18 KiB
[MK] you are now the monarch of a small European nation in the middle ages,how do you use your modern knowledge to create the most powerful empire ever seen?
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Author: u/qznc Chaos Legion*
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URL: https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/ow4hy/you_are_now_the_monarch_of_a_small_european/
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Score: 17
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Created: 2015-03-01T13:01:59
Post:
Comments:
u/GeeJo [+37] Custom Flair (37 minutes later)
This is not an easy question. People were not stupid back then. If your nation starts producing guns en masse and institutes agricultural and medical reforms that have startling results, you'll only get a few years head-start before other nations copy what you're doing. You can extend the lead by staggering your innovations a bit, creating new tactics every five years (Basic gunnery, then pike/gun squares, then plug bayonets, ring bayonets, etc., the same in other fields). But since it's stated that you're in charge of a small nation, that's not going to be enough to overcome the Big Blue Blob of France in time before they catch up and eliminate your advantages. Straight-up military conquest just isn't viable.
Let's start with something seemingly insignificant, with apparent drawbacks that make the decision unpalatable to other European dynasties even after you start to see results. Establish a national bank, guaranteeing national debt and currency backed by the resources of the nation rather than your personal authority. You don't have the clout to make it worthwhile to balk canon law over usury at this point when there's an alternative, so put Jews in charge. While you're at it, establish tolerance for Jews under the law. They're a skilled, wealthy and marginalised group who can be put to good use in your fledgling empire.
The ability to leverage national debt will instantly let you punch above your weight class through the hiring of mercenaries, and fund projects that would be unimaginable on a small private purse. Still, there are limits - you're the head of a small nation with small assets. You can't leverage them infinitely. You need something that with a small initial investment, can pay massive dividends within a decade. Time to play Columbus. I know enough about basic ship design that I could guide production of small trans-Atlantic vessels even with basic carpentry tools, and the mere knowledge that there really is land beyond the Azores is one of my biggest advantages. Medieval cartography looked like this, after all. Strike out for the New World and invest most of your nation's budget into developing Mesoamerican and South American colonies. Deliberately use biological warfare to destabilise the existing empires - we're going for world conquest here, morals be damned. Grab some choice locations along the Gold and Ivory coasts of Africa. The hauls of gold will pay off your loans and allow for re-investment, though the inflation of gold-backed currency is going to cause major problems. You might want to consider instituting fiat currency as soon as it's practical.
Colonisation is an area where even a small nation can compete incredibly well (see: the Dutch), and knowledge of germ theory, vaccines, and the utility of quinine in treating malaria will make for more rapid gains than otherwise historically plausible. If you have absolutely no morals, you could institute the triangular trade early, as that would act as an incredible multiplier on your industrial and commercial capacity. Use the wealth to maintain a healthy force of mercenaries to defend the homeland until your African (and ideally Indian) colonies are developed enough to provide the raw manpower to begin making your moves back on the European continent.
Even then, you'll soon be facing a coalition of basically every other European Power all looking for nothing more than to put your upstart dynasty down and get back to squabbling among themselves. I still don't see a way to reliably expand into a new pan-European Empire, but just seizing the "empty" lands of most of the rest of the world should be enough to outdo the historical British.
u/BadGoyWithAGun [+7] (5 hours later)
I knew it. The answer is "jews".
u/Rhamni [+8] Aspiring author (2 hours later)
Tagged "Give power. Keep kill switch on hand."
u/Nepene [+4] (6 hours later)
With careful use of biological warfare you could probably drop France and Poland and other nations like that's manpower down to safe levels.
u/None [+3] (3 hours later)
Damned pro-Semites.
u/None [+1] (17 hours later)
They're always going on about committing genocide...
u/cae_jones [+1] (20 hours later)
put Jews in charge. While you're at it, establish tolerance for Jews under the law. They're a skilled, wealthy and marginalised group who can be put to good use in your fledgling empire.
True, but beware antisemitism. Openly putting a marginalized class in charge of the economy will in all likelyhood anger the majority. If you wind up annoying people enough that they invent Hitler to replace you ASAP, I'd count that as failure.
Deliberately use biological warfare to destabilise the existing empires - we're going for world conquest here, morals be damned.
Possibly, but is there no way to leverage the pre-plague population to your advantage? Identify where your enemies can get the easiest foothold, give the people there smallpox vaccines and tips on metal working and chemistry (or better yet, supply them with all these directly; they have much farther to catch up, after all, so making them dependent on you but strong enough to fight off the likes of Hernan Cortes could make them an asset).
u/Lethalmud [+8] (30 minutes later)
Build hospital. Use vaccines. boil everything for desinfecting. Wait until some plague sweeps over my neighbours. take their country freely.
u/BadGoyWithAGun [+3] (5 hours later)
The plague killed a third of Europe. Not enough to allow a small nation to take over, no matter how far you stretch the choice of "small" and no matter how miraculously effective your plague prevention program is.
u/Izeinwinter [+8] (an hour later)
Write as much of it as at all possible down. My personal odds of survival are, essentially, nil. But the mere existence of the cheatsheet from the future will create empire. Especially since step one is "The printing press".
u/Jace_MacLeod [+4] (7 hours later)
Mass produced books don't give any relative advantage, though. Even if they have perfectly recorded future-knowledge. There's a reason the invention of the printing press in real life didn't result in the Holy Roman Empire conquering Europe.
u/Izeinwinter [+2] (19 hours later)
It did result, bye and bye, in the age of colonialism. The question wasn't how to become emperor. It was how to make a really big empire. Making the tech advantage europe had over the rest of the world even more extreme would do that. In spades.
u/RMcD94 [+0] (2 days later)
Ala this: http://rebuildingcivilization.com/sites/default/files/travel_back_in_time.jpg
?
u/Nepene [+3] (6 hours later)
I know the chemical routes to extract and make chemical weapons of a fierce power that could wipe out armies. I know how to make improved metal work from local deposits. I could equip my army fairly easily with chemical weapons that should give them dominance over any fixed enemy force. I'd probably start with that. Should be easy enough to keep the process fairly secretive so I can maintain that advantage.
u/Escapement [+2] Ankh-Morpork City Watch (47 minutes later)
Hm...
There will be several avenues to victory:
Industrialization. Factories, machines, large-scale production lead to economic victory over others, use wealth to leverage into control over other countries.
War. Gunpowder knowledge (kept secret, inasmuch as possible) + flintlock rifles should give a pretty decisive edge. Furthermore, some sort of knowledge of things like sanitation and the like should help significantly (it is only in the 20th century that we had wars where more were killed on the battlefield than by disease).
There have been numerous books written with this sort of thing as a premise. The 1632 books by Flint, put out by Baen, have a less medieval sort of thing where a whole town is put into the past. They got dreadfully dull/tedious eventually, but are more-or-less in this genre. Similarly, the Island In The Sea of Time books by Stirling have a similar premise with the island of Nantucket put into effectively pre-medieval circumstances.
A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court is of course the classic of the genre, which inspired all others.
If you're really interested in reading about technical details of industrializing medieval Poland from the perspective of one who starts out with randomly extremely helpful resources like a collection of modern seeds, consider the Conrad Stargard books by L. Frankowski - however, be warned that those books have numerous objectionable bits (especially really rampant misogyny that is extremely objectionable) and also be warned that the books get progressively worse, not better, and on no account should you read Lord Conrad's Quest for Rubber or further, those books have no redeeming qualities.
u/OffColorCommentary [+2] (5 hours later)
I don't really think that going on a conquest binge is the right answer, but for anyone who does try - you're vastly under-estimating the infrastructure needed to make guns and the length of the stretch of history where they coexisted with knights and pikes, and overestimating importance of open field combat in a time period where castles still worked. Try introducing floating arm trebuchets instead.
u/None [+3] (4 hours later)
[deleted]
u/Eryemil [+7] (8 hours later)
Says he without providing an actual link. You have failed humanity.
u/BadGoyWithAGun [+4] (10 hours later)
https://www.fanfiction.net/s/7568728/1/Saruman-of-many-Devices
u/Jace_MacLeod [+2] (16 hours later)
This is going to be a multigenerational project. If you wanted a quick fix, then you probably shouldn't have transported yourself back in time to the Middle Ages. Shit moves like molasses back then. Moreover, we're not going to concern ourselves with any of that voodoo magic -some- people are calling "science" or "banks." Heresy, the lot of it.
First of all, you're going to want to get married. (Assuming you're of age. If you are not of age, spend the next few years trying not to get killed by your regent.) Pick a young, genetically-fit princess of a powerful, nearby nation as your bride. You should now be allied with said larger nation. (That's if you're a man. If you're a woman, you have the problem of needing to matrilineally marry a prince to keep the dynasty name going. This is much harder.)
Next, have lots of children. The more the better.
While waiting for children, take a look at your kingdom. Is it big? Are there annoying people calling themselves "counts" or "earls" pestering you for more land? Is yes, then congratulations! You are the monarch of a proper Petty Kingdom, and may move onto the next step. If not, then don't worry! You probably won't be independent for much longer.
You're going to want to consolidate your rule. Do this by plotting to revoke the titles of one of your vassals. This will probably lead to civil war. But that's not an issue, since you'll have the backing of a powerful ally, and should only be fighting one vassal at a time. (They're not too smart.) Once the rebellion against your "tyrannical" rule is crushed, you will gain the former vassal's land. With this newly acquired power, begin the process again with another vassal. Repeat until you can no longer efficiently manage your new land, or find yourself out of vassals.
Do you have children yet? If no, assassinate your spouse and get a new one. If yes, then it's time to think about who they should marry. This is important. Ideally, your heir should marry the heir of another kingdom, so the two crowns merge in a couple generations. If no heirs are available, marry your heir to a princess or prince of a powerful nation - just like you did earlier with yourself. Do the same with all your other children, taking care to matrilineally marry your daughters whenever possible.
Tell your chancellor to fabricate claims on weak neighbors. This may take a while. Expand. Check your Kingdom's succession law, and be sure to switch it from gavelkind to primogeniture if necessary. Raise crown authority too, while you're at it. This will probably lead to more civil war. You know what to do.
At least one of the kingdoms your children married will probably have a civil war of their own. They may send a missive calling for your aid. Ignore it. Instead, invade them - backed by your other allies - with the purpose of putting the spouse of your child on the throne. If you succeed, your dynasty will control yet another Kingdom. If you fail, then at least make sure your allies take most of the losses.
Eventually - assuming you haven't gotten poisoned or killed in battle - your body will grow old and frail. Your mental acuity will leave you. If you're lucky, you may even grow senile. (Have fun with that.) One day, you will die...
...and promptly discover your spirit possesses the body of your former heir, now the new King. Apparently, this particular medieval monarch had a horcrux, or something. *Now* you understand why we were playing the long game. So long as your dynasty exists, you exist.
Eventually, your dynasty - and perhaps your personal empire - will control most of Europe. This, despite considerable infighting among your dynasty - and rather substantiated rumors that your family is possessed by the devil.
(In your eternity, try seducing and/or vassalizing the Pope. I hear it speeds up the whole world conquest thing considerably.)
u/cae_jones [+1] (20 hours later)
I kinda feel like we need to focus at least a little on communication. Is there any way we can speed up communication over large distances without our enemies catching on in time to be a pest? It needs to be something difficult or impractical to lose because of one spy or entrepreneur letting the enemy get a look at one facility/item. Cell phones would be great for this, but they're pretty impractical to build. Telephones or telegraphs wouldn't be too difficult, but they'd also be impossible to hide without some eninja-esque shenanigans. (Consider: have prisners dig trenches and fill them back up as punishments, but leave some of these trenches dug at night. Your ninja engineers (Ninjaneers?) lay phone lines at night, carefully protecting them from sight and moisture, then the prisoners unknowingly bury them the next day, preferably before any curious peasants wander along and discover something interesting to add to the rumor mill. Requires too many things to go right, huff.)
Neighboring European powers are the primary immediate threat. What about bigger, more distant powers? The Pope, the Middle East (if this is pre-Mongol invasion), China? The Middle Ages are pretty much "Europe falls apart, but everyone holds together until the Mongols shake things up". I feel like there must be some way to take advantage of that.
The Church was a great power in Medieval Europe; it's not safe to ignore or dance around them, especially if we're some Luxembourg-esque swath of land surrounded by other kingdoms. We might have more success infiltrating the Church, building up influence, and using it to our advantage. But that's a completely different challenge.
If there's any way we can secure access to easy petroleum deposits, there's a brief window before anyone can figure out what we're up to during which we can invent plastic or internal combustion engines or something. This seems so unlikely as to be hardly worth mentioning, but GeeJo has most else covered.
u/Farmerbob1 [+1] Level 1 author (2 days later)
Re-introduce concrete, geometry, and competent roadbuilding. All of these things can be traced back to the Romans. When everyone is oh-so-happy with your brilliance about figuring out the knowledge of the ancients, get glassmakers to create lenses that you can use to provably introduce germ theory. Implement schools and say the Romans had them, because they did.
I emphasize the Romans in this because the more educated persons in the middle ages KNEW the Romans were more advanced than they were. Europe had lost huge amounts of knowledge. Even the church would respect most Roman innovations, and give you a pass on some other things as long as you were very careful.
You also know what the real shape of the world is. Your traders would have a massive advantage, especially if you were not landlocked. Establish trade routes with China, India, and Japan. Colonize the Americas and Australia but respect the indigenous people.
u/BadGoyWithAGun [+0] (10 hours later)
Preach democracy, moral progress, equality and human rights.
In the population centres of my enemies. While my subjects remain faithful and industrialise to defend from the revolting, uneducated mobs who have conveniently murdered their political and military leaders.
If that fails, try to sabotage the peace process of the counter-reformation wars to keep catholics and lutherans killing each other indefinitely (eg, by planting evidence and accusing key actors of atheism, heresy), become a supplier or mercenaries and weapons indispensable to either side, until their armies are incapable of functioning without my support.
u/None [+3] (12 hours later)
[deleted]
u/BadGoyWithAGun [+1] (19 hours later)
No. To clarify, I would send other people to preach revolution. Not like I'd go risk getting burnt at the stake.
u/kixunil [-3] (10 hours later)
I would let everybody alone.