Europe: The Dark Continent (IC)

[Victores]

The Punitive Expedition

60,00 Inca soldiers were deployed to the Amazon under the command of the Emperor. These were the most elite troops the Empire could offer, recruited from the bloodthirsty southern tribes. The soldiers set of from Cuzco on a cold August spring day. The festival of Spring would begin in September, some of the soldiers wouldn’t see it though. The new supreme commander had set plans to defeat the head-hunters once and for all. They would burn down the Amazon to deprive the Hill-tribes of there cover. Numbered among the trips were 7000 Elite Amazonian archers whose job it would be to shoot to death all the tribesman fleeing the forest. The majority of the army were less well trained axeman and spearman armed with bronze weapons and wooden armor(that was actually a thing).

There were also a few of the experimental troops devised by the head of the military, they were spearman riding llamas, the idea was that since llamas were faster than people, they could run down enemy soldiers fleeing. The llamas were equipped with wooden armor painted with the rainbow flag of Cuzco and a few gold ornaments. They were quite the impressive sight. “I should arrange the recruitment of 100 more, just to impress the rebellious locals” said the general to one of his staff. The staff quickly drew out a pile of cloth and a pen, drawing a picture of a llama, an soldier, and the number 100.

As they traveled further North East into Colombia and modern day State of Amazonia they heard strange reports of jaguar people who fought like monster and sacrificed humans in the most gruesome of ways that lived in a place where July was Summer and December was Winter. Along the way they passed a runner with fish coming from Amazonia. The runner was bringing fish to the palace for the Emperor from the amazon. “Hey, messenger” shouted the general “Are you headed for Cuzco”
“Yes”
“Take this to the emperor” said the general handing the man the clothe
“Yes, sir”

As they entered the Colombian Amazon and Ecuador the stories of jaguar men turned into stories of people who wore jaguar skins, they were called the Asteks of Azteq or something like that. Some of the friendly hill tribes told them these people worshipped a giant snake and wore feathers to imitate it. They also mentioned the practice of cutting peoples heart out. The Incas only ever killed their sacrifices when they still practiced it with clubbing to death.

Imperial Court, Cuzco

“And these people do what to their victims”asked the head of diplomacy
“Cut their hearts out” said the scribe reading from the supreme commander’s message
“Is it wise to send a diplomat, they will probably kill him”
“Well, we could sent the entire army to invade the land where July is Summer and December is Winter”
“Actually, why don't we just send a messenger with a few guards”

[The Germanian states]

Majapahit Empire

The Majapahit empire has reached it's peak as it's territory goes to Modern day Thailand. The Soldiers marched through with ease.

There was news of European ships headed for the Malacca port but this has not been confirmed. The best spices had been prepared for their arrival as they would bring goods the people has never even seen before.

[Orthodox States]

The Great Mongol Tribes

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While Khan Ganbaatar was on his holy mission to convert the Mongols, The Western Khan was planning his annexation of the neighboring Nomadic tribes, and to finally reach a land border with the Golden Horde, which was one of the many successor states of the older Mongol Empire.

The Western Khan again called his soldiers to fight for glory, land, and honor. About 5,000 soldiers arrived, mostly to subdue and take over the lands they would conquer. They were eager to conquer another round of new lands, new pastures to feed their horses and livestock, and more . They all had their horses, bows, and swords, but what the Khan did realize they also had were different religions. While most of them still praised Tengri with the Khan, a sizable amount had called to God instead, and wore makeshift necklaces bearing the sign of the Cross. The Western Khan had simply ignored this fact, soldiers were still soldiers, even if they aren't of the Khans faith. He ordered them to split up into 2 groups, evenly, with one of his courtier commanding the other portion.

A day later

The Sound of the hooves of the horses striking the ground went on for hours, with the Khan's troops taking over village after village, until they found the main Nomadic tribe's village. The Troops circled around the village, in a circle, in order to keep the army inside from charging out, and also for civilians to be trapped inside to provoke panic. Arrows flew inside the nomadic settlement, and with people panicking inside the settlement, casualties of the civilians, and the soldiers, were beginning to mount higher and higher. Eventually the Khan's soldiers broke the settlement's simple defensive structures, and the horses raced inside, killing most of the population. The rest of the population was to become slaves, either to be sold at a later date, or for the soldiers who fought for the Khan. The village was then torn down, and the province was theirs.

Meanwhile, at the Courtiers army

While the Khan had enjoyed a almost bloodless victory, at least for his army, his courtier and the army under his command did not have as much luck. The courtier was not as good as leading an army as the Khan, and the Christians went back to their hunting grounds. The 500 soldiers deserted the army, but that was the least of their worries. The courtier also didn't know that much about tactics, and so told his horse archers to line up in a single file, which allowed the enemy army to go out from the back, and the enemy army split up, and flanked the army from both sides. They charged, but not without suffering some casualties, and the courtier's horsemen charged. They fought valiantly, but eventually casualties mounted, and the Mongols retreated. They arrived later, and managed to take the village, but they lost 1,250 men due to the Christians deserting and the soldiers dying during the charge. The courtier would be banned from commanding any armies after the casualty list reached the Khan.

The Soldiers were happy with the lands conquered, and they started to use the land for hunting, breeding their horses, making more family's, and for training in case of more conquest. However, the families of those who lost their lives grieved heavily, and the Christians chose this moment to spread their influence and convert more of the soldiers and populous.

http://i1116.photobucket.com/albums/k569/red123452/7520fc55-74b8-4656-bd5d-f6abd2c416b3.png

[Togeria]

"I can see you have adopted the peninsula quite well, and we have every attention of making your stay here as comfortable as possible. You're peoples settlement and protection of the north has encouraged more to migrate that there, in many ways the Bedouin are the guardian angels of the Moors and Italians."

"You flatter me, truly," She replied, being quite honest in her opinions. She shifted her stance a bit, just a bit, and by doing so appeared more relaxed, not being nearly as formal as she had been previously. A soft sigh, barely audible, escaped her lips as she looked over the Moorish leader once more. Many thoughts raced through her head, not the least of which was that she had perhaps been too harsh to the nation of Islam previously. Still, her people would not convert. They were proud, and like she, they believed in the Meccan goddesses, but a certain tolerance, maybe, was to be found instead of endless wrath.

Khalid too adjusted his seat, and with this his gaze softened. His expression was nearly so stoic almost as if he himself was at a relief his eyes no long piercing, but instead calm and soft. His face told the story of the endless stress the young prince himself was facing, darkened sacs under his eyes as if he had missed a few essential days of sleep, nevertheless he kept his composure and maintained posture, training from the native Italians in Rome taking over. He nodded at her reply before speaking,"But truly Hadiyyah our home it yours, your are more the welcome to establish more permanent settings up north should it fit you or move south for work should it suit your people. Our we pride ourselves on a educated populace, but as most attain to the Quran, I will understand if your people would wish to publish works attaining more to their native culture and beliefs. We only ask that the peace be kept and that your people too do what possible to see Aymendia flourish."

---

Your letter has indeed interested the Sultano and as such the empire. We feel obligated to help our fellow Muslim brothers and will ready a force of armed merchant vessels carrying a force of 2,000 men. The promise of Libya had indeed gained our favor, additionally we ask that a similar favor be promised when we too begin our conquest in the north.

[Alsheb]

The Mamluk Sultanate of Egypt, Hejaz and the Levant

After hearing of the treacherous invasion of the Ottomans into the Levant, and the siege of Aleppo by the Turkish military forces, the entire Mamluk Empire was in state of massive mobilisation. The Turk had shown his real face: not as a defender of the Islamic faith or as a protector of the East from the barbaric hordes of the former Crusader states, but as an opportunistic realm of vultures who preyed upon their neighbours.

Immediately, the Mamluk army in the Levant was mobilised and prepared for battle. From all over the Syrian and Palestinian lands, armies of mamluks elite troops and regular soldiers were called to arms and sent north to aid in the saving of the city of Aleppo. The Abbasid Caliph in Cairo has issued a fatwa against the Ottoman Empire, declaring the Turkish sultan an apostate and heretic, and calling on the Muslim world to band together against this new enemy of the Custodian of the Holy Mosques. This has led to bands of zealous Sunni muslims signing up for the war against the Turkish invasion.

While the Levantine provinces provide soldiers for the war effort in Aleppo, the Hejaz and Egyptian territories decided to bolster their strength and fortify in order to prepare for potential attacks in the rear. Most of the invasion force in the Banu Amin lands have been withdrawn to the Suez area.

[Licata]

Reserved for upcoming Post

[The Northernmost Americas]

Northern Caucasus
A great cheer rang out among Mehmed's horsemen. In front of them, just outside of bow-shot, the first of the settlement's roofs caved, ravaged by fire. The blaze drove the settlers onto the stockade's ramparts, where, silhouetted by the inferno behind them, they made easy targets for the advancing Ottomans. A muffled cry to the left of their ranks, quickened their pace to a gallop. Once beneath the stockade they dismounted and clambered onto the ramparts, only for the first few to be cut down by the defenders. The rest fanned out, seeking less well defended sections of rampart. The few Mamluks on the wall made a good showing, but they were too few to turn back the tide. One by one, they fell, after which the remaining settlers laid down their arms.
Mehmed left behind a dozen men to watch the few prisoners that remained, the rest he ordered back to Sochi, where the other raiding parties were to reassemble once finished with the other settlements, and from where they would then make their way to the Levant.

---

Adana
Ali Pasha had wanted to linger in the town a while longer, to gather up a greater force. Bayezid had disagreed, wanting to advance into the Levant and crush the Mamluks there before reinforcements could be called up from Egypt. While overseeing drill outside the town, the vizier was approached by another courier. Ali winced as he read the proffered letter; Bayezid's diction had grown less polite over each request. And so, Ali pasha set out from Adana at the head of nearly twenty-thousand men, mostly late arrivals from the Balkans along with a few local conscripts. His force had no artillery, although a shipment of various calibers had set sail from Konstantiniyye arsenal and could be redirected to the Syrian coast.

[Era the Mind]

The Passing of Three Months

The Zuni Front

In the battles of the Aztec-Mayans against the Zuni, the 70,000 men, now reduced to 50,000, had been making rapid progress through the conquering of Zuni territories. Three months into the war, the Mexica and their Mayan vassals had already conquered much of the borderlands, and were now in the process of making a rapid movement where they would cut off some of the Zuni from their land, and then close into conquer their territories. The battles were long, and they were difficult, but Aztec spear throwers were strong, the Mayan’s archers were capable, and the the vassals of the Aztec-Mayan state were more capable than before.

However, the Apache were barely gaining territories, and were losing some of the strategic positions in the Zuni land. Zuni, and Navajo, reinforcements had arrived and were battering the strategic, more disciplined, yet lesser in number Aztec-Mayans with volley after volley of fire arrows. Ohtli had a frown on his face, as he noted that his 50,000 men, while the best of the organization, needed to have reinforcements soon if they were going to withstand the rest of the Zuni and Navajo as they arrived.

Currently, over 300,000 soldiers out of the 3 million person army of the Aztec-Mayan were on their way in waves of 100,000 at a time. Every couple of weeks, another Aztec-Mayan envoy would arrive at the battlefields, and hopefully lay waste to their enemies. At this moment, however, there were around 100,000 out of the 300,000 on their way, in one of the largest deploys of Aztec forces on the planet, and these were forces that likely dwarfed the amount of soldiers Europe had ever put out. Hopefully, numbers would’t bankrupt the massive Aztec empire, and in the future this much manpower wouldn’t be absolutely necessary.

Meanwhile, the Navajo, the Zuni, and the Apache were in vicious battles against each other that were going to reshape the face of the Natives of America forever. With the Apache growing closer to completely wiping the Navajo defense out, the Zuni were beginning to move a portion of their troops in against what was, arguably, the stronger of the Apache defense. Meanwhile, the Zuni were terrorizing the ever shortening borders of the Apache, and it was evident that Apache allies would need to step in if shortly, and they may already be in the process.

The Chumash, a tribe that was now on good terms with the Apache after encountering them on the border, had begun to launch a siege against the Navajo and Zuni forces within the Navajo territories. The Navajo were being torn apart, and their tribe might as well be forfeit at this moment as the Zuni were incapable of defending their allies properly due to the onslaught of three different tribes attacking them. It seemed that things weren’t going too well for the enemies of the Aztecs, but what would be interesting is when the Aztec-Mayans discovered the Chumash and Apache on the other side.

Meanwhile, there were several tribes that were watching the conflict yet staying out of it in an attempt to insure that their trade partnerships with the other tribes bordering them would stay intact, and to insure that the entire continent didn’t break out in warfare. Things were vicious already, and with estimated losses approaching over 50,000 on the battlefields of the Aztec-Mayan and the Zuni, and over 120,000 where the Chumash-Apache alliance and the Navaj-Zuni alliance were concerned, the various empires simply just waited, and watched. When the Aztecs arrived, however, it was possible that no one would be safe from their onslaught as more, and more, and more Aztec troops arrived in the north.

The Shawnee Empire - Dark Brown
Muskogee - Lavender
Cheyenne - Prune
Chumash - Yellowish Green

The Mayan Ascension:

For many years, the Mayans and the Aztecs had been bitter enemies before they went to war against each other in one of the largest troop movements that the Aztec population of 5 million, and the Mayan population of 3 million had seen in many years. This war was a bloody one that stopped right in the middle of what would have been a 12 year campaign split into a 6 year campaign that became a legend of valiant victories and losses. The campaign had been split right as the battles began taking their tools on the Mayans, as the Mayans approached the Aztecs, and, in a rare act of being in a negotiable mood, the Aztecs agreed to the terms of the Mayans.

These terms stated that the Mayans would become a vassal state to Aztecs, and would be granted a form of autonomy as long as they adopted several Aztec Gods into their pantheon, began worshipping the Imperial Aztec god, and gave the Aztecs technology, and knowledge. Now, the Mayans have begun to be inducted as overseers over the other Aztec vessels, and maintain control over the vessels, while still being controlled by the Aztecs. The Aztecs and Mayans shared technology, methods, and were unifying themselves truly in a close, friendship-like alliance.

The South

The towns to the south had been constructed, and were still in the process of being built from the ground up, but forces had still decided to expand past this rapidly within the 3 months. The towns being built would act as the bases of operation for Aztec-Mayan forces to the south, and now the southern Aztec-Mayan forces of 120,000 sent word that they needed citizens and soldiers in numbers ranging up to 1.2 million (of which 30% are military, so 450,000 military reinforcements are arriving), before they could easily expand. They should arrive in 5 waves at a time over a period of 3 months, with a new one every month.

Note: These subjects are taught to millions of men, women, and children across the Aztec & Mayan states, as recent laws have made it mandatory for even the adults to attend school, and learn how to read & write. Everyone is also taught the specifics of many of the others through the sheer amount of

[001.] Battle Skills
[002.] History of the Aztecs, their vassals, & surrounding territories
[003.] Geography
[004.] Geology
[005.] Animal Studies
[006.] Religion
[007.] Foreign information
[008.] Reading & Writing
[009.] Construction & Craftsmanship

The War Launcher

All across the empire of the Aztec-Mayan grouping, there was word of a new type of weapon that could be placed to defend the city, pulled to assault another city as a siege machine, or placed on one of those really, really big ships that they were making. These whisperings were not whisperings of rumor, nor were they truly whisperings, but instead were the Aztec-Mayans announcing that they had developed a weapon of varying sizes that could be applied to nearly any situation. The War Launcher, as they called it, was a vicious machine that could be easily loaded, and could launch of a variety of different kinds of weapons that they load.

From the massive flammable arrows that you first load, then light, then fire as fast as possible, to the stone balls that seemed to be absolutely necessary in larger siege campaigns against those mysterious walls that some enemies had, to the normal arrows, it was an intense weapon applicable in any situation. One of the most brutal things able to be launched was a Mayan ceramic construct that had a fuse that lit, and, once broken on contact, would release flaming oil all across its opponents, or it could even be a ceramic weapon holding shrapnel, or other little nasty surprises for their opponents. Construction of this weapon in all of its power and glory had begun on the order of Ilzacoatl, and word was being sent, alongside blueprints, to other cities and territories to begin construction immediately.

In time, when metal came to the Aztec-Mayans from their explorations to the south, the north, and eventually the west, but for now they were just happy they could do what they did. Research on this had come from the ideas of a man devoted to improving the spear launcher, and once he realized he could turn the spear launcher into a giant device that could easily be made to launch other things, he immediately approached Ilzacoatl. To say Iltacoatl was given a surprise was an understatement, and due to it being on the day of birth of Iltzacoatl it was able to define the day as a good day of both war, and peace.

It’s estimated that building enough for the entire Aztec-Mayan military, and all of its smaller organizations, would take around a year at the most. For just enough for the primary cities, it should take a little bit less than that, but a lot of man work was being put into the Aztec-Mayan military, and it was becoming one of the greatest gifts to technology the Aztecs had ever given. Hopefully, by the time that year had come and pass, everything would be in order, and enough would have been shipped out for the Aztec-Mayan military to be quite the force to be reckoned with.

None of their neighbors would be able to stand against them.

The Ships

At least two out of the five new ships had been built by the Aztec-Mayans, while the first one, which would make a sixth, still remained, and once the War Launchers were completed all of the ships would be able to be outfitted with the war launchers. For now, however, the first ship, the Genesis, was going to take its first sail across the lands, and with its host of 21 Mayan and Aztec soldiers was going to explore the land to the west. It was an island that they had seen, and the Mayans had always been curious, and, with the Aztecs’ curiosity also peaked, the ship was approved to go to this island.

The ship was oddly constructed, propulsion-wise, when compared to the original ship and had many paddles for rowing that were all manned by 10 slaves accompanying the Mayan-Aztecs the soldiers accompanying it. Perhaps, in the future, a man would be capable of conceiving that a wheel, and a propellor could be used alongside the sail that accompanied the paddles, but the paddles were simply used for direction. The Aztecs didn’t understand, yet, that it would be possible to steer the ship in a fashion that suited them more than the way that they were going about things was capable of doing, something that they would be grateful for one day.

As of now, the Genesis was making way towards the island to the west, and is estimated to arrive within a few days if all goes well. On this journey, the Aztec-Mayans would learn how to properly traverse the land with the food they had. Hopefully, this would be a learning experience that they could convey to the other men and women in the new navy of the Aztec’s, and then they could create new tools for them to use on future journeys.

New Population: 8,412,333 (Around 5 million from Aztecs, 3 million from Mayans, 80-90 thousand from newly conquered territories)
Military Population: 3,328,933 (Around 40% of the population is made up of warriors. This is due to the fact that the Aztec-Mayans were, most notably, comprised of mostly of soldiers. However, I have lowered the amount of potential warriors from around 60% to 40% for RP reasons.)
Other Status: It is estimated that another 20% to 30% of the Aztec-Mayan population is capable of becoming warriors, while only 10% of the population wishes to become warriors in the future (these are the ones in school, but, currently, all of the population are in schooling to learn reading & writing). It is estimated that within 15 years that warrior amounts will have nearly doubled due to the influx of young men, and women, trying to show off, get laid, and find a mate.

The newly conquered territories of the Aztec-Mayans are host to 80,000 to 90,000 individuals, of which an estimated 20% would be capable of war. It will take some time for these individuals to submit to the Aztec-Mayans, but if they do not submit within a few months there will likely be mass sacrifices, and cannibalism, and brutal incidences of slavery in a massive act of genocide. The same would go with the rest of the territories that would be conquered within this time, as an example to the rest of the world that the Aztec-Mayans don’t play around.