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:eek:

Seriously... :eek:

Good work getting out of the war with Russia while also picking up some territory. Hopefully, you'll get to keep it.
 
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Sayyid Ahmad's Reign : Part 4
The first day of 1463 dawned over the Hordes lands. They stretched from the White Sea in the north to the Black Sea in the south and the far side of the Caspian in the east. Times were looking up, the people were returning to their normal lives. The soldiers rested and for the first new year in over a decade foreign soldiers did not dirty the soil of Tatar lands.
Sayyid rode north to survey his newly acquired territory in Arkhangelsk and Vladimir. He was impressed by what he saw despite the fact it was a wilderness, almost empty of people and those that were there looked at him with contempt. Sayyid noted that he should send people forth to populate the lands and unlock their wealth while of course at the same time changing the loyalty of the population.
Inorder to initiate the new beginning he changed the names of the towns to more patriotic ones.
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Named for the Horde's great ruler​
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Such Modesty​

Muscowy meanwhile was making up for its losses. In March it annexed the small Principality of Tver, thereby acquiring not only Tver but the far north colony of Kola. Several weeks later it declared war on the nation of Novgorod. Novgorod surrounded on all sides by Muscowy and with only two thousand troops stood no chance.
1464 brought in more money than the year before. But not much more. It was soon exhausted on expanding Ulughtsyn and a small addition to the army. Sayyid was troubled. The Horde was getting bigger but not richer. But before he could deal with it he was distracted by news from Donetsk. Two foreign horsemen had been caught riding at speed across the plains. When questioned by the local officials they could not give a reason for their haste and after torture they confessed to be spying and under the direct pay of the King of Lithuania.
Sayyid was proud of the growth of the northern colonies. He had taken them on as something of a personal project. Whilst inspecting one of them in winter he went on a bear hunt. After he and his men chased a bear for sometime he chose to bravely make the final kill himself but the cornered and wounded animal fought back viciously. Sayyid was knocked from him horse and mauled before the animal was slain. Still alive Sayyid was raced back to the camp but it was too late. He passed away during the night as a result of his horrific injuries. All those present swore he was an immensely strong man just for holding on as long as he did.
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Khan Ahmad's Reign : Part 1
After the funeral of Sayyid Ahmad (closed casket of course) a new leader of the Horde was chosen by the army. He had been Sayyid's second in command and instrumental in slaying the bear.
Khan Ahmad was a military man, he had been born in a camp outside Kyzylkum while his father had fought for Ulugh the Great against the Uzbeks. His father and his father's father and so on as far as one could remember had served bravely and fiercely in the army.

Unlike many other men of the sword though he had not neglected other areas of education and had good knowledge of economics and management. One of his first acts as Khan was to personally oversee a review of the Hordes economy. His was dismayed by what he saw and immediately borrowed money to spend on upgrading tax collection in several provinces.
He also sent a small goldenchest emblazoned with a studded ruby cresent to the Sultan of Shirvan as a symbol of the two nations friendship. Secretly though Ahmad hoped to bring Shirvan even closer and if possible into the Horde.

Meanwhile in the Caucasus a severe rebellion took place in Georgia. The old King and his family were assasinated in planned attacks on the night of the 17th of February. The throne was seized the next day and a new dynasty took over even going so far as to rename the nation Kakheti.
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New neighbours, Ahmad decided not to send a welcome basket of goodies

Late in February Ahmad received reports of enemy spies working in the Horde lands. The reports were conflicting. Some said the spies were Polish, some said Russian, yet more said Uzbek and others said they were people of the Horde unhappy with the current situation. No hard evidence could be found though and so Ahmad was unable to do anything more than put his men on alert.

Things were looking up for Turkey they had succeeded in a counter offensive against the Polish and were able to gain peace for only 49 ducats. One of their first acts of peace was to shift the capital to Constantinople in order to strengthen their claim on European territories. This was bad news for the Horde. Apparently merchants felt more at ease in the land of the Turks than the Tatars and they relocated their centre of trade to Constantinople taking with them much valuable revenue.
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This makes me annoyed

In April a spy was brought to the court of Ahmad, he was a native of Ufa who had been caught acting suspiciously near the fortress there. Even under torture he held and would give nothing more away than 'We will rise' before he died. Ahmad was disconcerted but again lack of information prevented any action.

In order to make up for the loss of merchant income Ahmad searched for a new alternative. He toyed with the idea of attracting the merchants back with incentives of free wenches and water coolers for all merchants in Tatar lands. However he wisely decided economic growth was better in the form of more expansion in the north. He also began to eye up the rich lands of Crimea.

But before he could act on the latter it became painfully clear what the strange goings on about the land were.
All across the land people rose up in a coordinated rebellion against the Horde.
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This makes me even more annoyed​

They wanted independence badly and they wanted it now. Ahmad refused to give in. The Horde would not give up it's hard one posessions so easily.

Ahmads military pedigree was to prove invaluable now. The entire army stayed loyal to him. In only a matter of months and two swift campaigns the poorly organised rebel armies were decimated. But their legacy would live for longer. Almost every province in the land became a hotbed of rebellion. One advisor even concluded that the effects could last as long as ten years. He was wisely beheaded for putting forth such an unsavoury suggestion, but Ahmad couldn't help but wonder if he might be right, the rebels did seem determined.

The only good point in it all for Ahmad was that one of the rebel armies marched on Muscowy and he took delight in seeing the Muscowy troops unable to deal with them.
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Ahmad was undergoing a baptism of fire. This would be one of the most trying times for the Horde so far but if they could come through it whole it would only make them stronger than ever before.

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You continue to have those nice small touches in your story -- like the mention of the "closed casket" funeral for Sayyid Ahmad after he was mauled by the bear. And I liked his "modest" naming of the Northern cities.

Good luck with the revolts. I only am familiar with what I presume is the vanilla version of this event, not the AGCEEP one. I can't imagine you can hold onto everything, but I'll salute you if you can!
 
You are doing amazingly well against the revolters. Keep it up! I once garrisoned the lowlands with 30-40,000 troops as Burgundy for about 80 years, until they had no choice to drop any foolish ideas of independence (now I would have released the Netherlands as vassal, though). And knowing you, I think you might turn this into an asset. Attrition + high revolt risk = very difficult to siege province for any invader.
 
Well, that went better than expected. Time to look for greener pastures. Preferbly with the same religion.
 
Stroph1 - Who shesh I habn't alreadys (hic)

jwolf - I'm quite anxious to get back into the game and see how much I can hold onto.

Grundius - High attrition is so good :D I am very glad it's post 1.08 otherwise +10% RR would be a real killer, even without it being checked every month though...... :(

The Suebian - Without them he'd be off conquering the world and having a good time.

GrimPagan - Its not over yet, its only just begun that +10% RR lasts for 120 months.
 
Were the revolts caused by random event or a scripted one? Either way, at least it wasn't a civil war and you got to keep the army in tact. Babtism by fire, indeed!
 
coz1 said:
Were the revolts caused by random event or a scripted one? Either way, at least it wasn't a civil war and you got to keep the army in tact. Babtism by fire, indeed!
Its a scripted event. The 'a' choice is to create Kazan and Astrakhan losing a total of six provinces and population or the 'b' choice to try and fight for it. This gives +10 RR for 120 months, -6 stab and all those revolts.
 
Duke of Wellington said:
Its a scripted event. The 'a' choice is to create Kazan and Astrakhan losing a total of six provinces and population or the 'b' choice to try and fight for it. This gives +10 RR for 120 months, -6 stab and all those revolts.

:eek:

Joe
 
Duke of Wellington said:
Its a scripted event. The 'a' choice is to create Kazan and Astrakhan losing a total of six provinces and population or the 'b' choice to try and fight for it. This gives +10 RR for 120 months, -6 stab and all those revolts.
=O

Nice Update!

And I know about your next leader on the Horde!
XD

Good LUck against the rebels :)
 
10 RR and -6 stab for 120 sure is one of the more nastier events you can have.Eitherway youre choice was good, the other option would have switched on a series of rather bad events.

Best is to put all youre money in stab now for a short while and return to 3 stab asap, this way you can milimilize RR a lot and make the revots more manageble, thus loose less troops and income.
 
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Khan Ahmad's Reign : Part 2
The day started like so many others in a Khan of the Golden Hordes life. Ahmad's inbox was filled with revolts to crush. The current political climate would ensure that things would stay this way for a while.
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At least he was getting quick at sorting them out now the whole thing was so routine.
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Dealing with revolters, again​

He assigned a Minister of Revolts to deal with them and moved on to other issues. First he made moves to stop the rebellions appearing constantly moving all money away from technology to settling complaints and the like.

In March of 1468 trouble came again from outside the Horde's borders. This time though it was not from the Muscowy who were busy with the Knight Orders of the baltic, but from the old foes the Uzbeks. Who had declared war on Shirvan hoping to get land back while the little Khanates main ally was busy with internal problems. Just the kind of cowardly move one would expect from the Uzbeks.
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Ahmad though was forced to concede that the Hordes internal problems would be more pressing. He assigned one army to deal with the Uzbek threat by way of robbing and defending Shirvan. But he gave them orders not to try to capture Uzbek land.

Ahmad sort to win positive opinions of other nations on the war so he engaged on a round of diplomatic meetings culminating in several marriages between princes and princesses of the Horde to similar members of courts in Asia Minor and North Africa.

In September news reached Ahmad of a corrupt official in Kurgan. Much of the money sent his way for increasing the stability of the area had been going only so far as his own pockets. Ahmad had him beheaded but the official was a popular one despite his crimes and stability actually decreased.

The war against Uzbek continued in a routine way with most money taken being directed to stability funding.

In October 1469 the Timurid empire faced similar internal problems to the Horde. However there leadership was claerly weaker than the Hordes and the Timurids once great empire disintegrated.
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1470 was a quiet year for the Horde marked only by a few ueventful battles against Uzbek and several uprising in the east of the Hordes lands and one in Donetsk.

In January of 1471 Shirvan who had lost many battles against Uzbek but no land made peace for a small amount of gold. This left the Horde and Sibir alone in the war.

Now Ahmad decided it was time for the war to change. The Horde was getting over its problems and differences, the land was reasonably stable. He could focus on other issues now was the time to turn this war into a land grab.
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Turgai and Nura the two Tatar provinces are the main goals​

The first move was to send two large cavalry armies into the enemy territory where they quickly hunted down and eliminated the pathetic Uzbek army before moving onto capturing Uzbek territory.

By August Turgai was in Horde control and in January Aralsk was likewise.

The Uzbeks though had succeeded in raising another army. Numbering some 20,000 they stormed down on the 7,000 Horde cavalrymen besieging the capital of Turkestan. Despite having a numerical advantage nearly 3 to 1 they were slaughtered. Only 5,000 Uzbeks lived to retreat. Upon retreat they were met again by another Horde army and beaten again in Karsak. After fleeing to Aralsk they were met again and annihilated.
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Chasing down the Uzbek cowards

It was now just a matter of time before all the land of the Uzbeks was in Horde control.
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In 1472 the provinces of Nura and Kyzylkum fell to the Hordes superior army. Karsak was besieged.
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Sibir finally shows up just in the nick of time only to march all the way back a month later​

Karsak fell in mid 1473 and Ahmad forced peace upon the pitiful Uzbeks. He took all their lands but their capital, emptied their treasury and made them become vassals. The Uzbeks had challenged the might of the Horde too many times never again would they rise in defiance.

With the Timurids and the Uzbeks smashed and Poland and Muscowy busy in wars the Horde could hopefully live in peace for a while. While revolts continued to appear throughout the land thet were becoming less frequent and even smaller and easier to crush it seemed.

The next few year passed quietly unitl December 1475 when people in Nura began to protest against their new rulers. The protest eventually became a full scale revolt as the people laid siege to the outnumbered Horde garrison. Ahmad decided to make an example of these people to others of the Horde. It would have to be bloody and serve as a warning to dissenting factions throughout the land.
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If you've got a problem with me say it to my face : Khan Ahmad moves to personally deal with the rebellion.​
 
Wow! You've pretty decisively dealt with every challenge to your reign. The game may quiet down now, but I think you could use some quiet time. :)
 
Very nice AAR so far Wellington - I've noticed this one for a while but finally got around to reading through it tonight.

You're a much braver man than I, playing the GH. I would have quit the second that my RR reached 20% :)

Good luck and keep up the good work