Chapter 21: The War Chain (1640-1650)
We left the last chapter with Denmark having established a chain of Client States from West Africa to South Asia ( Nigeria, Sudamerica, Bactria, India) . These clients were to effectuate the conquest of the Old World by proxy on behalf of Denmark , as dreamt of by the mad king Niels. As for the New World, that was to be conquered on behalf of Denmark by her Western subjects in Europe and by the Colonial Nation generator Azorea. And the first war to move that plan along was against New Portugal, who had conquered much of the land that used to be Atwixia's .
Portugal was conveniently allied to Two Sicilies, so that was also a chance for Denmark to grow her Italian subject Sicily. But now, instead of just waging one war at a time , Emperor Christian III began a new tradition for Denmark, and that was to chain multiple wars at the same time. So he declared war on Kedah in the Malaccan peninsula, in order to continue expanding the Client State chain eastward.
After about 1 year of fighting, both forts in South Italy were taken and Sicily gained a few new provinces
Two Sicilies was not a co-belligerent, but at that point Christian had stopped caring about aggressive expansion and took maximum gains. Similarly in East Asia, Denmark took maximum land from non co-belligerents as well.
Kelantan was completely annexed, and Malacca lost several provinces on the Malay peninsula. The only compunction Denmark followed was to limit annexations to just the Malay culture ( of the Malay group), keeping away from Sumatran and other Malay group cultures.
The war with Portugal dragged on for another year until both Lisboa ( for war score) and Fez ( to allow annexation in North Africa) were taken .
Then peace was signed .
In the peace, Denmark took Dukkala on the Moroccan coast. That was just 2 provinces away from the monument of Ait Benhaddou in Demnate province, a project that promised more enhanced trade for Denmark ( as you could have gathered by now, and
@StrategyGameEnthusiast pointed out, Denmark is going aggressively after the Great Projects, particularly trade related ones). She also took direct ownership of several provinces in South America that would create a new Colonial Nation for Denmark ( and of course, that nation would have more than 10 provinces) . Azorea got 10+ provinces in Eastern America colonial region ( what used to be Atwixia). These will become an Azorean CN. She also got Cape Verde islands, which would allow creation of an Azorean CN in the La Plata region in a future war . Finally, Denmark took the eastern half of Portuguese Colombia and later fed it to Sweden ( who had a province there from the days when we were enlarging Sweden to avoid accidental inheritance). That area would later become Swedish Colombia, and not a direct subject of Denmark . Although that cost Denmark the bonus of a merchant, it kept the Cartagena De Las Indias monument under direct Danish ownership [ +30% trade ship power at lvl 3 beats the merchant] , and it weakened Portuguese Colombia who has been a thorn in Denmark's side in the mulitple wars waged so far against Portugal
[ I did not show screenshots, but fighting in the Americas has usually been difficult as Portugal had big subjects and I had none].
After peace with Portugal, it was time for peace with Kedah.
Here Denmark created her newest Client State, called Malay after the local culture
[Malaya is taken]. That client was designated as the one to expand into Indochina, adding new accepted cultures, before later absorbing all the East Indies into it.
The creation of the various client states, who were asked to divert their trade to Denmark, in conjunction with various upgrades to the trade related Great Projects caused the trade income of Denmark to continue growing, and in October 1642 surpassed the one thousand monthly ducats milestone. Something that was very pleasing the Greedy Emperor
Soon after our Emperor was presented with the choice of the 9th government reform. And here there was division in the court. Some favored adding more accepted cultures, arguing that a larger Denmark will be needed to keep the growing vassals in check. Others argued for direct improvement in liberty desire among vassals. But in the end, Christian went with the Machiavellians who found ways to minimize stability hits when declaring unjustified wars. Considering that ideas such as Imperialism were still over 40 years in the future , the ability to declare war on anyone without penalty was very enticing to the Emperor
[with Diplomatic ideas, a no CB war becomes +1 war exhaustion but no stab hit] .
After that brief interlude of peace, it was time to expand the new state of Malay, and war was declared on its northern neighbors Ligor and Ayutthaya.
And going back to the idea of chaining wars back to back, a second war was declared on Kanu to grow Nigeria. And a third war on Mecklenburg to grow Denmark.
The last war was driven in part by the need to find an outlet for the accumulating administrative power. And for that war , Denmark mostly counted on her Personal Unions , augmented with just a few mercenary companies. The bulk of Danish armies remained overseas in the African and Asian theaters .
There were many battles and sieges in these wars, but the most notable one was at Mergui where Ayutthaya and her allies tried to prevent Denmark from breaking out of the Malay isthmus. And that battle was a rare instance when a fervent focus on war was called for in the Reformed Church ( traditionally, the focus has not been set except around New Year , when it was switched temporarily to Diplomacy ) .
The first annexation in a peace happened about 14 months after the wars started, with Berg becoming a permanent part of Denmark
Then several enemy allies were peaced out for diverting trade, leaving the main targets of annexation. Ayutthaya followed, losing Siamese culture land directly to Malay .
Denmark kept Bangkok province with its famous palace, which was immediately upgraded to Noteworthy before starting the coring process. Then before the next peace treaty, two things happened. First, Christian decided to declare war on Nupe near Nigeria since there were many Danish and subject troops in the area already. Second, he welcomed another Colonial Nation into the fold, named Patagonia.
That brought an 18th merchant to Denmark. It seemed no number of merchants was going to be enough for our Greedy Emperor. That merchant was sent to secure the Astrakhan-Crimea-Kiev-Novgorod chain towards the Channel and away from Venice.
Then Kano was almost completely annexed, all the provinces going to Nigeria . The culture was Hausa, which was part of the Sahelian group , while Nigeria's Yoruba was part of the West African group . With time Nigeria was expected to accept Hausa culture. The peace with Kano began the unwinding of the war chain, and next was Ligor who got absorbed into Malay .
The wars with Nupe would drag for another year, until Nigeria was able to annex almost all her neighbors.
The war with Mecklenburg, which was difficult as their ally Saxony was strong, was kept going while another war was started against Tungning, a small Chinese culture nation that occupied the island of Taiwan
The Tungning were allied to large Chinese nations on the mainland, but the Emperor only needed two provinces from them: one to give occupation to Malay as a Client State seed, and the second to spawn the last CLient State in the Chain. But for that , Denmark needed to be at peace. SO as soon as Tungnin agreed to cede two provinces ( which is a lot easier than a doing a full annexation), peace treaties were signed with all enemy nations.
From Saxony, several provinces with forts were directly annexed ( all German culture). That would make the next war with Saxony easier. From Mecklenburg, a contiguous block of land was taken, also to maximize fort gains. But also to improve the appearance of Denmark's name on the map [didn't work].
Finally peace with Tungning was made, with their northern two provinces taken . The north was chosen to allow claim fabrication on Japan who was going to be the next target. And from those two provinces, the new Client State of Eastasia was created.
That client state was of primary Chinese group culture. But first it would expand into other groups like Korea and Japan before turning towards China.
Denmark rested at peace for just two months to allow her subjects a breathing space ( most seized lands for their crowns as myriads of particularist, noble and zealot rebels popped here and there ) . Then it was time to declare war again. And just like before, when we declared war we did simultaneous wars. After having Nigeria grow a bit, it was Sudafrica's turn, and Kilwa looked like a good target. But Kilwa had strong allies ( Gurkani and France), so an indirect declaration was used , this time on Buhua even though there was no casus belli .
This was soon followed by an attack on Japan, using claims fabricated from Taiwan .
Japan had no useful allies, and the naval invasion went unchallenged. And soon Danish troops were at the gates of Kyoto, which fell after a 2 month siege.
Meanwhile Denmark became even richer thanks to the mercantilist policies of Christian III . And on the penultimate day of the year, peace with Buha and Kilwa was concluded, growing Sudafrica with the addition of several Nyasa culture lands. Slowly but surely , Sudafrica was living up to its name.
And the Emperor was now contemplating what a potential peace with Japan would look like. Ever the greedy one, he was eying taking much of Southern Japan for his Client Eastasia, who would then divert the valuable trade towards Malacca, the Cape and then Europe. But his son was receiving different advice, and was arguing for a much smaller acquisition that gave a shorter truce. Who wins that argument will be decided in the next chapter.
And we close with the happy birth of Manufactories in Bruges, in the heart of the land of Textile Manufactories.
That was only fair as no other nation on earth had spent so much on developing production and trade than Denmark, and she was reaping the financial rewards in buckets.
