Suggested Listening
When Hetch escaped Sacramento to join the aggrieved peasants at its gates, he solidified the bond or the cult between Emperor and peasantry that previous Emperors, most notably Elton, had attempted to develop since the Empire’s founding. In an apocalyptic, transformational time for the peasantry, the Emperor himself stood by them. The peasants who had demanded aid from the residents of marble houses on marble streets and who had been refused by the administration* rallied around Hetch. When he promised the peasants Imperial aid should they restore the office of the Emperor to true power and cast out the “unchill malefactors of evil” lurking in the capital, they followed.
Sacramento could almost certainly have withstood a siege on paper. Its walls could keep out practically any invader while food and water stockpiles could keep defenders in comfort for months. But three salient factors faced the defenders. One: a concerted siege of Imperial Sacramento was unprecedented. Two: the duly crowned Emperor of All the Californias was outside their gates demanding to be let in. Three: the defenders were split into two factions highly unused to working together on much of anything. Essentially, organizational paralysis, evident here as in so many other instances during this era, set in. Individual groups of defenders were left to their own devices and to those of their immediate commanding officers. While it seems that many took the initiative to perform standard defensive procedures such as firing projectiles at the peasants massed below, others were wracked by indecision. Most importantly, one group appeared to open one of Sacramento’s gates and allow the peasants inside. We do not know how Hetch’s personal retinue figured into this; it is plausible, probable even, that they were the openers of the gate, but the sources are lacking regarding their role during the 36-hour-long “siege” of Sacramento. Regardless of the specifics of the siege, Hetch entered the city at the head of an army of peasants, executing the old anti-Reubenists who had kept him a powerless prisoner in the Imperial Quarter. The Governatus position had been vacant since the dual polarization of the bureaucracy in the dying days of Elton II, but the Imam of Socal and the Protector of the North had both been in Sacramento, and their heads both fell to Elton’s blades. When the news spread, the aftereffects were almost as dramatic as the physical aftershocks of the Big One.
The news invigorated the anti-Californian movements in Baja and Cascadia. In Cascadia, these rebellions had never really died, but they returned to relevance under Nance Freeland, the “Evergreen Queen”, a charismatic leader who claimed to be the granddaughter of the last Cascadian queen. Nance cleverly exploited the chaos in California as a result of the earthquake and the events of Sacramento and the resulting power vacuum and confusion in Portland to reignite the cause in a truly organized, cohesive fashion. Calling members of the associated resistance movements and Cascadian clans to a meeting along the lines of the one convened in La Paz by the Bajan resistance of Presley’s day, a leadership structure and plan of attack was agreed. The Green Sash Rebellion had begun, and Californian rule in Cascadia was soon to crumble.
The news also sparked turmoil in Baja. La Paz, always the dominant power on the peninsula, had rebuilt itself somewhat in the years after Presley’s sack, and the dominant mercantile oligarchy of the city seized its opportunity, albeit somewhat more peacefully. The Imperial Prefect of Baja Sur was given a sinecure and a house in the city and still technically ruled the Prefecture in the name of the Emperor, but the real power was vested in the La Paz City Council, representing the upper crust of the city. On a flimsy pretext having to do with piracy, La Paz successfully warred with the severely weakened Tijuana-Diego, receiving the city’s surrender after a short, nearly bloodless siege and unifying the peninsula behind the Republic of La Paz. Baja was, then, technically still part of the Empire and the Imperial system, but they paid no homage, material or otherwise, to Sacramento and in fact seemed to fund and encourage pirates’ coastal raids on Socal and Goldengate. They also stayed out of the conflict between Hetch and the bureaucratic factions. Given Presley’s tremendous difficulty in attacking Baja and the other threats that lurked at every side, all the other Californian combatants virtually ignored the peninsula. Baja had effectively seceded from the Empire with almost no violence.
Changes 2568-2570. Arrows in second map indicate direction of most of the fighting among the warring powers.
Hetch, meanwhile, moved through the Winelands and the upper Valley to the coast, recruiting displaced peasants along the way to the banner of the Golden Bear and the House Yudkow. Hetch promised financial security for the families of those who would march with him, with the money coming out of the Imperial coffers and of the cities of Socal and Cascadia that his victorious army would loot. He and his armies, large and enthusiastic but largely poorly-trained and equipped, marched south to Socal, looting and burning the scattered settlements in their way. Hetch’s aim was to annul the Peace of Los Angeles, to decouple the Imamate from the rulership of Socal and from Imperial influence. Had he aimed lower, been more willing to accept Imamite Socal as a powerful reality, he might have been able to exploit the administrative uncertainty of the Imamate and the military shambles left as a legacy of the earthquake to enforce some kind of negotiated peace, perhaps even without engaging in any decisive battles. But Hetch marched to Socal with a patchwork, improvised army made up of largely untrained peasants, with only a few hardened soldiers. Despite this, Hetch’s tactics actually proved relatively successful, largely producing battlefield stalemates but grand-strategic victories. Despite the ruined cities and devastated countryside, the ill-disciplined and fearful recruits that made up his army, Los Angeles was getting closer.
It was lucky for Imam Salih, the new Imam and claimant to the position of Governatus, that Hetch had had a child on campaign, and that Brad Barstow, one of the friends of Hetch’s who had escaped from the Imperial Quarter with him, dreamed not only of influence but of land. A deal of some kind—the particulars vary according to the account—was struck; Barstow was to kidnap Hetch’s son Chad in exchange for formal, fully hereditary noble title and fully hereditary land. This was a radical step. No title had in theory been hereditary since the founding of the Empire, and even practically, few titles were inherited, mostly at the scale of a few acres of farmland. This was a demand for feudalism, the first in the Empire, so far as can be ascertained. It would not by any means be the last.
Barstow’s plan was a simple one. Late at night, he would gain entrance to the Emperor’s tent complex by telling the guard that he had received urgent tactical news that Hetch needed to hear. Once inside the complex, while the Emperor and Empress slept, he would stealthily locate Chad, ride some ways out of the Imperial camp, and deliver him to agents of the Imamate, who would bring the infant to the Socalian camp. So far as we can tell, this all proceeded very smoothly, but as Barstow was handing Chad to the Socalian riders, Hetch or the Empress woke up and discovered their missing child. As Barstow rode back into camp nonchalantly, he was summoned before a Hetch utterly consumed with rage. He began to beat his old friend severely and drew his dagger back for the killing blow. Barstow, flailing and desperate, managed to turn the dagger back on Hetch, severing the tendons of his right leg and causing him to bleed out heavily. Barstow was quickly struck down for his crime and Hetch survived, but the ultimatum from the Socalian camp that followed “made the Emperor wish that he might have died in that tent and not had to face the decidedly unrighteous doom of Socal”. In exchange for Chad’s life and safety, Salih demanded that Hetch turn himself over to the Socalians, declare that his actions from the day of his escape were the actions of a man having a mental break, and “willingly atone through voluntary self-imprisonment for the crimes committed while and because the Most Totally Righteous Emperor of All the Californias was outside his mind”. Hetch accepted. He would live in a lushly-appointed prison in the basement of the Imperial Palace for the rest of his long life. Salih and his successors returned to ruling the much-changed state.
The earthquake had longer-term ramifications. It drove peasants from cities back to the countryside, and the mass of peasants who were promised aid and loot and who never received significant degrees of either only added to that number. As cities declined in population and the numbers of prosperous Californians declined accordingly, markets for the luxury goods of the Coffee Current dropped precipitously, and the vast sums of money that the Empire was making off of Brazilian trade dried up almost completely. As a result, though Baja and Cascadia had become essentially independent, administration on the scale of the Empire as it had been was nevertheless now far too expensive for the state to afford, and, to raise funds and cut costs, the Empire began to rapidly decentralize and feudalize itself. Prefectures and Subprefectures were being sold to the highest bidders, as were prestigious military commands. Exams still occurred, but they were essentially disregarded. The flawed meritocracy that the Empire had operated under for the previous centuries essentially no longer existed by 2580. The new hereditary Prefects, Subprefects, and the most radical rank of all, Kings, instituted in 2581, were in practice so distant and distinct from the central imperial bureaucracy that most of them were in practice autonomous, with some of them not sending much more than token homage each year.
Rough Map Illustrating Degrees of Imperial (Socalian) Control
In addition to the changes in political structure came a change in social relations. The peasants who had remained mostly quiescent and isolated during the first few centuries of the Celestial Empire had become invested in the politics of Sacramento and in the Imperial cult thanks in large part to the great earthquake. The influx of the urban poor to the countryside ensured that land became more in demand and gave leverage to the new hereditary rulers in assigning and leasing that land. There were more peasants than ever before, more of them were poorer than ever before, and along with that poverty came desperation and rebellion. There were at least ten instances from 2570-2590 in which peasant leaders claiming to be the true Hetch, having escaped his jailers, organized significant risings. We know of thirty-nine general significant risings and/or agitations during this period. In short, homesteaders had become less isolated, more aware of their collective power and potential influence, angrier at their immediate rulers, and more enamored with Ceticism and the Emperor than ever during this period. Earthquakes leave aftershocks.
*It is unclear if this was a deliberate decision or if the total polarization and chaos among the Sacramentan bureaucracy led to a lack of decision, but certainly the peasants treated whatever message may or may not have been communicated from the city gates as a refusal of their demands.
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So here we are, only four days late.
The Big One is a suitably cataclysmic moment in Californian history, and every earthquake is followed by a series of aftershocks -- in this case as much metaphorical as literal, though apparently no less damaging if that cliffhanger foreshadows what I think it does. I get a feeling that the conflict between the court's two major factions and an Emperor who refuses to stay on his leash will have its own earth-shaking consequences, ones that may inflict more damage to the stability of the Empire than the earthquake ever could on its own.
I wonder, did that cliffhanger foreshadow what you thought it did? Obviously I'm playing pretty fast and loose with what I understand is AtE canon and have been since I started, but hopefully you weren't disappointed.
Between the massive earthquake, ominous noises about the emperor looking to rebuild his power and that map, I’d say California is in for a rough few years of it. To put it mildly. Will Hetch rise to the occasion? Will he come to ruin amie waves of his own making? Or are we in for a total breakdown in social relations everywhere and an ensuing chaotic free-for-all? Either way, time to keep eyes firmly fixed on the West Coast…
Hmm. Breakdown, yes, I think that would be fair. Though I'm not going into too many details, I have to imagine that things were about as apocalyptic and nasty as the Black Death made them in our world, and the implications for social and economic history would be just as profound as the ones after the real Black Plague (though pretty much reversed, since the depopulation of the Plague caused demand for labor to vastly outstrip supply, putting peasants in much better bargaining positions).
