Ayutthaya - The March of the Elephant

Chapter 21 - Boromakot Maja T'ammaraja II (1733 - fl1741)

For some reason, I've been fighting industrial-strength writer's block over this installment. Here it is at last, anyway.

Boromakot Maja T'ammaraja II

The early years of the young monarch's reign were wholly taken up by the Second Qing War and its domestic repercussions, culminating in the Year of the Barricades. Even with the coming of peace, the disorders of 1735 took the best part of a year to quell (the last revolt, in Timaru, was not put down until January 1737), and in the years that followed domestic tranquillity was fragile to say the least. Boromakot chose therefore to eschew aggressive reforms or foreign adventures, instead concentrating on enhancing the unity of the realm (1) and building up its military strength (2).

The Same Old Story

The last years of the Second Qing War were a time of conflict in lands far beyond Ayutthaya. Early in 1733 war once again broke out in distant West Asia, with the Kaliphate and the Hedjaz assaulting the Mamelukes, who were already reeling from a conflict with the Ottomans. A short time later the Russians, displaying unsuspected diplomatic skill, managed to secure Poland for the Wettins, a previously unknown European tribe. Thereafter the year was quiet, apart from England's ritual switch of targets from the Shawnee to the Iroqouis. Foreign affairs came closer at the start of the next year, with an opportunistic attack by Brunei on Champa. More dramatic on the world scale was the news of six months later, when the Netherlands, having secured Tennessee from the Cherokee, declared war on Portugal.

The wars continued into 1735, and by July the Portuguese had made peace with Zimbabwe to concentrate on their European rivals. By then, there was war in India as well, as the Sultan of Delhi attempted to add Jodhpur to his extensive territories. Late in the year, it was the turn of the Mughals, who challenged the surrounding khanates in battle for control of central Asia. Around the turn of the year, the close of the Second Qing War provided in impetus for peace that went beyond China and South-East Asia. Hostilities finally ended for the Buddhist Alliance in the summer of 1736, when the Koreans (who had made peace with the Ming at the end of 1735) finally paid indemnities to Dai Viet. In the months that followed, the Kaliphate and the Mamelukes ended their war, the Xhosa submitted to the overlordship of the High King of Zimbabwe and the Duke of Saxony paid indemnities to the Russians and abandoned his claim to the Wettin lands. The trend continued into 1737, with the Austrians paying indemnities to Bohemia in January and the Brunei/Champa war spluttering out the next month. Even the English, presented with a ready excuse for war in the so-called 'Jenkins' Ear' affair, chose not to strike.

The next new war did not come until early 1739, when the French were paid off by the Shawnee and switched their attention to the Dakota, and England reverted from fighting the Iroqouis to fighting the Cherokee. By then the Iroqouis had made peace with France (at the price of Susquehanna), and Bohemia with Poland. Meanwhile a revitalised Persia fought off political fragmentation to accept tribute from Oman; and Korea formally acknowledged the suzreignity of the Qing. The years that followed saw other wars end, with the Mughals' efforts gaining them a single province and Delhi's efforts in Jodhpur petering out to little gain.

Beyond the Cape of Storms

Nasiryah's voyages did not cease with the new King's accession, nor indeed with the end of the Second Qing War. Again and again he set forth from Zanzibar, ever heading south and west in search of new horizons, new trading opportunities and (perhaps) savage lands that could be claimed by Ayutthaya. In 1733 he turned south again, rounding the tip of Africa in the depthsof the southern winter and finally reaching the coast of Damara, which had been claimed by the Dutch. On his return trip, he made a landing at Dourados, in the district of Inhambane, where again he found the people heavily influenced by the Portuguese who had once ruled there, but fiercely loyal to the King King of Zimbabwe.

The southern tip of Africa looking unpromising, he spend much of the following year mapping the coast of Kenya, but in 1735 he went south again, becoming the first captain from the east to dock in the Dutch port of Kroonstad, in Ciskei on the Great Fish River. Acting on rumours picked up in Kroonstat and Sofala, he then turned his bows east rather than west, and in 1736 completed the first circumnavigation of the great island of Madagascar, to the south-east of Zanzibar. Zanzibar was ruled by another group of Europeans, previously known in Ayutthaya only by rumour, the French. Reports from Zanzibar went back to the capital, and ambassadors were dispatched to bear the greetings of the Elephant Throne to the Sun King in his palace at Versailles (3).

It was becoming increasingly clear that, beyond the strong kingdoms of Zimbabwe and Zanj, all the lands of Africa were in the hands of Europeans, and their colonies welcomed Ayutthayan traders only grudgingly and Ayutthayan settlers not at all. Nevertheless, Nasiryah pressed on. In 1737, he touched at the Dutch outpost at Namaqua on the west of the Cape, and the English colony of South Hampton in Mtawa. The following year ranged the east coast from Natal in Zimbabwe as far north as Bisharin in Nubia. There after he turned his attention to the west coast - in 1739 he voyaged as far as the mouth of the Kongo, where he landed at the French colony of Sainte Claire in Cabinda, and subsequent voyages took him as far as Rio Muni and the coast of Cameroon. But these were by now explorations for knowledge rather than gain. West Africa was too distant, and the European grip on it too strong, for his discoveries to be of more than academic interest. As far as the sailors and merchants of the Kingdom were concerned, Nasiryah's most significant achievement in his later years was his contact in Ovambo with traders from yet another European nation, Mecklemburg, which would in time open up new trading opportunites for the Kingdom - but in Europe, not in Africa.

Nasiryah's Explorations - Africa, 1740.


The White North - the Settlement of Siberia

Like the exploration of Africa, the settlement of Siberia went on through the Qing War and even the Year of the Barricades. After Novosibirsk and Irtych had been secured, settlement concentrated on the territories bordering the Khanates, Omsk and Semipalatinsk, which were more fertile and less frigid than the forests to the east. Progress was swift and the two new towns were recognised as provincial capitals as early as 1734. The next wave of colonists turned west and north, to the iron-rich hills of Karaganda and the (relatively) populous forests of Nefedova on the Ural. Progress here was slower, particularly in Nefedova, where the hostility of the Altai lead to the loss of several expeditions and eventually to a full-blown native uprising in the winter of 1738-9.

With the slowdown in settlement in West Siberia, the later years of the decade saw an upsurge of interest in the long-neglected territories south of the Ice Coast, along the Amur River north of Manchuria. The end of hostilities with the Qing saw new settlements founded in Sofiisk and on the river in Amour and Birobidjan (4). Sofiisk, indeed, was recognised as province as early as 1738, ahead of Nefedova which was not finally organised until the following year.

Na'chirr'ik on the Ural

Na'chirr'ik, meanwhile, had not long been held back from his quest. In 1733 he went north with the first thaw and despite an ambush by hostile tribesmen in Mansijisk, he reached as far as Vakhovska on the eastern branch of the Ural River. The following year he followed the west bank into Igrim, where the rivers joined. Everywhere he went he asked the natives about the Forest Lord. Some said it was beast and some said it was god, but although they traded him carved ivory, and bone, and even blankets woven of strange reddish wool, none could say where it might be found. All they could tell him was north, north, north, beyond the forests to the swamps and the lands where the soil never thawed.

Na'chirr'ik's superiors in Irtych and Angara were occupied with the settlement of Nefedova, and Na'chirr'ik could spare only a single season to explore north next year. Nevertheless, he reached as far as Pimsk, where the forest at last ran out and he saw the bare hills and ice-marshes of the true tundra beyond. But the tribes that lived there knew nothing of the Forest Lords first-hand - they were west or north or east maybe, but not there.

In 1736 he raised another expedition north. They struck first north-east, into Surgut, where they found hills of pure salt and a land 'patterned with stones'. The people of this harshest of lands feared the elephant-totem and would not speak of the Forest Lords, and Na'chirr'ik at last turned away. He led his men down the great river, through the forests of Kondinsk as far as Saleharo, where the Ural ran out in swampland on the edge of the northern sea. There were people here too, pitiful savages but friendly, and they offered the strangers meat, strange dark meat, not dried but fresh. And Na'chirr'ik asked from what animal it came, and they took him to the scarps at the edge of the swamps, where the waters of the river warred with the permafrost, and showed him where the great corpses eroded out of the ice. Some said that this was where the Forest Lords of the south came to die, but others said that they had all died, long ago, and this was their graveyard. And Na'chirr'ik did not speak to them again, but rode away south with the last of the sun.

He did not give up. The next year he tried again, on the west bank, searching the hills of Obdorsk and Berezov until late in the autumn. But although he found rich ore fields, and made contact with many native tribes (for it was surprising how many lived in this forbidding land), he saw neither hide nor hair of the Forest Lords, nor any indication where they might live, if live indeed they did.

That is the last expedition of Na'chirr'ik's recorded in the annals of Angara and Enkan. The governors of the new colonies saw no point in furher exploration of lands still bleaker and more remote, when Nefedova and the Upper Ural were as much as they could handle and more. It is written that the great explorer, after a year's fruitless wrangling, set off north alone in the spring of 1739. It is written that he returned, frostbitten and half-crazed with fever, in the autumn of 1740, and died soon after. It is said (but only after the second bottle) that he travelled deeper into the forests of Igrim and Berezov than any civilised man followed for centuries, and there he saw the last Western mammoths, grim and lonely, in the years before they died. Scholars, of course, confidently assert that there have been no mammoths on the Lower Ural for thousands of years and that the mummies of Sandino are relics from before men came to Siberia. It is sometimes wise not to listen too closely to scholars.

Azzer and Taiwan

Azzer was a bold young man from Timaru in the Far Islands, with an ambition (5). His ambition was to win more territory for Ayutthaya, and become founder and governor of his own city. And his ambition did not include searching the endless wastes of the Pacific for specks of land, or freezing in the endless forests of Siberia. He had a plan, and he told his plan to the Governor of the Far Islands and the Governor told it to the Viceroy of New Ayutthaya, and they agreed to give him what he desired.

The island of Taiwan, since the expulsion of the Chinese in the reign of Narai, had been the site only of a small Ayutthaya trading mission. The Kingdom claimed to rule over the whole island, but it had been agreed by all that the inhabitants of Taiwan were too numerous and independant for that rule to be enforced. But that had been decades ago, and the world had changed since then. Azzer came with two thousand men and two thousand muskets, and cowed the people, and brought Ayutthayan settlers from the Philippines and New Ayutthaya to rule them.

The King's Diplomacy, and the Lordship of the Faithful

King Boromakot was not wholly idle during these years, and as prosperity returned and the memories of the Year of the Barricades faded so he grew bolder. The banning of Ayutthaya's merchants from England in late 1737 (ostensibly because of Nasiryah's 'encroachment' on English trade in Africa) was a setback, but he send diplomats with soft words and eventually got the embargo lifted in the spring of 1740. Meanwhile, he extended the Basic Law across Bali, Java and Sumatra (6) - and it was a measure of his new-found authority that he could do so without opposition - and sought to improve Ayutthaya's relations with its neighbours. An embassy to Orissa in 1739 settled many long-standing border problems (7), and the King's efforts were crowned a few months later when the King of Annam formally accepted vassalage to the Elephant Throne (8). As King of Ayutthaya and overlord of all Buddhist lands outside, Boromakot Maja T'ammaraja II could truly claim to be the Buddha's foremost servant on Earth. The Muslims of Johor did not appreaciate this new emphasis of the Kingdom, staging a short-lived revolt in 1740, but in the following year the inhabitants of Sabah chose to follow their King on the path of enlightenment (9).

It was shortly after this that Boromakot Maja T'ammaraja II, claiming that 'all men are one in the eyes of Heaven' chose to further relax the legal restrictions on the lower classes (10). Opposition, from the aristocracy, the Guilds and the government bureaucracy itself, was somewhat muted by the near-simultaneous declaration of war by Dai Viet on the Qing. The Third Qing War (the title 'Third War of Vietnamese Aggression' was rejected) had begun (11).

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Notes
(1) Missionaries sent to Johor (15%), January 1733; Sabah (23%), March 1733; Guizhou (23%), March 1736; Ajeh (19%), May 1736.
(2) Land Tech 22 reached September 1732, Land Tech 23 reached September 1737, Land Tech 24 reached July 1740.
(3) <Grrr Snarl> I was just edging out the Spanish in the VP race when the Frence got 600 free VP for Versailles...
(4) I didn't want the Manchu coming back! The natives in Amour and Birobidjan had been exterminated by the Manchu, so there was no real reason to build up the colonies quickly.
(5) Conquistador (+3 Colonists), January 1738.
(6) Chief Judges in Riau, Jambi, Palembang, Sunda, Jakarta, Surabaja & Bali, January 1738.
(7) Diplomatic Move with Orissa (+50 relations, +1 Diplomat), January 1739.
(8) Diplovassalised Annam, April 1739. It took two State Gifts to get relations high enough.
(9) Missionary failed in Johor, August 1740; Missionary succeeded in Sabah, February 1741.
(10) +1 Free Subjects (now Serfdom 1), March 1741. (Stability had just reached +3, so..)
(11) Hi ho, hi ho.....

Semi-Lobster - I'm on my way (only Ajeh left, plus Johor and Malacca).
jwolf & Machiavellian - Thanks for the support! I hope you like the end of the mammoth tale.
Sapphire - Elephants in Serbia? Well Haroun-al-Rashid (yes, that Haroun-al-Rashid) once sent Charlemagne an elephant as a gift. It was kept in a special park in Aachen and was eventually killed in battle against the Danes. I don't know if it went through Serbia en route, but...
Also, there are stories of the Ottomans using elephants in some of their campaigns in Transylvania.
Keravnos - South from Novosibirsk? By my map it lands me in Uzbekistan at the wrong end of the Chagatai Corridor - which is quite a hike. The trouble with Africa is that other people got there first and it's a bit far away to fight a war. I'd hoped for a chance to beat up a pagan, low-tech Zimbabwe, but Zimbabwe has (a) lots of provinces, (b) Catholic provinces & (c) guns. Oh, well.
enyo - IIRC, the Civil Service plan (in Yes, Prime Minister) was to centralise everything in the Prime Minister's office, then get the Prime Minister out of the country while the Cabinet Secretary ran things. Merchantilism because it means state control and control is the Civil Service mantra. For the rest, Aristocracy yes (must have sound people in charge), missiles yes, quality yes and defensive yes (but only because there isn't an 'inactive' setting).

Chapter 21b - Boromakot Maja T'ammaraja II (fl 1741 - fl1748)

The Third Qing War

Faced with a new war in China, and fearing a repeat of the exhaustion and over-extension that had led to the Year of the Barricades, Boromakot Maja T'ammaraja and his advisors chose to adopt a new strategy; one of limited engagement. A strong garrison was retained in Guizhou to guard against the threat from the north, and raiding forces were sent east into South China to harry the countryside and engage the Qing field forces, but no attempt was made to occupy territory. The honour of taking - and holding - the great fortified cities of the Yangtze valley was left to the Vietnamese, and such of their allies as wanted to participate.

The first part of the strategy worked well. Throughout the summer of 1741, the Kingdom's cavalry rode unchallenged across the southern Qing provinces. Guangzhou and Fujian were pillaged and their defenders scattered, and as summer turned to autumn Anhui and Nanchang were served the same way, before the raiders finally withdrew in October. When a Qing army came in pursuit, it was met by the main Ayutthayan force on the plains of Hunan and utterly defeated. Fully twenty thousand Qing soldiers died that day, and the Kingdom celebrated one of the greatest victories in its history. At sea as well the forces of Ayutthaya were victorious, the China Squadron driving the vast but ill-equipped Qing fleets from the Gulf of Tonkin and blockading the Pearl River.

The second part of the new strategy - the one not under Ayutthayan control - failed completely. The Northern Ming opportunistically declared war on the Qing, but made no move in the south. Dai Viet had started well, sending a well-equipped force of more than thirty-five thousand men into Hunan, where they drove off the local militia and advanced to the gates of Changsha. However the Vietnamese commander had learned nothing from the siege of Nanning in the previous war, nor indeed from the advice of his Ayutthayan counterparts. Possibly to avoid sharing the loot with his Annamese allies, who had set an army to his aid, he ordered an immediate assault on the city's fortifications. The attempt failed, of course, with the loss of thousands of men, and in the aftermath the demoralised survivors were driven from the siege lines by a small Qing force. A month later the Annamese army arrived and the story repeated itself - advance on the city, assault, failure with heavy losses, defeat by a greatly inferior enemy force (1). By the end of the year, only Ayutthaya had troops remaining on Qing territory.

Matters did not improve in the second year of the war. Although Ayutthayan cavalry once again swept south China clear of Qing recruits and remnants, the Kingdom's allies refused to advance. Indeed the Emperor of Dai Viet showed small interest even in rebuilding his demoralised forces, preferring (in a fit of panic) to spend his treasury on ships 'for the defence of our homeland'. It was enough to drive anyone mad and, indeed, Boromakot Maja T'ammaraja spent the second half of the year in seclusion 'meditating on the imperfection of the world' (2).

Another Little Problem

The insanity appeared to be contagious, for in December 1742 the Northern Ming chose to make peace with the reeling Qing (receiving a sizable indemnity but regaining no territory), and a month later the ruler of Champa chose to declare war on Cambodia and, by extension, the Buddhist Alliance. Ayutthaya naturally supported her Cambodian and Annamese allies, but, Boromakot Maja T'ammaraja still being in seclusion, no troops were dispatched. They were busy in China, where a brilliant series of raiding operations lasting from February until September accounted for more then thirty-five thousand Qing troops and plundered much of the Yangtze valley. From an Ayutthayan perspective the only setbacks encountered were pro-Qing uprisings in Guizhou (in March and again in October) and a return to religious unrest in Ajeh (3) - and even these were swiftly put down. The Champan war was left to Cambodia and Annam, who had to face a major invasion of Annam. Alliance troops repulsed the invasion attempts, though the Crown Prince of Cambodia was among those killed in the repeated battles before Da Nang. The Vietnamese, meanwhile, had mustered the courage to advance, and once again sent their armies aginst the walls of Changsha. The inevitable assault inevitably failed, but this time the Ayutthayan army had ensured that the surrounding area was clear of Qing detachments and the city remained under siege.

The Koreans Take a Hand

1744 saw an intervention by the Qing's fearsome allies, the Koreans. Just as in the Second Qing War, an army of them emerged from the lands north of the Yangtze and marched to the relief of Changsha. This time, however, they were met in Hunan by a combined Ayutthayan/Vietnamese/Annamese army, and an Ayutthayan general in charge. The battle that followed was one of the largest in the Kingdom's history (almost eighty thousand men involved), but the soldiers of the Alliance maintained a solid defensive and the Koreans were forced to retreat. Following up, Ayutthayan forces caught the Koreans in Guangzhou and defeated them again, but over-extended themselves and were themselves defeated by a combined Qing/Korean force in Fujian the following month.

The spring campaign was a close-run thing, but it successfully took the pressure off the Vietnamese, and Changsha finally surrendered in June. In the weeks that followed, the Champans offerred indemnities to Cambodia, ending that sideshow, the Koreans withdrew north, the Ayutthayan army once agin swept the Qing militia from the Yangtze valley and the Vietnamese were once again persuaded to advance. By the end of the year, they were besieging Canton, the richest city on the whole of South China.

Seas of Fire

The focus of the war then turned to the Gulf of Tonkin and the sea approaches to Canton. Throughout the early months of 1745, the Qing fleets attempted to break the blockade of the Pearl River and the Ayutthayan Navy battled to stop them. The China Squadron, reinforced mid-campaign by the Home Fleet, was repeatedly victorious against odds, but suffered heavy losses and the blockade began to crumble for lack of ships (4). It was not properly restored until June, by which time the Koreans had returned to the fray, sending almost forty thousand men to the aid of their ally.

The new commander of the Vietnamese army was a competant general, however (witness the lack of an assault on Canton), and was able to drive off the Koreans in pitched battle in August. When news of this reached Boromakot Maja T'ammaraja, he celebrated with a three-day party during which he unfortunately mistook the ambassador from Arakan for a court jester (5).

The hangovers had barely faded when the Vietnamese army abruptly abandoned the siege of Canton (6) and marched back to Changsha. Shortly afterwards, 'to show them how it's done' as the commander-in-chief put it, Ayutthayan forces captured Nanchang, but the 'Emperor' of Dai Viet made peace at the end of the year, returning Changsha in exchange for a heavy indemnity.

Aftermath

At least the Kingdom had been little affected internally by the war, indeed its administration, trade and military effectiveness had if anything improved (7). Boromakot Maja T'ammaraja continued his policy of encouraging religious uniformity, to no great effect, and the settlement of Siberia hardly slackened. Royal officials took advantage of the 'military emergency' to declare Taiwan a province as early as 1741, removing Azzer from his self-declard viceroyalty the following year and dispatching him to the Ice Coast. The would-be 'Supreme Governor of Formosa' spent the rest of the war aiding settlers in the south Siberian territories of Amgoun, Khretset, Ekimcan and Nerchiinsk. He failed to overcome the hostility of the natives in Ekimcan, but succeeded so well elsewhare that Khretset was recognised as a full province before the end of the war, and Nerchiink followed in 1747.

Ayutthayan victory in the Third Qing War enhanced the Kingdom's prestige beyond even its successes in the Second War (which had been overshadowed by the Year of the Barricades). Many states in India and Asia saw advantage in ingratiating themselves with 'the Servant of the Servants of Heaven'. Some even hinted at recognising his claim to overlordship in China (8). Reality returned, however, the next year, when the bubble of speculative investment which had followed the peace burst (9), bankrupting several trading companies and depressing the Kingdom's economy for much of 1747.

Abroad

The early 1740s proved a turbulent time in Europe, even by the standards of that troubled region. 1741 saw the first mention of the document that would become key to European relations in the years that followed; the so-called 'Pragmatic Sanction', by which the Emperor of Austria attempted to declare his daughter a man so that (s)he might inherit the Empire. France used it as an excuse to oppose the Hapsburgs, but the Netherlands chose to end their conflict with Portugal (paying indemnities) and stand with Austria. They were supported by the English and the Russians, while the Portuguese declared neutrality and attacked Zimbabwe.

Rather than force the issue, France took refuge in another war in America (the Huron, this time) and England and the Netherlands followed suit, attacking the Cherokee. So it was left to the German alliance (Bohemia, Mecklenburg and Saxony) to make war on the Austrians, which they did in February 1742 (and made peace for an indemnity the following year). The same year saw Persia slide into political turmoil, and at the start of 1743, the Russians shocked Europe by electing a Swedish Crown Prince, one Adolf-Frederick of Holstein-Gottorp. Electing monarchs was an established European cultural practice, but what Adolf-Frederick had been elected as, or to, or indeed what or where Holstein-Gottorp was, remained resolutely unclear.

1744 saw the Nertherlands making peace with Genoa so that the English and Swedish could make war on it, and the outbreak of yet another war between the Central Asian Khanates and the remnants of the Mughals. England's war did not got well, and they were forced to pay heavy indemnities the following year. Various colonial wars ended (France-Huron, Portugal-Zimbawe, England/Netherlands-Cherokee) and began (France-Shawnee, Portugal-Kongo, England-Iroqouis, Netherlands-Xhosa) to no great profit. Towards the end of 1746, Russia paid off Courland and declared war on Nogai, which they annexed six months later; and the nation of Iraq declared independence from the Kaliphate. Iraqi freedom did not last long - they were overrun by the Persian alliance before the end of 1747 and forcibly converted to the conqeror's religion.

Cambodia

The death of the Cambodian Crown Price had left Ayutthaya's oldest vassal without an heir. As the King's health declined and palace factions battled for influence, Ayutthayan diplomats moved to secure the Kingdom's interests (10). In the increasingly febrile atmosphere, factions splintered, loyalties dissolved, and rumours of Qing or Portuguese influence abounded. In the Autumn of 1747, the old King died. Three days later, the Ayutthayan Ambassador summoned the various claimants to the throne to pledge their allegiance to the Buddhist Alliance. Not all attended, and the Ambassador turned his attentions to the palace guard and the court officials. On January 1, 1748, the Kingdom of Cambodia was dissolved and its territories incorporated directly into Ayutthaya.

The Last of the Old Borders - Cambodia Annexed


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Notes
(1) There is something seriously bugged in the Dai Viet AI. Every time it has enough troops for a siege, it assaults and gets slaughtered. 35,000 vs an unbreached medium fort isn't a contest.
(2) Temporary Insanity of Monarch, May 1742. -3 to all monarch stats for 12 months.
(3) Missionaries Failed in Guizhou (October 1743), Ajeh (November 1743).
(4) The Qing were attacking 50+ ships at a time and my warships were going down like flies.
(5) Scandal at Court, August 1745. (-3 Dip for 3 months, -50 Relations with Arakan).
(6) Morons.
(7) Internal Trade Ordinance in Bago, March 1741 (+1 Tax); Monopoly Company Formed, October 1743 (+100 ducats); Land Tech 25, May 1744; Rush of Merchants, October 1744 (+2 Merchants); Land Tech 26, February 1746 (just too late for the war).
(8) Great Reputation, June 1746 (+20 Relations with Delhi & Dai Viet; +10 Relations with Khazaks, Hyderabad & Orissa).
(9) Trade Company Bubble Burst, March 1747 (-400 Trade Investment).
(10) My Reputation was up to 'rather bad' - time to spoil it again. State Gifts to Cambodia in 1746 & 1747.

Semi-Lobster - At least this one was less painful than the last.
The Impaler - Good to hear from you! Yes, I was starting to suspect that Dai Viet was an attempt by the AI to give me a coronary. Everything they could screw up, they did. I didn't have a border with Nogai (while they were around), and with stability costing me 2,000+ a point, I certainly wasn't going to DOW anyone without CB.
Keravnos - Sadly, there's no 'Defender of the Buddhist Faith' title to claim. Looks like I'll have to settle for 'Ruler of the Buddhist People'.

Chapter 21c - Boromakot Maja T'ammaraja II (fl 1748 - 1758)

A Quiet Couple of Years

Following the annexation of Cambodia, a period of relative serenity descended on Ayutthaya. Boromakot Maja T'ammaraja saw fit to reassure his allies that he had no ambitions upon their lands (1), and he extended his generosity to the Guilds (2), whose declining fortunes were threatening to tip over into unrest. The King's open-handedness was repayed fourfold the next year (3) as the Guilds, trying desperately to cling on to thir fraying influence, sought refuge in the royal favour. Meanwhile colonial expansion continued in Siberia, new settlements being founded in Tchita, Sretensk and Mogotcha in South Siberia and the fur-traders extending their operations to Ekimcan and Ulan Ude. Azzer of Timaru oversaw the initial settlements, his last significant act before his death in a brawl in the winter of 1749.

Not all was quiet, of course. The King's pro-Buddhist policies caused trouble in Johor towards the end of 1748 (4), and the next few months also saw pro-Qing banditry in Guizhou and an attempted nationalist uprising in Cambodia. Ayutthayan forces put down all these disturbances without difficulty, and the King was not distracted from his project of improving the administration of the Home Provinces.

The End of Korea

Perhaps inspired by Boromakot Maja T'ammaraja's example, the Qing emperor chose to end the nominal independance of his Korean vassals in the spring of 1748. This act again gave the Qing control of the old Chinese capital of Beijing and (more importantly to Ayutthaya's strategists) domination of the Chinese coast and a land connection to their South Chinese holdings.

Further to the west, these were not quiet years for the nations of India, West Asia and Europe. Portugal declared war on Benin early in 1748, the Sultan of Delhi (supported by Hyderabad and Brunei) made war again on Jodhpur and the Persian alliance (the Hedjaz and the Mamelukes) struck at Afghanistan. A few months later, news came that the Swedes had paid heavily for peace with Genoa; but it was followed swiftly by intelligence of renewed war between Bohemia and her allies (Saxony and Mecklenburg) and Austria. That summer, the unfortunate nation of Iraq was re-force-converted by the soldiers of the Hedjaz, who apparently disagreed with their Persian allies about the appropriate method of following the teachings of the Prophet. The bemused Iraqis finally made peace with the Persian alliance in the summer of 1749 (5).

Also in 1749, the King of France was reported to have introduced a new tax; obviously not wanting to raise any money, he decreed that it should not apply to nobles or priests. A scholar of his country, with the barbaric name of Montesquieu, responded with a work entitled 'The Spirit of Laws' (not a Buddist text, nor, slightly more surprisingly, a Christian one), in which he alleged the the King should not have the right to make laws which offended his philosophy. What the King thought is unrecorded, but since Montesquieu's head was not exhibited outside Versailles, maybe he agreed. (The tax was not repealed, so maybe not). In the same year saw the publication of the works of an English thinker named Hume, who idolised reason (sadly unenlightened!), while the Marquis de Pombal rose to power in Portugal.

On the more practical front, the Netherlands made peace on the Xhosa and war on the Aztecs, Persia annexed Afghanistan early in 1750 and went on to attack the Mughals, Jodhpur paid off Hyderabd in July and the Portuguese paid large indemnities to the Ottoman Empire (much to the confusion of the Ayutthayan Foreign Ministry, who hadn't heard they were at war).

The End of Brunei

Peace and stability might have remained the order of the day for considerably longer than they did, had it not been for an unfortunate incident at the Court of Delhi. The ambassador from Brunei, crawling to his overlord, sought to belittle the Kingdom of Ayutthaya. Fatally, he was overheard, and fatally he referred to Boromakot Maja T'ammaraja as 'the little King'. No apology was forthcoming, and Boromakot Maja T'ammaraja declared war in September 1750 (6).

Few Ayutthayan troops were available, and the Sultan of Brunei struck first, sending a huge force of more than fifty thousand men into his former territory of Sabah. The Ayutthaya defenders were happy to retreat within the walls of the city and let the Sultan's host find what sustenance they could in the wilderness outside. Meanwhile, armies were assembled in South Borneo and advanced upon Brunei itself. The Sultan's capital came under siege in February 1751. Scattered attempts to break the siege were beaten off, and in May the remnants of the Sultan's army, leaving more than forty thousand dead of hardship and disease in Sabah, returned to try and save the capital. Meanwhile, the Ayutthayan navy was consistantly victorious both in Bruneian waters and against the fleets of Delhi of the coast of Bombay, so much so that the men of Indonesia donated a fresh galley squadron to the forces at Sabah in October (7).

The Sultan's army, ravaged by hinger and disease, went down to disaster under the walls of his capital in June of 1751. Hyderabad had already dropped out of the war; before the end of the year the Sultan of Delhi, realising that Brunei's position was now hopeless, made his peace with the King and offered reparations. The city of Brunei fell in March 1752 and the Sultan brought on his knees before Boromakot Maja T'ammaraja. The King had not forgiven the insult; the Sultan was executed and his lands annexed to Ayutthaya.

The East is Brown! - Brunei conquered, 1752


The war had been conducted with exemplary efficiency, indeed the Kingdom's military records for these year reveal that more attention was paid to domestic disorders than to the armies of either Sultan. Hostile natives overran the Tchita colony in the winter of 1750-51; the Cambodians rose in Khmer the following March and the summer saw religious uprisings in both Guizhou and Ajeh (8). The Kingdom's forces were equal to the challenge, and order was restored before the end of 1751.

Peace, Again

For once, war had not been accompanied by a collapse of Ayutthaya's trade position abroad, indeed the economy emerged somewhat strengthened. The King's advisors in the Ministry of Finance sought to build on this prosperity by establishing Ayutthaya's first State Bank, to secure the Government loans and support the value of the currency (9). The King blessed their efforts, but the new Bank's administrators were inexperienced in their duties and could not prevent a damaging speculative bubble forming next year (10).

Free of foreign distractions in the years following the war, royal official sought to increase the authority of the central government over the provinical governors and the remaining Guilds (11), while the King concentrated on maintaining good relations with his allies and (a personal project of his last years) building diplomatic bridges with the Northern Ming, whom he hoped to draw into an anti-Qing coalition. Both were distracted temporarily by revolts in Khmer in 1754, in Guizhou in 1755 and in Johor the following year; and more seriously by a scandal which erupted towards the end of 1756. It appeared that certain administrators in the new Bank had been extending 'long-term interest-free financial instruments' to their favoured cronies (12). The revalation of their misdeeds shattered public confidence in the Bank, and upset the Kingdom's political and financial stability for quite some time.

Colonial Developments

Settlement of Siberia had continued unabated throughout this period. Sretensk was recognised as the Kingdom's newest province in 1753, but the focus of expansion had alreay moved westward, to the Ienissei-Ob region, where new settlements were founded in Kransnoyarsk, Tomsk and Barabinsk. The traders went into Tannu Ola before the end of 1754 and at the other end of the empire, 1755 saw a population boom in the distant Far Islands (13).

Foreign Reports

The 1750s showed no let-up in the turbulence at the far end of Eurasia. 1751 saw the Portuguese make peace with Benin and war on Zimbabwe; France made peace with both the Iroqouis and the Cherokee and, unexpectedly, did not immediately declare another war. In the following year, Bohemia paid token indemties to Austria, Jodhpur surrendered Malwa (on the border of Bombay) to the Sultan of Delhi and the Netherlands ceased their attacks on the Aztecs in favour of the Cherokee. In 1753, the Portuguese made peace with Zimbabwe and war on the Kongo and the English made peace with the Iroqouis and, in a stunning deparure from tradition, took the lands of Shenandoah and Kentucky from the Iroqouis. 1754 was notable only for the French paying indemnities to the Dakota, while 1755 saw Lisboa in Portugal flattened by an earthquake (truly, they must have acquired great dharma), the Netherlands make peace with the Cherokee and war on the Xhosa (14), and the English attack the Cherokee in turn.

1756 saw only political unrest in Persia, but life became more interesting in the following year, as the Russians declared war on the Khanates (they would swiftly take Kharabogaz and Khwarizm from the Uzbeks); the Persian alliance made war on the Ottomans (and their allies - Algiers, Benin and Songhai) and the Portuguese, feeling they had not suffered enough, declared war on the Qing. The months that followed saw the Bohemian alliance again attack Austria; the French make peace with the Huron and war with the Shawnee and the rise of William Pitt to the First Minister's post in England. 1758 saw a massive departure from the norm of intra-European relations when Genoa bought the province of Corsica from France.

Final Moves

By the mid-1750s, the King was visibly aging. He sought to continue to build up the infrastructure of the Kingdom, to reinforce the northern Indian holdings against the threat from Delhi, and, almost to the end, to pursue good relations with the Ming (15). But hs hopes came to nothing when he died in the spring of 1758. His eldest son, who took the throne as Ut'ump'on, was not interested in diplomacy (16).

Ekat'at Boromoraja III

Ayutthaya would never learn what did interest Ut'ump'on. He lived only long enough to hear news of another major European war (the Bohemian alliance declared war on Genoa, Venice and the Knights and were themselves attacked by England and Sweden) before succumbing under mysterious circumstances at the end of April. His younger brother seized control of the Kingdom (17) as Ekat'a't Boromaraja III (18) (much to the confusion of the chroniclers, who maintained that the Kingdom had aready had a Boromoraja III, and indeed a Boromoraja IV).

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Notes
(1) There's nothing like annexing a vassal to make your other vassals unhappy. State Gifts all round were called for.
(2) Granted Export Licenses, December 1748. (-50 ducats)
(3) Gift to State, October 1749. (+200 ducats)
(4) Another failed missionary. I tried again, at 15%.
(5) Nothing like alliance coordination, is there?
(6) Diplomatic Insult from Brunei, September 1750. I'd been wanting to clean up the last holdout in Indonesia for ages, so...
(7) This was all quite fun. Delhi kept attacking my ships off the Indian coast and kept losing, while Brunei suicided its army in Sabah. Would that the AI was always this cooperative.
(8) And my missionaries continue to strike out. Odds now 18% in Ajeh, 23% in Guizhou.
(9) Formation of a State Bank, October 1752. -5% Inflation, +200 ducats.
(10) Trade Company Bubble Bursts, December 1753. (-400 Trade Investment).
(11) +1 Centralisation (to 3), January 1754. Tried a missionary in Brunei (17%).
(12) Eradicate Corruption, November 1756. (-1 Stability, -100 ducats).
(13) Regulation of the Medical Profession, January 1755. (+1,500 population in Whangerei).
(14) Why do they do this? It's just wrecking the colonial powers with endless Stability hits.
(15) I was piling State Gifts into China in the hope of getting them into my alliance (then diplo-vassalise ). But I just wasn't getting much for my money (+14 Relations for 200 ducats ).
(16) Adm Average, Mil Average, Dip Poor. So much for that plan.
(17) Now 85 Provinces, 11 Colonies, 33 Trade Posts; Monthly Income 349, Inflation 1%, Tech 26/11/7/6
(18) Adm Very Poor, Mil Very Poor, Dip Very Poor. Gaaahh....

jwolf, Director & Machiavellian - I'd like to take more of China, but my BB problems have just gone critical. After annexing Brunei, my reputation went all the way down to 'extremely bad'. There are a bit more than 60 years left (enough to burn off 10-11 BB), so if I want to annex my vassals (13 provinces) I simply have no room left to play in. My lack of diplomats (2/year at war) means that the BB wars would destroy me from accumulated exhaustion, even if I could hold off Russia/Delhi/Orissa/Manchu simultaneously. Theoretically, I can still diplo-vassalise China and force-vassalise Manchu before 1790 and then diplo-annex them with the last play of the game, but neither is looking easy.

jwolf - My vassals are Arakan (1 prov), Dai Viet (5), Tibet (7) and Annam (1). Dai Viet, Tibet and Annam are the only (other) Buddhist nations left - I want to end the game as Ruler of All Buddhists.

Semi-Lobster & enyo - I started in Siberia by building colonies in Tchumkan (for a harbour) and Enkan (for the gold), then I spread TPs along the coast while waiting for a conquistador. When Tifni turned up, I built a trail of TPs inland, settling only the gold provinces until I got to the west end of the corridor. I settled and fortified the provinces west of the Irtych in the 1730s. Having made sure no-one else is going to get in, now I'm filling up the gaps.
I have cities in Nefedova, Omsk, Semipalatinsk, Novosibirsk & Irtych (West Siberia); Angara, Buriat & Sretensk (Corridor); Nerchiinsk & Sofiisk (East Siberia); Okhotsk, Enkan, Tchumkan, Bogorodsk & Vanin (Ice Coast). Birobidjan, Amour, Amgoun, Djugdjur, Mogotcha, Tchita, Krasnoyarsk, Tomsk, Barabinsk & Karaganda are colonies; everything else is TPs except the Ural provinces north of Nefedova, and half a dozen low-value provinces in the interior.

Chapter 22 - Ekat'at Boromoraja III (1758-1767)

Ekat'at Boromoraja III

Despite his reputation, Ekat'at Boromoraja III was not the stupidest monarch ever to rule the Elephant Kingdom. Nor was he the laziest, most arrogant, most corrupt or most vicious. It might have been better for the Kingdom had he been all these things, for at least then he might have been controllable. As it was, he possessed an active but limited intelligence which enabled him to convince himself and others of his comprehension of complex subjects, a reckless nature that led him to plunge impulsively into matters best left undisturbed and a basic lack of focus that left his ambitions as changeable as his moods. On top of this, he had a generosity and natural charm which drew flatterers and parasites as flies to honey, the humility to ask freely for advice when he found himself at a loss (which was often) - and a total lack of judgement in the choosing of his advisors. In short, he was a man who could decree one new policy at lunchtime, a completely different one over dinner, forget both before he retired to bed, then be reminded of the first three days later and proceed to purge the unfortunate official who had not put his royal wishes into action immediately.

It is a tribute to the efficiency of the government machinery built up under his predecessors that the calamity took almost two years to come about. Indeed, 1758 was long remembered as a year of peace and plenty. The country was stable and well administered (1), there was peace abroad and at home (apart from the insignificant outpost of Kalapam, which was overrun by headhunters in August), there seemed no cloud in the horizon. Russia crushed the Khazaks and took Nura on the borders of Siberia - prompting the Ural Company to reinforce the defences of Semipalatinsk and Novosibirsk - Portugal, having extracted indemnities from the Qing and crushed the Tavoras Conspiracy, declared war on Zimbabwe and was itself attacked by the Netherlands, the Austrians paid heavy indemnities to Bohemia; but what was this in Ayutthaya? Less than the news that Namiki Shozo of Nippon had built the first Mawari Butai, whatever that might be.

The first blow fell at the very end of the year when the English, enraged by Ekat'at Boromoraja III's original approach to tariff rates, barred Ayutthayan merchants from their territory. Within three months the French had joined them, and the Kingdom's financial position had begun to weaken. Nevertheless, the early part of 1759 also saw the completion of Buddhist temples in the mountains of Guizhou (2), as well as a diplomatic rapprochement with Orissa (3) and continued improvement in relations with the Northern Ming, following Ekat'at Boromoraja III's whimsical gift of a white elephant to the Emperor in Liaotung. More ominous was the renewed religious turmoil in Ajeh, following on another nationalist uprising in Cambodia. The disturbances were swiftly put down, and the later part of the year saw colonial expansion in Siberia and a resurgence of official interest in the Navy (4), but this was the calm before the storm.

Late in 1759, Ekat'at Boromoraja III personally took possession of the National Bank and immediately disbursed much of its reserves to his toadies. When the Guilds and merchants protested, he reminded them of their inferior station and sent them away empty-handed. When the tax revenues at year's end proved singnificantly below his inflated expectations, he blamed the provincial governors, accusing them of 'distancing themselves from the people they rule and disdaining the business of finance'. To resolve these problems, he proposed to dismiss every governor in the Kingdom and replace them with candidates hand-picked by himself. One of these governor-appointees, doubting his ability to justly govern a province he had never visited, took it upon himself to persuade the King to revoke the Basic Law in his new fief. When the news broke, all but two of Ekat'at Boromoraja III's ministers, supported by numerous Palace officials, went to the King to beg him to reconsider. The King spoke to them gently, accepted the strength of their arguments and they departed in good spirits. The same evening, the King's lackeys had them all seized and cast into prison, and a Royal Decree cancelled the Basic Law throughout the whole Kingdom.

Ayutthaya erupted (5).

The Years of Fire and Ash

A full account of all the riots, uprisings, battles, lootings and general disorder would fill a large book, and would still provide only an outline of what historians would come to call 'The Years of Fire and Ash'. An official report, drawn up for the new monarch a few weeks after Ekat'at Boromoraja III's death, reported that the following provinces had 'fallen into the hands of outlaws and insurrectionaries' during the preceding reign: Murrumbidgee (twice), Samar, Towoomba (twice), Wairoa, Whangarei, Cambodia, Wewak, Sretensk, Taranaki (twice), Salabanka (three times), Macquarie, Tchumkan, Nerchiinsk, Madurai (twice), Sunda, Okhotsk, Khmer, Sulawesi and Wagga; while these others had merely 'been subject to riot, revolt or uprising': Sumbawa, Buriat, Brunei, Kalimantan, Selantan, Laos, Novosibirsk, Kwai, Goa, Sabah, Flores, Bombay, Sarawak, Shan, Palembang, Timor, Irtych, Perak, Cochin, Johor, Lampang, Bandung, Omsk, Bali, Sofiisk, Enkan, Bandjarmasin, Nefedova, Guizhou, Sarakham, Yunnan, Malacca, Mandalay and Surabaja (6).

The list is meaningless, of course. For one thing, the titles of 'outlaw' and 'revolt' were often imposed retrospectively. The collapse of the central government left the provincial authorites unchallenged in their districts, and the lords, governors and generals were not slow to seize the chance. Some declared for the King, some against him, some changed with every breeze. The far-sighted ones secured the loyalty of their subjects by proclaiming their loyalty to the Kingdom and the Basic Law (7); but even they often held their personal rule answerable to no-one, intriguing, squabbling and warring among themselves like the petty kings of an earlier age. When a provincial governor armed his subjects against the men from the capital, when a local nobleman overthrew a royal official in the name of 'legal government', when a militia mustered or an army marched in support of one or the other, who was the rebel and who the loyalist?

For another, what list can fully encompass the horrors of these times? Hardly a district, hardly a town escaped the storm intacts. Natives rose in distant colonies. Armed mobs rampaged within sight of the capital. Cities were sacked, vilages burned, the dead lay on the roadside while the crops rotted for lack of hands to harvest them. One diarist, writing 'under sentence from Heaven' in the Year of the Bloody Comet (1762) (8) recorded that 'it was said openly that the Buddha had turned his face from us, that the Great Chain was broken and the world cast into the chaos of which the Christians speak'. The greatest conflict occured in Brunei, where fifty thousand Muslims rose in the name of their lost independance, and the toll of them was so great that the balance of the population was permanently changed (9). The most tragic was in Kwai, where the Great Temple burned, and looters came from miles around to sift the ash for the golden drops that had wept from Narai's Stupa.

That the Kingdom did not disintegrate was down to three factors. Firstly the bulk of the army was under the command of two noble generals - Ponney of the East and Taksin of the North (10) - who proved greater than the madness around them. Resistant alike to the commands of corrupt courtiers, the pleading of provincial traitors and the whispers of their own baser natures, they kept order, brought justice and served in the name of the Throne. Secondly, the people themselves (except in rare cases such as Brunei) proved loyal to the Kingdom. Through all the chaos they kept their faith in the ideal of Ayuthaya, and so even the most ruthless of warlords soonlearned not to proclaim his independence too loudly, that it was safer to bow to the Elephant banner than to raise his own. And thirdly and most mercifully, no outsiders took a hand. Throught these most terrible of years, there was peace on the borders, and the only hands raised against Ayutthaya were Ayutthayan.

Peace, and the Assembly of Bangkok

Peace came slowly to Ayutthaya. At times it seemed as if the land would burn for ever, but after more than five years the tide of chaos ebbbed, the rivers of blood ceased to flow, and the strongest and wisest of the survivors had a little liberty to consider the future. Greatest of these was Ponney, the General of the East. His great colleague Taksin was dead, killed by rebels in Guizhou in almost the last gasp of the uprisings, and when peace finally came at the end of 1765 (11), Ponney found his authority unchallenged in Old Ayutthaya. He still had a King, proclaiming his decrees from the dreamworld of the Court, but Ponney no longer cared for the pronouncements of Ekat'at, who in a single year had promoted him once, condemned him twice and adopted him as a son. He could have seized the capital and made himself King, but such was not his desire. Instead, he brought his army down to the great port city of Bangkok, which was safely away from the capital and had come through the Years of Fire relatively unscathed, and from there he send letters to every city and province in the Kingdom, summoning their leaders to meet him in the new year.

Not all came, of course, but most did, or sent their deputies. They came from the snow forests of Siberia and the grainfields of New Ayutthaya, from the mountains of Assam and the marshes of Malaysia, from Burma, Cambodia, the islands of Indonesia and from India to the far islands. Under the eye of Ponney they met in Bangkok in the spring of 1767 to decide the fate of Ayutthaya. There they assembled to pledge their loyalty to the Kingdom, its people and laws. And there they stood together and formally declared Ekat'at deposed 'for crimes against the Kingdom'.

This was something new, for though many rulers of Ayutthaya and other nations had died at the hands of their enemies, or been driven from their thrones by usurpers or invaders, never before in Asia had a monarch been deposed by the people, and for the violation of the law. The Assembly of Bangkok would be much talked of and much remembered in years to come, especially in America and France. But for now the present weighed heavier on them than the future. There was much to be done. Magistrates were sent to the old capital to arrest the traitor Ekat'at (who, in his last wilful act, would hang himself in his cell). Scholars were set to draw up a definitive text of Ayutthayan law. And on the eighth of April, 1767, at the request of Ponney who refused the honour for himself, the Assembly of Bangkok named Phya Taksin, son of the late General of the North, as King (12). In his first royal act, he addressed the Assembly, swearing to rule justly, to uphold the law and to respect the judgement of the Assembly.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Notes
(1) Infrastructure 7 reached, August 1758
(2) Missionary successful in Guizhou, January 1759. I was back down to two religions again.
(3) Diplomatic Move with Orissa, April 1759. (+50 Relations, +1 diplomat)
(4) Naval Tech 12 reached, December 1759
(5) 'King Ekat'at's Incompetence' Event, January 1760. -6 Stability; +5 RR for 10 years; +10 Inflation; 10,000 troops desert, -200 infrastructure investment. Owwwwwwwww........
(6) This is a long-winded way of saying I spent 5 years playing whack-a-rebel. Fortunately, I had 100,000 men under arms and 3,000 ducats in the treasury, otherwise things would have been disastrous rather than just painful.
(7) I promoted Governors in Irrawaddy, Kwai, Wollongong, Yarra, Bombay, Sunda, Luzon and Goa to deal with the inflation; and appointed chief judges in Guizhou, Ajeh, Flores, Timor, Buru, Ceram, Tindore and all the Indian provinces to reduce RR. In 1763 I added judges in all the Australian provinces, and when rebels permitted I added them in Sumbawa and Wewak.
(8) What's the one random event you don't want to see in the middle of a long-running RR event? Well, actually it's Wave of Obscurantism, but Meteor Sighted isn't exactly friendly. I also had to buy off two Noble Feuds between 1760 and 1765.
(9) In the midst of chaos - there were 40,000 rebels besieging Brunei at one point - the Missionaries in Brunei and Johor succeeded. <shrug>
(10) Ponney (3/4/3/0 leader) appeared January 1760. Taksin (4/2/4/0 Monarch Leader) appeared January 1762 - and then got himself killed in May 1765, two years before he was meant to take the throne.
(11) I'd dragged Stability back up to +3, so revolts were an occasional trickle rather than a flood.
(12) Adm Ave, Mil Very Good, Dip Ave.

Semi-Lobster - I thought the Immortal Idiot of the Golden Horde was hard to beat. But that was before I saw that &$%£*!! Event.

Keravnos - I sincerely hope Ekat'at is in a class of his own. China is still on the menu long-term, but the next few years (until the RR wears off) will be spent very carefully trying to do nothing, so as not to upset things.

jwolf - Oh, yes, Brunei had been annoying me for far too long - particularly when they got monopolies in Malacca or Kansai. Obviously the assassins were on holiday, though, because I had to suffer through seven years of King Loser after he'd brought the house down.