raharris1973
Well-known member
An ASB generated "event" on the night of August 15th, 1415, spatially displaces Africa and places it in the middle of the Pacific, swapping it with most of Polynesia (save New Zealand and Easter Island) and some of Melanesia, as shown in this map.
The ASB puts a climate preservation bubble over the planet that prevents drastic climate alterations or weather disasters beyond the range or suddenness of any experienced between 1415 AD and now.
[Yes, you may notice the ASB geographic intervention is basically identical to one I proposed in a different thread, the principle difference here is the very different timeframe, the time of the European renaissance and rising gunpowder empires of Ming China, the Muscovites, and Ottomans]
3 Worlds or More
Epilogue: 13 August 1415: Two nights before the "event", the King of Portugal his son Prince Henry, his other sons and a force of 45,000 seized the first Iberian colony in Africa, the coastal town of Ceuta in Morrocco.
The spent their post victory days celebrating and fortifying the newly captured town, and sending messengers back to Portugal with the good news.
Change dawns:
On the night 15 August, after feasting and drinking and setting up night watches and a majority of men behind the fortified lines have gone to sleep from either labor, drink or both, it is midnight.
In an instant, they are all woken up by the noon-day sun appearing at the top of the sky above them, as are everyone in the Moorish camps, and most of the human and animal inhabitants of the African continent.
When the next caravans of pilgrims, alternately destined for Mecca and Medina, and for Jerusalem, come eastbound from the Nile Delta cities to cross the Sinai, they find only shoreline, the Egyptian desert, and the Nile in every direction.
Meanwhile the next morning in contemporary Sinai, migrating Bedouin and traders bound for markets in the Nile Valley trying to cross the Suez isthmus find themselves traveling in circles, finding only shoreline, except when they backtrack from whence they came.
1415 - Immediate effects in Iberia:
In Europe, Portugal has lost its royal family and top nobility as of 1415. Portugal becomes ripe for Castilian intervention and probably takeover. The lost Portuguese royals include Henry the Navigator and many of his lieutenants who systematically organized and expanded knowledge of deep sea voyaging.
They are stranded in Ceuta Morocco, un-reinforceable, doomed to fall to siege to the Moors, with some able to escape on ships but certainly not all, in vessels of mixed seaworthiness, with no friendly European shores available, just hostile Muslim ones and unknown African ones. Except for shipwrecks and ruins and the occasional Robinson Crusoe-ish tale or captivity novel, the Portuguese conquerors of Ceuta dissolve in the mists of history.
For Europe, African products and gold become unavailable. Arabia is exposed to the open sea. Venetians plying the spice route run into open water west of Sinai.
Zheng He's contemporary voyage is probably already returning to China.
But, a later Zhenge He voyage, covering comparable distances, will find no East Africa. This makes it more likely the next expedition, if it happens, will visit Mecca, from there, next logical place to visit is Jerusalem. The Chinese would probably meet Venetians there. The Europeans could form the opinion though that the Chinese are Muslim.
This motivates advance parties in the next Zheng He fleet to follow on to Constantinople and Italian cities like Venice and Rome before the end of the 1420s. For the Italians the visit of magnificent Chinese "treasure ships" validates the tales of the Polo family, and sparks a China fever, over the next century.
This continues, even when Ming China abandons treasure fleets and treasure fleet diplomacy. The Italian trading cities do trading and cartographic expeditions between the 1420s and 1470s to retrace Zheng He's steps, and gradually refine European, and West Asian knowledge of the southern coasts of Asia. While many missions fail or are denied landing or trade rights, the persistence of the Italian trading states keeps development of competing trade routes along the southern Asian coast alive over this period, and by 1500, you have Iberian states like Aragon, Castille, and Portugal joining in the competition, and France beginning to participate, and finally England.
Between 1415 and 1515, Eurasia is mapped from Portugal to Japan. The nearest islands of Polynesia are discovered by Portuguese & Castilian mariners, with them getting down possibly to New Caledonia--but no further in that direction. Although new currents need to be navigated nimbly, Castilians, Aragonese, French, English, Venetians, Genoans, Mamluks and Turks can all reach south and east Asia just by heading east around Arabia, not having to round Africa.
Depending how far they venture into the water, Aragonese may reach Samoa, Tonga or Fiji. The Venetians, plying the spice route will work on replacing their middlemen. They will probably discover Tahiti en route, west of the coast of Arabia.
Despite Venetian experience and positional advantage, no European or Middle Eastern country's trade path east can be monopolized or closed off by chokepoints.
Despite gradual expansion of fishing voyages, no European has sent an expedition to the Americans, or reported an accidental discovery, because no one is crossing south of the equator doing the volta do mar. In fact, many still believe it impossible. Sea-based trading over this time further marginalizes the steppe route. Venetians-Genoans-Pisans probably establish trading posts in India and the spice islands before other Europeans. All things being equal, the Chinese don't stop them.
They will not re-find Africa for a long time, although perhaps, before the Americas
Castille probably accelerates conquest of Granada, which has no close-by help. Expelled Jews and Moriscos do not have the Maghrib to go to. They have to go to other opportune places in Europe, the Ottoman territories, Levant, or points east. Expulsion might be somewhat less likely with both harder to find places to send them and less anxiety about close Muslim threat. But greed and status competition could still motivate it.
In 1500s or 1600s, Castilian, French and English monarchs probably stake their own claims in eastward bound trade routes.
Americas 1415-1615 -
I am anticipating the Americas are continuing to develop independently and undiscovered during these two centuries, which also means that the effects of their human depopulation and of the worldwide spread of their crops and precious metals are not felt during this time.
Impact on Muslim-Christian frontiers and slavery:
Turks are taking Constantinople at least on schedule, in my opinion. African slaves unavailable for court eunuchs. I suspect the Ottoman Turks will have an even easier time conquering the Mamluk Levant since it is separate from its Egyptian economic hinterland after 1415.
In southwest Asia, there is a long term demographic impact, less African genetic imprint (through the female line) on Ottoman Empire, demand for Balkan and Caucasian slaves is all the greater.
Europeans don't have to deal with Barbary pirates. Western Europeans on the Atlantic coast and Spanish and French Mediterranean are safer from slavers, although Ottomans could sponsor expeditions that hit Italy and Croatia hard.
Meanwhile, in Pacific Africa, the Mamelukes have lost their Levantine territories. They have lost their ability to replenish their ranks with Circassians or Turks. They have choices to make about how they replenish the Mamluk service - do they draw from desert Bedouin families or Arab fellahin farming families? Or stick with a model of recruiting foreign soldiers only. Do they possibly use Sub-Saharan Africa/Sudan as the new source of slave/warrior recruits?
For slaves or expansion, they can only go up the Nile. Likewise, the Maghreb states are safe from Christian attack, and have no one to raid. For slave labor they will have to reach up into sub-saharan Africa as well.
None of the Maghreb or West African cultures have strong long-range sea-faring traditions.
Pilgrimage becomes impossible for African Muslims. Egyptians find open water and the small Polynesian island of Rapa Iti to their east. Omanis in Zanzibar are used to longer distance travel, and will find they can easily access Egypt and the Maghreb. They have a chance, but only a slim one, of finding Peru or the west coast of Mesoamerica.
"North African" demand for slave labor can only be met within the continent, which perhaps leads to a short term increase in enslavement, but over the longer run, by the late 1500s and 1600s there is no slave trade with Europeans or plantation system, leaving Africa more populous and without slave trade motivated conquest.
Africa has become its own world, separate from America, and now, separate from Europe and Asia as well.
There is no old world-new world exchange of diseases and crops and animals. No potatoes, tomatoes, chocolate or possibly even coffee. Spices are the big trade product, and sugar is the only plantation crop, and it's available in less quantity. The persistence of coffee depends on how many bushes were in gardens in southwest Asia (like Yemen) at this time.
The continents will be reunited at some point, though it's uncertain if Africa will be rediscovered before the Americas are discovered.
Also, the changed geography means that South America will likely be the last discovered continent in the world (except Antarctica). North America will be discovered via northern routes, with the question being whether there is more impetus from fishermen and later fur trappers from northwest Europe, or from Russian fur trappers crossing the Bering strait.
Ming Dynasty Chinese would have ability to journey to Africa and back, but they are unlikely to believe there is anything interesting worth looking for.
This prolonged separation of the African, American and Eurasian worlds means that gold and silver are scarcer in the Eurasian economy for several centuries.
Parts of the population boom in Eurasia supported by introduction of maize, potatoes and sweet potatoes do not happen, leaving Europe's and Asia's populations somewhat smaller than they would otherwise be. People like the Irish and Germans are also more vulnerable to war induced famine. However, the Americas remain far more populous.
Spain and China do not suffer from silver inflation. In Europe, the Balkans and Hungary may remain the main source of precious metals, with Siberia coming online later, and commanding correspondingly higher prices.
But nothing is slowing down the advance of printing technology in Europe. Nor military technology and associated metallurgy.
There would be attempts by northern Europeans to find a "northeast passage" leading to Anglo-Russian trade.
The Europeans don't have the precious metals to balance their trade with East Asia, leaving East Asian goods higher priced, and giving the Russians an advantage because at least the Chinese will trade for fur and horses. The Europeans can attempt to have sugar and spices as stopgaps. But China will soon be able to grow its own in the extreme south.
Meanwhile the Americas go on without horses, cattle, wheat, bronze or iron.
Can European capitalism still be developed, and, if so, how? Incremental increases in agricultural and metallurgical technology, small trade networks based on Asian luxuries, spices and sugar, but with primary trade commodities being grain, lumber, fish, furs, iron and eventually whale products and walrus ivory?
Germany would be more devastated and depopulated by any wars that occur. Ireland more depopulated and anglicized, all as a consequence of no potatoes.
The outright and inexplicable disappearance of Africa during this well-chronicled time will also throw a metaphysical spanner in the works, as the developing natural sciences will have to try to explain it or work around it. The situation will be somewhat similar in Africa, having to explain the disappearance of Eurasia and historic holy cities of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem.
The ASB puts a climate preservation bubble over the planet that prevents drastic climate alterations or weather disasters beyond the range or suddenness of any experienced between 1415 AD and now.
[Yes, you may notice the ASB geographic intervention is basically identical to one I proposed in a different thread, the principle difference here is the very different timeframe, the time of the European renaissance and rising gunpowder empires of Ming China, the Muscovites, and Ottomans]
3 Worlds or More
Epilogue: 13 August 1415: Two nights before the "event", the King of Portugal his son Prince Henry, his other sons and a force of 45,000 seized the first Iberian colony in Africa, the coastal town of Ceuta in Morrocco.
The spent their post victory days celebrating and fortifying the newly captured town, and sending messengers back to Portugal with the good news.
Change dawns:
On the night 15 August, after feasting and drinking and setting up night watches and a majority of men behind the fortified lines have gone to sleep from either labor, drink or both, it is midnight.
In an instant, they are all woken up by the noon-day sun appearing at the top of the sky above them, as are everyone in the Moorish camps, and most of the human and animal inhabitants of the African continent.
When the next caravans of pilgrims, alternately destined for Mecca and Medina, and for Jerusalem, come eastbound from the Nile Delta cities to cross the Sinai, they find only shoreline, the Egyptian desert, and the Nile in every direction.
Meanwhile the next morning in contemporary Sinai, migrating Bedouin and traders bound for markets in the Nile Valley trying to cross the Suez isthmus find themselves traveling in circles, finding only shoreline, except when they backtrack from whence they came.
1415 - Immediate effects in Iberia:
In Europe, Portugal has lost its royal family and top nobility as of 1415. Portugal becomes ripe for Castilian intervention and probably takeover. The lost Portuguese royals include Henry the Navigator and many of his lieutenants who systematically organized and expanded knowledge of deep sea voyaging.
They are stranded in Ceuta Morocco, un-reinforceable, doomed to fall to siege to the Moors, with some able to escape on ships but certainly not all, in vessels of mixed seaworthiness, with no friendly European shores available, just hostile Muslim ones and unknown African ones. Except for shipwrecks and ruins and the occasional Robinson Crusoe-ish tale or captivity novel, the Portuguese conquerors of Ceuta dissolve in the mists of history.
For Europe, African products and gold become unavailable. Arabia is exposed to the open sea. Venetians plying the spice route run into open water west of Sinai.
Zheng He's contemporary voyage is probably already returning to China.
But, a later Zhenge He voyage, covering comparable distances, will find no East Africa. This makes it more likely the next expedition, if it happens, will visit Mecca, from there, next logical place to visit is Jerusalem. The Chinese would probably meet Venetians there. The Europeans could form the opinion though that the Chinese are Muslim.
This motivates advance parties in the next Zheng He fleet to follow on to Constantinople and Italian cities like Venice and Rome before the end of the 1420s. For the Italians the visit of magnificent Chinese "treasure ships" validates the tales of the Polo family, and sparks a China fever, over the next century.
This continues, even when Ming China abandons treasure fleets and treasure fleet diplomacy. The Italian trading cities do trading and cartographic expeditions between the 1420s and 1470s to retrace Zheng He's steps, and gradually refine European, and West Asian knowledge of the southern coasts of Asia. While many missions fail or are denied landing or trade rights, the persistence of the Italian trading states keeps development of competing trade routes along the southern Asian coast alive over this period, and by 1500, you have Iberian states like Aragon, Castille, and Portugal joining in the competition, and France beginning to participate, and finally England.
Between 1415 and 1515, Eurasia is mapped from Portugal to Japan. The nearest islands of Polynesia are discovered by Portuguese & Castilian mariners, with them getting down possibly to New Caledonia--but no further in that direction. Although new currents need to be navigated nimbly, Castilians, Aragonese, French, English, Venetians, Genoans, Mamluks and Turks can all reach south and east Asia just by heading east around Arabia, not having to round Africa.
Depending how far they venture into the water, Aragonese may reach Samoa, Tonga or Fiji. The Venetians, plying the spice route will work on replacing their middlemen. They will probably discover Tahiti en route, west of the coast of Arabia.
Despite Venetian experience and positional advantage, no European or Middle Eastern country's trade path east can be monopolized or closed off by chokepoints.
Despite gradual expansion of fishing voyages, no European has sent an expedition to the Americans, or reported an accidental discovery, because no one is crossing south of the equator doing the volta do mar. In fact, many still believe it impossible. Sea-based trading over this time further marginalizes the steppe route. Venetians-Genoans-Pisans probably establish trading posts in India and the spice islands before other Europeans. All things being equal, the Chinese don't stop them.
They will not re-find Africa for a long time, although perhaps, before the Americas
Castille probably accelerates conquest of Granada, which has no close-by help. Expelled Jews and Moriscos do not have the Maghrib to go to. They have to go to other opportune places in Europe, the Ottoman territories, Levant, or points east. Expulsion might be somewhat less likely with both harder to find places to send them and less anxiety about close Muslim threat. But greed and status competition could still motivate it.
In 1500s or 1600s, Castilian, French and English monarchs probably stake their own claims in eastward bound trade routes.
Americas 1415-1615 -
I am anticipating the Americas are continuing to develop independently and undiscovered during these two centuries, which also means that the effects of their human depopulation and of the worldwide spread of their crops and precious metals are not felt during this time.
Impact on Muslim-Christian frontiers and slavery:
Turks are taking Constantinople at least on schedule, in my opinion. African slaves unavailable for court eunuchs. I suspect the Ottoman Turks will have an even easier time conquering the Mamluk Levant since it is separate from its Egyptian economic hinterland after 1415.
In southwest Asia, there is a long term demographic impact, less African genetic imprint (through the female line) on Ottoman Empire, demand for Balkan and Caucasian slaves is all the greater.
Europeans don't have to deal with Barbary pirates. Western Europeans on the Atlantic coast and Spanish and French Mediterranean are safer from slavers, although Ottomans could sponsor expeditions that hit Italy and Croatia hard.
Meanwhile, in Pacific Africa, the Mamelukes have lost their Levantine territories. They have lost their ability to replenish their ranks with Circassians or Turks. They have choices to make about how they replenish the Mamluk service - do they draw from desert Bedouin families or Arab fellahin farming families? Or stick with a model of recruiting foreign soldiers only. Do they possibly use Sub-Saharan Africa/Sudan as the new source of slave/warrior recruits?
For slaves or expansion, they can only go up the Nile. Likewise, the Maghreb states are safe from Christian attack, and have no one to raid. For slave labor they will have to reach up into sub-saharan Africa as well.
None of the Maghreb or West African cultures have strong long-range sea-faring traditions.
Pilgrimage becomes impossible for African Muslims. Egyptians find open water and the small Polynesian island of Rapa Iti to their east. Omanis in Zanzibar are used to longer distance travel, and will find they can easily access Egypt and the Maghreb. They have a chance, but only a slim one, of finding Peru or the west coast of Mesoamerica.
"North African" demand for slave labor can only be met within the continent, which perhaps leads to a short term increase in enslavement, but over the longer run, by the late 1500s and 1600s there is no slave trade with Europeans or plantation system, leaving Africa more populous and without slave trade motivated conquest.
Africa has become its own world, separate from America, and now, separate from Europe and Asia as well.
There is no old world-new world exchange of diseases and crops and animals. No potatoes, tomatoes, chocolate or possibly even coffee. Spices are the big trade product, and sugar is the only plantation crop, and it's available in less quantity. The persistence of coffee depends on how many bushes were in gardens in southwest Asia (like Yemen) at this time.
The continents will be reunited at some point, though it's uncertain if Africa will be rediscovered before the Americas are discovered.
Also, the changed geography means that South America will likely be the last discovered continent in the world (except Antarctica). North America will be discovered via northern routes, with the question being whether there is more impetus from fishermen and later fur trappers from northwest Europe, or from Russian fur trappers crossing the Bering strait.
Ming Dynasty Chinese would have ability to journey to Africa and back, but they are unlikely to believe there is anything interesting worth looking for.
This prolonged separation of the African, American and Eurasian worlds means that gold and silver are scarcer in the Eurasian economy for several centuries.
Parts of the population boom in Eurasia supported by introduction of maize, potatoes and sweet potatoes do not happen, leaving Europe's and Asia's populations somewhat smaller than they would otherwise be. People like the Irish and Germans are also more vulnerable to war induced famine. However, the Americas remain far more populous.
Spain and China do not suffer from silver inflation. In Europe, the Balkans and Hungary may remain the main source of precious metals, with Siberia coming online later, and commanding correspondingly higher prices.
But nothing is slowing down the advance of printing technology in Europe. Nor military technology and associated metallurgy.
There would be attempts by northern Europeans to find a "northeast passage" leading to Anglo-Russian trade.
The Europeans don't have the precious metals to balance their trade with East Asia, leaving East Asian goods higher priced, and giving the Russians an advantage because at least the Chinese will trade for fur and horses. The Europeans can attempt to have sugar and spices as stopgaps. But China will soon be able to grow its own in the extreme south.
Meanwhile the Americas go on without horses, cattle, wheat, bronze or iron.
Can European capitalism still be developed, and, if so, how? Incremental increases in agricultural and metallurgical technology, small trade networks based on Asian luxuries, spices and sugar, but with primary trade commodities being grain, lumber, fish, furs, iron and eventually whale products and walrus ivory?
Germany would be more devastated and depopulated by any wars that occur. Ireland more depopulated and anglicized, all as a consequence of no potatoes.
The outright and inexplicable disappearance of Africa during this well-chronicled time will also throw a metaphysical spanner in the works, as the developing natural sciences will have to try to explain it or work around it. The situation will be somewhat similar in Africa, having to explain the disappearance of Eurasia and historic holy cities of Mecca, Medina, and Jerusalem.