Quote:
Originally Posted by ericthered
The goal I want is a world where europe does not conquer india, southeast asia, and africa while forcing much of east asia to conform to its policies. (the new world is ok though) I want to do this without either depopulating europe OR filling europe's all-conquering role with someone else. (yes, in this case europe basically means england, holland, and france).
I suppose the right twists to the reformation might do the trick... hmm.
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Thats going to be hard to rationalize as East Asia is further away than India and Africa. So there would have to be a stronger connection between East Asia and Europe, with relatively easy travel and communication. The obvious connection is the Golden Horde.
Genghis Khan's eldest son, Jochi, appeared to lead an abortive coup against his father, and mysteriously died. So say in this timeline Jochi may have been rebellious, but he and his father reconciled very early. After Genghis died Jochi, as in the OTL, took control of the western territories of the Mongol Empire, but without the terrible political divide that separated Jochi's lands from the rest of the Horde.
Instead of relying on Turkic auxilaries, and therefore concentrating more on the Ukrainian and, later, eastern regions of Europe, Jochi and his successors were able to call on Mongol forces. His son Batu invaded Italy and Germany in 1242 (ignoring calls to return to Karakorum), declaring himself Great Khan of the Golden Horde in a ceremony in Rome in 1243.
England, despite a huge influx of Cuman refugees hounded from the steppes of Asia by the Horde, retains much of its character, as do the northern states including Holland. Thanks to the efforts of Henry III many Mongols in France became Christian, later exporting this version of Mongol Christianity through the rest of Europe and across Asia.
With the cultural familiarity of Christianity, the continuing power struggles with the rest of the Empire to the east, and the entrenching of Mongols as the leadership of most European powers, Europe is focused on East Asia rather than the Middle East or Africa. The Renaissance starts in northern Italy a few decades early, thanks to the influx of eastern textiles and the wealth that brings.
Without a major maritime industry, European explorers are replaced by Egyptian sailors trying to find a shortcut to Chinese markets, discovering Gharb Sin, in 1520. English colonies appeared there less than a century later, followed by French and Holland colonies.
Egyptian and Turkish colonists are less "Imperial" than OTL Spanish, although central Mexico is still in war torn, disease ridden chaos by the mid 1500s, thanks to the savage revolts and counter-revolts among the Aztec Empire, and the introduced germs by the Egyptian and Turks. Instead of conquest and assimilation the Egyptians were more disposed toward cooperative kingdom alliances.
By the mid 20th century the English Empire dominates central and eastern Gharb Sin (North America) and politically dominates Japan and several northern Chinese states. A Franco-German alliance is its main rival, controlling most of central Asia through their proxie-states in Russia and Georgia. Amsterdam is still recovering from a nuclear attack by England, decapitating their Empire in China and Japan and aborting what would have become a world wide war.
Various Indian States control most of the Indian Ocean basin from South Africa to Australia and New Zealand. Turkish and Egyptian successor states dominate the rest of Africa and South America, while the expansive Aztec Caliphate rules south and west North America.
"Great Game" spy intrigues are common across central Eurasia and in the imperial capitals such as Paris, Dusseldorf and Birmingham. Proxy brushfire wars are common among the various Chinese kingdoms, a redux of the Period of Warring States, with a European tint. Interminable religious wars between the Islamic Aztecs and the Christian and pagan tribes of Native Americans, backed by the English, characterize the trans-Rocky Mountain regions. Prop planes and atomic submarines prowl the remnants of the Dutch Empire in the Carribbean, gun runners paid in Aztecan hash dodging English attack subs, trying to fund a revolution among the Danish refugees settled along the steaming Gulf Coast.