Habsburg Megacampaign: Part 22: 1219-1226: Fifth Crusade for India

I have 4 surviving sons:

• Hugh, king of Sicily and Africa
• Alois, duke of Toulouse, used to be married to duchess of Franconia, but she died, and now he remarried a total nobody
• Gotthard, landless, married to duchess of Lisboa
• Filibert, landless, married to a Georgian princess third in succession

I need to arrange some land for the younger two, and the best way to get that land is a nice crusade.

I asked the Pope to do something ambitious, and invade the biggest realm in India. And as before, I started gathering troops 200 days before the crusade, and it was not soon enough.
I had a bit over 50% participation, and my son became king of Maharastra.

I got a second bloodline - Crusader Blood of King Adam, for "single handedly bringing victory to the Christians in several Crusades", with +5 Christian opinion and some other minor bonuses. Nice!

And so we had 7 king tier rulers of Habsburg dynasty:

• me - Arles/France/Aquitaine
• son Hugh - Sicily/Africa
• nephew Hans - Polnad/Estonia
• son-in-law Wolfram - Scotland/Ireland, under HRE
• really remote relative Helene - Crusader Finland from 3rd crusade, under HRE
• closer relative Matthias - Anatolia from 4th crusade
• son Gotthard - Maharastra from 5th crusade

I'll need to find something for Filibert now. And let's hope Gotthard can defend himself there. I first wanted to get him Persia, which was surrounded from two sides by Christian powers, but went for a more risky option instead.

My councillors called a favor to vote for execution committee, so I had to reverse it. That took bribing the men and seducing the women, but it worked.

In the Provence Love Gardens there's a Fountain of Youth now - whoever drinks from it ages 20% more slowly.

I had severe chest pains and stress for a while, so I expected to die anytime, but after a few years it passed, and I'm back in good health. And there's something I really need to do.

Nearly the whole India challenged our crusading armies, and they had so many elephants, but in the end the result was clear

A much bigger question is - can my son survive there for 30 years without any alliances until the next Crusade is organized?

Timurids got some sort of realm - it would be vast if I didn't intervene, but it's still respectable

Best case scenario they fight the Hindus so the Hindus are too busy to fight my son

Worst case scenario, they turn back towards Georgia, but their power level is not too much higher, so they'd probably win but with severe losses