagatai Khanate (~1370)
+- Declares full independence from Great Khanate (no resistance — Great Khanate too weak to project power to Central Asia)
+- **Cannot conquer the Ilkhanate** — Ilkhanate is too wealthy, too modernized, fire-weapon equipped, Persian bureaucratic system too robust. Border stabilizes in eastern Khorasan.
+- **Conquers/raids India**: Delhi Sultanate already weakened by Song economic penetration. Timur sacks Delhi (~1398) and occupies northern territories.
+- **Expands north**: Takes western Siberia from undefended Great Khanate territory
+- **Vassalizes Mongol Khanate**: Too weak to resist. Timur gains Genghisid legitimacy claim through this.
+- **Tibet alliance**: Partners with independent Tibet to harass Song's southwestern border. Light raiding, not full war — positive return without provoking Song's industrial military.
+- **Alliance with Egypt**: Supports Egypt's semi-independence to create two-front pressure on Ilkhanate. Egypt remains semi-autonomous within Ilkhanate but is a thorn in its side.
+- **After Timur's death (~1405)**: Empire fragments (historical pattern). Timurid successor states in Central Asia and possibly India.
+
+### Ilkhanate: Strongest Period
+- Near-100-year Silk Road trade monopoly → enormous wealth
+- **Approaching industrialization**: Persian bureaucratic system + Song technology imports + trade capital + Shia centralization = closest to industrial revolution outside Song
+- Defends successfully against Timur in the east
+- Managing Egypt's semi-autonomy (cannot fully break away but increasingly self-governing)
+- Syrian cold war with Byzantium continues
+- **Maritime expansion beginning**: Trading posts on Indian western coast (Gujarat, Malabar) via Persian Gulf. Not territorial conquest but economic presence.
+- V3 trajectory: major industrial power, Song's primary global competitor
+
 ### Levant Triangle: Byzantium vs. Ilkhanate vs. Egypt
-- Syria/Palestine becomes three-way influence zone:
+- Syria/Palestine remains three-way influence zone:
   - **Byzantium** (Great Khanate proxy): claims Levantine coast, manages Crusader remnants
   - **Ilkhanate** (Tabriz): Syria is direct territory, resists Byzantine/Great Khanate encroachment
-  - **Egypt** (semi-independent governor): pushes into Palestine/Sinai as buffer zone
+  - **Egypt** (semi-independent, Timur-backed): pushes into Palestine/Sinai as buffer zone
 - Cold war / proxy conflict, not open warfare
 - V3 event chain material: diplomatic plays over Syrian territory
 
@@ -665,27 +690,50 @@ Labor scarcity after plague drives mechanization interest worldwide, but capacit
 - Paris court consolidated over northern/western France + England
 - Scotland likely achieved de facto independence (Plantagenet focus entirely continental)
 - Burgundy rivalry continues as cold war over French legitimacy
+- **Potential tension with Papacy** developing: cross-Channel empire resists Rome's interference in Church appointments and taxation. Seeds of later Gallican-style independence or even break from Rome.
 
 ### Kalmar Union
 - Formally established (~1360s-1370s, earlier than historical 1397)
 - Defensive alliance against Greater Germany and Great Khanate
 - Norway retains Atlantic possessions (Iceland, Greenland)
 
+### Bohemia: Religious Reform
+- Independent, stable, wealthy (silver mines)
+- **Hussite-type religious reform movement** emerges but WITHOUT nationalist component (Bohemia already independent)
+- Purely religious: challenges Church corruption, indulgences, clerical wealth
+- Without nationalist packaging, reform ideas **spread more easily across borders** — to Germany, Burgundy, even Plantagenet France
+- Papacy (stable in Rome, no Great Schism to deal with) responds with conservative crackdown
+- **Seeds of broader Reformation** planted — may erupt more forcefully in 1400s-1500s
+- V3 era: religious tension as event chain across Catholic Europe
+
+### Western Schism: Does NOT Happen
+- Avignon Captivity never occurred (Capetian France that caused it doesn't exist)
+- Pope remains in Rome throughout
+- Papacy more stable but also more conservative (no crisis to force reform)
+- Catholic world geographically smaller (lost Eastern Europe to Volga Orthodoxy, Poland is isolated Catholic enclave)
+
+### Iberian Peninsula
+- **Castile**: Pedro I ("the Cruel") survives — no Trastámara usurpation (no Hundred Years' War = no French intervention to depose him). Pedro's Castile is more centralist, more tolerant of Jewish and Muslim minorities. Granada survives comfortably as tributary.
+- **Portugal**: Avis dynasty crisis (~1383-1385) proceeds as in history. John I of Avis takes power, defeats Castilian invasion. Portugal begins Atlantic orientation → future exploration.
+- **Aragon**: Consolidating Languedoc + Mediterranean expansion (Sicily, Sardinia). Absorbing Navarre.
+
 ### Song Dynasty
 - North-South fracture deepening but no open break yet
 - SE Asian colonization accelerating (post-plague depopulation of local peoples)
 - Burma Road developing, connecting Yunnan to Bengal
 - Mandate of Heaven narrative simmering — religious movements in the south
+- Timur-Tibet alliance creating southwestern border harassment (manageable but draining)
 - Timeline for crisis: pressure building toward ~1450-1500 range
 
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 ## Open Questions (Post-1375 Chronological Development)
 
-1. **Age of Exploration**: Who discovers the Americas? Song maritime expansion vs. European attempts?
-2. **Song's North-South crisis**: When does it break open? ~1460s (second cold wave)?
-3. **Italy**: Renaissance dynamics with changed trade routes?
-4. **India**: How does Song economic penetration develop? Delhi Sultanate's response?
-5. **Ilkhanate**: Does Egypt formally break away? When?
-6. **Great Khanate**: Further decline or stabilization?
-7. **1836 technology levels**: How does the industrialization spectrum evolve?
+1. **Age of Exploration (~1400-1500)**: Who discovers the Americas? Portuguese Atlantic push? Song Pacific expansion?
+2. **Song's North-South crisis**: When does it break open? Second cold wave (~1460)?
+3. **Timur's death (~1405)**: How do successor states fragment? Mughal-equivalent in India?
+4. **Italy**: Renaissance dynamics with changed trade routes? Venice/Genoa as Song goods gateway?
+5. **Reformation**: Hussite reform movement spreading — when does it become a full break?
+6. **Greater Germany**: How is the monarchy vs. republic question resolved?
+7. **Ilkhanate industrialization**: How far does it get by 1836?
+8. **Great Khanate**: Further decline or stabilization after Novgorod + losing Chagatai?