You can't detach one factor from the other. If the Dutchmen don't have the ability to colonize efficiently and immediately the areas they actually want to colonize and invest in, what more the temperate place that you need to pass through Spanish territory to get to?
It still took the sustained effort of centuries to secure Java directly under the control of Batavia. Something that the Dutchmen do not have for the far-flung land of Zipang. Much easier to trade exotics from Japan than to subjugate it.
I think it'd be more realistic if Julian's reforms made these gods emanations, not servants, of the One. From the Monad comes down a bunch of emanations which are paired together and who create the world or are fundamental forces within the world or something. IDK, that fits the atmosphere of...
True enough.
Still, all of this would matter to a Japan colonized by foreign powers two oceans away in either direction.
A Catholic Netherlands means a Netherlands that is likely still under the thumb of Spain. Or perhaps it is more an Austrian Habsburg colony instead? Either way, very big...
As Monter said, most Japanese Christians were Catholics. Which is one of the reasons the Dutchmen had a monopoly on Japanese trade: the Calvinists kept their faith to themselves.
You can't strengthen one (the Dutch) without weakening the other (the unity of Christendom). Europeans are not a...
I'm going to revive this list by going back to a different monarch, because it bothered me that the daughter of a woman who fought against Metz Catholics herself converts to Metz Catholicism and restore the very Pope who had declared several crusades on her before.
Kings of the Berbers...
Julian's religion was literally a reaction to Christianity and its increasing pervasiveness in Roman society. You need to screw Christianity as a matter of course.
I'd say this view is still overly harsh on Byzantium. Where is Kassiani in your analysis? Where is John the Grammarian? Where is the University of Constantinople, or all the other texts that originated from the Queen of Cities and ended up in all the other cities of Christendom?
Sure, the...
Monarchs of the British Commonwealth
1649 - 1658: Oliver I (House of Cromwell) [1]
1658 - 1696: Richard IV (House of Cromwell) [2]
1696 - 1743: Oliver II (House of Cromwell) [3]
1743 - 1787: Oliver III (House of Cromwell) [4]
1787 - 1799: William III (House of Cromwell) [5]
1799 - 1852: Oliver...
Indeed. Unfortunately, this will have to wait until September, but I'm definitely excited about the possibilities of an independent Philippines and how it interacts with the cultures around it.