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The Jurchen horsemen were raging through the city, burning houses and government offices, cutting down those unfortunate enough to cross their path. The city’s arteries are choked with the mass of panicked people trying desperately to escape the destruction that awaits them—the year is 1126 and the ancient civilization of the Chinese people has suffered a grievous blow. Kaifeng, the flourishing cosmopolitan capital of the Northern Song Dynasty, has fallen to the Song’s erstwhile Jurchen allies. When the Jurchens had revolted against their Liao overlords in 1115, the Northern Song had allied with them hoping to drive out the Liao from their historically Chinese lands. This plan had backfired on the Song however, as the Jurchen had turned against the Chinese as soon as the Liao had been vanquished. When the flames consuming Kaifeng died down at last, the valley of the Yellow River would be controlled by the Jurchen, who would erect a state known to history as the Jin Empire upon the ashes of the Northern Song. As for the Song court, those fortunate enough to escape had fled southward from the barbarian horsemen, finally reaching comparative safety beyond the southern banks of the Yangtze River. It was on the banks of the Yangtze, at the city of Hangzhou, that the Song established their court in exile—a shattered Chinese realm remembered by posterity as the Southern Song Dynasty.

When we pick up the thread of Chinese history in 1150, the Southern Song are still busily attempting to rebuild China into a semblance of a nation once more. There is a long way to go; the once-mighty army of the Celestial Empire has been reduced by disease and desertion to a mere 4,000 men. Many of the provinces still held by the Song remain unfortified, while the Northern Barbarians of the Jin Empire and Xi Xia continue to rule over lands given by Heaven to the Chinese Emperor. The picture presented so far may look bleak, but the Song still have a few things going for them—a growing mercantile economy in the Southern lands of China and a considerable base of manpower to draw on for the reclamation of the Mandate of Heaven.

As for the technical details:
EU2 v. 1.08, Mongol Empire Scenario mod as Song China
The goal is simple: Reclaim the Mandate of Heaven by vanquishing the Northern Barbarians
Normal/Normal

For those unfamiliar with the MES, here is a screenie of the East Asian set-up at the start of the GC (1150):
Song1.JPG

The scrawled lettering is my own doing I'm afraid, the numbered states being as follows:
1: Koryo
2: Nippon
3: Annam
4: Champa
5: Cambodia
6: Siam
7: Pagan Kingdom
8: Assam
 
Interesting, I've never tried the MES mod. Good luck!
 
The beginnings, 1150-62

Zenek K, Singelton Mosby: Thanks for stopping in :)

Braedonnal: In you're into medieval history, you should definitly give the MES a try, it has lots of possibilities. I played my first MES game as the Almohads, guaranteeing the survival of al-Andalus from the rapacious Christians.

As the year 1150 dawns, it becomes painfully obvious that the Song Empire is no shape to reclaim the Mandate of Heaven. Several provinces remain unfortified, even on border areas. The Emperor was deeply ashamed by the shoddy state of the realm—what would his ancestors think if they could see what had befallen their once-mighty Kingdom? Yet as Emperor of China, Gaozong was uniquely qualified to regenerate the Empire. Towards this end, he announced new domestic policies designed to increase the powers of the central government and ordered the printing presses into action until such time as every province should have a tax collector and at least a minimal fortress. Not everyone was happy with these new policies however, as the peasants in Wenshan and Hainan rose in revolt against the Emperor’s rule. Fortunately, the barbarians of the North were preoccupied elsewhere as the Imperial army swept into the southern provinces to quell the revolts. The rebels in Wenshan were scattered easily, but not the Emperor’s soldiers refused to swim their way to Hainan and were forced to wait on the shore until such time as the Imperial navy could be “repaired.”

What the Emperor chose not to tell to his soldiers was that in this instance, “repaired” was being used as a euphemism for “constructed.” Gaozong later recorded in his diary nothing less than bewilderment that the hastily tossed-together ships, which were given such endearing sobriquets as the “Leaky Dragon” and the “Doesn’t Float” by the prisoners who were forced to build them, had actually survived the crossing to Hainan and the return journey without sinking. Gaozong also never told the soldiers that the reason they were assigned to border duties near the Xi Xia after the revolts was so that none of them could watch as the unseaworthy vessels were scuttled. With the infrastructure improved, Gaozong turned to trade as a new means of making money, soon Chinese merchants had established themselves in dominant positions in the markets of Shanghai and Kanto, while making sporadic appearances in the more distant trading cities of Cambodia and Samarkand.

Gaozong’s forays into foreign policy were not so successful however. In 1150 he tried and failed to interest the Emperor of Koryo in a military alliance. Taking this diplomatic failure personally, he foolishly allowed the Tibetan Ambassador to enroll him in the Tibetan Alliance in 1152. The Alliance with Tibet soon turned into a fiasco, as it was rechristened the Pointless Alliance by sarcastic courtiers after 1156, by which time it encompassed every nation in Eastern Asia (Tibet, Song China, Annam, Xi Xia, and the Jin Empire). Gaozong felt a deep sense of shame and embarrassment at allowing himself to be drawn into alliance with the very same barbarians who were occupying the lands of his ancestors and it was on this sad note that Gaozong’s reign ended in 1162. His successor Xiazong allowed the Pointless Alliance to expire that same year and created a new, Song-led alliance with Tibet and Annam, while the barbarian states of Xi Xia and the Jin Empire allied with each other.
 
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:) Hmm... MES... it is nice to see more of AAR based on it!!! :)

Watch out for hordes of evil horsemen ;) (Mongols)

:D

Good start...

Thanks

Joe (Sapphire)
 
A nice start. Having played as the Mongols I have to say, watch out. They can be extremely dangerous if the AI knows how to play them.
 
Wow! Another MES-based AAR! Good news, undoubtedly! And Song China, I've never tries it, but it seems a tough option, with the mongols round the corner, ready to attack you.

Good luck!
 
The Mongols Cometh, 1162-1170

Sapphire: The Mongols make their first appearance in this update, they look dangerous :(

Lord G.Q. White: Thanks :cool:

Machiavellian: Facing the Mongols was one of the reasons I took the Song, either I'll hold them off or they'll destroy me, either way it should be fun :D

mfigueras: The Mongols are coming faster than I anticipated, I figured I'd be safe until the 1206 Kuriltai at least, but the Mongols aren't waiting around!

If Emperor Gaozong’s foreign policy had been a non-starter, his successor Xiazong was to adopt a stridently forward policy that would serve the Song well in the years to come. Having left the Pointless Alliance at the very beginning of his reign in 1162, Xiazong waited only a scant 14 months before declaring war on the Jin-Xi Xia alliance, months that had been spent mobilizing the country for the reconquest of the Yellow River valley. It rapidly became obvious that the barbarians were in no fit state to fight this war, as the allies rapidly gained ground on both fronts; Tibet soon left the war in exchange for Xining, but this action brought the barbarians little reprieve. After the Jin capital fell to an army from Annam, the Emperor was ready to dictate terms—the Jin would cede the provinces of Henan and Shaanxi to the Song, while the gold-bearing province of Laozhou was reclaimed from the Xi Xia. The peace was signed in 1164 after only 16 months of fighting, but the Song had clearly reclaimed the initiative from the barbarians and the Emperor and his top generals were much feted on their return from the front.

If the Jin and the Xi Xia were in rapid decline, a new and vigorous barbarian nation known as the Mongols was increasingly coming to the attention of the Song. The Mongols had first made themselves known to the Song as early as 1150, but outside the Mongol capital of Seretensk, precious little was known of the northern steppes inhabited by the Mongols. At first they were treated as just another barbarian tribe, the steppes were littered with them in 1150, though Chinese scholars, by and large ignorant of a region they often referred to simply as “the TI,” knew few of the names of the other barbarian tribal nations. In the years to come, the Mongol ambassador would tell of many of these bizarre tribes—Oirats, Naimans, and other uncouth peoples. Sadly, the Mongols introduced the Emperor to these peoples only long enough to announce their utter destruction and the incorporation of their lands into Greater Mongolia. This was disturbing news to the Song court, as Chinese strength lay in the mutually hostile tribal divisions of barbarian society. The last time a barbarian tribe had untied the peoples of the TI was back in the Christian Sixth Century, when the Tu-Chueh (or Turks) had united the steppe peoples by successive campaigns of conquest. It might well have been the end for the Celestial Empire had not the Turks migrated westward en masse, China’s Emperors had frequently considered sending warning letters westward about Turkish strength, particularly as an ancient Chinese oracle foretold the downfall of the Roman Empire at the hands of a Turk by the name of Osman.

But the barbarians in China’s more immediate neighborhood had always demanded far more attention, and these Mongols were apparently the latest threat to China to emanate from the Great White North. By the end of the 1150s, the Song courtiers had been shocked to find the Mongols attacking the Uighurs, still in the steppes, but in the semi-civilized steppe region separating China from the great markets of Samarkand. Like all who had faced the Mongols before, the Uighurs were utterly defeated by Mongol forces, ultimately surrendering half and their lands and surviving as a people only due to their agreement to become vassals of the Mongol Khan. The Mongols had next surprised the Song by taking advantage of the Xi Xia’s thrashing at Tibetan-Chinese hands to declare a war of their own on the hapless Xi Xia. Chinese troops had rushed towards Xinjiang on the news, but the Mongol horsemen arrived to claim the province first, and China could do little more than watch in horror as the Mongols crushed their way to the Xi Xia’s capital, occupying each province en route. The Mongols were surprisingly lenient on the defeated Xi Xia, claiming only Xinjiang and the Xi Xia treasury for their troubles. Cut down to just 2 provinces, the Xi Xia accepted the protection of the Jin Empire by becoming Jin vassals shortly afterwards. The Xi Xia were doomed now, but Xiazong was determined to see the remnants of the Xi Xia state brought under the control of China and not the Mongol or Jin barbarians. Mobilization was soon begun afresh in Song China, it seemed that a new player had entered the fight for the Yellow River.
 
I know when I experimented with the Mongols,starting in 1150, by the time 1419 had arrived I owned everything from Asia to the Baltic, The Med was a Mongol Lake, and Germany was my back door. Scandinavia was mine as well...the Mongols are TOUGH....And they have stellar leaders early on, which will prove to be difficult for you.

Make them come at you over rivers and cut them to pieces. That is the best advice I can give you...
 
Sounds like brutal times are ahead for the Song! May you preserve. :)
 
zacharym, maybe you already know, but we defined connections through Permanent Terra Incognita, so you can find mongol armies coming -apparently- from nowhere. Of course that works both ways: you can attack mongols through PTI.

Now that I think of it, maybe we should release a map showing which connections through PTI we defined... I'll ask Kasperus when he returns from his holidays.
 
Excellent to see you writing again. To some degree this reads a little like a CK AAR, getting ready to face the mongols. Not that I'm complaining. You do this faux-history style rather well.

mfigueras - that sir was a very sneaky design decisions. sounds excellent though.
 
Mongols are coming. It could be tough... But here's the plan: let them attack you, drive them off, next pursuit them, siege and claim their land. Let them know that Yellow River is for Chinese only. :)
 
Tiresome Tibetans, 1170-1179

Took all of 2 days for this thread to drop to page 2, guess I'll just have to update :D .

Amric: I was looking for a challenge when I took Song China, gla dto hear I won't be disappointed.

Braedonnal: Tough times are indeed anticipated, I hope I come through all right as well.

Wihlem VI: Well I've played 30 years so far without tangling without tangling with the Mongols, but I'm guessing they're about to become even nastier.

mfigueras: Now I know how the Mongols hit the Uighurs! Shocked me when it happened, that did.

Stnylan: Thanks for the compliments. The Pseudo-History style comes most naturally to me, I'll see if I can work some Court factions into future updates for you ;) .

Zenek K: Use the River as stonghold, eh? Good strategy but I have to conquer the valley first, and towards that end:

1170 opened with Tibet dragging the alliance off to war with Nepal. A small Chinese corps of 4,000 was sent to Nepal’s undefended to capital, which fell after a horrendous siege of 18 months to combined Sino-Tibetan forces. Xiazong allowed Nepal to live on condition of becoming a Chinese vassal, but the faithless Tibetans resieged the nightmarish mountain stronghold and ultimately annexed the Emperor’s vassal. The Tibetans were fast becoming tiresome allies and the annexation of his vassal deeply wounded the Emperor. But Xiazong had little time to mourn the fate of an impoverished mountain province, as he was determined to grab Qilian Pendi from the Xi Xia before the weakened state sought permanent union with its Jin protectors. Thus the Second Barbarian War was declared in 1173. The Xi Xia state, now coming apart at the seems, offered only the most pathetic resistance, but the Jin Empire managed a much more spirited defense than their lackluster effort in the First Barbarian War of 1163-64. Although the Jin managed to offer some serious resistance in a few provinces, the weight of numbers in the Chinese and Vietnamese armies besieging their cities ultimately led the Jin to conclude a peace treaty in 1174 which ceded Shanxi and Jinan to the Song while requiring the Xi Xia to surrender Qilian Pendi. To no one’s surprise, the Xi Xia accepted full union with the Jin in 1177.

Other stunning diplomatic news arrived in Hangzhou when the Tibetans announced that Annam had agreed to become their vassal. Xiazong had long plotted to make Annam a vassal of the Song, and this second act of vassal-robbery on the part of the Tibetans outraged the Emperor beyond measure. Xiazong chose to suspend actions on the Yellow River for a full decade, thus allowing the now hated Tibetan Alliance to expire in 1184. In the meantime, Military Advisors agreed that the most sensible course was to learn more of the threatening Mongols, and the Song treasury was spent bribing Kings and Princes across the Silk Road to swap official maps with the Chinese Emperor. Eventually a few takers for these offers were found and China’s geographic knowledge grew exponentially, revealing land to the West as far as the ‘Abbasid Caliphate’s marvelous capital at Baghdad and as far north as the Kyrgyz Confederation and the lands of the Khwarazm Shahs. In addition to the military intelligence learned about the dread Mongols, the merchants were soon busily bringing Chinese trade interests to distant ports of call in ‘Iraq, Tchita, and Delhi. As for the Mongols themselves, they were curiously quiet during these years, save for a brief war with the Jin that netted them a single new province.

Song2.JPG

East Asia after the fall of the Xi Xia
 
Nice progress on the north. Do you plan to attack Jin again soon? They have your cores... But to reclaim the last one (their capital), you must conquer all their provs. But I suppose that was one of your goals. :D

And most of all, Song Empire is getting blobbish. ;)
 
I'm looking forward to it zacharym87.

Those Tibetans are being rather precocious, taking Nepal and vassalising Annam. One persumes the Son Dragon will cut them down to size at some point in the future?

I like the way the Mongols are already a motivating factor, despite the lull in their activity. Hopefully they won't disappoint.