Part 40: 1600-1619, The Storm.
The council has decided almost unanimously on defence. We get that and the first step towards improving the morale of the army.
This is followed a year later by the much needed improvement.
Another colony is complete, and we move on to the next.
We then get the news we have been waiting for – Abyssinia is alone.
Our military is not rebuilt yet, but it still massively outnumbers the enemy.
We mass our forces, its time to win a war.
We catch and destroy their main army. From now on, its expansion all the way.
Two armies work their way down the country while the largest keeps the Abyssinian army entertained.
We of course keep up with the technology.
We don't have the manpower for a long war so we take three provinces and call it a day.
Soon after Gabon becomes part of Ghana, and people praise our ivory.
The Portugease and the Abbasids decide to take us from both sides at once. We are in trouble, as our armies are still recovering from the previous war.
We meet the Abbasids in the field, but they bring their allies, and we are soon overwhelmed – although it is now nice to see we have the higher morale!
With the army defeated, the Muslim forces swarm over Egypt. I raise a mercenary army to defeat the small army the Portuguese land, but this war is over.
They land a larger army, and we improve our army just as we engage them.
The Portuguese are not as good a bunch of soldiers as the Italians or the Byzantines, and we defeat them.
Against the Abbasids, things are not going well....
The peace treaty is painful to say the least.
At least we can focus on Portugal and their allies.
Our Emperor dies, and we have a better leader for our armies. He immediately sees we cannot cross the straights of Gibraltar to hit the Portuguese, and they cannot beat us on our own lands. So a white peace is signed. They did damage however as we have had to cede so much land to the cursed Abbasids.
We must now go all out to destroy them – they are not going to stop with Egypt, the last peace treaty showed us that – and they still have tens of thousands of men in lands that can strike us at any moment.
We form a Collation, let us see who their other enemies are.
The Portuguese are not going away it seems.
We start to rebuild the armies. Diplomats are sent to the Golden Horde to try and get them to join us in an alliance against the Abbasids, meanwhile we begin to work on our fleet as well as the army.
We finish another colony – the lands to the south have not been explored properly yet, but we still have options inland.
Technology continues to improve, and the army slowly gets larger.
Two discoveries are made, the first is in minting coins and teaching our children.
The second is the discovery of a Christian country of Kongo to our south!
We also lose another Emperor. Zeinab is a good bureaucrat, but a poor leader of men. His son however looks like another idiot.
Ghana continues, but it looking more and more battered.
