"It is incompatible with the honor and dignity of the Roman state for its premier citizens to behave in a manner more befitting that of barbarians. However the fallen nature of the human character necessitates that a strong hand from the center is needed to curb the excesses of the people."-attributed to the Empress Helena
1582: The events at Yamage lead to the first direct armed confrontations between the Romans and Portuguese in the east outside of the Moluccas. But that ‘distinction’ does not take place in the waters of the China Sea or the straits of Malacca but on the quays of Ramanathapuram. Ship Lord Michael Mouzalon, a half-Greek half-Malay Digenos (he claims to be the first), lost five ships, a fifth of his inventory, under Shimazu charter at Yamage and wants revenge.
When a large Portuguese India fleet puts in at the docks to buy pepper, Michael leads his retainers and allies in an attack on the Portuguese fleet and merchant quarter. Bloody street fighting follows, the Portuguese getting the worst of it (excluding of course the hapless natives caught in the middle) before the Nayak brings a mass of Malabar soldiery to restore order. A fuming Michael flees the city, although not before throwing a couple of cannonades into the waterfront.
The Katepano of Taprobane Thomas da Montefeltro privately condemns the action, viewing it as ‘more representative of the conduct of a Gallic pirate lord then a Roman nobleman’. Despite his official rank and sharing a maternal grandfather with Empress Helena and Princess Alexeia, he cannot act upon such sentiment in public. Michael is one of the most powerful of the ship lords and his actions are supported by many others.
Aside from the blatant attack against the Portuguese, their main commercial rivals (after the decline of the Chinese) there have also been growing tensions with the Vijayanagara. The ‘Lord of the Eastern and Western Seas’, Deva Raya III, has repaired the naval impotence that had facilitated the Roman entry into India in the reign of his great-grandfather and namesake. Disturbed by the mercantile and territorial successes of the Romans in what he views as his sphere, he has been placing restrictions and red tape on the Roman merchant quarters, while his dispatch of war fleets to the straits of Malacca has Roman Pahang seriously alarmed.
Even without the antagonism, he cannot tolerate such a blatant flouting of his authority, particularly in southern India so close to his seven-walled capital. Within eight weeks every Roman quarter in southern India has been seized and the merchants, goods, and ships impounded, although both Alappuzha and Kozhikode resist stoutly, a few ships managing to shoot their way out of the harbors to safety.
This only serves to enrage the ship lords even more, especially when the Emperor issues his demands. He will release his prisoners, but only on the conditions that the sequestered goods are forfeit, the payment of a huge fine including one hundred and sixty tons of nutmeg and cloves each, the delivery of Michael Mouzalon, and the abandonment of all Roman quarters save a sharply truncated one at Machilipatnam, a poor, squalid place off the major trade routes that has yet to cover from the wrecking from a failed revolt against the Vijayanagara seventy years earlier.
Although Thomas believes that Deva Raya has legitimate grievances regarding Ramanathapuram, he cannot swallow such terms, and rejects them. The Hindu Emperor, who had expected and indeed been counting on such a response, dispatches a powerful army and fleet to invest Surat by land and sea while smaller naval units harry the coast of Taprobane. The Roman ships in theater retaliate with full force. As the Roman Empire embroils itself in a full-scale war with the Empire of Vijayanagar, more shots are exchanged with Portuguese warships off Riau and Palembang.
1583: It is at this time that elderly Joao III, King of Portugal, dies in his palace in Evora. With his monastic temperament and not so stout constitution he has only fathered two children, a boy and a girl. The son died of smallpox at the age of three, leaving his daughter Isabella as heiress. She is married to Felipe II of Castile.
Felipe has prepared the ground well. Both Arles and the United Kingdoms do not oppose his succession to the throne of Portugal (he styles it as protecting his wife’s prerogatives but everyone can read in between the lines). The only other contender with a trapping of legitimacy is Joao’s grand-nephew Alfonso, the Count of Madeira and a drunken bully whose greatest joy is driving cattle off hills to crash into the sea.
Considering that he prefers using other people’s cattle for his amusements it is unsurprising he has no support outside Madeira, his place of ‘respectable exile’ as imposed by his great-uncle. Still Felipe has been busy gathering support among the Portuguese nobility and merchants, leaving nothing to chance. His willingness to confront the Triune piracy has boosted his prestige (although Beachy Head dented it) and his coffers are plentiful due to the expert administration of his crown lands. Theodora Drakina gives him the compliment of calling him the Ioannes Doukas Vatatzes of her times, referring to the skilled 13th century Emperor who laid the foundations for his son Theodoros Megas.
The Kingdom of Portugal thus submits to Felipe without serious contestation. A farce of resistance is attempted by Alfonso but a quick riposte from Lisbon captures Madeira and him before Felipe even reaches the Portuguese capital. Supposedly Alfonso threw himself from the battlements of his prison in shame; historians and contemporaries believe he was actually pushed.
Felipe inherits a sticky situation with Portugal’s battles with the Romans. The ire of the White Palace is up, and there are loud voices in Constantinople calling for an invasion of Iberia. At first glance, the logistical difficulties seem to make that a non-issue, but a dozen Roman fregatai are taking on supplies in Minorca and shooting up Berber xebecs off Oran as Felipe ponders the situation.
And there is Al-Andalus. Maalik Mohammed III has not contested the Castilian-Portuguese union because he lacks the strength to do so, but does not like the prospect. A strong and productive agricultural sector, plus exports of brazilwood from Al-Jahmr, give the Maalik a strong economy. That said, aside from brazilwood, most Andalusi trade is handled through foreign, mainly Carthaginian and Genoese merchants, with weak shipbuilding and gun-casting industries. With 2.5 million people Cordoba musters half the subjects of the Union.
An alliance with the Romans though would address that power imbalance. Helena however is open to negotiations and Theodora meets with the Duke of Merida at Saluzzo to try and hammer out an equitable peace. Peace is established on the status quo, both sides recognizing the other’s territories and allies. Neither side is willing to deny themselves options in Japan but it is agreed that while hostilities may be committed ‘beyond the line’ without breach of treaty, under no circumstances may said hostilities be used to justify combat ‘before the line’. The line is placed just east of Singapura.
That does leave the Roman Moluccas beyond the line, but New Constantinople has shown that it is quite capable of defending itself; four years earlier local ships had defeated a Brunei flotilla off Ternate and driven the survivors onto the shores of Halmahera. The native headhunting cannibals did the rest. But this concession (which will come back to bite the Romans) is granted in exchange for the Portuguese promise that they will provide no military or economic aid to Deva Raya III.
Helena feels the same way about her ‘Imperial brother’ as her cousin the Katepano. But any qualms about how this war was started are totally drowned out by the desire to win this, and at the same time strengthen her tenuous control over eastern Rhomania so this does not happen again. On any given year twenty to thirty droungoi (2000 to 3000 men) are stationed in the east to provide protection and to create a veteran cadre for actions in the Empire proper.
The monsoon winds of the year bring seven thousand men, including a sixteen-year-old eikosarchos just graduated from the School of War, Leo Neokastrites. It is the largest Roman force ever dispatched to the east, greater even the army sent by Nikephoros ‘the Spider’ to conquer Taprobane. Despite the impressiveness and power of the force, it is a quite expensive expedition and thus one the White Palace does not wish to repeat frequently.
To that end, included in the expedition are orders for the establishment of ten cleisurae. Mini-themes which support only a thousand soldiers as opposed to the ten thousand of a theme, many had been established by the contenders in the War of the Five Emperors. The last were phased out by Vlad Dracula when serving as Andreas I’s Megas Domestikos.
They are being restored in the east for the same reason they were created in the west; there are resources available but not enough to maintain a full tagma. Six are to be set up in the West Indies and four in the East Indies (three are based in Pahang and the fourth is broken up into droungos-sized packets stretching from New Constantinople to Pyrgos), each commanded by a strategos. Both the men and officers are to be drawn mostly from the natives and Digenoi, although the language of command is Greek.
Recruitment of the ten eastern tourmai begins immediately, but it will take time before they are gathered and properly prepared, even with building from the irregular forces that had thus far been the bulk of Rhomania’s might. However the seven thousand go forward into action, attacking the Nayak of Bijapur’s forces that had been blockading Surat in the north. Somewhat isolated from the other landward blockaders, the Romans have only a three to one disadvantage in numbers. But a cannon volley stampedes the charge of the armored elephants, which throw the Bijapuri foot into disarray and who are quickly routed.
The blockade of Surat (siege would suggest a closer investment then the historical setup) is soon reestablished but Roman morale has been significantly boosted and Indian correspondingly declined. At the same time the Roman fleet is joined by seven Ethiopian galleons. These ships, displacing 350 to 500 tons each, are the largest and newest vessels produced by the shipyards at Zeila, and all of their cannons save the 6-pounder mikropurs are of Ethiopian design and make.
With such powerful reinforcements, the combined main fleet is comprised of the Ethiopians, eleven Imperial ships (paid and maintained by Constantinople; there are sixteen total in the east), twelve leased Imperial ships (civilian ships hired by the Katepano), and a hundred and thirteen ship-lord vessels (one-third are Roman design, the remainder native types). On October 4th, the armada successfully seizes Alappuzha. The Vijayanagara navy, unwilling to take such a juggernaut head-on, still gains some glory by destroying a squadron off Kollam two weeks later, taking four prizes and sinking or burning twelve more.
With both sides hurting, a preliminary truce and then treaty are signed in Kozhikode. First, Michael has to personally pay an indemnity of 22,000 hyperpyra. He protests at first, but his fellow ship-lords ‘convince’ him to pay up. Although he is a fellow ship-lord, they have suffered heavy losses in men and materials, ships have been sunk or damaged, and significant trading opportunities have been lost. The yearly Pepper Fleet that rides the autumn monsoon back to the Empire was 40% of the average 1560-1580 fleet.
The Romans also have to pay another indemnity of 50,000 hyperpyra and lose all their trading quarters throughout the Empire. But in exchange their control of Surat is confirmed and Alappuzha with full sovereignty is given to the Romans. Neither side is satisfied with the accord, but neither is willing to continue the bloodshed in order to improve the terms. The Ethiopians, who have a much smaller presence in India and thus a much smaller concern to Deva Raya, do not win or lose anything.
