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Option 1!

And a very well written battle scene and immersive to! Timofey is the man! Can't wait for the next batch of updates.
 
Special Update Voting

So, so far Yuan has 4 votes, Knights have 3.

In addition, DrakeRlugia and General_BT have expressed a preference for Yuan directly rather than posting on the thread.

So unless someone else weighs in, Yuan it will be. The Knights will probably have to wait until the next intermission, but it is highly likely they will also get done.

Replies

aldriq: Well, there's no Qasimov in CK, but there was another, far less plausible, Tatar statelet on my Southern border, and yes, they were allied with the Golden Horde (GH converts vassals to demesne in CK most of the time). Fortunately, their prince's father was called Kasim. That made it easy for me.

Re: Old-fashioned Spanish names - didn't know that! But General_BT's assassin does have that name too, though he's Greek.

Kapt Torbjorn: Coming from you, that's a great encouragement. Thank you!

canonized: Crane feather fans? Don't make me use the Mulberry Frog, Jade Buddha strategem on you!

:D

4th Dimension: heh, well. They certainly got served.

Vesimir: Thank you!

Deamon: They won't all be as action-filled as this one, though :D

Qorten: thank you! I do hope the maps help readers who may not have time to work through every update...I'm still experimenting with it, hopefully a good balance will soon be reached.

-----​

Alright, that is that. Next post somewhere this week!
 
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Replies:

Iwanow: I hope this map (which traces the movement of the main characters through the world as well as principal cities mentioned in the story) can explain what happened:

PROGRESS.jpg

Thanks, that explain alot. You see, i am using internet not on my own computer so i am not always sure i will be able to read everything that i want. Maybe i should print it but mine printer is broken-down (not smashed by a hammer anyway ;) just unresponding(or something like that, i don't remember))
 
I have, alas very slowly, been reading through this over the last few days and there really is only one word I can employ to describe this AAR; magnificent. I am but saddened to have no further content to read, I'll have to wait for updates now alike everyone else! Of course, consider me subscribed, and I'll vote for option 1.
 
axzhang: Heh, Yuan it is then. Poor Red Pests; is it because they keep demanding Krete?

Iwanow: Glad you found the map useful, very happy to have you follow when you can! Thanks!

morningSIDEr: Bribe incoming, you said? Best bribe ever :rofl:

Thank you for the comment and the vote, and extremely glad to have you on board.

Announcement

Unfortunately, I have some minorly bad news for those waiting upon updates; I have moved house last weekend, and will have no internet until next Sunday (posting from work, so quite plainly there is no opportunity to make maps :D). Further, on Saturday my family is growing by one; he's white, he's fluffy, and he's the focal point of this entire summer. RGB is finally getting a pup. He's a German shepherd, but he doesn't yet have a name.

If my updates are a little behind schedule, you now know the reason.

Thanks everyone for being understanding!

ACA News

CossacksWhiteBg.gif

Also, thank you everyone who picked my AAR among the many excellent contenders for the ACA vote; we carried Narrative for EU3, which is, quite frankly, a little flattering. On the other hand, the pressure to keep impressing is now so on. Thanks!
 
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So you're finally taking a "break" from this narrative nonsense? About time. Its good to know that my catching up (having had to endure masterful battle sequences, fascinating characters, the right amount of historical detail, and delicious writing) hasn't been entirely in vain. Looking forward to densely detailed history book style from now on in :nods:
 
... and will have no internet until next Sunday (posting from work, so quite plainly there is no opportunity to make maps :D)

What?! Lack of map-making facilities at work should be instant breach of contract :rofl:



I think I shall borrow this for my own AAR :rofl:
 
What kind of a job allows you to surf the interwebs at will?

Also, might I suggest the name Kaiser or Bismarck for your puppy? It is most befitting his German heritage
 
Infidel! Ze Germans are evil! He should save the poor pup from his ancestors.


I suggest the following : A) Perun B) Svantevit C) Byelobog

That pup would suffer an irreparable damage to his self-esteem if he were named after Slavic mythology. He would become the laughing-stock of his beer-besotted German compatriots.
 
Name him Schrödinger. :p

(What? Austrians count!)
 
ComradeOm - yaaaah...break. To be honest Historical requires even more graphic work. Awful choices either way :D

aldriq: I complained and they told me to file a ticket, so I may get an answer in a few months.

Just kidding.

axzhang

Does this look like Bismark?

Kir034.jpg

ComradeOm - Kautsky - I seriously considered that :p

I definitely know that if it was a female I'd have tossed a coin for either Rosa or Kollontai.

Vesimir - heh. Well, you might not like what I went with in the end.

dinofs - is the dog alive or dead? Nobody knows, but whether alive or dead he finds socks irresistible.

Cornelius Nepos - thank you very much! Hope you stick around, and hope part 1 can explain some background.

Woody Man - thank you kindly good sir.

--------​

Well, the puppy was named Kir, provoking tonnes of condemnation just like every other name I proposed. I stuck with is so that I can in time write a Cyropaedia detailing bite aversion training, housebreaking and stranger socialization. After all, if you are going to found an Empire, you need to know how to do all that stuff.
 
The Yuan Empire and its Aftermath

Before the Yuan​

TEMUJIN.jpg

The concept of a Mongol Chinese Empire, as opposed to simply settled lands dominated by the indomitable nomads, is inextricably linked with one man in particular – Khubilai Khan, son of Tolui and grandson of Chingiz. Although the Mongols clashed with the Sinicized Jurchen Jin Empire already during Chingiz Khan’s rule, and finally conquered the Xia after his death, the Song remained entrenched behind the Yangtzi river, forming a natural border with the perilous and indefensible plains of the North.

During the life of the Mongol unifier, his domain was split into the lands of his four sons and five daughters by his principal wife, who married prominent leaders of the Ongguds, Oirats, Keraits, Onggirats and Uighurs and ruled on his behalf. After his death, the matter of succession became troublesome. Tolui, being the youngest, received the Mongol homeland, but did not have enough authority to be Great Khan just yet, and died early in 1233. The offspring of the eldest of Borte’s sons, Jochi, were at significant odds with the Chaghatai branch of the family, since the Chaghatids did not consider Jochi as legitimate due to the muddled circumstances of their father’s birth. Ogedei, therefore, was a compromise, and ruled as a compromise Khan until the last few years of his life. He was the one that ordered the attacks on Rus and the Caucasus, and also the one that built up Karakorum, the capital of the Mongols.

4SONSCHINGIZ.jpg

At the end of his life, however, he acted to destroy special tribal exceptions made to the unifying Mongol rules which were accorded to the tribes of his brothers and sisters; with his consolidating actions, the balance between the siblings was upset irreparably, setting the stage for grand internecine conflict, where the winner would take all. Although Ogedei wanted to set up his grandson Shiremun as the next Khan, his wife Torghene seized power after his death in 1242. After a year of subtle struggle she enthroned their son Guyuk, who proved an ineffectual alcoholic.

Her policies greatly alienated Tolui’s higher-ranked descendants, and alarmed the children of Jochi, who were establishing themselves as lords of West Siberia and the Russian Steppe. Already, however, his hold over the Empire was weak – his cousins Hulegu and Mongke allied with Shiban, Orda and Batu in 1241 to renew the halted attack on the Seljuks without his leave. When he died in 1244, his widow Oghul Khamysh attempted to keep the throne in the Oghedeid line, but was outmaneuvered by Batu and Sorghaghtani Beki, Tolui’s widow. Mongke, her oldest son, was proclaimed Great Khan. Oghul Khamysh and most of her sons lost their lives when they turned to treachery to reverse the situation.

CHINGIZCHILDREN.jpg

The fault lines of Oghedeis and Chaghatids allied against Jochikhanids and Toluids were by then fully drawn, and would persist in some variation until the end of the Empire. The Empire largely re-unified, the Mongols set out to conquer Song, but the river, with its multitude of forts and the vigilant navy, was an insurmountable obstacle. The only option was to advance through Sichuan, where the hot, humid climate, broken ground, mighty fortresses and tenacious defense made progress slow. On campaign in 1255, both Mongke and Batu died, leaving room for struggle in both the Great Horde and the Golden Horde. In the West, the Berke faction clashed with the Christian faction of the Sartaqids, and likewise fought both the Ilkhans and the Byzantine Empire. In the east, the struggle would be between the traditional Mongol aristocracy represented by Ariq Boke, and the innovative, Sino-Centric Empire led by Khubulai.

The First Yuan Emperor​

Khubilai Khan (1215-1294) was among the greatest of Chingiz Khan’s grandchildren, a capable warrior and strategist in his youth and a great administrator and visionary in his later years. Almost at once, after the death of Mongke, his succession was contested by his brother Ariq Boke; to counteract him, he allied with Hulegu Khan. He was also, perhaps through the influence of his mother, who was a Nestorian Christian allied with the Christians among the Jochikhanids, which was in the short term a mistake as Berke won temporarily before falling in a war of assassination with Boris-Nikephoros, the Byzantine Emperor. As a result, the forces were evenly matched. Ariq Boke had the support of the royal keshikten guard, the traditional Mongols, and Berke’s ulus. Khubilai relied on the weaker White and Shaybani hordes of the Jochikhanids, the distant Ilkhanid alliance, and the Asud (Alan) and Torki (Qipchak and Oghuz) guard that held down his capital Dadu (also known as Khanbalyk, Zhongdu, Tianbei, Beijing), as well as increasingly large numbers of Chinese and Korean levies.

MONGOLCIVILWARS.jpg

The war was inconclusive and lasted almost a decade, before Khubilai defeated Ariq Boke in 1265; as Hulegu died in 1260 and Berke and Abaqa of the Ilkhanids went to war almost at once, things developed too quickly for the new Great Khan to interfere. The Ilkhanids splintered into the Timurid and Syrian branches, hostile to each other, and Shayban and the Chaghatids fought over Ferghana. The division of the Empire was now complete. Nonetheless, Khubilai set out to finish the task started by his predecessors, and resumed the war with Song.

His last personal command was in 1253, when he led the successful attack on Dali in Yunnan; after that, he was increasingly beset by gout, and could not lead an active lifestyle. In 1254 he set up the Pacification Committee, which could be counted as the first cabinet of the future Yuan; they were to assess the newly conquered territories, establish taxation, deal out fiefs, record local laws and address grievances. This initiative was challenged by traditionalist Mongols, and nearly lead to his removal as the governor of China by Mongke, before the latter’s death in Sichuan. Already having established Buddhism as the preferred religion of the new Empire by 1258, he set his state apart from being a mere continuation of the Jin, and thus also pacified the increasingly strong Buddhist factions among the Mongols themselves. It is notable that even though the Mongols were ultimately stopped in that campaign, Khubilai managed to get the Song to become tributaries, which they remained until the completion of the Mongol Civil War.

In 1265, Khubilai finally conquered Sichuan, but was once again unable to breach the Yangtzi. He set to building a navy from among the conquered territories, and would have probably pressed ahead with the project quickly if the unruly West did not once again become a problem. In 1269, Kaidan, son of Oghedei, revolted in the Illi basin; Baraq-noyon of the Yuan was sent against him. In the outcome of a two-year conflict, Kaidan fled to the Persian Timurids. War with Timurids, however, was prevented by Khubilai’s new ally, Nogai Khan, the force behind the throne in Batu Ulus. With the West secured for now, Khubilai used his new navy to accomplish two great deeds. The first was an invasion of Korea, to prop up King Wongjong against his rivals, thus re-establishing the vassal status of the Kingdom. The second was a great naval war against the Song.

Starting from 1271 and continuing to 1281, the Mongols pressed the Song continuously, learning to command navies and siege breathtaking fortresses. The Khan forced the abdication of young emperor Gong, followed by the forced abdication of his successor, his brother Duzong, with the Song court raising Bing, a boy of 14, as puppet Emperor. However the Song Grand Admiral Liu Xiufu, having ousted the boys’ mother as regent, led one last great rebellion. At the great battle at sea involving hundreds of ships on both sides, the Song were at last beaten. Bing was captured and the Song came to an end, even though formerly deposed Emperor Duzong was raised up again as a figurehead, and taken by diehard loyalists fleeing into the Southern Jungle to carry on the resistance. Emperor Bing became a Buddhist monk, and was exiled to White Horde, along with his brother, the former emperor Gong, and many of their court, greatly influencing the court in Sibir and introducing Buddhism to Europe through their missions to the Blue Horde of Nogai. With the fall of the Song, the Yuan dynasty was proclaimed, and soon a summer capital was established at fabled Xanadu, to save the Khan the discomfort of travelling all the way to Karakoram.

China Rules the Seas​

KHUBILAI.jpg

Peace was not to be had easily, however. Almost at once, in 1281, an attack was launched on Japan, an erstwhile Song ally and a thorn in the Yuan side. The ships were hastily constructed due to a brewing war with nomad rebels to the west, and took far too long to establish a beach-head. When the inevitable autumn storms hit, the fleet was wrecked, and only the nimbler and less aggressively deployed Korean contingent made it back. This birthed the legend of Divine Wind – kamikaze in Japan, as well as retaliatory raids by the Sea Clans, the first of the wokou pirates that would plague the area for centuries. Khubilai could not respond effectively, as he was once again dealing with a land war.

Traditionalists rose in rebellion against the Sinicised Yuan, even though Khubilai’s newly established racial caste system favoured Mongols over the Chinese (in fact, Mongols were supreme; Semu, the coloured-eyes were next and included all Western peoples - Turcs, Tibetans, Alans, Russians, Uighurs and Persians. Han Chinese were next; non-Han inhabitants of China were last and were the most restricted in their opportunities.) The Yuan troops showed none of the decisiveness and nimbleness of former Mongol armies, taking a long time to come to grips with the elusive Mongkeid rebels. Once again, Khubilai requested aid from Nogai and Orda Ichen. While that war was ongoing, Khubilai’s old opponent Kaidan, allied with the Timurids, attacked Delhi. The attack failed, losing many troops. Fearing Khubilai’s armies, deployed in nearby Uighuristan, Ahmad Qadan of the Timurids captured his ally and handed him over to the Great Khan. Without the Timurids as a possible backer, Kaidu and the traditionalist Mongkeids were in trouble. Kaidu fled to Tibet, and thus set the stage for the first Yuan intervention in the area, as well as bringing a strong Tibetan influence on Mongol Buddhism.

The Brigung sect in Tibet rebelled against the Lamas, and allied themselves with Kaidu. Timurid and Yuan forces finally defeated both in 1285. Tibet’s Lamas were restored, becoming Yuan vassals, while the Timurids got rewarded with many soldiers to attempt their second attack on India that year, which resulted in the conquest of Sindh. 10,000 Tibetans were either killed or exiled to Sindh, finally pacifying the area. In a generation, the Sindh Mongols and the Timurids would split, the former remaining more traditional, the latter becoming a Persianised Muslim state. Nor were Khubilai’s other allies forgotten. The White Horde, in particular, was allowed to remove the Yenisey Kets, the Kyrgyz and those of the Uriankhai tribes that supported Kaidu to their own lands and tax them there. The Yenisey removals were settled on the Ural-Irtysh plains, where they formed the White Horde border with increasingly more restive Bashkirs.

KHUBILAISEAWARS.jpg

With the end of the Mongkeid wars, Khubilai’s reign was secure; but his military adventures were far from over. Khubilai’s newly constructed navy was wrecked in Japan; a rebuilding was ordered. The Song had established a great set of trading networks all over Asia with their naval prowess, and Khubilai was not about to let that amount of power and income fade into history. In 1286, the Song Emperor Duzong was at last captured in the jungles of the South, finally providing Khubilai with the excuse to punish any courts that sheltered him in the intervening years. The first was against Dai Viet in 1287, which ended disastrously, especially without effective naval support. Between 1290 and 1293, repeat expeditions were launched into Pagan, Annam, Dai Viet and Champa, all difficult fights with only qualified success; however, these states ultimately joined the tribute lists, as did Malay statelets, Cambodia, and the Thais and Shan of the highlands. In 1294, the final great achievement of Khubilai’s military career occurred, when the Yuan navy staged a decisive intervention against Sighasari on Java in support of Srivijaya on Sumatra. Srivijaya was then offered help to dredge and divert their silting river (the Yuan having just finished the Great Canal from the Yellow river to the Yangtzi and this having great expertise) to re-facilitate trade, as well as rebuild a navy. Support of both Sumatra and Java as independent powers balanced against each other was to be known as the Two Lions Strategy in Chinese history books.

After Khubilai finally died that same year, Temur Khan, his grandson, became Emperor Chengzong. He finally completed the struggle against the stubborn tribes of the Amur basin and Sakhalin island, launched punitive expeditions into Burma and Shan for failing to pay tribute on time, and sent expeditions as far as the Malabar coast. In 1305, Japanese wokou hit Ningbo and Korea very hard, prompting the construction of an anti-piracy navy, which in turn harried Japan’s coast, and then proved useful in breaking up yet another Singhasari-Srivijya conflict. A further attack was planned against Japan, but once again circumstances saved the Kamakura. Temur’s beloved and only son Teshen died suddenly in 1308; the Great Khan followed him almost immediately. At his death, the very last khuriltai of all Mongols was called; the Three Jochi Hordes, Chaghatai (the factions lead by Duwa and the Kaiduids) and Temurids acknowledged Yuan supremacy. The Ilkhans in Syria send a messenger, but could not attend. Although the Yuan were acknowledged supreme, the khuriltai left succession in China a strictly internal matter.

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Continue to follow the fortunes on the dynasty in part 2!
 
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Very nice update! Now that I think of it, China was probably a better choice than the Knights. The Knights IN China however, that would be awesome. :D

I must also say the map of the different factions in the Mongol Civil War is awesome. And that mongol in the lower left corner is from M&B I think.


The dog is just awwwwww! And I don't really get the Kir reference so It's cool. It only reminds me of Kirk. :p