1614-1622 King Sebastiao I, Part 3
Here we are again, happy as can be. All good
friends, and jolly good company...
Except for Yemen, Brunei and Makassar, who, you
know.... ‘Delenda est’ and all that!
The campaign will take place on 3 fronts (2 major
and 1 minor). The major fronts are in the East, against Brunei and Makassar,
and Northwest, against Yemen. The minor front will be against Yemen’s ally, our
old time enemy, Kilwa in Eastern Africa.
The strategy is simple. Two small armies will be
launched against Brunei and Makassar simultaneously, destroying the enemy
forces and laying siege to their single provinces. Once they are successfully
captured, a holding force and small naval transport force will remain in the
area to deal with any revolts, whilst the bulk of the Eastern army will be
transferred west to join the main thrust of the operation.
In the west, a single army (12k troops) will deal
with Kilwa, destroying its armies and occupying enough territory to force an
early capitulation. Whilst Yemen, Makassar and Brunei cannot be individually
taken out of the war through peace treaty, due to them being part of a
Coalition, Kilwa can, by virtue of being an ally.
In the northwest, two armies (44k in total) will
drive into Yemen from Aden in the South and Muscat in the north, destroying
their land armies before settling down to siege warfare. They will be joined by
the armies from the East once Brunei and Makassar are taken.
Naval power will operate in support of land
operations, with two transport fleets shuttling troops around, and two battle
fleets to deal with enemy shipping. Efforts will concentrate in the East to
begin with, shifting to the West as practicable.
The opening salvoes are fired at sea, with our trade
fleets being given a drubbing by the Yemeni navy.
Later the same month (November 1614), our land
forces get into action in south Yemen, with our King leading the main force of
24,000
Dealing out a sharp shock to the Yemeni army, he
pursues them north as they flee
The following month, our north Yemeni army, under
General da Gama, annihilates a Yemeni reserve force near Hormuz
Moving into early 1615, attention shifts East, as
our Makassar attack force arrives on the shores, pushing the enemy back.
General de Sequeira follows up this initial victory by annihilating the enemy
the following month and then laying siege to Makassar itself
In March, General Machado gets his campaign underway
in Kilwa, driving north from Inhambane
Almost unnoticed, our colony of Tagoloan becomes
self-sustaining in April, and the entirety of the modern-day Philippines is
ours
Brunei celebrates our achievement by immediately
surrendering
And its navy is forced out of port and into the
waiting grasp of one of our fleets
The same month, back in Yemen, our King catches up
with the retreating Yemeni army, and gives them another seeing to
By May, General Machado has marched the length of
Kilwa, to destroy a second enemy force in Mombasa
Which bizarrely produces an agricultural
breakthrough in Portuguese fields!
July arrives, an our King is still chasing the
Yemeni army commanded by ‘Abdallah Khalil
All is quiet for several months until Makassar falls
in November 1615, allowing for reinforcements to be transferred west
And in December our King finally annihilates
Khalil’s force in central Yemen, having chased him halfway to Iraq and back
With the occupation of Makassar and Brunei
successfully achieved, Admiral de Aveiro’s battle fleet of Carracks is able to
sail west, and in January 1616 he engages the Yemeni fleet of galleys in the
Red Sea. The result is fairly one-sided
Picking up additional fleet elements on his way out
of the Red Sea, our Admiral proceeds to destroy a second Yemeni fleet in May of
the same year
Hawaii is ours in June 1616
But more importantly, General Machado has captured
the capital of Kilwa by August, driving the Kilwanese fleet into the waiting
grasp of Admiral de Aveiro
A very important milestone is reached in September,
as Mecca is occupied by Christian forces. The wascore is now at 80% and rising
Another 11,000 troops are killed in Kilwa by General
Machado’s army
And by March 1617 Kilwa has had enough. We get them
to renounce their claims on our previously won territory, but don’t take any
more from them to keep our AE and overextension at 0
Sana’a falls at around the same time, and we are now
in a waiting game of sieges
In October 1617, our foreign office tells us that
Great Britain and Sweden are at war. I beat our foreign minister roundly. When
he asks why I remind him that he hadn’t even told us they were no longer
allies!
Dhofar falls to our troops in November 1617, and the
end has come for Yemen
The warscore ticks over to 99%
And it is time to impose terms. We will annex Brunei
and Makassar, and the province of Dhofar. Yemen will renounce its claim to
Tajura and Muscat. Ethiopia and Alderaan will end their vassalisation, and Adal
and Hedjaz (which contains Mecca) will be released as sovereign states. With
this, our overextension goes through the roof, but we are now in the driving
seat of the Malacca trade node, and are close to parity with the Ottomans in
Aden
We immediately start coring our new provinces, but the
cost for coring Brunei and Makassar is punishing. Coring will take 4 years, and
during that time (and the subsequent time for converting to Catholicism) we
will need to station significant troops in the area to deal with uprisings
On more mundane matters, we take diplo tech 14
shortly after the end of the war, enabling a more advanced galley to be
constructed
Here is the new order of things in Arabia. Note the
African coastline round Aden has changed noticeably, and Yemen no longer has
any territory on that side of the Red Sea. The Mughal Empire looms large to the
north in Iran and Afghanistan
Over in the Eastern theatre of operations, Portugal
has a firm grip on the Indonesian and Philippine area. Ayutthaya looks large,
but is fairly technologically backward, and does not represent much of a trade
rival, as half of their provinces are in the Siam trade node, in which I have
little interest at this time. The small (red) nation of Matapahit in the south
(occupying the eastern half of Java island) will eventually earn my displeasure
enough for me to annex, but for now they are of little consequence. My aim in
this region is to colonise every free island before launching war on the other
nations in the area
In May 1618, Castile takes up colonisation in Africa
again (clearly is feels it has done enough in the Americas for now) taking a
province near South Africa
And two in central West Africa
We allow our war exhaustion to decline in the years
following the Coalition war against Yemen, and in July 1619 we successfully
complete the diplomatic annexation of Granada
The is much celebration in the autumn, as word
reaches us that settlers from Portugal have reached a strange land which is not
Kansas, known only as Oz. Tales of yellow brick roads and wonderful wizards are
told, but we dismiss them as nonsense
In 1620, we are able to take diplo tech 15, allowing
the construction of Frigates and Galleons
News of this technological marvel is treated with
dismay in Brunei, and the locals are definitely revolting
By May 1621 we are able to take another Quantity
Idea, this time reducing our military overheads
In November, the Society Islands become
self-sustaining. Who? What? Where? They are in that funny bit of the South
Pacific east of Fiji, where there is very little but open ocean. As such, they
will form one of our outpost stations as we construct a ring of colonies
stretching in a great arc from Hawaii down to the south and west
By June 1622, our diplomats have been working hard
in the Middle East, and the new nation of Adal agrees to become our
Protectorate
This prompts Alderaan to follow suit. In this
galaxy, Alderaan actually joins the Empire! We now have an arc of either
directly governed or Protectorate territory along the Somalian coast, from
Mogadishu in the south, to Tajura at the entrance to the Red Sea
Finally for this update, in August 1622, another of
our island outposts gets itself up and running, as Wake island becomes
self-sustaining. Wake is in the direct path of any shipping traversing the
central Pacific, and will therefore be useful as a stop-over for any ships that
need to reduce their fatigue before heading out to Hawaii and onward to the
west coast of the Americas
Next time, Austria and Morocco call us to arms in
Europe and beyond, and you’ll find out the result of the Anglo-Swede war
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