8. The Reign of Vukoman Belojevic
Vukoman inherited a very powerful empir, but lacked the age to actually rule it. His half-brother, Boleslav, took over as reagent, from which he ruled efficiently. Nikodim's administrative plan (raid the Serbian countryside, find as many Serbian males, and distribute land to them all) proved effective at quelling most dissenting opinions.
One day, Vukoman was wondering through the castle of Konstantinopolj. Eventually, he found his way to the dungeons, where his father's political prisoners sat in squalor. Seeing no reason to keep so many, he ransomed off those of foreign courts and released the rest who held no ties to the former land squabble of his father. This left a little over 70 prisoners.
During this time, Vukoman realized that his father put him in a rather unique opportunity. You see, most of Rimsko Carstvo still saw Vukoman as a "Roman Emperor," despite the fact that he was anything but. The whole world saw him this way. As a result, he held great sway in the expansions of his lands; legality didn't apply the same way to him as it did to other rulers. Vukoman saw this as a chance to spread Serbia beyond Serbia, under the guise of a Roman resurgence. Instead of creating a reunified Roman state, he decided to instead create a brand-new Serbian state that ruled the Roman lands of old, not abiding by the Roman legacy but the Serbian. He wrote all of this down in his
Right of Serbian Rome, or Право на српском Рима/Pravo na srpskom Rima ((I don't actually speak Serbian, so if this is wrong, someone please correct me)). This manifest gave way towards all the future Serbian conquests that eventually unified all of the Serbian Empire, giving right to might and a plan of action to great ambition. His reagent, Boleslav, likely took part in its writing. Vukoman didn't actually utilize his claimed rights until after he came of age to rule all his own.
On June 25, 954, Vukoman finally earned himself the right to rule.
His first action, of course, was to find a suitable bride. Like his predecessors, he picked a Karling.
With that settled, he declared war on the Kingdom of Balgariya over some lands in Arbanon.
It didn't take very much to win. Following the war, good fortune struck Vukoman.
An heir! Female, sure, but still, an heir. A few years passed, during which a grand tournament and another child came to be. Vukoman decided to duel a distant rival.
At the least, he did survive. Unfortunately, he did lose a bit of pride. So, he decided to regain it by conquering some land owned by the Narentine Pirates.
In particular, it was their mainland-side holding of Omis. This war was won swiftly with the combined might of the Serbian armies. With luck, though, Vukoman did finally have a male heir.
Short in stature, sure, but sufficient. From there, many years passed without a war. Boleslav, his brother and former reagent, died. He had a few children, and quashed a peasant revolt. He then wanted to further decimate the Tsars of Balgariya, but faced a problem:
This was easily resolved.
With that taken care of, Vukoman obliterated the military of Balgariya and annexed the last slice of Albania.
Now, I don't remember all of the wars that he did wage, but he did wage quite a few. Salerno, Bosna, more against Balgariya, one against a revolting duke in Bosna... the list goes on. Vukoman's reign would see the acquisition of almost the entirety of the Balkans and most of Sicilia. At the same time, it did see many other interesting events.
Abyssina, for example, formed. With luck, they would make great allies against the Abbâsiyúns. Meanwhile, a few executed kings in the Kingdom of Bosna led to an interesting inheritance:
Other than that, not much else happened in those years... well, there was one noteworthy event.
He suffered a massive revolt by his vassals, which he was trying to quell for years before war broke out.
After putting down an almost concurrent peasant revolt, Vukoman went off to face these new foes in battle.
With the rebellion put down, Vukoman came up with a clever strategy to prevent any further actions against him. He unified most of the Teme that he revoked from the dissenters, and created a far more unified Carstvo.
He then declared war of reconquest against those who held the Patriarch of Antioch, in an attempt to restore some religious authority of the Orthodox church.
He expected a full-out holy war against the Sunnis to the south. Instead, he faced little resistance.
No matter; he accomplished the restoration of the Patriarchate, and that was that.
Following that, he proceeded to conquer a few more lands before restructuring a bit more.
He even went so far as to go up against the Karlings to the west, who owned practically all of Western Europe.
Even the Pope was a Karling. He continued to take southern Italy, though he wasn't the only conquerer anymore...
Eventually, Vukoman's health began to wane.
At 46, he left for good.
Serapion inherited, and took more after his grandfather than his father.
