Chapter 20 - An order to the chaos
It's not until the first day of June that the death of the khan is announced to the public. For 50 years, Khalil has served as the Khan of Timurid, and though he had somewhat of a shaky start he eventually managed to grow in confidence and ability. His greatest feat is in his unwavering faith in Alah, which fuelled the spread of Islam deep into the very core of Christian territory. In honour of his service, he shall be recorded into history as Khalil the devout.
The news of Khalil's death has thrown the entire country into turmoil, with rebellions appearing in every newly conquered province and lots of unrest spread throughout Timurid. No doubt we will be seeing even more rebels in the near future.
The new khan to rise to the throne is none other than Khalil's own son and heir, Bây Sunqur II. As a capable warrior and master strategist, he is well equipped to confront the turmoil that grips his country. Even so, he will no doubt need every trick he knows if he is to keep Timurid strong, and he is lacking quite harshly in any sort of administrative or diplomatic skills. He is also quite old, just recently turning 45, and has yet to father a suitable heir.
There is no time to worry about that now, however. The rebels forces are in the area of quadruple the size of our armies, currently holding steady at 257,000 troops strong. The first order of business for Bây is to fire the old theologist that Khalil was so fond of and recruit instead a brand new commandant to get our armies into fighting shape.
The map of Timurid is really looking rather sickly at the moment, so let's have a closer look at each area. First up, India!
This area is pretty tame, with the only real threat being the rebels from Delhi, which is not entirely unexpected as our forces have already taken defensive positions in the province. Luckily, they have shown up as a separate faction and will most likely end up retreating into Delhi. Err... our vassal, Delhi.
The middle east is a somewhat larger concern, but our forces are so concentrated in this area that it shouldn't be a problem. It's important we don't lose any provinces in this area as they are very close to becoming cores.
Europe, however, is where the trouble lies. Even with the highest concentration of forces located in this area, including the two extra that are currently in Teutonic Order land and all our generals assigned to these armies, the situation is dire. The size of the rebel armies here is quite large already, and combined with the fact this area is the most likely to gain even more rebels than we can easily get into trouble. On a happy note however, Austria still exists in Sundgau and so won't be able to gain any of their old provinces back.
With no threat of old rivals returning, we can freely focus on our main priority for the area: protecting the missionaries. It would be a shame to lose them as they are quite a large upfront investment. Luckily we already have an army claiming the defensive bonus in Wien. Besides Delhi, this would have been the most troublesome province to have to liberate.
For some reason however our troops and the rebels are in no rush to meet each other on the battlefield. For two weeks both sides are locked in a fierce staring contest that threatens to go on forever, but then suddenly one of the rebels blinks and causes them all to flee in shame. Just look at all that prestige they have lost! We also get a taste of things to come as several more rebel armies rise up against us.
Well, it's a minor bug.. I guess? I usually try to fix what I can, but I couldn't find an easy fix for this one so I'll just make sure I let armies meet in battle before saving next time. I'm sorry!
Just a few months into the TSC we encounter a new problem: Our cash reserves are draining startlingly fast. Not only has taxation dropped significantly but production is also shut down for provinces with no clear route to the capital.
Quite a dire situation as the options for quick cash grabs are fairly limited and an unpaid army would be... well, a very short story, to be sure. The obvious option might be to just mint what we need but with our economy the way it is, trying to squeeze even more out of it is a very unpleasant idea indeed.
Happily, our list of limited options just happens to include a two options!
The cash you get from minting is tied directly to your monthly income, meaning it is best done when your economy is at its finest (hello, war taxes!). Generally the longer you can put it off the more reward it will give you. Unless, of course, your country suddenly starts falling apart (due to a pesky TSC!). If this is the case, a loan that can get you back to a point where your economy is once again thriving with minimal (or no) minting and then turning it up to full will often save you from a rather massive amount of inflation.
By the way, if anyone asks; I clearly ran out of money on purpose in order to show this off. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it! Ahem...
With plenty of cash to pay our troops we can once again get back to clearing some rebels. Minting is shut down completely for now, and hopefully we can reduce inflation a little before needing to mint heavily. The Golden Horde is also helping us to clear the Lithuanian patriots, so that's nice. Lithuania is no longer paying them tribute so if they were to gain any land they would once again be at war. The Golden Horde really doesn't want to expand more than they have, It seems. I can't imagine why!
Unfortunately none of our vassals are making any effort to assist us, but most of the rebels near their borders are fighting amongst themselves anyway. Patriot rebels are often nice like that.
We get some troops down into Naxos ASAP since Provence has recently submitted. The last thing we need is the cores on the islands being reset, and it's been almost 2 years since this province was taken.
It seems England has decided it's a good time for another invasion, which is rather annoyingly quite true. Their recent competence is starting to get really bothersome, but nonetheless our troops are there to bravely stand up to them.
As it happens though, they simply roll right over us. Higher morale doesn't do us much good at all against a good general and luck on their side! We call a retreat to avoid getting completely slaughtered, but the damage has been done.
As if having our army crippled wasn't enough, the English aren't content to simply take their province back. They give chase, and we have little choice but to end the war. The English are being stubborn as usual of course, and won't accept anything less than a concession of defeat. The loss of legitimacy really hurts with our revolt risk already so high, but at least England will be out of our hair.
Some good news at least is that the rebels in the middle east are falling fast. We have already sent one of the local armies onwards towards Europe, and the rest are simply busy cleaning up the overly stubborn rebels.
In an attempt to mimic the success of England, Bavaria decides that we should have been at war by now and breaks the truce (except not?) to attack us. It's actually not a wholly misguided plan, but unfortunately for everyone they didn't properly fill out their paperwork and the war is declared null and void when Qara Koyunlu attempts to join. Maybe next time, Bavaria...
I... What? I was not expecting this at all. I mean, they are a 2PM... I guess they had a mission? As far as I know it's impossible to get a valid CB on a nomad country unless you are also a nomad, even if you have a mission to attack them. Also, this game isn't usually so buggy, I swear!
The loss of legitimacy sadly does seem to pick up the pace of the newly forming rebel armies and we get another new pretender after the last one blundered their way into a bunch of other rebels. At least Aragon's provinces are starting to submit!
There is still lots to do, but Europe is at least starting to look a little bit clearer. Sort of.
Province Count: 220
New provinces:
- Provence - Provence
- Hesse - Hessen, Nassau, Kassel.
- Aragon - Ancona.
Next time: Chapter 21 - Stalking the elusive victory (below)
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