Steven Xue Asks: Why didn’t the Ironborn reave an independent Dorne?

I’ve been going through the World Book and I find it strange how during the first century and a half of living under Targaryen rule when Dorne was still an independent kingdom at that time, the Ironborn didn’t take the opportunity to go there for pillage and plunder. I can understand that after submitting to Targaryen rule the Ironborn stopped raiding lands that are under the protection of the Iron Throne as they would not stand a chance against the combined might of the Seven Kingdoms (as Balon Greyjoy would later learn).

However during the time Dorne was still a sovereign country it was outside of the Crown’s jurisdiction so it wasn’t off limits. Surely Dorne should have been the perfect hub for Ironborn raids during the years before it was finally integrated into the Seven Kingdoms. It is closer to home than the lands beyond Westeros and it’s very rich. Its coastal regions especially like Planky Town which brought in a lot of trade seem like ideal targets for eager Ironborn captains as there is plenty to plunder there and they could take their chances with the Martells as there would have been no interference from the Iron Throne.

Given how tenacious the Ironborn have proven themselves to be throughout history when it came to sating their desire to pillage and plunder and attacking pretty much anywhere that’s vulnerable (eg. The North), what was stopping them from conducting full scale raids in Dorne?

They probably did raid Dornish trade in the Narrow Sea, but the thing about Dorne’s southern coastline is that it’s really not good for sailing: “Nor is the long southern coast of Dorne more hospitable, being for the most part a snarl of reefs and rocks, with few protected anchorages. Those ships that do put ashore there, whether by choice or chance, find little to sustain them; there are no forests along the coast to provide timber for repairs, a scarcity of game, few farms, and fewer villages where provisions might be obtained. Even freshwater is hard to come by, and the seas south of Dorne are rife with whirlpools and infested with sharks and kraken.”

So the basic problem is that the Ironborn couldn’t really raid anywhere in between Skyfall and Plankytown because there aren’t really any coastal villages to raid. Also, the trip to Plankytown is a pain in the ass – if a storm blows up, you’re going to be wrecked and unable to repair your longboat or find food and water, and that’s assuming you don’t get eaten by sharks and krakens.

So my guess is that what the Ironborn would do instead is to run the gauntlet to the Narrow Sea and then prey on Dornish shipping there.

If more realms than just the Reach and the Westerlands had fought at the Field of Fire do you think it might have gone differently, that they might have been successful in stopping the Targaryen invasion?

Hell no. That just ups the body count. If you’re trying to defeat Aegon’s Conquest you don’t do it with large-scale field battles, because that’s just a target for dragonfire.

You do it with Dornish tactics. Split up your armies, abandon most of your castles (Casterly Rock being a noted exception) hide in wildernesses and inside populations, ambush his armies and then vanish rather than try to hold territory, stretch his forces out and then strike where the dragons are not. Wear him down and pick off Targaryens where you can.

Simon Rumble Asks: Daeron in Dorne

1. How did Daeron recruit a force that size? I understand from your Blacks ad Red series that the lords were promised political favor and new land. What did the common men stand to gain besides honor, gold and a glorious death?

2. How large was the host personally under Daeron’s command? Was it a mix of stormlanders/reachermen/crownlanders or was the source a single province?

3. Can you elaborate on the logistics of the Dornish campaign? How do you forage in Dorne considering the state of agricultural output and water scarcity? How do you resupply horses and pack animals?

4. How do knights campaign in Dorne? Wouldn’t the weight of their armor and the intense heat force them to abandon their arms? How did this influence their tactics?

5. Was the Conquest of Dorne inspired by the crusades?

1. Well, it’s a feudal army. Daeron calls upon his Lords Paramount, they bring their own household troops and call upon their vassals, who bring their own household troops and call upon their knights, who are bound by feudal oath to not only fight themselves but bring some infantry as well. Some of the common soldiers are there partly out of legal obligation – it’s probably part of the contract that gives them the right to their land – but most of them are professional soldiers who earn their living by fighting.

2. It doesn’t say precisely how many men Daeron commanded, but given that he “divided his host into three forces,” I’d say about a third of the overall army and somewhere between 20,000 and 90,000 men. Given that Lord Tyrell was likely in command of most of the Reachermen, and Lord Oakenfist was likely in command of most of the Crownlanders, and the fact that Daeron attacked via the Boneway, I’d say his army was probably mostly made up of Stormlanders.

3. The main logistical innovation that allowed Daeron to succeed was almost certainly Oakenfist’s naval superiority, which would have allowed both Daeron and Lyonel Tyrell to resupply by making a forced march to the headwaters of the Greenblood (and in Daeron’s case, probably via the coast as well).

4. Look to the history of the Crusades, where knights fought in full armor throughout, and indeed many of the Crusader victories were due to their heavy armor, leading the Turks to dub them “men of iron.” It’s not ideal, but you can adapt – chiefly, by wearing robes of light cloth over your armor so it doesn’t heat up. But the heavily-armored knights were actually quite successful against their lighter opponents – as long as they didn’t let themselves get drawn out and surrounded, the weight of the heavy cavalry was actually an asset because it added momentum and shock to the charge, literally bowling over the enemy.

5. Yeah, there’s elements of the Crusades – especially the parallel between Oakenfist’s seizure of the Greenblood and Richard of England’s use of ships along the Mediterannean coast to resupply his army as it marched south from Antioch to Arsuf. But there’s also elements of Alexander’s conquests – the goat track, the extreme young age of the commander. And there’s elements of Caesar’s Gallic Wars – Daeron’s book and the three kinds of Dornishmen come from Caesar’s commentaries on his conquest, which begin with the line “gallia omnis divisa est in tres partes.” (All Gaul is divided into three parts)

Do think Dorne could have be incorporated into the realm without the Conquest successfully? Daeron was unmarried and had three sisters, a double marriage united the Seven Kingdoms in one timeline why not another?

Oh, you mean Daeron I. Interesting. Part of the issue there is that Aegon’s First Dornish War had some really profound path dependency issues – the Dornish aren’t going to forget their kingdom ravaged by dragonfire, the Reachermen aren’t going to forget their kinsmen slaughtered in the sands or the raid on Oldtown, the Stormlanders aren’t going to forget their kinsmen mutilated after a prisoner exchange or the burning of the rainwood.

Also, Daeron I desperately needed a big military project to unite the realm and restore the authority of the monarchy after the Dance and the False Spring. While he’d probably have an easier time selling such a pact than Baelor and Daeron II did, thanks to not being murdered under a peace banner, bringing Dorne into the realm peaceably doesn’t quite solve the problem.

It’s actually quite reminiscent of Edward III’s position when he took the throne of England – recent civil wars, a king deposed and then murdered (although for Aegon II they didn’t bother with the deposing), defeats abroad, a long period of regency, etc. Hence the idea of claiming the Throne of France as a way to get the barons on-side with the lure of French territories.

So maybe Daeron I could have looked east? Stepstones are a bit meh, but maybe a holy war to reclaim Andalos for the Faith of the Seven? That might have done the trick.

How do you envision some of the houses early on came to side with Nymeria/Mors? Maybe some were in the same position that Argilac was in but instead of fighting they allied to the cause to make sure their houses kept their lands as under Nymeria no one would stand in their daughters way to inherit. Surely they cant all have been beat into submission. Mybe some on the water ways also came for the technology and knowledge to make their lands more productive especially given the ”water witches”

Well, we can already make some educated guesses from the text. To begin with:

“the Rhoynar brought considerable wealth with them; their artisans, metalworkers, and stonemasons brought skills far in advance of those achieved by their Westerosi counterparts, and their armorers were soon producing swords and spears and suits of scale and plate no Westerosi smith could hope to match. Even more crucially, it is said the Rhoynish water witches knew secret spells that made dry streams flow again and deserts bloom.”

That’s a very attractive package for a Dornish lord or King, so I can see a good number of them signing up for material gain.

Equally important, the gender balance of the Rhoynish invasion/migration helped to encourage houses to join them – with eight out of ten Rhoynish being women, Nymeria’s policy of mass marriage incorporated hundreds of Dornish houses into the Rhoynar or vice versa, depending on how you look at it, with no one losing anything and the local Dornish getting wealthy brides.

Moreover, from the text we can see some geographical splits between the Dornish houses. The Yronwoods, who were ruling half of Dorne, viewed the Rhoynar as a threat to their predominance, and were joined by their bannermen, the Jordaynes, Qorgyles, Blackmonts, and Wyls.

If you look at a map, this coalition is concentrated in Northern/Western Dorne, but in the eastern and more northerly part of that region. By contrast, the Fowlers, Tolands, Daynes, and Ullers (who allied with Nymeria and the Martells) are mostly regional rivals who occupied the western and southern sections of the same region – these lords likely joined due to pre-existing tensions with the Yronwoods.

Further evidence of this self-interest comes from the fact that, of the six kings who Nymeria sent to the wall, two of them – Vorian of House Dayne and Garrison of House Fowler – were former allies. When you consider that Benedict of House Blackmont and Albin of House Manwoody were also mountain kings who “claimed dominion over the Red Mountains,” one definitely gets the sense that the Martells’ control over the western borders of their kingdom was shaky at best for some time.

Dornish Economic Development Plan

(For previous parts of the series, see here, here, and here)

Ok, I am the Prince/Princess of Dorne. What do I have to work with? Well, Dorne is geographically closest to the Free Cities, which is very useful for trade. In addition, Dorne also produces very good exports – exotic produce (olives, peppers, citrus fruits), wines, textiles (Dornish silks and satins), and fine horses.

What are my problems? Well, like the North, I have a low population and less fertile soil than the rest of Westeros. I’m also not geographically situated conveniently to the rest of Westeros compared to the Reach or the Riverlands.

So how do I deal with these problems?

Goal 1: The Water Must Flow

The first limit to growth that must be dealt with is the lack of water, which is worth diamonds in Dorne. Which means that I need a massive desert-greening campaign based around:

the construction of artificial wadis protected by your hardier trees (acacias, eucalyptus, cacias, conifers, cedars, etc.). The wadis store water from rain, the trees prevent evaporation through shade, and then you can begin building irrigation canals out from the wadis.
in the areas of Dorne prone to flash floods, the construction of diversion canals and dams centered on the existing seasonal rivers, once again protected by trees, and then linked up to irrigation canals.
down the line, once I’ve got the money for it, divert the Torrentine east. The amount of potable water that is wasted by the river’s straight plunge into the sea is absurd, and if I can divert some or all of that water to spill down into that valley between Sandstone and Hellholt (properly guided through canals to prevent flooding), I can make a third of Dorne bloom (with no need for Aerys’ tunnels).

With more water, more land can be turned over to cultivation, as I’ll talk about next. However, this more water should remain under Princely control (by starting the process in House Martell’s own lands, and expanding outwards by lending money for construction in return for water rights), so that it can be used to improve political influence over the various lesser Houses.

Goal 2: The Earth Must Produce

Now that I’ve got more water to work with, it’s time to begin to improve the soil and bring it under cultivation, starting in “the eastern half of Dorne,” which “is largely barren scrub, it’s dry, stony soil, yielding little, even when irrigated.” (And that’s with the Greenblood). The first step is to improve the quality of the soil through the planting of hardy plants (lyme grass, sea couch grass, marram grass, and other anti-erosion plants used in coastal landscaping) that thrive on sand and salty soil (which also helps to lower the salinity in the soil), as well as those hardy trees described above to provide shade and prevent evaporation.

Together, these steps should begin to improve the quality of the soil so that the additional water acquired above can actually have a significant effect. In the mean time, one strategy for improving agricultural production in desert climates is to build saltwater-cooled greenhouses to spur the production of Dorne’s traditional export crops in coastal areas). It’s fairly easy to do, Dorne has no shortage of raw materials, and export production is key to prosperity in a country with a small population. Where possible, I should also be looking for staple crops that thrive on bad soil – has anyone invented the potato yet?

And the same time, I also need to make previously useless territory productive. To begin with: salt. Dorne’s got tons of it, it was historically immensely valuable, and there’s no reason why I couldn’t encourage House Gargalen to turn Salt Shore into a center of salt-production (especially if I can use evaporation processes to produce fresh water at the same time) that would leave Saltpans in the dust. Equally if not more importantly, there’s no way in hell the Red Mountains don’t have valuable minerals in them – mostly likely iron and copper. Set up some large-scale mining operations in the Red Mountains, and then set up smelting mills, foundries, and workshops near-by to produce ironwork and copperwork for export.

Goal 3: Trade, The Wealth of Nations

So, now that I’ve got my exports humming, it’s time to get into commerce to sell them and pay for all the improvements I’ve been making (note – these are going to have be done at the same time, as more production -> more trade -> cash for the improvements that drive production).

A Dornish State Bank is going to be useful here, although it’s not going to be anywhere the size of a Reach Land Bank or a Casterly Rock Bank or a Royal Bank of Westeros. Indeed, I may need to partner with the Iron Bank and see what kind of start-up capital I could get for a 49% stake in the State Bank and a limited-time monopoly as middle-men for Dornish overseas trade.

In addition to helping to finance my production-boosting campaign, one of the chief tasks of the Dornish State Bank will be to sponsor ship construction at Planky Town (which, btw, is going to need a city charter asap, as will Sunspear; I’m also going to want to build a port-city somewhere on the Yronwood lands to use as a bribe/counter to their power). Given my limited resources, I’ll need to build a fleet that can do double-duty as navy and merchant marine – sort of a floating, armed sovereign wealth fund.

In addition to attempting to engross, regrate, and forestall as much of the Narrow Seas trade as I can (trading on the fact that I can get to the Free Cities faster than anyone else, as long as no one builds a canal), it might not be a bad thing to do some pirate hunting in the Stepstones and build some naval bases so that I can start taking control of the crossing. Maybe sign a compact with Braavos and the Three Sisters limiting the tolls I can charge in return for recognition of Dornish control, pay a hefty share back to the Crown, but it’s still a mostly-free source of revenue I can use to fuel the State Bank. That it also gives an excuse to have a large, well-blooded navy is of no consequence.

Down the road, I probably also want to build a shipping canal that connects the Scourage to the Yronwood, massively cutting down on the time it takes those caravans to get to where they’re going, allowing for faster movement of metalworks to Plankytown for export, etc. (Also allowing me fast access to Yronwood if they ever decide to get troppy again). It’s not going to be anywhere near as productive as the Mander or Blue Fork Canal, but you need to do the best with what you’ve got.

Goal 4: Immigration, Urbanization, and Dornish Customs

The thing about new land and new industries and more commerce is that it all takes people and Dorne doesn’t have many of those. Now, once the land begins to produce, that’ll change, but that’ll take a few generations to kick off.

In the mean time, I’ll need to look to immigration – and Dorne is close-ish to Essos, and has some advantages in attracting immigrants. For one, we’re not a bunch of racist, religious-fanatic prudes like them in King’s Landing. For another, we’ve got our Dornish solidarity going.

So a good deal of the land I’ve just put into cultivation, the new towns and cities in the mining and manufacturing districts and the commercial hubs of the east, will go to attract new settlers – the Summer Islanders are great sailors and shipbuilders and archers, the Free Cities have excellent artisans and merchants (it would be great to get some of the Rhoynar to settle in their home away from home, maybe encourage the mother tongue and Rhoynish culture?). Getting them to come across might involve some Jon Snow-esque emancipation tactics, but maybe we can partner up with the Braavosi to do some plausibly-deniable slave-liberation too (don’t want to provoke a foreign war until I’ve got my population up and the Summer Islanders and the sandy Dornish can get together and start to talk about the Dothraki).

But one major draw, and one of the major ways I’m going to need to channel the discontent with the rapid urbanization and social change in general, is going to be an expanded version of Dornish solidarity – namely, it’s time for a social insurance system (might need some more Braavosi advisers to help with that) to provide protection against old age, disability, the loss of a spouse, etc. Here in Dorne, everyone looks out for everyone.

(Next up – the Westerlands).

I have been reading your CBC analysis and I have a question about what you call “Dornish Treatment.” I understand that Dorne can make its own laws and collect taxes with little interference, but why was this a good enough reason for them to swear fealty? What laws, besides inheritance, are truly different?

Excellent question. There’s a lot we don’t know about Dornish law, but we can look at Gaemon Palehair’s edicts as a bit of a guideline – poor relief, pensions for former soldiers, a ban on wife-beating. The WOAIF also suggests that the Dornish have different customs on bastardy and homosexuality as well.

In terms of why that was good enough, I think you can find the answer in the sheer level of punishment Dorne absorbed. The First Dornish War burned every castle in Dorne but Sunspear, leaving the country “a blighted, burning ruin.” While we know a lot more about Dareon’s casualties than those of who he fought against, the combination of his crushing victories and Lord Tyrell’s reprisals against the civilian population suggests that this war was incredibly bloody.

My interpretation of the whole 50,000 spears vs. 25,000 spears is that the various wars had an impact on Dorne’s male population similar to what WWI had on France, which would have an impact on Dorne’s fertility going forward.

I think the Dornish agreed to the peace because the alternative would have bled their country dry.