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diff --git a/WORLDBUILDING.md b/WORLDBUILDING.md index 50fd19c..027ad1b 100644 --- a/WORLDBUILDING.md +++ b/WORLDBUILDING.md @@ -2004,13 +2004,152 @@ Questions for discussion: --- -## Open Questions (Post-1675) - -1. **England**: How fast does coal/iron industrialization develop post-independence? -2. **France**: How does it recover from losing England? Absolutism or reform? -3. **Egypt**: Independence still pending — when? -4. **Japan**: Meiji-equivalent modernization — how fast? Does it become a great power? -5. **Great Khanate**: Absorbed Poland directly — does this help or create new problems? -6. **Portugal**: Dutch Disease continuing — when does decline become visible? -7. **Americas**: English colonial expansion vs French colonial dominance? -8. **Remaining to 1836**: 161 years, ~6 checkpoints +--- + +## 1700 Checkpoint: Population Explosion Era + +### Columbian Exchange + End of Maunder Minimum (~1715) +- 210 years since American contact → high-yield crops globally widespread: + - Potatoes → Northern Europe (Germany, England, Kalmar, Great Khanate) + - Maize → Southern Europe, Africa, East Asia + - Sweet potatoes → East Asia (Song, Korea, Japan) +- Combined with Maunder Minimum ending → **global population explosion** (many regions double within 50-100 years) +- Industrial nations: more workers → expansion. Agricultural nations: more people → more pressure. + +### England: Industrial Takeoff (~1700) +- 15 years post-independence, coal/iron at full speed +- **Conquers Ireland** → British Isles unified (except French Highland Scotland) +- North American colonies aggressively expanding (competing with French North America) +- Newton-equivalent science + Huguenot engineers + coal/iron = fastest-growing industrial economy +- Potato cultivation → population boom → industrial workforce +- Late starter but explosive growth (best resources + newest technology = leapfrogging) + +### Japan: Meiji-Equivalent + North Pacific Empire (~1700) +- 25 years since Jianzhou forced opening +- Modernization: central government strengthening, daimyō power reduced, industrial technology imported (from Jianzhou, New Song, Ilkhanate) +- **Active in international trade** (no longer isolated) +- **North Pacific expansion**: + - Hokkaido (colonized) → Kuril Islands → **Kamchatka** → Aleutian Islands → **Alaska** + - Fur trading posts (sea otter pelts: enormously valuable) + - Japan reaches America's back door from the west +- North Pacific triangle: Japan (from west), Jianzhou (from continent), Kalmar (from Atlantic/Vinland) + +### France: Absolutist Reform +- Lost England → national humiliation → Paris court responds with **centralization** +- "We lost because we weren't strong enough" → absolutist turn +- Pushes domestic industrialization (can't rely on English coal/iron anymore) +- **Burgundy designated as primary rival/threat** → French military buildup on eastern border +- Retains: most North American colonies, Highland Scotland enclave +- Still has Europe's largest population → recovery potential is real + +### Egypt: Population Crisis → Partial Independence (~1700) +**Root cause**: Ilkhanate's golden-age grain subsidies + new crops = demographic time bomb +``` +Ilkhanate subsidized bread (flatbread/aish) for decades + + Columbian Exchange crops arrive (maize, etc.) + + End of Maunder Minimum (better harvests) + = Egyptian population EXPLODES over 50 years + + But: jobs don't grow as fast as population + → Landless peasants flooding Cairo + → Sunni religious movements gain followers among the poor + → "Shia Ilkhanate oppresses Sunni Egypt" narrative + → Farmer revolts, urban riots, religious uprisings +``` + +**Revolution + partial independence (~1700-1710s)**: +- Multiple simultaneous crises: peasant revolts, Sunni religious movements, anti-Ilkhanate nationalism +- **Timing**: coincides with New Song's conquest of Aceh → Ilkhanate fights Malacca/South China Sea war → can't deal with Egypt simultaneously +- Ilkhanate manages to hold **Sinai Peninsula + possibly Palestine** (strategic buffer, military garrisons) +- But **Egypt proper (Nile Valley + Delta) breaks away** — cost of full reconquest too high, grain is cheap now (less economic motivation to hold) +- **Independent Egypt**: in chaos internally (multiple factions, Sunni religious parties, military strongmen, old Mongol-blooded aristocracy fragments) +- Al-Azhar scholars try to establish a theocratic or constitutional order but civil unrest continues +- **V3 start**: Egypt independent but unstable, Sunni, potentially reforming, with East African colonies from the autonomous era + +### New Song: Expansion Phase (~1700) +- Post-reconquest, post-population explosion: New Song is the world's most populous state +- Sweet potatoes/maize → agricultural boom → southern countryside recovering +- **Conquers Aceh** → recovers Malacca Strait control +- This triggers **Malacca War with Ilkhanate** (Aceh was Ilkhanate's Shia proxy) + - Song's industrial navy vs Ilkhanate's Indian Ocean fleet + - Major naval war in the South China Sea / Strait of Malacca + - Ilkhanate simultaneously dealing with Egyptian revolution → fighting on two fronts + - **Song likely wins Malacca back** (closer to home, larger navy, Ilkhanate distracted) +- Expands Australian colony: more settlers, coastal cities growing +- But: **Kalmar and England arrive at Australia's west coast** → Song's monopoly challenged for the first time + +### India: Fragmentation + Colonial Scramble ("Scramble for India") +- Timurid-Indian Empire collapses after Aurangzeb-equivalent's death (~1707 equivalent) +- Fragments into regional states (Maratha-equivalent, Bengali nawabs, Deccan sultanates, Rajput states, Sikh-equivalent) +- **SEVEN powers begin colonial/conquest attempts simultaneously**: + +| Power | Direction | Target | +|---|---|---| +| Ilkhanate | Persian Gulf → Gujarat/Malabar (existing posts) | Western India (trade dominance → territorial) | +| New Song | Burma Road → Bengal | Eastern India | +| Portugal | Cape → Goa equivalent (small posts) | Coastal enclaves | +| England | Atlantic → Indian Ocean (new) | Wherever there's opportunity | +| France | Atlantic → Indian Ocean | Competing with England | +| Aragon | Mediterranean → Red Sea? | Minor involvement | +| Germany | Indirect (via trade) | Commercial penetration | + +- **India becomes this world's Africa** — the "Scramble for India" equivalent of our timeline's Scramble for Africa +- Difference: India has huge population + remnant military capacity → harder to conquer than Africa was +- More likely: spheres of influence, proxy wars, economic penetration, rather than full territorial conquest + +### Great Khanate: Population Bomb +- Potatoes feed serfs → serfs don't starve → **population grows** → but conditions don't improve +- More serfs = more output for landlords = landlords see no reason to reform +- "Population growth + serfdom = bigger time bomb, not defused time bomb" +- Direct-ruled Poland being digested (painfully — Polish resistance goes underground, Catholic Church operates in secret) +- Grand Duchy of Poland (German puppet) exists on western border as constant irritant + +### Ilkhanate: Two-Front Crisis +- **Malacca War** (vs New Song in SE Asia) + **Egyptian Revolution** simultaneously +- Forces a strategic retreat: loses Malacca (Song takes it back), loses Egypt (too costly to reconquer) +- **Still powerful**: Persia + Iraq + Anatolia + Central Asian vassals + Indian Ocean network (minus Malacca) +- But this is the **end of the golden age** — from unchallenged #1 to one of several great powers +- Industrial capacity intact but strategic position weakened +- Holds Sinai/Palestine as buffer against independent Egypt + +### Australia: Multi-Power Contact +- **Northern/Eastern coast**: Song Chinese settlers (majority, oldest presence) +- **Western coast**: Kalmar Union ships arrive (from Cape of Good Hope route or Indian Ocean) + English expeditions +- Song's monopoly on Australia beginning to crack +- Interior still largely Aboriginal +- Mineral wealth not yet fully exploited but exploration accelerating + +### North Pacific: Three-Way +``` + Kalmar (Atlantic side) ── North America ── Japan (Pacific side) + (Vinland/Newfoundland) (contested) (Alaska/Kamchatka) + │ + Jianzhou Republic + (Bering Strait area) + + West coast of Americas: Japan and Jianzhou approaching from west + East coast: Kalmar, England, France from east + Interior: nobody yet +``` + +### Industrialization Spectrum (~1700) +| Tier | Powers | +|---|---| +| Tier 1 | New Song, Ilkhanate (weakened but still strong), Greater Germany | +| Tier 1.5 | England (fastest growing), Kalmar Union, Bohemia | +| Tier 2 | France (reforming), Aragon, Jianzhou Republic, Portugal (declining) | +| Tier 2.5 | Burgundy, Italian states, Tunisia/Morocco, Korea, Japan (modernizing fast) | +| Tier 3 | Mongol Khanate, Castile, Egypt (independent but chaotic) | +| Blocked | Great Khanate (serfdom), Indian fragments | + +--- + +## Open Questions (Post-1700) + +1. **Scramble for India**: How does it play out? Who gets what? +2. **England vs France**: North American colonial war inevitable? +3. **Egypt**: Stabilizes or remains chaotic into V3 era? +4. **Japan**: How fast does it industrialize? Pacific power by 1836? +5. **Great Khanate**: When does serfdom finally break? Revolution or reform? +6. **Australia**: Song vs Kalmar vs England — partition? +7. **Remaining to 1836**: 136 years, ~5 checkpoints |