Glory, to Ruin, to Glory: A Majapahit AAR

[Stratagyfan101]

Glory, to Ruin, to Glory: A Majapahit AAR

Rules, settings and other things of interest.
1) HTTT 4.1b (not a fan of DW horde system).
3) I have a history of not following through, but this time I swear to you I shall persevere with this AAR.
2) Nothing else of interest, except my inability to properly count.

Now for the Prolouge my friends.

Prolouge: Setting the Scene with historical background and some fictional narrative.
The dark is quickly approaching. The soothing sounds of waves washing over the beaches can be heard in the background. A young boy, no more than 13 lie in bed eagerly awaiting the finale to his evening ritual; his evening story to put him to bed. Suddenly there is a knock at the door, and the boy calls for his guest to enter. Through the doorway comes a man. He his a short man. He wears his wisdom and experience on his face. After a short exchange of words while the man lit some candles, he begins to tell the boy a tale in a calm, peaceful voice.

The year is 1399 by western accounts when our story begins. It is here in the coastal city of Surabaya, on the northwestern edge of the island of Java, capital of the Majapahit Empire. Well at least it used to be. At this time, the Empire was but a mere shell of itself. Years of internal strife following the death of Hayam Wuruk the Magnificant had all but destroyed the Empires grip in the region. All its former vassals had broken free. Most notably was the Sultanate of Malacca. Malacca had replaced the empire as the dominate power in the region, controlling most, if not all of the trade in the region.

The Emperor at the time was Wikramawardhana Rajasangara, who had come to the throne by marriage. The immediate successor to Hayam was Princess Kusumawardhana, who was the wife of Wikramawardhana. Before their marriage, a number of pretenders had risen including one of Hayam's sons. It took the empire almost nine years to end these insurrections, and bring peace to Java, Bali and Lombok, which was all the Empire had left under its direct control. During this time the emperor had honed his ability to administer his nation and had created a very small but effective system to govern the provinces and make the most of what was left of it.

During his strife to assert his control over the empire proper, and seeing the losses to the empire abroad, the emperor had devised a plan to bring his people back to glory. It would be a long and hard journey, that he had prophesized would take longer than his years left on earth. The first step to this rebirth was to achieve a goal that none of his predecessors had been able to do. He would subdue the remaining territories of Java.

"I believe this is where we should end the story tonight, young one. Goodnight." With that the old man stood up, gently kissed the boy on his forhead, blew out the candles and walked out of the room, slowly closing the door behind him as to not make a sound. The young boy, now lying alone in the dark continued to attempt to digest the story while slowly drifting into sleep.

 

[Tudyboss]

Majaphit!Y'know what that smells like?...EPIC!
Good luck my friend,hopefully you won't need it

 

[Stratagyfan101]

Hopefully will get an update soon. Also, I would love some criticism on my narrative as time progresses. I'm thinking mid-day tomorrow (US&Canada EST). Just things like, is the story progressing too quickly, too slow, how are the current set of characters, ect, ect. That is all.

 

[Stratagyfan101]

Prolouge: Part 2

The morning sun was shining through the windows in the east. The light glistened off of the glass windows and fine silk fabrics. As the light beat back the darkness it also disturbed the young slumbering lad. Like many his age he fought to stay asleep. A few minutes later the storyteller burst through the door, beckoning the boy to wake up and ready himself for this new day's tasks. Once ready, the boy was led to another room within the magnificantly grandious builting. Several other boys there were waiting there, dressed in identical clothing.
once allwere seated the old man left and another man entered from the door on the forward right side of the room. This man was tall, wore spectacles and had a rather dignified posture. He wore a red silk robe, which bore the Majapahit sun on it. Under his right arm he carried a large book. When he reached the podium centered in the front of the room,he set down, opened and began to read from his book.

In order to reestablish the Majaphit Empire, and maintain its stability,proper funds would have to be invested in a better bureaucracy. Sadly the status of income for the realm was rather poor,to say the least. In order to assist him and oversee this project, the Emperor hired a new advisor. A nobleman from Materam, Girishawardhana Karno was named Supreme Chancellor of the Empire of Majapahit (a rather poorly made title if I might say).

After having set the plan in motion, he decided to take another look at the status of the world around him at the Imperial Library. It seemed though that many of the maps of the region had been lost of destroyed during the civil war. While the Emperor himslef knew of lands west of his realm, all those maps had been destroyed or lost. What the Emperor did gather was that Aceh and Brunei had managed to take over their entire islands. He also found that anew Sultanate, Malacca, now controlled the former nothernmost part of the former Empire and controlled trade in the region. The rest of south east asia was divided into a handful of small Buddhist kingdoms. China was ruled by the Ming dynasty. Korea and Japan were both independent and well mapped by the past cartographers. North of Korea the Manchu were biding their time in their long drawn out conflict with the Ming. There were also maps of more inland kingdoms and tribes but these did not interest the Emperor.

Back to the southeast islands, many of the lands were inhabited by small kingdoms and tribes which could be easily subdued by the Empire, but would require from-the-ground-up infrastructure.

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Well that concludes todays lesson. Tomorrow we will start the Majaphit Subjugation of Java.

 

[generalolaf]

Good luck! I'll follow.

 

[loki100]

interesting start, you might want to use one of the many (free) image hosting sites rather than the forum upload option. A lot easier to manage and you can get them to appear larger and thus easier to read. If you're not sure, check out the FAQ, link's in my signature.

 

[Stratagyfan101]

interesting start, you might want to use one of the many (free) image hosting sites rather than the forum upload option. A lot easier to manage and you can get them to appear larger and thus easier to read. If you're not sure, check out the FAQ, link's in my signature.

Thanks. I wondered why the image button didn't simply wrap the link with

. I already had them on photobucket. Thanks.

As for the .png, I saw those are unadvised, so how would I go about changing that. Can I just put them in My Pictures and save them as another extension? Or are those two ok?

Also, why is the thumbnail attachment at the bottm of my posts?

Sorry, its been a while for me, as far as uploading images to the forum.

 

[TonyJoe]

I love AAR's of uncommon countries. This looks fun - I'll be following.

 

[loki100]

Thanks. I wondered why the image button didn't simply wrap the link with

. I already had them on photobucket. Thanks.

As for the .png, I saw those are unadvised, so how would I go about changing that. Can I just put them in My Pictures and save them as another extension? Or are those two ok?

Also, why is the thumbnail attachment at the bottm of my posts?

Sorry, its been a while for me, as far as uploading images to the forum.

it looks a lot better. I'm no expert on graphical formats but if I understand correctly, the extra size of .png is only really worth it if you want to do multiple layers. For most instances just save to .jpg is both clear enough for the forum and the smallest in terms of size (so helps with speed of loading for those with slower connections). Not sure about the strip at the bottom, but that may be a legacy of having used the forum update function ... should go away if you just load from photobucket.

I think EU3 defaults to bmp (well all the clauswitz games do), so best is to open in an editor (paint or better paint.net - which is still freeware) will do and the resave to .jpg.

Looking forward to how you develop this. In my current Ming game Majapahit was briefly very powerful (all those rich provinces), till it got into a few wars too many. But I was musing about trying it in a later game myself.

 

[Stratagyfan101]

Expecting a nice long(ish) update tomorrow around mid afternoon EST. Covers a few years time. Thanks for your advice and help loki. I will make sure totake note of the file extension.

 

[Stratagyfan101]

Chapter 1: Recovery (1399-1407)

It was about mid-day and the sun had reached its apex in the summer sky. The humidiy was enough to suck the life out of those unused to this climate. For the locals, this was lunch time. The cuisine for the day was the fresh fish from the mornings catch, spiced with local spices, with tea, which were traded throughout the Empire. While enjoying their meal, the child and his servant talked about the childs lesson from earlier. Astonished to hear the class was leaving such a large gapin the internal politics of the Empire, began to inform the boy of what happened in the interim.

Emperor Wikra took steps in the coming days to improve the Imperial Navy; the single greatest asset to a thalassocratic empire. Though not harmed much by the civil war (as it was primarily a land based war in provinces of Java), he felt the Empire must increase the size of his navy as well as be better drilled for the upcoming restoration of Majapahit. His first step was the commissioning of a new Admiral to the navy. Raden Sumirat Ratri would be placed in direct command of the Imperial Navy as well as tasked with proper training of his sailors.

At the same time the nobility began clamoring about the threat of Brunei and how they desired a larger military to defend against the Muslims. Clearly the nobles were led by fools or had very little understanding of geography (or both) because having a larger army than Brunei would only be a burden on the state; a strong navy is far more suited to defend the Empire than an oversized army. Although to maintain his name and the stability of the realm the Emperor told them he would take their concerns into consideration.

For the next couple of years the plans of the Emperor were being devised while others unfolded behind the closed doors. During this time period the general stability of the realm had increased, which was a breathe of fresh air for everybody. It finally felt like the civil wars and uprisings were a thing of the past and a new era of prosperity was begginning. A minor bump in the road did occur in the summer of 1401 though. A trusted cousin of Wikra had leaked out some of the information about the Emperors plans. Insulted by this treason, the Emperor took notice of the opportunity at hand. He immediatly ordered an Attainder of Treason for his cousin, and had him executed. While this made the nobility and royal family uneasy, (counterproductive to the goal of stability)itdid however cement the power of the Emperor. There was no longer any doubt in the upper circles of the nobility that this was the true successor to Rajasanagara.

The following January the Emperor ordered the commissioning of a new warship, which would be completed almost a year later to the day. He also reduced army funding, saving up for much needed fortifications. He also issued training orders to his admiral. Admiral Ratri was to patrol the coast from Surabaya to Mataram. The rest of the year was fairly eventless. Next year, the Emperor issued a new procalamation. In order to get better use of the surrounding land, the Emperor stripped commoners and nobility alike of their ancestrial lands. The primary goal was to create an effective defensive wall that would allow the city to outlast a siege for as long as possible. While he did not fear any sort of foreign invasion,he did fear another strong insurrection like the one that occured not more than a decade ago. It would also bring improve the efficiency of space, allowing room for growth, and would make taxation easier. This was a test run though.It had taken two years to plan and would only expand to the other regions of the Empire if it proved beneficial in Surabaya.

In 1406, more vessels more commissioned for the navy. The Emeror also, fully convincedof the success of his land reform began devising plans for Mataram. The plan would go into effect the following year. An unexpected visitor arrived in Surabaya that year; an emissary from Aceh delievered a letter.

From his magesty Inayat Shah Inayat

A chuckle is let out by Wikra over this mans repetitive name.

...Sultan of Aceh,with the Grace and power of the great Allah, hereby issue a warning to the Empire of Majapahit, that should it act in agression in any way, towards its neighbors, by land or sea, the full might of the Sultanate Aceh and her allies will come down upon Majapahit. Should the preceeding scenario come to fruition, nomercy shall be given.

While the Emperor was convinced of the power of his navy in a war against one of two major powers in the region, he knew he could not risk war such a war at this point. Even so, at this point the Empire had no plans in looking outward until it had consolidated inwards. Even so, this warning was nothing short of an insult to the Empire. In response the Emperor quickly had a response, a cleverly worded insult that scoffed at the notion of Aceh being able to overcome Majapahit, prepared and sent back to Aceh with the emissary.

"What did he say!!" remarked the young boy.

"That document has long been lostto history. No copy was kept at the court of Majapahit and it is assumed the letter was destroyed when recieved. The old man then looks at the time, and a look of surprise crossed his face. "Look at the time, we best be off now."

 

[loki100]

nice narrative format, think you're right to prioritise naval matters given where you sit compared to your likely enemies