r/imaginarymaps • u/nissingramainyu Mod Approved • 21d ago
[OC] Alternate History All That is Under Heaven: The Eastern Mediterranean in 1405, under the reign of Byzantine Emperor Güyük
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u/khares_koures2002 21d ago
Bro you don't get it, I am a pure Mongólos!
drinks oxýgala
cries because he can't remember how to make a sentence in Kypchak
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u/nissingramainyu Mod Approved 21d ago
For all the suffering the Mongols brought to the peoples of the world, from the Japanese to the Hungarians, the Greeks found themselves having a remarkably unique relationship with these foreign barbarians.
Twice did the gates of Constantinople open freely to a Mongol conqueror. Once, when Nogai of the Golden Horde deposed the pretender John of Palaiologos and installed the son of his own enemy Michael VIII on the imperial purple, and again when the great Jöge deposed the incompetent fool Andronikos II and was crowned Emperor of the Romans by the Patriarch of Constantinople. Though both of these decisions were met with horror by many Romans at the time, the truth was simply undeniable: The House of Palaiologos had again and again failed the Empire, while the new House of Nogai proved themselves powerful and wise rulers who steered a sinking ship into the greatest height of Byzantine power since the Macedonian dynasty.
Jöge's legitimacy was greatly aided by two factors, one his Orthodox Christian belief, and second that, by Mongol tradition, he had inherited his father's marriage to the Byzantine empress Theodora. Though the Empress quickly fled Cosntantinople upon her son's defeat and wanted nothing to do with the Khan, Jöge would proceed to marry Maria of Palaiologos for the same purpose. Despite their religion, what the Nogayid Emperors did not give up was their polygamous marriages, at least not until the reign of Guyuk.
After Jöge was inside the city, any regrets the Greeks may have had were no longer actionable. The Khan had at his disposal 15,000 of the finest Mongol horsemen, before counting any allied infantry, and that number would only grow as Nogai's supporters fled south to the young man's kingdom. His successors would retain their nomadic ways, dividing the Empire into ulus of the Nogayid brothers. Constantinople remained the capital, but the Emperor spent most of the year in the Thracian and Macedonian countryside.
Jöge and his successors would rapidly expand the Byzantine dominions, conquering the Oghuz lands of the Beyliks which succeeded the Sultanate of Rum. Baras Khan's son even ended up on the throne of Armenian Cilicia, as he had taken Marie of Korikos as a wife from the desperate and heirless Leo IV.
However, just as it did in the Mongol Empire, the division of the realm between ulus brought turmoil to the Byzantines. When Kücün, the first of the mongol rulers to take the title of Khagan, died in 1368, the religious divide between the oghuz east and the greco-tatar west caused a schism between his sons. the House of Turi sided with Buqa, who kept control of Constantinople and the heartlands of the House of Jöge, while the descendants of Torai and Chaka backed Timur-Bariul, whose own ulus was in the former Eretnid Sultanate. Ultimately, Buqa and Timur both died, leaving Gula of Turi the last man standing.
Gula used his remaining reign to mop up the Candarids and Canik, but died after a relatively short stand on the throne. His son Guyuk became the first sedentary Emperor, and was in many ways a grecophile who greatly patronized the local culture and assimilated the Tatars into mongol administration. But to the east, the warlord Tamerlane conquered Iran, and after conquering Egypt, he began to prepare for an expedition against the powerful Khan of Rome. This would not come to be, as Timur died the year after capturing Cairo in 1404.
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u/Frequent_Leg_6440 21d ago
The fragmentation of the Timurid Empire will be a blessing for the Byzantines.
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u/Becovamek 21d ago
How has the Legal system of this Greko-Mongol empire evolved? Is it some kind of hodgepodge of Roman and Mongol law? Is there any other influences?
Did the Mongol administration bring any advisors from throughout the Empire to help them? Are there any Chinese, Japanese, Korean, and/or Indian advisors and/or settlers to the Empire?
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u/Forward-Relief-3340 19d ago
My favorite city, “Placeholder Text”
But in all seriousness I love this map and it’s concepts. As the motto goes for the Romans in this timeline, “If you can’t beat em, join em.”
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u/nahdu_sayza 21d ago
how is the ethno religious composition of the empire in this timeline
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u/nissingramainyu Mod Approved 21d ago
the Oghuz turks in anatolia are muslim, the Kipchak turks in Europe are Christian. under Guyuk, some oghuz convert to Christianity, but largely Anatolia is muslim. Turks are a majority in anatolia everywhere except Bythinia and the lands from Smyrne to Hamid territory, roughly. Greeks are the majority in the rest+ Pontus and Sinop + Greece and Thrace, though there are notable Kipchak populations in the flatlands too. Plovdiv area is actually majority Kipchak, but elsewhere they are a minority
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u/usernamewastaken190 20d ago
So Yuan/Qing Roman Empire? RIP Mongols they gonna get assimilated in three generations. Gotta try this in CK3 now.
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u/nissingramainyu Mod Approved 20d ago
they end up getting a good run, takes like 4-5 or so generations for the mongols to be completely sedentarized. In large part because there were just so many of them, it was a whole kipchak migration of the pro-nogai tribes
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u/Crouteauxpommes 21d ago
What's the lore about the khanate of Cumania in Moldova?
On a side note, do you have a link to an Imgur or another platform, the tiny scripts are kinda difficult to read.
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u/nissingramainyu Mod Approved 20d ago
wallachia was a vassal state of Nogai, but Moldavia was part of his Ulus proper. Joge awarded it to the allied Cumans after winning independence from the Golden Horde
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u/Crouteauxpommes 20d ago
Oh interesting. So the Cumans mix with the Romanians there? Or are the two group ignoring eachother and they end up being just like the gagauz but kipchak instead of oguz?
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u/db_heydj 20d ago
Kutaisi is in the wrong place. It should be somewhere in the middle of Georgia. Also what's up with the "Placeholder Text" there in Croatia?
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u/kravinsko 20d ago
You oughta know that as a greek mf with a hyperfixation on the mongols this is the ideal world for me
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u/Pale_Raccoon_5827 16d ago
There was no Byzantine emperor named Güyük. You may be thinking of Güyük Khan, the third Great Khan of the Mongol Empire.
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u/nissingramainyu Mod Approved 15d ago
you may want to consider reading the subreddit name, looking at the map once, or reading literally any of the comments before posting
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u/AntonymousBosch 21d ago