Post by raharris1973 on Oct 2, 2024 2:57:41 GMT
What if Portugal from 1490 AD is ISOT back to 1190 AD?
Our ASB transports back 300 years the Portuguese mainland, all Portuguese ships at sea, and the overseas Portuguese possessions Madeira, the Cape Verde islands, and São Tomé and Principe. Not going back in time are the Portuguese Azores, nor Portuguese forts and outposts on the African mainland. But the 1490 Portuguese inhabitants of those lands and their dwellings and other property appear in 1190 appear on the closest Portuguese mainland or island territory that is ISOT back in time, so the country suffers to manpower or material "casualties", just loss of real estate.
Portugal has military technology in terms of gunpowder weapons, cannon, arquebus, full plate armor, sophisticated crossbows, and caravel ships with onboard cannon 300 years in advance of anyone else. It also just recently entered the print age. Portuguese consumers have purchased printed books for about two decades, but the first press on Portuguese soil, a Hebrew press by a Sephardic Jewish expat had been set up in Faro in the south in 1487. For the much broader Christian Portuguese reading public, a latin typeface print house was set up in Chaves in the north printing works in Portuguese and latin. In 1489 another Jewish press was set up in Lisbon, and in our history additional Latin/Portuguese print houses were due to be set up in the following decade in 1492 and 1494.
Portugal's navigational and geographic knowledge is also far in advance of anyone else in the 1190 AD timeframe, most notably, it has the record of the voyage of Bartolomeu Dias' successful voyage around the Cape of Good Hope.
Portugal's immediate Iberian neighborhood has changed drastically. 1490 AD Portugal has a population of about 1 million, slightly larger than the .9 million it had in 1190. 1490 Portugal also has the Portuguese far south including the Algarve, which "over-writes" the far western reaches of the Spanish-African Almohad Caliphate. The Almohad Caliphate (North African and southern Iberian portions combined) have a population of 5.8 million, with some probably shaved off for the missing Algarve. Portugal's Christian neighbor, Leon, has .4 million people, its other Spanish neighbors, Castille and Aragon each have another 1.35 million.
I presume Portugal's first order of business in the 1190 AD world will be to reorient itself and smash any Almohad threat to its southeastern land borders. This should be manageable for Portugal with its military technological edge despite the Almohad's greater manpower base between their combined African and Iberian territories. Cooperation of downtime Christian Spanish allies should be helpful and should be expected I think, and Portuguese naval superiority would be another edge, in terms of interdicting additional reinforcement from Africa.
Then I think the next step would be restoration of claims or lost lands overwritten in the ISOT - the Azores, forts and trading posts in Africa. Here they would have to consider the cost/benefit ratio of trying to establish each and every fort or port city formerly held in Morocco, like Ceuta, Tangier, Asilah. On the one hand, the Portuguese have the military technological edge over the Almohads, and it is even greater purely in terms of weapons and tactics than it was against 1490 AD Moroccans. But, the Almohads are an overall bigger empire, and the Portuguese now know ways to access gold and other products of Guinea and sub-Saharan Africa by bypassing the Maghreb past Cape Bojador and trading directly with people to the south.
The problems of the ISOT should be manageable enough in scope, and limited enough, that by the end of the decade the Portuguese should be back to their African-Atlantic exploration to seek the route to India and its spices and the Kingdom of Prester John. So they should send the voyages Vasco Da Gama in a timely manner in this ATL's 1197, with him returning from India in 1198, and then Pedro Cabral* in 1200-1201 AD can repeat the process. This leads in the decades after to commerce with India, Ethiopia, the Persian Gulf, Malacca, the spice islands, and Song China.
Here is a mosaic of various regions of the world as the Portuguese are ISOT into Europe [1190], make their way around the Indian Ocean to India and back [1197-1200], and to the China Seas and back [1210s]
www.flickr.com/photos/22187058@N03/54012032421/in/photostream/lightbox/
*Rabbithole alert: His accidental discovery of Brazil being a coin-toss, it need not be repeated on this voyage in this time line, although simple accident may put someone in sight of land, or in sight of signs of land too irresistible to avoid making a landfall over the next century, 1200-1300 [seeing Amerindians on the water, dead or alive, or capsized native boats, or lots of birds not known for being long fliers]. If we go with the theory that Cabral's stop in Brazil was not an accident, but an "accident", a convenient way to publicize a discovery previously made, we still don't know when the "secret" discovery of Brazil was, like if it was before 1490, the time of the ISOT for instance. And even if it was part of Portuguese "secret discovered knowledge" before even 1490, in the world of 1190-1200, does Portugal have the same incentive to suddenly announce a discovery publicly?
Our ASB transports back 300 years the Portuguese mainland, all Portuguese ships at sea, and the overseas Portuguese possessions Madeira, the Cape Verde islands, and São Tomé and Principe. Not going back in time are the Portuguese Azores, nor Portuguese forts and outposts on the African mainland. But the 1490 Portuguese inhabitants of those lands and their dwellings and other property appear in 1190 appear on the closest Portuguese mainland or island territory that is ISOT back in time, so the country suffers to manpower or material "casualties", just loss of real estate.
Portugal has military technology in terms of gunpowder weapons, cannon, arquebus, full plate armor, sophisticated crossbows, and caravel ships with onboard cannon 300 years in advance of anyone else. It also just recently entered the print age. Portuguese consumers have purchased printed books for about two decades, but the first press on Portuguese soil, a Hebrew press by a Sephardic Jewish expat had been set up in Faro in the south in 1487. For the much broader Christian Portuguese reading public, a latin typeface print house was set up in Chaves in the north printing works in Portuguese and latin. In 1489 another Jewish press was set up in Lisbon, and in our history additional Latin/Portuguese print houses were due to be set up in the following decade in 1492 and 1494.
Portugal's navigational and geographic knowledge is also far in advance of anyone else in the 1190 AD timeframe, most notably, it has the record of the voyage of Bartolomeu Dias' successful voyage around the Cape of Good Hope.
Portugal's immediate Iberian neighborhood has changed drastically. 1490 AD Portugal has a population of about 1 million, slightly larger than the .9 million it had in 1190. 1490 Portugal also has the Portuguese far south including the Algarve, which "over-writes" the far western reaches of the Spanish-African Almohad Caliphate. The Almohad Caliphate (North African and southern Iberian portions combined) have a population of 5.8 million, with some probably shaved off for the missing Algarve. Portugal's Christian neighbor, Leon, has .4 million people, its other Spanish neighbors, Castille and Aragon each have another 1.35 million.
I presume Portugal's first order of business in the 1190 AD world will be to reorient itself and smash any Almohad threat to its southeastern land borders. This should be manageable for Portugal with its military technological edge despite the Almohad's greater manpower base between their combined African and Iberian territories. Cooperation of downtime Christian Spanish allies should be helpful and should be expected I think, and Portuguese naval superiority would be another edge, in terms of interdicting additional reinforcement from Africa.
Then I think the next step would be restoration of claims or lost lands overwritten in the ISOT - the Azores, forts and trading posts in Africa. Here they would have to consider the cost/benefit ratio of trying to establish each and every fort or port city formerly held in Morocco, like Ceuta, Tangier, Asilah. On the one hand, the Portuguese have the military technological edge over the Almohads, and it is even greater purely in terms of weapons and tactics than it was against 1490 AD Moroccans. But, the Almohads are an overall bigger empire, and the Portuguese now know ways to access gold and other products of Guinea and sub-Saharan Africa by bypassing the Maghreb past Cape Bojador and trading directly with people to the south.
The problems of the ISOT should be manageable enough in scope, and limited enough, that by the end of the decade the Portuguese should be back to their African-Atlantic exploration to seek the route to India and its spices and the Kingdom of Prester John. So they should send the voyages Vasco Da Gama in a timely manner in this ATL's 1197, with him returning from India in 1198, and then Pedro Cabral* in 1200-1201 AD can repeat the process. This leads in the decades after to commerce with India, Ethiopia, the Persian Gulf, Malacca, the spice islands, and Song China.
Here is a mosaic of various regions of the world as the Portuguese are ISOT into Europe [1190], make their way around the Indian Ocean to India and back [1197-1200], and to the China Seas and back [1210s]
www.flickr.com/photos/22187058@N03/54012032421/in/photostream/lightbox/
*Rabbithole alert: His accidental discovery of Brazil being a coin-toss, it need not be repeated on this voyage in this time line, although simple accident may put someone in sight of land, or in sight of signs of land too irresistible to avoid making a landfall over the next century, 1200-1300 [seeing Amerindians on the water, dead or alive, or capsized native boats, or lots of birds not known for being long fliers]. If we go with the theory that Cabral's stop in Brazil was not an accident, but an "accident", a convenient way to publicize a discovery previously made, we still don't know when the "secret" discovery of Brazil was, like if it was before 1490, the time of the ISOT for instance. And even if it was part of Portuguese "secret discovered knowledge" before even 1490, in the world of 1190-1200, does Portugal have the same incentive to suddenly announce a discovery publicly?
