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Description

as requested by mikeman29 :
What about doing a Mongol scenario?

PoD: 1246
In 1241, Ögedei Khan, Khagan of the Mongol Empire and the successor of Genghis Khan, died. The election of a new Khan of Khans took 5 years, during which time the empire was under the regency of Töregene Khatun, widow of the second Khagan. Töregene was a woman active in politics, going even so far as to invite a possible threat to her favourite son's bid for the throne to her tent for dinner.

Batu Khan, Khan of the Golden Horde, entered her tent together with his vassal and friend, Yaroslav, Grand Prince of Vladimir. Only this time, it was not only Yaroslav who left the tent with poison slowly working its way inside his stomach, but Batu too. Within a few weeks, the Golden Horde mourned its dead khan, and knelt to the rule of Batu's son, Sartaq Khan.

With Batu no longer in the picture, the relationship between this Khan and his cousin and overlord Güyük Khan, the son of Ögedei and Töregene, never worstened. It also never got to the point where Güyük had to ride out to meet his cousin, and so the third Great Khan never travelled through China, dying under mysterious circumstances.

Güyük Khan was a skilled leader, having received lessons from his grandfather Genghis Khan himself. Through his grandfather's lessons, he also had his eyes set on Europe, and heavily influenced the other conquests of the different Mongols hordes. But as the third Great Khan, he saw that the empire was on the brink of overstretching itself.

So around the year 1255, he sent envoys to all the senior khans of the empire, formally turning them into governors of the new provinces of his empire, but effectively making them kings of their own realms. With this new freedom, the Mongols were free to consolidate rule in the far corners of their empire, and to move even deeper into unknown territory.

Under Batu's son Sartaq Khan, with the support of Güyük Khan, the Golden Horde had been more successful than it could have been under Batu without the central support. An army two tumen large instead of one conquered Hungary, though it still failed to subdue Croatia and Serbia, due to guerilla-style resistance from the people. On the wide plains that had been a home to the once also nomadic horse-people of the Magyar, Sartaq Khan made a new Mongol stronghold, from which he launched his new attacks. He crushed the Poles and Lithuanians, annexing much of their lands and vassalising the remainder. They also crushed the Moldovians, Wallachians, and Bulgarians, though the Khan elected to vassalise them, instead of wasting men and resources to occupy these lands less hospitable to the Mongol nomads. Their success was so great, that when the announcement of the Great Khan's division came, the European conquests were reformed into a new Khanate: the Khanate of the Green Horde.

In East Asia, Güyük Khan gave governorship over most of the former Jurchen Jin dynasty's lands to his cousin Kublai Khan. But as Kublai was only the ruler over one of the parts of the empire, excluding the Mongol homeland, it took him more than a decade longer to complete his conquest of the Song dynasty than it would have if he had the heartland at his command. As Kublai Khan was nearing the end of his life, he would finally complete the victory, installing the Yuan dynasty: emperors of China in name, but in effect viceroys for the Great Khan in Mongolia.

In Arabia, in the year 1260, there is no power struggle forcing Hulagu Khan to retreat his armies, instead of pressing on into Mamluk territory. Sultan Saif ad-Din Qutuz hastened to prepare a last-minute army, and rode to face the advancing Mongols, who had rendered the Crusader kingdoms neutral out of pure fear of being overrun.

The forces met in the Sinai desert. Though the sheer warmth cost the mongols many soldiers, the flat plains were too great an advantage for them. The Battle of the Sinai was a complete victory for Hulagu Khan, who split his forces, taking half onwards into Egypt, and sending the other half down the Red Sea shores and into the Arabian peninsula.

Within four years, the House of Hulagu had completely pacified their province of the empire, and installing puppet rulers in the Arab homelands. When Hulagu Khan died in 1265, his sons receiving from Güyük Khan permission to split part of their province off into a new Khanate: the Khanate of the Red Horde, which was given to Tekuder Khan, and Abaqa Khan, the older brother, received the Ilkhanate.

In a bid for glory of his own, Abaqa Khan turns his gaze eastwards, annexing the Sultanate of Rum and other vassalised nations of Anatolia back into the Ilkhanate fold, after which he prepared an army to march on the Roman Empire, though this fails, and he is forced to accept peace terms with the Romans, though the Mongols keep their gains in Anatolia.

Description

as requested by mikeman29 :
What about doing a Mongol scenario?

PoD: 1246
In 1241, Ögedei Khan, Khagan of the Mongol Empire and the successor of Genghis Khan, died. The election of a new Khan of Khans took 5 years, during which time the empire was under the regency of Töregene Khatun, widow of the second Khagan. Töregene was a woman active in politics, going even so far as to invite a possible threat to her favourite son's bid for the throne to her tent for dinner.

Batu Khan, Khan of the Golden Horde, entered her tent together with his vassal and friend, Yaroslav, Grand Prince of Vladimir. Only this time, it was not only Yaroslav who left the tent with poison slowly working its way inside his stomach, but Batu too. Within a few weeks, the Golden Horde mourned its dead khan, and knelt to the rule of Batu's son, Sartaq Khan.

With Batu no longer in the picture, the relationship between this Khan and his cousin and overlord Güyük Khan, the son of Ögedei and Töregene, never worstened. It also never got to the point where Güyük had to ride out to meet his cousin, and so the third Great Khan never travelled through China, dying under mysterious circumstances.

Güyük Khan was a skilled leader, having received lessons from his grandfather Genghis Khan himself. Through his grandfather's lessons, he also had his eyes set on Europe, and heavily influenced the other conquests of the different Mongols hordes. But as the third Great Khan, he saw that the empire was on the brink of overstretching itself.

So around the year 1255, he sent envoys to all the senior khans of the empire, formally turning them into governors of the new provinces of his empire, but effectively making them kings of their own realms. With this new freedom, the Mongols were free to consolidate rule in the far corners of their empire, and to move even deeper into unknown territory.

Under Batu's son Sartaq Khan, with the support of Güyük Khan, the Golden Horde had been more successful than it could have been under Batu without the central support. An army two tumen large instead of one conquered Hungary, though it still failed to subdue Croatia and Serbia, due to guerilla-style resistance from the people. On the wide plains that had been a home to the once also nomadic horse-people of the Magyar, Sartaq Khan made a new Mongol stronghold, from which he launched his new attacks. He crushed the Poles and Lithuanians, annexing much of their lands and vassalising the remainder. They also crushed the Moldovians, Wallachians, and Bulgarians, though the Khan elected to vassalise them, instead of wasting men and resources to occupy these lands less hospitable to the Mongol nomads. Their success was so great, that when the announcement of the Great Khan's division came, the European conquests were reformed into a new Khanate: the Khanate of the Green Horde.

In East Asia, Güyük Khan gave governorship over most of the former Jurchen Jin dynasty's lands to his cousin Kublai Khan. But as Kublai was only the ruler over one of the parts of the empire, excluding the Mongol homeland, it took him more than a decade longer to complete his conquest of the Song dynasty than it would have if he had the heartland at his command. As Kublai Khan was nearing the end of his life, he would finally complete the victory, installing the Yuan dynasty: emperors of China in name, but in effect viceroys for the Great Khan in Mongolia.

In Arabia, in the year 1260, there is no power struggle forcing Hulagu Khan to retreat his armies, instead of pressing on into Mamluk territory. Sultan Saif ad-Din Qutuz hastened to prepare a last-minute army, and rode to face the advancing Mongols, who had rendered the Crusader kingdoms neutral out of pure fear of being overrun.

The forces met in the Sinai desert. Though the sheer warmth cost the mongols many soldiers, the flat plains were too great an advantage for them. The Battle of the Sinai was a complete victory for Hulagu Khan, who split his forces, taking half onwards into Egypt, and sending the other half down the Red Sea shores and into the Arabian peninsula.

Within four years, the House of Hulagu had completely pacified their province of the empire, and installing puppet rulers in the Arab homelands. When Hulagu Khan died in 1265, his sons receiving from Güyük Khan permission to split part of their province off into a new Khanate: the Khanate of the Red Horde, which was given to Tekuder Khan, and Abaqa Khan, the older brother, received the Ilkhanate.

In a bid for glory of his own, Abaqa Khan turns his gaze eastwards, annexing the Sultanate of Rum and other vassalised nations of Anatolia back into the Ilkhanate fold, after which he prepared an army to march on the Roman Empire, though this fails, and he is forced to accept peace terms with the Romans, though the Mongols keep their gains in Anatolia.