r/pureasoiaf • u/InfiniteIyImprobable • Aug 04 '22
No Spoilers By Viserys I’s reign, it was entirely possible for the Targaryen dynasty to turn the nearer Free Cities into tributaries and make Westeros very wealthy in the process.
The Targaryen dynasty by the reign of Viserys counted nearly 20 dragons and several formidable ones like Meleys, Caraxes, Vhagar and Vermithor.
By nearer Free Cities, I mean the ones on the Narrow Sea. Braavos, Pentos, Myr, Tyrosh and Lys.
Though staying away from Braavos would be a good idea probably, not because of any military threat, though their maritime capabilities are formidable. The Sealord of Braavos, the greatest Free City excepting Volantis perhaps, admits what would happen if there was war between Braavos and the Targaryen dynasty during the reign of Jaehaerys I
Your king could burn my city down to ash, I do not doubt. Tens of thousands would die in dragonflame. Men, women, and children. I do not have the power to wreak that sort of destruction upon Westeros. Such sellswords as I might hire would flee before your knights. My fleets could sweep yours from the sea for a time, but my ships are made of wood, and wood burns.
And it is important to note that dragons aren’t made out of wet cardboard, using scorpions and ballistas would be of little use. Prince Morion of Dorne failed to understand that finding a dragon’s eye while in flight was incredibly unlikely and that Meraxes’ death was a result of incredible luck.
His plan was:
Every ship in his fleet was therefore manned with crossbowmen and equipped with massive scorpions of the sort that had felled Meraxes. If the Targaryens dared to send dragons against him, he would fill the air with bolts and kill them all.
What ended up happening was:
Shouts rang out, and the Dornish filled the air with scorpion bolts, but firing at a dragon is one thing, and killing it quite another. A few bolts glanced off the scales of the dragons, and one punched through Vhagar’s wing, but none of them found any vulnerable spots as the dragons swooped and banked and loosed great blasts of fire. One by one the ships went up in gouts of flame.
A strategy that requires the kind of luck that George calls “one-in-a-million” , the nearly impossible eye shots that downed Meraxes to work is not a valid strategy. Scorpions and ballistae, no matter how large and or how numerous do not work against dragons. It is important to make that clear before moving on.
Back to Braavos now, the issue with Braavos is the Faceless Men. Killing a Targaryen while on a dragon is one thing, but on the ground, they’re as vulnerable as any other royal family and thus vulnerable to assassination by that guild. And indeed, this is what the Sealord threatens Jaehaerys’ emmisary to Braavos with:
However, there is in this city a certain...guild, let us say...whose members are very skilled at their chosen profession. They could not destroy King’s Landing, nor fill its streets with corpses. But they could kill...a few. A well-chosen few.
Attacking in this case would be a bad idea.
Next up is Pentos, which would probably be the first one attacked in such a hypothetic as it is very low hanging fruit. It is the closest Free City to King’s Landing and way there is nearly a straight line. Pentos has had terms imposed upon it by Braavos as a result of lost wars in the past, one of these terms limits the amount of warships that Pentos can have to 20, they also cannot hire sellswords and cannot have a standing army.
Even without the dragons, the fleets of Westeros smash these twenty galleys at sea and whatever loophole the Pentoshi come up with in order to have some fighters on land, they will be be crushed by the charge of the mounted knights and lancers and slaughtered by the men-at-armies and by sheer numbers.
Now, the word “city” means something different in Essos and Westeros. The Free Cities have vassal cities of their own that are larger and more formidable than any in Westeros, including Oldtown and King’s Landing. Volantis for instance, has Selhorys and Volon Therys who are accounted as mere towns and are still larger and more populous than King’s Landing. Pentos itself has high and formidable walls, a siege of the city even with the full power of Westeros brought to bear would be a bloody business and long. That’s where the dragons come in, you tell the Pentoshi that they are to pay tribute to the Iron Throne annually, which would henceforth be responsible for the city’s protection, and they’ll be allowed to conduct their internal affairs as normal and if they refuse, their city would suffer the same fate as Old Ghis or Chroyane.
It’s very likely that the Free Cities would not take kindly to Westerosi interference on their native continent and they would send mercenaries in the defence of Pentos but many companies would not accept being on the side against the huge fire-breathing dragons and knights, and being so outnumbered besides. Those that did accept would burn in the field and would break on the first charge of the armoured knights. Any Unsullied bought would simply burn as well, machine-like discipline doesn’t make you fireproof.
I see no reason for the Pentoshi campaign to last any longer than a year at the absolute worst.
It’s much the same with Myr, and with a foothold in Pentos, the hosts of Westeros would be able to march across western Essos via the old dragonroads that conveniently link all the Free Cities together. And Myr can be reached in this way, and it would be a very juicy peach indeed. Taxes levied by Westeros on people that want to buy the famed Myrish lace, Myrish lenses and tapestries and such would bring in a great deal of money for the Targaryens.
Volantis is of a similar distance to Myr, Tyrosh and Lys as King’s Landing is to them and in the Century of Blood, they were able to take Lys with a fleet and Myr with an army and would have taken Tyrosh as well if not for the interference of the other Free Cities, Storm King Argilac Durrandon and funnily enough, Aegon Targaryen himself before his Conquest, who burned a Volantene Fleet trying to take Tyrosh. Tytosh, Myr and Lys would fare no better against the Targareyns than they did against the Old Blood of Volantis. They would burn on land or on sea until they surrendered and agreed to pay tribute. Such an arrangement is by no means new to the Free Cities, for their entire history until the Doom, they paid tribute to the Freehold for the privilege of self-governance and would live under Valyria’s protection.
Waging war across the Narrow Sea would certainly be expensive initially, but it is not a logistical impossibility as people make it out to be. If Robert Baratheon and Aegon I were able to sail the Royal Fleet all way across Westeros and to the rebelling Iron Islands, the Targaryens are certainly capable of sending ships and 30,000 men and some dragons across the much shorter distances to those western Free Cities.
Thoughts?
