Before the Shepherd Kings

The Middle Kingdom's unity has frayed. The 13th Dynasty still governs Middle and Upper Egypt from Itjtawy near el-Lisht and the old royal city of Memphis, served by a vizier, a treasury and provincial governors, though its kings are mostly short-lived and Ay's long reign is the exception. The 14th Dynasty at Avaris, rising from a West Semitic population long settled in the eastern Delta, controls the Delta roughly north of Athribis and Bubastis. Its reigns are brief, its court is split between palace officials, merchant families and the garrison, and famine, perhaps with plague, has gripped its lands since the short reign of Nehesy. The two houses coexist and trade. Avaris is the gateway to the Levant and the sea. Ships from the Canaanite city-states, Byblos for cedar, Ashkelon for oil and wine, and Ugarit at the head of the tin route from Mesopotamia, put in at the Delta mouths and the Avaris harbor, bringing tin and cedar; Itjtawy commands the southern Nile route for ivory and gold and the richest grain lands in the Fayyum. Copper comes from the Sinai mines at Serabit el-Khadim and Wadi Maghara, but royal expeditions have lapsed and the Aamu clans who roam the peninsula hold the wells. Tjehenu clans range the western desert and the Mareotis fringe, trading natron and raiding hungry villages. Horses and chariots are unknown in Egypt. Armies are infantry and archers who move fastest by boat on the Nile and canals. Bronze is scarce on both sides of the border, so the Athribis-Bubastis frontier is as much a market as a battle line.

In about 1700 BC, Lower Egypt is divided between two royal houses. Merneferre Ay, in the second year of his reign, rules Memphis and the Fayyum from the fortified capital of Itjtawy. At Avaris, a dynasty of Canaanite descent holds the Delta, but its king Merdjefare is near the end of his reign and the low flood has left the Delta hungry. Desert clans hold the Sinai copper and the western fringe. Neither throne can make bronze in bulk without the other, and pressure is building on the eastern frontier. The calendar counts years of Ay's reign: the stored year 0002 is regnal year 2, about 1700 BC, and the start is dawn on the Opening of the Year as the flood arrives.

1. Calendar: years are regnal years of the reigning Itjtawy king, each running through Akhet (flood), Peret (growing) and Shemu (harvest). The flood level set at each Akhet decides grain output and famine for the year. 2. Bronze chain: copper plus tin makes bronze only in the workshops of Memphis and Avaris; bronze makes arms. Without tin, smiths fall back to arsenical copper and a following's arms degrade. 3. Chokepoints: tin and cedar enter only by sea, carried by traders from Byblos, Ashkelon and Ugarit who land at Avaris and the Delta mouth anchorages; a coast closed to them chokes the bronze chain. Ivory and gold come only up the Nile from the south through Herakleopolis. Copper requires an expedition to the Sinai mining camps, by negotiation with the Aamu or by force, overland or by ship from Ain Sukhna. 4. Markets: each market city keeps its own prices. Prices rise with distance from the source, with tolls on the Athribis-Bubastis border and under embargo, and fall with gluts. The world price indices give the overall Lower Egypt level. 5. Famine spreads along the river and canals; plague can break out in famine-struck cities. Hunger lowers loyalty and raises desertion and Tjehenu raiding. 6. Battle simulation: armies are infantry, archers and river boats; there are no horses or chariots, and desert crossings run only from well to well. A battle is decided by its real factors: numbers (following), arms quality, terrain and river crossings, supply and famine, morale and loyalty, surprise and leadership. Campaigns produce war events such as desertion, ambushes, fights over fords and canals, sickness in camp, raids on supply boats and betrayal by wavering leaders. When the played character is on a battlefield, the battle is simulated in detail from that character's rank and position: a king, marshal or general sees the whole field and gives orders to formations; a commander leads his own company inside the line and acts on the orders he receives; a common soldier sees only his own rank's fighting and the orders shouted down to him. The outcome follows the factors, not the character's wishes, and the character can be wounded, captured or killed. 7. The Avaris throne is unstable: reigns are short and succession is settled by palace factions and the garrison. 8. Asiatic pressure rises with Delta famine, frontier disorder, a weak Tjaru garrison and civil war, and falls with strong harvests and a manned frontier. When it reaches 100, a new Asiatic host under a heqa-khasut, a ruler of foreign lands, breaks in through Tjaru and the Ways of Horus with horses and composite bows unknown in Egypt, or seizes power as a coup inside Avaris. Its leaders are created at that moment. 9. Facts recorded about attested figures are not contradicted at the start.