Though Hasan IV's illustrious father died in 1552, his reign proper was not to begin until 1557 when he reached his majority. The interveining five years were uneventful and consisted mostly of pacifying the inevitable rebellions that cropped up in the outlying provinces of the empire.
Hasan looked up on his kingdom. They had come a long, long way from their roots, but the world was changing place, and his people were not changing with it. The once mighty and powerful cavalry armies that had nearly felled Europe were not the overwhelming advantage they once were, and gunpowder now ruled the field. If his armies were to engage with those of a European power, he was worried they would not fare well. As the Europeans continued to assail his Turkish brothers to the west and reclaim the lands of the Golden Horde to the north, conflict with the Europeans seemed inevitable. The only answer was reform. Any further territorial expansion would only make his job of reforming the nation more difficult. Hasan threw himself headlong into the preparations for his difficult task.
The last peice of territory to be gained for some time by the Jalayarid Emprie would be the province of Dagestan. It gave Hasan a direct border with the Venetians, a strong trading empire that would give him access to western information and influences, but they were less of a military threat than many others.
Unfortunately, the Austrians annexed the Orthodox state of Georgia, giving them a direct land connection to the Jalayrids too. This was an outcome Hasan was much less pleased with.
In 1561, his wife gave birth to a child he named Rashid. With his preparations finished and an heir assured, Hasan began a series of sweeping reforms to update the nation to a more western standard. He encountered severe pushback from all classes in the nation.
The Mamluks, once fierce rivals of the Jalayarids, quickly collapsed before the Austrians in preceisely the manner Hasan feared his own nation might if put to the test. Many of the more hawkish members of his court demanded that the Jalayarids invade and take what they could, especially once the weak breakaway state of Syria emerged, but Hasan devoted his energies to internal reform. It was a decision that would cost his son Rashid his life.
Grieving, Hasan managed to locate the conspiritors and have them killed. Still, the combination of a long period of peace and Hasan's intensely unpopular reforms meant that the attempts against his life and the lives of his infant sons were many. He would manage to survive these difficult years, but none of his sons were so lucky.
The second wave of reforms began in 1568. This time, technological progress exploded, and though resistance to his policies continued, more and more people began to see the advantages in reform.
That did not stop the deaths of his sons, however.
In 1574, the long feared war with a Western power emerged. Despite his efforts at reform, the gap in technology was only beginning to close, and Hasan knew this war would be very difficult. And no sooner had word gotten around that he was bogged down in war in the west, and the jealous Indian kings decided to take advantage of his weakness.
How will Hasan fare? Stay turned.